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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 298 283 244
Rank change year-on-year -15 -39 -15
Contract jobs citing VLAN 198 101 120
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.70% 0.63% 0.70%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.71% 4.75% 4.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 127 75 74
10th Percentile £310 £219 £251
25th Percentile £400 £304 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £445 £416
Median % change year-on-year +12.36% +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 16 1 1
10th Percentile £16.56 - -
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 £55.66 £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 2,951 2,125 2,519
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.36% 13.35% 14.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,624 1,376 1,376
10th Percentile £213 £191 £200
25th Percentile £352 £300 £338
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 £641 £651
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 362 132 147
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £16.08
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.32 £26.25
Median hourly rate £26.07 £41.72 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.51% -24.15% -4.21%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.22 £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 14 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 14 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 14 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% 42
South East -52 49 £475 +15.15% 60
North West -28 34 £512 +11.06% 29
Yorkshire -8 31 £475 +117.14% 9
South West -10 30 £495 -10.00% 27
Midlands -48 20 £400 -15.79% 27
East of England -24 18 £600 +30.43% 19
West Midlands -45 15 £400 -15.79% 18
Scotland -18 11 £375 -14.77% 14
East Midlands -15 5 - - 9
Wales - 4 £363 - 5
North East -41 1 - - 7
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 13 (6.57%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (6.06%) SharePoint
3 6 (3.03%) Confluence
3 6 (3.03%) FactoryTalk
3 6 (3.03%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 10 (5.05%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.51%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (3.03%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 55 (27.78%) Azure
2 35 (17.68%) AWS
3 31 (15.66%) Microsoft 365
4 19 (9.60%) Entra ID
5 17 (8.59%) GCP
6 14 (7.07%) GitHub
7 7 (3.54%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (3.03%) IaaS
9 5 (2.53%) Nutanix
10 4 (2.02%) AWS Direct Connect
10 4 (2.02%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 3 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.52%) OneDrive
12 2 (1.01%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 2 (1.01%) Azure Sentinel
12 2 (1.01%) Google Workspace
13 1 (0.51%) Azure Monitor
13 1 (0.51%) Google Ads
13 1 (0.51%) OpenShift
13 1 (0.51%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 121 (61.11%) Firewall
2 101 (51.01%) DNS
3 82 (41.41%) DHCP
4 71 (35.86%) VPN
5 64 (32.32%) TCP/IP
6 62 (31.31%) BGP
7 61 (30.81%) LAN
8 60 (30.30%) WAN
9 59 (29.80%) OSPF
10 44 (22.22%) Wireless
11 37 (18.69%) Network Security
12 34 (17.17%) Wi-Fi
13 31 (15.66%) SAN
14 30 (15.15%) Cisco Nexus
15 27 (13.64%) SD-WAN
16 22 (11.11%) WLAN
17 21 (10.61%) Cisco IOS
18 20 (10.10%) NX-OS
18 20 (10.10%) VXLAN
19 19 (9.60%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (2.53%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.51%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 13 (6.57%) Jenkins
1 13 (6.57%) JIRA
2 7 (3.54%) Git
2 7 (3.54%) GitLab
3 3 (1.52%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.01%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (0.51%) VSS/SourceSafe
General
1 45 (22.73%) Social Skills
2 24 (12.12%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (6.06%) Public Sector
4 11 (5.56%) Documentation Skills
4 11 (5.56%) Manufacturing
5 10 (5.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 8 (4.04%) Telecoms
7 7 (3.54%) Finance
8 6 (3.03%) Organisational Skills
8 6 (3.03%) Pharmaceutical
9 5 (2.53%) Police
10 4 (2.02%) Games
11 3 (1.52%) Legal
12 2 (1.01%) Banking
12 2 (1.01%) Billing
12 2 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.51%) Advertising
13 1 (0.51%) Military
Job Titles
1 73 (36.87%) Network Engineer
2 40 (20.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 28 (14.14%) Senior
4 20 (10.10%) Architect
5 16 (8.08%) Senior Network Engineer
6 14 (7.07%) Network Architect
7 13 (6.57%) IT Engineer
7 13 (6.57%) IT Support
8 10 (5.05%) Cisco Engineer
8 10 (5.05%) Support Engineer
9 8 (4.04%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 8 (4.04%) Technical Architect
10 7 (3.54%) Automation Specialist
10 7 (3.54%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
10 7 (3.54%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 6 (3.03%) Lead
