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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 86 79 81
Rank change year-on-year -7 +2 -21
Contract jobs citing DNS 44 39 67
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 2.05% 1.65% 2.36%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.28% 13.09% 15.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 19 21 42
10th Percentile £285 £242 £177
25th Percentile £415 £413 £333
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £400
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +25.00% -31.03%
75th Percentile £543 £738 £547
90th Percentile £621 £750 £643
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £15.50 £46.25 -
Median hourly rate £16.00 £47.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -66.32% - -
75th Percentile £41.88 £48.75 -
90th Percentile £57.10 - -
England median hourly rate £45.00 £23.99 £47.50
% change year-on-year +87.58% -49.49% +115.91%

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 288 298 432
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.45% 12.57% 15.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 170 174 288
10th Percentile £147 £266 £313
25th Percentile £325 £414 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £525 £486
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +8.02% +2.32%
75th Percentile £538 £738 £588
90th Percentile £678 £850 £638
England median daily rate £490 £511 £500
% change year-on-year -4.03% +2.12% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 10 10
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.43 £15.72
25th Percentile £18.50 £37.55 £15.75
Median hourly rate £20.00 £48.56 £16.68
Median % change year-on-year -58.81% +191.13% -44.93%
75th Percentile £67.25 £51.91 £46.88
90th Percentile £67.83 £57.65 £49.35
England median hourly rate £41.50 £57.35 £56.49
% change year-on-year -27.64% +1.52% +34.26%

DNS
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Job postings citing DNS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Job vacancy trend for DNS 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 15 September 2025.

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 15 September 2025.

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 15 September 2025. 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
Cheshire -16 17 £464 -31.22% 7
Manchester 0 12 £518 +8.95% 16
Merseyside +4 10 £295 - 5
Cumbria - 4 £442 - 2
Lancashire - 1 £175 - 14
DNS
England

