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 14 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 142 133 123
Rank change year-on-year -9 -10 +21
Contract jobs citing DNS 734 703 969
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.07% 1.92% 2.08%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 18.33% 15.90% 14.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 452 420 627
10th Percentile £213 £223 £223
25th Percentile £396 £330 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.81% -7.50% -2.91%
75th Percentile £600 £578 £600
90th Percentile £680 £726 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £425 £500
% change year-on-year +17.65% -15.00% +7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 10 22
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.36 £24.28
25th Percentile £29.00 £23.22 £27.31
Median hourly rate £43.25 £24.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +80.21% -40.00% +73.91%
75th Percentile £74.45 £36.00 £65.25
90th Percentile £87.32 £48.88 £77.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.50 £27.10 £47.50
% change year-on-year +53.14% -42.95% +19.35%

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 4,005 4,422 6,519
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.27% 12.05% 14.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,602 2,554 4,068
10th Percentile £206 £225 £213
25th Percentile £358 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 166 340
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.83 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.18 £24.63 £22.94
Median hourly rate £35.00 £45.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.22% -18.18% +30.49%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.44
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £75.71
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £49.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -14.14% -12.37% +25.53%

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 14 November 2025.

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 14 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for DNS in the UK

DNS
Top 17 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 14 November 2025. 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 +10 677 £525 +12.66% 566
UK excluding London -9 434 £500 +17.65% 438
London +20 246 £525 +1.94% 199
Work from Home -26 187 £500 +0.30% 226
Midlands +18 125 £438 +15.13% 62
West Midlands +31 120 £414 -2.71% 39
North of England -14 118 £500 +11.11% 48
South East -2 95 £500 +6.67% 169
North West -2 76 £500 +5.26% 25
South West +2 65 £575 +36.90% 66
East of England -1 49 £535 +94.55% 58
Yorkshire -20 48 £500 +33.33% 18
Scotland -48 14 £454 +3.77% 31
North East -16 7 £538 +258.33% 5
East Midlands -34 5 £450 +20.00% 23
Wales -8 1 £180 -40.00% 5
Channel Islands - 1 £440 -

