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

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 245 172 118
Rank change year-on-year -73 -54 +60
Contract jobs citing LAN 413 533 956
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.15% 1.46% 2.09%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 10.28% 12.02% 14.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 267 306 617
10th Percentile £200 £223 £205
25th Percentile £281 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £473 £471
Median % change year-on-year -10.05% +0.32% +4.67%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £627
90th Percentile £639 £672 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £440 £450
% change year-on-year -20.45% -2.22% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 19 40
10th Percentile £14.24 £19.61 £17.72
25th Percentile £15.50 £20.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £23.80 £39.02
Median % change year-on-year +26.05% -39.01% +77.36%
75th Percentile £35.00 £40.25 £60.63
90th Percentile £70.08 £71.75 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £22.40 £36.72
% change year-on-year +33.93% -39.00% +66.91%

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 4,016 4,435 6,382
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.14% 12.16% 13.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,597 2,557 3,955
10th Percentile £206 £225 £211
25th Percentile £356 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £610
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 171 346
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.26 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.75 £23.59 £22.81
Median hourly rate £34.00 £42.50 £55.70
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -23.70% +34.22%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £48.56 £56.49
% change year-on-year -12.48% -14.04% +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 26 November 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 26 November 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 26 November 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 -68 342 £450 -5.26% 233
UK excluding London -73 240 £350 -20.45% 229
London -1 141 £450 -13.88% 62
Work from Home -32 96 £450 -10.00% 73
South East -34 55 £563 +26.76% 98
North of England -85 52 £225 -50.00% 29
Midlands -53 43 £450 +20.00% 32
West Midlands -16 39 £475 -5.00% 21
North West -38 39 £133 -72.68% 15
Scotland +18 38 £275 -31.25% 17
East of England -20 30 £280 -49.09% 24
South West -25 12 £463 +12.12% 23
Yorkshire -62 11 £231 -0.54% 14
Wales +2 7 £250 +25.00% 9
Northern Ireland -5 4 £475 - 3
East Midlands -40 4 £200 -46.67% 10
North East -7 2 £550 +29.41%

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 21 (5.08%) SharePoint
2 16 (3.87%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (2.91%) OpenStack
4 6 (1.45%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.97%) Confluence
6 2 (0.48%) Apache
6 2 (0.48%) nginx
7 1 (0.24%) CICS
7 1 (0.24%) IIS
7 1 (0.24%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.24%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 43 (10.41%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (3.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (3.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 14 (3.39%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.24%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 1 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 78 (18.89%) Azure
2 56 (13.56%) AWS
3 40 (9.69%) Microsoft 365
4 19 (4.60%) Entra ID
5 17 (4.12%) GCP
6 8 (1.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 6 (1.45%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (1.45%) Microsoft Purview
7 6 (1.45%) OpenShift
8 5 (1.21%) GitHub
8 5 (1.21%) SaaS
9 4 (0.97%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 3 (0.73%) AWS Direct Connect
