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 24 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 292 261 286
Rank change year-on-year -31 +25 -12
Contract jobs citing VLAN 182 99 96
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.67% 0.66% 0.49%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.25% 4.56% 3.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 117 64 65
10th Percentile £360 £178 £213
25th Percentile £419 £325 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £449 £425
Median % change year-on-year +11.48% +5.53% -5.56%
75th Percentile £600 £536 £548
90th Percentile £671 £689 £648
UK median daily rate £475 £425 £444
% change year-on-year +11.76% -4.23% -6.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 0 0
10th Percentile £12.43 - -
25th Percentile £18.50 - -
Median hourly rate £47.00 - -
75th Percentile £74.00 - -
90th Percentile £76.50 - -
UK median hourly rate £47.00 £57.50 -
% change year-on-year -18.26% - -

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 2,910 2,170 3,010
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.78% 14.53% 15.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,674 1,313 1,727
10th Percentile £225 £200 £205
25th Percentile £375 £325 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.63% -5.00% +8.81%
75th Percentile £582 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £489 £500
% change year-on-year +2.25% -2.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 285 138 317
10th Percentile £15.85 £14.99 £13.95
25th Percentile £19.34 £17.42 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.66 £43.25 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -38.36% -10.93% -14.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £66.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £87.65 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.22 £47.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -44.80% +5.56% -10.00%

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 24 July 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 24 July 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 24 July 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 56 £500 +11.86% 27
South East -52 43 £525 +16.67% 62
North West -19 37 £575 +23.66% 16
South West -16 31 £495 +92.23% 29
Midlands -45 29 £413 -7.30% 16
Yorkshire -29 18 £475 +58.20% 8
East Midlands -4 14 £275 -57.69% 7
West Midlands -62 14 £413 +13.01% 9
East of England -24 13 £600 +152.63% 20
Scotland -7 9 £388 -11.93% 11
Wales -13 3 £175 -61.54% 6
North East -35 1 - - 3
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 9 (4.95%) Microsoft Exchange
1 9 (4.95%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.65%) FactoryTalk
3 1 (0.55%) Apache
3 1 (0.55%) JBoss
3 1 (0.55%) OpenStack
Applications
1 2 (1.10%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.55%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 50 (27.47%) Azure
2 27 (14.84%) AWS
3 20 (10.99%) Entra ID
3 20 (10.99%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (4.40%) GCP
5 7 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
5 7 (3.85%) GitHub
6 6 (3.30%) IaaS
6 6 (3.30%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (2.20%) Nutanix
7 4 (2.20%) OneDrive
8 3 (1.65%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (1.10%) AWS Direct Connect
9 2 (1.10%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.10%) Google Ads
9 2 (1.10%) Google Workspace
10 1 (0.55%) Amazon EC2
10 1 (0.55%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 1 (0.55%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 115 (63.19%) Firewall
2 81 (44.51%) DNS
3 66 (36.26%) DHCP
4 59 (32.42%) LAN
4 59 (32.42%) VPN
5 56 (30.77%) BGP
6 55 (30.22%) OSPF
7 53 (29.12%) TCP/IP
8 52 (28.57%) WAN
9 41 (22.53%) Wireless
10 35 (19.23%) Network Security
10 35 (19.23%) SAN
11 32 (17.58%) Wi-Fi
12 29 (15.93%) Cisco Nexus
13 26 (14.29%) NX-OS
14 24 (13.19%) NAS
15 22 (12.09%) SD-WAN
16 19 (10.44%) WLAN
17 18 (9.89%) Cisco IOS
17 18 (9.89%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (4.95%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.55%) OpenStack Swift
Development Applications
1 8 (4.40%) JIRA
2 7 (3.85%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.65%) Git
3 3 (1.65%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.10%) GitLab
5 1 (0.55%) Browser DevTools
5 1 (0.55%) MSI
5 1 (0.55%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 57 (31.32%) Social Skills
2 18 (9.89%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (8.24%) Documentation Skills
4 13 (7.14%) Public Sector
5 10 (5.49%) Telecoms
6 8 (4.40%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (3.85%) Manufacturing
8 6 (3.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (3.30%) Legal
9 5 (2.75%) Police
10 4 (2.20%) Finance
10 4 (2.20%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (1.65%) Games
11 3 (1.65%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (1.10%) Advertising
12 2 (1.10%) Aviation
13 1 (0.55%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.55%) Law
Job Titles
1 71 (39.01%) Network Engineer
2 43 (23.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 30 (16.48%) Architect
4 20 (10.99%) Senior
5 19 (10.44%) Network Architect
6 17 (9.34%) IT Engineer
7 13 (7.14%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 12 (6.59%) IT Support
