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 25 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 130 164
Rank change year-on-year -15 +34 -24
Contract jobs citing DNS 1,013 721 622
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.91% 2.20% 1.53%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 20.26% 18.12% 12.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 624 481 425
10th Percentile £281 £263 £241
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +10.53% -6.45%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £575
90th Percentile £638 £653 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 31 17
10th Percentile £20.95 £29.00 £19.40
25th Percentile £26.66 £34.38 £23.80
Median hourly rate £37.50 £57.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.78% +130.00% -40.30%
75th Percentile £74.00 £82.55 £40.00
90th Percentile £90.53 £89.63 £59.64
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.71 £65.00 £43.75
% change year-on-year -34.30% +48.57% +9.38%

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 4,999 3,980 5,014
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.44% 12.16% 12.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,010 2,434 3,023
10th Percentile £250 £235 £215
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £607
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 333 194 360
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £14.14
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.44 £48.75 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.76% +8.33% -10.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £83.70 £73.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £44.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -39.41% -12.00% -12.79%

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 25 July 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 25 July 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 25 July 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 -11 911 £500 -4.76% 324
UK excluding London -9 635 £500 -4.76% 259
London -32 308 £475 -6.86% 118
North of England +15 234 £450 -10.00% 49
Work from Home -31 232 £510 -2.86% 113
South East +7 197 £538 -2.27% 89
North West +26 152 £450 -3.23% 27
Midlands -11 111 £450 -5.26% 36
West Midlands -17 92 £450 -5.26% 23
South West 0 78 £500 -13.04% 43
Yorkshire -20 75 £475 -13.64% 20
Scotland +11 39 £550 +22.22% 15
East of England -53 31 £450 -18.18% 34
East Midlands -7 17 £413 -25.00% 13
Wales -12 9 £500 +13.70% 4
North East -44 7 £319 -7.61% 6

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 97 (9.58%) Microsoft Exchange
2 78 (7.70%) SharePoint
3 21 (2.07%) Confluence
4 17 (1.68%) Apache
5 15 (1.48%) IIS
6 14 (1.38%) nginx
7 9 (0.89%) Tomcat
8 5 (0.49%) WebSphere
9 4 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2010
10 2 (0.20%) IBM HTTP Server
10 2 (0.20%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Application Server
10 2 (0.20%) WebSphere Portal
11 1 (0.099%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.099%) Traefik
Applications
1 18 (1.78%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.09%) MS Visio
3 5 (0.49%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.20%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.20%) Houdini
5 2 (0.20%) NUKE
6 1 (0.099%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 10 (0.99%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.099%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 381 (37.61%) Azure
2 194 (19.15%) AWS
3 168 (16.58%) Entra ID
4 163 (16.09%) Microsoft 365
5 109 (10.76%) GCP
6 74 (7.31%) GitHub
7 58 (5.73%) IaaS
8 51 (5.03%) OneDrive
9 43 (4.24%) PaaS
10 42 (4.15%) SaaS
11 40 (3.95%) Azure DevOps
12 37 (3.65%) Azure Monitor
13 31 (3.06%) OpenShift
14 28 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (2.67%) AWS CloudFormation
16 26 (2.57%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 26 (2.57%) Serverless
17 24 (2.37%) Akamai
17 24 (2.37%) Amazon EC2
18 23 (2.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 456 (45.01%) DHCP
2 355 (35.04%) Firewall
3 284 (28.04%) TCP/IP
4 270 (26.65%) VPN
5 137 (13.52%) WAN
6 123 (12.14%) Network Security
