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 12 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 212 201 125
Rank change year-on-year -11 -76 +45
Contract jobs citing LAN 530 400 839
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.24% 1.36% 1.88%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.29% 10.18% 13.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 341 261 508
10th Percentile £206 £223 £204
25th Percentile £313 £350 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £443 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.67% -5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £638
90th Percentile £620 £673 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £434 £430 £475
% change year-on-year +0.87% -9.47% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 9 46
10th Percentile £12.43 £14.65 £13.61
25th Percentile £15.50 £18.50 £16.23
Median hourly rate £22.50 £32.50 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -30.77% +30.68% -50.26%
75th Percentile £44.06 £43.75 £45.63
90th Percentile £70.39 £54.75 £61.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £19.00 £24.87
% change year-on-year +15.79% -23.60% -25.20%

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 4,311 3,928 6,017
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.10% 13.35% 13.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,792 2,407 3,622
10th Percentile £206 £208 £205
25th Percentile £364 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.60% +5.26% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £473 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +0.64% -1.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 178 141 398
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.33 £14.26
25th Percentile £20.04 £21.46 £18.93
Median hourly rate £38.50 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -12.50% +110.53%
75th Percentile £67.44 £63.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.65 £75.00 £72.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £33.75 £47.50
% change year-on-year +24.27% -28.95% +151.19%

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 12 March 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 12 March 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 12 March 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 -39 438 £450 -5.32% 177
UK excluding London -17 349 £434 +0.87% 160
London -30 134 £475 -1.04% 46
Work from Home +4 133 £447 -10.55% 49
South East +8 125 £445 +4.71% 60
North of England -67 61 £450 +3.99% 36
Midlands -40 50 £303 -40.98% 22
Scotland +36 45 £288 -28.13% 6
West Midlands -37 43 £413 -21.43% 15
East of England -15 39 £350 -34.88% 23
North West -45 34 £500 +11.11% 15
Yorkshire -56 27 £313 +27.76% 18
South West -44 16 £513 +24.24% 11
Wales -1 10 £425 +41.67% 8
East Midlands -37 6 £200 -40.30% 6
Northern Ireland - 4 £430 -

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 30 (5.66%) SharePoint
2 26 (4.91%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.45%) Confluence
4 10 (1.89%) Skype for Business
5 2 (0.38%) IIS
5 2 (0.38%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.19%) Apache
Applications
1 36 (6.79%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (4.53%) MS Visio
3 14 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
4 13 (2.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.94%) Acrobat
6 4 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.38%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 119 (22.45%) Azure
2 80 (15.09%) Microsoft 365
3 55 (10.38%) AWS
4 37 (6.98%) Entra ID
5 21 (3.96%) GCP
6 16 (3.02%) SaaS
7 13 (2.45%) OneDrive
8 11 (2.08%) PaaS
9 9 (1.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 7 (1.32%) Azure DevOps
11 6 (1.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 6 (1.13%) IaaS
11 6 (1.13%) Nutanix
11 6 (1.13%) Power Platform
12 5 (0.94%) PowerApps
13 4 (0.75%) AWS Direct Connect
13 4 (0.75%) Microsoft Purview
