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 16 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 153 113 108
Rank change year-on-year -40 -5 +20
Contract jobs citing DNS 697 713 901
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.87% 2.24% 2.12%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.89% 17.43% 15.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 451 452 578
10th Percentile £219 £223 £208
25th Percentile £400 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £480
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% +4.17% -8.57%
75th Percentile £600 £607 £600
90th Percentile £680 £738 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +11.11% -10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 9 19
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.26 £24.85
25th Percentile £20.56 £21.25 £31.25
Median hourly rate £46.86 £23.59 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.64% -57.11% +64.18%
75th Percentile £74.26 £25.30 £63.50
90th Percentile £78.50 £40.40 £71.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.11 £22.50 £58.20
% change year-on-year +131.60% -61.34% +51.17%

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 3,897 4,090 5,807
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.48% 12.84% 13.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,562 2,395 3,566
10th Percentile £205 £213 £210
25th Percentile £356 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £468 £475
% change year-on-year -3.74% -1.58% +2.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 138 334
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.15 £17.83
25th Percentile £18.78 £21.46 £23.72
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.75 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% -40.25% +135.38%
75th Percentile £65.00 £53.44 £65.98
90th Percentile £74.33 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £32.50 £59.75
% change year-on-year +29.05% -45.61% +185.48%

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 16 January 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 16 January 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 16 January 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 -23 626 £525 +8.86% 317
UK excluding London -21 439 £500 +11.11% 294
London -5 207 £550 +4.76% 68
Work from Home -60 168 £513 -2.38% 91
North of England -33 130 £470 +10.59% 62
Midlands +20 118 £400 -5.88% 38
West Midlands +31 114 £400 -5.88% 20
South East -1 113 £500 +8.11% 101
North West +2 90 £475 - 28
South West -24 63 £575 +5.12% 35
Yorkshire -40 46 £454 +51.17% 29
East of England -24 33 £419 +52.27% 43
Scotland -15 26 £454 +0.89% 18
North East -22 7 £575 +155.56% 7
East Midlands -39 4 £275 -41.18% 17
Wales -9 3 £550 +33.33% 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 89 (12.77%) Microsoft Exchange
2 67 (9.61%) SharePoint
3 33 (4.73%) Skype for Business
4 19 (2.73%) Confluence
5 12 (1.72%) nginx
6 11 (1.58%) Exchange Server 2010
7 10 (1.43%) SharePoint Server
8 9 (1.29%) Exchange Server 2013
8 9 (1.29%) IIS
9 6 (0.86%) Exchange Server 2003
9 6 (0.86%) Exchange Server 2007
9 6 (0.86%) Office Communications Server
10 5 (0.72%) Apache
11 4 (0.57%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.43%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.29%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.29%) Oracle HTTP Server
13 2 (0.29%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.29%) WordPress
Applications
1 44 (6.31%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.87%) MS Visio
3 9 (1.29%) Mozilla Thunderbird
4 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.29%) Windchill
5 1 (0.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
1 2 (0.29%) SystmOne
1 2 (0.29%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.14%) Pegasus Opera
Cloud Services
1 239 (34.29%) Azure
2 180 (25.82%) AWS
3 140 (20.09%) Microsoft 365
4 95 (13.63%) Entra ID
5 65 (9.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 53 (7.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 52 (7.46%) Amazon S3
8 49 (7.03%) Amazon EC2
9 46 (6.60%) GitHub
10 42 (6.03%) GCP
11 39 (5.60%) Amazon ELB
12 33 (4.73%) AWS CloudFormation
13 32 (4.59%) Amazon ECS
14 31 (4.45%) IaaS
15 27 (3.87%) SaaS
15 27 (3.87%) Serverless
16 25 (3.59%) AWS Lambda
17 23 (3.30%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (3.30%) Route 53