DNS
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 4 (9.09%) OpenStack
2 2 (4.55%) IIS
2 2 (4.55%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (2.27%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (2.27%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 9 (20.45%) AWS
1 9 (20.45%) Azure
2 7 (15.91%) Microsoft 365
3 5 (11.36%) SaaS
4 3 (6.82%) Azure Logic Apps
4 3 (6.82%) Entra ID
4 3 (6.82%) GCP
4 3 (6.82%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 2 (4.55%) AWS Direct Connect
5 2 (4.55%) Azure Monitor
5 2 (4.55%) Azure Sentinel
5 2 (4.55%) Power Platform
6 1 (2.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (2.27%) Amazon ELB
6 1 (2.27%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (2.27%) Azure Service Bus
6 1 (2.27%) Azure Stack
6 1 (2.27%) Fastly
6 1 (2.27%) OneDrive
6 1 (2.27%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 17 (38.64%) TCP/IP
2 15 (34.09%) DMZ
2 15 (34.09%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
2 15 (34.09%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
2 15 (34.09%) Network Security
3 14 (31.82%) DHCP
4 12 (27.27%) Firewall
5 9 (20.45%) VLAN
6 6 (13.64%) SSL
6 6 (13.64%) Wireshark
7 4 (9.09%) 3GPP
7 4 (9.09%) 4G
7 4 (9.09%) BGP
7 4 (9.09%) IPsec
7 4 (9.09%) iSCSI
7 4 (9.09%) MPLS
7 4 (9.09%) OSPF
7 4 (9.09%) Radio Access Network
7 4 (9.09%) SAN
7 4 (9.09%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (2.27%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (4.55%) Fiddler
2 1 (2.27%) Git
2 1 (2.27%) GitLab
2 1 (2.27%) Jenkins
General
1 14 (31.82%) Social Skills
2 9 (20.45%) Analytical Skills
2 9 (20.45%) Public Sector
3 8 (18.18%) Banking
3 8 (18.18%) Investment Banking
4 3 (6.82%) Finance
4 3 (6.82%) French Language
5 2 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (4.55%) Military
6 1 (2.27%) Retail
Job Titles
1 7 (15.91%) Network Engineer
1 7 (15.91%) Operations Engineer
2 6 (13.64%) IT Support
3 4 (9.09%) Automation Engineer
3 4 (9.09%) Designer
3 4 (9.09%) IT Engineer
3 4 (9.09%) Network Designer
3 4 (9.09%) Security Engineer
3 4 (9.09%) Senior
3 4 (9.09%) Server Engineer
3 4 (9.09%) Storage Engineer
4 3 (6.82%) IT Support Engineer
4 3 (6.82%) Project Engineer
4 3 (6.82%) Python Engineer
4 3 (6.82%) Support Engineer
5 2 (4.55%) Administrator
5 2 (4.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 2 (4.55%) IT Support Technician
5 2 (4.55%) Junior
5 2 (4.55%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (6.82%) LDAP
2 2 (4.55%) JSON
3 1 (2.27%) Flask
3 1 (2.27%) SQLAlchemy
3 1 (2.27%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (31.82%) Management Information System
2 5 (11.36%) Enterprise Software
2 5 (11.36%) Onboarding
2 5 (11.36%) Replication
3 4 (9.09%) Operational Technology
4 3 (6.82%) Cloud Security Posture
4 3 (6.82%) Security Posture
5 2 (4.55%) Clustering
5 2 (4.55%) Data Centre
5 2 (4.55%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (4.55%) Low-Code
5 2 (4.55%) Video Conferencing
6 1 (2.27%) Private Cloud
6 1 (2.27%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 17 (38.64%) Windows
2 6 (13.64%) Windows Server
3 4 (9.09%) Linux
4 3 (6.82%) Unix
4 3 (6.82%) Windows Server 2019
5 2 (4.55%) Windows 10
5 2 (4.55%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (4.55%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (2.27%) Windows 7
6 1 (2.27%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (34.09%) Load Balancing
2 11 (25.00%) Business Strategy
3 8 (18.18%) Cybersecurity
4 7 (15.91%) Problem-Solving
5 6 (13.64%) Customer Service
5 6 (13.64%) Design Patterns
6 5 (11.36%) High Availability
6 5 (11.36%) ITIL
6 5 (11.36%) Ticket Management
6 5 (11.36%) Validation
7 4 (9.09%) Change Management
7 4 (9.09%) Infrastructure as Code
7 4 (9.09%) ITSM
7 4 (9.09%) Mentoring
7 4 (9.09%) Migration
7 4 (9.09%) Project Delivery
8 3 (6.82%) Architecture Governance
8 3 (6.82%) Cloud Security
8 3 (6.82%) Infrastructure Automation
8 3 (6.82%) Log Correlation
Programming Languages
1 6 (13.64%) PowerShell
2 4 (9.09%) Python
3 2 (4.55%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (2.27%) Bash
4 1 (2.27%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 12 (27.27%) Security Cleared
2 10 (22.73%) SC Cleared
3 7 (15.91%) Degree
4 6 (13.64%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (6.82%) A+ Certification
5 3 (6.82%) CISSP
5 3 (6.82%) CompTIA Security+
5 3 (6.82%) MCSA
5 3 (6.82%) MCSE
6 2 (4.55%) Azure Certification
7 1 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.55%) NIST
1 2 (4.55%) SLA
2 1 (2.27%) GDPR
2 1 (2.27%) NCSC
System Software
1 18 (40.91%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (31.82%) Active Directory
3 5 (11.36%) Docker
4 3 (6.82%) Hyper-V
5 2 (4.55%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (4.55%) Virtual Servers
5 2 (4.55%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (4.55%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 5 (11.36%) vCenter Server
2 3 (6.82%) Ansible
2 3 (6.82%) CASB
2 3 (6.82%) Nessus
2 3 (6.82%) Terraform
3 2 (4.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 2 (4.55%) Microsoft Clustering
3 2 (4.55%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (4.55%) NetApp OnCommand
3 2 (4.55%) SCCM
3 2 (4.55%) vMotion
3 2 (4.55%) WSUS
4 1 (2.27%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 21 (47.73%) VMware
2 16 (36.36%) F5
3 13 (29.55%) Microsoft
4 9 (20.45%) Dell
5 7 (15.91%) NetApp
6 5 (11.36%) Veeam
7 4 (9.09%) Cisco
7 4 (9.09%) SolarWinds
8 3 (6.82%) CyberArk
8 3 (6.82%) Google
8 3 (6.82%) Remedy
8 3 (6.82%) Splunk
8 3 (6.82%) Tenable
9 2 (4.55%) Blue Coat
9 2 (4.55%) Computacenter
9 2 (4.55%) LogRhythm
9 2 (4.55%) McAfee
9 2 (4.55%) ServiceNow
10 1 (2.27%) CheckPoint
10 1 (2.27%) Palo Alto