DNS Contract Job Trends in the South West

Domain Name System (DNS)
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring DNS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 45 94
Rank change year-on-year -28 +49 -23
Contract jobs citing DNS 65 82 63
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.47% 4.33% 2.00%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 25.39% 28.37% 12.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 55 59 41
10th Percentile £507 £325 £469
25th Percentile £525 £406 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £547 £600
Median % change year-on-year +5.12% -8.83% +15.66%
75th Percentile £715 £623 £688
90th Percentile £725 £703 £738
England median daily rate £525 £482 £475
% change year-on-year +8.86% +1.53% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 8
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £12.43 - -
Median hourly rate £12.56 - £40.00
75th Percentile £12.69 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £26.33 £21.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year +23.62% -46.76% +1.91%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South 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 South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 256 289 501
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 9.72% 15.25% 15.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 186 185 290
10th Percentile £263 £300 £266
25th Percentile £386 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.38% -4.55% +11.96%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £675
90th Percentile £725 £695 £738
England median daily rate £490 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -2.00% +2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 8 68
10th Percentile £15.62 £11.86 £40.00
25th Percentile £37.00 £12.35 £46.25
Median hourly rate £46.25 £40.26 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +14.88% -28.73% +476.43%
75th Percentile £60.00 £75.00 £67.09
90th Percentile £64.75 - £75.38
England median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -14.29% -30.00% +140.18%

DNS
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing DNS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

DNS job vacancy trend in the South West

DNS
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing DNS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing DNS

DNS
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DNS in the South West over the 6 months to 1 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for DNS in the South West

DNS
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing DNS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing DNS

DNS
Contract Job Locations in the South 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 South West region over the 6 months to 1 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
Wiltshire +5 41 £700 +19.15% 9
Somerset -3 8 £575 -9.09% 3
Bristol -7 8 £550 - 6
Gloucestershire -31 6 £325 -47.15% 11
Devon -1 2 - - 11
DNS
England