18 18 (2.58%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 303 (43.47%) DHCP
2 227 (32.57%) TCP/IP
3 226 (32.42%) Firewall
4 175 (25.11%) VPN
5 93 (13.34%) SSL
6 85 (12.20%) Network Security
7 84 (12.05%) WAN
8 81 (11.62%) HTTP
9 66 (9.47%) LAN
10 62 (8.90%) VLAN
11 44 (6.31%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 41 (5.88%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 40 (5.74%) SMTP
13 40 (5.74%) Wireless
14 39 (5.60%) Wireshark
15 37 (5.31%) BGP
16 36 (5.16%) BIG-IP
17 34 (4.88%) DMZ
17 34 (4.88%) Wi-Fi
18 31 (4.45%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (4.30%) Amazon RDS
2 25 (3.59%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (3.30%) SQL Server
4 16 (2.30%) Amazon Aurora
5 9 (1.29%) Elasticsearch
5 9 (1.29%) MongoDB
6 7 (1.00%) DynamoDB
6 7 (1.00%) MySQL
6 7 (1.00%) Redis
7 6 (0.86%) Data Hub
8 4 (0.57%) DocumentDB
8 4 (0.57%) NoSQL
8 4 (0.57%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.43%) BigQuery
10 1 (0.14%) Apache Cassandra
10 1 (0.14%) CouchDB
10 1 (0.14%) Electronic Patient Records
10 1 (0.14%) Geospatial Data
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle Reports
10 1 (0.14%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 80 (11.48%) Jenkins
2 70 (10.04%) Git
3 49 (7.03%) GitLab
4 40 (5.74%) JIRA
5 24 (3.44%) Fiddler
6 14 (2.01%) Vagrant
7 8 (1.15%) Terragrunt
8 5 (0.72%) Subversion
9 4 (0.57%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.57%) TeamCity
10 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.14%) Browser DevTools
10 1 (0.14%) GCC
10 1 (0.14%) MSI
10 1 (0.14%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.14%) Travis CI
10 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.14%) Vite
10 1 (0.14%) webpack
General
1 212 (30.42%) Social Skills
2 100 (14.35%) Analytical Skills
3 70 (10.04%) Public Sector
4 56 (8.03%) Banking
5 42 (6.03%) Investment Banking
6 41 (5.88%) Finance
7 38 (5.45%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (3.01%) Telecoms
9 19 (2.73%) Legal
10 15 (2.15%) Presentation Skills
11 8 (1.15%) Military
12 7 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
12 7 (1.00%) Law
13 6 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.57%) Aerospace
14 4 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 4 (0.57%) Marketing
15 3 (0.43%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.43%) Local Government
16 2 (0.29%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 94 (13.49%) Network Engineer
2 79 (11.33%) Architect
3 72 (10.33%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 69 (9.90%) Support Engineer
5 68 (9.76%) Senior
6 66 (9.47%) Analyst
7 44 (6.31%) Platform Engineer
8 42 (6.03%) DevOps Engineer
9 41 (5.88%) IT Support
10 32 (4.59%) Security Engineer
11 31 (4.45%) AWS Engineer
12 27 (3.87%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 26 (3.73%) 2nd Line Support
14 25 (3.59%) Lead
15 24 (3.44%) Web Engineer
16 23 (3.30%) Cloud Platform Engineer
16 23 (3.30%) Operations Engineer
17 22 (3.16%) SOC Analyst
18 21 (3.01%) AWS DevOps
18 21 (3.01%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (6.89%) LDAP
2 33 (4.73%) SAML
3 28 (4.02%) OAuth
4 22 (3.16%) OpenID
5 20 (2.87%) OAuth2
6 16 (2.30%) REST
7 13 (1.87%) Kafka
8 12 (1.72%) 802.1X
9 11 (1.58%) Elastic Stack
10 10 (1.43%) SOAP
11 7 (1.00%) AngularJS
11 7 (1.00%) Middleware
11 7 (1.00%) OpenTelemetry
12 6 (0.86%) RESTful
13 5 (0.72%) cloud-init
13 5 (0.72%) Keycloak
13 5 (0.72%) React
13 5 (0.72%) Spring Boot
13 5 (0.72%) YAML
14 4 (0.57%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 57 (8.18%) PKI
2 54 (7.75%) Replication
3 50 (7.17%) Data Centre
4 46 (6.60%) Management Information System
5 29 (4.16%) Onboarding
6 24 (3.44%) Analytical Mindset
7 23 (3.30%) Enterprise Software
8 22 (3.16%) Security Operations Centre
9 19 (2.73%) Cloud Native
9 19 (2.73%) Cyberattack
10 15 (2.15%) Hybrid Cloud
11 13 (1.87%) Private Cloud
11 13 (1.87%) Public Cloud
12 12 (1.72%) Clustering
12 12 (1.72%) Cyber Threat
13 11 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
14 10 (1.43%) Video Conferencing
15 8 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
16 7 (1.00%) CSOC
16 7 (1.00%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 350 (50.22%) Windows
2 168 (24.10%) Windows Server
3 152 (21.81%) Linux
4 60 (8.61%) Windows 10
5 28 (4.02%) Windows Server 2019
