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 18 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 219 214 171
Rank change year-on-year -5 -43 -37
Contract jobs citing LAN 575 380 618
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.14% 1.28% 1.41%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.00% 10.20% 11.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 359 225 345
10th Percentile £230 £208 £203
25th Percentile £358 £325 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £470
Median % change year-on-year - -4.26% -1.05%
75th Percentile £538 £569 £638
90th Percentile £619 £625 £720
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 16 41
10th Percentile £12.43 £19.54 £12.86
25th Percentile £18.50 £27.00 £15.75
Median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% +33.33% -65.65%
75th Percentile £40.79 £40.81 £40.00
90th Percentile £72.67 £51.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -25.00% +33.33% -65.91%

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 4,793 3,724 5,432
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.51% 12.51% 12.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,942 2,288 3,212
10th Percentile £250 £220 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £470 £488
% change year-on-year +2.13% -3.59% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 291 175 422
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.04 £19.14 £17.69
Median hourly rate £27.88 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.64% +10.00% +110.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £61.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.00 £71.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £31.08 £47.50
% change year-on-year -9.91% -34.57% +150.46%

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 18 June 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 18 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for LAN in the UK

LAN
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 LAN within the UK over the 6 months to 18 June 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 -16 493 £450 -5.26% 171
UK excluding London +5 406 £450 +5.88% 193
South East +13 167 £475 -5.00% 59
London -56 117 £500 +4.17% 38
Work from Home -26 116 £463 -2.63% 72
North of England -40 77 £450 +28.57% 30
Midlands -32 57 £295 -26.25% 26
Scotland +8 42 £450 +16.13% 18
West Midlands -37 42 £335 -16.25% 18
East of England -5 41 £350 -18.60% 16
North West -32 41 £525 +61.54% 17
Yorkshire -31 36 £425 +6.18% 9
South West -38 15 £525 +31.25% 19
East Midlands -17 12 £200 -52.66% 8
Wales -19 7 £475 +105.41% 8
Northern Ireland - 3 £468 - 23
Channel Islands - 1 £575 -

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 29 (5.04%) SharePoint
2 21 (3.65%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (2.43%) Confluence
4 7 (1.22%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.87%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.35%) CMS
6 2 (0.35%) IIS
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 20 (3.48%) MS Visio
2 16 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.74%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.70%) Acrobat
6 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.35%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 131 (22.78%) Azure
2 85 (14.78%) Microsoft 365
3 55 (9.57%) AWS
4 39 (6.78%) Entra ID
5 22 (3.83%) SaaS
6 17 (2.96%) OneDrive
7 12 (2.09%) PaaS
8 10 (1.74%) GCP
9 8 (1.39%) Power Platform
10 7 (1.22%) PowerApps
11 5 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
11 5 (0.87%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 5 (0.87%) IaaS
11 5 (0.87%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 4 (0.70%) Nutanix
13 3 (0.52%) AWS Direct Connect
13 3 (0.52%) Google Ads
