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 24 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 116 137
Rank change year-on-year -23 +21 -14
Contract jobs citing DNS 883 684 759
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.90% 2.32% 1.74%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.71% 18.23% 13.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 547 493 501
10th Percentile £263 £263 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £475
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% +12.63% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £600
90th Percentile £650 £700 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £525 £507
% change year-on-year -5.71% +3.60% -3.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 12 30
10th Percentile £16.84 - £19.85
25th Percentile £24.18 £23.59 £23.90
Median hourly rate £60.25 £67.59 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.86% +68.97% -23.27%
75th Percentile £74.26 £81.35 £46.56
90th Percentile £75.75 £82.03 £60.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £81.01 £40.00
% change year-on-year -19.77% +102.53% -18.56%

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 4,480 3,752 5,718
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.64% 12.70% 13.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,793 2,321 3,438
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% +0.36% -6.11%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.15% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 211 172 429
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.78
25th Percentile £20.79 £20.64 £17.69
Median hourly rate £42.25 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.67% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.31 £62.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £27.72 £46.39
% change year-on-year +89.39% -40.25% +150.76%

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 24 April 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 24 April 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 24 April 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 -21 774 £500 -8.26% 246
UK excluding London -8 567 £495 -5.71% 221
London -47 249 £500 -4.76% 56
North of England +4 221 £447 -5.89% 58
Work from Home -44 190 £525 -0.94% 96
South East -1 160 £525 -4.55% 71
North West +32 142 £450 +5.88% 27
Midlands +26 111 £390 -29.73% 27
West Midlands +26 97 £380 -23.43% 15
Yorkshire -26 76 £447 -18.82% 22
Scotland +45 48 £550 +22.22% 6
South West -54 44 £575 +4.55% 32
East of England -33 42 £450 -14.29% 27
East Midlands -34 13 £394 -30.62% 12
North East -22 6 £306 -9.93% 10
Wales -20 4 £550 +22.22% 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 99 (11.21%) Microsoft Exchange
2 43 (4.87%) SharePoint
3 15 (1.70%) nginx
4 13 (1.47%) Confluence
5 12 (1.36%) IIS
6 10 (1.13%) Apache
6 10 (1.13%) Skype for Business
7 4 (0.45%) Exchange Server 2010
7 4 (0.45%) WebSphere
8 3 (0.34%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
9 2 (0.23%) IBM HTTP Server
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.23%) WebSphere Application Server
9 2 (0.23%) WebSphere Portal
9 2 (0.23%) WordPress
10 1 (0.11%) Traefik
Applications
1 28 (3.17%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.47%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.23%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.11%) Cloudability
1 1 (0.11%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 297 (33.64%) Azure
2 151 (17.10%) Entra ID
3 150 (16.99%) AWS
4 138 (15.63%) Microsoft 365
5 91 (10.31%) GCP
6 61 (6.91%) GitHub
7 53 (6.00%) IaaS
8 43 (4.87%) SaaS
9 41 (4.64%) PaaS
10 38 (4.30%) Serverless
11 36 (4.08%) AWS CloudFormation
12 34 (3.85%) Amazon S3
13 33 (3.74%) AWS Lambda
13 33 (3.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 32 (3.62%) Amazon EC2
15 31 (3.51%) Route 53
16 26 (2.94%) Amazon EKS
17 24 (2.72%) OpenShift
18 22 (2.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 22 (2.49%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 386 (43.71%) DHCP
2 277 (31.37%) Firewall
3 228 (25.82%) TCP/IP
4 208 (23.56%) VPN
5 120 (13.59%) WAN
6 113 (12.80%) LAN
7 90 (10.19%) SSL
8 86 (9.74%) Network Security
