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 19 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 129 162
Rank change year-on-year -15 +33 -26
Contract jobs citing DNS 1,036 696 601
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.93% 2.12% 1.55%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 20.44% 17.99% 12.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 635 445 417
10th Percentile £300 £250 £241
25th Percentile £411 £388 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £488
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +7.69% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £649 £650 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 32 15
10th Percentile £26.00 £29.00 £20.00
25th Percentile £31.25 £37.06 £23.45
Median hourly rate £63.48 £61.25 £24.20
Median % change year-on-year +3.64% +153.10% -39.50%
75th Percentile £74.26 £82.33 £49.38
90th Percentile £98.82 £89.17 £63.51
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.24 £65.00 £48.03
% change year-on-year +0.37% +35.33% +84.73%

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 5,069 3,868 4,764
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.46% 11.79% 12.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,999 2,346 2,887
10th Percentile £250 £243 £221
25th Percentile £400 £374 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.84% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 366 203 315
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.00
Median hourly rate £26.00 £47.50 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.26% -3.06% -10.91%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.95 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.07 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -42.07% -18.00% -2.86%

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 19 August 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 19 August 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 19 August 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 -3 941 £500 -4.76% 534
UK excluding London -1 645 £500 -4.76% 346
London -37 321 £500 - 252
Work from Home -19 239 £510 -2.86% 173
North of England +22 231 £470 -6.00% 66
South East +7 190 £538 -2.27% 116
North West +29 147 £465 - 42
Midlands -11 118 £450 -5.26% 48
West Midlands -28 96 £450 -5.26% 32
South West +5 93 £538 -8.51% 45
Yorkshire -6 70 £488 -11.36% 16
East of England -58 33 £450 -18.18% 45
Scotland +7 32 £550 +20.22% 20
East Midlands -4 20 £431 -21.59% 16
North East -34 14 £413 +21.32% 9
Wales -12 9 £455 +19.97% 7

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
1 106 (10.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 93 (8.98%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.22%) Confluence
4 19 (1.83%) Apache
5 16 (1.54%) IIS
6 12 (1.16%) nginx
7 9 (0.87%) Tomcat
8 6 (0.58%) Skype for Business
9 5 (0.48%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2010
10 3 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
11 2 (0.19%) IBM HTTP Server
11 2 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
11 2 (0.19%) WebSphere Portal
12 1 (0.097%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 24 (2.32%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.16%) MS Visio
3 10 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.19%) Houdini
5 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.19%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 11 (1.06%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.097%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 424 (40.93%) Azure
2 215 (20.75%) AWS
3 183 (17.66%) Microsoft 365
4 181 (17.47%) Entra ID
5 112 (10.81%) GCP
6 75 (7.24%) GitHub
7 58 (5.60%) IaaS
8 55 (5.31%) OneDrive
9 44 (4.25%) Azure DevOps
10 41 (3.96%) Azure Monitor
10 41 (3.96%) PaaS
11 39 (3.76%) SaaS
12 36 (3.47%) GitHub Actions
13 31 (2.99%) OpenShift
14 28 (2.70%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (2.61%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 27 (2.61%) Serverless
16 26 (2.51%) Azure ExpressRoute
17 24 (2.32%) Amazon EKS
17 24 (2.32%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 486 (46.91%) DHCP
2 372 (35.91%) Firewall
3 292 (28.19%) TCP/IP
4 291 (28.09%) VPN
5 134 (12.93%) VLAN
