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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 136 122 134
Rank change year-on-year -14 +12 -13
Contract jobs citing DNS 884 693 748
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.91% 2.35% 1.72%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.73% 18.34% 13.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 549 497 497
10th Percentile £263 £263 £211
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +10.53% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £599
90th Percentile £651 £693 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 12 27
10th Percentile £17.72 - £20.00
25th Percentile £25.15 £23.59 £24.63
Median hourly rate £55.50 £67.59 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.88% +68.97% -23.27%
75th Percentile £74.26 £81.35 £50.33
90th Percentile £75.60 £82.03 £63.00
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 3,778 5,668
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.66% 12.82% 13.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,798 2,342 3,400
10th Percentile £247 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -0.15% -6.11%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £464 £475
% change year-on-year +2.43% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 209 171 425
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £20.93 £17.69
Median hourly rate £47.50 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.67% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.38 £62.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.50 £27.97 £46.14
% change year-on-year +98.43% -39.37% +149.38%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -25 777 £500 -5.66% 290
UK excluding London -6 567 £500 -4.76% 262
London -37 251 £500 -2.44% 68
North of England 0 220 £447 -5.89% 66
Work from Home -36 190 £525 - 108
South East +1 158 £525 -4.55% 80
North West +30 142 £450 +5.88% 29
Midlands +20 116 £400 -27.93% 34
West Midlands +28 102 £390 -21.41% 19
Yorkshire -30 76 £445 -19.18% 27
Scotland +32 47 £550 +22.22% 10
South West -60 43 £575 +4.55% 37
East of England -32 42 £450 -14.29% 31
East Midlands -35 13 £394 -30.62% 14
North East -27 5 £200 -41.18% 11
Wales -15 4 £550 +22.22% 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
1 101 (11.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 43 (4.86%) 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 29 (3.28%) 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
1 1 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 300 (33.94%) Azure
2 154 (17.42%) AWS
3 150 (16.97%) Entra ID
4 140 (15.84%) Microsoft 365
5 94 (10.63%) GCP
6 60 (6.79%) GitHub
7 53 (6.00%) IaaS
8 42 (4.75%) SaaS
9 41 (4.64%) PaaS
10 37 (4.19%) Serverless
11 36 (4.07%) AWS CloudFormation
11 36 (4.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 33 (3.73%) Amazon S3
13 32 (3.62%) Amazon EC2
13 32 (3.62%) AWS Lambda
14 31 (3.51%) Route 53
15 26 (2.94%) Amazon EKS
16 23 (2.60%) OpenShift
17 22 (2.49%) Azure DevOps
18 21 (2.38%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 390 (44.12%) DHCP
2 280 (31.67%) Firewall
3 229 (25.90%) TCP/IP
4 211 (23.87%) VPN
5 125 (14.14%) WAN
6 117 (13.24%) LAN
7 88 (9.95%) SSL
8 86 (9.73%) Network Security
8 86 (9.73%) VLAN
9 82 (9.28%) BGP
10 81 (9.16%) BIG-IP
11 78 (8.82%) HTTP
12 63 (7.13%) Wi-Fi
13 52 (5.88%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 49 (5.54%) OSPF
15 42 (4.75%) Wireless
16 39 (4.41%) Wireshark
17 38 (4.30%) Kerberos
18 37 (4.19%) DMZ
19 36 (4.07%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (3.28%) SQL Server
2 21 (2.38%) Elasticsearch
3 18 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (0.90%) 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%) Electronic Patient Records
