VLAN Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Virtual LAN (VLAN)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring VLAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 289 284 251
Rank change year-on-year -5 -33 -26
Contract jobs citing VLAN 199 101 120
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.70% 0.63% 0.69%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.75% 4.75% 4.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 128 75 74
10th Percentile £299 £219 £251
25th Percentile £400 £304 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £445 £416
Median % change year-on-year +11.80% +6.91% -7.50%
75th Percentile £600 £519 £575
90th Percentile £630 £687 £666
UK median daily rate £475 £447 £450
% change year-on-year +6.26% -0.67% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 1 1
10th Percentile £14.79 - -
25th Percentile £18.50 £65.75 £21.25
Median hourly rate £38.72 £66.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -41.77% +195.56% -34.25%
75th Percentile £54.75 £67.25 £23.75
90th Percentile £74.00 - -
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £34.00 £30.25
% change year-on-year +13.88% +12.40% -8.94%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK excluding London

VLAN 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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 2,949 2,125 2,534
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.35% 13.32% 14.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,627 1,373 1,388
10th Percentile £213 £191 £200
25th Percentile £350 £300 £340
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £480
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -6.25% +3.23%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £585
90th Percentile £650 £640 £653
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 362 133 148
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £16.14
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.50 £26.13
Median hourly rate £26.00 £41.50 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year -37.35% -22.79% -6.38%
75th Percentile £65.17 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.08 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £34.00 £48.56
% change year-on-year -4.41% -29.98% -14.04%

VLAN
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing VLAN relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

VLAN job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

VLAN
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing VLAN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing VLAN

VLAN
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing VLAN in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 15 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for VLAN in the UK excluding London

VLAN
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing VLAN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing VLAN

VLAN
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing VLAN in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 15 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for VLAN in the UK excluding London

VLAN
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing VLAN within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 15 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
North of England -24 66 £500 +13.96% 28
South East -56 50 £475 +15.15% 32
North West -27 34 £512 +11.06% 20
Yorkshire -15 31 £475 +117.14% 7
South West -13 30 £495 -10.00% 23
Midlands -44 20 £400 -15.79% 16
East of England -23 18 £600 +30.43% 7
West Midlands -42 15 £400 -15.79% 10
Scotland -17 11 £375 -14.77% 5
East Midlands -9 5 - - 6
Wales - 4 £363 - 4
North East -36 1 - - 4
VLAN
UK

