DNS Contracts

Domain Name System (DNS)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring DNS skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited DNS over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 121 141 128
Rank change year-on-year +20 -13 +39
Contract jobs citing DNS 672 743 1,216
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.30% 1.70% 2.04%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.97% 13.17% 16.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 480 485 871
10th Percentile £262 £213 £250
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £484 £525
Median % change year-on-year +10.54% -7.81% +5.00%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £537 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +4.17% -1.90% +23.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 27 18
10th Percentile - £19.40 £21.48
25th Percentile £23.59 £23.80 £36.75
Median hourly rate £67.59 £40.00 £52.13
Median % change year-on-year +68.97% -23.27% +48.94%
75th Percentile £81.35 £44.38 £84.50
90th Percentile £82.03 £63.00 £87.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.01 £40.00 £49.12
% change year-on-year +102.53% -18.56% +128.45%

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 3,739 5,643 7,361
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.79% 12.94% 12.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,297 3,382 4,789
10th Percentile £213 £205 £235
25th Percentile £363 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £495 £519
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -4.53% +3.70%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -2.63% - +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 423 478
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.57 £9.80
25th Percentile £17.30 £17.35 £10.63
Median hourly rate £32.50 £38.50 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.58% +102.63% -31.84%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.59 £45.88 £18.50
% change year-on-year -46.41% +148.00% -13.95%

DNS
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing DNS as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for DNS in the UK

DNS
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing DNS.

Daily rate trend for DNS in the UK

DNS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DNS over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for DNS in the UK

DNS
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing DNS.

Hourly rate trend for DNS in the UK

DNS
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DNS over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for DNS in the UK

DNS
Top 17 Contract 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 30 April 2025. 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 +17 581 £546 +12.81% 575
UK excluding London +13 344 £537 +4.17% 416
London +24 245 £522 +15.91% 180
Work from Home +49 211 £535 +12.63% 259
North of England +61 111 £475 - 130
South East -24 79 £550 +10.00% 106
South West +49 67 £575 - 56
Yorkshire +32 50 £550 +6.80% 46
North West +28 48 £425 +6.25% 67
East of England +69 43 £500 +44.93% 43
Midlands -34 17 £560 +7.18% 68
East Midlands +11 13 £568 +74.62% 29
North East +10 13 £340 -43.33% 20
Wales +14 12 £450 -37.93% 11
Scotland -21 12 £450 -14.29% 12
Northern Ireland -8 5 £160 - 3
West Midlands -42 4 £535 +1.90% 36

