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

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 241 179 127
Rank change year-on-year -62 -52 +44
Contract jobs citing LAN 434 464 836
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.14% 1.47% 1.90%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 10.92% 11.43% 13.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 274 281 519
10th Percentile £213 £223 £200
25th Percentile £313 £350 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.11% - -
75th Percentile £538 £571 £600
90th Percentile £625 £675 £715
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £430 £448
% change year-on-year -1.16% -3.91% +1.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 12 38
10th Percentile £12.97 £18.65 £17.13
25th Percentile £15.50 £20.00 £21.25
Median hourly rate £22.50 £20.19 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +11.46% -43.95% +29.80%
75th Percentile £35.00 £34.06 £49.38
90th Percentile £69.99 £42.88 £64.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.38 £20.00 £33.44
% change year-on-year -8.13% -40.19% +45.39%

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 3,974 4,058 6,031
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.46% 12.84% 13.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,606 2,359 3,677
10th Percentile £204 £213 £208
25th Percentile £355 £363 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.91%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £686 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £466 £475
% change year-on-year -3.43% -1.89% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 139 377
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.05 £16.97
25th Percentile £18.97 £21.46 £23.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £53.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -33.96% +155.98%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £74.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £32.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year +24.74% -42.47% +202.73%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -78 362 £450 - 204
UK excluding London -52 276 £425 -1.16% 201
London -18 122 £500 - 49
Work from Home -15 113 £450 -10.00% 90
South East -13 84 £450 +10.77% 56
North of England -85 56 £433 -3.89% 47
Scotland +25 40 £273 -31.88% 16
Midlands -64 40 £425 -10.53% 33
North West -44 38 £420 -8.50% 19
West Midlands -45 35 £450 -10.00% 25
East of England -21 33 £350 -31.71% 18
Yorkshire -70 17 £445 +91.40% 23
South West -37 12 £513 +24.24% 26
Northern Ireland -1 5 £475 - 3
Wales -2 5 £293 +46.25% 6
East Midlands -47 5 £200 -42.86% 8
North East -13 1 £550 - 5

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 (5.76%) SharePoint
2 18 (4.15%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (3.23%) OpenStack
4 10 (2.30%) Skype for Business
5 7 (1.61%) Confluence
6 1 (0.23%) Apache
6 1 (0.23%) CICS
6 1 (0.23%) IIS
6 1 (0.23%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.23%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.23%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 40 (9.22%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (5.99%) MS Visio
3 17 (3.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (3.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (1.15%) Acrobat
5 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.46%) DELMIA
2 1 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 95 (21.89%) Azure
2 58 (13.36%) AWS
3 48 (11.06%) Microsoft 365
4 21 (4.84%) Entra ID
5 19 (4.38%) GCP
6 9 (2.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 7 (1.61%) SaaS
8 6 (1.38%) OpenShift
9 4 (0.92%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (0.92%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (0.69%) AWS Direct Connect
10 3 (0.69%) Nutanix
10 3 (0.69%) Serverless
11 2 (0.46%) Azure Service Bus
11 2 (0.46%) Google Ads
11 2 (0.46%) OneDrive
11 2 (0.46%) Power Platform
11 2 (0.46%) Slack