DNS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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 27 (41.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 24 (36.92%) SharePoint
3 20 (30.77%) Skype for Business
4 4 (6.15%) SharePoint Server
5 3 (4.62%) IIS
6 1 (1.54%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (7.69%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (3.08%) Windchill
3 1 (1.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.54%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (3.08%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 15 (23.08%) Microsoft 365
2 8 (12.31%) Azure
3 4 (6.15%) AWS
3 4 (6.15%) IaaS
3 4 (6.15%) PaaS
4 3 (4.62%) AWS CloudFormation
4 3 (4.62%) Azure Monitor
4 3 (4.62%) Azure Sentinel
5 2 (3.08%) Amazon ECS
5 2 (3.08%) AWS CodePipeline
5 2 (3.08%) AWS Lambda
5 2 (3.08%) GitHub
5 2 (3.08%) GitHub Actions
5 2 (3.08%) Serverless
6 1 (1.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (1.54%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (1.54%) Amazon ELB
6 1 (1.54%) Amazon S3
6 1 (1.54%) SaaS
6 1 (1.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 35 (53.85%) DHCP
2 24 (36.92%) Skype
3 18 (27.69%) Firewall
4 17 (26.15%) TCP/IP
5 9 (13.85%) VPN
6 5 (7.69%) LAN
6 5 (7.69%) Unified Communications
7 4 (6.15%) VLAN
7 4 (6.15%) WAN
8 3 (4.62%) VoIP
9 2 (3.08%) Cisco IOS
9 2 (3.08%) H.323
9 2 (3.08%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (3.08%) RTP
9 2 (3.08%) SMTP
9 2 (3.08%) Wi-Fi
10 1 (1.54%) NAS
10 1 (1.54%) Network Security
10 1 (1.54%) SAN
10 1 (1.54%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (16.92%) SQL Server
2 2 (3.08%) MySQL
3 1 (1.54%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (6.15%) Git
2 3 (4.62%) JIRA
3 1 (1.54%) GitLab
3 1 (1.54%) Jenkins
General
1 36 (55.38%) Social Skills
2 17 (26.15%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (20.00%) Documentation Skills
4 12 (18.46%) Public Sector
5 1 (1.54%) Electronics
5 1 (1.54%) Finance
5 1 (1.54%) Manufacturing
5 1 (1.54%) Marketing
5 1 (1.54%) Military
5 1 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (1.54%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 14 (21.54%) Microsoft Engineer
1 14 (21.54%) Support Engineer
2 13 (20.00%) Architect
3 8 (12.31%) Platform Engineer
4 6 (9.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 6 (9.23%) Solutions Architect
5 5 (7.69%) Wintel Engineer
6 4 (6.15%) Technical Architect
7 2 (3.08%) Applications Engineer
7 2 (3.08%) Infrastructure Architect
7 2 (3.08%) Technical Solutions Architect
7 2 (3.08%) Telephony Engineer
8 1 (1.54%) IT Support
8 1 (1.54%) Junior IT Support
8 1 (1.54%) Microsoft Specialist
8 1 (1.54%) Network Infrastructure Architect
8 1 (1.54%) Network Security Architect
8 1 (1.54%) Operations Engineer
8 1 (1.54%) Storage Architect
8 1 (1.54%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (21.54%) OAuth
1 14 (21.54%) OAuth2
1 14 (21.54%) OpenID
1 14 (21.54%) SAML
2 2 (3.08%) XMPP
3 1 (1.54%) .NET
3 1 (1.54%) AngularJS
3 1 (1.54%) ARM Templates
3 1 (1.54%) ASP.NET Web API
3 1 (1.54%) Bootstrap
3 1 (1.54%) Express.js
3 1 (1.54%) Middleware
3 1 (1.54%) React
3 1 (1.54%) SOAP
3 1 (1.54%) WCF
3 1 (1.54%) Web Services
3 1 (1.54%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 12 (18.46%) PKI
2 5 (7.69%) Private Cloud
2 5 (7.69%) Replication
3 1 (1.54%) CMDB
3 1 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (1.54%) Management Information System
3 1 (1.54%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 45 (69.23%) Windows
2 33 (50.77%) Windows Server
3 17 (26.15%) Linux
4 10 (15.38%) Windows 10
5 4 (6.15%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (6.15%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (3.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (1.54%) Android
7 1 (1.54%) Apple iOS
7 1 (1.54%) Mac OS
7 1 (1.54%) Windows Server 2008
7 1 (1.54%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (44.62%) Problem-Solving
2 17 (26.15%) Knowledge Transfer
3 14 (21.54%) RBAC
3 14 (21.54%) Root Cause Analysis
4 13 (20.00%) ITIL
4 13 (20.00%) Load Balancing
5 11 (16.92%) Identity Access Management
5 11 (16.92%) Mentoring
5 11 (16.92%) Service Management
6 9 (13.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 9 (13.85%) Technical Leadership
7 8 (12.31%) Infrastructure as Code
7 8 (12.31%) Platform Engineering
8 7 (10.77%) Change Management
8 7 (10.77%) Identity Management
8 7 (10.77%) Server Management
9 6 (9.23%) Critical Thinking
9 6 (9.23%) High Availability
10 5 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
10 5 (7.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 39 (60.00%) PowerShell
2 6 (9.23%) SQL
3 4 (6.15%) Bicep
3 4 (6.15%) Python
4 2 (3.08%) Ruby
5 1 (1.54%) Bash
5 1 (1.54%) C#
5 1 (1.54%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 53 (81.54%) Security Cleared
2 39 (60.00%) DV Cleared
3 25 (38.46%) SC Cleared
4 20 (30.77%) Microsoft Certification
5 6 (9.23%) ITIL Certification
5 6 (9.23%) MCSE
6 5 (7.69%) CCNA
6 5 (7.69%) CCNP
6 5 (7.69%) Cisco Certification
6 5 (7.69%) Degree
6 5 (7.69%) Master's Degree
7 4 (6.15%) Azure Certification
8 2 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (1.54%) ISTQB
9 1 (1.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (1.54%) MCSA
9 1 (1.54%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (4.62%) SLA
2 1 (1.54%) Accessibility
2 1 (1.54%) Government Security Classifications
2 1 (1.54%) NCSC
System Software
1 45 (69.23%) Active Directory
2 25 (38.46%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (20.00%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (10.77%) Hyper-V
5 5 (7.69%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 5 (7.69%) Virtual Servers
5 5 (7.69%) VMware NSX
6 3 (4.62%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (1.54%) Docker
Systems Management
1 20 (30.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 18 (27.69%) Single Sign-On
3 12 (18.46%) vCenter Server
4 11 (16.92%) WSUS
5 8 (12.31%) Terraform
6 5 (7.69%) SCCM
7 3 (4.62%) Ansible
8 2 (3.08%) Cisco CUCM
8 2 (3.08%) Kubernetes
8 2 (3.08%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (3.08%) NetApp OnCommand
8 2 (3.08%) vMotion
Vendors
1 57 (87.69%) Microsoft
2 30 (46.15%) VMware
3 17 (26.15%) Cisco
4 10 (15.38%) SolarWinds
4 10 (15.38%) Veeam
5 5 (7.69%) Splunk
6 2 (3.08%) CyberArk
6 2 (3.08%) Genesys
6 2 (3.08%) Oracle
6 2 (3.08%) PTC
7 1 (1.54%) Atlassian
7 1 (1.54%) CheckPoint
7 1 (1.54%) F5
7 1 (1.54%) Palo Alto
7 1 (1.54%) SAP