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 4 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 218 217 131
Rank change year-on-year -1 -86 +33
Contract jobs citing LAN 554 368 788
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.23% 1.26% 1.79%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.35% 9.75% 13.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 355 226 466
10th Percentile £206 £228 £205
25th Percentile £325 £326 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £445 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -6.32% +3.49%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £650
90th Percentile £625 £625 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +2.94% -10.53% +10.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 6 47
10th Percentile £12.43 £13.62 £12.86
25th Percentile £15.91 £16.12 £15.76
Median hourly rate £22.50 £30.75 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -26.83% +23.64% -61.74%
75th Percentile £52.58 £48.44 £43.00
90th Percentile £76.52 £51.00 £54.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £15.33 £24.87
% change year-on-year +46.77% -38.36% -54.26%

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 4,485 3,776 5,869
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.93% 12.92% 13.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,861 2,338 3,544
10th Percentile £225 £213 £205
25th Percentile £380 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £480
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% +1.67% -7.79%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £468 £475
% change year-on-year +1.60% -1.58% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 153 407
10th Percentile £15.62 £14.99 £13.71
25th Percentile £20.41 £21.46 £17.72
Median hourly rate £42.25 £35.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.71% -6.67% +97.37%
75th Percentile £70.29 £63.25 £62.25
90th Percentile £77.10 £75.00 £67.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £28.00 £45.44
% change year-on-year +78.57% -38.38% +145.62%

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 4 April 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 4 April 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 4 April 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 -23 460 £450 - 197
UK excluding London -1 376 £438 +2.94% 181
South East +17 142 £450 -10.00% 65
Work from Home +9 139 £450 -10.05% 52
London -39 131 £483 +1.05% 40
North of England -70 64 £435 +8.55% 43
Midlands -40 54 £340 -22.29% 30
Scotland +30 45 £306 -23.25% 9
West Midlands -27 45 £413 -5.71% 24
East of England -15 39 £350 -18.60% 17
North West -51 34 £500 +13.64% 20
Yorkshire -42 30 £313 +27.76% 20
South West -40 17 £519 +25.76% 16
Wales -5 12 £425 +6.25% 6
East Midlands -32 6 £200 -52.66% 6
Northern Ireland - 4 £468 -

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 32 (5.78%) SharePoint
2 29 (5.23%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (2.89%) Confluence
4 10 (1.81%) Skype for Business
5 2 (0.36%) IIS
5 2 (0.36%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.18%) Apache
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 32 (5.78%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (3.25%) MS Visio
3 8 (1.44%) Microsoft Excel
4 7 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.90%) Acrobat
6 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.36%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 134 (24.19%) Azure
2 87 (15.70%) Microsoft 365
3 61 (11.01%) AWS
4 42 (7.58%) Entra ID
5 19 (3.43%) GCP
6 18 (3.25%) SaaS
7 15 (2.71%) OneDrive
8 13 (2.35%) PaaS
9 9 (1.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 8 (1.44%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (1.44%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 8 (1.44%) Power Platform
