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 23 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 217 221 164
Rank change year-on-year +4 -57 -18
Contract jobs citing LAN 577 354 633
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.19% 1.24% 1.49%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.36% 9.77% 11.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 361 211 371
10th Percentile £225 £250 £200
25th Percentile £348 £362 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £465 £450
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +3.33% -5.26%
75th Percentile £535 £569 £638
90th Percentile £603 £625 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £444 £432
% change year-on-year +0.28% +2.84% +1.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 10 41
10th Percentile £12.43 £14.99 £12.86
25th Percentile £18.21 £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 £52.58 £39.69 £40.00
90th Percentile £75.62 £50.20 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £15.33 £22.50
% change year-on-year +46.77% -31.87% -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 4,669 3,622 5,376
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.61% 12.66% 12.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,871 2,249 3,212
10th Percentile £263 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% - -5.34%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 151 415
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £32.50 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% -6.25% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.22 £58.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.78 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.02 £28.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year +39.36% -38.97% +154.89%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -5 499 £450 -6.25% 210
UK excluding London +7 402 £445 +0.28% 186
South East +11 176 £453 -9.50% 74
Work from Home -3 123 £447 -10.55% 95
London -61 121 £500 - 58
North of England -55 66 £450 +12.50% 33
Midlands -39 58 £295 -41.00% 26
West Midlands -37 46 £318 -32.27% 20
East of England -5 42 £350 -18.60% 11
Scotland +12 34 £450 +12.78% 14
North West -39 34 £498 +17.06% 16
Yorkshire -37 32 £338 -15.50% 15
South West -47 15 £500 - 20
Wales -12 9 £475 +46.15% 12
East Midlands -27 9 £200 -61.90% 6
Northern Ireland - 3 £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 31 (5.37%) SharePoint
2 21 (3.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (2.60%) Confluence
4 5 (0.87%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.69%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.35%) IIS
7 1 (0.17%) Apache
7 1 (0.17%) CMS
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 21 (3.64%) MS Visio
2 15 (2.60%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.69%) Acrobat
4 4 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.35%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 135 (23.40%) Azure
2 82 (14.21%) Microsoft 365
3 60 (10.40%) AWS
4 36 (6.24%) Entra ID
5 19 (3.29%) SaaS
6 15 (2.60%) OneDrive
7 12 (2.08%) GCP
7 12 (2.08%) PaaS
8 8 (1.39%) Power Platform
9 7 (1.21%) PowerApps
9 7 (1.21%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (1.04%) Azure DevOps
11 5 (0.87%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 5 (0.87%) Google Ads
11 5 (0.87%) IaaS
11 5 (0.87%) Nutanix
12 2 (0.35%) AWS Direct Connect
12 2 (0.35%) IBM Watson
13 1 (0.17%) Azure Monitor
13 1 (0.17%) Google Docs
Communications & Networking
1 475 (82.32%) WAN
2 281 (48.70%) Firewall
3 159 (27.56%) VPN
4 151 (26.17%) BGP
5 140 (24.26%) OSPF
6 132 (22.88%) Wi-Fi
7 129 (22.36%) SD-WAN
8 117 (20.28%) Network Security
9 110 (19.06%) DNS
10 96 (16.64%) Wireless
