DNS Contract Job Trends in the North West

Domain Name System (DNS)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring DNS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 59 89
Rank change year-on-year -2 +30 -49
Contract jobs citing DNS 92 63 49
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.63% 3.04% 1.78%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 26.06% 18.81% 11.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 36 30
10th Percentile £175 £250 £207
25th Percentile £315 £350 £334
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £474 £395
Median % change year-on-year +0.26% +19.94% -28.18%
75th Percentile £626 £556 £514
90th Percentile £690 £750 £628
England median daily rate £525 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +10.53% - -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £15.50 - -
Median hourly rate £16.00 - -
75th Percentile £69.00 - -
90th Percentile £74.26 - -
England median hourly rate £46.86 £23.59 £55.00
% change year-on-year +98.64% -57.11% +64.18%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
North West

DNS falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 353 335 435
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.94% 16.18% 15.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 200 182 314
10th Percentile £175 £201 £311
25th Percentile £349 £343 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.33% -10.00% +0.76%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £625
90th Percentile £669 £600 £672
England median daily rate £490 £500 £495
% change year-on-year -2.00% +1.01% -4.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 5 9
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.74 -
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.98 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.76 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +69.39% -43.41% +7.83%
75th Percentile £67.25 £51.00 £46.88
90th Percentile £74.26 £51.90 £60.00
England median hourly rate £32.00 £35.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -8.57% -38.04% +129.40%

DNS
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing DNS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

DNS job vacancy trend in the North West

DNS
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DNS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DNS

DNS
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DNS in the North West over the 6 months to 18 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for DNS in the North West

DNS
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DNS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing DNS

DNS
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DNS in the North West over the 6 months to 18 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for DNS in the North West

DNS
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing DNS within the North West region over the 6 months to 18 January 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Merseyside +12 47 £238 - 5
Cheshire -16 25 £425 +6.25% 6
Manchester -25 10 £505 +6.32% 14
Cumbria +6 8 £628 - 2
Lancashire -8 2 - - 5
DNS
England