10 3 (0.73%) Cloud Computing
10 3 (0.73%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.73%) Power Platform
10 3 (0.73%) Serverless
11 2 (0.48%) Akamai
11 2 (0.48%) Azure Functions
11 2 (0.48%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 319 (77.24%) WAN
2 169 (40.92%) Firewall
3 97 (23.49%) SD-WAN
4 96 (23.24%) VPN
5 94 (22.76%) Wi-Fi
6 75 (18.16%) DNS
6 75 (18.16%) Wireless
7 67 (16.22%) TCP/IP
8 66 (15.98%) DHCP
9 60 (14.53%) BGP
10 59 (14.29%) MPLS
11 54 (13.08%) Network Security
12 53 (12.83%) VLAN
13 46 (11.14%) Cisco Nexus
14 44 (10.65%) OSPF
14 44 (10.65%) WLAN
15 27 (6.54%) Cisco IOS
16 22 (5.33%) Cisco ASA
17 20 (4.84%) VoIP
18 17 (4.12%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (2.18%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.45%) Oracle Database
3 4 (0.97%) MS Access
4 3 (0.73%) Apache Cassandra
4 3 (0.73%) Power BI
5 2 (0.48%) MySQL
5 2 (0.48%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.24%) DB2
6 1 (0.24%) MariaDB
6 1 (0.24%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.24%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 9 (2.18%) JIRA
2 5 (1.21%) Git
3 2 (0.48%) Bitbucket
3 2 (0.48%) GitLab
3 2 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.24%) Jenkins
General
1 120 (29.06%) Social Skills
2 50 (12.11%) Telecoms
3 48 (11.62%) Analytical Skills
4 46 (11.14%) Public Sector
5 37 (8.96%) Finance
6 17 (4.12%) Documentation Skills
6 17 (4.12%) Manufacturing
7 10 (2.42%) Banking
8 8 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (1.94%) Military
9 7 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
10 6 (1.45%) Legal
10 6 (1.45%) Local Government
10 6 (1.45%) Marketing
10 6 (1.45%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.21%) Electronics
11 5 (1.21%) Retail
12 4 (0.97%) Financial Institution
12 4 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (0.97%) Law
Job Titles
1 113 (27.36%) Network Engineer
2 93 (22.52%) Architect
3 68 (16.46%) Network Architect
4 36 (8.72%) Analyst
5 32 (7.75%) Support Engineer
6 28 (6.78%) Senior
7 24 (5.81%) Support Analyst
8 22 (5.33%) Technical Support
9 20 (4.84%) 2nd Line Support
9 20 (4.84%) Project Manager
10 19 (4.60%) Field Engineer
10 19 (4.60%) IT Support
11 17 (4.12%) IT Engineer
12 16 (3.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 16 (3.87%) Senior Network Engineer
12 16 (3.87%) Technical Analyst
12 16 (3.87%) Technical Support Analyst
13 15 (3.63%) IT Technician
13 15 (3.63%) Solutions Architect
14 14 (3.39%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.18%) Middleware
2 7 (1.69%) NETCONF
2 7 (1.69%) YANG
3 6 (1.45%) REST
4 3 (0.73%) 802.1X
4 3 (0.73%) EDI
4 3 (0.73%) LDAP
5 2 (0.48%) ARM Templates
5 2 (0.48%) JSON
5 2 (0.48%) LAMP
5 2 (0.48%) Node.js
5 2 (0.48%) XML
6 1 (0.24%) HTML
6 1 (0.24%) Java RMI
6 1 (0.24%) Jinja
6 1 (0.24%) libvirt
6 1 (0.24%) React
6 1 (0.24%) SOAP
6 1 (0.24%) Spring
6 1 (0.24%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 57 (13.80%) Data Centre
2 22 (5.33%) Driving Licence
3 16 (3.87%) Hybrid Cloud
3 16 (3.87%) Virtual Team
4 15 (3.63%) NHS
5 12 (2.91%) CMDB
6 11 (2.66%) Onboarding
7 10 (2.42%) Management Information System
8 9 (2.18%) Cloud Native
9 7 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
10 6 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (1.45%) Replication
10 6 (1.45%) SCADA
10 6 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (1.45%) Video Conferencing
11 5 (1.21%) Operational Technology
12 4 (0.97%) CCTV
12 4 (0.97%) Fibre Optics
12 4 (0.97%) iPhone
12 4 (0.97%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 95 (23.00%) Windows
2 33 (7.99%) Windows Server
3 25 (6.05%) Windows 10
4 23 (5.57%) Linux
5 10 (2.42%) Windows Server 2016
6 9 (2.18%) Windows Server 2019
7 7 (1.69%) Android
7 7 (1.69%) Mac OS
7 7 (1.69%) Windows 7
8 4 (0.97%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.97%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.73%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.48%) Unix
