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 17 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 49 86 93
Rank change year-on-year +37 +7 -29
Contract jobs citing DNS 150 45 29
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.92% 2.04% 1.20%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 30.36% 15.00% 10.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 72 21 19
10th Percentile £350 £313 £236
25th Percentile £375 £418 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £465 £463
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% +0.54% +15.63%
75th Percentile £589 £550 £508
90th Percentile £618 £615 £560
England median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 1
10th Percentile £38.05 - -
25th Percentile £51.63 £65.75 £46.25
Median hourly rate £74.26 £66.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.67% +40.00% -
75th Percentile - £67.25 £48.75
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £63.48 £61.25 £24.20
% change year-on-year +3.64% +153.10% -27.76%

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 494 300 290
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.90% 13.59% 12.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 324 172 196
10th Percentile £240 £147 £256
25th Percentile £357 £325 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £441 £514
Median % change year-on-year +11.16% -14.11% +10.48%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £678
90th Percentile £625 £667 £838
England median daily rate £500 £492 £503
% change year-on-year +1.63% -2.24% +0.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 5 9
10th Percentile £15.10 £22.40 £24.61
25th Percentile £16.69 £26.00 £35.00
Median hourly rate £17.50 £66.50 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -73.68% +36.94% +191.13%
75th Percentile £23.25 £67.25 £51.91
90th Percentile £48.29 £69.00 £62.80
England median hourly rate £27.50 £43.75 £54.88
% change year-on-year -37.14% -20.27% -0.23%

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 17 August 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 17 August 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 17 August 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 +18 55 £425 +44.07% 7
Cheshire +10 31 £433 -27.88% 4
Manchester -16 30 £375 -27.54% 13
Cumbria -2 21 £602 +34.56% 1
Lancashire +5 11 £333 +90.00% 9
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 (9.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (6.67%) SharePoint
3 6 (4.00%) Skype for Business
4 3 (2.00%) IIS
Applications
1 12 (8.00%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.67%) MS Visio
3 2 (1.33%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 32 (21.33%) Azure
2 24 (16.00%) AWS
3 14 (9.33%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (5.33%) GCP
5 7 (4.67%) IaaS
6 5 (3.33%) Akamai
6 5 (3.33%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (2.67%) Entra ID
7 4 (2.67%) GitHub
7 4 (2.67%) PaaS
8 3 (2.00%) Asana
8 3 (2.00%) Google Drive
8 3 (2.00%) Google Workspace
8 3 (2.00%) SaaS
9 2 (1.33%) Azure AKS
9 2 (1.33%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.33%) OneDrive
9 2 (1.33%) Rubrik
10 1 (0.67%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 54 (36.00%) VPN
2 42 (28.00%) DMZ
3 37 (24.67%) DHCP
4 35 (23.33%) BGP
5 33 (22.00%) Multicast
6 31 (20.67%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 31 (20.67%) TCP/IP
7 29 (19.33%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
8 26 (17.33%) Firewall
9 24 (16.00%) VLAN
9 24 (16.00%) Wireless
10 23 (15.33%) BIG-IP
11 21 (14.00%) HTTP
12 19 (12.67%) SSL
12 19 (12.67%) Wireshark
13 18 (12.00%) SAN
14 17 (11.33%) Cisco IOS
15 15 (10.00%) NAS
15 15 (10.00%) NX-OS
15 15 (10.00%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.33%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 16 (10.67%) Fiddler
2 8 (5.33%) JIRA
3 3 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.33%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (0.67%) Git
5 1 (0.67%) GitLab
5 1 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 39 (26.00%) Banking
2 32 (21.33%) Investment Banking
3 31 (20.67%) Social Skills
4 15 (10.00%) Documentation Skills
5 14 (9.33%) Analytical Skills
6 11 (7.33%) Finance
7 4 (2.67%) Legal
7 4 (2.67%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.33%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.67%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.67%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 65 (43.33%) Network Engineer
2 36 (24.00%) Security Engineer
3 32 (21.33%) Cisco Engineer
4 31 (20.67%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 31 (20.67%) Cisco Security Engineer
4 31 (20.67%) Data Engineer
4 31 (20.67%) Data Network Engineer
4 31 (20.67%) Network Security Engineer
4 31 (20.67%) Web Engineer
5 16 (10.67%) Analyst
5 16 (10.67%) Blue Coat Engineer