7 120 (11.85%) VLAN
8 118 (11.65%) LAN
9 105 (10.37%) SSL
10 101 (9.97%) BGP
11 84 (8.29%) BIG-IP
12 75 (7.40%) HTTP
13 68 (6.71%) Wi-Fi
14 67 (6.61%) Wireless
15 62 (6.12%) SAN
16 57 (5.63%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 57 (5.63%) OSPF
17 42 (4.15%) DMZ
18 41 (4.05%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
19 36 (3.55%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (4.74%) SQL Server
2 15 (1.48%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (1.28%) Elasticsearch
4 12 (1.18%) Azure SQL Database
5 11 (1.09%) Power BI
6 8 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
7 6 (0.59%) Data Lake
7 6 (0.59%) MongoDB
7 6 (0.59%) MySQL
8 4 (0.39%) Db2
8 4 (0.39%) MariaDB
9 3 (0.30%) Big Data
10 2 (0.20%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.20%) SQLPlus
11 1 (0.099%) Cloud Spanner
11 1 (0.099%) DynamoDB
11 1 (0.099%) KDB
11 1 (0.099%) Redis
11 1 (0.099%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.099%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 75 (7.40%) JIRA
2 57 (5.63%) Jenkins
3 39 (3.85%) Git
4 22 (2.17%) GitLab
5 19 (1.88%) Fiddler
6 10 (0.99%) Bitbucket
6 10 (0.99%) Browser DevTools
7 8 (0.79%) Chocolatey
8 4 (0.39%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 4 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.20%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.20%) Introscope
9 2 (0.20%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.20%) Spinnaker
10 1 (0.099%) MSI
10 1 (0.099%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.099%) Visual Studio
General
1 244 (24.09%) Social Skills
2 106 (10.46%) Analytical Skills
3 92 (9.08%) Finance
4 80 (7.90%) Public Sector
5 71 (7.01%) Banking
6 54 (5.33%) Documentation Skills
7 34 (3.36%) Investment Banking
8 28 (2.76%) Telecoms
9 22 (2.17%) Military
10 21 (2.07%) Legal
11 13 (1.28%) Organisational Skills
12 11 (1.09%) Local Government
13 10 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 10 (0.99%) Police
14 6 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
14 6 (0.59%) Publishing
15 5 (0.49%) Law
15 5 (0.49%) Manufacturing
16 4 (0.39%) Italian Language
16 4 (0.39%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 186 (18.36%) Network Engineer
2 168 (16.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 106 (10.46%) Senior
4 101 (9.97%) Architect
5 92 (9.08%) Support Engineer
6 73 (7.21%) Cloud Engineer
7 63 (6.22%) Security Engineer
8 57 (5.63%) Analyst
9 51 (5.03%) IT Support
10 50 (4.94%) IT Engineer
11 42 (4.15%) Azure Engineer
11 42 (4.15%) Network Security Engineer
12 41 (4.05%) Web Engineer
13 40 (3.95%) DevOps Engineer
14 38 (3.75%) Administrator
14 38 (3.75%) Cisco Engineer
15 36 (3.55%) Cisco Network Engineer
16 33 (3.26%) IT Support Engineer
16 33 (3.26%) Platform Engineer
17 32 (3.16%) Data Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (5.03%) 802.1X
2 37 (3.65%) SAML
3 34 (3.36%) LDAP
4 24 (2.37%) ARM Templates
4 24 (2.37%) OpenID
5 23 (2.27%) OAuth
6 20 (1.97%) OpenTelemetry
7 18 (1.78%) JSON
8 10 (0.99%) REST
8 10 (0.99%) YAML
9 8 (0.79%) Kafka
10 7 (0.69%) Middleware
11 6 (0.59%) OAuth2
12 5 (0.49%) CSS
12 5 (0.49%) Microsoft Graph
13 4 (0.39%) .NET
13 4 (0.39%) eBPF
13 4 (0.39%) React
13 4 (0.39%) Web Services
14 3 (0.30%) LAMP
Miscellaneous
1 130 (12.83%) Data Centre
2 105 (10.37%) PKI
3 61 (6.02%) Onboarding
4 60 (5.92%) Cloud Native
4 60 (5.92%) Hybrid Cloud
5 46 (4.54%) Management Information System
6 44 (4.34%) Clustering
7 43 (4.24%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 31 (3.06%) Public Cloud
9 28 (2.76%) Self-Motivation
10 27 (2.67%) Replication
11 19 (1.88%) Enterprise Cloud
11 19 (1.88%) Security Posture
12 14 (1.38%) Cyber Threat
12 14 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
12 14 (1.38%) Linux Command Line
13 13 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
13 13 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
14 11 (1.09%) Product Ownership
15 10 (0.99%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 446 (44.03%) Windows
2 231 (22.80%) Windows Server
3 184 (18.16%) Linux
4 48 (4.74%) Windows 10
5 45 (4.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 37 (3.65%) Windows Server 2019