14 3 (0.57%) Azure Monitor
14 3 (0.57%) Serverless
14 3 (0.57%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 435 (82.08%) WAN
2 233 (43.96%) Firewall
3 153 (28.87%) VPN
4 128 (24.15%) BGP
5 123 (23.21%) Wi-Fi
6 118 (22.26%) OSPF
7 107 (20.19%) SD-WAN
8 100 (18.87%) DNS
9 99 (18.68%) Network Security
10 83 (15.66%) DHCP
11 79 (14.91%) Wireless
12 77 (14.53%) TCP/IP
13 74 (13.96%) VLAN
14 70 (13.21%) MPLS
15 50 (9.43%) WLAN
16 45 (8.49%) IPsec
17 37 (6.98%) BIG-IP
18 36 (6.79%) Cisco ASA
18 36 (6.79%) Cisco ISE
18 36 (6.79%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.51%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.75%) MS Access
3 2 (0.38%) MariaDB
3 2 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.19%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.19%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.19%) DynamoDB
4 1 (0.19%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.19%) MySQL
4 1 (0.19%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.19%) Power BI
4 1 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 28 (5.28%) JIRA
2 2 (0.38%) Browser DevTools
2 2 (0.38%) GitLab
2 2 (0.38%) Jenkins
2 2 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.19%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.19%) Git
3 1 (0.19%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 150 (28.30%) Social Skills
2 53 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
3 51 (9.62%) Finance
3 51 (9.62%) Public Sector
4 37 (6.98%) Telecoms
5 33 (6.23%) Documentation Skills
6 29 (5.47%) Manufacturing
7 20 (3.77%) Legal
8 18 (3.40%) Military
9 17 (3.21%) Financial Institution
10 14 (2.64%) Banking
11 12 (2.26%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
13 8 (1.51%) Law
14 7 (1.32%) Retail
15 6 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 6 (1.13%) Local Government
16 5 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
16 5 (0.94%) Marketing
17 4 (0.75%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 186 (35.09%) Network Engineer
2 76 (14.34%) Architect
3 58 (10.94%) Senior
4 53 (10.00%) Network Architect
5 43 (8.11%) Analyst
5 43 (8.11%) IT Support
6 37 (6.98%) Support Engineer
7 33 (6.23%) IT Engineer
8 28 (5.28%) IT Support Engineer
9 27 (5.09%) Senior Network Engineer
10 26 (4.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 24 (4.53%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 23 (4.34%) Lead
13 22 (4.15%) Cisco Engineer
14 21 (3.96%) Cisco Network Engineer
14 21 (3.96%) Project Manager
14 21 (3.96%) Technical Architect
15 19 (3.58%) Support Analyst
16 18 (3.40%) Field Engineer
16 18 (3.40%) Network Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (6.42%) 802.1X
2 11 (2.08%) LDAP
3 8 (1.51%) Microsoft Graph
3 8 (1.51%) SAML
4 7 (1.32%) Middleware
5 3 (0.57%) ARM Templates
6 2 (0.38%) CSS
6 2 (0.38%) Django
6 2 (0.38%) HTML
6 2 (0.38%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.38%) REST
6 2 (0.38%) RFC 2544
6 2 (0.38%) XMPP
6 2 (0.38%) YAML
6 2 (0.38%) YANG
7 1 (0.19%) .NET
7 1 (0.19%) EDI
7 1 (0.19%) Java RMI
7 1 (0.19%) libvirt
7 1 (0.19%) React
Miscellaneous
1 103 (19.43%) Data Centre
2 25 (4.72%) PKI
3 22 (4.15%) Clustering
3 22 (4.15%) Onboarding
4 20 (3.77%) Driving Licence
5 16 (3.02%) Hybrid Cloud
6 15 (2.83%) CMDB
7 14 (2.64%) NHS
8 13 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
9 12 (2.26%) Security Posture
10 10 (1.89%) Operational Technology
11 9 (1.70%) Management Information System
11 9 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
12 8 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
12 8 (1.51%) IoT
12 8 (1.51%) Public Cloud
12 8 (1.51%) Virtual Team
13 7 (1.32%) iPhone
14 6 (1.13%) Analytical Mindset
15 5 (0.94%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 160 (30.19%) Windows
2 53 (10.00%) Windows Server
3 37 (6.98%) Windows 10
4 24 (4.53%) Linux
5 14 (2.64%) Windows Server 2019
6 11 (2.08%) Android
6 11 (2.08%) Windows 7
7 10 (1.89%) Mac OS
