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 3 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 285 243 291
Rank change year-on-year -42 +48 +8
Contract jobs citing VLAN 159 94 100
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.70% 0.74% 0.48%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.24% 4.60% 2.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 106 65 71
10th Percentile £270 £217 £184
25th Percentile £402 £243 £230
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £413 £375
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% +10.00% -15.30%
75th Percentile £569 £575 £538
90th Percentile £628 £621 £650
UK median daily rate £467 £430 £413
% change year-on-year +8.58% +4.24% -13.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £12.43 - -
Median hourly rate £74.00 - -
75th Percentile £74.26 - -
90th Percentile £76.50 - -
UK median hourly rate £74.00 - £55.00
% change year-on-year - - +69.23%

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 2,549 2,044 3,625
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 11.28% 16.17% 17.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,606 1,249 2,109
10th Percentile £203 £193 £203
25th Percentile £350 £313 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £470 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.06% -1.05% -
75th Percentile £575 £580 £598
90th Percentile £654 £638 £688
UK median daily rate £498 £488 £475
% change year-on-year +2.05% +2.63% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 158 125 337
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.52 £13.40
25th Percentile £18.00 £20.75 £17.69
Median hourly rate £49.36 £29.00 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +70.21% -32.56% +132.43%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £78.61 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £42.10 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +20.27% +7.69% +71.05%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 3 April 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 -17 65 £500 +53.85% 35
North West +4 56 £508 +28.89% 24
South East -52 36 £500 -1.48% 43
Midlands -49 30 £413 -29.78% 24
West Midlands -54 19 £469 -19.60% 21
South West -30 12 £475 +15.15% 13
East Midlands -26 10 £275 -57.69% 3
Yorkshire -61 9 £363 +47.96% 8
Scotland +14 8 £325 -18.75% 3
Wales -5 5 £293 -35.71% 3
East of England -42 5 £540 +188.00% 12
North East - 3 £550 - 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 14 (8.81%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (5.66%) Skype for Business
3 4 (2.52%) SharePoint
4 2 (1.26%) OpenStack
4 2 (1.26%) WordPress
5 1 (0.63%) Apache
5 1 (0.63%) JBoss
Applications
1 10 (6.29%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.52%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 43 (27.04%) Azure
2 25 (15.72%) AWS
3 12 (7.55%) Microsoft 365
4 11 (6.92%) Entra ID
5 7 (4.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 6 (3.77%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 6 (3.77%) GCP
7 5 (3.14%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (1.89%) AWS Direct Connect
9 2 (1.26%) AWS IoT
9 2 (1.26%) IaaS
9 2 (1.26%) PaaS
9 2 (1.26%) SaaS
10 1 (0.63%) Akamai
10 1 (0.63%) Amazon EC2
10 1 (0.63%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 1 (0.63%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.63%) Azure Sentinel
10 1 (0.63%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.63%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 101 (63.52%) Firewall
2 59 (37.11%) WAN
3 58 (36.48%) LAN
4 56 (35.22%) DNS
5 55 (34.59%) DHCP
6 54 (33.96%) VPN
7 43 (27.04%) BGP
8 42 (26.42%) TCP/IP
9 41 (25.79%) Network Security
10 38 (23.90%) Wi-Fi
11 35 (22.01%) OSPF
12 32 (20.13%) Wireless
13 26 (16.35%) SD-WAN
14 18 (11.32%) MPLS
15 16 (10.06%) WLAN
16 12 (7.55%) Cisco ASA
17 11 (6.92%) EIGRP
17 11 (6.92%) IPv4
17 11 (6.92%) IPv6
17 11 (6.92%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.52%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.63%) OpenStack Swift
Development Applications
1 2 (1.26%) Git
1 2 (1.26%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.63%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (0.63%) JIRA
2 1 (0.63%) MSI
General
1 45 (28.30%) Social Skills
2 19 (11.95%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (7.55%) Documentation Skills
4 10 (6.29%) Public Sector
5 7 (4.40%) Legal
5 7 (4.40%) Telecoms
6 5 (3.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (2.52%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (1.89%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.26%) Aviation
9 2 (1.26%) Law
9 2 (1.26%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.63%) Advertising
10 1 (0.63%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.63%) Finance
10 1 (0.63%) Police
10 1 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 65 (40.88%) Network Engineer
2 23 (14.47%) Architect
