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 16 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 68 86 81
Rank change year-on-year +18 -5 -7
Contract jobs citing DNS 129 49 39
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.32% 2.24% 1.65%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 26.82% 16.55% 13.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 62 20 21
10th Percentile £193 £299 £242
25th Percentile £369 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £449 £500
Median % change year-on-year +9.59% -10.30% +25.00%
75th Percentile £593 £539 £738
90th Percentile £629 £618 £750
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 4 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £29.00 £15.50 £46.25
Median hourly rate £30.00 £16.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +87.50% -66.32% -
75th Percentile £31.00 £29.19 £48.75
90th Percentile - £52.03 -
England median hourly rate £63.48 £45.00 £23.99
% change year-on-year +41.07% +87.58% -49.49%

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 481 296 287
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.37% 13.50% 12.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 306 173 165
10th Percentile £206 £147 £267
25th Percentile £341 £325 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £464 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.11% -14.29% +8.02%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £688
90th Percentile £625 £680 £825
England median daily rate £500 £490 £508
% change year-on-year +2.04% -3.45% +1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 11 10
10th Percentile £13.89 £15.50 £25.43
25th Percentile £16.50 £17.00 £37.55
Median hourly rate £17.50 £20.00 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% -58.81% +191.13%
75th Percentile £20.88 £47.63 £51.91
90th Percentile £28.83 £67.25 £57.65
England median hourly rate £35.52 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -14.41% -27.64% +1.52%

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 16 September 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
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 16 September 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 +8 47 £425 +44.07% 13
Cheshire +12 28 £417 -1.88% 11
Manchester -22 25 £388 -25.12% 41
Cumbria -5 18 £595 +34.54%
Lancashire -13 9 £333 +90.00% 10
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 (10.85%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (9.30%) SharePoint
3 6 (4.65%) Skype for Business
4 2 (1.55%) IIS
5 1 (0.78%) nginx
5 1 (0.78%) Traefik
Applications
1 12 (9.30%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (3.10%) MS Visio
3 2 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 22 (17.05%) Azure
2 16 (12.40%) Microsoft 365
3 15 (11.63%) AWS
4 9 (6.98%) IaaS
5 6 (4.65%) GitHub
6 5 (3.88%) Entra ID
7 4 (3.10%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (3.10%) GCP
7 4 (3.10%) PaaS
8 3 (2.33%) Asana
8 3 (2.33%) Google Drive
8 3 (2.33%) Google Workspace
8 3 (2.33%) SaaS
9 2 (1.55%) Azure AKS
9 2 (1.55%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (1.55%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.55%) OneDrive
9 2 (1.55%) Rubrik
10 1 (0.78%) Azure Monitor
10 1 (0.78%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 47 (36.43%) VPN
2 37 (28.68%) DMZ
3 35 (27.13%) DHCP
4 31 (24.03%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 29 (22.48%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 28 (21.71%) BGP
7 27 (20.93%) Multicast
8 26 (20.16%) TCP/IP
9 23 (17.83%) Firewall
10 22 (17.05%) BIG-IP
11 20 (15.50%) VLAN
11 20 (15.50%) Wireless
12 16 (12.40%) Network Security
12 16 (12.40%) SSL
13 15 (11.63%) SAN
13 15 (11.63%) Wireshark
14 14 (10.85%) Cisco IOS
15 13 (10.08%) HTTP
16 12 (9.30%) NAS
16 12 (9.30%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.55%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.78%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 13 (10.08%) Fiddler
2 9 (6.98%) JIRA
3 6 (4.65%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.55%) GitLab
4 2 (1.55%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (0.78%) Git
5 1 (0.78%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 31 (24.03%) Banking
2 29 (22.48%) Social Skills
3 26 (20.16%) Investment Banking
4 13 (10.08%) Documentation Skills
5 9 (6.98%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (4.65%) Finance
7 4 (3.10%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.55%) Legal
8 2 (1.55%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.78%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.78%) Military
9 1 (0.78%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 53 (41.09%) Network Engineer
2 26 (20.16%) Cisco Engineer
3 25 (19.38%) Cisco Network Engineer
3 25 (19.38%) Cisco Security Engineer
3 25 (19.38%) Data Engineer
3 25 (19.38%) Data Network Engineer
3 25 (19.38%) Network Security Engineer
3 25 (19.38%) Security Engineer
3 25 (19.38%) Web Engineer
4 13 (10.08%) Blue Coat Engineer
