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 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 247 183 121
Rank change year-on-year -64 -62 +60
Contract jobs citing LAN 420 482 854
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.13% 1.45% 1.99%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 10.58% 11.40% 14.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 269 293 549
10th Percentile £207 £223 £205
25th Percentile £313 £350 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £450
75th Percentile £550 £575 £613
90th Percentile £638 £650 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £420 £425 £445
% change year-on-year -1.18% -4.49% +1.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 13 28
10th Percentile £12.97 £18.80 £17.59
25th Percentile £15.50 £20.00 £21.25
Median hourly rate £18.38 £20.38 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year -9.82% -43.43% +60.09%
75th Percentile £48.19 £35.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £74.49 £65.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.00 £20.00 £33.22
% change year-on-year -20.00% -39.80% +47.64%

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 3,970 4,228 5,851
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.70% 12.75% 13.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,600 2,480 3,605
10th Percentile £206 £220 £209
25th Percentile £356 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £473
% change year-on-year -5.26% +0.53% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 138 329
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.86 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.88 £23.00
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -38.04% +68.63%
75th Percentile £65.50 £57.81 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.38 £75.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £32.50 £57.99
% change year-on-year +30.77% -43.96% +50.62%

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 1 January 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 1 January 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 1 January 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 -74 346 £450 - 224
UK excluding London -67 255 £420 -1.18% 190
London -15 129 £475 -5.00% 75
Work from Home -12 109 £450 -10.00% 89
South East -16 75 £475 +15.15% 66
North of England -87 55 £316 -29.72% 36
Scotland +37 39 £265 -33.75% 7
North West -45 38 £275 -40.64% 22
Midlands -64 33 £450 +4.35% 35
East of England -22 30 £350 -36.36% 12
West Midlands -33 30 £475 -5.00% 26
Yorkshire -76 15 £445 +85.42% 13
South West -28 12 £506 +22.73% 26
Wales +3 6 £335 +67.50% 8
Northern Ireland -4 4 £475 - 5
East Midlands -45 3 £258 -23.13% 9
North East -6 2 £550 - 2

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 25 (5.95%) SharePoint
2 14 (3.33%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (2.86%) OpenStack
4 6 (1.43%) Skype for Business
5 5 (1.19%) Confluence
6 1 (0.24%) Apache
6 1 (0.24%) CICS
6 1 (0.24%) IIS
6 1 (0.24%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.24%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 33 (7.86%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (4.29%) MS Visio
3 15 (3.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (3.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (1.19%) Acrobat
5 4 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.24%) DELMIA
1 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 88 (20.95%) Azure
2 56 (13.33%) AWS
3 45 (10.71%) Microsoft 365
4 19 (4.52%) Entra ID
5 18 (4.29%) GCP
6 9 (2.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 7 (1.67%) SaaS
8 6 (1.43%) OpenShift
9 4 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (0.95%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (0.95%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (0.71%) AWS Direct Connect
10 3 (0.71%) Nutanix
10 3 (0.71%) Power Platform
10 3 (0.71%) Serverless
11 2 (0.48%) AWS IoT