11 2 (0.46%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 361 (83.18%) WAN
2 169 (38.94%) Firewall
3 137 (31.57%) VPN
4 90 (20.74%) BGP
5 87 (20.05%) SD-WAN
6 84 (19.35%) Wi-Fi
7 73 (16.82%) TCP/IP
7 73 (16.82%) Wireless
8 71 (16.36%) DNS
9 70 (16.13%) Network Security
9 70 (16.13%) OSPF
10 68 (15.67%) MPLS
11 56 (12.90%) VLAN
12 55 (12.67%) DHCP
13 47 (10.83%) WLAN
14 38 (8.76%) IPsec
15 31 (7.14%) Cisco Nexus
16 26 (5.99%) Cisco ASA
17 25 (5.76%) Structured Cabling
18 20 (4.61%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.84%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.92%) MS Access
3 3 (0.69%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.46%) MariaDB
4 2 (0.46%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.46%) Power BI
5 1 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.23%) Apache Cassandra
5 1 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.23%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.23%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.23%) MySQL
5 1 (0.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (2.53%) JIRA
2 3 (0.69%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (0.46%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.23%) Git
4 1 (0.23%) GitLab
4 1 (0.23%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 137 (31.57%) Social Skills
2 52 (11.98%) Public Sector
3 50 (11.52%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (8.53%) Finance
5 36 (8.29%) Telecoms
6 34 (7.83%) Documentation Skills
7 21 (4.84%) Manufacturing
8 16 (3.69%) Military
9 13 (3.00%) Legal
10 10 (2.30%) Banking
11 9 (2.07%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (2.07%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.38%) Law
12 6 (1.38%) Local Government
12 6 (1.38%) Marketing
13 5 (1.15%) Electronics
13 5 (1.15%) Financial Institution
13 5 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 4 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.69%) Police
Job Titles
1 143 (32.95%) Network Engineer
2 82 (18.89%) Architect
3 57 (13.13%) Network Architect
4 36 (8.29%) Analyst
5 35 (8.06%) Senior
6 23 (5.30%) IT Support
7 22 (5.07%) Lead
7 22 (5.07%) Support Analyst
7 22 (5.07%) Support Engineer
8 21 (4.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 19 (4.38%) Project Manager
10 18 (4.15%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 18 (4.15%) Senior Network Engineer
11 17 (3.92%) Field Engineer
11 17 (3.92%) Technical Architect
11 17 (3.92%) Technical Support
12 16 (3.69%) 2nd Line Support
12 16 (3.69%) Cisco Engineer
12 16 (3.69%) Technical Analyst
13 15 (3.46%) Cisco Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.53%) LDAP
2 8 (1.84%) Middleware
2 8 (1.84%) NETCONF
2 8 (1.84%) REST
2 8 (1.84%) YANG
3 6 (1.38%) SAML
4 3 (0.69%) 802.1X
5 2 (0.46%) ARM Templates
5 2 (0.46%) CSS
5 2 (0.46%) Django
5 2 (0.46%) HTML
5 2 (0.46%) XMPP
5 2 (0.46%) YAML
6 1 (0.23%) .NET
6 1 (0.23%) EDI
6 1 (0.23%) LAMP
6 1 (0.23%) libvirt
6 1 (0.23%) Node.js
6 1 (0.23%) React
6 1 (0.23%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 80 (18.43%) Data Centre
2 24 (5.53%) Hybrid Cloud
3 20 (4.61%) Driving Licence
4 18 (4.15%) Onboarding
5 14 (3.23%) CMDB
6 13 (3.00%) Data Protection Act
6 13 (3.00%) NHS
7 9 (2.07%) Cloud Native
7 9 (2.07%) Management Information System
8 8 (1.84%) Operational Technology
9 7 (1.61%) PKI
9 7 (1.61%) Security Posture
9 7 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (1.61%) Virtual Team
10 6 (1.38%) SCADA
11 5 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (1.15%) iPhone
11 5 (1.15%) Public Cloud
11 5 (1.15%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 105 (24.19%) Windows
2 42 (9.68%) Windows Server
3 33 (7.60%) Windows 10
4 21 (4.84%) Linux
5 13 (3.00%) Windows Server 2016
5 13 (3.00%) Windows Server 2019
6 10 (2.30%) Windows 7
7 7 (1.61%) Android
8 5 (1.15%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (0.92%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.92%) CatOS