6 133 (12.84%) WAN
7 130 (12.55%) Network Security
8 109 (10.52%) LAN
9 102 (9.85%) SSL
10 95 (9.17%) BGP
11 76 (7.34%) Wireless
12 74 (7.14%) Wi-Fi
13 73 (7.05%) HTTP
14 72 (6.95%) BIG-IP
15 64 (6.18%) SAN
16 54 (5.21%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 52 (5.02%) OSPF
18 47 (4.54%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
19 46 (4.44%) DMZ
20 38 (3.67%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (5.41%) SQL Server
2 21 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
4 10 (0.97%) Elasticsearch
4 10 (0.97%) MongoDB
4 10 (0.97%) MySQL
4 10 (0.97%) Power BI
5 9 (0.87%) Amazon RDS
6 6 (0.58%) Data Lake
7 5 (0.48%) MariaDB
7 5 (0.48%) NoSQL
8 4 (0.39%) Db2
8 4 (0.39%) Redis
9 3 (0.29%) Big Data
9 3 (0.29%) SQLPlus
10 2 (0.19%) KDB
11 1 (0.097%) Cloud Spanner
11 1 (0.097%) DynamoDB
11 1 (0.097%) Metadata
11 1 (0.097%) TimescaleDB
Development Applications
1 72 (6.95%) JIRA
2 55 (5.31%) Jenkins
3 44 (4.25%) Git
4 33 (3.19%) GitLab
5 16 (1.54%) Fiddler
6 12 (1.16%) Bitbucket
7 10 (0.97%) Browser DevTools
8 7 (0.68%) Chocolatey
8 7 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (0.48%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 3 (0.29%) MSI
11 2 (0.19%) Artifactory
11 2 (0.19%) Introscope
11 2 (0.19%) Selenium
11 2 (0.19%) Spinnaker
11 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 1 (0.097%) Maven
12 1 (0.097%) SonarQube
12 1 (0.097%) Visual Studio
General
1 266 (25.68%) Social Skills
2 123 (11.87%) Analytical Skills
3 97 (9.36%) Finance
4 86 (8.30%) Public Sector
5 68 (6.56%) Banking
6 59 (5.69%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (3.09%) Telecoms
8 31 (2.99%) Investment Banking
9 23 (2.22%) Legal
10 13 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 13 (1.25%) Military
11 11 (1.06%) Local Government
11 11 (1.06%) Organisational Skills
11 11 (1.06%) Police
12 10 (0.97%) Aerospace
13 9 (0.87%) Manufacturing
14 8 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
15 6 (0.58%) Front Office
15 6 (0.58%) Law
15 6 (0.58%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 184 (17.76%) Network Engineer
2 182 (17.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 123 (11.87%) Senior
4 99 (9.56%) Support Engineer
5 91 (8.78%) Architect
6 76 (7.34%) Cloud Engineer
7 56 (5.41%) Analyst
7 56 (5.41%) Security Engineer
8 49 (4.73%) IT Engineer
8 49 (4.73%) IT Support
9 43 (4.15%) Azure Engineer
10 41 (3.96%) DevOps Engineer
10 41 (3.96%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 40 (3.86%) Platform Engineer
12 39 (3.76%) Cisco Engineer
13 38 (3.67%) Administrator
13 38 (3.67%) Web Engineer
14 37 (3.57%) Cisco Network Engineer
14 37 (3.57%) Network Security Engineer
15 35 (3.38%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (4.63%) SAML
2 41 (3.96%) 802.1X
3 32 (3.09%) OAuth
4 28 (2.70%) OpenID
5 27 (2.61%) LDAP
6 26 (2.51%) ARM Templates
7 19 (1.83%) JSON
8 17 (1.64%) REST
9 16 (1.54%) OpenTelemetry
10 15 (1.45%) Kafka
11 13 (1.25%) YAML
12 10 (0.97%) OAuth2
13 7 (0.68%) CSS
13 7 (0.68%) Middleware
13 7 (0.68%) React
14 6 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
14 6 (0.58%) Software Packaging
15 5 (0.48%) .NET
16 4 (0.39%) Jinja
16 4 (0.39%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 130 (12.55%) Data Centre
2 106 (10.23%) PKI
3 70 (6.76%) Hybrid Cloud
4 69 (6.66%) Onboarding
5 53 (5.12%) Management Information System
6 51 (4.92%) Cloud Native
7 40 (3.86%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 34 (3.28%) Clustering
9 27 (2.61%) Public Cloud
9 27 (2.61%) Replication
10 26 (2.51%) Self-Motivation
11 19 (1.83%) Enterprise Cloud
12 17 (1.64%) Linux Command Line
13 16 (1.54%) Driving Licence
13 16 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
14 15 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
15 14 (1.35%) Cyber Threat
15 14 (1.35%) Security Posture
16 10 (0.97%) CMDB
16 10 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 474 (45.75%) Windows
2 263 (25.39%) Windows Server
3 217 (20.95%) Linux
4 62 (5.98%) Windows 10
5 48 (4.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 39 (3.76%) Windows Server 2019
7 32 (3.09%) Mac OS
8 27 (2.61%) Unix
8 27 (2.61%) Windows Server 2012
9 22 (2.12%) Ubuntu
10 20 (1.93%) Apple iOS
11 18 (1.74%) Android
11 18 (1.74%) VMS
