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 15 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 246 173 126
Rank change year-on-year -73 -47 +53
Contract jobs citing LAN 404 521 900
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.11% 1.52% 2.03%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 10.21% 12.01% 14.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 264 306 586
10th Percentile £206 £223 £205
25th Percentile £312 £350 £323
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £475 £466
Median % change year-on-year -7.37% +1.88% +3.61%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £630
90th Percentile £638 £650 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £440 £445
% change year-on-year -9.09% -1.12% +2.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 19 34
10th Percentile £12.97 £18.41 £17.73
25th Percentile £15.50 £20.00 £20.69
Median hourly rate £30.00 £22.50 £33.72
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -33.27% +53.27%
75th Percentile £52.58 £40.25 £50.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £71.75 £72.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.38 £21.39 £27.75
% change year-on-year -14.09% -22.93% +26.14%

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 3,957 4,337 6,117
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.86% 12.65% 13.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,577 2,536 3,772
10th Percentile £206 £220 £210
25th Percentile £356 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £582 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 151 341
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.18 £21.93 £22.00
Median hourly rate £36.00 £37.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -31.82% +31.50%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £76.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.75 £41.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year +6.71% -27.42% +25.53%

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 15 December 2025.

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 15 December 2025.

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 15 December 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 -94 333 £450 -5.26% 266
UK excluding London -79 243 £400 -9.09% 246
London -32 130 £450 -13.88% 74
Work from Home -27 96 £450 -10.00% 115
South East -23 70 £495 +20.00% 98
North of England -79 52 £238 -47.22% 48
Scotland +24 38 £265 -33.75% 12
North West -42 38 £175 -62.22% 33
Midlands -70 34 £438 - 35
West Midlands -35 31 £463 -7.50% 25
East of England -27 29 £240 -56.36% 23
Yorkshire -70 12 £238 -1.04% 15
South West -31 9 £506 +22.73% 20
Wales +3 6 £335 +67.50% 15
Northern Ireland -8 4 £475 - 3
East Midlands -44 3 £258 -31.33% 10
North East -9 2 £550 - 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 23 (5.69%) SharePoint
2 13 (3.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (2.97%) OpenStack
4 6 (1.49%) Skype for Business
5 5 (1.24%) Confluence
6 1 (0.25%) Apache
6 1 (0.25%) CICS
6 1 (0.25%) IIS
6 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.25%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.25%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 35 (8.66%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (4.46%) MS Visio
3 15 (3.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (3.47%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.99%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.25%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 1 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 76 (18.81%) Azure
2 58 (14.36%) AWS
3 37 (9.16%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (4.46%) Entra ID
5 16 (3.96%) GCP
6 8 (1.98%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 6 (1.49%) OpenShift
8 5 (1.24%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (1.24%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (0.99%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (0.99%) Serverless
