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 26 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 235 180 123
Rank change year-on-year -55 -57 +64
Contract jobs citing LAN 435 497 895
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 1.47% 2.04%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 10.85% 11.54% 14.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 284 299 577
10th Percentile £209 £223 £205
25th Percentile £315 £350 £315
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £444 £450 £460
Median % change year-on-year -1.39% -2.17% +2.22%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £628
90th Percentile £634 £650 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £410 £430 £445
% change year-on-year -4.65% -3.37% +1.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 14 32
10th Percentile £12.97 £18.95 £17.72
25th Percentile £15.50 £20.00 £21.06
Median hourly rate £20.75 £21.44 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year -3.21% -40.48% +63.73%
75th Percentile £59.92 £34.69 £50.00
90th Percentile £85.50 £63.00 £74.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £16.00 £20.00 £33.22
% change year-on-year -20.00% -39.80% +51.00%

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 4,011 4,306 6,012
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.79% 12.76% 13.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,629 2,532 3,708
10th Percentile £206 £220 £210
25th Percentile £358 £364 £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 £473 £475
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.53% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 141 333
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.99 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £21.46 £22.75
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -37.94% +38.23%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.00 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £35.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year +21.43% -38.04% +25.53%

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025. 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 -68 361 £450 -2.70% 279
UK excluding London -70 258 £410 -4.65% 257
London +4 141 £450 -10.00% 75
Work from Home -13 107 £448 -10.50% 79
South East -15 77 £485 +17.58% 81
North of England -95 54 £275 -38.89% 51
Scotland +31 39 £265 -33.75% 10
North West -45 39 £225 -51.43% 30
Midlands -74 35 £425 -1.45% 40
West Midlands -34 32 £450 -10.00% 27
East of England -26 30 £350 -36.36% 29
Yorkshire -66 13 £339 +41.15% 20
South West -27 12 £506 +22.73% 29
Wales +5 6 £335 +67.50% 18
Northern Ireland -4 4 £475 - 5
East Midlands -45 3 £258 -23.13% 12
North East -8 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 (5.75%) SharePoint
2 15 (3.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (2.76%) OpenStack
4 6 (1.38%) Skype for Business
5 5 (1.15%) 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 33 (7.59%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (4.14%) MS Visio
3 15 (3.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (3.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.69%) Acrobat
6 2 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.23%) DELMIA
1 1 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 88 (20.23%) Azure
2 62 (14.25%) AWS
3 43 (9.89%) Microsoft 365
4 19 (4.37%) Entra ID
4 19 (4.37%) GCP
5 10 (2.30%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 6 (1.38%) OpenShift
7 5 (1.15%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (1.15%) Microsoft Purview
7 5 (1.15%) SaaS
8 4 (0.92%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 4 (0.92%) Serverless
9 3 (0.69%) AWS Direct Connect
9 3 (0.69%) Power Platform
10 2 (0.46%) AWS IoT
10 2 (0.46%) Azure Monitor
10 2 (0.46%) Azure Sentinel
10 2 (0.46%) Azure Service Bus
10 2 (0.46%) Nutanix