14 2 (0.35%) Azure Sentinel
14 2 (0.35%) IBM Watson
15 1 (0.17%) Amazon Bedrock
Communications & Networking
1 477 (82.96%) WAN
2 276 (48.00%) Firewall
3 153 (26.61%) VPN
4 144 (25.04%) BGP
5 141 (24.52%) Wi-Fi
6 136 (23.65%) SD-WAN
7 127 (22.09%) OSPF
8 124 (21.57%) Network Security
9 115 (20.00%) DNS
10 107 (18.61%) Wireless
11 90 (15.65%) DHCP
12 77 (13.39%) MPLS
13 74 (12.87%) VLAN
14 73 (12.70%) WLAN
15 64 (11.13%) TCP/IP
16 50 (8.70%) IPsec
17 47 (8.17%) Cisco ISE
18 44 (7.65%) Cisco Nexus
19 42 (7.30%) BIG-IP
20 39 (6.78%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.87%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.17%) DTS
2 1 (0.17%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.17%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.17%) Power BI
2 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (5.39%) JIRA
2 4 (0.70%) Browser DevTools
3 3 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.35%) Git
4 2 (0.35%) GitLab
4 2 (0.35%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
General
1 158 (27.48%) Social Skills
2 46 (8.00%) Public Sector
3 39 (6.78%) Analytical Skills
3 39 (6.78%) Telecoms
4 37 (6.43%) Finance
5 27 (4.70%) Documentation Skills
6 23 (4.00%) Legal
7 22 (3.83%) Manufacturing
8 17 (2.96%) Financial Institution
9 11 (1.91%) Organisational Skills
10 9 (1.57%) Law
11 8 (1.39%) Banking
11 8 (1.39%) Military
12 7 (1.22%) Retail
13 6 (1.04%) Police
14 3 (0.52%) German Language
14 3 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.52%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.52%) Local Government
15 2 (0.35%) Billing
Job Titles
1 238 (41.39%) Network Engineer
2 78 (13.57%) Architect
3 63 (10.96%) Senior
4 54 (9.39%) Network Architect
5 41 (7.13%) IT Support
5 41 (7.13%) Support Engineer
6 35 (6.09%) IT Engineer
7 30 (5.22%) Cisco Engineer
7 30 (5.22%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 29 (5.04%) IT Support Engineer
8 29 (5.04%) Senior Network Engineer
9 28 (4.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 27 (4.70%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 25 (4.35%) Analyst
12 24 (4.17%) Lead
13 18 (3.13%) Technical Architect
14 15 (2.61%) Network Manager
14 15 (2.61%) Network Specialist
14 15 (2.61%) Test Engineer
15 14 (2.43%) Firewall Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (8.70%) 802.1X
2 10 (1.74%) Microsoft Graph
2 10 (1.74%) SAML
3 9 (1.57%) LDAP
4 8 (1.39%) REST
5 7 (1.22%) NETCONF
5 7 (1.22%) YANG
6 5 (0.87%) Middleware
7 3 (0.52%) Software Packaging
7 3 (0.52%) XMPP
8 2 (0.35%) Django
8 2 (0.35%) RFC 2544
9 1 (0.17%) .NET
9 1 (0.17%) Apache NiFi
9 1 (0.17%) ARM Templates
9 1 (0.17%) CSS
9 1 (0.17%) HTML
9 1 (0.17%) Java RMI
9 1 (0.17%) ModSecurity
9 1 (0.17%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 115 (20.00%) Data Centre
2 32 (5.57%) PKI
3 26 (4.52%) Clustering
4 25 (4.35%) Onboarding
5 22 (3.83%) Hybrid Cloud
6 17 (2.96%) Security Posture
7 14 (2.43%) Self-Motivation
8 12 (2.09%) Driving Licence
9 10 (1.74%) Operational Technology
9 10 (1.74%) Public Cloud
9 10 (1.74%) Virtual Team
10 9 (1.57%) Cloud Native
10 9 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
10 9 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
10 9 (1.57%) NHS
11 7 (1.22%) CMDB
11 7 (1.22%) IoT
12 6 (1.04%) Smartphone
13 5 (0.87%) CCTV
13 5 (0.87%) Fibre Optics
Operating Systems
1 175 (30.43%) Windows
2 47 (8.17%) Windows Server
3 38 (6.61%) Linux
4 27 (4.70%) Windows 10
5 18 (3.13%) Windows Server 2019
6 15 (2.61%) Mac OS
7 9 (1.57%) Android
8 8 (1.39%) Windows 7
9 6 (1.04%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.87%) VMS
10 5 (0.87%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.52%) CatOS
11 3 (0.52%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.52%) Unix