4 13 (10.08%) IP Network Engineer
4 13 (10.08%) VMware Engineer
5 12 (9.30%) Architect
6 10 (7.75%) Analyst
6 10 (7.75%) Senior
7 9 (6.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (6.98%) IT Support
7 9 (6.98%) Support Engineer
8 8 (6.20%) Technical Architect
9 7 (5.43%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (8.53%) Terraform
2 7 (5.43%) 802.1X
3 3 (2.33%) JSON
3 3 (2.33%) OAuth
4 2 (1.55%) ODBC
4 2 (1.55%) REST
5 1 (0.78%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.78%) Azure Blueprints
5 1 (0.78%) cloud-init
5 1 (0.78%) Kafka
5 1 (0.78%) Keycloak
5 1 (0.78%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.78%) Software Packaging
5 1 (0.78%) XML
5 1 (0.78%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 23 (17.83%) Management Information System
2 22 (17.05%) Data Centre
3 7 (5.43%) Driving Licence
3 7 (5.43%) Enterprise Cloud
4 6 (4.65%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (3.88%) Cloud Native
5 5 (3.88%) Onboarding
5 5 (3.88%) PKI
6 4 (3.10%) Public Cloud
7 3 (2.33%) Freedom of Information
7 3 (2.33%) Video Conferencing
8 2 (1.55%) Handset
8 2 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.78%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 1 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.78%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.78%) iPhone
9 1 (0.78%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 26 (20.16%) Windows
2 14 (10.85%) Windows 10
3 12 (9.30%) Windows Server
4 8 (6.20%) Linux
5 6 (4.65%) Unix
5 6 (4.65%) Windows 7
6 5 (3.88%) Android
6 5 (3.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (2.33%) AIX
7 3 (2.33%) Apple iOS
7 3 (2.33%) Mac OS
7 3 (2.33%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (1.55%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (1.55%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.78%) CentOS
9 1 (0.78%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (40.31%) Load Balancing
2 22 (17.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 22 (17.05%) Migration
3 19 (14.73%) ITSM
4 16 (12.40%) Data Loss Prevention
5 15 (11.63%) ITIL
6 14 (10.85%) Continuous Improvement
6 14 (10.85%) Network Segmentation
6 14 (10.85%) Problem-Solving
7 13 (10.08%) Agile
7 13 (10.08%) Malware Detection/Protection
7 13 (10.08%) Project Delivery
8 12 (9.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 11 (8.53%) CI/CD
9 11 (8.53%) Infrastructure as Code
10 9 (6.98%) Change Management
11 8 (6.20%) DevOps
12 7 (5.43%) High Availability
12 7 (5.43%) Service Management
12 7 (5.43%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 11 (8.53%) PowerShell
2 10 (7.75%) Python
3 7 (5.43%) Bicep
4 6 (4.65%) VB
4 6 (4.65%) VBScript
5 3 (2.33%) ActionScript
5 3 (2.33%) Bash
5 3 (2.33%) SQL
6 2 (1.55%) Perl
6 2 (1.55%) T-SQL
7 1 (0.78%) Go
7 1 (0.78%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.78%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 25 (19.38%) Security Cleared
2 21 (16.28%) Cisco Certification
3 19 (14.73%) CCNP
4 18 (13.95%) SC Cleared
5 17 (13.18%) CCNA
6 14 (10.85%) Network+ Certification
7 11 (8.53%) Server+ Certification
8 7 (5.43%) Degree
9 4 (3.10%) CCIE
10 3 (2.33%) AWS Certification
10 3 (2.33%) Azure Certification
10 3 (2.33%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (1.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (0.78%) CCIE Security
12 1 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
12 1 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.78%) OCP
12 1 (0.78%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.88%) SLA
2 1 (0.78%) Data Quality
2 1 (0.78%) NCSC
System Software
1 36 (27.91%) VMware Infrastructure
2 25 (19.38%) Active Directory
3 13 (10.08%) Firmware
4 9 (6.98%) VMware NSX
5 6 (4.65%) BitLocker
6 3 (2.33%) NFS
6 3 (2.33%) Veritas Volume Manager
6 3 (2.33%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (1.55%) vSphere
8 1 (0.78%) Docker
8 1 (0.78%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 10 (7.75%) SCCM
2 6 (4.65%) Ansible
3 5 (3.88%) WSUS
4 4 (3.10%) Kubernetes
4 4 (3.10%) Progress Chef
5 3 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (2.33%) PowerBroker
5 3 (2.33%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (2.33%) Tivoli
5 3 (2.33%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 2 (1.55%) Grafana
6 2 (1.55%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.78%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.78%) linkerd
7 1 (0.78%) Microsoft Clustering
7 1 (0.78%) Packer
7 1 (0.78%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.78%) vMotion
7 1 (0.78%) vRealize
Vendors
1 58 (44.96%) F5
2 45 (34.88%) Cisco
3 43 (33.33%) VMware
4 32 (24.81%) Microsoft
5 23 (17.83%) ServiceNow
6 15 (11.63%) McAfee
7 13 (10.08%) Blue Coat
7 13 (10.08%) NetApp
8 9 (6.98%) Infoblox
9 6 (4.65%) CyberArk
10 5 (3.88%) Red Hat
10 5 (3.88%) Splunk
11 4 (3.10%) Citrix
11 4 (3.10%) Oracle
12 3 (2.33%) Arista
12 3 (2.33%) ForeScout
12 3 (2.33%) Google
12 3 (2.33%) Veritas
13 2 (1.55%) Fortinet
13 2 (1.55%) Tanium