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 30 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 284 266 303
Rank change year-on-year -18 +37 -31
Contract jobs citing VLAN 177 92 95
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.67% 0.67% 0.45%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.22% 4.48% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 115 59 68
10th Percentile £363 £178 £190
25th Percentile £420 £300 £244
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £438 £375
Median % change year-on-year +13.14% +16.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £608 £488 £542
90th Percentile £668 £548 £636
UK median daily rate £474 £425 £400
% change year-on-year +11.53% +6.25% -15.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 0 0
10th Percentile £12.43 - -
25th Percentile £16.98 - -
Median hourly rate £60.50 - -
75th Percentile £74.00 - -
90th Percentile £75.38 - -
UK median hourly rate £60.50 £57.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +5.22% +4.55% +78.86%

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 2,847 2,054 3,275
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.84% 14.91% 15.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,664 1,243 1,840
10th Percentile £213 £200 £203
25th Percentile £375 £325 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £473 £490
Median % change year-on-year +1.72% -3.57% +3.16%
75th Percentile £581 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -1.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 259 128 371
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.75 £13.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £17.30 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.44 £36.57 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -27.71% -23.01% +114.64%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £82.67 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.69 £45.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -40.69% - +113.17%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 -27 63 £508 +13.53% 30
North West -11 47 £575 +23.66% 15
South East -57 38 £556 +23.61% 35
Midlands -54 30 £413 -7.30% 16
South West -8 29 £495 +65.00% 15
Yorkshire -39 15 £363 +20.73% 12
West Midlands -56 15 £413 +13.01% 8
East Midlands -10 14 £275 -57.69% 8
Scotland -6 9 £388 -14.84% 2
East of England -32 7 £540 +140.00% 21
Wales -11 3 £175 -61.54% 4
North East - 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 11 (6.21%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (3.39%) SharePoint
3 4 (2.26%) Skype for Business
4 1 (0.56%) Apache
4 1 (0.56%) JBoss
4 1 (0.56%) OpenStack
Applications
1 5 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.13%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 42 (23.73%) Azure
2 24 (13.56%) AWS
3 15 (8.47%) Entra ID
4 13 (7.34%) Microsoft 365
5 7 (3.95%) Azure DevOps
5 7 (3.95%) GCP
5 7 (3.95%) GitHub
6 6 (3.39%) IaaS
6 6 (3.39%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (2.26%) Azure Sentinel
7 4 (2.26%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.13%) AWS Direct Connect
8 2 (1.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 2 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (1.13%) Google Ads
9 1 (0.56%) Amazon EC2
9 1 (0.56%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 1 (0.56%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.56%) OneDrive
9 1 (0.56%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 105 (59.32%) Firewall
2 74 (41.81%) DNS
3 63 (35.59%) DHCP
4 57 (32.20%) LAN
4 57 (32.20%) WAN
5 53 (29.94%) VPN
6 50 (28.25%) BGP
7 49 (27.68%) OSPF
8 42 (23.73%) TCP/IP
9 36 (20.34%) Wireless
10 35 (19.77%) Wi-Fi
11 34 (19.21%) Network Security
12 31 (17.51%) SAN
13 26 (14.69%) NX-OS
14 25 (14.12%) Cisco Nexus
14 25 (14.12%) SD-WAN
15 23 (12.99%) NAS
16 19 (10.73%) Cisco IOS
16 19 (10.73%) MPLS
16 19 (10.73%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (3.39%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.56%) OpenStack Swift
Development Applications
1 8 (4.52%) JIRA
2 7 (3.95%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.69%) Git
3 3 (1.69%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.13%) GitLab
5 1 (0.56%) Browser DevTools
5 1 (0.56%) MSI
General
1 53 (29.94%) Social Skills
2 15 (8.47%) Documentation Skills
3 13 (7.34%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (5.65%) Telecoms
5 9 (5.08%) Public Sector
6 7 (3.95%) Organisational Skills
7 6 (3.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (3.39%) Legal
8 4 (2.26%) Manufacturing
9 3 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (1.13%) Aviation
10 2 (1.13%) Finance
10 2 (1.13%) Games
10 2 (1.13%) Police
11 1 (0.56%) Advertising
11 1 (0.56%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.56%) Law
11 1 (0.56%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 67 (37.85%) Network Engineer
2 41 (23.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 34 (19.21%) Architect
4 19 (10.73%) Network Architect
5 18 (10.17%) IT Engineer
6 16 (9.04%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 14 (7.91%) IT Support
7 14 (7.91%) Technical Architect