11 3 (0.52%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.35%) AIX
12 2 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.17%) CentOS
13 1 (0.17%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.17%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (16.35%) ITIL
2 85 (14.78%) High Availability
3 81 (14.09%) Problem-Solving
4 71 (12.35%) Load Balancing
5 57 (9.91%) Migration
6 50 (8.70%) Stakeholder Management
7 49 (8.52%) Continuous Improvement
8 48 (8.35%) Change Management
9 46 (8.00%) Project Delivery
10 45 (7.83%) ITSM
11 42 (7.30%) Roadmaps
12 40 (6.96%) Network Architecture
13 39 (6.78%) Network Monitoring
14 38 (6.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 38 (6.61%) Technical Leadership
15 36 (6.26%) Agile
15 36 (6.26%) Network Design
16 33 (5.74%) Service Management
17 32 (5.57%) Disaster Recovery
18 30 (5.22%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 40 (6.96%) PowerShell
2 38 (6.61%) Python
3 10 (1.74%) SQL
4 5 (0.87%) VBScript
5 4 (0.70%) VB
6 2 (0.35%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.17%) C
7 1 (0.17%) C++
7 1 (0.17%) Java
7 1 (0.17%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 195 (33.91%) Security Cleared
2 173 (30.09%) Cisco Certification
3 128 (22.26%) SC Cleared
4 108 (18.78%) CCNP
5 63 (10.96%) CCNA
5 63 (10.96%) DV Cleared
6 46 (8.00%) CCIE
7 44 (7.65%) Degree
8 17 (2.96%) PMP
9 14 (2.43%) Azure Certification
9 14 (2.43%) PMI Certification
10 13 (2.26%) JNCIP
10 13 (2.26%) Microsoft Certification
11 12 (2.09%) JNCIS
12 11 (1.91%) JNCIA
13 10 (1.74%) JNCIE
14 8 (1.39%) AWS Certification
14 8 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
15 6 (1.04%) CCSE
16 4 (0.70%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (2.96%) QA
2 12 (2.09%) SLA
3 11 (1.91%) NIST
4 8 (1.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (1.22%) Disclosure Scotland
6 6 (1.04%) NCSC
7 5 (0.87%) GDPR
8 3 (0.52%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.35%) PMO
9 2 (0.35%) RMADS
10 1 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.17%) DICOM
10 1 (0.17%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.17%) NEBOSH
10 1 (0.17%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 99 (17.22%) Active Directory
2 55 (9.57%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (3.83%) VMware NSX
4 20 (3.48%) vSphere
5 9 (1.57%) Firmware
6 8 (1.39%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.04%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.70%) BitLocker
8 4 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.17%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.17%) Docker
11 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.17%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 50 (8.70%) FortiGate
2 33 (5.74%) Microsoft Intune
3 31 (5.39%) Ansible
4 15 (2.61%) SCCM
5 14 (2.43%) Terraform
6 13 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (1.91%) Jamf Pro
8 6 (1.04%) Cisco Prime
9 4 (0.70%) Cisco CUCM
9 4 (0.70%) Endace
9 4 (0.70%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.70%) vRealize Orchestrator
10 3 (0.52%) Nagios
11 2 (0.35%) AirWatch
11 2 (0.35%) Grafana
11 2 (0.35%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.35%) WSUS
12 1 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
12 1 (0.17%) Iperf
12 1 (0.17%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 287 (49.91%) Cisco
2 123 (21.39%) Microsoft
3 100 (17.39%) Palo Alto
4 90 (15.65%) F5
5 75 (13.04%) Juniper
6 69 (12.00%) VMware
7 63 (10.96%) Aruba
8 62 (10.78%) SolarWinds
9 59 (10.26%) Fortinet
10 57 (9.91%) CheckPoint
11 33 (5.74%) ServiceNow
12 31 (5.39%) Extreme Networks
13 28 (4.87%) Meraki
14 27 (4.70%) Splunk
15 21 (3.65%) Zscaler
16 16 (2.78%) Dell
16 16 (2.78%) Ekahau
17 13 (2.26%) Veeam
18 10 (1.74%) Arista
19 9 (1.57%) Citrix