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

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 147 111 109
Rank change year-on-year -36 -2 +19
Contract jobs citing DNS 728 735 924
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.96% 2.22% 2.15%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 18.34% 17.38% 15.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 455 456 590
10th Percentile £213 £223 £213
25th Percentile £400 £350 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £476 £488
Median % change year-on-year +10.29% -2.36% -7.14%
75th Percentile £600 £596 £600
90th Percentile £680 £738 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £438 £500
% change year-on-year +14.29% -12.50% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 10 18
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.88 £25.70
25th Percentile £25.70 £21.71 £31.44
Median hourly rate £57.50 £23.59 £55.70
Median % change year-on-year +143.75% -57.65% +112.19%
75th Percentile £77.50 £28.83 £65.25
90th Percentile £85.60 £39.20 £72.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £23.35 £58.20
% change year-on-year +178.37% -59.88% +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 3,970 4,228 5,851
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.70% 12.75% 13.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,600 2,480 3,605
10th Percentile £206 £220 £209
25th Percentile £356 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £473
% change year-on-year -5.26% +0.53% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 138 329
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.86 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.88 £23.00
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -38.04% +68.63%
75th Percentile £65.50 £57.81 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.38 £75.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £32.50 £57.99
% change year-on-year +30.77% -43.96% +50.62%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -14 653 £525 +10.53% 450
UK excluding London -24 453 £500 +14.29% 354
London -6 220 £550 +4.76% 144
Work from Home -45 179 £500 - 157
North of England -30 136 £470 +17.50% 87
Midlands +15 119 £400 +3.90% 45
South East -4 116 £500 +8.11% 121
West Midlands +39 115 £401 -5.65% 28
North West -5 92 £500 +5.26% 49
South West -17 61 £575 +12.20% 37
Yorkshire -39 51 £447 +43.04% 32
East of England -18 38 £363 +28.32% 53
Scotland -16 25 £460 +2.11% 19
North East -14 7 £575 +283.33% 8
East Midlands -35 4 £275 -26.67% 17
Wales -11 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 91 (12.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 71 (9.75%) SharePoint
3 32 (4.40%) Skype for Business
4 22 (3.02%) Confluence
5 13 (1.79%) nginx
6 12 (1.65%) Exchange Server 2010
7 11 (1.51%) SharePoint Server
8 10 (1.37%) Exchange Server 2013
9 9 (1.24%) IIS
10 7 (0.96%) Exchange Server 2003
10 7 (0.96%) Exchange Server 2007
10 7 (0.96%) Office Communications Server
11 6 (0.82%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.69%) Apache
13 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
14 2 (0.27%) Apache Spark
14 2 (0.27%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.27%) Oracle HTTP Server
14 2 (0.27%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.27%) WordPress
Applications
1 47 (6.46%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 10 (1.37%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.27%) Windchill
6 1 (0.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
1 2 (0.27%) SystmOne
1 2 (0.27%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.14%) Eikon
2 1 (0.14%) Eze OMS
2 1 (0.14%) Fidessa
2 1 (0.14%) Pegasus Opera
Cloud Services
1 237 (32.55%) Azure
2 184 (25.27%) AWS
3 150 (20.60%) Microsoft 365
4 96 (13.19%) Entra ID
5 72 (9.89%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 59 (8.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 59 (8.10%) Amazon S3
7 57 (7.83%) Amazon EC2
8 50 (6.87%) GitHub
9 45 (6.18%) GCP
10 42 (5.77%) Amazon ELB
11 37 (5.08%) IaaS
12 36 (4.95%) AWS CloudFormation
13 33 (4.53%) Amazon ECS
14 31 (4.26%) SaaS
15 29 (3.98%) Serverless
16 27 (3.71%) AWS Lambda
17 26 (3.57%) GitHub Actions
18 24 (3.30%) AWS KMS
19 19 (2.61%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 304 (41.76%) DHCP