8 11 (6.21%) Senior
9 9 (5.08%) Cisco Engineer
9 9 (5.08%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
9 9 (5.08%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
10 8 (4.52%) Support Engineer
10 8 (4.52%) Test Engineer
11 6 (3.39%) Analyst
11 6 (3.39%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 6 (3.39%) IT Support Engineer
12 4 (2.26%) IT Support Specialist
12 4 (2.26%) Security Architect
12 4 (2.26%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.78%) 802.1X
2 2 (1.13%) ModSecurity
2 2 (1.13%) RFC 2544
3 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (0.56%) REST
3 1 (0.56%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 65 (36.72%) Data Centre
2 17 (9.60%) Onboarding
3 10 (5.65%) Self-Motivation
4 9 (5.08%) Cloud Native
5 7 (3.95%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (3.39%) Operational Technology
6 6 (3.39%) PKI
7 5 (2.82%) Replication
7 5 (2.82%) Virtual Team
8 4 (2.26%) Private Cloud
8 4 (2.26%) SCADA
8 4 (2.26%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (1.69%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 3 (1.69%) Driving Licence
10 2 (1.13%) Animation
10 2 (1.13%) Fibre Optics
10 2 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (1.13%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (1.13%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 42 (23.73%) Windows
2 24 (13.56%) Windows Server
3 12 (6.78%) Linux
4 11 (6.21%) Windows 10
5 6 (3.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (2.26%) Windows 7
7 3 (1.69%) Rocky
8 2 (1.13%) CentOS
8 2 (1.13%) Unix
8 2 (1.13%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (1.13%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.56%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.56%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (27.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 35 (19.77%) Problem-Solving
3 34 (19.21%) Network Segmentation
4 27 (15.25%) ITSM
5 26 (14.69%) Continuous Improvement
6 20 (11.30%) Project Delivery
7 18 (10.17%) Disaster Recovery
7 18 (10.17%) ITIL
8 17 (9.60%) Migration
8 17 (9.60%) Validation
9 16 (9.04%) CI/CD
9 16 (9.04%) Network Monitoring
10 15 (8.47%) High Availability
10 15 (8.47%) Network Design
11 13 (7.34%) Infrastructure as Code
11 13 (7.34%) Mentoring
12 12 (6.78%) DevOps
13 11 (6.21%) Cybersecurity
13 11 (6.21%) Decision-Making
13 11 (6.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 19 (10.73%) Python
2 15 (8.47%) PowerShell
3 6 (3.39%) Bash
4 5 (2.82%) ActionScript
4 5 (2.82%) VBScript
5 4 (2.26%) VB
6 2 (1.13%) SQL
7 1 (0.56%) Bicep
7 1 (0.56%) Perl
Qualifications
1 83 (46.89%) Security Cleared
2 66 (37.29%) Cisco Certification
3 65 (36.72%) SC Cleared
4 63 (35.59%) CCNP
5 45 (25.42%) CCNA
6 18 (10.17%) DV Cleared
7 17 (9.60%) Network+ Certification
8 15 (8.47%) Server+ Certification
9 10 (5.65%) Degree
10 9 (5.08%) CCIE
11 4 (2.26%) ISTQB
12 3 (1.69%) AWS Certification
12 3 (1.69%) Azure Certification
12 3 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (1.69%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (1.69%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 2 (1.13%) BC Cleared
13 2 (1.13%) JNCIS
14 1 (0.56%) GCIA
14 1 (0.56%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.65%) NCSC
2 5 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (2.82%) QA
3 3 (1.69%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (1.69%) NIST
3 3 (1.69%) NIST 800
3 3 (1.69%) SLA
4 2 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 2 (1.13%) GDPR
4 2 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 2 (1.13%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.56%) GRC
5 1 (0.56%) GxP
System Software
1 31 (17.51%) Active Directory
1 31 (17.51%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (9.04%) vSphere
3 14 (7.91%) VMware ESXi
4 10 (5.65%) Hyper-V
5 8 (4.52%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (3.95%) Firmware
6 7 (3.95%) VMware NSX
7 4 (2.26%) BitLocker
8 3 (1.69%) NFS
8 3 (1.69%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (1.13%) VirtualBox
10 1 (0.56%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.56%) iptables
10 1 (0.56%) Samba
10 1 (0.56%) Snort
10 1 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 15 (8.47%) Ansible
1 15 (8.47%) Terraform
2 9 (5.08%) vCenter Server
3 8 (4.52%) WSUS
4 7 (3.95%) FortiGate
4 7 (3.95%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (2.82%) SCCM
6 4 (2.26%) VxRail
7 3 (1.69%) Grafana
7 3 (1.69%) Iperf
7 3 (1.69%) Nagios
8 2 (1.13%) Avamar
8 2 (1.13%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (1.13%) Kubernetes
8 2 (1.13%) NetBackup
8 2 (1.13%) Nmap
8 2 (1.13%) PowerCLI
8 2 (1.13%) Red Hat Satellite
8 2 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (1.13%) Suricata
Vendors
1 94 (53.11%) Cisco
2 44 (24.86%) VMware
3 39 (22.03%) Microsoft
4 29 (16.38%) Palo Alto
5 27 (15.25%) F5
6 22 (12.43%) ServiceNow
7 16 (9.04%) Aruba
7 16 (9.04%) Fortinet
7 16 (9.04%) SolarWinds
8 15 (8.47%) Veeam
9 14 (7.91%) CheckPoint
9 14 (7.91%) Juniper
10 10 (5.65%) Ekahau
11 9 (5.08%) Citrix
12 8 (4.52%) Meraki
13 6 (3.39%) HP
13 6 (3.39%) NetApp
14 4 (2.26%) BT
14 4 (2.26%) Commvault
14 4 (2.26%) Dell