11 2 (0.48%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.48%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (0.48%) Azure Service Bus
11 2 (0.48%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 335 (79.76%) WAN
2 175 (41.67%) Firewall
3 123 (29.29%) VPN
4 97 (23.10%) SD-WAN
4 97 (23.10%) Wi-Fi
5 76 (18.10%) BGP
6 72 (17.14%) TCP/IP
7 66 (15.71%) Wireless
8 65 (15.48%) Network Security
9 63 (15.00%) MPLS
10 61 (14.52%) DNS
11 59 (14.05%) OSPF
12 48 (11.43%) DHCP
13 47 (11.19%) VLAN
14 42 (10.00%) Cisco Nexus
15 38 (9.05%) WLAN
16 32 (7.62%) IPsec
17 23 (5.48%) Cisco ASA
18 21 (5.00%) Structured Cabling
19 19 (4.52%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.38%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.43%) Oracle Database
3 4 (0.95%) MS Access
4 3 (0.71%) Apache Cassandra
4 3 (0.71%) Power BI
5 2 (0.48%) MariaDB
5 2 (0.48%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.24%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.24%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.24%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.24%) MySQL
6 1 (0.24%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.24%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 10 (2.38%) JIRA
2 2 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.24%) Git
3 1 (0.24%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.24%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 130 (30.95%) Social Skills
2 50 (11.90%) Analytical Skills
2 50 (11.90%) Public Sector
3 43 (10.24%) Telecoms
4 33 (7.86%) Finance
5 30 (7.14%) Documentation Skills
6 19 (4.52%) Manufacturing
7 14 (3.33%) Military
8 9 (2.14%) Banking
8 9 (2.14%) Organisational Skills
9 8 (1.90%) Presentation Skills
10 6 (1.43%) Legal
10 6 (1.43%) Local Government
10 6 (1.43%) Marketing
11 5 (1.19%) Electronics
11 5 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (0.95%) Financial Institution
12 4 (0.95%) Law
12 4 (0.95%) Retail
13 3 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 128 (30.48%) Network Engineer
2 92 (21.90%) Architect
3 70 (16.67%) Network Architect
4 35 (8.33%) Analyst
5 32 (7.62%) Senior
6 25 (5.95%) Support Analyst
7 21 (5.00%) IT Support
7 21 (5.00%) Support Engineer
8 19 (4.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 19 (4.52%) Project Manager
8 19 (4.52%) Technical Support
9 18 (4.29%) Field Engineer
9 18 (4.29%) Lead
9 18 (4.29%) Senior Network Engineer
10 16 (3.81%) 2nd Line Support
10 16 (3.81%) Technical Analyst
10 16 (3.81%) Technical Support Analyst
11 14 (3.33%) IT Engineer
11 14 (3.33%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 13 (3.10%) Cisco Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.90%) Middleware
2 7 (1.67%) LDAP
3 6 (1.43%) NETCONF
3 6 (1.43%) REST
3 6 (1.43%) YANG
4 3 (0.71%) 802.1X
4 3 (0.71%) SAML
5 2 (0.48%) ARM Templates
5 2 (0.48%) Node.js
5 2 (0.48%) YAML
6 1 (0.24%) .NET
6 1 (0.24%) CSS
6 1 (0.24%) EDI
6 1 (0.24%) HTML
6 1 (0.24%) Java RMI
6 1 (0.24%) LAMP
6 1 (0.24%) LAPP Stack
6 1 (0.24%) libvirt
6 1 (0.24%) React
6 1 (0.24%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 73 (17.38%) Data Centre
2 21 (5.00%) Hybrid Cloud
3 20 (4.76%) Driving Licence
4 16 (3.81%) Onboarding
5 14 (3.33%) CMDB
6 13 (3.10%) NHS
7 11 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (2.38%) Management Information System
9 8 (1.90%) Operational Technology
9 8 (1.90%) SCADA
10 6 (1.43%) Cloud Native
10 6 (1.43%) Video Conferencing
11 5 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (1.19%) PKI
11 5 (1.19%) Security Posture
11 5 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (0.95%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.95%) Replication
12 4 (0.95%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 99 (23.57%) Windows
2 36 (8.57%) Windows Server
3 27 (6.43%) Windows 10
4 22 (5.24%) Linux
5 13 (3.10%) Windows Server 2016
6 9 (2.14%) Windows Server 2019
7 8 (1.90%) Android
8 6 (1.43%) Windows 7
9 5 (1.19%) Apple iOS
9 5 (1.19%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.95%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 3 (0.71%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.48%) CatOS
