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 23 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 118 151
Rank change year-on-year -19 +33 -20
Contract jobs citing DNS 922 669 677
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.90% 2.34% 1.60%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.75% 18.47% 12.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 571 478 460
10th Percentile £281 £296 £213
25th Percentile £400 £407 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £550 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +15.79% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £588
90th Percentile £639 £679 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £545 £500
% change year-on-year -11.93% +9.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 9 24
10th Percentile £20.37 £26.10 £18.95
25th Percentile £25.79 £45.75 £23.66
Median hourly rate £36.36 £80.68 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -54.93% +101.69% -23.27%
75th Percentile £74.00 £81.35 -
90th Percentile £74.33 £82.48 £57.57
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.96 £81.01 £40.00
% change year-on-year -51.91% +102.53% -13.24%

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 4,669 3,622 5,376
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.61% 12.66% 12.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,871 2,249 3,212
10th Percentile £263 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% - -5.34%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 151 415
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £32.50 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% -6.25% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.22 £58.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.78 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.02 £28.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year +39.36% -38.97% +154.89%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 23 May 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 -25 807 £495 -10.00% 314
UK excluding London -9 591 £480 -11.93% 283
London -47 256 £500 -4.76% 68
North of England +5 227 £446 -6.21% 63
Work from Home -27 199 £538 +0.09% 117
South East -14 162 £525 -4.55% 96
North West +39 153 £446 +4.82% 37
Midlands +6 109 £406 -25.12% 39
West Midlands +13 96 £400 - 23
Yorkshire -35 68 £447 -18.77% 20
South West -29 58 £500 -15.79% 39
Scotland +39 51 £550 +22.22% 11
East of England -45 41 £450 -18.18% 30
East Midlands -31 12 £394 -30.62% 16
North East -32 6 £306 -12.50% 9
Wales -18 5 £300 -33.33% 9

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 87 (9.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 50 (5.42%) SharePoint
3 19 (2.06%) Confluence
4 16 (1.74%) nginx
5 14 (1.52%) IIS
6 12 (1.30%) Apache
7 7 (0.76%) Tomcat
8 5 (0.54%) WebSphere
9 4 (0.43%) Skype for Business
10 2 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2010
10 2 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2013
10 2 (0.22%) IBM HTTP Server
10 2 (0.22%) Oracle HTTP Server
10 2 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
10 2 (0.22%) WebSphere Portal
11 1 (0.11%) Traefik
Applications
1 17 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.30%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.22%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.11%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 316 (34.27%) Azure
2 167 (18.11%) AWS
3 143 (15.51%) Entra ID
4 127 (13.77%) Microsoft 365
5 100 (10.85%) GCP
6 71 (7.70%) GitHub
7 56 (6.07%) IaaS
8 43 (4.66%) PaaS
9 39 (4.23%) SaaS
10 34 (3.69%) AWS CloudFormation
10 34 (3.69%) Serverless
11 33 (3.58%) Amazon EC2
11 33 (3.58%) GitHub Actions
11 33 (3.58%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 32 (3.47%) Amazon S3
13 31 (3.36%) AWS Lambda
14 29 (3.15%) Amazon EKS
14 29 (3.15%) OneDrive
15 28 (3.04%) Route 53
16 25 (2.71%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 393 (42.62%) DHCP
2 278 (30.15%) Firewall
3 228 (24.73%) TCP/IP
4 224 (24.30%) VPN
5 118 (12.80%) WAN
6 110 (11.93%) LAN
7 102 (11.06%) SSL
8 96 (10.41%) Network Security
9 91 (9.87%) BIG-IP
10 87 (9.44%) VLAN
11 85 (9.22%) HTTP