VLAN
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 (7.04%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (6.03%) SharePoint
3 6 (3.02%) Confluence
3 6 (3.02%) FactoryTalk
3 6 (3.02%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 11 (5.53%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.50%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (3.02%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 55 (27.64%) Azure
2 35 (17.59%) AWS
3 31 (15.58%) Microsoft 365
4 19 (9.55%) Entra ID
5 17 (8.54%) GCP
6 14 (7.04%) GitHub
7 7 (3.52%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (3.02%) IaaS
9 5 (2.51%) Nutanix
10 4 (2.01%) AWS Direct Connect
10 4 (2.01%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 3 (1.51%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.51%) OneDrive
12 2 (1.01%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 2 (1.01%) Azure Sentinel
12 2 (1.01%) Google Workspace
13 1 (0.50%) Azure Monitor
13 1 (0.50%) Google Ads
13 1 (0.50%) OpenShift
13 1 (0.50%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 121 (60.80%) Firewall
2 102 (51.26%) DNS
3 83 (41.71%) DHCP
4 72 (36.18%) VPN
5 64 (32.16%) TCP/IP
6 63 (31.66%) LAN
7 62 (31.16%) BGP
7 62 (31.16%) WAN
8 59 (29.65%) OSPF
9 44 (22.11%) Wireless
10 37 (18.59%) Network Security
11 35 (17.59%) Wi-Fi
12 31 (15.58%) SAN
13 30 (15.08%) Cisco Nexus
14 27 (13.57%) SD-WAN
15 22 (11.06%) WLAN
16 21 (10.55%) Cisco IOS
17 20 (10.05%) NX-OS
17 20 (10.05%) VXLAN
18 19 (9.55%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.51%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.50%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 13 (6.53%) Jenkins
1 13 (6.53%) JIRA
2 7 (3.52%) Git
2 7 (3.52%) GitLab
3 3 (1.51%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.01%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (0.50%) VSS/SourceSafe
General
1 46 (23.12%) Social Skills
2 24 (12.06%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (6.03%) Documentation Skills
3 12 (6.03%) Manufacturing
3 12 (6.03%) Public Sector
4 9 (4.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 8 (4.02%) Telecoms
6 7 (3.52%) Finance
6 7 (3.52%) Organisational Skills
7 6 (3.02%) Pharmaceutical
8 5 (2.51%) Police
9 4 (2.01%) Games
10 3 (1.51%) Legal
11 2 (1.01%) Banking
11 2 (1.01%) Billing
11 2 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.50%) Advertising
12 1 (0.50%) Military
Job Titles
1 73 (36.68%) Network Engineer
2 39 (19.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 28 (14.07%) Senior
4 20 (10.05%) Architect
5 16 (8.04%) Senior Network Engineer
6 15 (7.54%) IT Support
7 14 (7.04%) IT Engineer
7 14 (7.04%) Network Architect
8 11 (5.53%) Support Engineer
9 10 (5.03%) Cisco Engineer
10 8 (4.02%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 8 (4.02%) Technical Architect
11 7 (3.52%) Automation Specialist
11 7 (3.52%) IT Support Engineer
11 7 (3.52%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
11 7 (3.52%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 6 (3.02%) Lead
12 6 (3.02%) Project Engineer
12 6 (3.02%) QA Test Engineer
12 6 (3.02%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (13.57%) Terraform
2 6 (3.02%) 802.1X
3 5 (2.51%) NETCONF
3 5 (2.51%) REST
4 4 (2.01%) JSON
5 3 (1.51%) RESTCONF
6 2 (1.01%) gRPC
6 2 (1.01%) HTML
6 2 (1.01%) HTML5
6 2 (1.01%) ModSecurity
6 2 (1.01%) ODBC
6 2 (1.01%) YAML
7 1 (0.50%) .NET
7 1 (0.50%) Regular Expression
Miscellaneous
1 72 (36.18%) Data Centre
2 12 (6.03%) Self-Motivation
3 11 (5.53%) Operational Technology
3 11 (5.53%) PKI
4 10 (5.03%) Onboarding
5 9 (4.52%) Cloud Native
6 8 (4.02%) Driving Licence
6 8 (4.02%) Replication
6 8 (4.02%) SCADA
7 7 (3.52%) CMDB
7 7 (3.52%) Life Science
8 6 (3.02%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (2.01%) Animation
9 4 (2.01%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 4 (2.01%) Linux Command Line
9 4 (2.01%) Private Cloud
9 4 (2.01%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (1.51%) Management Information System