11 1 (0.24%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.24%) MVS
11 1 (0.24%) SUSE
11 1 (0.24%) VMS
11 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.24%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 68 (16.46%) Network Design
1 68 (16.46%) Problem-Solving
2 46 (11.14%) Migration
3 44 (10.65%) Network Architecture
4 41 (9.93%) ITIL
5 35 (8.47%) Customer Service
6 33 (7.99%) Cybersecurity
7 32 (7.75%) Stakeholder Management
8 30 (7.26%) Service Management
9 29 (7.02%) Network Monitoring
10 27 (6.54%) Change Management
10 27 (6.54%) Project Delivery
11 26 (6.30%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 24 (5.81%) Load Balancing
13 23 (5.57%) Continuous Improvement
13 23 (5.57%) Roadmaps
14 22 (5.33%) Agile
14 22 (5.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 20 (4.84%) Project Management
16 19 (4.60%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 42 (10.17%) Python
2 20 (4.84%) PowerShell
3 8 (1.94%) SQL
3 8 (1.94%) VB
4 6 (1.45%) Perl
4 6 (1.45%) VBScript
5 2 (0.48%) Bash
5 2 (0.48%) Bicep
5 2 (0.48%) Java
5 2 (0.48%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.24%) C
6 1 (0.24%) C++
6 1 (0.24%) Go
6 1 (0.24%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 103 (24.94%) Cisco Certification
2 98 (23.73%) Security Cleared
3 74 (17.92%) CCNP
4 59 (14.29%) SC Cleared
5 45 (10.90%) DV Cleared
6 42 (10.17%) CCNA
7 36 (8.72%) Degree
8 35 (8.47%) CCIE
9 18 (4.36%) JNCIE
10 13 (3.15%) AWS Certification
11 11 (2.66%) Microsoft Certification
12 9 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
13 8 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
13 8 (1.94%) JNCIP
13 8 (1.94%) MCSE
13 8 (1.94%) Network+ Certification
14 7 (1.69%) CCSA
14 7 (1.69%) CISSP
14 7 (1.69%) HNC
14 7 (1.69%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (4.60%) SLA
2 12 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 8 (1.94%) GDPR
3 8 (1.94%) NIST
4 7 (1.69%) PCI DSS
5 4 (0.97%) PMO
6 2 (0.48%) Accessibility
6 2 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.24%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.24%) COBIT
7 1 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.24%) MiFID
7 1 (0.24%) NCSC
7 1 (0.24%) QA
System Software
1 59 (14.29%) Active Directory
2 26 (6.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (3.63%) VMware NSX
4 10 (2.42%) Hyper-V
5 8 (1.94%) Firmware
6 6 (1.45%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (1.21%) BitLocker
8 3 (0.73%) Docker
9 2 (0.48%) KVM
9 2 (0.48%) NFS
9 2 (0.48%) ProxySG
9 2 (0.48%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.24%) Ceph
10 1 (0.24%) iptables
10 1 (0.24%) Samba
10 1 (0.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.24%) SRDF
10 1 (0.24%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 1 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.24%) Xen
Systems Management
1 39 (9.44%) Ansible
2 27 (6.54%) Terraform
3 21 (5.08%) FortiGate
4 16 (3.87%) SCCM
5 15 (3.63%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.97%) Cisco CUCM
6 4 (0.97%) Cisco Prime
6 4 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.73%) CA Spectrum
7 3 (0.73%) HAProxy
7 3 (0.73%) HP ALM
7 3 (0.73%) Jamf Pro
7 3 (0.73%) Kubernetes
7 3 (0.73%) SCOM
8 2 (0.48%) OpenView
8 2 (0.48%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.24%) AppManager
9 1 (0.24%) Nagios
9 1 (0.24%) Nessus
9 1 (0.24%) Puppet
Vendors
1 196 (47.46%) Cisco
2 83 (20.10%) Microsoft
3 62 (15.01%) Fortinet
4 50 (12.11%) Juniper
5 47 (11.38%) Palo Alto
6 40 (9.69%) VMware
7 38 (9.20%) F5
8 31 (7.51%) Meraki
9 21 (5.08%) Citrix
10 20 (4.84%) ServiceNow
10 20 (4.84%) SolarWinds
11 19 (4.60%) CheckPoint
12 14 (3.39%) Aruba
12 14 (3.39%) Zscaler
13 11 (2.66%) Oracle
13 11 (2.66%) Remedy
14 9 (2.18%) HP
15 8 (1.94%) SAP
16 7 (1.69%) Peregrine
17 6 (1.45%) Nokia