11 7 (1.26%) PowerApps
12 6 (1.08%) IaaS
12 6 (1.08%) Nutanix
13 4 (0.72%) AWS Direct Connect
13 4 (0.72%) Google Ads
14 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Purview
15 2 (0.36%) Azure Monitor
15 2 (0.36%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 456 (82.31%) WAN
2 255 (46.03%) Firewall
3 155 (27.98%) VPN
4 142 (25.63%) BGP
5 133 (24.01%) OSPF
6 128 (23.10%) Wi-Fi
7 117 (21.12%) SD-WAN
8 109 (19.68%) DNS
9 105 (18.95%) Network Security
10 90 (16.25%) DHCP
11 81 (14.62%) TCP/IP
12 79 (14.26%) VLAN
13 77 (13.90%) Wireless
14 72 (13.00%) MPLS
15 61 (11.01%) WLAN
16 44 (7.94%) Cisco ISE
16 44 (7.94%) IPsec
17 39 (7.04%) BIG-IP
18 38 (6.86%) VXLAN
19 37 (6.68%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.44%) 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%) MS Access
3 1 (0.18%) MySQL
3 1 (0.18%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.18%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.18%) Power BI
3 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 34 (6.14%) JIRA
2 4 (0.72%) Browser DevTools
3 2 (0.36%) GitLab
3 2 (0.36%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.18%) Git
4 1 (0.18%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 157 (28.34%) Social Skills
2 60 (10.83%) Public Sector
3 55 (9.93%) Analytical Skills
4 47 (8.48%) Finance
5 36 (6.50%) Telecoms
6 34 (6.14%) Documentation Skills
7 29 (5.23%) Manufacturing
8 20 (3.61%) Financial Institution
8 20 (3.61%) Legal
9 18 (3.25%) Military
10 14 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
11 11 (1.99%) Banking
12 10 (1.81%) Law
13 7 (1.26%) Retail
14 6 (1.08%) Local Government
15 5 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 5 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.90%) Marketing
15 5 (0.90%) Police
15 5 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 199 (35.92%) Network Engineer
2 88 (15.88%) Architect
3 64 (11.55%) Senior
4 61 (11.01%) Network Architect
5 45 (8.12%) IT Support
6 37 (6.68%) Analyst
7 36 (6.50%) Support Engineer
8 34 (6.14%) IT Engineer
9 29 (5.23%) IT Support Engineer
10 28 (5.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 28 (5.05%) Lead
10 28 (5.05%) Senior Network Engineer
11 26 (4.69%) Cisco Engineer
11 26 (4.69%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 25 (4.51%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 24 (4.33%) Technical Architect
14 17 (3.07%) Field Engineer
14 17 (3.07%) Project Manager
15 15 (2.71%) 2nd Line Support
15 15 (2.71%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (6.68%) 802.1X
2 12 (2.17%) LDAP
3 10 (1.81%) Microsoft Graph
3 10 (1.81%) SAML
4 8 (1.44%) Middleware
5 2 (0.36%) .NET
5 2 (0.36%) ARM Templates
5 2 (0.36%) CSS
5 2 (0.36%) Django
5 2 (0.36%) HTML
5 2 (0.36%) NETCONF
5 2 (0.36%) REST
5 2 (0.36%) RFC 2544
5 2 (0.36%) XMPP
5 2 (0.36%) YAML
5 2 (0.36%) YANG
6 1 (0.18%) Apache NiFi
6 1 (0.18%) libvirt
6 1 (0.18%) Node.js
6 1 (0.18%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 104 (18.77%) Data Centre
2 27 (4.87%) PKI
3 24 (4.33%) Clustering
3 24 (4.33%) Onboarding
4 17 (3.07%) Hybrid Cloud
5 16 (2.89%) Driving Licence
6 13 (2.35%) Data Protection Act
7 12 (2.17%) NHS
7 12 (2.17%) Public Cloud
7 12 (2.17%) Security Posture
8 11 (1.99%) CMDB
8 11 (1.99%) Operational Technology
9 10 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
9 10 (1.81%) IoT
9 10 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
10 8 (1.44%) Virtual Team
11 7 (1.26%) iPhone
11 7 (1.26%) Management Information System
12 6 (1.08%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 172 (31.05%) Windows
2 53 (9.57%) Windows Server
3 39 (7.04%) Windows 10
4 31 (5.60%) Linux
5 15 (2.71%) Windows Server 2019
6 12 (2.17%) Android
7 11 (1.99%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.99%) Windows 7
8 8 (1.44%) Apple iOS
