Network Design Contract Job Trends in the North West

Network Design
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Network Design skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 6 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 111 103
Rank change year-on-year -23 -8 +40
Contract jobs citing Network Design 17 13 39
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 0.64% 0.62% 1.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.74% 0.70% 1.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 13 8 35
10th Percentile £490 £371 £514
25th Percentile £509 £394 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £488 £600
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% -18.75% +29.03%
75th Percentile £563 £550 £627
90th Percentile £579 £595 £659
England median daily rate £500 £525 £565
% change year-on-year -4.76% -7.08% +25.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
Median hourly rate £74.26 - -
England median hourly rate £74.26 - £65.98
% change year-on-year - - -5.74%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

Network Design falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,296 1,862 2,491
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 86.90% 88.41% 86.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,496 1,099 1,664
10th Percentile £213 £275 £306
25th Percentile £358 £385 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +1.01%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £657 £683
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 97 213
10th Percentile £16.18 £16.18 £12.50
25th Percentile £22.85 £22.72 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.31 £31.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.33% +5.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £59.06 £52.50 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.85 £54.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -1.41% +2.66%

Network Design
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Network Design relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Network Design job vacancy trend in the North West

Network Design
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Network Design.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Network Design

Network Design
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Design in the North West over the 6 months to 6 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Design in the North West

Network Design
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Network Design.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Network Design

Network Design
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 Network Design within the North West region over the 6 months to 6 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
Cumbria +7 11 £531 -15.04%
Lancashire - 3 £335 -
Manchester -12 1 £575 +48.39% 6
Merseyside -18 1 - - 1
Cheshire - 1 £490 - 1
Network Design
England

Network Design
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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (5.88%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 16 (94.12%) Firewall
2 15 (88.24%) WAN
3 12 (70.59%) Wi-Fi
4 11 (64.71%) Cisco ISE
4 11 (64.71%) NetScaler
5 4 (23.53%) LAN
5 4 (23.53%) MPLS
6 3 (17.65%) BGP
6 3 (17.65%) VLAN
7 2 (11.76%) Cisco ASA
7 2 (11.76%) Cisco Nexus
7 2 (11.76%) SD-WAN
7 2 (11.76%) Software-Defined Networking
7 2 (11.76%) VPN
8 1 (5.88%) DHCP
8 1 (5.88%) DNS
8 1 (5.88%) Ethernet
8 1 (5.88%) Multicast
8 1 (5.88%) Spanning Tree
8 1 (5.88%) SSL
General
1 6 (35.29%) Public Sector
2 2 (11.76%) Legal
3 1 (5.88%) Finance
Job Titles
1 15 (88.24%) Network Engineer
2 4 (23.53%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
3 2 (11.76%) Architect
3 2 (11.76%) Network Architect
4 1 (5.88%) Core Network Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) Senior
4 1 (5.88%) Senior Architect
4 1 (5.88%) Senior Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (64.71%) 802.1X
2 1 (5.88%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 13 (76.47%) Data Centre
2 2 (11.76%) Product Ownership
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (64.71%) Impact Assessments
1 11 (64.71%) Network Architecture
1 11 (64.71%) Network Management
2 10 (58.82%) Load Balancing
3 4 (23.53%) High Availability
4 2 (11.76%) Acceptance Criteria
4 2 (11.76%) Change Management
4 2 (11.76%) Containerisation
4 2 (11.76%) Cybersecurity
4 2 (11.76%) ITSM
4 2 (11.76%) Knowledge Management
4 2 (11.76%) Product Requirements
4 2 (11.76%) Service Management
4 2 (11.76%) User Stories
4 2 (11.76%) Virtual Infrastructure
5 1 (5.88%) Kalman Filter
5 1 (5.88%) Network Monitoring
5 1 (5.88%) Performance Optimisation
5 1 (5.88%) RBAC
5 1 (5.88%) Web Filtering
Programming Languages
1 3 (17.65%) Python
2 2 (11.76%) Bash
2 2 (11.76%) Perl
2 2 (11.76%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 15 (88.24%) Security Cleared
2 13 (76.47%) SC Cleared
3 2 (11.76%) CCNP
3 2 (11.76%) Cisco Certification
4 1 (5.88%) CCIE
4 1 (5.88%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (5.88%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 1 (5.88%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 4 (23.53%) FortiGate
2 1 (5.88%) Ansible
2 1 (5.88%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 17 (100.00%) Cisco
2 15 (88.24%) Palo Alto
3 12 (70.59%) Meraki
4 3 (17.65%) Microsoft
5 1 (5.88%) Arista
5 1 (5.88%) CheckPoint
5 1 (5.88%) Fortinet
5 1 (5.88%) IBM
5 1 (5.88%) LogicMonitor
5 1 (5.88%) McAfee
5 1 (5.88%) NetScout
5 1 (5.88%) SevOne
5 1 (5.88%) SolarWinds
5 1 (5.88%) Splunk
5 1 (5.88%) VMware