LAN Contract Job Trends

Local Area Network (LAN)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring LAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 210 218 162
Rank change year-on-year +8 -56 -14
Contract jobs citing LAN 555 360 646
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 1.24% 1.51%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.21% 9.75% 11.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 348 214 380
10th Percentile £221 £243 £200
25th Percentile £335 £353 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £466 £450
Median % change year-on-year -3.49% +3.61% -2.70%
75th Percentile £535 £563 £638
90th Percentile £619 £625 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £444 £438 £425
% change year-on-year +1.43% +2.94% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 10 42
10th Percentile £12.43 £14.99 £12.86
25th Percentile £18.36 £19.81 £15.75
Median hourly rate £22.50 £27.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +20.00% -65.38%
75th Percentile £52.94 £39.69 £40.00
90th Percentile £78.33 £50.20 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £15.33 £22.50
% change year-on-year +46.77% -31.87% -65.65%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

LAN 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 4,546 3,694 5,429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.56% 12.75% 12.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,806 2,274 3,239
10th Percentile £263 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £360 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -0.51% -4.99%
75th Percentile £588 £590 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £696
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 164 417
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.92 £16.30
Median hourly rate £40.54 £34.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.51% -13.75% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.88 £58.70 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £24.71 £45.88
% change year-on-year +72.00% -46.14% +148.47%

LAN
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing LAN relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

LAN job vacancy trend in the UK

LAN
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing LAN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing LAN

LAN
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing LAN over the 6 months to 14 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for LAN in the UK

LAN
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing LAN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing LAN

LAN
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing LAN over the 6 months to 14 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for LAN in the UK

LAN
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 LAN within the UK over the 6 months to 14 May 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 -15 477 £450 -5.26% 212
UK excluding London +1 386 £444 +1.43% 184
South East +16 168 £456 -8.90% 73
Work from Home -1 125 £450 -10.10% 85
London -47 119 £500 - 58
North of England -58 60 £450 +16.06% 37
Midlands -30 54 £295 -41.00% 23
West Midlands -29 45 £318 -32.27% 18
East of England -11 44 £338 -21.05% 19
Scotland +22 34 £413 +3.38% 10
Yorkshire -35 30 £338 +26.36% 14
North West -43 30 £490 +8.89% 19
South West -47 15 £500 - 15
Wales -11 9 £475 +46.15% 13
East Midlands -30 6 £200 -61.90% 5
Northern Ireland - 3 £468 - 1