9 7 (1.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (1.08%) VMS
11 5 (0.90%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.72%) CatOS
12 4 (0.72%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 3 (0.54%) Windows Server 2003
14 2 (0.36%) AIX
14 2 (0.36%) Unix
15 1 (0.18%) CentOS
15 1 (0.18%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (15.88%) ITIL
1 88 (15.88%) Problem-Solving
2 70 (12.64%) High Availability
3 65 (11.73%) Migration
4 52 (9.39%) Change Management
4 52 (9.39%) Load Balancing
5 50 (9.03%) ITSM
6 49 (8.84%) Stakeholder Management
7 46 (8.30%) Network Architecture
7 46 (8.30%) Network Design
8 40 (7.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 37 (6.68%) Cybersecurity
10 36 (6.50%) Service Management
11 34 (6.14%) Project Delivery
12 33 (5.96%) Technical Leadership
13 32 (5.78%) Network Monitoring
14 30 (5.42%) Customer Service
14 30 (5.42%) Disaster Recovery
15 29 (5.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 28 (5.05%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 51 (9.21%) PowerShell
2 34 (6.14%) Python
3 14 (2.53%) SQL
4 11 (1.99%) VBScript
5 9 (1.62%) VB
6 3 (0.54%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.54%) Perl
7 2 (0.36%) Bash
7 2 (0.36%) Bicep
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
1 201 (36.28%) Security Cleared
2 155 (27.98%) Cisco Certification
3 145 (26.17%) SC Cleared
4 123 (22.20%) CCNP
5 64 (11.55%) DV Cleared
6 59 (10.65%) Degree
7 45 (8.12%) CCNA
8 44 (7.94%) CCIE
9 19 (3.43%) JNCIS
10 18 (3.25%) JNCIP
11 14 (2.53%) PMP
12 13 (2.35%) Azure Certification
13 12 (2.17%) JNCIA
14 11 (1.99%) Microsoft Certification
15 10 (1.81%) CCSE
15 10 (1.81%) Network+ Certification
15 10 (1.81%) PMI Certification
16 9 (1.62%) AWS Certification
16 9 (1.62%) Computer Science Degree
16 9 (1.62%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.07%) SLA
2 15 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (2.35%) NIST
4 11 (1.99%) GDPR
4 11 (1.99%) QA
5 6 (1.08%) NCSC
6 5 (0.90%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.72%) JSP 440
8 3 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.54%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.36%) PMO
9 2 (0.36%) RMADS
10 1 (0.18%) DICOM
10 1 (0.18%) GRC
10 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 103 (18.59%) Active Directory
2 49 (8.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.79%) VMware NSX
4 13 (2.35%) vSphere
5 9 (1.62%) BitLocker
6 7 (1.26%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.72%) Docker
8 4 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.36%) Firmware
9 2 (0.36%) KVM
9 2 (0.36%) ProxySG
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%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.18%) Xen
Systems Management
1 43 (7.76%) FortiGate
2 39 (7.04%) Microsoft Intune
3 31 (5.60%) Ansible
4 24 (4.33%) Terraform
5 23 (4.15%) SCCM
6 13 (2.35%) Jamf Pro
7 11 (1.99%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.08%) Cisco Prime
8 6 (1.08%) Nagios
9 5 (0.90%) Endace
9 5 (0.90%) WSUS
10 4 (0.72%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.72%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 3 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.54%) Grafana
11 3 (0.54%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.36%) Check_MK
12 2 (0.36%) Nessus
12 2 (0.36%) SCOM
13 1 (0.18%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 256 (46.21%) Cisco
2 120 (21.66%) Microsoft
3 108 (19.49%) Palo Alto
4 81 (14.62%) Juniper
5 77 (13.90%) F5
6 67 (12.09%) Aruba
6 67 (12.09%) CheckPoint
7 63 (11.37%) VMware
8 53 (9.57%) Fortinet
9 52 (9.39%) SolarWinds
10 33 (5.96%) ServiceNow
11 29 (5.23%) Extreme Networks
12 27 (4.87%) Meraki
12 27 (4.87%) Splunk
13 23 (4.15%) Zscaler
14 15 (2.71%) Dell
15 14 (2.53%) Veeam
16 12 (2.17%) Ekahau
17 10 (1.81%) Arista
17 10 (1.81%) Citrix