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 10 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 138 122 159
Rank change year-on-year -16 +37 -19
Contract jobs citing DNS 945 666 663
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.91% 2.27% 1.52%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.91% 18.14% 12.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 581 474 448
10th Percentile £300 £269 £213
25th Percentile £400 £407 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £475
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +15.79% -9.52%
75th Percentile £581 £613 £588
90th Percentile £638 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -12.45% +10.00% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 14 25
10th Percentile £18.08 - £19.10
25th Percentile £22.23 £29.00 £23.80
Median hourly rate £32.50 £56.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.96% +40.00% -23.27%
75th Percentile £67.43 £81.27 -
90th Percentile £74.08 £81.88 £50.64
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £61.09 £40.00
% change year-on-year -46.80% +52.72% -16.56%

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 4,747 3,671 5,438
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.59% 12.50% 12.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,911 2,271 3,228
10th Percentile £263 £220 £206
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £498
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -2.51% -2.93%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £469 £483
% change year-on-year +1.28% -2.95% +1.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 165 420
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.82 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £27.50 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.50% +10.00% +113.73%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.13 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.61 £70.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £31.79 £47.50
% change year-on-year +2.23% -33.07% +156.76%

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 10 June 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 10 June 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 10 June 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 -18 832 £495 -10.00% 294
UK excluding London 0 604 £482 -12.45% 269
London -44 270 £500 - 66
North of England +12 236 £447 -10.60% 56
Work from Home -24 208 £525 -3.23% 131
South East -1 170 £525 -4.55% 92
North West +40 155 £450 -1.64% 39
Midlands +2 111 £444 -6.58% 34
West Midlands +10 98 £450 -5.26% 22
Yorkshire -23 75 £447 -18.73% 13
South West -21 60 £500 -18.70% 39
Scotland +27 50 £550 +22.22% 9
East of England -49 35 £450 -18.18% 33
East Midlands -28 12 £394 -30.62% 12
Wales -18 6 £300 -33.04% 11
North East -29 6 £306 -12.50% 5

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 86 (9.10%) Microsoft Exchange
2 58 (6.14%) SharePoint
3 19 (2.01%) Confluence
4 15 (1.59%) IIS
4 15 (1.59%) nginx
5 14 (1.48%) Apache
6 9 (0.95%) Tomcat
7 5 (0.53%) WebSphere
8 4 (0.42%) Skype for Business
9 2 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2013
9 2 (0.21%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.21%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Portal
10 1 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
10 1 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
10 1 (0.11%) Traefik
Applications
1 19 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.38%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.21%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.11%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 334 (35.34%) Azure
2 173 (18.31%) AWS
3 152 (16.08%) Entra ID
4 132 (13.97%) Microsoft 365
5 101 (10.69%) GCP
6 71 (7.51%) GitHub
7 57 (6.03%) IaaS
8 41 (4.34%) PaaS
9 39 (4.13%) SaaS
10 36 (3.81%) OneDrive
11 30 (3.17%) Serverless
12 29 (3.07%) Amazon EC2
12 29 (3.07%) Amazon S3
12 29 (3.07%) GitHub Actions
12 29 (3.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 26 (2.75%) Amazon EKS
13 26 (2.75%) AWS CloudFormation
13 26 (2.75%) Azure DevOps
13 26 (2.75%) Route 53
14 25 (2.65%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 414 (43.81%) DHCP
2 282 (29.84%) Firewall
