DNS Contract Job Trends

Domain Name System (DNS)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring DNS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 29 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
29 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 119 140
Rank change year-on-year -18 +21 -11
Contract jobs citing DNS 897 675 737
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.91% 2.31% 1.70%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.74% 18.12% 13.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 559 482 484
10th Percentile £263 £263 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £535 £480
Median % change year-on-year -7.48% +11.57% -8.67%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £600
90th Percentile £650 £700 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £537 £515
% change year-on-year -10.53% +4.17% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 12 27
10th Percentile £16.84 - £19.40
25th Percentile £24.18 £23.59 £23.80
Median hourly rate £60.25 £67.59 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.86% +68.97% -23.27%
75th Percentile £74.26 £81.35 £44.38
90th Percentile £75.75 £82.03 £63.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £81.01 £40.00
% change year-on-year -19.77% +102.53% -18.56%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

DNS 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 4,545 3,726 5,610
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.65% 12.77% 12.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,834 2,295 3,363
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -0.51% -5.41%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 224 173 420
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.75 £20.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £40.54 £37.50 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% -1.32% +100.00%
75th Percentile £67.81 £61.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 £27.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year +77.16% -40.06% +148.00%

DNS
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing DNS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

DNS job vacancy trend in the UK

DNS
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing DNS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing DNS

DNS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DNS over the 6 months to 29 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for DNS in the UK

DNS
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing DNS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing DNS

DNS
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DNS over the 6 months to 29 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for DNS in the UK

DNS
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing DNS within the UK over the 6 months to 29 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
England -14 789 £495 -9.17% 236
UK excluding London -10 574 £480 -10.53% 215
London -50 257 £500 -3.51% 51
North of England +4 227 £444 -6.53% 48
Work from Home -40 188 £525 -1.87% 80
South East -3 159 £525 -4.55% 69
North West +36 151 £433 +1.76% 20
Midlands +21 113 £390 -29.73% 30
West Midlands +26 99 £380 -23.43% 19
Yorkshire -37 72 £447 -18.73% 21
Scotland +38 48 £550 +22.22% 4
South West -50 44 £575 - 31
East of England -35 42 £450 -10.00% 29
East Midlands -38 13 £394 -30.62% 11
North East -22 6 £306 -9.93% 8
Wales -20 4 £550 +22.22% 10