11 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
11 1 (0.11%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.11%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 51 (5.77%) Jenkins
2 45 (5.09%) JIRA
3 28 (3.17%) Fiddler
3 28 (3.17%) Git
3 28 (3.17%) GitLab
4 9 (1.02%) Browser DevTools
5 7 (0.79%) Bitbucket
5 7 (0.79%) SonarQube
6 6 (0.68%) Chocolatey
7 4 (0.45%) CircleCI
7 4 (0.45%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.23%) Introscope
8 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.11%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.11%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.11%) Subversion
9 1 (0.11%) Travis CI
General
1 202 (22.85%) Social Skills
2 92 (10.41%) Analytical Skills
3 73 (8.26%) Banking
4 68 (7.69%) Finance
5 63 (7.13%) Public Sector
6 46 (5.20%) Documentation Skills
7 40 (4.52%) Investment Banking
8 31 (3.51%) Legal
9 23 (2.60%) Telecoms
10 18 (2.04%) Military
11 10 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (0.90%) Law
13 6 (0.68%) Financial Institution
13 6 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 6 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.57%) Local Government
15 4 (0.45%) Aerospace
15 4 (0.45%) Manufacturing
16 3 (0.34%) Italian Language
16 3 (0.34%) Police
Job Titles
1 150 (16.97%) Network Engineer
2 120 (13.57%) Architect
3 103 (11.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 85 (9.62%) Analyst
5 74 (8.37%) Senior
6 58 (6.56%) Security Engineer
7 49 (5.54%) Support Engineer
7 49 (5.54%) Web Engineer
8 44 (4.98%) IT Support
9 40 (4.52%) IT Engineer
10 39 (4.41%) Network Security Engineer
11 37 (4.19%) Lead
12 33 (3.73%) Administrator
13 31 (3.51%) Cisco Engineer
13 31 (3.51%) Cisco Network Engineer
14 29 (3.28%) Data Engineer
14 29 (3.28%) Data Network Engineer
15 28 (3.17%) Cisco Security Engineer
15 28 (3.17%) SOC Analyst
16 27 (3.05%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (7.81%) LDAP
2 50 (5.66%) SAML
3 41 (4.64%) OAuth
4 30 (3.39%) OpenID
5 29 (3.28%) 802.1X
6 22 (2.49%) OpenTelemetry
7 13 (1.47%) OAuth2
8 12 (1.36%) JSON
9 10 (1.13%) REST
10 9 (1.02%) Elastic Stack
10 9 (1.02%) Kafka
11 7 (0.79%) XMPP
12 6 (0.68%) ARM Templates
13 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Graph
13 5 (0.57%) Spring Boot
14 4 (0.45%) gRPC
14 4 (0.45%) Hibernate
14 4 (0.45%) Middleware
14 4 (0.45%) Spring
14 4 (0.45%) Spring Cloud
Miscellaneous
1 73 (8.26%) Data Centre
2 69 (7.81%) PKI
3 52 (5.88%) Cloud Native
4 43 (4.86%) Replication
5 41 (4.64%) Management Information System
6 38 (4.30%) Clustering
7 34 (3.85%) Onboarding
8 32 (3.62%) Public Cloud
9 27 (3.05%) Hybrid Cloud
9 27 (3.05%) Security Operations Centre
10 26 (2.94%) Cyberattack
11 22 (2.49%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 21 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
14 16 (1.81%) Cyber Threat
14 16 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
15 14 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (1.47%) Product Ownership
16 13 (1.47%) Virtual Team
17 12 (1.36%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 397 (44.91%) Windows
2 216 (24.43%) Windows Server
3 130 (14.71%) Linux
4 49 (5.54%) Windows 10
5 34 (3.85%) Windows Server 2019
6 21 (2.38%) Android
7 20 (2.26%) Unix
8 19 (2.15%) Windows Server 2012
9 18 (2.04%) Mac OS
10 16 (1.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 14 (1.58%) Apple iOS
11 14 (1.58%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (1.24%) Windows 7
13 10 (1.13%) VMS
14 8 (0.90%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.45%) CatOS
16 3 (0.34%) Amazon Linux
16 3 (0.34%) CentOS
16 3 (0.34%) Ubuntu
17 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 188 (21.27%) Problem-Solving
2 170 (19.23%) Load Balancing
3 142 (16.06%) Migration
