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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 69 89
Rank change year-on-year -3 +20 +10
Contract jobs citing DNS 93 55 46
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 2.50% 2.76% 1.83%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 31.85% 21.24% 12.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 56 44 25
10th Percentile £236 £316 £330
25th Percentile £450 £525 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £588 £575 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.17% +17.95% -15.22%
75th Percentile £706 £649 £588
90th Percentile £741 £725 £695
England median daily rate £513 £510 £488
% change year-on-year +0.49% +4.62% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 0 0
10th Percentile £31.90 - -
25th Percentile £88.75 - -
Median hourly rate £96.91 - -
75th Percentile £99.12 - -
90th Percentile £100.00 - -
England median hourly rate £62.00 £43.25 £23.99
% change year-on-year +43.35% +80.28% -40.03%

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 292 259 355
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 7.85% 12.98% 14.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 163 188 207
10th Percentile £211 £225 £335
25th Percentile £454 £283 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £555 £489 £525
Median % change year-on-year +13.55% -6.90% -
75th Percentile £688 £588 £619
90th Percentile £725 £675 £675
England median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 4 22
10th Percentile £12.71 £26.70 £11.83
25th Percentile £17.67 £40.07 £64.06
Median hourly rate £45.00 £56.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.35% -13.08% +15.06%
75th Percentile £90.00 £64.63 £73.44
90th Percentile £100.00 £64.85 £75.00
England median hourly rate £38.72 £34.00 £57.38
% change year-on-year +13.88% -40.74% +1.57%

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 16 October 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DNS in the South West over the 6 months to 16 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for DNS in the South West