11 86 (14.90%) DHCP
12 74 (12.82%) VLAN
13 73 (12.65%) WLAN
14 66 (11.44%) TCP/IP
15 62 (10.75%) MPLS
16 56 (9.71%) IPsec
17 46 (7.97%) BIG-IP
17 46 (7.97%) Cisco ISE
18 44 (7.63%) Cisco Nexus
19 41 (7.11%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.21%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.35%) MariaDB
2 2 (0.35%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.17%) DynamoDB
3 1 (0.17%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.17%) MySQL
3 1 (0.17%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.17%) Power BI
3 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 33 (5.72%) JIRA
2 4 (0.69%) Browser DevTools
3 3 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.35%) GitLab
4 2 (0.35%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.17%) Git
5 1 (0.17%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 143 (24.78%) Social Skills
2 46 (7.97%) Public Sector
3 41 (7.11%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (6.76%) Finance
5 35 (6.07%) Documentation Skills
6 29 (5.03%) Telecoms
7 28 (4.85%) Manufacturing
8 21 (3.64%) Legal
9 17 (2.95%) Financial Institution
10 13 (2.25%) Military
11 12 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.56%) Banking
12 9 (1.56%) Law
13 7 (1.21%) Retail
14 6 (1.04%) Police
15 4 (0.69%) Local Government
16 2 (0.35%) Billing
16 2 (0.35%) German Language
16 2 (0.35%) Influencing Skills
16 2 (0.35%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 233 (40.38%) Network Engineer
2 83 (14.38%) Architect
3 62 (10.75%) Senior
4 58 (10.05%) Network Architect
5 43 (7.45%) IT Support
6 38 (6.59%) Support Engineer
7 34 (5.89%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 32 (5.55%) IT Engineer
9 30 (5.20%) Cisco Engineer
9 30 (5.20%) Lead
10 29 (5.03%) Analyst
10 29 (5.03%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 29 (5.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 28 (4.85%) IT Support Engineer
12 27 (4.68%) Senior Network Engineer
13 20 (3.47%) Technical Architect
14 15 (2.60%) Project Manager
15 14 (2.43%) Firewall Specialist
15 14 (2.43%) Network Specialist
15 14 (2.43%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (7.80%) 802.1X
2 15 (2.60%) LDAP
3 13 (2.25%) SAML
4 10 (1.73%) Microsoft Graph
5 7 (1.21%) Middleware
6 4 (0.69%) NETCONF
6 4 (0.69%) REST
6 4 (0.69%) YANG
7 3 (0.52%) XMPP
8 2 (0.35%) .NET
8 2 (0.35%) CSS
8 2 (0.35%) Django
8 2 (0.35%) HTML
8 2 (0.35%) RFC 2544
8 2 (0.35%) Software Packaging
9 1 (0.17%) Apache NiFi
9 1 (0.17%) ARM Templates
9 1 (0.17%) LAPP Stack
9 1 (0.17%) libvirt
9 1 (0.17%) React
Miscellaneous
1 123 (21.32%) Data Centre
2 29 (5.03%) PKI
3 26 (4.51%) Clustering
4 24 (4.16%) Onboarding
5 21 (3.64%) Hybrid Cloud
6 16 (2.77%) Security Posture
7 14 (2.43%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
9 12 (2.08%) Public Cloud
10 11 (1.91%) Operational Technology
11 9 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
11 9 (1.56%) Virtual Team
12 8 (1.39%) Driving Licence
12 8 (1.39%) NHS
13 7 (1.21%) CMDB
13 7 (1.21%) IoT
14 6 (1.04%) Cloud Native
14 6 (1.04%) Smartphone
14 6 (1.04%) Video Conferencing
15 4 (0.69%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 174 (30.16%) Windows
2 49 (8.49%) Windows Server
3 41 (7.11%) Linux
4 32 (5.55%) Windows 10
5 17 (2.95%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (2.25%) Mac OS
7 9 (1.56%) Android
8 8 (1.39%) Apple iOS
8 8 (1.39%) Windows 7
9 5 (0.87%) CatOS
9 5 (0.87%) VMS
9 5 (0.87%) Windows Server 2012
9 5 (0.87%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.69%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.69%) Unix
11 3 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 3 (0.52%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.35%) AIX