LAN
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 30 (5.41%) SharePoint
2 23 (4.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (2.70%) Confluence
4 5 (0.90%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.72%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.36%) IIS
7 1 (0.18%) Apache
7 1 (0.18%) CMS
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 20 (3.60%) MS Visio
2 16 (2.88%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.72%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.36%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 130 (23.42%) Azure
2 80 (14.41%) Microsoft 365
3 56 (10.09%) AWS
4 37 (6.67%) Entra ID
5 16 (2.88%) SaaS
6 15 (2.70%) OneDrive
7 12 (2.16%) GCP
7 12 (2.16%) PaaS
8 7 (1.26%) Azure DevOps
8 7 (1.26%) Power Platform
8 7 (1.26%) PowerApps
9 5 (0.90%) IaaS
9 5 (0.90%) Nutanix
9 5 (0.90%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 4 (0.72%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 4 (0.72%) Google Ads
11 2 (0.36%) AWS Direct Connect
11 2 (0.36%) IBM Watson
11 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Purview
11 2 (0.36%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 459 (82.70%) WAN
2 270 (48.65%) Firewall
3 158 (28.47%) VPN
4 150 (27.03%) BGP
5 137 (24.68%) OSPF
6 133 (23.96%) Wi-Fi
7 127 (22.88%) SD-WAN
8 109 (19.64%) DNS
8 109 (19.64%) Network Security
9 94 (16.94%) Wireless
10 85 (15.32%) DHCP
11 72 (12.97%) VLAN
11 72 (12.97%) WLAN
12 69 (12.43%) TCP/IP
13 62 (11.17%) MPLS
14 53 (9.55%) IPsec
15 46 (8.29%) BIG-IP
16 45 (8.11%) Cisco ISE
16 45 (8.11%) Cisco Nexus
17 38 (6.85%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.26%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.36%) MariaDB
2 2 (0.36%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.18%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.18%) DynamoDB
3 1 (0.18%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.18%) MySQL
3 1 (0.18%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.18%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 32 (5.77%) JIRA
2 4 (0.72%) Browser DevTools
3 3 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.36%) GitLab
4 2 (0.36%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.18%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 141 (25.41%) Social Skills
2 49 (8.83%) Public Sector
3 40 (7.21%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (6.49%) Finance
5 34 (6.13%) Documentation Skills
6 27 (4.86%) Manufacturing
7 24 (4.32%) Telecoms
8 21 (3.78%) Legal
9 16 (2.88%) Financial Institution
10 13 (2.34%) Military
11 10 (1.80%) Law
11 10 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.62%) Banking
13 7 (1.26%) Retail
14 6 (1.08%) Local Government
15 5 (0.90%) Police
16 2 (0.36%) Billing
16 2 (0.36%) German Language
16 2 (0.36%) Influencing Skills
16 2 (0.36%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 224 (40.36%) Network Engineer
2 83 (14.95%) Architect
3 64 (11.53%) Senior
4 56 (10.09%) Network Architect
5 41 (7.39%) IT Support
6 34 (6.13%) Support Engineer
7 30 (5.41%) Lead
7 30 (5.41%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 29 (5.23%) Analyst
8 29 (5.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 29 (5.23%) IT Engineer
8 29 (5.23%) Senior Network Engineer
9 27 (4.86%) Cisco Engineer
10 26 (4.68%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 25 (4.50%) IT Support Engineer
12 23 (4.14%) Technical Architect
13 16 (2.88%) Network Manager
14 14 (2.52%) Firewall Specialist
14 14 (2.52%) Network Specialist
14 14 (2.52%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (7.75%) 802.1X
2 15 (2.70%) LDAP
3 13 (2.34%) SAML
4 10 (1.80%) Microsoft Graph
5 8 (1.44%) Middleware
6 4 (0.72%) NETCONF
6 4 (0.72%) REST
6 4 (0.72%) YANG
7 3 (0.54%) XMPP
8 2 (0.36%) .NET
8 2 (0.36%) ARM Templates
8 2 (0.36%) CSS
8 2 (0.36%) Django
8 2 (0.36%) HTML
8 2 (0.36%) RFC 2544
8 2 (0.36%) Software Packaging
9 1 (0.18%) Apache NiFi
9 1 (0.18%) LAPP Stack
9 1 (0.18%) libvirt
9 1 (0.18%) React
Miscellaneous
1 113 (20.36%) Data Centre
2 29 (5.23%) PKI
3 26 (4.68%) Clustering
4 21 (3.78%) Onboarding
5 20 (3.60%) Hybrid Cloud
6 14 (2.52%) Data Protection Act
7 13 (2.34%) Public Cloud
7 13 (2.34%) Security Posture
8 11 (1.98%) Operational Technology
8 11 (1.98%) Self-Motivation
9 9 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.44%) Driving Licence
10 8 (1.44%) IoT
10 8 (1.44%) NHS
10 8 (1.44%) Virtual Team
11 7 (1.26%) CMDB
11 7 (1.26%) Video Conferencing