10 2 (0.46%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 340 (78.16%) WAN
2 188 (43.22%) Firewall
3 125 (28.74%) VPN
4 107 (24.60%) SD-WAN
5 102 (23.45%) Wi-Fi
6 81 (18.62%) BGP
7 70 (16.09%) Network Security
7 70 (16.09%) Wireless
8 69 (15.86%) TCP/IP
9 65 (14.94%) DNS
10 64 (14.71%) OSPF
11 63 (14.48%) MPLS
12 53 (12.18%) DHCP
13 52 (11.95%) VLAN
14 49 (11.26%) Cisco Nexus
15 41 (9.43%) WLAN
16 33 (7.59%) IPsec
17 25 (5.75%) Cisco ASA
18 21 (4.83%) Structured Cabling
18 21 (4.83%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.53%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.38%) Oracle Database
3 4 (0.92%) MS Access
4 3 (0.69%) Apache Cassandra
4 3 (0.69%) Power BI
5 2 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.46%) MariaDB
5 2 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.23%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.23%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.23%) MySQL
6 1 (0.23%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 10 (2.30%) JIRA
2 2 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.23%) Git
3 1 (0.23%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.23%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 131 (30.11%) Social Skills
2 54 (12.41%) Analytical Skills
3 52 (11.95%) Public Sector
4 47 (10.80%) Telecoms
5 33 (7.59%) Finance
6 31 (7.13%) Documentation Skills
7 19 (4.37%) Manufacturing
8 14 (3.22%) Military
9 9 (2.07%) Banking
9 9 (2.07%) Organisational Skills
10 8 (1.84%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.38%) Local Government
11 6 (1.38%) Marketing
12 5 (1.15%) Electronics
12 5 (1.15%) Legal
13 4 (0.92%) Financial Institution
13 4 (0.92%) Retail
14 3 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
15 2 (0.46%) Police
Job Titles
1 132 (30.34%) Network Engineer
2 102 (23.45%) Architect
3 77 (17.70%) Network Architect
4 35 (8.05%) Analyst
5 32 (7.36%) Senior
6 25 (5.75%) Support Analyst
7 21 (4.83%) IT Support
7 21 (4.83%) Support Engineer
8 19 (4.37%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 19 (4.37%) Project Manager
8 19 (4.37%) Technical Support
9 18 (4.14%) Field Engineer
9 18 (4.14%) Senior Network Engineer
10 17 (3.91%) Lead
11 16 (3.68%) 2nd Line Support
11 16 (3.68%) Technical Analyst
11 16 (3.68%) Technical Support Analyst
12 14 (3.22%) IT Engineer
12 14 (3.22%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 14 (3.22%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.84%) Middleware
2 7 (1.61%) LDAP
3 6 (1.38%) NETCONF
3 6 (1.38%) REST
3 6 (1.38%) YANG
4 3 (0.69%) 802.1X
4 3 (0.69%) SAML
5 2 (0.46%) ARM Templates
5 2 (0.46%) EDI
5 2 (0.46%) Node.js
5 2 (0.46%) YAML
6 1 (0.23%) .NET
6 1 (0.23%) CSS
6 1 (0.23%) HTML
6 1 (0.23%) Java RMI
6 1 (0.23%) LAMP
6 1 (0.23%) LAPP Stack
6 1 (0.23%) libvirt
6 1 (0.23%) SOAP
6 1 (0.23%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 74 (17.01%) Data Centre
2 21 (4.83%) Hybrid Cloud
3 20 (4.60%) Driving Licence
4 15 (3.45%) Onboarding
5 14 (3.22%) NHS
6 12 (2.76%) CMDB
7 11 (2.53%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (2.30%) Management Information System
9 8 (1.84%) Operational Technology
9 8 (1.84%) SCADA
10 6 (1.38%) Cloud Native
10 6 (1.38%) PKI
10 6 (1.38%) Video Conferencing
11 5 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (1.15%) Replication
11 5 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (0.92%) iPhone
12 4 (0.92%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.92%) Virtual Team
13 3 (0.69%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 98 (22.53%) Windows
2 37 (8.51%) Windows Server
3 27 (6.21%) Windows 10
4 23 (5.29%) Linux
5 13 (2.99%) Windows Server 2016
6 9 (2.07%) Windows Server 2019
7 8 (1.84%) Android
8 6 (1.38%) Windows 7
9 5 (1.15%) Apple iOS
9 5 (1.15%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.92%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.92%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.46%) CatOS