DNS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 99 (11.04%) Microsoft Exchange
2 43 (4.79%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.67%) nginx
4 13 (1.45%) Confluence
4 13 (1.45%) IIS
5 10 (1.11%) Apache
6 9 (1.00%) Skype for Business
7 4 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2010
7 4 (0.45%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.33%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2013
9 2 (0.22%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.22%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.22%) WebSphere Portal
9 2 (0.22%) WordPress
10 1 (0.11%) Traefik
Applications
1 26 (2.90%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.34%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.22%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.11%) Cloudability
1 1 (0.11%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 303 (33.78%) Azure
2 151 (16.83%) AWS
3 148 (16.50%) Entra ID
4 136 (15.16%) Microsoft 365
5 92 (10.26%) GCP
6 65 (7.25%) GitHub
7 52 (5.80%) IaaS
8 42 (4.68%) SaaS
9 40 (4.46%) PaaS
10 37 (4.12%) Serverless
11 35 (3.90%) AWS CloudFormation
12 33 (3.68%) Amazon S3
13 32 (3.57%) AWS Lambda
13 32 (3.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 31 (3.46%) Amazon EC2
14 31 (3.46%) Route 53
15 26 (2.90%) Amazon EKS
15 26 (2.90%) GitHub Actions
16 25 (2.79%) OpenShift
17 23 (2.56%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 386 (43.03%) DHCP
2 282 (31.44%) Firewall
3 225 (25.08%) TCP/IP
4 221 (24.64%) VPN
5 120 (13.38%) WAN
6 113 (12.60%) LAN
7 93 (10.37%) SSL
8 91 (10.14%) Network Security
9 85 (9.48%) BIG-IP
10 81 (9.03%) VLAN
11 80 (8.92%) BGP
12 79 (8.81%) HTTP
13 62 (6.91%) Wi-Fi
14 50 (5.57%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 46 (5.13%) OSPF
16 43 (4.79%) Wireless
17 40 (4.46%) Wireshark
18 38 (4.24%) DMZ
18 38 (4.24%) Kerberos
19 36 (4.01%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (3.12%) SQL Server
2 21 (2.34%) Elasticsearch
3 17 (1.90%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (0.89%) MongoDB
6 7 (0.78%) DynamoDB
6 7 (0.78%) Power BI
7 6 (0.67%) Data Hub
8 5 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
8 5 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (0.56%) MySQL
9 4 (0.45%) DocumentDB
9 4 (0.45%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.45%) Redis
9 4 (0.45%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.33%) MariaDB
11 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
11 1 (0.11%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.11%) SQLPlus
11 1 (0.11%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 52 (5.80%) Jenkins
2 46 (5.13%) JIRA
3 28 (3.12%) Fiddler
3 28 (3.12%) Git
4 27 (3.01%) GitLab
5 9 (1.00%) Browser DevTools
6 7 (0.78%) Bitbucket
6 7 (0.78%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.67%) Chocolatey
8 4 (0.45%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.45%) Terragrunt
9 3 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.22%) Introscope
11 1 (0.11%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.11%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.11%) Subversion
11 1 (0.11%) Travis CI
General
1 199 (22.19%) Social Skills
2 90 (10.03%) Analytical Skills
3 74 (8.25%) Banking
4 68 (7.58%) Finance
5 63 (7.02%) Public Sector
6 44 (4.91%) Documentation Skills
7 40 (4.46%) Investment Banking
8 31 (3.46%) Legal
9 23 (2.56%) Telecoms
10 18 (2.01%) Military
11 10 (1.11%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (0.89%) Law
13 7 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.67%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.56%) Local Government
16 4 (0.45%) Aerospace
16 4 (0.45%) Italian Language
16 4 (0.45%) Manufacturing
17 3 (0.33%) Advertising
17 3 (0.33%) Police
Job Titles
1 159 (17.73%) Network Engineer
2 115 (12.82%) Architect
3 105 (11.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 87 (9.70%) Analyst
5 74 (8.25%) Senior
6 60 (6.69%) Security Engineer
7 50 (5.57%) Web Engineer
8 44 (4.91%) Support Engineer
9 41 (4.57%) IT Support
9 41 (4.57%) Network Security Engineer
10 37 (4.12%) IT Engineer
11 36 (4.01%) Lead
12 33 (3.68%) Administrator
12 33 (3.68%) Cisco Engineer
12 33 (3.68%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 31 (3.46%) Azure Engineer
13 31 (3.46%) Data Engineer
13 31 (3.46%) Data Network Engineer
14 30 (3.34%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 27 (3.01%) SOC Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (7.69%) LDAP
2 50 (5.57%) SAML
3 39 (4.35%) OAuth
4 35 (3.90%) 802.1X
5 29 (3.23%) OpenID
6 22 (2.45%) OpenTelemetry
7 13 (1.45%) JSON
8 11 (1.23%) OAuth2
9 9 (1.00%) Elastic Stack
9 9 (1.00%) Kafka
9 9 (1.00%) REST
10 7 (0.78%) XMPP
11 6 (0.67%) ARM Templates
12 5 (0.56%) Microsoft Graph
13 4 (0.45%) gRPC
13 4 (0.45%) Hibernate
13 4 (0.45%) Middleware
13 4 (0.45%) RESTful
13 4 (0.45%) Spring Boot
13 4 (0.45%) Spring Cloud
Miscellaneous
1 74 (8.25%) PKI
2 70 (7.80%) Data Centre
3 51 (5.69%) Cloud Native
4 41 (4.57%) Replication
5 39 (4.35%) Clustering
5 39 (4.35%) Management Information System
6 34 (3.79%) Onboarding