12 6 (1.08%) Cloud Native
12 6 (1.08%) Smartphone
13 5 (0.90%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 169 (30.45%) Windows
2 49 (8.83%) Windows Server
3 39 (7.03%) Linux
4 31 (5.59%) Windows 10
5 15 (2.70%) Windows Server 2019
6 12 (2.16%) Mac OS
7 9 (1.62%) Android
8 8 (1.44%) Apple iOS
8 8 (1.44%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.90%) CatOS
9 5 (0.90%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.90%) VMS
9 5 (0.90%) Windows Server 2012
9 5 (0.90%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.72%) Unix
11 3 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.36%) AIX
12 2 (0.36%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.18%) CentOS
13 1 (0.18%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (15.68%) ITIL
2 79 (14.23%) High Availability
3 77 (13.87%) Problem-Solving
4 60 (10.81%) Migration
5 56 (10.09%) Load Balancing
6 47 (8.47%) ITSM
7 46 (8.29%) Change Management
8 42 (7.57%) Stakeholder Management
9 39 (7.03%) Network Design
10 38 (6.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 38 (6.85%) Network Architecture
11 35 (6.31%) Network Monitoring
12 34 (6.13%) Continuous Improvement
12 34 (6.13%) Disaster Recovery
12 34 (6.13%) Project Delivery
12 34 (6.13%) Service Management
12 34 (6.13%) Technical Leadership
13 32 (5.77%) Roadmaps
14 31 (5.59%) Cybersecurity
15 29 (5.23%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 38 (6.85%) PowerShell
2 33 (5.95%) Python
3 15 (2.70%) SQL
4 5 (0.90%) VBScript
5 4 (0.72%) VB
6 3 (0.54%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.36%) Bash
7 2 (0.36%) Perl
8 1 (0.18%) Bicep
8 1 (0.18%) C
8 1 (0.18%) C#
8 1 (0.18%) C++
8 1 (0.18%) Java
8 1 (0.18%) Ruby
8 1 (0.18%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.18%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 204 (36.76%) Security Cleared
2 166 (29.91%) Cisco Certification
3 144 (25.95%) SC Cleared
4 122 (21.98%) CCNP
5 56 (10.09%) DV Cleared
6 53 (9.55%) Degree
7 50 (9.01%) CCNA
8 44 (7.93%) CCIE
9 16 (2.88%) JNCIS
10 14 (2.52%) JNCIP
11 13 (2.34%) PMP
12 12 (2.16%) JNCIA
13 11 (1.98%) Azure Certification
14 10 (1.80%) CCSE
14 10 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
14 10 (1.80%) Microsoft Certification
15 9 (1.62%) JNCIE
15 9 (1.62%) PMI Certification
16 7 (1.26%) Network+ Certification
17 5 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (3.24%) QA
2 11 (1.98%) SLA
3 7 (1.26%) Disclosure Scotland
3 7 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.26%) NIST
4 6 (1.08%) NCSC
5 5 (0.90%) GDPR
6 4 (0.72%) JSP 440
7 3 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.36%) PMO
8 2 (0.36%) RMADS
9 1 (0.18%) DICOM
9 1 (0.18%) GRC
9 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 103 (18.56%) Active Directory
2 52 (9.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.78%) VMware NSX
4 16 (2.88%) vSphere
5 8 (1.44%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.08%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.72%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.72%) Firmware
7 4 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.54%) Docker
8 3 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.36%) KVM
10 1 (0.18%) Ceph
10 1 (0.18%) iptables
10 1 (0.18%) Lustre
10 1 (0.18%) RHEV
10 1 (0.18%) Samba
10 1 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.18%) Xen
Systems Management
1 46 (8.29%) FortiGate
2 34 (6.13%) Microsoft Intune
3 30 (5.41%) Ansible
4 19 (3.42%) Terraform
5 16 (2.88%) SCCM
6 14 (2.52%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (2.16%) Jamf Pro
8 7 (1.26%) Nagios
9 6 (1.08%) Cisco Prime
10 5 (0.90%) Endace
10 5 (0.90%) WSUS
11 4 (0.72%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.72%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 3 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
12 3 (0.54%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.36%) AirWatch
13 2 (0.36%) Check_MK
13 2 (0.36%) Grafana
13 2 (0.36%) Nessus
14 1 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 274 (49.37%) Cisco
2 117 (21.08%) Palo Alto
3 112 (20.18%) Microsoft
4 86 (15.50%) F5
5 83 (14.95%) Juniper
6 74 (13.33%) CheckPoint
7 71 (12.79%) Aruba
8 67 (12.07%) VMware
9 57 (10.27%) SolarWinds
10 56 (10.09%) Fortinet
11 31 (5.59%) Extreme Networks
12 29 (5.23%) ServiceNow
12 29 (5.23%) Splunk
13 28 (5.05%) Meraki
14 22 (3.96%) Zscaler
15 16 (2.88%) Dell
16 15 (2.70%) Ekahau
17 14 (2.52%) Veeam
18 9 (1.62%) Arista
18 9 (1.62%) Citrix