5 16 (10.67%) IP Network Engineer
6 14 (9.33%) Architect
7 12 (8.00%) Senior
7 12 (8.00%) Systems Analyst
7 12 (8.00%) VMware Engineer
8 8 (5.33%) Cloud Engineer
8 8 (5.33%) Support Engineer
8 8 (5.33%) Technical Architect
9 7 (4.67%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (4.67%) 802.1X
2 3 (2.00%) JSON
2 3 (2.00%) OAuth
3 2 (1.33%) ODBC
3 2 (1.33%) REST
3 2 (1.33%) Software Packaging
3 2 (1.33%) XMPP
4 1 (0.67%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.67%) Azure Blueprints
4 1 (0.67%) LDAP
4 1 (0.67%) OpenTelemetry
4 1 (0.67%) XML
4 1 (0.67%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (16.67%) Management Information System
2 24 (16.00%) Data Centre
3 11 (7.33%) Enterprise Cloud
4 7 (4.67%) Driving Licence
5 6 (4.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 6 (4.00%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (3.33%) Cloud Native
6 5 (3.33%) Onboarding
7 3 (2.00%) Freedom of Information
7 3 (2.00%) PKI
7 3 (2.00%) Public Cloud
8 2 (1.33%) Fat Client
8 2 (1.33%) Handset
8 2 (1.33%) iPhone
8 2 (1.33%) Product Ownership
8 2 (1.33%) Thin Client
9 1 (0.67%) Cloud Security Posture
9 1 (0.67%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.67%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.67%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 26 (17.33%) Windows
2 13 (8.67%) Windows 10
2 13 (8.67%) Windows Server
3 8 (5.33%) Linux
4 6 (4.00%) Unix
4 6 (4.00%) Windows 7
5 4 (2.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (2.67%) Windows Server 2012
6 3 (2.00%) AIX
6 3 (2.00%) Android
7 2 (1.33%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (1.33%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.67%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.67%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.67%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (40.67%) Load Balancing
2 25 (16.67%) Migration
3 22 (14.67%) ITSM
4 19 (12.67%) Data Loss Prevention
5 18 (12.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 17 (11.33%) Project Delivery
7 16 (10.67%) Continuous Improvement
7 16 (10.67%) Malware Detection/Protection
7 16 (10.67%) Network Segmentation
7 16 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 15 (10.00%) Agile
8 15 (10.00%) ITIL
8 15 (10.00%) Problem-Solving
9 14 (9.33%) Infrastructure as Code
10 12 (8.00%) CI/CD
10 12 (8.00%) Waterfall
11 11 (7.33%) Workshop Facilitation
12 9 (6.00%) Change Management
12 9 (6.00%) Service Management
12 9 (6.00%) Systems Analysis
Programming Languages
1 13 (8.67%) PowerShell
1 13 (8.67%) Python
2 7 (4.67%) Bicep
3 6 (4.00%) VB
3 6 (4.00%) VBScript
4 4 (2.67%) SQL
5 2 (1.33%) Bash
5 2 (1.33%) Perl
5 2 (1.33%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.67%) ActionScript
6 1 (0.67%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.67%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 29 (19.33%) Security Cleared
2 28 (18.67%) Cisco Certification
3 24 (16.00%) CCNA
4 23 (15.33%) CCNP
4 23 (15.33%) SC Cleared
5 17 (11.33%) Network+ Certification
6 14 (9.33%) Server+ Certification
7 7 (4.67%) Degree
8 5 (3.33%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (2.67%) CCIE
9 4 (2.67%) CompTIA Security+
10 3 (2.00%) Azure Certification
11 2 (1.33%) AWS Certification
11 2 (1.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (1.33%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.67%) JNCIA
12 1 (0.67%) JNCIS
12 1 (0.67%) OCP
12 1 (0.67%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.67%) SLA
2 1 (0.67%) Data Quality
System Software
1 38 (25.33%) VMware Infrastructure
2 26 (17.33%) Active Directory
3 17 (11.33%) Firmware
4 9 (6.00%) VMware NSX
5 6 (4.00%) BitLocker
6 3 (2.00%) NFS
6 3 (2.00%) Veritas Volume Manager
6 3 (2.00%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (1.33%) vSphere
8 1 (0.67%) Docker
8 1 (0.67%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 11 (7.33%) SCCM
1 11 (7.33%) Terraform
2 7 (4.67%) Ansible
3 5 (3.33%) WSUS
4 4 (2.67%) Progress Chef
5 3 (2.00%) Kubernetes
5 3 (2.00%) PowerBroker
5 3 (2.00%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (2.00%) Tivoli
5 3 (2.00%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 2 (1.33%) AirWatch
6 2 (1.33%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.67%) Grafana
7 1 (0.67%) Microsoft Clustering
7 1 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.67%) Nessus
7 1 (0.67%) NetApp OnCommand
7 1 (0.67%) Puppet
7 1 (0.67%) vMotion
7 1 (0.67%) vRealize
Vendors
1 64 (42.67%) F5
2 57 (38.00%) Cisco
3 45 (30.00%) VMware
4 33 (22.00%) Microsoft
5 27 (18.00%) ServiceNow
6 18 (12.00%) McAfee
7 16 (10.67%) Blue Coat
7 16 (10.67%) Infoblox
7 16 (10.67%) NetApp
8 7 (4.67%) CyberArk
9 6 (4.00%) Citrix
10 5 (3.33%) Red Hat
11 4 (2.67%) Oracle
11 4 (2.67%) Splunk
12 3 (2.00%) Arista
12 3 (2.00%) Aruba
12 3 (2.00%) ForeScout
12 3 (2.00%) Google
12 3 (2.00%) Veritas
13 2 (1.33%) Bloomberg