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 31 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 108 131
Rank change year-on-year -29 +23 -6
Contract jobs citing DNS 866 718 777
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 2.47% 1.76%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.50% 18.98% 13.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 542 489 510
10th Percentile £263 £250 £202
25th Percentile £400 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +10.53% -9.52%
75th Percentile £609 £606 £588
90th Percentile £669 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% +3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 12 27
10th Percentile £13.66 £19.01 £20.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £23.59 £25.00
Median hourly rate £48.72 £41.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.11% +3.13% -18.56%
75th Percentile £74.26 £81.10 £50.33
90th Percentile £75.90 £82.03 £63.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.11 £80.68 £40.00
% change year-on-year -35.41% +101.69% -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 4,441 3,783 5,918
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.97% 13.01% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,843 2,352 3,561
10th Percentile £223 £213 £205
25th Percentile £380 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £489 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.30% +2.89% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +1.06% -1.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 147 407
10th Percentile £15.52 £14.99 £13.94
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.46 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.24 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +17.83% +7.69% +71.05%
75th Percentile £69.49 £63.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £77.20 £75.00 £67.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.10 £31.79 £43.00
% change year-on-year +41.88% -26.07% +132.43%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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 -26 763 £500 -4.76% 306
UK excluding London -15 559 £500 -4.76% 265
London -43 244 £500 -0.05% 81
North of England -2 216 £447 -5.89% 68
Work from Home -56 187 £537 +2.29% 93
South East +6 157 £525 -4.55% 80
North West +22 140 £500 +17.65% 37
Midlands +20 110 £400 -27.93% 45
West Midlands +28 99 £400 -19.40% 29
Yorkshire -29 78 £447 -18.82% 22
South West -43 49 £684 +24.77% 33
Scotland +11 46 £518 +15.17% 15
East of England -34 42 £450 -10.00% 24
East Midlands -39 10 £375 -33.92% 16
Wales -17 4 £550 +22.22% 3
North East -17 4 £200 -51.52% 11

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 95 (10.97%) Microsoft Exchange
2 43 (4.97%) SharePoint
3 18 (2.08%) Skype for Business
4 14 (1.62%) Confluence
4 14 (1.62%) nginx
5 9 (1.04%) IIS
6 6 (0.69%) Apache
7 4 (0.46%) Exchange Server 2010
8 3 (0.35%) WebSphere
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 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
10 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.12%) Traefik
Applications
1 26 (3.00%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (1.62%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.23%) SystmOne
2 1 (0.12%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 305 (35.22%) Azure
2 167 (19.28%) AWS
3 145 (16.74%) Entra ID
4 139 (16.05%) Microsoft 365
5 88 (10.16%) GCP
6 64 (7.39%) GitHub
7 55 (6.35%) IaaS
8 40 (4.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 38 (4.39%) AWS CloudFormation
10 37 (4.27%) Amazon S3
10 37 (4.27%) PaaS
10 37 (4.27%) Serverless
11 35 (4.04%) Amazon EC2
12 33 (3.81%) AWS Lambda
13 32 (3.70%) Route 53
14 31 (3.58%) SaaS
15 28 (3.23%) OpenShift
16 26 (3.00%) Amazon EKS
17 24 (2.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 24 (2.77%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 370 (42.73%) DHCP
2 280 (32.33%) Firewall
3 244 (28.18%) TCP/IP
4 206 (23.79%) VPN
5 117 (13.51%) WAN
6 107 (12.36%) LAN
7 87 (10.05%) SSL
8 86 (9.93%) Network Security
9 82 (9.47%) VLAN
10 80 (9.24%) HTTP
11 79 (9.12%) BIG-IP
12 77 (8.89%) BGP
13 64 (7.39%) Wi-Fi
14 56 (6.47%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 45 (5.20%) OSPF