2 251 (34.48%) Firewall
2 251 (34.48%) TCP/IP
3 176 (24.18%) VPN
4 101 (13.87%) SSL
5 100 (13.74%) Network Security
6 91 (12.50%) HTTP
7 75 (10.30%) WAN
8 65 (8.93%) VLAN
9 61 (8.38%) LAN
10 50 (6.87%) SMTP
11 45 (6.18%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 44 (6.04%) Wireless
13 42 (5.77%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 38 (5.22%) BGP
14 38 (5.22%) FTP
15 35 (4.81%) DMZ
15 35 (4.81%) Wi-Fi
16 34 (4.67%) Wireshark
17 30 (4.12%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (4.67%) Amazon RDS
2 27 (3.71%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (3.16%) SQL Server
4 18 (2.47%) Amazon Aurora
5 10 (1.37%) MongoDB
6 8 (1.10%) Elasticsearch
7 6 (0.82%) Data Hub
7 6 (0.82%) DynamoDB
7 6 (0.82%) MySQL
7 6 (0.82%) Redis
8 5 (0.69%) BigQuery
8 5 (0.69%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.55%) Apache Cassandra
9 4 (0.55%) Big Data
9 4 (0.55%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.41%) DocumentDB
11 2 (0.27%) Delta Lake
11 2 (0.27%) Hadoop
11 2 (0.27%) Parquet
11 2 (0.27%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 92 (12.64%) Jenkins
2 79 (10.85%) Git
3 52 (7.14%) GitLab
4 48 (6.59%) JIRA
5 22 (3.02%) Fiddler
6 17 (2.34%) Vagrant
7 8 (1.10%) Terragrunt
8 5 (0.69%) Subversion
9 4 (0.55%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.55%) TeamCity
10 3 (0.41%) Visual Studio Code
11 2 (0.27%) Browser DevTools
11 2 (0.27%) MLflow
11 2 (0.27%) Poetry
11 2 (0.27%) PyCharm
11 2 (0.27%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.27%) Vite
11 2 (0.27%) webpack
12 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.14%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 226 (31.04%) Social Skills
2 115 (15.80%) Analytical Skills
3 77 (10.58%) Public Sector
4 56 (7.69%) Banking
5 52 (7.14%) Finance
6 41 (5.63%) Investment Banking
7 38 (5.22%) Documentation Skills
8 23 (3.16%) Telecoms
9 18 (2.47%) Legal
9 18 (2.47%) Presentation Skills
10 10 (1.37%) Law
10 10 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (1.24%) Military
12 8 (1.10%) Aerospace
13 7 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.69%) Marketing
15 4 (0.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 3 (0.41%) Financial Institution
16 3 (0.41%) Local Government
16 3 (0.41%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 92 (12.64%) Network Engineer
2 77 (10.58%) Support Engineer
3 76 (10.44%) Architect
4 75 (10.30%) Senior
5 74 (10.16%) Analyst
5 74 (10.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 49 (6.73%) DevOps Engineer
7 48 (6.59%) Platform Engineer
8 42 (5.77%) IT Support
9 35 (4.81%) AWS Engineer
9 35 (4.81%) Security Engineer
10 31 (4.26%) SOC Analyst
11 28 (3.85%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 27 (3.71%) Lead
13 26 (3.57%) 2nd Line Support
13 26 (3.57%) Cloud Platform Engineer
14 25 (3.43%) Operations Engineer
15 24 (3.30%) AWS DevOps
15 24 (3.30%) AWS DevOps Engineer
16 23 (3.16%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (7.28%) LDAP
2 24 (3.30%) SAML
3 21 (2.88%) OAuth
4 19 (2.61%) OpenID
5 17 (2.34%) OAuth2
6 16 (2.20%) Elastic Stack
7 15 (2.06%) 802.1X
7 15 (2.06%) REST
8 13 (1.79%) Kafka
9 10 (1.37%) Middleware
9 10 (1.37%) SOAP
10 9 (1.24%) AngularJS
11 7 (0.96%) React
12 6 (0.82%) cloud-init
12 6 (0.82%) Keycloak
12 6 (0.82%) OpenTelemetry
12 6 (0.82%) YAML
13 5 (0.69%) Flask
13 5 (0.69%) JSON
13 5 (0.69%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 57 (7.83%) PKI
2 56 (7.69%) Management Information System
3 54 (7.42%) Replication
4 53 (7.28%) Data Centre
5 32 (4.40%) Onboarding
6 30 (4.12%) Analytical Mindset
7 28 (3.85%) Security Operations Centre
8 27 (3.71%) Cyberattack
9 23 (3.16%) Enterprise Software
10 20 (2.75%) Cloud Native
11 18 (2.47%) Cyber Threat
12 17 (2.34%) Hybrid Cloud
13 13 (1.79%) CSOC
14 12 (1.65%) Private Cloud
14 12 (1.65%) Video Conferencing
15 11 (1.51%) Clustering
15 11 (1.51%) Public Cloud
15 11 (1.51%) Security Posture
15 11 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (1.37%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 363 (49.86%) Windows
2 174 (23.90%) Linux
3 160 (21.98%) Windows Server
4 62 (8.52%) Windows 10
5 28 (3.85%) Unix
6 27 (3.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 26 (3.57%) VMS
8 25 (3.43%) Windows Server 2016