DNS
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 94 (13.99%) Microsoft Exchange
2 55 (8.18%) SharePoint
3 21 (3.13%) IIS
4 18 (2.68%) Confluence
5 17 (2.53%) Apache
6 16 (2.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 14 (2.08%) nginx
7 14 (2.08%) Skype for Business
8 12 (1.79%) Traefik
9 6 (0.89%) CMS
10 5 (0.74%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.74%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2003
11 3 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2007
11 3 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2010
11 3 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2013
11 3 (0.45%) Office Communications Server
11 3 (0.45%) WordPress
Applications
1 73 (10.86%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.79%) MS Visio
3 7 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.45%) Trello
Business Applications
1 4 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.30%) Fidessa
3 1 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 246 (36.61%) Azure
2 187 (27.83%) AWS
3 103 (15.33%) Entra ID
4 87 (12.95%) Microsoft 365
5 63 (9.38%) AWS CloudFormation
5 63 (9.38%) GCP
6 60 (8.93%) IaaS
7 49 (7.29%) GitHub
8 41 (6.10%) PaaS
9 34 (5.06%) Amazon EC2
10 29 (4.32%) OpenShift
10 29 (4.32%) SaaS
11 27 (4.02%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 25 (3.72%) OneDrive
13 22 (3.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 21 (3.13%) Amazon ECS
15 20 (2.98%) Amazon EKS
15 20 (2.98%) Azure DevOps
15 20 (2.98%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 18 (2.68%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 349 (51.93%) DHCP
2 239 (35.57%) Firewall
3 206 (30.65%) TCP/IP
4 179 (26.64%) VPN
5 87 (12.95%) HTTP
6 84 (12.50%) WAN
7 74 (11.01%) Network Security
8 65 (9.67%) LAN
9 63 (9.38%) SMTP
9 63 (9.38%) VLAN
10 58 (8.63%) BGP
10 58 (8.63%) OSPF
11 57 (8.48%) SSL
12 44 (6.55%) Wi-Fi
13 38 (5.65%) Wireless
14 35 (5.21%) FTP
15 26 (3.87%) MPLS
15 26 (3.87%) SAN
15 26 (3.87%) SD-WAN
16 23 (3.42%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (5.21%) SQL Server
2 34 (5.06%) Amazon RDS
3 19 (2.83%) MongoDB
4 18 (2.68%) Oracle Database
5 13 (1.93%) Elasticsearch
6 12 (1.79%) Big Data
7 9 (1.34%) Amazon Aurora
8 7 (1.04%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.04%) Hadoop
9 6 (0.89%) PostgreSQL
10 5 (0.74%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.60%) DynamoDB
11 4 (0.60%) InfluxDB
11 4 (0.60%) Power BI
12 3 (0.45%) Looker
12 3 (0.45%) NoSQL
13 2 (0.30%) MariaDB
14 1 (0.15%) Azure SQL Database
14 1 (0.15%) Redis
14 1 (0.15%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 62 (9.23%) Jenkins
2 33 (4.91%) Git
3 30 (4.46%) GitLab
4 29 (4.32%) JIRA
5 12 (1.79%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (1.64%) Subversion
7 9 (1.34%) TeamCity
8 7 (1.04%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.74%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.30%) Artifactory
11 2 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 2 (0.30%) Maven
12 1 (0.15%) Browser DevTools
12 1 (0.15%) Gerrit
12 1 (0.15%) Spinnaker
12 1 (0.15%) Vite
12 1 (0.15%) webpack
General
1 140 (20.83%) Social Skills
2 86 (12.80%) Finance
3 61 (9.08%) Public Sector
4 57 (8.48%) Analytical Skills
5 35 (5.21%) Banking
6 18 (2.68%) Telecoms
7 13 (1.93%) Military
8 12 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (1.64%) Aerospace
10 10 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 10 (1.49%) Law
11 8 (1.19%) Electronics
11 8 (1.19%) Investment Banking
11 8 (1.19%) Manufacturing
12 7 (1.04%) Legal
12 7 (1.04%) Marketing
13 6 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.74%) Retail
14 5 (0.74%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 100 (14.88%) Architect
2 95 (14.14%) Network Engineer
3 86 (12.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 71 (10.57%) Support Engineer
5 63 (9.38%) Senior
6 49 (7.29%) Analyst
7 42 (6.25%) Azure Engineer
8 41 (6.10%) DevOps Engineer
9 33 (4.91%) Administrator
10 29 (4.32%) Technical Architect
11 24 (3.57%) Cloud Architect
12 22 (3.27%) Network Architect
12 22 (3.27%) Security Architect
13 21 (3.13%) Senior DevOps
14 20 (2.98%) Lead
15 19 (2.83%) Desktop Engineer
15 19 (2.83%) Network Security Architect
16 18 (2.68%) 3rd Line Support
16 18 (2.68%) Infrastructure Specialist
16 18 (2.68%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.61%) LDAP
2 26 (3.87%) .NET
3 23 (3.42%) Elastic Stack
4 21 (3.13%) Kafka
5 16 (2.38%) ADO
6 15 (2.23%) REST
7 14 (2.08%) cloud-init
7 14 (2.08%) Keycloak
8 10 (1.49%) OAuth
8 10 (1.49%) OAuth2
8 10 (1.49%) OpenID
9 9 (1.34%) OpenTelemetry
9 9 (1.34%) YAML
10 7 (1.04%) CSS
11 6 (0.89%) 802.1X
11 6 (0.89%) Node.js
12 5 (0.74%) ASP.NET
12 5 (0.74%) HTML
12 5 (0.74%) NumPy
12 5 (0.74%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 85 (12.65%) PKI
2 56 (8.33%) Data Centre
3 37 (5.51%) Clustering
4 29 (4.32%) Cloud Native
5 27 (4.02%) Replication