3 234 (24.76%) TCP/IP
4 224 (23.70%) VPN
5 128 (13.54%) WAN
6 110 (11.64%) LAN
7 105 (11.11%) SSL
8 96 (10.16%) Network Security
9 94 (9.95%) BIG-IP
10 91 (9.63%) VLAN
11 83 (8.78%) BGP
12 76 (8.04%) HTTP
13 57 (6.03%) Wi-Fi
14 55 (5.82%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 52 (5.50%) Wireless
16 49 (5.19%) SAN
17 44 (4.66%) OSPF
18 42 (4.44%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
19 38 (4.02%) DMZ
19 38 (4.02%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (3.92%) SQL Server
2 19 (2.01%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (1.90%) Elasticsearch
4 11 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
5 9 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
5 9 (0.95%) MongoDB
5 9 (0.95%) Power BI
6 8 (0.85%) MySQL
7 6 (0.63%) NoSQL
8 5 (0.53%) DynamoDB
9 4 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
9 4 (0.42%) DocumentDB
9 4 (0.42%) MariaDB
9 4 (0.42%) Redis
10 3 (0.32%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.21%) Big Data
11 2 (0.21%) SQLPlus
12 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
12 1 (0.11%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 1 (0.11%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 65 (6.88%) JIRA
2 60 (6.35%) Jenkins
3 33 (3.49%) Git
4 27 (2.86%) GitLab
5 25 (2.65%) Fiddler
6 9 (0.95%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (0.74%) Bitbucket
7 7 (0.74%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.63%) Chocolatey
9 3 (0.32%) CircleCI
9 3 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.21%) Introscope
11 1 (0.11%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.11%) Spinnaker
11 1 (0.11%) Terragrunt
General
1 210 (22.22%) Social Skills
2 84 (8.89%) Analytical Skills
3 76 (8.04%) Finance
4 75 (7.94%) Banking
5 62 (6.56%) Public Sector
6 46 (4.87%) Documentation Skills
7 38 (4.02%) Investment Banking
8 27 (2.86%) Legal
9 17 (1.80%) Military
10 14 (1.48%) Telecoms
11 9 (0.95%) Law
11 9 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (0.74%) Local Government
14 5 (0.53%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.53%) Police
14 5 (0.53%) Publishing
15 4 (0.42%) Advertising
15 4 (0.42%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.42%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 170 (17.99%) Network Engineer
2 135 (14.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 114 (12.06%) Architect
4 77 (8.15%) Analyst
5 72 (7.62%) Senior
6 64 (6.77%) Support Engineer
7 63 (6.67%) Security Engineer
8 48 (5.08%) Web Engineer
9 46 (4.87%) Cloud Engineer
9 46 (4.87%) IT Support
10 43 (4.55%) Network Security Engineer
11 37 (3.92%) Cisco Engineer
11 37 (3.92%) IT Engineer
12 35 (3.70%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 34 (3.60%) Administrator
13 34 (3.60%) Data Engineer
13 34 (3.60%) Data Network Engineer
13 34 (3.60%) DevOps Engineer
13 34 (3.60%) Lead
14 33 (3.49%) Cisco Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (6.03%) LDAP
2 51 (5.40%) SAML
3 40 (4.23%) 802.1X
3 40 (4.23%) OAuth
4 31 (3.28%) OpenID
5 20 (2.12%) OpenTelemetry
6 15 (1.59%) JSON
7 13 (1.38%) ARM Templates
8 10 (1.06%) Kafka
8 10 (1.06%) REST
9 9 (0.95%) OAuth2
10 5 (0.53%) Microsoft Graph
10 5 (0.53%) XMPP
11 4 (0.42%) AWS CDK
11 4 (0.42%) CSS
11 4 (0.42%) gRPC
11 4 (0.42%) Hibernate
11 4 (0.42%) Spring
11 4 (0.42%) Spring Cloud
11 4 (0.42%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 102 (10.79%) Data Centre
2 68 (7.20%) PKI
3 58 (6.14%) Cloud Native
4 50 (5.29%) Onboarding
5 39 (4.13%) Replication
6 38 (4.02%) Clustering
7 37 (3.92%) Management Information System
8 36 (3.81%) Hybrid Cloud
8 36 (3.81%) Public Cloud
9 29 (3.07%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 24 (2.54%) Security Operations Centre
11 21 (2.22%) Cyberattack
11 21 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
12 16 (1.69%) Enterprise Cloud
13 14 (1.48%) Cyber Threat
13 14 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
14 13 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
14 13 (1.38%) Security Posture
15 12 (1.27%) Virtual Team
16 11 (1.16%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 403 (42.65%) Windows
2 222 (23.49%) Windows Server
3 145 (15.34%) Linux
4 42 (4.44%) Windows 10