7 32 (3.57%) Public Cloud
8 27 (3.01%) Hybrid Cloud
8 27 (3.01%) Security Operations Centre
9 26 (2.90%) Cyberattack
10 23 (2.56%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 21 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
12 17 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
13 16 (1.78%) Cyber Threat
13 16 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
14 14 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (1.45%) Enterprise Cloud
15 13 (1.45%) Product Ownership
15 13 (1.45%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 395 (44.04%) Windows
2 213 (23.75%) Windows Server
3 131 (14.60%) Linux
4 48 (5.35%) Windows 10
5 35 (3.90%) Windows Server 2019
6 21 (2.34%) Unix
7 20 (2.23%) Windows Server 2012
8 19 (2.12%) Android
8 19 (2.12%) Mac OS
8 19 (2.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (1.67%) Windows Server 2016
10 14 (1.56%) Apple iOS
11 11 (1.23%) Windows 7
12 9 (1.00%) VMS
13 8 (0.89%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.45%) CatOS
14 4 (0.45%) CentOS
14 4 (0.45%) Ubuntu
15 3 (0.33%) Amazon Linux
16 2 (0.22%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 185 (20.62%) Problem-Solving
2 171 (19.06%) Load Balancing
3 143 (15.94%) Migration
4 135 (15.05%) High Availability
5 131 (14.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 125 (13.94%) ITIL
7 116 (12.93%) DevOps
8 108 (12.04%) CI/CD
9 106 (11.82%) Infrastructure as Code
10 89 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
11 84 (9.36%) Disaster Recovery
12 77 (8.58%) Identity Access Management
12 77 (8.58%) ITSM
13 74 (8.25%) Observability
14 65 (7.25%) Agile
15 62 (6.91%) SIEM
16 60 (6.69%) Change Management
17 56 (6.24%) Containerisation
17 56 (6.24%) Incident Response
17 56 (6.24%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 196 (21.85%) PowerShell
2 133 (14.83%) Python
3 78 (8.70%) Bash
4 41 (4.57%) SQL
5 20 (2.23%) JavaScript
6 15 (1.67%) Bicep
7 13 (1.45%) Java
8 12 (1.34%) Ruby
8 12 (1.34%) VBScript
9 11 (1.23%) Go
10 10 (1.11%) Shell Script
11 9 (1.00%) VB
12 6 (0.67%) VBA
13 4 (0.45%) Perl
14 3 (0.33%) C
14 3 (0.33%) Groovy
14 3 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
15 2 (0.22%) Jython
15 2 (0.22%) Lisp
16 1 (0.11%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 297 (33.11%) Security Cleared
2 207 (23.08%) SC Cleared
3 98 (10.93%) DV Cleared
4 73 (8.14%) Cisco Certification
5 57 (6.35%) Degree
6 43 (4.79%) CCNP
7 35 (3.90%) CompTIA Security+
8 32 (3.57%) CCNA
9 30 (3.34%) Microsoft Certification
10 24 (2.68%) Azure Certification
11 22 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
12 19 (2.12%) Network+ Certification
13 17 (1.90%) CompTIA CySA+
14 13 (1.45%) AWS Certification
14 13 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
15 12 (1.34%) CISSP
16 10 (1.11%) JNCIA
16 10 (1.11%) JNCIS
17 8 (0.89%) JNCIP
17 8 (0.89%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.12%) SLA
2 27 (3.01%) GDPR
2 27 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 27 (3.01%) NIST
3 16 (1.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 9 (1.00%) NCSC
5 8 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials
6 7 (0.78%) QA
7 4 (0.45%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 3 (0.33%) PMO
9 2 (0.22%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.22%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.22%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.11%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.11%) COBIT
10 1 (0.11%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.11%) RMADS
System Software
1 362 (40.36%) Active Directory
2 190 (21.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 87 (9.70%) Hyper-V
4 51 (5.69%) VMware NSX
4 51 (5.69%) vSphere
5 46 (5.13%) Docker
6 32 (3.57%) Virtual Machines
7 28 (3.12%) VMware ESXi
8 26 (2.90%) Firmware
9 19 (2.12%) BitLocker
10 15 (1.67%) Virtual Desktop
11 12 (1.34%) Squid
12 9 (1.00%) NFS
13 8 (0.89%) Microsoft App-V
14 6 (0.67%) Sendmail
15 5 (0.56%) Postfix
15 5 (0.56%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.56%) Varnish
16 4 (0.45%) Ceph
16 4 (0.45%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 144 (16.05%) Terraform
2 111 (12.37%) Ansible
3 98 (10.93%) Kubernetes
4 87 (9.70%) Microsoft Intune
5 74 (8.25%) Single Sign-On
6 62 (6.91%) SCCM
7 49 (5.46%) FortiGate
8 47 (5.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 42 (4.68%) Grafana
10 40 (4.46%) vCenter Server
11 27 (3.01%) Prometheus
11 27 (3.01%) WSUS
12 24 (2.68%) Argo
13 13 (1.45%) SCOM
14 10 (1.11%) Nessus
14 10 (1.11%) Puppet
15 9 (1.00%) HAProxy
15 9 (1.00%) vMotion
16 8 (0.89%) Consul
17 6 (0.67%) QRadar
Vendors
1 288 (32.11%) Microsoft
2 232 (25.86%) VMware
3 153 (17.06%) Cisco
4 149 (16.61%) F5
5 87 (9.70%) Splunk
6 77 (8.58%) ServiceNow
7 56 (6.24%) Citrix
8 52 (5.80%) Infoblox
9 46 (5.13%) SolarWinds
10 40 (4.46%) Juniper
10 40 (4.46%) Red Hat
11 39 (4.35%) Google
12 38 (4.24%) Blue Coat
12 38 (4.24%) Palo Alto
13 32 (3.57%) McAfee
14 31 (3.46%) NetApp
15 22 (2.45%) Dynatrace
15 22 (2.45%) Extreme Networks
15 22 (2.45%) Fortinet
16 20 (2.23%) Okta
262 DNS jobs Nationwide