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 21 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 56 93
Rank change year-on-year +4 +37 -54
Contract jobs citing DNS 117 69 42
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.22% 3.35% 1.49%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 31.54% 18.80% 9.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 28 41 30
10th Percentile £263 £250 £206
25th Percentile £388 £350 £334
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £603 £475 £395
Median % change year-on-year +26.84% +20.25% -30.21%
75th Percentile £647 £538 £528
90th Percentile £688 £750 £628
England median daily rate £519 £500 £463
% change year-on-year +3.71% +8.11% -11.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £15.50 - -
Median hourly rate £16.00 - -
75th Percentile £74.26 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £26.33 £21.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year +23.62% -46.76% -

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 371 367 429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.37% 17.82% 15.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 213 307
10th Percentile £219 £186 £212
25th Percentile £358 £313 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £450 £495
Median % change year-on-year +6.94% -9.09% -1.00%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £600
90th Percentile £648 £600 £672
England median daily rate £491 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -1.80% +5.26% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 4 15
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.37 £17.72
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.05 £19.24
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.67 £41.23
Median % change year-on-year +69.99% -40.16% +99.13%
75th Percentile £74.26 £32.39 £46.38
90th Percentile - £43.56 £48.75
England median hourly rate £34.00 £33.75 £47.50
% change year-on-year +0.74% -28.95% +138.93%

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 21 February 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 21 February 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 21 February 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 +23 58 £300 - 2
Cheshire -16 30 £450 +12.50% 13
Manchester -30 15 £645 +35.68% 18
Cumbria 0 10 £626 +19.24% 4
Lancashire -15 4 - - 7
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 14 (11.97%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (7.69%) Skype for Business
3 8 (6.84%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.85%) IIS
Applications
1 9 (7.69%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (5.98%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 17 (14.53%) Azure
2 13 (11.11%) Microsoft 365
3 7 (5.98%) SaaS
4 6 (5.13%) AWS
4 6 (5.13%) Entra ID
4 6 (5.13%) Power Platform
5 4 (3.42%) Nutanix
6 2 (1.71%) Azure Logic Apps
6 2 (1.71%) Azure Monitor
6 2 (1.71%) Azure Sentinel
6 2 (1.71%) IaaS
6 2 (1.71%) OneDrive
6 2 (1.71%) PaaS
7 1 (0.85%) Akamai
7 1 (0.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (0.85%) Amazon ELB
7 1 (0.85%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 1 (0.85%) GCP
7 1 (0.85%) PowerApps
7 1 (0.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 44 (37.61%) TCP/IP
2 40 (34.19%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 38 (32.48%) SSL
4 34 (29.06%) DMZ
4 34 (29.06%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
5 32 (27.35%) BIG-IP
6 31 (26.50%) HTTP
7 30 (25.64%) Wireshark
8 28 (23.93%) DHCP
9 27 (23.08%) VPN
10 22 (18.80%) BGP
11 18 (15.38%) Network Security
12 17 (14.53%) Firewall
13 15 (12.82%) Wi-Fi
14 14 (11.97%) Multicast
15 11 (9.40%) VLAN
16 10 (8.55%) LAN
16 10 (8.55%) WAN
17 9 (7.69%) Skype
18 8 (6.84%) NX-OS
Development Applications
1 30 (25.64%) Fiddler
2 3 (2.56%) JIRA
3 2 (1.71%) Git
4 1 (0.85%) GitLab
4 1 (0.85%) Jenkins
General
1 44 (37.61%) Banking
2 43 (36.75%) Investment Banking
3 12 (10.26%) Social Skills
4 11 (9.40%) Finance
5 6 (5.13%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (5.13%) Public Sector
6 4 (3.42%) Legal
7 3 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.85%) Military
8 1 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 56 (47.86%) Network Engineer
2 34 (29.06%) Web Engineer
3 21 (17.95%) Cisco Engineer
3 21 (17.95%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 18 (15.38%) Security Engineer