9 83 (9.40%) BIG-IP
10 81 (9.17%) VLAN
11 79 (8.95%) BGP
12 78 (8.83%) HTTP
13 63 (7.13%) Wi-Fi
14 50 (5.66%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 46 (5.21%) OSPF
16 40 (4.53%) Kerberos
17 39 (4.42%) Wireless
17 39 (4.42%) Wireshark
18 37 (4.19%) DMZ
19 36 (4.08%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (3.28%) SQL Server
2 21 (2.38%) Elasticsearch
3 18 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (0.91%) MongoDB
6 7 (0.79%) DynamoDB
7 6 (0.68%) Data Hub
8 5 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
8 5 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (0.57%) MySQL
8 5 (0.57%) Redis
9 4 (0.45%) DocumentDB
9 4 (0.45%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.45%) Power BI
9 4 (0.45%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.34%) MariaDB
11 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
11 1 (0.11%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.11%) SQLPlus
11 1 (0.11%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 52 (5.89%) Jenkins
2 46 (5.21%) JIRA
3 29 (3.28%) GitLab
4 28 (3.17%) Fiddler
4 28 (3.17%) Git
5 9 (1.02%) Browser DevTools
6 7 (0.79%) Bitbucket
6 7 (0.79%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.68%) Chocolatey
8 4 (0.45%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.45%) Terragrunt
9 3 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.23%) Introscope
11 1 (0.11%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.11%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.11%) Subversion
11 1 (0.11%) Travis CI
General
1 199 (22.54%) Social Skills
2 90 (10.19%) Analytical Skills
3 73 (8.27%) Banking
4 67 (7.59%) Finance
5 63 (7.13%) Public Sector
6 45 (5.10%) Documentation Skills
7 40 (4.53%) Investment Banking
8 30 (3.40%) Legal
9 23 (2.60%) Telecoms
10 18 (2.04%) Military
11 10 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (0.91%) Law
13 7 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.68%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.57%) Local Government
16 4 (0.45%) Aerospace
16 4 (0.45%) Italian Language
16 4 (0.45%) Manufacturing
17 3 (0.34%) Influencing Skills
17 3 (0.34%) Police
Job Titles
1 151 (17.10%) Network Engineer
2 117 (13.25%) Architect
3 104 (11.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 84 (9.51%) Analyst
5 75 (8.49%) Senior
6 58 (6.57%) Security Engineer
7 49 (5.55%) Web Engineer
8 46 (5.21%) Support Engineer
9 42 (4.76%) IT Support
10 39 (4.42%) Network Security Engineer
11 38 (4.30%) IT Engineer
12 36 (4.08%) Lead
13 33 (3.74%) Administrator
14 32 (3.62%) Cisco Engineer
14 32 (3.62%) Cisco Network Engineer
15 29 (3.28%) Data Engineer
15 29 (3.28%) Data Network Engineer
16 28 (3.17%) Azure Engineer
16 28 (3.17%) Cisco Security Engineer
17 27 (3.06%) SOC Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (7.93%) LDAP
2 50 (5.66%) SAML
3 40 (4.53%) OAuth
4 30 (3.40%) 802.1X
4 30 (3.40%) OpenID
5 22 (2.49%) OpenTelemetry
6 13 (1.47%) JSON
7 12 (1.36%) OAuth2
8 10 (1.13%) REST
9 9 (1.02%) Elastic Stack
9 9 (1.02%) Kafka
10 7 (0.79%) XMPP
11 6 (0.68%) ARM Templates
12 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Graph
12 5 (0.57%) Spring Boot
13 4 (0.45%) gRPC
13 4 (0.45%) JPA
13 4 (0.45%) Middleware
13 4 (0.45%) RESTful
13 4 (0.45%) Spring Cloud
Miscellaneous
1 71 (8.04%) PKI
2 69 (7.81%) Data Centre
3 52 (5.89%) Cloud Native
4 43 (4.87%) Replication
5 40 (4.53%) Management Information System
6 39 (4.42%) Clustering
7 33 (3.74%) Onboarding
8 32 (3.62%) Public Cloud
9 27 (3.06%) Hybrid Cloud
9 27 (3.06%) Security Operations Centre
10 26 (2.94%) Cyberattack
11 22 (2.49%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 21 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
14 16 (1.81%) Cyber Threat
14 16 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
15 14 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (1.47%) Product Ownership
16 13 (1.47%) Virtual Team
17 12 (1.36%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 395 (44.73%) Windows
2 214 (24.24%) Windows Server
3 132 (14.95%) Linux
4 47 (5.32%) Windows 10
5 34 (3.85%) Windows Server 2019
6 22 (2.49%) Android
7 21 (2.38%) Unix
8 19 (2.15%) Mac OS
8 19 (2.15%) Windows Server 2012