8 7 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 7 (1.32%) Windows Server 2016
9 6 (1.13%) VMS
10 5 (0.94%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.75%) CatOS
12 3 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 3 (0.57%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.57%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.38%) AIX
14 1 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (16.79%) Problem-Solving
2 80 (15.09%) ITIL
3 63 (11.89%) High Availability
4 61 (11.51%) Migration
5 50 (9.43%) Stakeholder Management
6 49 (9.25%) ITSM
7 47 (8.87%) Change Management
8 46 (8.68%) Network Design
9 42 (7.92%) Network Architecture
10 41 (7.74%) Load Balancing
11 39 (7.36%) Cybersecurity
11 39 (7.36%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 38 (7.17%) Project Delivery
13 37 (6.98%) Service Management
14 36 (6.79%) Network Monitoring
15 30 (5.66%) Customer Service
16 28 (5.28%) Continuous Improvement
16 28 (5.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 27 (5.09%) Mentoring
17 27 (5.09%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 50 (9.43%) PowerShell
2 33 (6.23%) Python
3 14 (2.64%) SQL
4 11 (2.08%) VBScript
5 9 (1.70%) VB
6 3 (0.57%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.57%) Perl
7 2 (0.38%) Bash
7 2 (0.38%) Bicep
8 1 (0.19%) C#
8 1 (0.19%) Ruby
8 1 (0.19%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 177 (33.40%) Security Cleared
2 150 (28.30%) Cisco Certification
3 130 (24.53%) SC Cleared
4 116 (21.89%) CCNP
5 59 (11.13%) Degree
5 59 (11.13%) DV Cleared
6 50 (9.43%) CCNA
7 36 (6.79%) CCIE
8 19 (3.58%) JNCIP
8 19 (3.58%) JNCIS
9 13 (2.45%) Network+ Certification
10 12 (2.26%) Microsoft Certification
10 12 (2.26%) PMP
11 11 (2.08%) Azure Certification
11 11 (2.08%) JNCIA
11 11 (2.08%) PMI Certification
12 10 (1.89%) CCSE
13 9 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
13 9 (1.70%) JNCIE
14 8 (1.51%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.21%) SLA
2 15 (2.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.08%) NIST
4 10 (1.89%) GDPR
4 10 (1.89%) QA
5 7 (1.32%) NCSC
6 5 (0.94%) PCI DSS
6 5 (0.94%) PMO
7 4 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.57%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.38%) RMADS
10 1 (0.19%) GRC
10 1 (0.19%) MiFID
10 1 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 98 (18.49%) Active Directory
2 42 (7.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (3.58%) VMware NSX
4 12 (2.26%) vSphere
5 9 (1.70%) BitLocker
6 5 (0.94%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.75%) Docker
7 4 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.38%) KVM
8 2 (0.38%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.19%) Ceph
9 1 (0.19%) Citrix Presentation Server
9 1 (0.19%) iptables
9 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.19%) RHEV
9 1 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 42 (7.92%) FortiGate
2 38 (7.17%) Microsoft Intune
3 32 (6.04%) Ansible
4 27 (5.09%) Terraform
5 22 (4.15%) SCCM
6 12 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (2.08%) Jamf Pro
8 6 (1.13%) Cisco Prime
8 6 (1.13%) Nagios
9 4 (0.75%) WSUS
10 3 (0.57%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.57%) Endace
10 3 (0.57%) Grafana
10 3 (0.57%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.38%) Check_MK
11 2 (0.38%) Nessus
11 2 (0.38%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.38%) SCOM
11 2 (0.38%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 1 (0.19%) Norton AntiVirus
Vendors
1 243 (45.85%) Cisco
2 121 (22.83%) Microsoft
3 105 (19.81%) Palo Alto
4 71 (13.40%) F5
4 71 (13.40%) Juniper
5 64 (12.08%) CheckPoint
6 63 (11.89%) Aruba
7 56 (10.57%) VMware
8 51 (9.62%) Fortinet
9 49 (9.25%) SolarWinds
10 36 (6.79%) ServiceNow
11 29 (5.47%) Meraki
12 26 (4.91%) Extreme Networks
13 25 (4.72%) Zscaler
14 24 (4.53%) Splunk
15 14 (2.64%) Dell
15 14 (2.64%) Veeam
16 13 (2.45%) Citrix
17 11 (2.08%) Arista
18 9 (1.70%) Ekahau