13 1 (0.17%) CentOS
13 1 (0.17%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (15.60%) ITIL
2 82 (14.21%) High Availability
3 79 (13.69%) Problem-Solving
4 63 (10.92%) Load Balancing
5 56 (9.71%) Migration
6 48 (8.32%) ITSM
7 46 (7.97%) Change Management
7 46 (7.97%) Stakeholder Management
8 41 (7.11%) Project Delivery
9 40 (6.93%) Network Architecture
10 39 (6.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 39 (6.76%) Technical Leadership
11 38 (6.59%) Continuous Improvement
12 36 (6.24%) Network Monitoring
13 35 (6.07%) Network Design
14 34 (5.89%) Roadmaps
15 33 (5.72%) Disaster Recovery
15 33 (5.72%) Service Management
16 31 (5.37%) Agile
16 31 (5.37%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 38 (6.59%) PowerShell
2 36 (6.24%) Python
3 14 (2.43%) SQL
4 5 (0.87%) VBScript
5 4 (0.69%) VB
6 3 (0.52%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.35%) Bash
8 1 (0.17%) C
8 1 (0.17%) C#
8 1 (0.17%) C++
8 1 (0.17%) Java
8 1 (0.17%) Perl
8 1 (0.17%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.17%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 210 (36.40%) Security Cleared
2 176 (30.50%) Cisco Certification
3 146 (25.30%) SC Cleared
4 125 (21.66%) CCNP
5 60 (10.40%) DV Cleared
6 54 (9.36%) CCNA
7 53 (9.19%) Degree
8 46 (7.97%) CCIE
9 15 (2.60%) PMP
10 14 (2.43%) JNCIP
10 14 (2.43%) JNCIS
11 12 (2.08%) JNCIA
11 12 (2.08%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (1.91%) Azure Certification
12 11 (1.91%) PMI Certification
13 10 (1.73%) CCSE
13 10 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
14 9 (1.56%) JNCIE
15 6 (1.04%) AWS Certification
15 6 (1.04%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.29%) QA
2 11 (1.91%) SLA
3 9 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (1.56%) NIST
4 7 (1.21%) Disclosure Scotland
5 6 (1.04%) NCSC
6 5 (0.87%) GDPR
7 4 (0.69%) JSP 440
8 3 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.52%) PMO
9 2 (0.35%) RMADS
10 1 (0.17%) DICOM
10 1 (0.17%) GRC
10 1 (0.17%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 103 (17.85%) Active Directory
2 53 (9.19%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (3.81%) VMware NSX
4 18 (3.12%) vSphere
5 9 (1.56%) Hyper-V
6 7 (1.21%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.87%) Firmware
8 4 (0.69%) BitLocker
8 4 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.35%) Docker
10 2 (0.35%) KVM
10 2 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.17%) Ceph
11 1 (0.17%) iptables
11 1 (0.17%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.17%) RHEV
11 1 (0.17%) Samba
11 1 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.17%) Xen
Systems Management
1 49 (8.49%) FortiGate
2 33 (5.72%) Ansible
3 31 (5.37%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (3.64%) Terraform
5 14 (2.43%) SCCM
5 14 (2.43%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (2.08%) Jamf Pro
7 7 (1.21%) Nagios
8 6 (1.04%) Cisco Prime
9 5 (0.87%) Endace
9 5 (0.87%) WSUS
10 4 (0.69%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.69%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.69%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 3 (0.52%) Cisco CUCM
12 2 (0.35%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.35%) Backup Exec
12 2 (0.35%) Check_MK
12 2 (0.35%) Grafana
12 2 (0.35%) Nessus
Vendors
1 287 (49.74%) Cisco
2 117 (20.28%) Palo Alto
3 116 (20.10%) Microsoft
4 91 (15.77%) F5
5 84 (14.56%) Juniper
6 74 (12.82%) Aruba
6 74 (12.82%) CheckPoint
7 69 (11.96%) VMware
8 61 (10.57%) Fortinet
8 61 (10.57%) SolarWinds
9 31 (5.37%) ServiceNow
10 30 (5.20%) Extreme Networks
11 29 (5.03%) Splunk
12 26 (4.51%) Meraki
13 22 (3.81%) Zscaler
14 16 (2.77%) Dell
15 15 (2.60%) Ekahau
15 15 (2.60%) Veeam
16 9 (1.56%) Arista
16 9 (1.56%) Citrix