12 1 (0.23%) MVS
12 1 (0.23%) SUSE
12 1 (0.23%) VMS
12 1 (0.23%) Windows 8
12 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.23%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (16.78%) Problem-Solving
2 68 (15.63%) Network Design
3 50 (11.49%) Migration
4 48 (11.03%) ITIL
5 46 (10.57%) Network Architecture
6 39 (8.97%) Cybersecurity
7 38 (8.74%) Stakeholder Management
8 32 (7.36%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 32 (7.36%) Project Delivery
9 30 (6.90%) Network Monitoring
10 29 (6.67%) Customer Service
11 27 (6.21%) High Availability
12 25 (5.75%) Zero Trust
13 23 (5.29%) ITSM
13 23 (5.29%) Service Management
13 23 (5.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 22 (5.06%) Change Management
14 22 (5.06%) Load Balancing
14 22 (5.06%) Roadmaps
15 21 (4.83%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 36 (8.28%) Python
2 21 (4.83%) PowerShell
3 12 (2.76%) SQL
4 6 (1.38%) Perl
4 6 (1.38%) VB
4 6 (1.38%) VBScript
5 2 (0.46%) Bash
5 2 (0.46%) Bicep
6 1 (0.23%) C#
6 1 (0.23%) Java
6 1 (0.23%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.23%) Ruby
6 1 (0.23%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.23%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 129 (29.66%) Security Cleared
2 122 (28.05%) Cisco Certification
3 97 (22.30%) CCNP
4 88 (20.23%) SC Cleared
5 45 (10.34%) DV Cleared
6 44 (10.11%) Degree
7 41 (9.43%) CCIE
8 37 (8.51%) CCNA
9 20 (4.60%) JNCIE
10 14 (3.22%) AWS Certification
11 11 (2.53%) Network+ Certification
12 10 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (2.30%) JNCIP
12 10 (2.30%) Microsoft Certification
13 9 (2.07%) Azure Certification
14 8 (1.84%) CCSE
14 8 (1.84%) CISSP
14 8 (1.84%) JNCIS
15 7 (1.61%) HNC
15 7 (1.61%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (3.68%) SLA
2 14 (3.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (2.30%) NIST
4 9 (2.07%) GDPR
5 7 (1.61%) PCI DSS
6 5 (1.15%) PMO
6 5 (1.15%) QA
7 4 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.46%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.46%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.46%) NCSC
9 1 (0.23%) COBIT
9 1 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.23%) GRC
9 1 (0.23%) MiFID
9 1 (0.23%) RMADS
System Software
1 63 (14.48%) Active Directory
2 26 (5.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (4.14%) VMware NSX
4 8 (1.84%) Hyper-V
5 5 (1.15%) BitLocker
5 5 (1.15%) Firmware
5 5 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.69%) Docker
6 3 (0.69%) KVM
7 2 (0.46%) NFS
7 2 (0.46%) ProxySG
7 2 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.46%) VMware Workstation
7 2 (0.46%) Xen
8 1 (0.23%) Ceph
8 1 (0.23%) iptables
8 1 (0.23%) Lustre
8 1 (0.23%) RHEV
8 1 (0.23%) Samba
Systems Management
1 38 (8.74%) Ansible
2 31 (7.13%) Terraform
3 20 (4.60%) FortiGate
4 18 (4.14%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (3.22%) SCCM
6 7 (1.61%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (1.15%) Cisco CUCM
8 4 (0.92%) Nagios
8 4 (0.92%) SCOM
9 3 (0.69%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.69%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.69%) WSUS
10 2 (0.46%) CA Spectrum
10 2 (0.46%) Check_MK
10 2 (0.46%) Endace
10 2 (0.46%) Grafana
10 2 (0.46%) Nessus
11 1 (0.23%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.23%) HAProxy
11 1 (0.23%) SELinux
Vendors
1 217 (49.89%) Cisco
2 80 (18.39%) Microsoft
3 74 (17.01%) Fortinet
4 72 (16.55%) Palo Alto
5 59 (13.56%) Juniper
6 41 (9.43%) CheckPoint
6 41 (9.43%) F5
6 41 (9.43%) VMware
7 35 (8.05%) Meraki
8 32 (7.36%) Aruba
9 24 (5.52%) SolarWinds
10 21 (4.83%) ServiceNow
11 20 (4.60%) Zscaler
12 18 (4.14%) Citrix
13 11 (2.53%) Oracle
14 10 (2.30%) SAP
14 10 (2.30%) Veeam
15 7 (1.61%) Arista
15 7 (1.61%) LogicMonitor
16 6 (1.38%) Nokia