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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 280 259 268
Rank change year-on-year -21 +9 -14
Contract jobs citing VLAN 193 109 100
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.69% 0.70% 0.56%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.60% 5.22% 3.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 122 76 61
10th Percentile £326 £219 £245
25th Percentile £419 £311 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £447 £413
Median % change year-on-year +11.86% +8.36% -8.33%
75th Percentile £600 £536 £588
90th Percentile £656 £685 £672
UK median daily rate £475 £446 £431
% change year-on-year +6.50% +3.42% -9.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 1 1
10th Percentile £18.50 - -
25th Percentile £33.70 £65.75 £21.25
Median hourly rate £58.25 £66.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.41% +195.56% -32.27%
75th Percentile £74.00 £67.25 £23.75
90th Percentile £77.41 - -
UK median hourly rate £58.25 £45.75 £30.25
% change year-on-year +27.32% +51.24% -5.10%

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 2,923 2,089 2,561
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.44% 13.50% 14.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,612 1,302 1,423
10th Percentile £210 £200 £205
25th Percentile £350 £325 £357
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £452 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.20% -9.70% +11.11%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £599
90th Percentile £650 £640 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £476 £500
% change year-on-year +5.04% -4.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 343 133 221
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.02 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.04 £18.50 £21.37
Median hourly rate £26.14 £42.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -38.49% -25.89% -0.26%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.84 £84.60 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.50 £43.00 £50.50
% change year-on-year -31.40% -14.85% -10.60%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 -35 60 £503 +12.42% 36
South East -60 49 £525 +16.67% 102
North West -25 33 £520 +9.38% 23
South West -22 31 £495 +29.41% 25
Midlands -36 27 £350 -26.32% 37
Yorkshire -23 26 £500 +173.97% 9
East Midlands 0 14 £275 -32.52% 8
East of England -25 13 £600 +34.83% 25
West Midlands -55 12 - - 29
Scotland -19 9 £375 -14.77% 14
Wales - 4 £363 - 3
North East -39 1 - - 5
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 15 (7.77%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (5.18%) SharePoint
3 6 (3.11%) Skype for Business
4 5 (2.59%) FactoryTalk
5 2 (1.04%) Confluence
Applications
1 8 (4.15%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.52%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (1.55%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 54 (27.98%) Azure
2 32 (16.58%) AWS
3 28 (14.51%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (10.36%) Entra ID
5 12 (6.22%) GCP
6 11 (5.70%) GitHub
7 6 (3.11%) GitHub Actions
8 5 (2.59%) IaaS
8 5 (2.59%) Nutanix
8 5 (2.59%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 4 (2.07%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (2.07%) OneDrive
10 3 (1.55%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (1.04%) AWS Direct Connect
11 2 (1.04%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 2 (1.04%) Google Workspace
12 1 (0.52%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 1 (0.52%) Google Ads
12 1 (0.52%) Route 53
12 1 (0.52%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 106 (54.92%) Firewall
2 95 (49.22%) DNS
3 79 (40.93%) DHCP
4 63 (32.64%) VPN
5 61 (31.61%) BGP
6 60 (31.09%) OSPF
7 56 (29.02%) WAN
8 55 (28.50%) LAN
9 53 (27.46%) TCP/IP
10 44 (22.80%) Wireless
11 39 (20.21%) Network Security
12 35 (18.13%) Wi-Fi
13 32 (16.58%) SAN
14 30 (15.54%) Cisco Nexus
15 28 (14.51%) SD-WAN
16 23 (11.92%) Cisco IOS
17 22 (11.40%) NAS
17 22 (11.40%) NX-OS
18 21 (10.88%) WLAN
19 20 (10.36%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.18%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 11 (5.70%) Jenkins
2 10 (5.18%) JIRA
3 6 (3.11%) GitLab
4 2 (1.04%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.04%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (0.52%) Git
5 1 (0.52%) MSI
General
1 45 (23.32%) Social Skills
2 21 (10.88%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (7.25%) Public Sector
4 13 (6.74%) Documentation Skills
5 10 (5.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 9 (4.66%) Manufacturing
7 6 (3.11%) Police
7 6 (3.11%) Telecoms
8 5 (2.59%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (2.59%) Pharmaceutical
9 4 (2.07%) Games
10 3 (1.55%) Finance
10 3 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.55%) Legal
11 2 (1.04%) Advertising
12 1 (0.52%) Law
Job Titles
1 71 (36.79%) Network Engineer
2 44 (22.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 27 (13.99%) Senior
4 25 (12.95%) Architect
5 17 (8.81%) IT Engineer
6 14 (7.25%) Network Architect
6 14 (7.25%) Senior Network Engineer
7 11 (5.70%) Cisco Engineer