4 129 (14.59%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 124 (14.03%) High Availability
5 124 (14.03%) ITIL
6 110 (12.44%) DevOps
7 104 (11.76%) CI/CD
8 103 (11.65%) Infrastructure as Code
9 93 (10.52%) Cybersecurity
10 84 (9.50%) Disaster Recovery
11 78 (8.82%) Identity Access Management
12 74 (8.37%) ITSM
13 67 (7.58%) Observability
14 63 (7.13%) SIEM
15 60 (6.79%) Change Management
15 60 (6.79%) Incident Response
15 60 (6.79%) Roadmaps
16 58 (6.56%) Agile
17 57 (6.45%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 207 (23.42%) PowerShell
2 135 (15.27%) Python
3 75 (8.48%) Bash
4 41 (4.64%) SQL
5 19 (2.15%) JavaScript
6 15 (1.70%) Bicep
7 13 (1.47%) Java
7 13 (1.47%) VBScript
8 12 (1.36%) Ruby
9 9 (1.02%) Go
9 9 (1.02%) Shell Script
9 9 (1.02%) VB
10 5 (0.57%) VBA
11 4 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.45%) Perl
12 3 (0.34%) C
12 3 (0.34%) Lisp
13 2 (0.23%) Groovy
13 2 (0.23%) Jython
14 1 (0.11%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 289 (32.69%) Security Cleared
2 199 (22.51%) SC Cleared
3 98 (11.09%) DV Cleared
4 71 (8.03%) Cisco Certification
5 61 (6.90%) Degree
6 41 (4.64%) CCNP
7 32 (3.62%) CompTIA Security+
7 32 (3.62%) Microsoft Certification
8 29 (3.28%) CCNA
9 27 (3.05%) Azure Certification
10 22 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
11 18 (2.04%) CompTIA CySA+
12 16 (1.81%) AWS Certification
12 16 (1.81%) CISSP
13 15 (1.70%) Network+ Certification
14 13 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
15 10 (1.13%) CCIE
15 10 (1.13%) JNCIA
15 10 (1.13%) JNCIP
15 10 (1.13%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (3.51%) GDPR
2 30 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 29 (3.28%) NIST
4 25 (2.83%) SLA
5 16 (1.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 9 (1.02%) NCSC
7 8 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials
7 8 (0.90%) PCI DSS
8 7 (0.79%) QA
9 3 (0.34%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 3 (0.34%) PMO
10 2 (0.23%) Accessibility
10 2 (0.23%) Data Quality
10 2 (0.23%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.11%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.11%) COBIT
11 1 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.11%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.11%) RMADS
System Software
1 362 (40.95%) Active Directory
2 192 (21.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 82 (9.28%) Hyper-V
4 53 (6.00%) VMware NSX
5 50 (5.66%) vSphere
6 45 (5.09%) Docker
7 29 (3.28%) Virtual Machines
8 26 (2.94%) Firmware
8 26 (2.94%) VMware ESXi
9 18 (2.04%) BitLocker
10 15 (1.70%) Virtual Desktop
11 12 (1.36%) Squid
12 8 (0.90%) Microsoft App-V
12 8 (0.90%) NFS
13 6 (0.68%) Sendmail
14 5 (0.57%) Postfix
14 5 (0.57%) Terminal Services
14 5 (0.57%) Varnish
15 4 (0.45%) Ceph
15 4 (0.45%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 145 (16.40%) Terraform
2 112 (12.67%) Ansible
3 91 (10.29%) Kubernetes
4 89 (10.07%) Microsoft Intune
5 73 (8.26%) Single Sign-On
6 62 (7.01%) SCCM
7 51 (5.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 48 (5.43%) FortiGate
9 40 (4.52%) vCenter Server
10 37 (4.19%) Grafana
11 25 (2.83%) Argo
12 23 (2.60%) WSUS
13 22 (2.49%) Prometheus
14 13 (1.47%) SCOM
15 10 (1.13%) Puppet
16 9 (1.02%) HAProxy
16 9 (1.02%) Nessus
17 8 (0.90%) vMotion
18 7 (0.79%) Consul
19 6 (0.68%) QRadar
Vendors
1 293 (33.14%) Microsoft
2 231 (26.13%) VMware
3 150 (16.97%) Cisco
4 148 (16.74%) F5
5 80 (9.05%) Splunk
6 75 (8.48%) ServiceNow
7 53 (6.00%) Citrix
8 47 (5.32%) SolarWinds
9 45 (5.09%) Infoblox
10 41 (4.64%) Google
11 40 (4.52%) Juniper
12 39 (4.41%) Red Hat
13 38 (4.30%) Palo Alto
14 37 (4.19%) Blue Coat
15 32 (3.62%) McAfee
16 30 (3.39%) NetApp
17 24 (2.71%) Fortinet
18 21 (2.38%) Extreme Networks
19 20 (2.26%) Okta
20 19 (2.15%) Pure Storage