6 26 (3.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 23 (3.30%) Unix
8 21 (3.01%) VMS
8 21 (3.01%) Windows Server 2016
9 17 (2.44%) Amazon Linux
9 17 (2.44%) Android
9 17 (2.44%) Windows Server 2012
10 14 (2.01%) Ubuntu
11 12 (1.72%) Apple iOS
11 12 (1.72%) CentOS
11 12 (1.72%) Windows Server 2003
12 8 (1.15%) Windows 7
13 7 (1.00%) Mac OS
14 5 (0.72%) Solaris
15 4 (0.57%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (22.38%) Problem-Solving
2 121 (17.36%) ITIL
3 116 (16.64%) CI/CD
4 114 (16.36%) Load Balancing
5 110 (15.78%) DevOps
6 98 (14.06%) Infrastructure as Code
7 93 (13.34%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 76 (10.90%) Change Management
8 76 (10.90%) High Availability
9 75 (10.76%) Cybersecurity
10 68 (9.76%) Incident Response
11 67 (9.61%) Migration
12 61 (8.75%) Service Management
13 59 (8.46%) Disaster Recovery
14 57 (8.18%) Root Cause Analysis
15 55 (7.89%) SIEM
16 52 (7.46%) Platform Engineering
17 50 (7.17%) Agile
18 49 (7.03%) Continuous Improvement
18 49 (7.03%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 205 (29.41%) PowerShell
2 156 (22.38%) Python
3 77 (11.05%) Bash
4 43 (6.17%) SQL
5 22 (3.16%) Java
6 21 (3.01%) Perl
7 14 (2.01%) Groovy
8 13 (1.87%) Bicep
9 11 (1.58%) Go
9 11 (1.58%) Shell Script
10 10 (1.43%) Ruby
11 9 (1.29%) VBScript
12 8 (1.15%) VB
13 7 (1.00%) Lisp
14 6 (0.86%) Kusto Query Language
15 5 (0.72%) C++
15 5 (0.72%) JavaScript
16 3 (0.43%) C#
16 3 (0.43%) Search Processing Language
16 3 (0.43%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 259 (37.16%) Security Cleared
2 184 (26.40%) SC Cleared
3 87 (12.48%) DV Cleared
4 62 (8.90%) Degree
5 59 (8.46%) Microsoft Certification
6 42 (6.03%) Cisco Certification
7 38 (5.45%) CCNP
8 37 (5.31%) Azure Certification
9 23 (3.30%) AWS Certification
10 18 (2.58%) CompTIA Security+
10 18 (2.58%) Network+ Certification
11 15 (2.15%) CCNA
11 15 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
12 13 (1.87%) CISSP
13 11 (1.58%) CompTIA CySA+
13 11 (1.58%) Server+ Certification
14 9 (1.29%) MCSE
15 8 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
15 8 (1.15%) CCIE
15 8 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (4.02%) GDPR
2 23 (3.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 19 (2.73%) SLA
4 18 (2.58%) NIST
5 12 (1.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 9 (1.29%) NCSC
6 9 (1.29%) PCI DSS
7 8 (1.15%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.86%) Accessibility
8 6 (0.86%) QA
9 3 (0.43%) Data Quality
9 3 (0.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 2 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.29%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.29%) PMO
11 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.14%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.14%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 312 (44.76%) Active Directory
2 194 (27.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 90 (12.91%) Docker
4 55 (7.89%) Hyper-V
5 40 (5.74%) VMware NSX
6 29 (4.16%) vSphere
7 27 (3.87%) Virtual Machines
8 21 (3.01%) Firmware
9 17 (2.44%) DFS Replication
9 17 (2.44%) VMware ESXi
10 15 (2.15%) Dovecot
10 15 (2.15%) Postfix
11 13 (1.87%) Terminal Services
12 10 (1.43%) BitLocker
12 10 (1.43%) Virtual Desktop
13 9 (1.29%) Squid
13 9 (1.29%) Virtual Servers
14 6 (0.86%) Brightmail
14 6 (0.86%) ISA Server
14 6 (0.86%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 126 (18.08%) Terraform
2 119 (17.07%) Ansible
3 81 (11.62%) Microsoft Intune
4 72 (10.33%) SCCM
5 60 (8.61%) Kubernetes
6 57 (8.18%) Single Sign-On
7 38 (5.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 37 (5.31%) vCenter Server
9 33 (4.73%) Grafana
10 25 (3.59%) Prometheus
11 21 (3.01%) WSUS
12 16 (2.30%) FortiGate
13 13 (1.87%) Argo
14 12 (1.72%) Nessus
14 12 (1.72%) Proxmox
14 12 (1.72%) SCOM
15 11 (1.58%) Packer
16 10 (1.43%) Microsoft Clustering
16 10 (1.43%) Puppet
17 7 (1.00%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 258 (37.02%) Microsoft
2 228 (32.71%) VMware
3 115 (16.50%) F5
4 105 (15.06%) Cisco
5 77 (11.05%) ServiceNow
6 55 (7.89%) Palo Alto
6 55 (7.89%) Splunk
7 47 (6.74%) CheckPoint
8 41 (5.88%) Blue Coat
9 35 (5.02%) Citrix
10 32 (4.59%) SolarWinds
11 29 (4.16%) McAfee
12 27 (3.87%) Red Hat
13 26 (3.73%) NetApp
14 25 (3.59%) Veeam
15 24 (3.44%) Juniper
16 22 (3.16%) Dell
17 20 (2.87%) Fortinet
18 18 (2.58%) Infoblox
18 18 (2.58%) Zscaler