DNS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 11 (11.96%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (8.70%) SharePoint
2 8 (8.70%) Skype for Business
3 1 (1.09%) IIS
Applications
1 8 (8.70%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (7.61%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 14 (15.22%) Azure
2 10 (10.87%) Microsoft 365
3 9 (9.78%) SaaS
4 6 (6.52%) Power Platform
5 5 (5.43%) AWS
6 4 (4.35%) Entra ID
7 2 (2.17%) Azure Logic Apps
7 2 (2.17%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (2.17%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (2.17%) Nutanix
7 2 (2.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 1 (1.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 1 (1.09%) AWS Direct Connect
8 1 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (1.09%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (1.09%) Fastly
8 1 (1.09%) Heroku
8 1 (1.09%) OneDrive
8 1 (1.09%) PowerApps
8 1 (1.09%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 37 (40.22%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
2 36 (39.13%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
2 36 (39.13%) TCP/IP
3 31 (33.70%) DMZ
4 28 (30.43%) SSL
5 25 (27.17%) BIG-IP
5 25 (27.17%) HTTP
6 24 (26.09%) Wireshark
7 23 (25.00%) DHCP
8 21 (22.83%) Network Security
9 16 (17.39%) VPN
10 14 (15.22%) VLAN
10 14 (15.22%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (14.13%) BGP
12 9 (9.78%) LAN
12 9 (9.78%) WAN
13 8 (8.70%) Skype
14 7 (7.61%) Cisco ISE
14 7 (7.61%) Cisco Wireless
14 7 (7.61%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.09%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 24 (26.09%) Fiddler
2 1 (1.09%) Git
2 1 (1.09%) GitLab
2 1 (1.09%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.09%) JIRA
General
1 40 (43.48%) Banking
1 40 (43.48%) Investment Banking
2 12 (13.04%) Social Skills
3 8 (8.70%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (8.70%) Public Sector
4 3 (3.26%) Finance
5 2 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (2.17%) Legal
6 1 (1.09%) Military
6 1 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 39 (42.39%) Network Engineer
2 22 (23.91%) Web Engineer
3 13 (14.13%) Operations Engineer
4 12 (13.04%) Blue Coat Engineer
4 12 (13.04%) Cisco Engineer
4 12 (13.04%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 12 (13.04%) IP Network Engineer
5 11 (11.96%) Junior
5 11 (11.96%) Junior Network Engineer
6 8 (8.70%) IT Support
7 7 (7.61%) Automation Engineer
7 7 (7.61%) Cisco Wireless Engineer
7 7 (7.61%) RF Engineer
7 7 (7.61%) Security Engineer
7 7 (7.61%) Wireless Engineer
7 7 (7.61%) Wireless Network Engineer
8 6 (6.52%) Architect
8 6 (6.52%) Technical Architect
9 5 (5.43%) Network Security Engineer
9 5 (5.43%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.17%) JSON
1 2 (2.17%) XMPP
2 1 (1.09%) Flask
2 1 (1.09%) SQLAlchemy
Miscellaneous
1 30 (32.61%) Management Information System
2 9 (9.78%) Data Centre
3 8 (8.70%) Onboarding
4 6 (6.52%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (5.43%) Low-Code
5 5 (5.43%) Replication
5 5 (5.43%) Video Conferencing
6 3 (3.26%) Private Cloud
6 3 (3.26%) Product Ownership
6 3 (3.26%) Public Cloud
7 2 (2.17%) Clustering
7 2 (2.17%) Fat Client
7 2 (2.17%) Thin Client
8 1 (1.09%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (1.09%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 24 (26.09%) Windows
2 9 (9.78%) Windows 10
3 8 (8.70%) Windows 7
3 8 (8.70%) Windows Server
4 6 (6.52%) Windows Server 2019
5 2 (2.17%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (1.09%) Apple iOS
6 1 (1.09%) Mac OS
6 1 (1.09%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (57.61%) Load Balancing
2 21 (22.83%) Data Loss Prevention
3 20 (21.74%) Malware Detection/Protection
4 17 (18.48%) Business Strategy
5 14 (15.22%) User Experience
6 13 (14.13%) Design Patterns
7 12 (13.04%) Problem-Solving
8 10 (10.87%) Project Delivery
8 10 (10.87%) Service Management
9 8 (8.70%) Change Management
9 8 (8.70%) Customer Service
9 8 (8.70%) Disk Encryption
9 8 (8.70%) ITSM
9 8 (8.70%) Migration
10 7 (7.61%) Cybersecurity
11 5 (5.43%) Mentoring
11 5 (5.43%) Network Segmentation
11 5 (5.43%) Proactive Management
11 5 (5.43%) Problem Management
11 5 (5.43%) Ticket Management
Programming Languages
1 19 (20.65%) PowerShell
2 16 (17.39%) Python
3 8 (8.70%) VB
3 8 (8.70%) VBScript
4 7 (7.61%) Lisp
5 2 (2.17%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (1.09%) Bash
6 1 (1.09%) SQL
Qualifications
1 22 (23.91%) Security Cleared
2 13 (14.13%) SC Cleared
3 10 (10.87%) Degree
4 7 (7.61%) CCNP
4 7 (7.61%) Cisco Certification
4 7 (7.61%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.17%) Azure Certification
5 2 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.17%) NIST
2 1 (1.09%) GDPR
System Software
1 39 (42.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 18 (19.57%) Active Directory
3 12 (13.04%) Firmware
4 11 (11.96%) VMware NSX
5 8 (8.70%) BitLocker
6 3 (3.26%) Docker
6 3 (3.26%) Hyper-V
6 3 (3.26%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (3.26%) vSphere
7 2 (2.17%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 16 (17.39%) SCCM
2 15 (16.30%) Ansible
3 9 (9.78%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (8.70%) FortiGate
5 4 (4.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (3.26%) vCenter Server
7 2 (2.17%) Kubernetes
7 2 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (2.17%) Terraform
8 1 (1.09%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 55 (59.78%) F5
2 51 (55.43%) VMware
3 26 (28.26%) Blue Coat
4 25 (27.17%) McAfee
5 21 (22.83%) NetApp
6 20 (21.74%) ServiceNow
7 19 (20.65%) Cisco
8 18 (19.57%) Microsoft
9 7 (7.61%) Ekahau
9 7 (7.61%) Remedy
9 7 (7.61%) Veeam
10 5 (5.43%) Dell
10 5 (5.43%) SolarWinds
11 3 (3.26%) Citrix
11 3 (3.26%) Computacenter
12 2 (2.17%) LogRhythm
13 1 (1.09%) Apple
13 1 (1.09%) CheckPoint
13 1 (1.09%) Fortinet
13 1 (1.09%) Palo Alto