3 21 (13.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 19 (11.95%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 12 (7.55%) IT Support
6 11 (6.92%) IT Engineer
6 11 (6.92%) Network Architect
7 10 (6.29%) Analyst
8 9 (5.66%) Technical Architect
9 8 (5.03%) Cisco Engineer
9 8 (5.03%) Senior
10 7 (4.40%) IT Analyst
10 7 (4.40%) Platform Engineer
11 6 (3.77%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 6 (3.77%) IT Support Analyst
11 6 (3.77%) Support Analyst
11 6 (3.77%) Support Engineer
11 6 (3.77%) Test Engineer
12 5 (3.14%) Solutions Architect
13 4 (2.52%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (7.55%) 802.1X
2 2 (1.26%) RFC 2544
2 2 (1.26%) XMPP
3 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (0.63%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 44 (27.67%) Data Centre
2 14 (8.81%) Onboarding
3 9 (5.66%) Product Ownership
4 8 (5.03%) Operational Technology
5 4 (2.52%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (2.52%) Driving Licence
5 4 (2.52%) Security Posture
6 3 (1.89%) 3D Printing
6 3 (1.89%) Hybrid Cloud
6 3 (1.89%) IoT
6 3 (1.89%) SCADA
6 3 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.26%) CCTV
7 2 (1.26%) Fibre Optics
7 2 (1.26%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.26%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.26%) Replication
7 2 (1.26%) Virtual Team
8 1 (0.63%) PKI
8 1 (0.63%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 46 (28.93%) Windows
2 21 (13.21%) Windows Server
3 16 (10.06%) Windows 10
4 13 (8.18%) Linux
5 10 (6.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (5.66%) Windows 7
7 2 (1.26%) Ubuntu
7 2 (1.26%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.63%) CentOS
8 1 (0.63%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (17.61%) Problem-Solving
2 26 (16.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 26 (16.35%) ITSM
3 22 (13.84%) Network Segmentation
4 21 (13.21%) Continuous Improvement
5 20 (12.58%) Cybersecurity
5 20 (12.58%) Network Design
5 20 (12.58%) Network Monitoring
6 19 (11.95%) Service Management
7 18 (11.32%) High Availability
8 17 (10.69%) Project Delivery
9 14 (8.81%) ITIL
10 13 (8.18%) Root Cause Analysis
11 12 (7.55%) Change Control
11 12 (7.55%) Disaster Recovery
11 12 (7.55%) Incident Response
12 11 (6.92%) Migration
13 10 (6.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 9 (5.66%) Computer Science
14 9 (5.66%) Disk Encryption
Programming Languages
1 27 (16.98%) PowerShell
2 21 (13.21%) Python
3 14 (8.81%) Bash
4 10 (6.29%) VBScript
5 9 (5.66%) VB
6 7 (4.40%) Perl
7 4 (2.52%) SQL
8 1 (0.63%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 81 (50.94%) Security Cleared
2 67 (42.14%) Cisco Certification
2 67 (42.14%) SC Cleared
3 62 (38.99%) CCNP
4 48 (30.19%) CCNA
5 15 (9.43%) DV Cleared
5 15 (9.43%) Network+ Certification
6 14 (8.81%) Degree
7 10 (6.29%) CCIE
8 6 (3.77%) Server+ Certification
9 5 (3.14%) Azure Certification
9 5 (3.14%) JNCIS
9 5 (3.14%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (2.52%) AWS Certification
10 4 (2.52%) CCDP
10 4 (2.52%) CISSP
10 4 (2.52%) ISTQB
11 3 (1.89%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 3 (1.89%) CCIE Security
11 3 (1.89%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (3.14%) NIST
2 5 (3.14%) PCI DSS
3 4 (2.52%) Cyber Essentials
3 4 (2.52%) GDPR
3 4 (2.52%) NCSC
3 4 (2.52%) SLA
4 2 (1.26%) QA
5 1 (0.63%) GRC
5 1 (0.63%) GxP
5 1 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 33 (20.75%) Active Directory
2 23 (14.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (8.18%) vSphere
4 12 (7.55%) VMware ESXi
5 9 (5.66%) BitLocker
6 5 (3.14%) Firmware
6 5 (3.14%) VMware NSX
7 4 (2.52%) Docker
7 4 (2.52%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (1.89%) KVM
9 2 (1.26%) Hyper-V
10 1 (0.63%) Ceph
10 1 (0.63%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.63%) iptables
10 1 (0.63%) NFS
10 1 (0.63%) QEMU
10 1 (0.63%) RHEV
10 1 (0.63%) Samba
10 1 (0.63%) Snort
10 1 (0.63%) Xen
Systems Management
1 12 (7.55%) Ansible
2 11 (6.92%) SCCM
3 10 (6.29%) Terraform
4 9 (5.66%) FortiGate
4 9 (5.66%) Nagios
4 9 (5.66%) vCenter Server
5 7 (4.40%) VxRail
6 5 (3.14%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (2.52%) Kubernetes
7 4 (2.52%) WSUS
8 3 (1.89%) Iperf
9 2 (1.26%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (1.26%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (1.26%) Grafana
9 2 (1.26%) Nmap
9 2 (1.26%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.63%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.63%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.63%) Rundeck
10 1 (0.63%) Suricata
Vendors
1 81 (50.94%) Cisco
2 41 (25.79%) Microsoft
3 33 (20.75%) Palo Alto
4 27 (16.98%) VMware
5 20 (12.58%) Fortinet
6 17 (10.69%) Aruba
6 17 (10.69%) SolarWinds
7 16 (10.06%) ServiceNow
8 14 (8.81%) Juniper
9 13 (8.18%) CheckPoint
10 11 (6.92%) F5
10 11 (6.92%) Veeam
11 9 (5.66%) Ekahau
12 8 (5.03%) Citrix
12 8 (5.03%) Meraki
12 8 (5.03%) Red Hat
13 7 (4.40%) Dell
14 4 (2.52%) HP
14 4 (2.52%) Zerto
15 3 (1.89%) Qualys