9 4 (0.92%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.69%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.46%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.23%) AIX
12 1 (0.23%) MVS
12 1 (0.23%) Solaris
12 1 (0.23%) VMS
12 1 (0.23%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (15.44%) Problem-Solving
2 59 (13.59%) ITIL
3 57 (13.13%) Network Design
4 55 (12.67%) Migration
5 47 (10.83%) Network Architecture
6 44 (10.14%) Cybersecurity
7 39 (8.99%) Stakeholder Management
8 37 (8.53%) ITSM
9 36 (8.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 36 (8.29%) Project Delivery
10 31 (7.14%) Change Management
10 31 (7.14%) High Availability
11 29 (6.68%) Customer Service
11 29 (6.68%) Network Monitoring
12 26 (5.99%) Zero Trust
13 24 (5.53%) Roadmaps
13 24 (5.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 23 (5.30%) Continuous Improvement
15 22 (5.07%) Network Segmentation
16 21 (4.84%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 38 (8.76%) Python
2 32 (7.37%) PowerShell
3 12 (2.76%) SQL
4 10 (2.30%) VBScript
5 9 (2.07%) VB
6 6 (1.38%) Perl
7 3 (0.69%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.46%) Bash
8 2 (0.46%) Bicep
9 1 (0.23%) C#
9 1 (0.23%) Java
9 1 (0.23%) Ruby
9 1 (0.23%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.23%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 127 (29.26%) Cisco Certification
2 125 (28.80%) Security Cleared
3 99 (22.81%) CCNP
4 98 (22.58%) SC Cleared
5 52 (11.98%) Degree
6 46 (10.60%) CCIE
7 40 (9.22%) CCNA
8 38 (8.76%) DV Cleared
9 22 (5.07%) JNCIE
10 14 (3.23%) AWS Certification
11 11 (2.53%) JNCIP
11 11 (2.53%) JNCIS
11 11 (2.53%) Network+ Certification
12 10 (2.30%) Azure Certification
12 10 (2.30%) CCSE
13 8 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
13 8 (1.84%) Microsoft Certification
13 8 (1.84%) PMI Certification
14 7 (1.61%) CCDP
14 7 (1.61%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (2.30%) NIST
2 10 (2.30%) SLA
3 9 (2.07%) GDPR
4 7 (1.61%) PCI DSS
4 7 (1.61%) QA
5 5 (1.15%) PMO
6 4 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.69%) JSP 440
7 3 (0.69%) NCSC
8 2 (0.46%) RMADS
9 1 (0.23%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.23%) GRC
9 1 (0.23%) MiFID
9 1 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 70 (16.13%) Active Directory
2 34 (7.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (5.07%) VMware NSX
4 9 (2.07%) BitLocker
5 8 (1.84%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.38%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (1.15%) vSphere
8 4 (0.92%) Docker
9 3 (0.69%) KVM
9 3 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.46%) Firmware
10 2 (0.46%) NFS
10 2 (0.46%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.46%) Xen
11 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.23%) RHEV
11 1 (0.23%) Samba
11 1 (0.23%) SRDF
11 1 (0.23%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 1 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 41 (9.45%) Ansible
2 32 (7.37%) Terraform
3 24 (5.53%) Microsoft Intune
4 20 (4.61%) FortiGate
5 18 (4.15%) SCCM
6 10 (2.30%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (1.15%) Cisco Prime
8 4 (0.92%) Nagios
8 4 (0.92%) SCOM
9 3 (0.69%) Cisco CUCM
9 3 (0.69%) Endace
9 3 (0.69%) Grafana
9 3 (0.69%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.69%) WSUS
10 2 (0.46%) Check_MK
10 2 (0.46%) Kubernetes
10 2 (0.46%) Nessus
10 2 (0.46%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.23%) Puppet
11 1 (0.23%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 200 (46.08%) Cisco
2 92 (21.20%) Microsoft
3 84 (19.35%) Palo Alto
4 55 (12.67%) Fortinet
5 51 (11.75%) Juniper
6 49 (11.29%) CheckPoint
6 49 (11.29%) VMware
7 44 (10.14%) Aruba
7 44 (10.14%) F5
8 34 (7.83%) Meraki
9 29 (6.68%) SolarWinds
10 28 (6.45%) ServiceNow
11 21 (4.84%) Zscaler
12 14 (3.23%) Citrix
12 14 (3.23%) Veeam
13 11 (2.53%) Arista
14 8 (1.84%) SAP
15 6 (1.38%) Nokia
15 6 (1.38%) Oracle
15 6 (1.38%) Remedy