6 23 (3.42%) Management Information System
7 20 (2.98%) Linux Command Line
8 18 (2.68%) Anti-Spyware
9 17 (2.53%) Analytical Mindset
10 16 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
10 16 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
11 15 (2.23%) Cyberattack
11 15 (2.23%) Public Cloud
11 15 (2.23%) Security Operations Centre
12 13 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
13 12 (1.79%) Cyber Threat
14 9 (1.34%) Distributed Systems
14 9 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
15 8 (1.19%) CSOC
16 6 (0.89%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 320 (47.62%) Windows
2 187 (27.83%) Linux
3 185 (27.53%) Windows Server
4 63 (9.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 55 (8.18%) Windows 10
6 35 (5.21%) Windows Server 2019
7 32 (4.76%) Unix
8 30 (4.46%) Windows Server 2016
9 28 (4.17%) CentOS
10 23 (3.42%) Windows Server 2012
11 19 (2.83%) Windows Server 2003
12 14 (2.08%) VMS
13 12 (1.79%) Android
14 11 (1.64%) Mac OS
14 11 (1.64%) Solaris
15 10 (1.49%) Windows 7
16 9 (1.34%) Apple iOS
17 7 (1.04%) Rocky
18 6 (0.89%) Ubuntu
19 5 (0.74%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (19.79%) DevOps
2 132 (19.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 118 (17.56%) Infrastructure as Code
4 105 (15.63%) Agile
5 100 (14.88%) Problem-Solving
6 95 (14.14%) Migration
7 84 (12.50%) CI/CD
8 78 (11.61%) ITIL
9 61 (9.08%) High Availability
10 56 (8.33%) Containerisation
11 50 (7.44%) Cybersecurity
12 39 (5.80%) Continuous Integration
12 39 (5.80%) ITSM
13 37 (5.51%) Patch Management
14 35 (5.21%) Load Balancing
14 35 (5.21%) Test Automation
15 33 (4.91%) Configuration Management
16 32 (4.76%) Customer Service
16 32 (4.76%) Observability
17 31 (4.61%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 154 (22.92%) Python
2 147 (21.88%) PowerShell
3 98 (14.58%) Bash
4 49 (7.29%) Perl
5 37 (5.51%) SQL
6 26 (3.87%) Java
7 25 (3.72%) C#
8 24 (3.57%) Bicep
8 24 (3.57%) Shell Script
9 19 (2.83%) Go
10 18 (2.68%) PL/SQL
11 12 (1.79%) JavaScript
11 12 (1.79%) VBScript
12 10 (1.49%) VB
13 7 (1.04%) Kusto Query Language
13 7 (1.04%) PHP
14 4 (0.60%) C
14 4 (0.60%) C++
15 3 (0.45%) Groovy
16 2 (0.30%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 245 (36.46%) Security Cleared
2 181 (26.93%) SC Cleared
3 85 (12.65%) Cisco Certification
4 69 (10.27%) Degree
5 59 (8.78%) DV Cleared
6 53 (7.89%) CCNP
7 35 (5.21%) AWS Certification
7 35 (5.21%) CCNA
8 17 (2.53%) Computer Science Degree
9 16 (2.38%) Microsoft Certification
10 15 (2.23%) Azure Certification
11 9 (1.34%) A+ Certification
11 9 (1.34%) CISSP
11 9 (1.34%) MCSE
12 7 (1.04%) CCIE
12 7 (1.04%) MCSA
13 6 (0.89%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 6 (0.89%) CCSA
14 5 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (3.87%) SLA
2 23 (3.42%) NCSC
3 15 (2.23%) GDPR
4 13 (1.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 11 (1.64%) NIST
6 10 (1.49%) QA
7 6 (0.89%) PCI DSS
8 4 (0.60%) GRC
9 3 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.45%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 2 (0.30%) DICOM
10 2 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.30%) HL7
10 2 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 2 (0.30%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.15%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.15%) Data Quality
11 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 273 (40.63%) Active Directory
2 122 (18.15%) VMware Infrastructure
3 68 (10.12%) Docker
4 62 (9.23%) Hyper-V
5 51 (7.59%) VMware ESXi
6 34 (5.06%) vSphere
7 23 (3.42%) Virtual Machines
8 17 (2.53%) BitLocker
9 15 (2.23%) Microsoft App-V
9 15 (2.23%) NFS
10 14 (2.08%) Virtual Servers
11 12 (1.79%) VMware NSX
12 10 (1.49%) Terminal Services
13 8 (1.19%) Samba
13 8 (1.19%) Virtual Desktop
14 7 (1.04%) Firmware
14 7 (1.04%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 7 (1.04%) XenApp
15 6 (0.89%) DFS Replication
15 6 (0.89%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 146 (21.73%) Terraform
2 116 (17.26%) Ansible
3 95 (14.14%) Kubernetes
4 68 (10.12%) Microsoft Intune
5 59 (8.78%) SCCM
6 50 (7.44%) Puppet
7 46 (6.85%) WSUS
8 39 (5.80%) Grafana
9 37 (5.51%) vCenter Server
10 36 (5.36%) Prometheus
11 23 (3.42%) Progress Chef
12 19 (2.83%) Istio
12 19 (2.83%) ZABBIX
13 16 (2.38%) Jamf Pro
13 16 (2.38%) Packer
14 15 (2.23%) Microsoft Clustering
14 15 (2.23%) Rancher
14 15 (2.23%) vMotion
15 14 (2.08%) Consul
15 14 (2.08%) linkerd
Vendors
1 231 (34.38%) Microsoft
2 185 (27.53%) VMware
3 156 (23.21%) Cisco
4 68 (10.12%) CheckPoint
5 63 (9.38%) Palo Alto
6 60 (8.93%) Red Hat
7 52 (7.74%) F5
8 39 (5.80%) Infoblox
9 38 (5.65%) Splunk
10 37 (5.51%) Fortinet
10 37 (5.51%) SolarWinds
11 33 (4.91%) Google
12 32 (4.76%) ServiceNow
13 31 (4.61%) HP
13 31 (4.61%) Oracle
14 28 (4.17%) Citrix
15 27 (4.02%) Juniper
16 19 (2.83%) Apple
16 19 (2.83%) Symantec
17 17 (2.53%) Dell