11 6 (3.03%) QA Engineer
11 6 (3.03%) QA Test Engineer
11 6 (3.03%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
11 6 (3.03%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (13.64%) Terraform
2 6 (3.03%) 802.1X
3 5 (2.53%) NETCONF
3 5 (2.53%) REST
4 4 (2.02%) JSON
5 3 (1.52%) 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 (0.51%) .NET
7 1 (0.51%) Regular Expression
Miscellaneous
1 71 (35.86%) Data Centre
2 11 (5.56%) Operational Technology
2 11 (5.56%) PKI
2 11 (5.56%) Self-Motivation
3 10 (5.05%) Onboarding
4 9 (4.55%) Cloud Native
4 9 (4.55%) Replication
5 8 (4.04%) Driving Licence
5 8 (4.04%) SCADA
6 7 (3.54%) CMDB
6 7 (3.54%) Life Science
7 6 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (2.02%) Animation
8 4 (2.02%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 4 (2.02%) Linux Command Line
8 4 (2.02%) Private Cloud
8 4 (2.02%) Virtual Team
9 3 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (1.52%) Management Information System
9 3 (1.52%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 62 (31.31%) Windows
2 41 (20.71%) Windows Server
3 24 (12.12%) Linux
4 10 (5.05%) Windows 10
5 9 (4.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (3.03%) CentOS
6 6 (3.03%) Rocky
6 6 (3.03%) Unix
6 6 (3.03%) Windows 7
7 5 (2.53%) Android
8 2 (1.01%) Apple iOS
8 2 (1.01%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.51%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.51%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (25.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 37 (18.69%) Problem-Solving
3 35 (17.68%) Validation
4 33 (16.67%) ITSM
5 29 (14.65%) Network Segmentation
6 25 (12.63%) Infrastructure as Code
7 24 (12.12%) ITIL
8 23 (11.62%) Network Design
9 22 (11.11%) CI/CD
9 22 (11.11%) Project Delivery
10 21 (10.61%) Continuous Improvement
10 21 (10.61%) Disaster Recovery
11 20 (10.10%) High Availability
12 18 (9.09%) Cybersecurity
13 16 (8.08%) Network Monitoring
14 15 (7.58%) Infrastructure Automation
14 15 (7.58%) Service Management
15 14 (7.07%) Mentoring
15 14 (7.07%) Migration
16 13 (6.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 34 (17.17%) PowerShell
2 23 (11.62%) Python
3 6 (3.03%) Bash
3 6 (3.03%) VB
3 6 (3.03%) VBScript
4 5 (2.53%) ActionScript
5 2 (1.01%) SQL
5 2 (1.01%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.51%) Bicep
6 1 (0.51%) C#
Qualifications
1 69 (34.85%) Security Cleared
2 56 (28.28%) Cisco Certification
3 49 (24.75%) CCNP
4 48 (24.24%) SC Cleared
5 30 (15.15%) CCNA
6 20 (10.10%) DV Cleared
7 13 (6.57%) Degree
8 10 (5.05%) Network+ Certification
9 9 (4.55%) Server+ Certification
10 8 (4.04%) CCIE
11 5 (2.53%) ITIL Certification
11 5 (2.53%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (2.02%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (1.52%) DBS Check
14 2 (1.01%) AWS Certification
14 2 (1.01%) Azure Certification
14 2 (1.01%) JNCIE
15 1 (0.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 1 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
15 1 (0.51%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.55%) QA
2 6 (3.03%) NCSC
2 6 (3.03%) SLA
3 5 (2.53%) 21 CFR Part 11
3 5 (2.53%) GxP
4 4 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (2.02%) NIST
4 4 (2.02%) NIST 800
5 3 (1.52%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (1.01%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 2 (1.01%) GDPR
6 2 (1.01%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.51%) Data Quality
System Software
1 63 (31.82%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (18.18%) Active Directory
3 23 (11.62%) vSphere
4 21 (10.61%) Hyper-V
5 19 (9.60%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (6.57%) Firmware
7 9 (4.55%) VMware NSX
8 8 (4.04%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (3.54%) BitLocker
10 5 (2.53%) KVM
10 5 (2.53%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (2.02%) VirtualBox
12 3 (1.52%) NFS
13 1 (0.51%) Docker
13 1 (0.51%) etcd
13 1 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 38 (19.19%) Ansible
2 12 (6.06%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (5.56%) vCenter Server
4 9 (4.55%) SCCM
5 8 (4.04%) Kubernetes
6 6 (3.03%) FortiGate
6 6 (3.03%) NetBackup
7 4 (2.02%) Grafana
7 4 (2.02%) Nagios
7 4 (2.02%) vMotion
8 3 (1.52%) Avamar
8 3 (1.52%) Prometheus
8 3 (1.52%) WSUS
9 2 (1.01%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (1.01%) Dell DRAC
9 2 (1.01%) PowerCLI
9 2 (1.01%) Red Hat Satellite
9 2 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.51%) SCOM
10 1 (0.51%) WMI
Vendors
1 96 (48.48%) Cisco
2 78 (39.39%) VMware
3 57 (28.79%) Microsoft
4 30 (15.15%) F5
5 27 (13.64%) Palo Alto
6 26 (13.13%) ServiceNow
7 20 (10.10%) Veeam
8 17 (8.59%) SolarWinds
9 16 (8.08%) CheckPoint
9 16 (8.08%) Juniper
9 16 (8.08%) NetApp
10 15 (7.58%) Fortinet
11 14 (7.07%) Meraki
12 8 (4.04%) Aruba
13 6 (3.03%) CyberArk
13 6 (3.03%) Dell
13 6 (3.03%) Remedy
13 6 (3.03%) Rockwell
13 6 (3.03%) Xerox
14 5 (2.53%) Arista