12 17 (1.64%) CentOS
13 15 (1.45%) Windows Server 2016
14 12 (1.16%) Windows 7
15 7 (0.68%) Rocky
15 7 (0.68%) Windows Server 2008
16 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
17 3 (0.29%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 246 (23.75%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 229 (22.10%) Problem-Solving
3 189 (18.24%) ITIL
4 184 (17.76%) Infrastructure as Code
5 178 (17.18%) Load Balancing
6 169 (16.31%) Migration
7 165 (15.93%) DevOps
8 158 (15.25%) CI/CD
9 130 (12.55%) High Availability
10 129 (12.45%) ITSM
11 108 (10.42%) Continuous Improvement
12 97 (9.36%) Observability
13 95 (9.17%) Cybersecurity
14 93 (8.98%) Agile
15 91 (8.78%) Disaster Recovery
16 90 (8.69%) Project Delivery
17 86 (8.30%) Technical Leadership
18 84 (8.11%) Runbook
19 81 (7.82%) Platform Engineering
20 79 (7.63%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 258 (24.90%) PowerShell
2 216 (20.85%) Python
3 158 (15.25%) Bash
4 68 (6.56%) SQL
5 44 (4.25%) Bicep
6 23 (2.22%) JavaScript
7 16 (1.54%) Shell Script
8 12 (1.16%) Go
9 10 (0.97%) ActionScript
9 10 (0.97%) Java
9 10 (0.97%) Perl
10 9 (0.87%) VBScript
11 7 (0.68%) VBA
12 6 (0.58%) Groovy
12 6 (0.58%) VB
13 5 (0.48%) Ruby
13 5 (0.48%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.29%) C
14 3 (0.29%) Lisp
15 2 (0.19%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 383 (36.97%) Security Cleared
2 220 (21.24%) SC Cleared
3 159 (15.35%) DV Cleared
4 103 (9.94%) Cisco Certification
5 83 (8.01%) Degree
6 76 (7.34%) CCNP
7 55 (5.31%) CCNA
8 51 (4.92%) Azure Certification
9 50 (4.83%) Microsoft Certification
10 31 (2.99%) Network+ Certification
11 23 (2.22%) Computer Science Degree
12 21 (2.03%) AWS Certification
13 18 (1.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 17 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
14 17 (1.64%) CCIE
15 15 (1.45%) Server+ Certification
15 15 (1.45%) VCAP
16 13 (1.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 12 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
18 11 (1.06%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (4.05%) SLA
2 26 (2.51%) NIST
3 17 (1.64%) NCSC
4 16 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (1.25%) QA
6 8 (0.77%) GDPR
7 5 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
7 5 (0.48%) NIST 800
8 4 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 4 (0.39%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.19%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.19%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.19%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.19%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.097%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.097%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 440 (42.47%) Active Directory
2 276 (26.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 129 (12.45%) Hyper-V
4 76 (7.34%) VMware ESXi
4 76 (7.34%) vSphere
5 69 (6.66%) VMware NSX
6 56 (5.41%) Docker
7 43 (4.15%) Virtual Machines
8 37 (3.57%) Virtual Desktop
9 26 (2.51%) Firmware
10 22 (2.12%) NFS
11 14 (1.35%) BitLocker
11 14 (1.35%) vCloud
12 9 (0.87%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.87%) Postfix
12 9 (0.87%) Squid
12 9 (0.87%) Virtual Servers
13 8 (0.77%) VMware Workstation
14 7 (0.68%) Ceph
15 6 (0.58%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 219 (21.14%) Terraform
2 160 (15.44%) Ansible
3 128 (12.36%) Kubernetes
4 110 (10.62%) Microsoft Intune
5 82 (7.92%) SCCM
6 64 (6.18%) Single Sign-On
7 62 (5.98%) vCenter Server
8 56 (5.41%) Grafana
9 44 (4.25%) Prometheus
10 34 (3.28%) FortiGate
11 33 (3.19%) SCOM
12 31 (2.99%) WSUS
13 18 (1.74%) Argo
14 16 (1.54%) VxRail
15 15 (1.45%) NetBackup
16 14 (1.35%) Puppet
17 13 (1.25%) Jamf Pro
18 12 (1.16%) Istio
18 12 (1.16%) Packer
18 12 (1.16%) vMotion
Vendors
1 382 (36.87%) Microsoft
2 333 (32.14%) VMware
3 193 (18.63%) Cisco
4 134 (12.93%) F5
5 91 (8.78%) ServiceNow
6 65 (6.27%) Citrix
7 63 (6.08%) Google
7 63 (6.08%) Infoblox
8 57 (5.50%) SolarWinds
8 57 (5.50%) Splunk
9 47 (4.54%) Juniper
10 45 (4.34%) Palo Alto
10 45 (4.34%) Red Hat
11 37 (3.57%) Dynatrace
12 36 (3.47%) NetApp
13 32 (3.09%) CheckPoint
14 31 (2.99%) Fortinet
15 27 (2.61%) Zscaler
16 24 (2.32%) Blue Coat
16 24 (2.32%) CyberArk