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

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 211 221 157
Rank change year-on-year +10 -64 +1
Contract jobs citing LAN 556 355 676
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 1.21% 1.57%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.17% 9.50% 12.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 349 214 403
10th Percentile £213 £243 £200
25th Percentile £325 £361 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -5.26% +4.51%
75th Percentile £535 £563 £650
90th Percentile £620 £625 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £443 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +2.91% -4.44% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 9 43
10th Percentile £12.43 £14.65 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.50 £15.75
Median hourly rate £22.50 £27.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +20.00% -65.38%
75th Percentile £53.29 £40.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £79.24 £50.40 £44.80
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 4,568 3,736 5,525
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.59% 12.74% 12.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,839 2,302 3,306
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £495
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -1.52% -4.81%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.15% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 234 174 420
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.22 £16.72
Median hourly rate £40.54 £36.57 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.85% -8.57% +112.54%
75th Percentile £65.97 £58.39 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 £24.71 £45.88
% change year-on-year +97.17% -46.14% +148.00%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -9 473 £450 -5.26% 227
UK excluding London +7 386 £443 +2.91% 206
South East +21 163 £455 -6.67% 75
Work from Home +6 127 £450 -10.05% 75
London -32 121 £500 - 55
North of England -58 58 £450 +12.44% 42
Midlands -39 54 £298 -36.53% 30
West Midlands -28 45 £338 -22.86% 22
East of England -11 44 £338 -21.51% 19
Scotland +20 38 £406 +1.82% 14
Yorkshire -40 30 £382 +55.71% 21
North West -53 28 £483 +7.22% 17
South West -46 16 £500 - 20
Wales -11 10 £450 +12.50% 11
East Midlands -29 6 £200 -61.90% 8
Northern Ireland - 4 £468 - 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 29 (5.22%) SharePoint
2 23 (4.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (2.70%) Confluence
4 5 (0.90%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.72%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.36%) IIS
7 1 (0.18%) Apache
7 1 (0.18%) CMS
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 20 (3.60%) MS Visio
2 18 (3.24%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.90%) Acrobat
4 5 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.36%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 131 (23.56%) Azure
2 83 (14.93%) Microsoft 365
3 57 (10.25%) AWS
4 37 (6.65%) Entra ID
5 18 (3.24%) SaaS
6 15 (2.70%) OneDrive
7 13 (2.34%) PaaS
8 12 (2.16%) GCP
9 7 (1.26%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (1.26%) Power Platform
9 7 (1.26%) PowerApps
10 6 (1.08%) IaaS
11 5 (0.90%) Nutanix
11 5 (0.90%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 4 (0.72%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 4 (0.72%) Google Ads
13 2 (0.36%) Azure Monitor
13 2 (0.36%) Serverless
13 2 (0.36%) Slack
13 2 (0.36%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 460 (82.73%) WAN
2 269 (48.38%) Firewall
3 154 (27.70%) VPN
4 149 (26.80%) BGP
5 136 (24.46%) OSPF
6 132 (23.74%) Wi-Fi
7 124 (22.30%) SD-WAN
8 108 (19.42%) DNS
8 108 (19.42%) Network Security
9 92 (16.55%) Wireless