5 16 (13.68%) Blue Coat Engineer
5 16 (13.68%) IP Network Engineer
5 16 (13.68%) Network Security Engineer
6 15 (12.82%) Data Engineer
6 15 (12.82%) Data Network Engineer
7 14 (11.97%) Cisco Security Engineer
8 13 (11.11%) Junior
8 13 (11.11%) Junior Network Engineer
9 9 (7.69%) Architect
9 9 (7.69%) Operations Engineer
10 8 (6.84%) Automation Engineer
10 8 (6.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 8 (6.84%) IT Support
11 7 (5.98%) RF Engineer
11 7 (5.98%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (4.27%) LDAP
2 4 (3.42%) XMPP
3 2 (1.71%) JSON
4 1 (0.85%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 28 (23.93%) Management Information System
2 10 (8.55%) Public Cloud
3 9 (7.69%) Data Centre
4 7 (5.98%) Onboarding
5 6 (5.13%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (4.27%) Cloud Security Posture
6 5 (4.27%) Low-Code
6 5 (4.27%) Security Posture
6 5 (4.27%) Video Conferencing
7 4 (3.42%) Fat Client
7 4 (3.42%) Private Cloud
7 4 (3.42%) Product Ownership
7 4 (3.42%) Thin Client
8 2 (1.71%) Cloud Native
8 2 (1.71%) PKI
9 1 (0.85%) Cyber Defence
9 1 (0.85%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 1 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.85%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 30 (25.64%) Windows
2 10 (8.55%) Windows 10
3 9 (7.69%) Windows 7
4 8 (6.84%) Windows Server
4 8 (6.84%) Windows Server 2019
5 6 (5.13%) Linux
6 5 (4.27%) Unix
7 4 (3.42%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.85%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.85%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.85%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (55.56%) Load Balancing
2 28 (23.93%) Data Loss Prevention
3 27 (23.08%) Malware Detection/Protection
4 19 (16.24%) Problem-Solving
5 13 (11.11%) Project Delivery
5 13 (11.11%) Service Management
5 13 (11.11%) User Experience
6 11 (9.40%) ITSM
7 10 (8.55%) Business Strategy
7 10 (8.55%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 10 (8.55%) Ticket Management
8 9 (7.69%) Design Patterns
8 9 (7.69%) Disk Encryption
8 9 (7.69%) Migration
9 8 (6.84%) Change Management
9 8 (6.84%) Customer Service
9 8 (6.84%) Cybersecurity
9 8 (6.84%) Platform Engineering
9 8 (6.84%) Validation
10 7 (5.98%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 22 (18.80%) PowerShell
2 17 (14.53%) Python
3 9 (7.69%) VB
3 9 (7.69%) VBScript
4 7 (5.98%) Lisp
5 2 (1.71%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.85%) Bash
6 1 (0.85%) Bicep
6 1 (0.85%) SQL
Qualifications
1 23 (19.66%) Security Cleared
2 14 (11.97%) SC Cleared
3 12 (10.26%) Degree
4 10 (8.55%) CCNP
4 10 (8.55%) Cisco Certification
5 7 (5.98%) DV Cleared
6 5 (4.27%) CISSP
6 5 (4.27%) CompTIA Security+
6 5 (4.27%) MCSA
6 5 (4.27%) MCSE
6 5 (4.27%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (3.42%) Azure Certification
7 4 (3.42%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (1.71%) CCIE
9 1 (0.85%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.85%) CCNA
9 1 (0.85%) Network+ Certification
9 1 (0.85%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.71%) NIST
2 1 (0.85%) SLA
System Software
1 33 (28.21%) VMware Infrastructure
2 27 (23.08%) Active Directory
3 16 (13.68%) Firmware
3 16 (13.68%) VMware NSX
4 9 (7.69%) BitLocker
5 5 (4.27%) Docker
5 5 (4.27%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (4.27%) vSphere
6 3 (2.56%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 19 (16.24%) SCCM
2 18 (15.38%) Ansible
3 11 (9.40%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (6.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 8 (6.84%) FortiGate
5 5 (4.27%) CASB
5 5 (4.27%) Nessus
6 4 (3.42%) Kubernetes
6 4 (3.42%) Terraform
7 3 (2.56%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (1.71%) CA Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.85%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 73 (62.39%) F5
2 50 (42.74%) VMware
3 33 (28.21%) Blue Coat
4 31 (26.50%) McAfee
5 29 (24.79%) Cisco
6 24 (20.51%) Microsoft
7 23 (19.66%) ServiceNow
8 19 (16.24%) NetApp
9 12 (10.26%) Remedy
10 7 (5.98%) Ekahau
11 5 (4.27%) Citrix
11 5 (4.27%) Computacenter
11 5 (4.27%) CyberArk
11 5 (4.27%) Tenable
12 4 (3.42%) Splunk
12 4 (3.42%) Veeam
13 2 (1.71%) LogRhythm
14 1 (0.85%) Fortinet
14 1 (0.85%) Palo Alto
14 1 (0.85%) SolarWinds