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 84 (11.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 73 (9.95%) SharePoint
3 46 (6.27%) Confluence
4 35 (4.77%) Skype for Business
5 14 (1.91%) OpenStack
5 14 (1.91%) SharePoint Server
6 12 (1.63%) Exchange Server 2010
7 11 (1.50%) Exchange Server 2013
8 10 (1.36%) Exchange Server 2003
8 10 (1.36%) Exchange Server 2007
8 10 (1.36%) nginx
8 10 (1.36%) Office Communications Server
9 9 (1.23%) IIS
10 7 (0.95%) Apache
11 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
12 2 (0.27%) Apache Spark
12 2 (0.27%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.27%) Oracle HTTP Server
12 2 (0.27%) WebLogic
Applications
1 71 (9.67%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
3 7 (0.95%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.54%) Microsoft Excel
5 3 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.27%) Windchill
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
1 199 (27.11%) Azure
2 193 (26.29%) AWS
3 141 (19.21%) Microsoft 365
4 78 (10.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 68 (9.26%) Entra ID
6 64 (8.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 60 (8.17%) Amazon EC2
8 59 (8.04%) Amazon S3
9 44 (5.99%) Amazon ELB
10 42 (5.72%) GitHub
11 39 (5.31%) GCP
12 34 (4.63%) SaaS
13 29 (3.95%) IaaS
14 28 (3.81%) AWS KMS
15 27 (3.68%) Amazon ECS
16 23 (3.13%) Serverless
17 22 (3.00%) AWS CloudFormation
17 22 (3.00%) AWS Lambda
18 21 (2.86%) Route 53
19 20 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 335 (45.64%) DHCP
2 270 (36.78%) Firewall
3 232 (31.61%) TCP/IP
4 182 (24.80%) VPN
5 103 (14.03%) Network Security
6 97 (13.22%) WAN
7 94 (12.81%) SSL
8 83 (11.31%) LAN
8 83 (11.31%) VLAN
9 79 (10.76%) HTTP
10 65 (8.86%) Wireless
11 54 (7.36%) BGP
12 52 (7.08%) SMTP
13 46 (6.27%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 46 (6.27%) SAN
14 41 (5.59%) Wi-Fi
15 37 (5.04%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
15 37 (5.04%) SD-WAN
16 36 (4.90%) IPsec
16 36 (4.90%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (5.31%) Amazon RDS
2 19 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (2.32%) SQL Server
4 14 (1.91%) Amazon Aurora
5 8 (1.09%) MongoDB
6 6 (0.82%) BigQuery
6 6 (0.82%) DynamoDB
7 5 (0.68%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (0.68%) MySQL
8 4 (0.54%) Big Data
9 3 (0.41%) GIS
9 3 (0.41%) Redis
9 3 (0.41%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.27%) Data Hub
10 2 (0.27%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
10 2 (0.27%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.27%) Parquet
10 2 (0.27%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 98 (13.35%) Jenkins
2 84 (11.44%) Git
3 77 (10.49%) JIRA
4 51 (6.95%) GitLab
5 22 (3.00%) Vagrant
6 13 (1.77%) Fiddler
7 9 (1.23%) TeamCity
8 6 (0.82%) Visual Studio Code
9 5 (0.68%) Subversion
10 4 (0.54%) Browser DevTools
10 4 (0.54%) Terragrunt
10 4 (0.54%) Vite
10 4 (0.54%) webpack
11 3 (0.41%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.27%) MLflow
12 2 (0.27%) Poetry
12 2 (0.27%) PyCharm
12 2 (0.27%) SonarQube
12 2 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
13 1 (0.14%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 230 (31.34%) Social Skills
2 105 (14.31%) Analytical Skills
3 79 (10.76%) Public Sector
4 62 (8.45%) Finance
5 43 (5.86%) Banking
6 34 (4.63%) Investment Banking
7 31 (4.22%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (2.72%) Legal
8 20 (2.72%) Telecoms
9 19 (2.59%) Presentation Skills
10 17 (2.32%) Manufacturing
11 12 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 9 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
13 8 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (1.09%) Military
14 7 (0.95%) Law
15 6 (0.82%) Local Government
15 6 (0.82%) Marketing
16 4 (0.54%) Aerospace
17 3 (0.41%) Retail
Job Titles
1 97 (13.22%) Network Engineer
2 95 (12.94%) Support Engineer
3 68 (9.26%) Architect
4 66 (8.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 64 (8.72%) Senior
6 61 (8.31%) Analyst
7 60 (8.17%) DevOps Engineer
8 41 (5.59%) IT Support
8 41 (5.59%) Platform Engineer
9 39 (5.31%) AWS Engineer
10 34 (4.63%) Administrator
11 31 (4.22%) Security Engineer
12 26 (3.54%) AWS DevOps
12 26 (3.54%) AWS DevOps Engineer
12 26 (3.54%) Cloud Platform Engineer
12 26 (3.54%) Consultant
12 26 (3.54%) IT Engineer
13 23 (3.13%) Operations Engineer
14 21 (2.86%) Azure Engineer
14 21 (2.86%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.18%) LDAP
2 17 (2.32%) SAML
3 15 (2.04%) OAuth
4 14 (1.91%) 802.1X
4 14 (1.91%) REST
5 13 (1.77%) OpenID
6 12 (1.63%) AngularJS
6 12 (1.63%) Elastic Stack
6 12 (1.63%) OAuth2
7 11 (1.50%) SOAP
8 10 (1.36%) YAML
9 8 (1.09%) CSS
9 8 (1.09%) HTML
9 8 (1.09%) Kafka
9 8 (1.09%) Middleware
9 8 (1.09%) NETCONF
9 8 (1.09%) React
9 8 (1.09%) RESTCONF
10 7 (0.95%) cloud-init
10 7 (0.95%) Keycloak
Miscellaneous
1 63 (8.58%) Data Centre
2 62 (8.45%) Replication
3 56 (7.63%) PKI
4 49 (6.68%) Management Information System
5 28 (3.81%) Onboarding
6 21 (2.86%) Analytical Mindset