10 84 (15.11%) DHCP
11 71 (12.77%) TCP/IP
11 71 (12.77%) VLAN
11 71 (12.77%) WLAN
12 66 (11.87%) MPLS
13 52 (9.35%) IPsec
14 46 (8.27%) BIG-IP
15 45 (8.09%) Cisco ISE
15 45 (8.09%) Cisco Nexus
16 38 (6.83%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.26%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.36%) MariaDB
2 2 (0.36%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.18%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.18%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.18%) DynamoDB
3 1 (0.18%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.18%) MySQL
3 1 (0.18%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.18%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 32 (5.76%) JIRA
2 4 (0.72%) Browser DevTools
3 3 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.36%) GitLab
4 2 (0.36%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.18%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 147 (26.44%) Social Skills
2 52 (9.35%) Public Sector
3 42 (7.55%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (7.01%) Finance
5 33 (5.94%) Documentation Skills
6 28 (5.04%) Telecoms
7 27 (4.86%) Manufacturing
8 21 (3.78%) Legal
9 18 (3.24%) Financial Institution
10 14 (2.52%) Military
11 10 (1.80%) Law
11 10 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.62%) Banking
13 7 (1.26%) Retail
14 6 (1.08%) Local Government
14 6 (1.08%) Police
15 3 (0.54%) Billing
16 2 (0.36%) German Language
16 2 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 2 (0.36%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 221 (39.75%) Network Engineer
2 83 (14.93%) Architect
3 64 (11.51%) Senior
4 56 (10.07%) Network Architect
5 41 (7.37%) IT Support
6 32 (5.76%) Support Engineer
7 30 (5.40%) Analyst
7 30 (5.40%) Lead
7 30 (5.40%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 30 (5.40%) Senior Network Engineer
8 28 (5.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 28 (5.04%) IT Engineer
9 25 (4.50%) Cisco Engineer
9 25 (4.50%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 24 (4.32%) IT Support Engineer
11 23 (4.14%) Technical Architect
12 16 (2.88%) Network Manager
13 15 (2.70%) Project Manager
14 14 (2.52%) Firewall Specialist
14 14 (2.52%) Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (7.73%) 802.1X
2 15 (2.70%) LDAP
3 13 (2.34%) SAML
4 10 (1.80%) Microsoft Graph
5 8 (1.44%) Middleware
6 4 (0.72%) NETCONF
6 4 (0.72%) REST
6 4 (0.72%) YANG
7 3 (0.54%) XMPP
8 2 (0.36%) .NET
8 2 (0.36%) ARM Templates
8 2 (0.36%) CSS
8 2 (0.36%) Django
8 2 (0.36%) HTML
8 2 (0.36%) RFC 2544
8 2 (0.36%) Software Packaging
9 1 (0.18%) Apache NiFi
9 1 (0.18%) LAPP Stack
9 1 (0.18%) libvirt
9 1 (0.18%) React
Miscellaneous
1 110 (19.78%) Data Centre
2 29 (5.22%) PKI
3 26 (4.68%) Clustering
4 24 (4.32%) Onboarding
5 20 (3.60%) Hybrid Cloud
6 15 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
7 13 (2.34%) Public Cloud
8 11 (1.98%) Operational Technology
8 11 (1.98%) Security Posture
9 10 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
9 10 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (1.62%) Driving Licence
11 8 (1.44%) CMDB
11 8 (1.44%) IoT
11 8 (1.44%) NHS
11 8 (1.44%) Virtual Team
12 7 (1.26%) Video Conferencing
13 6 (1.08%) Cloud Native
13 6 (1.08%) Smartphone
14 5 (0.90%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 169 (30.40%) Windows
2 49 (8.81%) Windows Server
3 37 (6.65%) Linux
4 30 (5.40%) Windows 10
5 15 (2.70%) Windows Server 2019
6 12 (2.16%) Mac OS
7 9 (1.62%) Android
8 8 (1.44%) Apple iOS
9 7 (1.26%) Windows 7
10 5 (0.90%) CatOS
10 5 (0.90%) VMS
10 5 (0.90%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.90%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.72%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.72%) Unix