16 43 (4.97%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
17 40 (4.62%) Wireshark
18 39 (4.50%) DMZ
18 39 (4.50%) Kerberos
19 37 (4.27%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (3.12%) SQL Server
2 20 (2.31%) Elasticsearch
3 18 (2.08%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
5 9 (1.04%) MongoDB
6 7 (0.81%) DynamoDB
7 6 (0.69%) Data Hub
7 6 (0.69%) Redis
8 5 (0.58%) Amazon Aurora
8 5 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (0.58%) MySQL
9 4 (0.46%) DocumentDB
9 4 (0.46%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.46%) Power BI
9 4 (0.46%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.35%) BigQuery
10 3 (0.35%) MariaDB
11 1 (0.12%) Oracle Reports
11 1 (0.12%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.12%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 63 (7.27%) Jenkins
2 40 (4.62%) JIRA
3 34 (3.93%) GitLab
4 33 (3.81%) Git
5 30 (3.46%) Fiddler
6 7 (0.81%) Bitbucket
6 7 (0.81%) Browser DevTools
6 7 (0.81%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.69%) Chocolatey
8 5 (0.58%) Terragrunt
9 4 (0.46%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.23%) Introscope
10 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.12%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.12%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.12%) Octopus Deploy
11 1 (0.12%) Subversion
11 1 (0.12%) Travis CI
General
1 214 (24.71%) Social Skills
2 94 (10.85%) Analytical Skills
3 75 (8.66%) Banking
4 66 (7.62%) Finance
5 54 (6.24%) Public Sector
6 50 (5.77%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (5.31%) Investment Banking
8 30 (3.46%) Legal
9 19 (2.19%) Telecoms
10 16 (1.85%) Military
11 11 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
12 7 (0.81%) Financial Institution
13 6 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 6 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
13 6 (0.69%) Law
14 5 (0.58%) Local Government
15 4 (0.46%) Aerospace
15 4 (0.46%) Manufacturing
16 3 (0.35%) Presentation Skills
17 2 (0.23%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 146 (16.86%) Network Engineer
2 126 (14.55%) Architect
3 89 (10.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 83 (9.58%) Analyst
5 78 (9.01%) Senior
6 55 (6.35%) Support Engineer
7 54 (6.24%) Security Engineer
8 51 (5.89%) Web Engineer
9 43 (4.97%) IT Support
10 36 (4.16%) IT Engineer
10 36 (4.16%) Lead
11 33 (3.81%) Network Security Engineer
12 29 (3.35%) Cisco Engineer
12 29 (3.35%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 28 (3.23%) Azure Engineer
13 28 (3.23%) Platform Engineer
14 27 (3.12%) IT Support Engineer
15 26 (3.00%) SOC Analyst
16 25 (2.89%) Data Engineer
16 25 (2.89%) Data Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (7.97%) LDAP
2 50 (5.77%) SAML
3 42 (4.85%) OAuth
4 33 (3.81%) OpenID
5 28 (3.23%) 802.1X
6 23 (2.66%) OpenTelemetry
7 20 (2.31%) OAuth2
8 10 (1.15%) Elastic Stack
8 10 (1.15%) Kafka
9 9 (1.04%) JSON
10 8 (0.92%) ARM Templates
10 8 (0.92%) REST
11 7 (0.81%) XMPP
12 6 (0.69%) Microsoft Graph
13 5 (0.58%) Middleware
13 5 (0.58%) RESTful
13 5 (0.58%) Spring Boot
14 4 (0.46%) Hibernate
14 4 (0.46%) JPA
14 4 (0.46%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 70 (8.08%) Data Centre
2 68 (7.85%) PKI
3 49 (5.66%) Cloud Native
3 49 (5.66%) Replication
4 38 (4.39%) Management Information System
5 33 (3.81%) Clustering
6 32 (3.70%) Onboarding
7 31 (3.58%) Public Cloud
8 27 (3.12%) Security Operations Centre
9 26 (3.00%) Cyberattack
9 26 (3.00%) Hybrid Cloud
10 22 (2.54%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 20 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
12 17 (1.96%) Cyber Threat
12 17 (1.96%) Self-Motivation
13 16 (1.85%) Legacy Systems
14 14 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (1.50%) NHS
15 13 (1.50%) Product Ownership
16 11 (1.27%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 385 (44.46%) Windows
2 208 (24.02%) Windows Server
3 135 (15.59%) Linux
4 46 (5.31%) Windows 10
5 32 (3.70%) Windows Server 2019
6 21 (2.42%) Android
7 17 (1.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (1.85%) Unix
8 16 (1.85%) Windows Server 2012
9 15 (1.73%) Mac OS
10 14 (1.62%) Apple iOS