8 10 (5.18%) Technical Architect
9 9 (4.66%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 9 (4.66%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
10 8 (4.15%) IT Support
11 7 (3.63%) Automation Specialist
11 7 (3.63%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
11 7 (3.63%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 7 (3.63%) Support Engineer
11 7 (3.63%) Test Engineer
12 6 (3.11%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
12 6 (3.11%) Systems Engineer
12 6 (3.11%) Technical Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (11.92%) Terraform
2 6 (3.11%) 802.1X
3 5 (2.59%) NETCONF
4 3 (1.55%) RESTCONF
5 2 (1.04%) gRPC
5 2 (1.04%) HTML
5 2 (1.04%) HTML5
5 2 (1.04%) ModSecurity
5 2 (1.04%) ODBC
5 2 (1.04%) REST
6 1 (0.52%) .NET
6 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 68 (35.23%) Data Centre
2 15 (7.77%) Onboarding
2 15 (7.77%) Self-Motivation
3 12 (6.22%) PKI
4 10 (5.18%) Operational Technology
4 10 (5.18%) Replication
5 9 (4.66%) Cloud Native
6 8 (4.15%) Driving Licence
7 7 (3.63%) Hybrid Cloud
7 7 (3.63%) SCADA
7 7 (3.63%) Virtual Team
8 6 (3.11%) Life Science
9 4 (2.07%) Animation
9 4 (2.07%) CMDB
9 4 (2.07%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 4 (2.07%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.55%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (1.04%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (1.04%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 64 (33.16%) Windows
2 42 (21.76%) Windows Server
3 21 (10.88%) Linux
4 14 (7.25%) Windows 10
5 9 (4.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (3.11%) CentOS
6 6 (3.11%) Rocky
6 6 (3.11%) Windows 7
7 5 (2.59%) Unix
8 2 (1.04%) Android
8 2 (1.04%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.52%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.52%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (29.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 40 (20.73%) Problem-Solving
3 34 (17.62%) Validation
4 31 (16.06%) Network Segmentation
5 25 (12.95%) ITIL
5 25 (12.95%) ITSM
6 22 (11.40%) High Availability
7 21 (10.88%) Continuous Improvement
7 21 (10.88%) Infrastructure as Code
7 21 (10.88%) Project Delivery
8 20 (10.36%) Disaster Recovery
9 18 (9.33%) Network Design
10 17 (8.81%) CI/CD
10 17 (8.81%) Migration
11 16 (8.29%) Infrastructure Automation
11 16 (8.29%) Mentoring
11 16 (8.29%) Network Monitoring
12 15 (7.77%) Cybersecurity
12 15 (7.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 12 (6.22%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 29 (15.03%) PowerShell
2 18 (9.33%) Python
3 6 (3.11%) VB
3 6 (3.11%) VBScript
4 5 (2.59%) ActionScript
5 4 (2.07%) Bash
6 2 (1.04%) SQL
6 2 (1.04%) T-SQL
7 1 (0.52%) Bicep
7 1 (0.52%) C#
Qualifications
1 79 (40.93%) Security Cleared
2 60 (31.09%) Cisco Certification
3 56 (29.02%) SC Cleared
4 54 (27.98%) CCNP
5 33 (17.10%) CCNA
6 19 (9.84%) DV Cleared
7 11 (5.70%) Degree
7 11 (5.70%) Network+ Certification
7 11 (5.70%) Server+ Certification
8 8 (4.15%) CCIE
9 4 (2.07%) Azure Certification
9 4 (2.07%) ITIL Certification
9 4 (2.07%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (2.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 3 (1.55%) AWS Certification
10 3 (1.55%) DBS Check
11 2 (1.04%) JNCIE
12 1 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.52%) CWNA
12 1 (0.52%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.15%) QA
2 6 (3.11%) NCSC
3 5 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.59%) SLA
4 4 (2.07%) 21 CFR Part 11
4 4 (2.07%) GxP
4 4 (2.07%) NIST
4 4 (2.07%) NIST 800
5 3 (1.55%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (1.04%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 2 (1.04%) GDPR
6 2 (1.04%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 58 (30.05%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (17.10%) Active Directory
3 19 (9.84%) Hyper-V
3 19 (9.84%) vSphere
4 16 (8.29%) VMware ESXi
5 12 (6.22%) Firmware
6 10 (5.18%) VMware NSX
7 9 (4.66%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (3.63%) BitLocker
9 5 (2.59%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (2.07%) KVM
11 3 (1.55%) VirtualBox
12 2 (1.04%) NFS
12 2 (1.04%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 30 (15.54%) Ansible
2 13 (6.74%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (5.18%) vCenter Server
4 8 (4.15%) SCCM
5 7 (3.63%) FortiGate
5 7 (3.63%) WSUS
6 6 (3.11%) NetBackup
7 5 (2.59%) Kubernetes
8 4 (2.07%) Nagios
9 3 (1.55%) Avamar
9 3 (1.55%) PowerCLI
9 3 (1.55%) vMotion
10 2 (1.04%) Iperf
10 2 (1.04%) Red Hat Satellite
10 2 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.52%) Grafana
11 1 (0.52%) MobiControl
11 1 (0.52%) QRadar
11 1 (0.52%) Suricata
11 1 (0.52%) TrustSec
Vendors
1 98 (50.78%) Cisco
2 74 (38.34%) VMware
3 50 (25.91%) Microsoft
4 30 (15.54%) F5
5 25 (12.95%) ServiceNow
6 22 (11.40%) Palo Alto
7 18 (9.33%) Veeam
8 16 (8.29%) SolarWinds
9 15 (7.77%) CheckPoint
9 15 (7.77%) Juniper
10 14 (7.25%) Fortinet
11 12 (6.22%) Meraki
11 12 (6.22%) NetApp
12 9 (4.66%) Aruba
13 7 (3.63%) Citrix
14 6 (3.11%) CyberArk
15 5 (2.59%) Google
15 5 (2.59%) Rockwell
15 5 (2.59%) Xerox
16 4 (2.07%) HP