8 25 (3.43%) Windows Server 2019
9 21 (2.88%) Windows Server 2012
10 20 (2.75%) Amazon Linux
11 18 (2.47%) Android
12 15 (2.06%) Ubuntu
13 13 (1.79%) CentOS
13 13 (1.79%) Mac OS
14 12 (1.65%) Apple iOS
14 12 (1.65%) Windows Server 2003
15 8 (1.10%) Windows 7
16 5 (0.69%) Solaris
17 3 (0.41%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 167 (22.94%) Problem-Solving
2 133 (18.27%) ITIL
3 127 (17.45%) CI/CD
4 124 (17.03%) DevOps
5 110 (15.11%) Infrastructure as Code
6 109 (14.97%) Load Balancing
7 100 (13.74%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 86 (11.81%) Cybersecurity
9 77 (10.58%) Change Management
10 75 (10.30%) Incident Response
11 73 (10.03%) High Availability
12 72 (9.89%) Migration
13 67 (9.20%) SIEM
14 63 (8.65%) Root Cause Analysis
14 63 (8.65%) Service Management
15 58 (7.97%) Disaster Recovery
16 56 (7.69%) Platform Engineering
17 55 (7.55%) Agile
17 55 (7.55%) Continuous Improvement
18 51 (7.01%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 212 (29.12%) PowerShell
2 179 (24.59%) Python
3 84 (11.54%) Bash
4 52 (7.14%) SQL
5 23 (3.16%) Java
5 23 (3.16%) Perl
6 19 (2.61%) Groovy
7 14 (1.92%) Bicep
8 13 (1.79%) Go
8 13 (1.79%) Shell Script
9 10 (1.37%) Ruby
10 8 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
11 7 (0.96%) Lisp
11 7 (0.96%) VBScript
12 6 (0.82%) JavaScript
12 6 (0.82%) VB
13 5 (0.69%) C++
14 3 (0.41%) C#
14 3 (0.41%) T-SQL
14 3 (0.41%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 266 (36.54%) Security Cleared
2 192 (26.37%) SC Cleared
3 87 (11.95%) DV Cleared
4 72 (9.89%) Degree
5 65 (8.93%) Microsoft Certification
6 51 (7.01%) Cisco Certification
7 40 (5.49%) Azure Certification
7 40 (5.49%) CCNP
8 24 (3.30%) AWS Certification
9 22 (3.02%) CompTIA Security+
10 21 (2.88%) CISSP
11 18 (2.47%) CCNA
11 18 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
12 17 (2.34%) Network+ Certification
13 13 (1.79%) MCSE
14 12 (1.65%) CCIE
14 12 (1.65%) CompTIA CySA+
15 11 (1.51%) Server+ Certification
16 10 (1.37%) MCSA
17 9 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (4.12%) GDPR
2 22 (3.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 18 (2.47%) NIST
3 18 (2.47%) SLA
4 10 (1.37%) NCSC
4 10 (1.37%) PCI DSS
5 8 (1.10%) Accessibility
5 8 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials
5 8 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 5 (0.69%) QA
7 4 (0.55%) Data Quality
8 3 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 2 (0.27%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.27%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.27%) PMO
9 2 (0.27%) WCAG
10 1 (0.14%) COBIT
10 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.14%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.14%) SOC 2
System Software
1 320 (43.96%) Active Directory
2 188 (25.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 97 (13.32%) Docker
4 55 (7.55%) Hyper-V
5 41 (5.63%) VMware NSX
6 30 (4.12%) Virtual Machines
7 29 (3.98%) vSphere
8 20 (2.75%) DFS Replication
8 20 (2.75%) Firmware
9 19 (2.61%) VMware ESXi
10 16 (2.20%) Dovecot
10 16 (2.20%) Postfix
11 15 (2.06%) Terminal Services
12 10 (1.37%) Squid
12 10 (1.37%) Virtual Desktop
13 9 (1.24%) Virtual Servers
14 7 (0.96%) BitLocker
14 7 (0.96%) Brightmail
14 7 (0.96%) ISA Server
15 5 (0.69%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 143 (19.64%) Terraform
2 122 (16.76%) Ansible
3 77 (10.58%) Microsoft Intune
4 76 (10.44%) SCCM
5 68 (9.34%) Kubernetes
6 48 (6.59%) Single Sign-On
7 43 (5.91%) Grafana
8 42 (5.77%) vCenter Server
9 36 (4.95%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 33 (4.53%) Prometheus
11 21 (2.88%) WSUS
12 17 (2.34%) Nessus
13 16 (2.20%) Argo
14 15 (2.06%) FortiGate
15 13 (1.79%) Packer
15 13 (1.79%) Proxmox
16 12 (1.65%) SCOM
17 11 (1.51%) Microsoft Clustering
17 11 (1.51%) Progress Chef
17 11 (1.51%) Puppet
Vendors
1 268 (36.81%) Microsoft
2 225 (30.91%) VMware
3 113 (15.52%) F5
4 107 (14.70%) Cisco
5 81 (11.13%) ServiceNow
6 60 (8.24%) Palo Alto
6 60 (8.24%) Splunk
7 50 (6.87%) CheckPoint
8 39 (5.36%) Blue Coat
9 37 (5.08%) Citrix
10 33 (4.53%) Red Hat
11 31 (4.26%) SolarWinds
12 27 (3.71%) McAfee
13 26 (3.57%) Veeam
14 25 (3.43%) Juniper
14 25 (3.43%) NetApp
15 21 (2.88%) Fortinet
16 19 (2.61%) Oracle
17 18 (2.47%) Zscaler
18 17 (2.34%) Dell