11 12 (1.39%) Windows Server 2016
12 11 (1.27%) Windows 7
13 9 (1.04%) VMS
14 7 (0.81%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.46%) CatOS
15 4 (0.46%) CentOS
16 3 (0.35%) Amazon Linux
16 3 (0.35%) Oracle Linux
16 3 (0.35%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 197 (22.75%) Problem-Solving
2 186 (21.48%) Load Balancing
3 129 (14.90%) Migration
4 119 (13.74%) CI/CD
4 119 (13.74%) ITIL
5 118 (13.63%) DevOps
6 116 (13.39%) High Availability
6 116 (13.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 112 (12.93%) Infrastructure as Code
8 87 (10.05%) Cybersecurity
9 83 (9.58%) Identity Access Management
10 81 (9.35%) Disaster Recovery
11 70 (8.08%) Incident Response
11 70 (8.08%) ITSM
12 69 (7.97%) RBAC
13 65 (7.51%) Observability
14 64 (7.39%) SIEM
15 61 (7.04%) Agile
15 61 (7.04%) Roadmaps
16 58 (6.70%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 233 (26.91%) PowerShell
2 149 (17.21%) Python
3 84 (9.70%) Bash
4 43 (4.97%) SQL
5 17 (1.96%) JavaScript
6 16 (1.85%) Bicep
7 13 (1.50%) VBScript
8 12 (1.39%) Java
9 11 (1.27%) Ruby
10 10 (1.15%) Go
11 9 (1.04%) VB
12 8 (0.92%) Shell Script
13 5 (0.58%) Lisp
13 5 (0.58%) Perl
14 4 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
14 4 (0.46%) VBA
15 2 (0.23%) C
15 2 (0.23%) Groovy
15 2 (0.23%) Jython
15 2 (0.23%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 281 (32.45%) Security Cleared
2 192 (22.17%) SC Cleared
3 103 (11.89%) DV Cleared
4 69 (7.97%) Cisco Certification
5 60 (6.93%) Degree
6 44 (5.08%) CCNP
7 42 (4.85%) Microsoft Certification
8 32 (3.70%) CompTIA Security+
9 27 (3.12%) CCNA
10 26 (3.00%) Azure Certification
11 21 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
12 19 (2.19%) CISSP
13 18 (2.08%) AWS Certification
13 18 (2.08%) CompTIA CySA+
14 14 (1.62%) Network+ Certification
15 10 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
15 10 (1.15%) JNCIA
15 10 (1.15%) JNCIS
16 9 (1.04%) CCIE
16 9 (1.04%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (3.58%) GDPR
1 31 (3.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 30 (3.46%) NIST
3 22 (2.54%) SLA
4 16 (1.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 10 (1.15%) NCSC
6 9 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
7 8 (0.92%) PCI DSS
8 6 (0.69%) QA
9 3 (0.35%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.35%) JSP 440
9 3 (0.35%) PMO
10 2 (0.23%) Data Quality
10 2 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.12%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.12%) COBIT
11 1 (0.12%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.12%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.12%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.12%) RMADS
System Software
1 355 (40.99%) Active Directory
2 188 (21.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 71 (8.20%) Hyper-V
4 59 (6.81%) VMware NSX
5 58 (6.70%) Docker
6 55 (6.35%) vSphere
7 29 (3.35%) Firmware
8 23 (2.66%) Virtual Machines
9 20 (2.31%) VMware ESXi
10 17 (1.96%) BitLocker
11 14 (1.62%) Virtual Desktop
12 12 (1.39%) Squid
13 7 (0.81%) Microsoft App-V
14 5 (0.58%) NFS
14 5 (0.58%) Terminal Services
15 4 (0.46%) Ceph
15 4 (0.46%) Sendmail
16 3 (0.35%) DFS Replication
16 3 (0.35%) Varnish
16 3 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 155 (17.90%) Terraform
2 126 (14.55%) Ansible
3 94 (10.85%) Kubernetes
4 92 (10.62%) Microsoft Intune
5 75 (8.66%) Single Sign-On
6 63 (7.27%) SCCM
7 58 (6.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 48 (5.54%) FortiGate
9 41 (4.73%) Grafana
9 41 (4.73%) vCenter Server
10 30 (3.46%) Argo
11 25 (2.89%) Prometheus
12 15 (1.73%) WSUS
13 14 (1.62%) SCOM
14 9 (1.04%) Puppet
15 8 (0.92%) HAProxy
16 7 (0.81%) Consul
16 7 (0.81%) vMotion
17 6 (0.69%) Nessus
17 6 (0.69%) QRadar
Vendors
1 297 (34.30%) Microsoft
2 233 (26.91%) VMware
3 147 (16.97%) F5
4 131 (15.13%) Cisco
5 83 (9.58%) Splunk
6 72 (8.31%) ServiceNow
7 46 (5.31%) Citrix
8 44 (5.08%) SolarWinds
9 41 (4.73%) Blue Coat
9 41 (4.73%) Palo Alto
10 40 (4.62%) Red Hat
11 37 (4.27%) Juniper
12 35 (4.04%) Infoblox
12 35 (4.04%) McAfee
13 32 (3.70%) Google
14 29 (3.35%) NetApp
15 24 (2.77%) Pure Storage
16 23 (2.66%) Fortinet
17 20 (2.31%) Extreme Networks
17 20 (2.31%) Okta