12 3 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 2 (0.36%) AIX
13 2 (0.36%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.18%) CentOS
14 1 (0.18%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (15.83%) ITIL
2 79 (14.21%) High Availability
3 78 (14.03%) Problem-Solving
4 60 (10.79%) Migration
5 54 (9.71%) Load Balancing
6 49 (8.81%) Change Management
7 47 (8.45%) ITSM
8 45 (8.09%) Stakeholder Management
9 40 (7.19%) Network Design
10 39 (7.01%) Network Architecture
11 37 (6.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 35 (6.29%) Technical Leadership
13 34 (6.12%) Continuous Improvement
13 34 (6.12%) Disaster Recovery
13 34 (6.12%) Network Monitoring
13 34 (6.12%) Service Management
14 33 (5.94%) Project Delivery
15 32 (5.76%) Cybersecurity
16 31 (5.58%) Customer Service
16 31 (5.58%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 38 (6.83%) PowerShell
2 33 (5.94%) Python
3 15 (2.70%) SQL
4 5 (0.90%) VBScript
5 4 (0.72%) VB
6 3 (0.54%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.36%) Bash
7 2 (0.36%) Perl
8 1 (0.18%) Bicep
8 1 (0.18%) C
8 1 (0.18%) C#
8 1 (0.18%) C++
8 1 (0.18%) Java
8 1 (0.18%) Ruby
8 1 (0.18%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.18%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 204 (36.69%) Security Cleared
2 161 (28.96%) Cisco Certification
3 146 (26.26%) SC Cleared
4 118 (21.22%) CCNP
5 56 (10.07%) DV Cleared
6 53 (9.53%) Degree
7 50 (8.99%) CCNA
8 40 (7.19%) CCIE
9 17 (3.06%) JNCIS
10 14 (2.52%) JNCIP
11 13 (2.34%) PMP
12 12 (2.16%) JNCIA
13 11 (1.98%) Azure Certification
14 10 (1.80%) CCSE
14 10 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
14 10 (1.80%) Microsoft Certification
15 9 (1.62%) JNCIE
15 9 (1.62%) PMI Certification
16 8 (1.44%) Network+ Certification
17 5 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (2.88%) QA
2 14 (2.52%) SLA
3 7 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.26%) NIST
4 6 (1.08%) Disclosure Scotland
4 6 (1.08%) NCSC
5 5 (0.90%) GDPR
6 4 (0.72%) JSP 440
7 3 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.36%) PMO
8 2 (0.36%) RMADS
9 1 (0.18%) DICOM
9 1 (0.18%) GRC
9 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 104 (18.71%) Active Directory
2 51 (9.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.78%) VMware NSX
4 15 (2.70%) vSphere
5 8 (1.44%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.72%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.54%) Docker
8 3 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.36%) Firmware
9 2 (0.36%) KVM
10 1 (0.18%) Ceph
10 1 (0.18%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.18%) NFS
10 1 (0.18%) RHEV
10 1 (0.18%) Samba
10 1 (0.18%) Xen
Systems Management
1 49 (8.81%) FortiGate
2 35 (6.29%) Microsoft Intune
3 30 (5.40%) Ansible
4 19 (3.42%) Terraform
5 16 (2.88%) SCCM
6 14 (2.52%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (2.16%) Jamf Pro
8 7 (1.26%) Nagios
9 6 (1.08%) Cisco Prime
10 5 (0.90%) Endace
10 5 (0.90%) WSUS
11 4 (0.72%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.72%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 3 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
12 3 (0.54%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.36%) AirWatch
13 2 (0.36%) Check_MK
13 2 (0.36%) Grafana
13 2 (0.36%) Nessus
14 1 (0.18%) Norton AntiVirus
Vendors
1 273 (49.10%) Cisco
2 115 (20.68%) Microsoft
2 115 (20.68%) Palo Alto
3 87 (15.65%) F5
4 84 (15.11%) Juniper
5 73 (13.13%) CheckPoint
6 70 (12.59%) Aruba
7 66 (11.87%) VMware
8 57 (10.25%) Fortinet
9 56 (10.07%) SolarWinds
10 31 (5.58%) Extreme Networks
11 29 (5.22%) Splunk
12 28 (5.04%) Meraki
13 27 (4.86%) ServiceNow
14 23 (4.14%) Zscaler
15 16 (2.88%) Dell
16 15 (2.70%) Ekahau
17 14 (2.52%) Veeam
18 9 (1.62%) Arista
18 9 (1.62%) Citrix