12 81 (8.79%) BGP
13 57 (6.18%) Wi-Fi
14 51 (5.53%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 49 (5.31%) Wireless
16 45 (4.88%) OSPF
16 45 (4.88%) SAN
17 41 (4.45%) Kerberos
18 39 (4.23%) Wireshark
19 38 (4.12%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (3.69%) SQL Server
2 21 (2.28%) Elasticsearch
3 17 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
4 9 (0.98%) MongoDB
5 8 (0.87%) Power BI
6 6 (0.65%) MySQL
7 5 (0.54%) Amazon Aurora
7 5 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (0.54%) DynamoDB
8 4 (0.43%) DocumentDB
8 4 (0.43%) MariaDB
8 4 (0.43%) NoSQL
8 4 (0.43%) Redis
9 3 (0.33%) Data Hub
10 2 (0.22%) SQLPlus
11 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
11 1 (0.11%) Relational Database
11 1 (0.11%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.11%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 58 (6.29%) Jenkins
1 58 (6.29%) JIRA
2 36 (3.90%) Git
3 31 (3.36%) GitLab
4 27 (2.93%) Fiddler
5 9 (0.98%) Browser DevTools
6 7 (0.76%) Bitbucket
6 7 (0.76%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.65%) Chocolatey
8 4 (0.43%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.43%) 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%) Spinnaker
11 1 (0.11%) Travis CI
General
1 199 (21.58%) Social Skills
2 88 (9.54%) Analytical Skills
3 72 (7.81%) Banking
3 72 (7.81%) Finance
4 61 (6.62%) Public Sector
5 44 (4.77%) Documentation Skills
6 37 (4.01%) Investment Banking
7 27 (2.93%) Legal
8 18 (1.95%) Military
9 17 (1.84%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (0.98%) Law
12 7 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.54%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.54%) Local Government
13 5 (0.54%) Police
14 4 (0.43%) Italian Language
14 4 (0.43%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.33%) Advertising
15 3 (0.33%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 165 (17.90%) Network Engineer
2 118 (12.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 114 (12.36%) Architect
4 84 (9.11%) Analyst
5 68 (7.38%) Senior
6 67 (7.27%) Security Engineer
7 53 (5.75%) Support Engineer
8 50 (5.42%) Web Engineer
9 43 (4.66%) IT Support
9 43 (4.66%) Network Security Engineer
10 38 (4.12%) Cloud Engineer
11 37 (4.01%) IT Engineer
12 36 (3.90%) Lead
13 34 (3.69%) Cisco Engineer
13 34 (3.69%) Cisco Network Engineer
14 33 (3.58%) Administrator
14 33 (3.58%) Data Engineer
14 33 (3.58%) Data Network Engineer
15 32 (3.47%) Cisco Security Engineer
16 30 (3.25%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (7.70%) LDAP
2 51 (5.53%) SAML
3 42 (4.56%) OAuth
4 36 (3.90%) 802.1X
5 30 (3.25%) OpenID
6 20 (2.17%) OpenTelemetry
7 14 (1.52%) JSON
8 12 (1.30%) ARM Templates
9 10 (1.08%) Elastic Stack
9 10 (1.08%) REST
10 9 (0.98%) Kafka
10 9 (0.98%) OAuth2
11 5 (0.54%) Microsoft Graph
11 5 (0.54%) XMPP
12 4 (0.43%) AWS CDK
12 4 (0.43%) gRPC
12 4 (0.43%) JPA
12 4 (0.43%) RESTful
12 4 (0.43%) Spring Boot
12 4 (0.43%) Spring Cloud
Miscellaneous
1 91 (9.87%) Data Centre
2 65 (7.05%) PKI
3 51 (5.53%) Cloud Native
4 43 (4.66%) Onboarding
5 42 (4.56%) Management Information System
6 40 (4.34%) Replication
7 39 (4.23%) Clustering
8 35 (3.80%) Public Cloud
9 29 (3.15%) Hybrid Cloud
9 29 (3.15%) Security Operations Centre
10 27 (2.93%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 26 (2.82%) Cyberattack
12 19 (2.06%) Cyber Threat
12 19 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
13 15 (1.63%) Enterprise Cloud
14 14 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
15 13 (1.41%) Security Posture
16 12 (1.30%) Enterprise Storage
16 12 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
16 12 (1.30%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 388 (42.08%) Windows
2 216 (23.43%) Windows Server
3 134 (14.53%) Linux
4 43 (4.66%) Windows 10
5 39 (4.23%) Windows Server 2019
6 26 (2.82%) Mac OS
7 24 (2.60%) Unix
8 23 (2.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 18 (1.95%) Windows Server 2012
10 17 (1.84%) Apple iOS
11 16 (1.74%) Android
12 15 (1.63%) Windows Server 2016
13 10 (1.08%) VMS
14 8 (0.87%) Windows Server 2003
15 7 (0.76%) CentOS
15 7 (0.76%) Ubuntu
15 7 (0.76%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.43%) CatOS