10 3 (1.51%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 63 (31.66%) Windows
2 41 (20.60%) Windows Server
3 24 (12.06%) Linux
4 12 (6.03%) Windows 10
5 9 (4.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (3.02%) CentOS
6 6 (3.02%) Rocky
6 6 (3.02%) Unix
6 6 (3.02%) Windows 7
7 5 (2.51%) Android
8 2 (1.01%) Apple iOS
8 2 (1.01%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.50%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (25.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 37 (18.59%) Problem-Solving
3 34 (17.09%) ITSM
3 34 (17.09%) Validation
4 29 (14.57%) Network Segmentation
5 25 (12.56%) Infrastructure as Code
6 24 (12.06%) ITIL
7 23 (11.56%) Network Design
8 22 (11.06%) CI/CD
8 22 (11.06%) Project Delivery
9 21 (10.55%) Continuous Improvement
9 21 (10.55%) Disaster Recovery
10 20 (10.05%) High Availability
11 18 (9.05%) Cybersecurity
12 16 (8.04%) Network Monitoring
12 16 (8.04%) Service Management
13 15 (7.54%) Infrastructure Automation
14 14 (7.04%) Mentoring
15 13 (6.53%) Load Balancing
15 13 (6.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 34 (17.09%) PowerShell
2 23 (11.56%) Python
3 6 (3.02%) Bash
3 6 (3.02%) VB
3 6 (3.02%) VBScript
4 5 (2.51%) ActionScript
5 2 (1.01%) SQL
5 2 (1.01%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.50%) Bicep
6 1 (0.50%) C#
Qualifications
1 70 (35.18%) Security Cleared
2 56 (28.14%) Cisco Certification
3 49 (24.62%) CCNP
3 49 (24.62%) SC Cleared
4 30 (15.08%) CCNA
5 20 (10.05%) DV Cleared
6 13 (6.53%) Degree
7 10 (5.03%) Network+ Certification
8 9 (4.52%) Server+ Certification
9 8 (4.02%) CCIE
10 5 (2.51%) ITIL Certification
10 5 (2.51%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (2.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 3 (1.51%) DBS Check
13 2 (1.01%) AWS Certification
13 2 (1.01%) Azure Certification
13 2 (1.01%) JNCIE
14 1 (0.50%) ISTQB
14 1 (0.50%) JNCIP
14 1 (0.50%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.52%) QA
2 7 (3.52%) SLA
3 6 (3.02%) NCSC
4 5 (2.51%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 5 (2.51%) GxP
5 4 (2.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (2.01%) NIST
5 4 (2.01%) NIST 800
6 3 (1.51%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (1.01%) Actionable Recommendations
7 2 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (1.01%) GDPR
7 2 (1.01%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.50%) Data Quality
System Software
1 62 (31.16%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (18.09%) Active Directory
3 23 (11.56%) vSphere
4 21 (10.55%) Hyper-V
5 18 (9.05%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (6.53%) Firmware
7 9 (4.52%) VMware NSX
8 7 (3.52%) BitLocker
8 7 (3.52%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (2.51%) KVM
9 5 (2.51%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (2.01%) VirtualBox
11 3 (1.51%) NFS
12 1 (0.50%) Docker
12 1 (0.50%) etcd
12 1 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 38 (19.10%) Ansible
2 12 (6.03%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (5.53%) SCCM
3 11 (5.53%) vCenter Server
4 8 (4.02%) Kubernetes
5 6 (3.02%) FortiGate
5 6 (3.02%) NetBackup
6 4 (2.01%) Grafana
6 4 (2.01%) Nagios
6 4 (2.01%) vMotion
6 4 (2.01%) WSUS
7 3 (1.51%) Avamar
7 3 (1.51%) Prometheus
8 2 (1.01%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (1.01%) Dell DRAC
8 2 (1.01%) PowerCLI
8 2 (1.01%) Red Hat Satellite
8 2 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.50%) Suricata
9 1 (0.50%) WMI
Vendors
1 96 (48.24%) Cisco
2 77 (38.69%) VMware
3 58 (29.15%) Microsoft
4 30 (15.08%) F5
5 27 (13.57%) Palo Alto
5 27 (13.57%) ServiceNow
6 20 (10.05%) Veeam
7 17 (8.54%) SolarWinds
8 16 (8.04%) CheckPoint
8 16 (8.04%) Juniper
8 16 (8.04%) NetApp
9 15 (7.54%) Fortinet
10 14 (7.04%) Meraki
11 8 (4.02%) Aruba
12 6 (3.02%) CyberArk
12 6 (3.02%) Dell
12 6 (3.02%) Remedy
12 6 (3.02%) Rockwell
12 6 (3.02%) Xerox
13 5 (2.51%) BT