5 40 (4.23%) Windows Server 2019
6 32 (3.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (3.28%) Mac OS
8 27 (2.86%) Unix
9 20 (2.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 19 (2.01%) Apple iOS
11 15 (1.59%) Android
12 13 (1.38%) Windows Server 2016
13 11 (1.16%) VMS
14 10 (1.06%) Ubuntu
15 9 (0.95%) CentOS
16 7 (0.74%) Windows 7
16 7 (0.74%) Windows Server 2003
17 3 (0.32%) AIX
18 2 (0.21%) CatOS
18 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 196 (20.74%) Problem-Solving
2 176 (18.62%) Load Balancing
3 167 (17.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 161 (17.04%) Migration
5 143 (15.13%) High Availability
6 138 (14.60%) DevOps
7 133 (14.07%) ITIL
8 117 (12.38%) Infrastructure as Code
9 116 (12.28%) CI/CD
10 95 (10.05%) ITSM
11 82 (8.68%) Disaster Recovery
12 80 (8.47%) Observability
13 79 (8.36%) Identity Access Management
14 78 (8.25%) Cybersecurity
15 75 (7.94%) Agile
16 68 (7.20%) Project Delivery
17 59 (6.24%) Runbook
18 58 (6.14%) Root Cause Analysis
19 56 (5.93%) RBAC
19 56 (5.93%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 184 (19.47%) PowerShell
2 146 (15.45%) Python
3 93 (9.84%) Bash
4 54 (5.71%) SQL
5 25 (2.65%) JavaScript
6 24 (2.54%) Bicep
7 17 (1.80%) Java
8 12 (1.27%) Go
9 11 (1.16%) Shell Script
10 9 (0.95%) VBA
11 8 (0.85%) ActionScript
12 7 (0.74%) Perl
13 6 (0.63%) VBScript
14 5 (0.53%) Groovy
14 5 (0.53%) Ruby
15 4 (0.42%) C
15 4 (0.42%) VB
16 3 (0.32%) Lisp
17 2 (0.21%) Jython
17 2 (0.21%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 309 (32.70%) Security Cleared
2 195 (20.63%) SC Cleared
3 109 (11.53%) DV Cleared
4 84 (8.89%) Cisco Certification
5 76 (8.04%) Degree
6 53 (5.61%) CCNP
7 46 (4.87%) CCNA
8 32 (3.39%) Microsoft Certification
9 31 (3.28%) CompTIA Security+
10 27 (2.86%) Azure Certification
11 25 (2.65%) Network+ Certification
12 20 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
13 17 (1.80%) CompTIA CySA+
13 17 (1.80%) Server+ Certification
14 16 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
15 11 (1.16%) AWS Certification
15 11 (1.16%) CISSP
15 11 (1.16%) JNCIA
16 10 (1.06%) JNCIS
16 10 (1.06%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (3.60%) SLA
2 28 (2.96%) NIST
3 21 (2.22%) GDPR
4 19 (2.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 14 (1.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 11 (1.16%) QA
7 7 (0.74%) NCSC
8 4 (0.42%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 4 (0.42%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.11%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.11%) COBIT
10 1 (0.11%) Data Quality
10 1 (0.11%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.11%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.11%) PMO
10 1 (0.11%) RMADS
System Software
1 371 (39.26%) Active Directory
2 207 (21.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 96 (10.16%) Hyper-V
4 58 (6.14%) vSphere
5 54 (5.71%) VMware NSX
6 46 (4.87%) VMware ESXi
7 39 (4.13%) Virtual Machines
8 37 (3.92%) Docker
9 32 (3.39%) Virtual Desktop
10 25 (2.65%) Firmware
11 18 (1.90%) NFS
12 15 (1.59%) BitLocker
12 15 (1.59%) Squid
13 11 (1.16%) Microsoft App-V
14 10 (1.06%) Postfix
14 10 (1.06%) vCloud
15 8 (0.85%) VMware Workstation
16 7 (0.74%) Varnish
17 5 (0.53%) Ceph
17 5 (0.53%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 147 (15.56%) Terraform
2 122 (12.91%) Ansible
3 94 (9.95%) Kubernetes
4 76 (8.04%) Microsoft Intune
5 72 (7.62%) Single Sign-On
6 50 (5.29%) FortiGate
6 50 (5.29%) Grafana
7 46 (4.87%) vCenter Server
8 45 (4.76%) SCCM
9 41 (4.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 33 (3.49%) Prometheus
11 23 (2.43%) WSUS
12 22 (2.33%) Argo
13 17 (1.80%) SCOM
14 14 (1.48%) HAProxy
14 14 (1.48%) Puppet
15 12 (1.27%) Jamf Pro
15 12 (1.27%) vMotion
16 11 (1.16%) Nessus
17 8 (0.85%) Consul
Vendors
1 299 (31.64%) Microsoft
2 244 (25.82%) VMware
3 166 (17.57%) Cisco
4 157 (16.61%) F5
5 92 (9.74%) ServiceNow
6 86 (9.10%) Splunk
7 57 (6.03%) Citrix
8 56 (5.93%) Infoblox
9 48 (5.08%) Red Hat
9 48 (5.08%) SolarWinds
10 47 (4.97%) Google
11 44 (4.66%) Juniper
12 33 (3.49%) Blue Coat
12 33 (3.49%) Palo Alto
13 31 (3.28%) NetApp
14 28 (2.96%) Dynatrace
15 27 (2.86%) McAfee
16 24 (2.54%) Okta
17 22 (2.33%) Extreme Networks
18 21 (2.22%) CheckPoint