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 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 69 66 87
Rank change year-on-year -3 +21 -37
Contract jobs citing DNS 78 54 59
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.23% 2.29% 2.13%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 23.49% 17.09% 12.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 19 28 36
10th Percentile £413 £248 £233
25th Percentile £439 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £398
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +19.50% -27.73%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £533
90th Percentile £690 £750 £647
England median daily rate £525 £463 £490
% change year-on-year +13.51% -5.61% -6.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 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 £69.00 £48.75 -
90th Percentile £74.26 - -
England median hourly rate £43.25 £24.20 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.72% -39.50% +73.91%

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 332 316 482
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.73% 13.41% 17.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 203 162 351
10th Percentile £170 £213 £300
25th Percentile £355 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% -5.00% +6.38%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £683 £684 £669
England median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 8 12
10th Percentile £15.50 £29.91 -
25th Percentile £17.75 £42.66 £15.75
Median hourly rate £23.50 £48.56 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -51.61% +174.04% -10.87%
75th Percentile £71.19 £51.91 £47.11
90th Percentile £74.26 £52.08 £49.78
England median hourly rate £34.00 £49.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -30.61% -13.26% +25.53%

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 November 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 16 November 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 16 November 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
Merseyside +15 32 - - 2
Cheshire -10 24 £604 +23.79% 6
Manchester -18 10 £518 +8.95% 12
Cumbria +14 9 £447 -
Lancashire -10 3 £175 +16.67% 6
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 8 (10.26%) Microsoft Exchange
1 8 (10.26%) SharePoint
2 5 (6.41%) Skype for Business
3 4 (5.13%) OpenStack
Applications
1 7 (8.97%) MS Visio
2 6 (7.69%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 12 (15.38%) Azure
2 10 (12.82%) Microsoft 365
3 9 (11.54%) AWS
4 8 (10.26%) SaaS
5 5 (6.41%) Power Platform
6 4 (5.13%) Entra ID
7 3 (3.85%) Azure Logic Apps
7 3 (3.85%) Azure Monitor
7 3 (3.85%) Azure Sentinel
7 3 (3.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (2.56%) AWS Direct Connect
9 1 (1.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 1 (1.28%) Amazon EC2
9 1 (1.28%) Amazon ELB
9 1 (1.28%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (1.28%) Azure Stack
9 1 (1.28%) Fastly
9 1 (1.28%) Heroku
9 1 (1.28%) OneDrive
9 1 (1.28%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 34 (43.59%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
1 34 (43.59%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
2 29 (37.18%) DMZ
3 26 (33.33%) TCP/IP
4 25 (32.05%) Network Security
5 20 (25.64%) DHCP
6 18 (23.08%) SSL
7 17 (21.79%) Wireshark
8 14 (17.95%) BIG-IP
8 14 (17.95%) HTTP
8 14 (17.95%) VLAN
9 13 (16.67%) Firewall
10 11 (14.10%) BGP
11 10 (12.82%) Wi-Fi
12 7 (8.97%) Cisco ISE
12 7 (8.97%) Cisco Wireless
12 7 (8.97%) NX-OS
12 7 (8.97%) VXLAN
12 7 (8.97%) Wireless
13 6 (7.69%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.28%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 13 (16.67%) Fiddler
2 1 (1.28%) Git
2 1 (1.28%) GitLab
2 1 (1.28%) Jenkins
General
1 32 (41.03%) Banking
1 32 (41.03%) Investment Banking
2 15 (19.23%) Social Skills
3 10 (12.82%) Public Sector
4 7 (8.97%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (5.13%) Finance