10 3 (0.74%) AWS Direct Connect
10 3 (0.74%) Cloud Computing
10 3 (0.74%) Power Platform
10 3 (0.74%) SaaS
11 2 (0.50%) Azure Logic Apps
11 2 (0.50%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.50%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (0.50%) Azure Service Bus
11 2 (0.50%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 312 (77.23%) WAN
2 177 (43.81%) Firewall
3 111 (27.48%) VPN
4 99 (24.50%) SD-WAN
5 91 (22.52%) Wi-Fi
6 74 (18.32%) BGP
7 68 (16.83%) DNS
7 68 (16.83%) Wireless
8 64 (15.84%) TCP/IP
9 62 (15.35%) MPLS
10 61 (15.10%) Network Security
11 58 (14.36%) OSPF
12 56 (13.86%) DHCP
13 50 (12.38%) VLAN
14 45 (11.14%) Cisco Nexus
15 42 (10.40%) WLAN
16 28 (6.93%) IPsec
17 25 (6.19%) Cisco ASA
18 19 (4.70%) Cisco IOS
18 19 (4.70%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.72%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.49%) Oracle Database
3 4 (0.99%) MS Access
4 3 (0.74%) Apache Cassandra
4 3 (0.74%) Power BI
5 2 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.50%) MariaDB
5 2 (0.50%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.25%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.25%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.25%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.25%) MySQL
6 1 (0.25%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 10 (2.48%) JIRA
2 2 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.25%) Git
3 1 (0.25%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.25%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 122 (30.20%) Social Skills
2 53 (13.12%) Analytical Skills
3 49 (12.13%) Public Sector
4 45 (11.14%) Telecoms
5 33 (8.17%) Finance
6 27 (6.68%) Documentation Skills
7 19 (4.70%) Manufacturing
8 12 (2.97%) Military
9 10 (2.48%) Organisational Skills
10 8 (1.98%) Banking
11 7 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.49%) Marketing
13 5 (1.24%) Electronics
13 5 (1.24%) Legal
13 5 (1.24%) Local Government
13 5 (1.24%) Retail
14 4 (0.99%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
16 2 (0.50%) Police
Job Titles
1 117 (28.96%) Network Engineer
2 95 (23.51%) Architect
3 70 (17.33%) Network Architect
4 34 (8.42%) Analyst
5 29 (7.18%) Senior
6 25 (6.19%) Support Analyst
7 22 (5.45%) Support Engineer
8 21 (5.20%) IT Support
8 21 (5.20%) Project Manager
9 19 (4.70%) Technical Support
10 18 (4.46%) Senior Network Engineer
11 17 (4.21%) 2nd Line Support
11 17 (4.21%) Field Engineer
12 16 (3.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 16 (3.96%) Technical Analyst
12 16 (3.96%) Technical Support Analyst
13 14 (3.47%) IT Engineer
14 13 (3.22%) Lead
14 13 (3.22%) Solutions Architect
14 13 (3.22%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (1.73%) LDAP
1 7 (1.73%) Middleware
2 6 (1.49%) NETCONF
2 6 (1.49%) REST
2 6 (1.49%) YANG
3 3 (0.74%) EDI
3 3 (0.74%) SAML
4 2 (0.50%) 802.1X
4 2 (0.50%) ARM Templates
4 2 (0.50%) Node.js
4 2 (0.50%) YAML
5 1 (0.25%) .NET
5 1 (0.25%) Java RMI
5 1 (0.25%) LAMP
5 1 (0.25%) LAPP Stack
5 1 (0.25%) libvirt
5 1 (0.25%) React
5 1 (0.25%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 63 (15.59%) Data Centre
2 20 (4.95%) Driving Licence
3 17 (4.21%) Hybrid Cloud
4 15 (3.71%) NHS
5 12 (2.97%) CMDB
6 11 (2.72%) Onboarding
7 10 (2.48%) Management Information System
8 9 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (1.98%) SCADA
10 7 (1.73%) Cloud Native
10 7 (1.73%) Operational Technology
10 7 (1.73%) Replication
11 6 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
11 6 (1.49%) Video Conferencing
11 6 (1.49%) Virtual Team
12 5 (1.24%) Self-Motivation
13 4 (0.99%) iPhone
13 4 (0.99%) PKI
14 3 (0.74%) 3D Printing
14 3 (0.74%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 93 (23.02%) Windows
2 34 (8.42%) Windows Server
3 24 (5.94%) Windows 10
4 21 (5.20%) Linux
5 13 (3.22%) Windows Server 2016
6 9 (2.23%) Windows Server 2019
7 7 (1.73%) Android
8 6 (1.49%) Mac OS
