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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 133 153
Rank change year-on-year -12 +20 -23
Contract jobs citing DNS 1,012 707 628
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.85% 2.14% 1.63%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.79% 18.42% 13.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 622 446 406
10th Percentile £300 £234 £225
25th Percentile £408 £380 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £586 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £652 £677
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £480
% change year-on-year +2.56% +1.67% -1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 30 13
10th Percentile £26.66 £27.72 £20.25
25th Percentile £31.25 £29.00 £23.10
Median hourly rate £63.48 £45.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +41.07% +86.10% -49.09%
75th Percentile £77.00 £79.76 £38.00
90th Percentile £97.29 £89.63 £49.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.24 £45.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year +49.41% +50.00% -25.00%

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 5,113 3,839 4,570
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.37% 11.63% 11.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,984 2,363 2,663
10th Percentile £235 £235 £230
25th Percentile £390 £363 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.95% -3.80% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £610
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £500
% change year-on-year +2.70% -7.50% +10.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 402 201 266
10th Percentile £14.35 £15.33 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £21.37
Median hourly rate £27.11 £42.50 £52.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.21% -18.27% -7.95%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -38.49% -25.89% +1.52%

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 12 September 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 12 September 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 12 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
England -22 917 £500 - 606
UK excluding London -14 633 £500 +2.56% 412
London -44 316 £500 - 266
Work from Home -27 234 £500 +4.60% 321
North of England +21 213 £500 +9.29% 75
South East +6 176 £538 +2.38% 146
North West +26 134 £458 - 48
Midlands -35 117 £450 -5.26% 59
South West +4 98 £555 +0.86% 61
West Midlands -37 96 £450 -5.26% 35
Yorkshire -12 64 £500 -4.76% 17
East of England -40 39 £475 -13.64% 33
Scotland -1 38 £488 +7.38% 36
East Midlands -4 20 £413 -17.50% 24
North East -39 15 £419 +23.16% 13
Wales -10 10 £440 +16.02% 4

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
1 112 (11.07%) Microsoft Exchange
2 94 (9.29%) SharePoint
3 31 (3.06%) Confluence
4 16 (1.58%) Apache
5 14 (1.38%) IIS
5 14 (1.38%) nginx
6 8 (0.79%) Skype for Business
6 8 (0.79%) Tomcat
7 4 (0.40%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.30%) Exchange Server 2010
8 3 (0.30%) Exchange Server 2013
8 3 (0.30%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.099%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.099%) CMS
9 1 (0.099%) Drupal
9 1 (0.099%) IBM HTTP Server
9 1 (0.099%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 1 (0.099%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.099%) WebSphere Portal
9 1 (0.099%) WordPress
Applications
1 25 (2.47%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.09%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.20%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.20%) Houdini
4 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.20%) NUKE
5 1 (0.099%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 13 (1.28%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.099%) Magento
2 1 (0.099%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 418 (41.30%) Azure
2 212 (20.95%) AWS
3 189 (18.68%) Microsoft 365
4 184 (18.18%) Entra ID
5 89 (8.79%) GCP
6 78 (7.71%) GitHub
7 56 (5.53%) OneDrive
8 54 (5.34%) IaaS
9 48 (4.74%) Azure DevOps
10 44 (4.35%) GitHub Actions
11 40 (3.95%) Azure Monitor
12 37 (3.66%) SaaS
13 34 (3.36%) PaaS
14 30 (2.96%) OpenShift
15 28 (2.77%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 27 (2.67%) Serverless
17 26 (2.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 25 (2.47%) Amazon EKS