17 3 (0.33%) Windows Server 2008
18 2 (0.22%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 192 (20.82%) Problem-Solving
2 171 (18.55%) Load Balancing
3 148 (16.05%) Migration
4 147 (15.94%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 141 (15.29%) High Availability
6 127 (13.77%) DevOps
7 123 (13.34%) ITIL
8 116 (12.58%) CI/CD
8 116 (12.58%) Infrastructure as Code
9 85 (9.22%) Cybersecurity
9 85 (9.22%) Disaster Recovery
9 85 (9.22%) ITSM
10 80 (8.68%) Observability
11 75 (8.13%) Identity Access Management
12 68 (7.38%) Agile
13 65 (7.05%) Change Management
14 63 (6.83%) SIEM
15 62 (6.72%) Project Delivery
16 60 (6.51%) Incident Response
16 60 (6.51%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 180 (19.52%) PowerShell
2 140 (15.18%) Python
3 83 (9.00%) Bash
4 51 (5.53%) SQL
5 24 (2.60%) Bicep
6 22 (2.39%) JavaScript
7 15 (1.63%) Java
8 12 (1.30%) Go
9 11 (1.19%) Ruby
9 11 (1.19%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.76%) VBA
11 6 (0.65%) Perl
11 6 (0.65%) VBScript
12 4 (0.43%) ActionScript
12 4 (0.43%) Groovy
12 4 (0.43%) VB
13 3 (0.33%) C
14 2 (0.22%) Jython
14 2 (0.22%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.11%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 306 (33.19%) Security Cleared
2 205 (22.23%) SC Cleared
3 106 (11.50%) DV Cleared
4 81 (8.79%) Cisco Certification
5 66 (7.16%) Degree
6 50 (5.42%) CCNP
7 42 (4.56%) CCNA
8 32 (3.47%) CompTIA Security+
9 29 (3.15%) Microsoft Certification
10 26 (2.82%) Azure Certification
10 26 (2.82%) Network+ Certification
11 21 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
12 17 (1.84%) CompTIA CySA+
13 15 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
13 15 (1.63%) Server+ Certification
14 12 (1.30%) AWS Certification
15 11 (1.19%) CISSP
16 10 (1.08%) JNCIA
16 10 (1.08%) JNCIS
17 8 (0.87%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (3.47%) SLA
2 25 (2.71%) NIST
3 23 (2.49%) GDPR
4 21 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 16 (1.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 8 (0.87%) QA
7 7 (0.76%) NCSC
8 5 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
9 4 (0.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 4 (0.43%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.22%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.22%) Data Quality
10 2 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.22%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.22%) PMO
11 1 (0.11%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.11%) COBIT
11 1 (0.11%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.11%) RMADS
11 1 (0.11%) SOC 2
System Software
1 361 (39.15%) Active Directory
2 201 (21.80%) VMware Infrastructure
3 94 (10.20%) Hyper-V
4 55 (5.97%) VMware NSX
5 52 (5.64%) vSphere
6 44 (4.77%) Docker
7 37 (4.01%) Virtual Machines
8 35 (3.80%) VMware ESXi
9 25 (2.71%) Firmware
10 22 (2.39%) Virtual Desktop
11 14 (1.52%) BitLocker
11 14 (1.52%) Squid
12 13 (1.41%) NFS
13 10 (1.08%) Microsoft App-V
14 8 (0.87%) Postfix
14 8 (0.87%) vCloud
14 8 (0.87%) VMware Workstation
15 7 (0.76%) Varnish
16 5 (0.54%) Ceph
16 5 (0.54%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 145 (15.73%) Terraform
2 116 (12.58%) Ansible
3 95 (10.30%) Kubernetes
4 78 (8.46%) Microsoft Intune
5 72 (7.81%) Single Sign-On
6 51 (5.53%) FortiGate
7 49 (5.31%) SCCM
8 48 (5.21%) Grafana
9 43 (4.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 43 (4.66%) vCenter Server
10 31 (3.36%) Prometheus
11 29 (3.15%) WSUS
12 22 (2.39%) Argo
13 17 (1.84%) SCOM
14 12 (1.30%) HAProxy
14 12 (1.30%) Puppet
15 11 (1.19%) Nessus
16 9 (0.98%) vMotion
17 8 (0.87%) Consul
17 8 (0.87%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 281 (30.48%) Microsoft
2 242 (26.25%) VMware
3 159 (17.25%) Cisco
4 153 (16.59%) F5
5 85 (9.22%) Splunk
6 84 (9.11%) ServiceNow
7 54 (5.86%) Citrix
8 53 (5.75%) Infoblox
9 47 (5.10%) SolarWinds
10 44 (4.77%) Google
10 44 (4.77%) Juniper
11 40 (4.34%) Red Hat
12 36 (3.90%) Blue Coat
13 33 (3.58%) Palo Alto
14 32 (3.47%) NetApp
15 30 (3.25%) McAfee
16 27 (2.93%) Dynatrace
17 24 (2.60%) CheckPoint
18 22 (2.39%) Extreme Networks
18 22 (2.39%) Okta