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 26 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 211 226 149
Rank change year-on-year +15 -77 +9
Contract jobs citing LAN 548 354 718
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 1.21% 1.65%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.17% 9.47% 12.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 345 216 424
10th Percentile £218 £239 £203
25th Percentile £330 £344 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £650
90th Percentile £625 £625 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £444 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +4.41% -10.53% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 8 45
10th Percentile £12.43 £14.30 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.34 £17.71 £15.75
Median hourly rate £22.50 £27.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +20.00% -65.38%
75th Percentile £53.29 £45.31 £40.00
90th Percentile £79.24 £50.60 £55.00
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 4,503 3,740 5,688
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.64% 12.74% 13.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,813 2,310 3,417
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £489 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.30% -0.26% -5.77%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £464 £475
% change year-on-year +2.43% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 211 172 423
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.57
25th Percentile £20.79 £20.22 £17.69
Median hourly rate £42.25 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.67% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.31 £62.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £27.72 £45.88
% change year-on-year +89.39% -39.58% +148.00%

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 26 April 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 26 April 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 26 April 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 -8 466 £450 -1.64% 147
UK excluding London +16 376 £444 +4.41% 140
South East +8 155 £450 -5.26% 54
Work from Home +14 127 £458 -8.50% 94
London -50 124 £483 -1.53% 30
North of England -58 65 £450 +20.00% 30
Midlands -30 49 £295 -32.57% 23
East of England -12 42 £325 -24.42% 13
West Midlands -33 40 £340 -22.29% 21
Scotland +25 34 £406 +1.82% 6
North West -41 33 £500 +17.65% 15
Yorkshire -41 32 £382 +55.71% 12
South West -43 16 £500 +9.59% 10
Wales -1 12 £425 +6.25% 7
East Midlands -37 6 £200 -61.90% 2
Northern Ireland - 4 £468 - 3

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 (5.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 28 (5.11%) SharePoint
3 15 (2.74%) Confluence
4 11 (2.01%) Skype for Business
5 3 (0.55%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.36%) IIS
7 1 (0.18%) Apache
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 24 (4.38%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (3.28%) MS Visio
3 6 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.91%) Acrobat
4 5 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.36%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 130 (23.72%) Azure
2 83 (15.15%) Microsoft 365
3 58 (10.58%) AWS
4 37 (6.75%) Entra ID
5 18 (3.28%) SaaS
6 15 (2.74%) OneDrive
7 13 (2.37%) PaaS
8 12 (2.19%) GCP
9 8 (1.46%) Power Platform
10 7 (1.28%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.28%) PowerApps
11 6 (1.09%) IaaS
12 5 (0.91%) Nutanix
12 5 (0.91%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 4 (0.73%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 4 (0.73%) Google Ads
14 3 (0.55%) Microsoft Purview
15 2 (0.36%) AWS Direct Connect
15 2 (0.36%) Azure Monitor
15 2 (0.36%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 455 (83.03%) WAN
2 264 (48.18%) Firewall
3 160 (29.20%) VPN
4 145 (26.46%) BGP
5 135 (24.64%) OSPF
5 135 (24.64%) Wi-Fi
6 126 (22.99%) SD-WAN
7 112 (20.44%) DNS
8 107 (19.53%) Network Security
9 89 (16.24%) DHCP
10 85 (15.51%) Wireless
11 74 (13.50%) VLAN
12 73 (13.32%) TCP/IP
13 66 (12.04%) WLAN
14 59 (10.77%) MPLS
15 48 (8.76%) IPsec
16 44 (8.03%) BIG-IP
17 43 (7.85%) Cisco ISE
18 39 (7.12%) Cisco Nexus
18 39 (7.12%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.28%) 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
3 1 (0.18%) Power BI
3 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 33 (6.02%) JIRA
2 4 (0.73%) Browser DevTools
3 3 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.36%) GitLab
4 2 (0.36%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.18%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 147 (26.82%) Social Skills
2 55 (10.04%) Public Sector
3 43 (7.85%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (7.48%) Finance
5 32 (5.84%) Documentation Skills
6 27 (4.93%) Manufacturing
7 25 (4.56%) Telecoms
8 20 (3.65%) Legal
9 19 (3.47%) Financial Institution
10 15 (2.74%) Military
11 11 (2.01%) Banking
11 11 (2.01%) Organisational Skills
12 10 (1.82%) Law
13 8 (1.46%) Retail
14 6 (1.09%) Local Government
15 5 (0.91%) Police
16 3 (0.55%) Billing
16 3 (0.55%) Marketing
17 2 (0.36%) Electronics
17 2 (0.36%) German Language
Job Titles
1 211 (38.50%) Network Engineer
2 86 (15.69%) Architect
3 63 (11.50%) Senior
4 59 (10.77%) Network Architect
5 42 (7.66%) IT Support
6 32 (5.84%) Support Engineer
7 31 (5.66%) IT Engineer
8 30 (5.47%) Analyst
8 30 (5.47%) Senior Network Engineer