13 1 (0.24%) MVS
13 1 (0.24%) Solaris
13 1 (0.24%) VMS
13 1 (0.24%) Windows 8
13 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.24%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 69 (16.43%) Problem-Solving
2 65 (15.48%) Network Design
3 52 (12.38%) ITIL
4 49 (11.67%) Migration
5 45 (10.71%) Network Architecture
6 40 (9.52%) Cybersecurity
7 39 (9.29%) Stakeholder Management
8 33 (7.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 32 (7.62%) Project Delivery
10 30 (7.14%) Customer Service
11 28 (6.67%) Network Monitoring
12 27 (6.43%) High Availability
13 26 (6.19%) ITSM
14 25 (5.95%) Change Management
15 24 (5.71%) Zero Trust
16 23 (5.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 22 (5.24%) Roadmaps
18 21 (5.00%) Service Management
19 20 (4.76%) Network Management
19 20 (4.76%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 34 (8.10%) Python
2 20 (4.76%) PowerShell
3 12 (2.86%) SQL
4 6 (1.43%) Perl
4 6 (1.43%) VBScript
5 5 (1.19%) VB
6 2 (0.48%) Bash
6 2 (0.48%) Bicep
7 1 (0.24%) C#
7 1 (0.24%) Java
7 1 (0.24%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.24%) Ruby
7 1 (0.24%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.24%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 121 (28.81%) Security Cleared
2 116 (27.62%) Cisco Certification
3 91 (21.67%) CCNP
4 85 (20.24%) SC Cleared
5 44 (10.48%) Degree
6 42 (10.00%) DV Cleared
7 39 (9.29%) CCIE
8 37 (8.81%) CCNA
9 20 (4.76%) JNCIE
10 13 (3.10%) AWS Certification
11 11 (2.62%) Network+ Certification
12 10 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (2.38%) JNCIP
12 10 (2.38%) Microsoft Certification
13 9 (2.14%) Azure Certification
14 8 (1.90%) CCSE
14 8 (1.90%) JNCIS
15 7 (1.67%) CISSP
15 7 (1.67%) HNC
15 7 (1.67%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 14 (3.33%) SLA
2 10 (2.38%) NIST
3 9 (2.14%) GDPR
4 7 (1.67%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.19%) PMO
5 5 (1.19%) QA
6 4 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.48%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.48%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.48%) NCSC
8 1 (0.24%) COBIT
8 1 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.24%) GRC
8 1 (0.24%) MiFID
8 1 (0.24%) RMADS
8 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 61 (14.52%) Active Directory
2 25 (5.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (4.05%) VMware NSX
4 8 (1.90%) Hyper-V
5 5 (1.19%) BitLocker
5 5 (1.19%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.71%) Docker
6 3 (0.71%) KVM
7 2 (0.48%) Firmware
7 2 (0.48%) NFS
7 2 (0.48%) ProxySG
7 2 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.48%) VMware Workstation
7 2 (0.48%) Xen
8 1 (0.24%) Ceph
8 1 (0.24%) RHEV
8 1 (0.24%) Samba
8 1 (0.24%) SRDF
8 1 (0.24%) Veritas Cluster Server
8 1 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 36 (8.57%) Ansible
2 30 (7.14%) Terraform
3 21 (5.00%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (4.52%) FortiGate
5 13 (3.10%) SCCM
6 7 (1.67%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.95%) Cisco CUCM
7 4 (0.95%) Nagios
7 4 (0.95%) SCOM
8 3 (0.71%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.71%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.71%) WSUS
9 2 (0.48%) Check_MK
9 2 (0.48%) Endace
9 2 (0.48%) Grafana
9 2 (0.48%) Nessus
9 2 (0.48%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.24%) Backup Exec
10 1 (0.24%) Norton AntiVirus
10 1 (0.24%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 202 (48.10%) Cisco
2 82 (19.52%) Microsoft
3 73 (17.38%) Palo Alto
4 67 (15.95%) Fortinet
5 52 (12.38%) Juniper
6 40 (9.52%) VMware
7 37 (8.81%) CheckPoint
8 36 (8.57%) F5
9 35 (8.33%) Meraki
10 34 (8.10%) Aruba
11 25 (5.95%) SolarWinds
12 21 (5.00%) ServiceNow
13 19 (4.52%) Zscaler
14 17 (4.05%) Citrix
15 12 (2.86%) Veeam
16 11 (2.62%) Oracle
17 10 (2.38%) SAP
18 7 (1.67%) Arista
18 7 (1.67%) LogicMonitor
19 6 (1.43%) Nokia