9 10 (5.49%) Senior Network Engineer
9 10 (5.49%) Technical Architect
10 9 (4.95%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
11 8 (4.40%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
11 8 (4.40%) Support Engineer
11 8 (4.40%) Test Engineer
12 6 (3.30%) Automation Specialist
12 6 (3.30%) Cisco Engineer
12 6 (3.30%) IT Support Engineer
12 6 (3.30%) Technical Specialist
13 5 (2.75%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
13 5 (2.75%) Senior Technical Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.49%) 802.1X
2 2 (1.10%) ModSecurity
2 2 (1.10%) NETCONF
2 2 (1.10%) RFC 2544
3 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (0.55%) ODBC
3 1 (0.55%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 66 (36.26%) Data Centre
2 14 (7.69%) Onboarding
2 14 (7.69%) Self-Motivation
3 11 (6.04%) Replication
4 10 (5.49%) PKI
5 9 (4.95%) Cloud Native
5 9 (4.95%) Operational Technology
6 7 (3.85%) Hybrid Cloud
6 7 (3.85%) SCADA
7 5 (2.75%) Driving Licence
7 5 (2.75%) Virtual Team
8 4 (2.20%) Life Science
8 4 (2.20%) Private Cloud
8 4 (2.20%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (1.65%) Animation
9 3 (1.65%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 2 (1.10%) Fibre Optics
10 2 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (1.10%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 46 (25.27%) Windows
2 33 (18.13%) Windows Server
3 16 (8.79%) Linux
4 10 (5.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (3.85%) Rocky
5 7 (3.85%) Windows 10
6 6 (3.30%) CentOS
7 2 (1.10%) Unix
7 2 (1.10%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.55%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.55%) VMS
8 1 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (29.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 41 (22.53%) Problem-Solving
3 34 (18.68%) Network Segmentation
4 26 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
5 22 (12.09%) ITSM
6 20 (10.99%) Validation
7 19 (10.44%) ITIL
8 18 (9.89%) Disaster Recovery
8 18 (9.89%) Project Delivery
9 16 (8.79%) CI/CD
9 16 (8.79%) High Availability
9 16 (8.79%) Network Design
9 16 (8.79%) Network Monitoring
10 15 (8.24%) Mentoring
10 15 (8.24%) Migration
11 14 (7.69%) Cybersecurity
11 14 (7.69%) Infrastructure as Code
12 12 (6.59%) DevOps
12 12 (6.59%) Infrastructure Automation
12 12 (6.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 20 (10.99%) Python
2 19 (10.44%) PowerShell
3 6 (3.30%) Bash
4 5 (2.75%) ActionScript
5 3 (1.65%) SQL
6 1 (0.55%) Bicep
6 1 (0.55%) Perl
6 1 (0.55%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.55%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 82 (45.05%) Security Cleared
2 67 (36.81%) Cisco Certification
3 63 (34.62%) CCNP
3 63 (34.62%) SC Cleared
4 42 (23.08%) CCNA
5 19 (10.44%) DV Cleared
6 17 (9.34%) Network+ Certification
7 15 (8.24%) Server+ Certification
8 12 (6.59%) Degree
9 9 (4.95%) CCIE
10 5 (2.75%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (2.20%) ISTQB
12 3 (1.65%) AWS Certification
12 3 (1.65%) Azure Certification
12 3 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (1.65%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 2 (1.10%) BC Cleared
14 1 (0.55%) GCIA
14 1 (0.55%) JNCIA
14 1 (0.55%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.49%) NCSC
2 5 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.20%) GxP
3 4 (2.20%) QA
4 3 (1.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 3 (1.65%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (1.65%) NIST
4 3 (1.65%) NIST 800
5 2 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 2 (1.10%) GDPR
5 2 (1.10%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.55%) GRC
6 1 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.55%) SLA
System Software
1 43 (23.63%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (18.13%) Active Directory
3 17 (9.34%) vSphere
4 13 (7.14%) Hyper-V
4 13 (7.14%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (5.49%) VMware NSX
6 9 (4.95%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (3.85%) Firmware
8 5 (2.75%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (1.65%) NFS
10 2 (1.10%) VirtualBox
11 1 (0.55%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.55%) iptables
11 1 (0.55%) Samba
11 1 (0.55%) Snort
11 1 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 23 (12.64%) Ansible
2 18 (9.89%) Terraform
3 11 (6.04%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (4.40%) vCenter Server
4 8 (4.40%) WSUS
5 6 (3.30%) FortiGate
5 6 (3.30%) NetBackup
6 3 (1.65%) Avamar
6 3 (1.65%) Grafana
6 3 (1.65%) Iperf
6 3 (1.65%) Nagios
6 3 (1.65%) PowerCLI
7 2 (1.10%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (1.10%) Kubernetes
7 2 (1.10%) Nmap
7 2 (1.10%) Red Hat Satellite
7 2 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (1.10%) Suricata
7 2 (1.10%) VxRail
8 1 (0.55%) SELinux
Vendors
1 94 (51.65%) Cisco
2 55 (30.22%) VMware
3 37 (20.33%) Microsoft
4 27 (14.84%) Palo Alto
5 26 (14.29%) F5
6 19 (10.44%) Veeam
7 18 (9.89%) CheckPoint
7 18 (9.89%) ServiceNow
8 17 (9.34%) Aruba
9 16 (8.79%) SolarWinds
10 15 (8.24%) Fortinet
11 14 (7.69%) Juniper
12 10 (5.49%) Ekahau
12 10 (5.49%) NetApp
13 9 (4.95%) Citrix
14 8 (4.40%) Meraki
15 5 (2.75%) Google
15 5 (2.75%) HP
15 5 (2.75%) Rockwell
15 5 (2.75%) Zerto