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 16 October 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
Somerset -2 33 £683 +8.02% 17
Wiltshire -11 28 £560 -10.48% 16
Bristol -5 17 £600 +9.09% 13
Gloucestershire -6 8 £340 +4.62% 15
Dorset -13 2 - - 8
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 13 (13.98%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (5.38%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.15%) Tomcat
4 1 (1.08%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (3.23%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (2.15%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 32 (34.41%) AWS
2 24 (25.81%) Azure
3 13 (13.98%) GCP
4 8 (8.60%) Entra ID
5 6 (6.45%) GitHub
5 6 (6.45%) GitHub Actions
5 6 (6.45%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (5.38%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 4 (4.30%) Amazon EKS
7 4 (4.30%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 4 (4.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (4.30%) Azure Functions
7 4 (4.30%) Azure Key Vault
7 4 (4.30%) Azure Storage
7 4 (4.30%) Serverless
8 3 (3.23%) SaaS
9 2 (2.15%) Amazon EC2
9 2 (2.15%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (2.15%) Google Workspace
9 2 (2.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 63 (67.74%) DHCP
2 45 (48.39%) Firewall
3 43 (46.24%) TCP/IP
4 20 (21.51%) VSAN
5 9 (9.68%) VLAN
6 8 (8.60%) SAN
6 8 (8.60%) VPN
7 7 (7.53%) Network Security
7 7 (7.53%) WAN
8 5 (5.38%) Kerberos
9 4 (4.30%) VoIP
10 3 (3.23%) BGP
10 3 (3.23%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (3.23%) Wireless
11 2 (2.15%) Asterisk PBX
11 2 (2.15%) Cisco ASA
11 2 (2.15%) Cisco IOS
11 2 (2.15%) NX-OS
11 2 (2.15%) PABX
11 2 (2.15%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.30%) Azure SQL Database
1 4 (4.30%) Data Lake
1 4 (4.30%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 9 (9.68%) Jenkins
2 8 (8.60%) GitLab
3 4 (4.30%) JIRA
4 3 (3.23%) Git
5 2 (2.15%) Spinnaker
General
1 19 (20.43%) Social Skills
2 12 (12.90%) Public Sector
3 8 (8.60%) Documentation Skills
4 7 (7.53%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (4.30%) Aerospace
5 4 (4.30%) Finance
5 4 (4.30%) Military
6 2 (2.15%) Banking
6 2 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (2.15%) Law
6 2 (2.15%) Police
7 1 (1.08%) Advertising
7 1 (1.08%) Legal
7 1 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 26 (27.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 15 (16.13%) Platform Engineer
3 11 (11.83%) Principal Engineer
4 10 (10.75%) Administrator
4 10 (10.75%) Architect
4 10 (10.75%) Senior
5 9 (9.68%) Systems Administrator
6 6 (6.45%) QA Engineer
6 6 (6.45%) QA Test Engineer
6 6 (6.45%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 6 (6.45%) Test Engineer
7 5 (5.38%) DevOps Engineer
7 5 (5.38%) Virtualisation Engineer
8 4 (4.30%) Cloud Engineer
8 4 (4.30%) Cloud Platform Engineer
9 3 (3.23%) Senior Cloud Engineer
9 3 (3.23%) Senior Platform Engineer
9 3 (3.23%) Site Engineer
9 3 (3.23%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 3 (3.23%) Wintel Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (40.86%) Terraform
2 8 (8.60%) LDAP
3 6 (6.45%) OAuth
4 5 (5.38%) SAML
5 1 (1.08%) 802.1X
5 1 (1.08%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (1.08%) OAuth2
5 1 (1.08%) OpenID
5 1 (1.08%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 28 (30.11%) PKI
2 16 (17.20%) Data Centre
3 6 (6.45%) Hybrid Cloud
4 5 (5.38%) Public Cloud
4 5 (5.38%) Replication
5 4 (4.30%) Clustering
5 4 (4.30%) Linux Command Line
6 3 (3.23%) Cloud Native
6 3 (3.23%) Fat Client
6 3 (3.23%) Management Information System
6 3 (3.23%) Onboarding
6 3 (3.23%) Smartcard
6 3 (3.23%) Thin Client
7 2 (2.15%) Driving Licence
7 2 (2.15%) Enterprise Storage
8 1 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (1.08%) Freedom of Information
8 1 (1.08%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 54 (58.06%) Windows
2 41 (44.09%) Linux
3 25 (26.88%) Windows Server
4 11 (11.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (7.53%) Unix
6 4 (4.30%) Android
7 3 (3.23%) CentOS
7 3 (3.23%) Ubuntu
7 3 (3.23%) Windows 10
8 2 (2.15%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (2.15%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (1.08%) AIX
9 1 (1.08%) Apple iOS
9 1 (1.08%) Rocky
9 1 (1.08%) Solaris
9 1 (1.08%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (37.63%) Infrastructure as Code
2 31 (33.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 27 (29.03%) CI/CD
4 26 (27.96%) Platform Engineering
5 25 (26.88%) Technical Leadership
6 23 (24.73%) Cybersecurity
6 23 (24.73%) Problem-Solving
7 20 (21.51%) DevSecOps
7 20 (21.51%) SIEM
8 19 (20.43%) Systems Engineering
9 17 (18.28%) Mentoring
10 16 (17.20%) Continuous Improvement
11 15 (16.13%) Containerisation
11 15 (16.13%) Customer Requirements
11 15 (16.13%) Network Virtualisation
12 14 (15.05%) Converged Infrastructure
13 13 (13.98%) ITIL
14 12 (12.90%) Agile
14 12 (12.90%) DevOps
14 12 (12.90%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 34 (36.56%) PowerShell
2 30 (32.26%) Bash
3 29 (31.18%) Python
4 8 (8.60%) SQL
5 3 (3.23%) Go
5 3 (3.23%) Shell Script
6 1 (1.08%) Java
6 1 (1.08%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 70 (75.27%) Security Cleared
2 48 (51.61%) DV Cleared
3 27 (29.03%) SC Cleared
4 15 (16.13%) VCAP
5 9 (9.68%) AWS Certification
6 5 (5.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 4 (4.30%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (4.30%) Degree
8 3 (3.23%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (2.15%) CISSP
10 1 (1.08%) Azure Certification
10 1 (1.08%) CCNP
10 1 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (1.08%) CISM
10 1 (1.08%) MCSE
10 1 (1.08%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (6.45%) QA
2 3 (3.23%) SLA
3 1 (1.08%) NCSC
System Software
1 56 (60.22%) Active Directory
2 44 (47.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (33.33%) Hyper-V
4 20 (21.51%) Docker
4 20 (21.51%) VMware NSX
4 20 (21.51%) vSphere
5 8 (8.60%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (6.45%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (5.38%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (4.30%) NFS
8 4 (4.30%) VirtualBox
8 4 (4.30%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (1.08%) BitLocker
9 1 (1.08%) KVM
9 1 (1.08%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (1.08%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 1 (1.08%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 37 (39.78%) Ansible
2 35 (37.63%) Kubernetes
3 14 (15.05%) VxRail
4 8 (8.60%) WSUS
5 6 (6.45%) vCenter Server
6 5 (5.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 5 (5.38%) PowerCLI
7 4 (4.30%) Istio
7 4 (4.30%) OPNET
8 3 (3.23%) Failover Clustering
8 3 (3.23%) Grafana
8 3 (3.23%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (3.23%) Prometheus
8 3 (3.23%) SCCM
9 2 (2.15%) Argo
9 2 (2.15%) Kustomize
9 2 (2.15%) linkerd
9 2 (2.15%) Red Hat Satellite
9 2 (2.15%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (1.08%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 48 (51.61%) VMware
2 24 (25.81%) Microsoft
3 17 (18.28%) Cisco
4 8 (8.60%) CyberArk
5 7 (7.53%) Red Hat
6 6 (6.45%) ServiceNow
7 5 (5.38%) SaltStack
8 4 (4.30%) Atlassian
8 4 (4.30%) Dynatrace
8 4 (4.30%) McAfee
9 3 (3.23%) Google
9 3 (3.23%) Juniper
9 3 (3.23%) NetApp
9 3 (3.23%) Palo Alto
9 3 (3.23%) Splunk
9 3 (3.23%) Thales
10 2 (2.15%) BMC
10 2 (2.15%) F5
10 2 (2.15%) Fortinet
10 2 (2.15%) Remedy