7 19 (2.59%) Hybrid Cloud
8 17 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
9 16 (2.18%) Video Conferencing
10 12 (1.63%) Cloud Native
10 12 (1.63%) Security Operations Centre
11 11 (1.50%) Operational Technology
11 11 (1.50%) Private Cloud
11 11 (1.50%) SCADA
12 10 (1.36%) Cyberattack
12 10 (1.36%) Security Posture
12 10 (1.36%) Virtual Team
13 9 (1.23%) Cyber Threat
14 8 (1.09%) CSOC
14 8 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 335 (45.64%) Windows
2 165 (22.48%) Linux
3 125 (17.03%) Windows Server
4 65 (8.86%) Windows 10
5 33 (4.50%) VMS
6 32 (4.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (4.09%) Unix
7 30 (4.09%) Windows Server 2016
8 28 (3.81%) Windows Server 2019
9 25 (3.41%) Amazon Linux
10 22 (3.00%) Mac OS
11 21 (2.86%) Ubuntu
12 20 (2.72%) CentOS
13 18 (2.45%) Android
14 17 (2.32%) Windows Server 2012
15 16 (2.18%) Windows Server 2003
16 13 (1.77%) Windows 7
17 10 (1.36%) Apple iOS
18 5 (0.68%) Solaris
19 3 (0.41%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (19.48%) Problem-Solving
2 136 (18.53%) DevOps
3 122 (16.62%) CI/CD
4 120 (16.35%) ITIL
5 95 (12.94%) Load Balancing
6 94 (12.81%) Infrastructure as Code
7 89 (12.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 80 (10.90%) High Availability
9 76 (10.35%) Migration
10 72 (9.81%) Change Management
11 68 (9.26%) Service Management
12 66 (8.99%) Cybersecurity
13 58 (7.90%) Agile
14 54 (7.36%) Incident Response
15 50 (6.81%) Containerisation
15 50 (6.81%) Root Cause Analysis
16 49 (6.68%) Continuous Improvement
16 49 (6.68%) Patch Management
16 49 (6.68%) Platform Engineering
17 48 (6.54%) Infrastructure Automation
Programming Languages
1 191 (26.02%) PowerShell
2 183 (24.93%) Python
3 92 (12.53%) Bash
4 42 (5.72%) SQL
5 30 (4.09%) Perl
6 24 (3.27%) Groovy
7 23 (3.13%) Java
8 17 (2.32%) Shell Script
9 15 (2.04%) Go
10 13 (1.77%) JavaScript
11 10 (1.36%) Bicep
12 8 (1.09%) VBScript
13 7 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
13 7 (0.95%) Lisp
14 6 (0.82%) C++
14 6 (0.82%) VB
15 5 (0.68%) TypeScript
16 4 (0.54%) Apex Code
17 3 (0.41%) Search Processing Language
17 3 (0.41%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 265 (36.10%) Security Cleared
2 190 (25.89%) SC Cleared
3 99 (13.49%) Cisco Certification
4 89 (12.13%) Degree
5 78 (10.63%) DV Cleared
6 69 (9.40%) CCNP
7 57 (7.77%) Microsoft Certification
8 45 (6.13%) CCNA
9 36 (4.90%) Azure Certification
10 29 (3.95%) AWS Certification
11 23 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
12 22 (3.00%) CISSP
13 19 (2.59%) CCIE
14 14 (1.91%) Network+ Certification
15 13 (1.77%) MCSE
16 12 (1.63%) MCSA
17 11 (1.50%) ITIL Certification
17 11 (1.50%) Server+ Certification
18 9 (1.23%) CompTIA Security+
18 9 (1.23%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (3.81%) GDPR
2 18 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 18 (2.45%) SLA
3 17 (2.32%) NIST
4 12 (1.63%) NCSC
4 12 (1.63%) PCI DSS
5 8 (1.09%) Accessibility
6 7 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
7 6 (0.82%) SOC 2
8 5 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 4 (0.54%) Data Quality
9 4 (0.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 4 (0.54%) WCAG
10 3 (0.41%) QA
11 2 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.27%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.14%) COBIT
12 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.14%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.14%) JSP 440
System Software
1 295 (40.19%) Active Directory
2 176 (23.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 90 (12.26%) Docker
4 48 (6.54%) Hyper-V
5 36 (4.90%) vSphere
6 34 (4.63%) VMware NSX
7 28 (3.81%) VMware ESXi
8 25 (3.41%) DFS Replication
9 22 (3.00%) Virtual Machines
10 20 (2.72%) Firmware
11 16 (2.18%) Dovecot
11 16 (2.18%) Postfix
11 16 (2.18%) Virtual Servers
12 13 (1.77%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 12 (1.63%) Terminal Services
14 10 (1.36%) Brightmail
14 10 (1.36%) ISA Server
14 10 (1.36%) Squid
14 10 (1.36%) Virtual Desktop
15 9 (1.23%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 140 (19.07%) Terraform
2 132 (17.98%) Ansible
3 77 (10.49%) SCCM
4 54 (7.36%) Kubernetes
5 49 (6.68%) Grafana
6 48 (6.54%) Microsoft Intune
7 44 (5.99%) Prometheus
8 41 (5.59%) vCenter Server
9 36 (4.90%) Single Sign-On
10 29 (3.95%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 26 (3.54%) WSUS
12 18 (2.45%) Argo
12 18 (2.45%) Nessus
13 16 (2.18%) FortiGate
14 15 (2.04%) Packer
15 13 (1.77%) Progress Chef
15 13 (1.77%) Proxmox
15 13 (1.77%) Puppet
16 12 (1.63%) Microsoft Clustering
17 8 (1.09%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 264 (35.97%) Microsoft
2 213 (29.02%) VMware
3 139 (18.94%) Cisco
4 106 (14.44%) F5
5 91 (12.40%) ServiceNow
6 56 (7.63%) CheckPoint
7 55 (7.49%) Splunk
8 48 (6.54%) Palo Alto
9 40 (5.45%) Citrix
10 38 (5.18%) Red Hat
11 34 (4.63%) SolarWinds
12 28 (3.81%) Veeam
13 27 (3.68%) Juniper
13 27 (3.68%) NetApp
14 26 (3.54%) Blue Coat
14 26 (3.54%) Dell
15 24 (3.27%) Fortinet
15 24 (3.27%) Google
15 24 (3.27%) Meraki
16 22 (3.00%) Remedy