9 18 (2.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 15 (1.70%) Apple iOS
11 14 (1.59%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (1.25%) Windows 7
13 10 (1.13%) VMS
14 8 (0.91%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.45%) CatOS
15 4 (0.45%) CentOS
15 4 (0.45%) Ubuntu
16 3 (0.34%) Amazon Linux
17 2 (0.23%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 187 (21.18%) Problem-Solving
2 166 (18.80%) Load Balancing
3 143 (16.19%) Migration
4 129 (14.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 128 (14.50%) High Availability
6 121 (13.70%) ITIL
7 112 (12.68%) DevOps
8 106 (12.00%) CI/CD
9 105 (11.89%) Infrastructure as Code
10 88 (9.97%) Cybersecurity
11 85 (9.63%) Disaster Recovery
12 79 (8.95%) Identity Access Management
13 74 (8.38%) ITSM
14 69 (7.81%) Observability
15 62 (7.02%) SIEM
16 59 (6.68%) Change Management
17 58 (6.57%) Agile
18 56 (6.34%) Incident Response
18 56 (6.34%) Roadmaps
19 55 (6.23%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 204 (23.10%) PowerShell
2 135 (15.29%) Python
3 77 (8.72%) Bash
4 41 (4.64%) SQL
5 20 (2.27%) JavaScript
6 15 (1.70%) Bicep
7 13 (1.47%) Java
8 12 (1.36%) Ruby
8 12 (1.36%) VBScript
9 11 (1.25%) Go
10 10 (1.13%) Shell Script
11 9 (1.02%) VB
12 6 (0.68%) VBA
13 4 (0.45%) Perl
14 3 (0.34%) C
14 3 (0.34%) Groovy
14 3 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
14 3 (0.34%) Lisp
15 2 (0.23%) Jython
16 1 (0.11%) C#
Qualifications
1 290 (32.84%) Security Cleared
2 201 (22.76%) SC Cleared
3 97 (10.99%) DV Cleared
4 69 (7.81%) Cisco Certification
5 57 (6.46%) Degree
6 39 (4.42%) CCNP
7 31 (3.51%) CompTIA Security+
7 31 (3.51%) Microsoft Certification
8 28 (3.17%) CCNA
9 24 (2.72%) Azure Certification
10 22 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
11 17 (1.93%) CompTIA CySA+
12 15 (1.70%) Network+ Certification
13 13 (1.47%) AWS Certification
13 13 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
14 12 (1.36%) CISSP
15 10 (1.13%) JNCIA
15 10 (1.13%) JNCIS
16 8 (0.91%) JNCIP
16 8 (0.91%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (3.06%) GDPR
1 27 (3.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 26 (2.94%) NIST
2 26 (2.94%) SLA
3 16 (1.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 9 (1.02%) NCSC
5 8 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
6 7 (0.79%) QA
7 4 (0.45%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 3 (0.34%) PMO
9 2 (0.23%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.23%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.23%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.11%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.11%) COBIT
10 1 (0.11%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.11%) RMADS
System Software
1 363 (41.11%) Active Directory
2 189 (21.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 83 (9.40%) Hyper-V
4 51 (5.78%) vSphere
5 49 (5.55%) VMware NSX
6 46 (5.21%) Docker
7 30 (3.40%) Virtual Machines
8 27 (3.06%) VMware ESXi
9 26 (2.94%) Firmware
10 18 (2.04%) BitLocker
11 15 (1.70%) Virtual Desktop
12 12 (1.36%) Squid
13 8 (0.91%) Microsoft App-V
13 8 (0.91%) NFS
14 6 (0.68%) Sendmail
15 5 (0.57%) Postfix
15 5 (0.57%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.57%) Varnish
16 4 (0.45%) Ceph
16 4 (0.45%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 143 (16.19%) Terraform
2 111 (12.57%) Ansible
3 93 (10.53%) Kubernetes
4 87 (9.85%) Microsoft Intune
5 75 (8.49%) Single Sign-On
6 59 (6.68%) SCCM
7 50 (5.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (5.55%) FortiGate
9 40 (4.53%) vCenter Server
10 38 (4.30%) Grafana
11 25 (2.83%) Argo
12 23 (2.60%) Prometheus
12 23 (2.60%) WSUS
13 13 (1.47%) SCOM
14 10 (1.13%) Puppet
15 9 (1.02%) HAProxy
15 9 (1.02%) Nessus
16 8 (0.91%) Consul
16 8 (0.91%) vMotion
17 6 (0.68%) QRadar
Vendors
1 289 (32.73%) Microsoft
2 227 (25.71%) VMware
3 148 (16.76%) Cisco
4 146 (16.53%) F5
5 82 (9.29%) Splunk
6 76 (8.61%) ServiceNow
7 54 (6.12%) Citrix
8 46 (5.21%) Infoblox
9 44 (4.98%) SolarWinds
10 40 (4.53%) Google
10 40 (4.53%) Juniper
11 39 (4.42%) Red Hat
12 37 (4.19%) Blue Coat
13 35 (3.96%) Palo Alto
14 32 (3.62%) McAfee
15 30 (3.40%) NetApp
16 22 (2.49%) Extreme Networks
17 21 (2.38%) Fortinet
18 20 (2.27%) Okta
19 19 (2.15%) Pure Storage