6 3 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (2.56%) Legal
7 2 (2.56%) Military
Job Titles
1 26 (33.33%) Network Engineer
2 14 (17.95%) Operations Engineer
3 10 (12.82%) Web Engineer
4 7 (8.97%) Automation Engineer
4 7 (8.97%) Blue Coat Engineer
4 7 (8.97%) Cisco Engineer
4 7 (8.97%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 7 (8.97%) Cisco Wireless Engineer
4 7 (8.97%) IP Network Engineer
4 7 (8.97%) RF Engineer
4 7 (8.97%) Wireless Engineer
4 7 (8.97%) Wireless Network Engineer
5 5 (6.41%) IT Support
5 5 (6.41%) IT Technician
5 5 (6.41%) Junior Network Engineer
5 5 (6.41%) Python Engineer
5 5 (6.41%) Security Engineer
5 5 (6.41%) Service Desk Support
5 5 (6.41%) Service Desk Technician
5 5 (6.41%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.85%) JSON
1 3 (3.85%) LDAP
2 2 (2.56%) XMPP
3 1 (1.28%) Flask
3 1 (1.28%) SQLAlchemy
Miscellaneous
1 28 (35.90%) Management Information System
2 10 (12.82%) Onboarding
3 9 (11.54%) Data Centre
4 5 (6.41%) Enterprise Software
4 5 (6.41%) Low-Code
4 5 (6.41%) Replication
4 5 (6.41%) Video Conferencing
5 4 (5.13%) Operational Technology
6 3 (3.85%) Cloud Security Posture
6 3 (3.85%) Product Ownership
6 3 (3.85%) Security Posture
7 2 (2.56%) Clustering
7 2 (2.56%) Fat Client
7 2 (2.56%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (2.56%) Thin Client
8 1 (1.28%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 20 (25.64%) Windows
2 6 (7.69%) Windows 10
2 6 (7.69%) Windows 7
3 4 (5.13%) Linux
3 4 (5.13%) Windows Server
4 3 (3.85%) Unix
5 1 (1.28%) Windows 8
5 1 (1.28%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (48.72%) Load Balancing
2 20 (25.64%) Business Strategy
3 14 (17.95%) Design Patterns
4 13 (16.67%) User Experience
5 10 (12.82%) Data Loss Prevention
6 9 (11.54%) Cybersecurity
6 9 (11.54%) Malware Detection/Protection
6 9 (11.54%) Migration
7 8 (10.26%) Ticket Management
8 7 (8.97%) Service Management
9 6 (7.69%) Change Management
9 6 (7.69%) Problem-Solving
9 6 (7.69%) Project Delivery
9 6 (7.69%) Validation
10 5 (6.41%) Business Intelligence
10 5 (6.41%) Customer Service
10 5 (6.41%) Disk Encryption
10 5 (6.41%) ITSM
10 5 (6.41%) Network Segmentation
10 5 (6.41%) Proactive Management
Programming Languages
1 14 (17.95%) PowerShell
2 10 (12.82%) Python
3 7 (8.97%) Lisp
4 5 (6.41%) VB
4 5 (6.41%) VBScript
5 3 (3.85%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (1.28%) Bash
Qualifications
1 21 (26.92%) Security Cleared
2 13 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 8 (10.26%) Degree
4 7 (8.97%) CCNP
4 7 (8.97%) Cisco Certification
5 5 (6.41%) DV Cleared
6 3 (3.85%) Azure Certification
6 3 (3.85%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (3.85%) CISSP
6 3 (3.85%) CompTIA Security+
6 3 (3.85%) MCSA
6 3 (3.85%) MCSE
6 3 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.85%) NIST
2 1 (1.28%) GDPR
2 1 (1.28%) NCSC
System Software
1 32 (41.03%) VMware Infrastructure
2 17 (21.79%) Active Directory
3 7 (8.97%) Firmware
4 5 (6.41%) BitLocker
4 5 (6.41%) Docker
4 5 (6.41%) VMware NSX
5 2 (2.56%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (1.28%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 10 (12.82%) SCCM
2 9 (11.54%) Ansible
3 7 (8.97%) FortiGate
4 5 (6.41%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (3.85%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (3.85%) CASB
5 3 (3.85%) Nessus
5 3 (3.85%) Terraform
5 3 (3.85%) vCenter Server
6 1 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 39 (50.00%) F5
2 38 (48.72%) VMware
3 18 (23.08%) Microsoft
4 17 (21.79%) ServiceNow
5 16 (20.51%) NetApp
6 15 (19.23%) Blue Coat
7 14 (17.95%) McAfee
8 13 (16.67%) Cisco
9 10 (12.82%) Remedy
10 9 (11.54%) Dell
11 7 (8.97%) Ekahau
12 5 (6.41%) Veeam
13 4 (5.13%) SolarWinds
14 3 (3.85%) Computacenter
14 3 (3.85%) CyberArk
14 3 (3.85%) LogRhythm
14 3 (3.85%) Splunk
14 3 (3.85%) Tenable
15 2 (2.56%) Citrix
16 1 (1.28%) CheckPoint