18 25 (2.47%) AWS CloudFormation
19 23 (2.27%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 484 (47.83%) DHCP
2 363 (35.87%) Firewall
3 292 (28.85%) TCP/IP
4 283 (27.96%) VPN
5 132 (13.04%) Network Security
6 131 (12.94%) VLAN
7 119 (11.76%) WAN
8 106 (10.47%) SSL
9 89 (8.79%) LAN
10 87 (8.60%) BGP
11 80 (7.91%) Wireless
12 69 (6.82%) HTTP
12 69 (6.82%) Wi-Fi
13 65 (6.42%) BIG-IP
14 62 (6.13%) SAN
15 58 (5.73%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 51 (5.04%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
17 46 (4.55%) OSPF
18 44 (4.35%) DMZ
19 43 (4.25%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (5.04%) SQL Server
2 26 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
3 13 (1.28%) MongoDB
4 12 (1.19%) MySQL
5 9 (0.89%) Elasticsearch
5 9 (0.89%) Power BI
6 8 (0.79%) Data Lake
7 7 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
7 7 (0.69%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.59%) Redis
9 5 (0.49%) MariaDB
10 4 (0.40%) Big Data
10 4 (0.40%) Db2
11 3 (0.30%) Metadata
11 3 (0.30%) SQLPlus
12 2 (0.20%) Amazon Aurora
12 2 (0.20%) Flink
12 2 (0.20%) KDB
13 1 (0.099%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 82 (8.10%) JIRA
2 54 (5.34%) Jenkins
3 45 (4.45%) Git
4 36 (3.56%) GitLab
5 15 (1.48%) Fiddler
6 11 (1.09%) Bitbucket
7 7 (0.69%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (0.49%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 5 (0.49%) Chocolatey
9 4 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
9 4 (0.40%) Selenium
10 3 (0.30%) MSI
11 2 (0.20%) Artifactory
11 2 (0.20%) Spinnaker
11 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 2 (0.20%) Vagrant
12 1 (0.099%) Locust
12 1 (0.099%) Newman
12 1 (0.099%) Robot Framework
12 1 (0.099%) TestCafe
General
1 274 (27.08%) Social Skills
2 120 (11.86%) Analytical Skills
3 86 (8.50%) Finance
4 80 (7.91%) Public Sector
5 62 (6.13%) Banking
6 55 (5.43%) Documentation Skills
7 35 (3.46%) Telecoms
8 29 (2.87%) Investment Banking
9 17 (1.68%) Legal
10 13 (1.28%) Aerospace
10 13 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 11 (1.09%) Military
11 11 (1.09%) Police
12 10 (0.99%) Local Government
12 10 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (0.89%) Manufacturing
14 8 (0.79%) Front Office
14 8 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
15 7 (0.69%) Law
16 6 (0.59%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 187 (18.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 171 (16.90%) Network Engineer
3 121 (11.96%) Senior
4 99 (9.78%) Support Engineer
5 84 (8.30%) Cloud Engineer
6 78 (7.71%) Architect
7 51 (5.04%) Analyst
7 51 (5.04%) Security Engineer
8 50 (4.94%) IT Support
9 49 (4.84%) IT Engineer
10 47 (4.64%) Platform Engineer
11 44 (4.35%) Azure Engineer
12 43 (4.25%) DevOps Engineer
12 43 (4.25%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 38 (3.75%) Administrator
14 37 (3.66%) Cisco Engineer
14 37 (3.66%) Network Security Engineer
15 35 (3.46%) Cisco Network Engineer
16 33 (3.26%) IT Support Engineer
16 33 (3.26%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 219 (21.64%) Terraform
2 40 (3.95%) SAML
3 35 (3.46%) 802.1X
4 30 (2.96%) OAuth
5 29 (2.87%) ARM Templates
5 29 (2.87%) LDAP
6 26 (2.57%) OpenID
7 22 (2.17%) REST
8 19 (1.88%) Kafka
9 18 (1.78%) JSON
10 15 (1.48%) OpenTelemetry
11 13 (1.28%) YAML
12 12 (1.19%) OAuth2
13 9 (0.89%) CSS
13 9 (0.89%) Elastic Stack
14 8 (0.79%) React
15 6 (0.59%) .NET
15 6 (0.59%) Jinja
15 6 (0.59%) Middleware
16 5 (0.49%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 125 (12.35%) Data Centre
2 107 (10.57%) PKI
3 74 (7.31%) Hybrid Cloud
4 71 (7.02%) Onboarding
5 56 (5.53%) Management Information System
6 46 (4.55%) Cloud Native
7 29 (2.87%) Replication
8 28 (2.77%) Public Cloud
9 27 (2.67%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 25 (2.47%) Clustering
11 21 (2.08%) Linux Command Line
11 21 (2.08%) Self-Motivation
12 16 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
12 16 (1.58%) Enterprise Cloud
13 15 (1.48%) Cyber Threat
13 15 (1.48%) Driving Licence
13 15 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
13 15 (1.48%) Security Posture
14 12 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
15 10 (0.99%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 476 (47.04%) Windows
2 268 (26.48%) Windows Server