9 29 (5.29%) Lead
9 29 (5.29%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 28 (5.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 25 (4.56%) IT Support Engineer
11 25 (4.56%) Technical Architect
12 24 (4.38%) Cisco Engineer
12 24 (4.38%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 17 (3.10%) Project Manager
14 16 (2.92%) Network Manager
15 14 (2.55%) Firewall Specialist
15 14 (2.55%) Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (7.66%) 802.1X
2 13 (2.37%) LDAP
3 11 (2.01%) SAML
4 10 (1.82%) Microsoft Graph
5 8 (1.46%) Middleware
6 3 (0.55%) NETCONF
6 3 (0.55%) REST
6 3 (0.55%) YANG
7 2 (0.36%) .NET
7 2 (0.36%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.36%) CSS
7 2 (0.36%) Django
7 2 (0.36%) HTML
7 2 (0.36%) RFC 2544
7 2 (0.36%) Software Packaging
7 2 (0.36%) XMPP
8 1 (0.18%) EDI
8 1 (0.18%) LAMP
8 1 (0.18%) Node.js
8 1 (0.18%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 109 (19.89%) Data Centre
2 29 (5.29%) PKI
3 26 (4.74%) Clustering
4 23 (4.20%) Onboarding
5 19 (3.47%) Hybrid Cloud
6 15 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
7 13 (2.37%) Public Cloud
8 11 (2.01%) Security Posture
8 11 (2.01%) Self-Motivation
9 10 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
9 10 (1.82%) IoT
10 9 (1.64%) Operational Technology
11 8 (1.46%) CMDB
11 8 (1.46%) Driving Licence
11 8 (1.46%) NHS
11 8 (1.46%) Virtual Team
12 6 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
12 6 (1.09%) iPhone
12 6 (1.09%) Smartphone
12 6 (1.09%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 175 (31.93%) Windows
2 52 (9.49%) Windows Server
3 36 (6.57%) Linux
3 36 (6.57%) Windows 10
4 15 (2.74%) Windows Server 2019
5 11 (2.01%) Mac OS
5 11 (2.01%) Windows 7
6 10 (1.82%) Android
7 8 (1.46%) Apple iOS
8 6 (1.09%) VMS
8 6 (1.09%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.91%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.73%) CatOS
10 4 (0.73%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.73%) Unix
11 3 (0.55%) 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%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (16.06%) ITIL
2 78 (14.23%) Problem-Solving
3 76 (13.87%) High Availability
4 61 (11.13%) Migration
5 54 (9.85%) Load Balancing
6 51 (9.31%) Change Management
6 51 (9.31%) ITSM
7 48 (8.76%) Stakeholder Management
8 41 (7.48%) Network Architecture
8 41 (7.48%) Network Design
9 38 (6.93%) Service Management
10 37 (6.75%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 35 (6.39%) Disaster Recovery
11 35 (6.39%) Technical Leadership
12 33 (6.02%) Continuous Improvement
12 33 (6.02%) Cybersecurity
13 32 (5.84%) Network Monitoring
14 30 (5.47%) Customer Service
15 29 (5.29%) Observability
15 29 (5.29%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 47 (8.58%) PowerShell
2 31 (5.66%) Python
3 15 (2.74%) SQL
4 10 (1.82%) VBScript
5 9 (1.64%) VB
6 3 (0.55%) 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
1 206 (37.59%) Security Cleared
2 158 (28.83%) Cisco Certification
3 149 (27.19%) SC Cleared
4 120 (21.90%) CCNP
5 62 (11.31%) DV Cleared
6 55 (10.04%) Degree
7 49 (8.94%) CCNA
8 41 (7.48%) CCIE
9 17 (3.10%) JNCIS
10 15 (2.74%) PMP
11 14 (2.55%) JNCIP
12 12 (2.19%) JNCIA
13 11 (2.01%) PMI Certification
14 10 (1.82%) Azure Certification
14 10 (1.82%) CCSE
14 10 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
14 10 (1.82%) Microsoft Certification
14 10 (1.82%) Network+ Certification
15 8 (1.46%) JNCIE
16 5 (0.91%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.55%) QA
1 14 (2.55%) SLA
2 7 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (1.28%) NIST
3 6 (1.09%) NCSC
4 5 (0.91%) Disclosure Scotland
4 5 (0.91%) GDPR
5 4 (0.73%) JSP 440
6 3 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.36%) PMO
7 2 (0.36%) RMADS
8 1 (0.18%) DICOM
8 1 (0.18%) GRC
8 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 103 (18.80%) Active Directory
2 51 (9.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (3.47%) VMware NSX
4 14 (2.55%) vSphere
5 9 (1.64%) BitLocker
6 7 (1.28%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.73%) Docker
8 4 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.73%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.36%) Firmware
10 2 (0.36%) KVM
11 1 (0.18%) Ceph
11 1 (0.18%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.18%) NFS
11 1 (0.18%) RHEV
11 1 (0.18%) Samba
11 1 (0.18%) Xen
Systems Management
1 47 (8.58%) FortiGate
2 36 (6.57%) Microsoft Intune
3 28 (5.11%) Ansible
4 23 (4.20%) SCCM
5 19 (3.47%) Terraform
6 12 (2.19%) Jamf Pro
6 12 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (1.28%) Nagios
8 6 (1.09%) Cisco Prime
9 5 (0.91%) Endace
9 5 (0.91%) WSUS
10 4 (0.73%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.73%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 3 (0.55%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.36%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.36%) Check_MK
12 2 (0.36%) Cisco CUCM
12 2 (0.36%) Grafana
12 2 (0.36%) Nessus
12 2 (0.36%) SCOM
Vendors
1 261 (47.63%) Cisco
2 117 (21.35%) Microsoft
3 109 (19.89%) Palo Alto
4 83 (15.15%) F5
5 82 (14.96%) Juniper
6 72 (13.14%) CheckPoint
7 68 (12.41%) Aruba
8 64 (11.68%) VMware
9 54 (9.85%) Fortinet
9 54 (9.85%) SolarWinds
10 32 (5.84%) ServiceNow
11 30 (5.47%) Extreme Networks
12 29 (5.29%) Splunk
13 25 (4.56%) Meraki
14 23 (4.20%) Zscaler
15 16 (2.92%) Dell
16 15 (2.74%) Ekahau
16 15 (2.74%) Veeam
17 9 (1.64%) Citrix
18 8 (1.46%) MuleSoft