7 35 (3.46%) Mac OS
8 27 (2.67%) Unix
9 19 (1.88%) Windows Server 2012
10 18 (1.78%) Ubuntu
11 17 (1.68%) Apple iOS
12 16 (1.58%) Android
13 15 (1.48%) CentOS
13 15 (1.48%) VMS
14 13 (1.28%) Windows Server 2016
15 7 (0.69%) Rocky
16 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2003
17 3 (0.30%) AIX
17 3 (0.30%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 225 (22.21%) Problem-Solving
2 221 (21.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 180 (17.77%) Load Balancing
4 175 (17.28%) ITIL
5 169 (16.68%) Migration
6 156 (15.40%) Infrastructure as Code
7 153 (15.10%) DevOps
8 147 (14.51%) CI/CD
9 143 (14.12%) High Availability
10 112 (11.06%) ITSM
11 98 (9.67%) Observability
12 89 (8.79%) Project Delivery
13 83 (8.19%) Agile
13 83 (8.19%) Continuous Improvement
13 83 (8.19%) Cybersecurity
14 79 (7.80%) Disaster Recovery
15 77 (7.60%) Identity Access Management
16 69 (6.81%) Containerisation
17 64 (6.32%) Platform Engineering
17 64 (6.32%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 214 (21.13%) PowerShell
2 192 (18.95%) Python
3 136 (13.43%) Bash
4 54 (5.33%) SQL
5 40 (3.95%) Bicep
6 24 (2.37%) JavaScript
7 12 (1.18%) Go
8 10 (0.99%) ActionScript
8 10 (0.99%) Shell Script
9 9 (0.89%) Java
9 9 (0.89%) VBA
10 8 (0.79%) Perl
11 5 (0.49%) C
11 5 (0.49%) Groovy
11 5 (0.49%) Ruby
12 4 (0.39%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
13 3 (0.30%) Lisp
14 2 (0.20%) Jython
14 2 (0.20%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 359 (35.44%) Security Cleared
2 209 (20.63%) SC Cleared
3 145 (14.31%) DV Cleared
4 107 (10.56%) Cisco Certification
5 76 (7.50%) Degree
6 75 (7.40%) CCNP
7 53 (5.23%) CCNA
8 46 (4.54%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.75%) Azure Certification
10 31 (3.06%) Network+ Certification
11 18 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
11 18 (1.78%) CCIE
12 17 (1.68%) MCSE
12 17 (1.68%) Server+ Certification
13 16 (1.58%) CISSP
13 16 (1.58%) CompTIA Security+
14 13 (1.28%) AWS Certification
15 12 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
15 12 (1.18%) MCSA
16 11 (1.09%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (3.55%) SLA
2 29 (2.86%) NIST
3 17 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (1.48%) NCSC
5 8 (0.79%) GDPR
5 8 (0.79%) QA
6 5 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
6 5 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
6 5 (0.49%) NIST 800
7 4 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 3 (0.30%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.20%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.099%) COBIT
10 1 (0.099%) Data Quality
10 1 (0.099%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 413 (40.77%) Active Directory
2 231 (22.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 107 (10.56%) Hyper-V
4 69 (6.81%) vSphere
5 66 (6.52%) VMware NSX
6 65 (6.42%) VMware ESXi
7 44 (4.34%) Docker
7 44 (4.34%) Virtual Machines
8 39 (3.85%) Virtual Desktop
9 25 (2.47%) Firmware
10 22 (2.17%) NFS
11 13 (1.28%) vCloud
12 10 (0.99%) BitLocker
12 10 (0.99%) Microsoft App-V
12 10 (0.99%) Squid
13 9 (0.89%) Postfix
14 8 (0.79%) VMware Workstation
15 6 (0.59%) Varnish
16 5 (0.49%) UAG
16 5 (0.49%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 194 (19.15%) Terraform
2 146 (14.41%) Ansible
3 115 (11.35%) Kubernetes
4 94 (9.28%) Microsoft Intune
5 63 (6.22%) vCenter Server
6 55 (5.43%) Single Sign-On
7 54 (5.33%) Grafana
7 54 (5.33%) SCCM
8 46 (4.54%) FortiGate
9 39 (3.85%) Prometheus
10 27 (2.67%) Argo
10 27 (2.67%) WSUS
11 26 (2.57%) SCOM
12 15 (1.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (1.48%) Puppet
13 14 (1.38%) Nessus
14 13 (1.28%) Jamf Pro
15 11 (1.09%) vMotion
16 10 (0.99%) Packer
16 10 (0.99%) VxRail
Vendors
1 338 (33.37%) Microsoft
2 282 (27.84%) VMware
3 192 (18.95%) Cisco
4 152 (15.00%) F5
5 91 (8.98%) ServiceNow
6 77 (7.60%) Splunk
7 67 (6.61%) Infoblox
8 65 (6.42%) Google
9 63 (6.22%) Citrix
9 63 (6.22%) SolarWinds
10 56 (5.53%) Juniper
11 50 (4.94%) Red Hat
12 45 (4.44%) Palo Alto
13 36 (3.55%) NetApp
14 33 (3.26%) Dynatrace
15 29 (2.86%) Blue Coat
15 29 (2.86%) Zscaler
16 26 (2.57%) Fortinet
17 25 (2.47%) CheckPoint
18 24 (2.37%) McAfee