8 6 (1.49%) Windows 7
9 4 (0.99%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.99%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.99%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.50%) CatOS
11 1 (0.25%) MVS
11 1 (0.25%) SUSE
11 1 (0.25%) VMS
11 1 (0.25%) Windows 8
11 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.25%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 68 (16.83%) Problem-Solving
2 67 (16.58%) Network Design
3 45 (11.14%) Migration
4 42 (10.40%) Network Architecture
5 41 (10.15%) ITIL
6 36 (8.91%) Cybersecurity
7 33 (8.17%) Stakeholder Management
8 31 (7.67%) Network Monitoring
8 31 (7.67%) Project Delivery
9 30 (7.43%) Customer Service
10 28 (6.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 26 (6.44%) Service Management
12 24 (5.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 23 (5.69%) High Availability
14 22 (5.45%) Change Management
14 22 (5.45%) Roadmaps
15 21 (5.20%) ITSM
15 21 (5.20%) Load Balancing
16 19 (4.70%) Agile
16 19 (4.70%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 37 (9.16%) Python
2 21 (5.20%) PowerShell
3 11 (2.72%) SQL
4 7 (1.73%) VB
5 6 (1.49%) Perl
5 6 (1.49%) VBScript
6 2 (0.50%) Bash
6 2 (0.50%) Bicep
7 1 (0.25%) C#
7 1 (0.25%) Java
7 1 (0.25%) Ruby
7 1 (0.25%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.25%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 113 (27.97%) Security Cleared
2 111 (27.48%) Cisco Certification
3 89 (22.03%) CCNP
4 71 (17.57%) SC Cleared
5 44 (10.89%) DV Cleared
6 40 (9.90%) CCIE
7 39 (9.65%) Degree
8 36 (8.91%) CCNA
9 19 (4.70%) JNCIE
10 12 (2.97%) AWS Certification
11 11 (2.72%) Network+ Certification
12 9 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
12 9 (2.23%) JNCIP
13 8 (1.98%) CISSP
13 8 (1.98%) JNCIS
13 8 (1.98%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (1.73%) CCSA
14 7 (1.73%) HNC
14 7 (1.73%) MCP
15 6 (1.49%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.21%) SLA
2 14 (3.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 8 (1.98%) GDPR
3 8 (1.98%) NIST
4 7 (1.73%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.24%) PMO
6 4 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.74%) QA
8 2 (0.50%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.25%) COBIT
9 1 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.25%) GRC
9 1 (0.25%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.25%) MiFID
9 1 (0.25%) NCSC
System Software
1 62 (15.35%) Active Directory
2 28 (6.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (4.46%) VMware NSX
4 10 (2.48%) Hyper-V
5 6 (1.49%) Firmware
6 5 (1.24%) BitLocker
6 5 (1.24%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.74%) Docker
7 3 (0.74%) KVM
8 2 (0.50%) NFS
8 2 (0.50%) ProxySG
8 2 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.50%) VMware Workstation
8 2 (0.50%) Xen
9 1 (0.25%) Ceph
9 1 (0.25%) iptables
9 1 (0.25%) Lustre
9 1 (0.25%) RHEV
9 1 (0.25%) Samba
9 1 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 35 (8.66%) Ansible
2 28 (6.93%) Terraform
3 20 (4.95%) FortiGate
4 14 (3.47%) Microsoft Intune
4 14 (3.47%) SCCM
5 7 (1.73%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.99%) Cisco CUCM
6 4 (0.99%) Nagios
6 4 (0.99%) SCOM
7 3 (0.74%) CA Spectrum
7 3 (0.74%) Jamf Pro
7 3 (0.74%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.74%) WSUS
8 2 (0.50%) Check_MK
8 2 (0.50%) Grafana
8 2 (0.50%) Nessus
9 1 (0.25%) Backup Exec
9 1 (0.25%) Norton AntiVirus
9 1 (0.25%) Puppet
9 1 (0.25%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 200 (49.50%) Cisco
2 74 (18.32%) Microsoft
3 66 (16.34%) Fortinet
4 60 (14.85%) Palo Alto
5 58 (14.36%) Juniper
6 44 (10.89%) VMware
7 40 (9.90%) F5
8 34 (8.42%) CheckPoint
9 32 (7.92%) Meraki
10 24 (5.94%) Aruba
11 23 (5.69%) SolarWinds
12 21 (5.20%) ServiceNow
13 18 (4.46%) Citrix
14 15 (3.71%) Zscaler
15 11 (2.72%) Oracle
16 9 (2.23%) SAP
17 7 (1.73%) LogicMonitor
17 7 (1.73%) Remedy
18 6 (1.49%) Nokia
18 6 (1.49%) Veeam