3 228 (22.53%) Linux
4 64 (6.32%) Windows 10
5 49 (4.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 42 (4.15%) Windows Server 2019
7 34 (3.36%) Mac OS
8 28 (2.77%) Unix
9 26 (2.57%) Ubuntu
9 26 (2.57%) Windows Server 2012
10 24 (2.37%) Apple iOS
11 22 (2.17%) Android
12 21 (2.08%) CentOS
13 16 (1.58%) VMS
14 14 (1.38%) Windows Server 2016
15 12 (1.19%) Windows 7
16 7 (0.69%) Rocky
16 7 (0.69%) Windows Server 2008
17 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2003
18 4 (0.40%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 254 (25.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 223 (22.04%) Problem-Solving
3 196 (19.37%) ITIL
4 192 (18.97%) Infrastructure as Code
5 176 (17.39%) DevOps
6 171 (16.90%) Load Balancing
7 160 (15.81%) Migration
8 158 (15.61%) CI/CD
9 125 (12.35%) ITSM
10 119 (11.76%) High Availability
11 113 (11.17%) Continuous Improvement
12 110 (10.87%) Agile
13 95 (9.39%) Cybersecurity
14 94 (9.29%) Technical Leadership
15 91 (8.99%) Observability
16 90 (8.89%) Disaster Recovery
17 89 (8.79%) Project Delivery
18 86 (8.50%) Platform Engineering
19 81 (8.00%) Runbook
20 80 (7.91%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 271 (26.78%) PowerShell
2 212 (20.95%) Python
3 152 (15.02%) Bash
4 67 (6.62%) SQL
5 50 (4.94%) Bicep
6 16 (1.58%) Shell Script
7 15 (1.48%) Go
7 15 (1.48%) JavaScript
8 13 (1.28%) ActionScript
9 11 (1.09%) Java
10 10 (0.99%) VBScript
11 9 (0.89%) Perl
12 8 (0.79%) Groovy
13 7 (0.69%) VBA
14 6 (0.59%) TypeScript
14 6 (0.59%) VB
15 4 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
15 4 (0.40%) Ruby
16 3 (0.30%) C
16 3 (0.30%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 381 (37.65%) Security Cleared
2 213 (21.05%) SC Cleared
3 165 (16.30%) DV Cleared
4 88 (8.70%) Cisco Certification
5 86 (8.50%) Degree
6 72 (7.11%) CCNP
7 56 (5.53%) Azure Certification
8 55 (5.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 48 (4.74%) CCNA
10 27 (2.67%) Network+ Certification
11 25 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
12 23 (2.27%) AWS Certification
13 19 (1.88%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 17 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
15 16 (1.58%) CCIE
16 15 (1.48%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 15 (1.48%) VCAP
17 12 (1.19%) MCSE
18 11 (1.09%) A+ Certification
18 11 (1.09%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (4.15%) SLA
2 26 (2.57%) NIST
3 17 (1.68%) NCSC
3 17 (1.68%) QA
4 16 (1.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (0.69%) GDPR
6 6 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
7 5 (0.49%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 4 (0.40%) JSP 440
9 3 (0.30%) SOC 2
10 2 (0.20%) Data Quality
10 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.20%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.20%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 442 (43.68%) Active Directory
2 285 (28.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 127 (12.55%) Hyper-V
4 88 (8.70%) VMware ESXi
5 80 (7.91%) vSphere
6 68 (6.72%) VMware NSX
7 65 (6.42%) Docker
8 48 (4.74%) Virtual Machines
9 39 (3.85%) Virtual Desktop
10 25 (2.47%) Firmware
11 21 (2.08%) NFS
12 16 (1.58%) vCloud
13 13 (1.28%) BitLocker
14 10 (0.99%) Squid
14 10 (0.99%) Virtual Servers
15 9 (0.89%) Postfix
16 8 (0.79%) Ceph
16 8 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.79%) UAG
17 6 (0.59%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 160 (15.81%) Ansible
2 133 (13.14%) Kubernetes
3 113 (11.17%) Microsoft Intune
4 82 (8.10%) SCCM
5 72 (7.11%) vCenter Server
6 61 (6.03%) Grafana
7 57 (5.63%) Single Sign-On
8 48 (4.74%) Prometheus
9 39 (3.85%) SCOM
10 34 (3.36%) WSUS
11 25 (2.47%) FortiGate
12 17 (1.68%) NetBackup
13 16 (1.58%) Argo
13 16 (1.58%) Packer
13 16 (1.58%) Puppet
13 16 (1.58%) VxRail
14 14 (1.38%) Istio
14 14 (1.38%) Jamf Pro
15 12 (1.19%) vMotion
16 10 (0.99%) systemd
Vendors
1 392 (38.74%) Microsoft
2 341 (33.70%) VMware
3 188 (18.58%) Cisco
4 130 (12.85%) F5
5 89 (8.79%) ServiceNow
6 59 (5.83%) Infoblox
7 58 (5.73%) Citrix
8 53 (5.24%) Google
8 53 (5.24%) Palo Alto
9 50 (4.94%) SolarWinds
10 48 (4.74%) Splunk
11 46 (4.55%) Red Hat
12 43 (4.25%) Juniper
13 38 (3.75%) NetApp
14 36 (3.56%) Dynatrace
15 34 (3.36%) CheckPoint
16 31 (3.06%) Fortinet
17 28 (2.77%) Zscaler
18 25 (2.47%) Blue Coat
18 25 (2.47%) CyberArk