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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 214 209 128
Rank change year-on-year -5 -81 +34
Contract jobs citing LAN 557 361 785
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.21% 1.24% 1.78%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.28% 9.59% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 356 221 466
10th Percentile £206 £235 £205
25th Percentile £329 £325 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year - -5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £650
90th Percentile £625 £625 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £444 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +4.41% -10.53% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 6 47
10th Percentile £12.43 £13.62 £12.86
25th Percentile £17.12 £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 £77.43 £51.00 £54.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £15.33 £24.87
% change year-on-year +46.77% -38.36% -62.03%

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 4,536 3,763 5,871
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.89% 12.88% 13.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,866 2,339 3,545
10th Percentile £231 £213 £205
25th Percentile £393 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £499 £490 £485
Median % change year-on-year +1.79% +1.03% -6.73%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +1.17% -1.16% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 203 160 418
10th Percentile £15.62 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.41 £21.35 £17.72
Median hourly rate £42.71 £37.50 £39.25
Median % change year-on-year +13.88% -4.46% +106.58%
75th Percentile £70.00 £62.50 £61.75
90th Percentile £76.20 £75.00 £67.84
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.25 £28.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year +90.18% -38.97% +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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -13 467 £450 - 197
UK excluding London 0 376 £444 +4.41% 181
South East +15 146 £453 -4.74% 65
Work from Home +8 137 £450 -10.05% 52
London -41 132 £475 - 40
North of England -72 63 £450 +12.30% 43
Midlands -33 54 £340 -22.29% 30
West Midlands -35 45 £406 -7.14% 24
Scotland +29 40 £275 -31.08% 9
East of England -16 40 £350 -18.60% 17
North West -39 32 £500 +13.64% 20
Yorkshire -37 31 £314 +17.38% 20
South West -40 18 £513 +24.24% 16
Wales -4 12 £425 +6.25% 6
East Midlands -33 6 £200 -61.90% 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 31 (5.57%) SharePoint
2 29 (5.21%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (2.69%) Confluence
4 10 (1.80%) Skype for Business
5 2 (0.36%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.18%) Apache
6 1 (0.18%) IIS
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 29 (5.21%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (3.05%) MS Visio
3 7 (1.26%) Microsoft Excel
4 6 (1.08%) 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
1 135 (24.24%) Azure
2 87 (15.62%) Microsoft 365
3 62 (11.13%) AWS
4 42 (7.54%) Entra ID
5 18 (3.23%) GCP
5 18 (3.23%) SaaS
6 15 (2.69%) OneDrive
7 13 (2.33%) PaaS
8 9 (1.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 8 (1.44%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 8 (1.44%) Power Platform
10 7 (1.26%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.26%) PowerApps
11 6 (1.08%) IaaS
12 5 (0.90%) 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
1 459 (82.41%) WAN
2 262 (47.04%) Firewall
3 160 (28.73%) VPN
4 145 (26.03%) BGP
5 136 (24.42%) OSPF
6 133 (23.88%) Wi-Fi
7 122 (21.90%) SD-WAN
8 110 (19.75%) DNS
9 107 (19.21%) Network Security
10 91 (16.34%) DHCP
11 83 (14.90%) Wireless
12 81 (14.54%) TCP/IP
12 81 (14.54%) VLAN
13 71 (12.75%) MPLS
14 68 (12.21%) WLAN
15 45 (8.08%) Cisco ISE
15 45 (8.08%) IPsec
16 41 (7.36%) BIG-IP
16 41 (7.36%) VXLAN
17 36 (6.46%) 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%) 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 33 (5.92%) 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%) Git
5 1 (0.18%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 158 (28.37%) Social Skills
2 60 (10.77%) Public Sector
3 54 (9.69%) Analytical Skills
4 44 (7.90%) Finance
5 34 (6.10%) Documentation Skills
6 31 (5.57%) Telecoms
7 29 (5.21%) Manufacturing
8 20 (3.59%) Financial Institution
8 20 (3.59%) Legal
9 18 (3.23%) Military
10 12 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
11 10 (1.80%) Banking
11 10 (1.80%) Law
12 7 (1.26%) Retail
13 6 (1.08%) Local Government
14 5 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.90%) Marketing
14 5 (0.90%) Police
15 4 (0.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 207 (37.16%) Network Engineer
2 88 (15.80%) Architect
3 66 (11.85%) Senior
4 61 (10.95%) Network Architect
5 46 (8.26%) IT Support
6 36 (6.46%) Analyst
6 36 (6.46%) Support Engineer
7 34 (6.10%) IT Engineer
8 30 (5.39%) Senior Network Engineer
9 29 (5.21%) IT Support Engineer
9 29 (5.21%) Lead
10 28 (5.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 28 (5.03%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 27 (4.85%) Cisco Engineer
12 26 (4.67%) Cisco Network Engineer
13 25 (4.49%) Technical Architect
14 18 (3.23%) Project Manager
15 16 (2.87%) Network Manager
16 14 (2.51%) 2nd Line Support
16 14 (2.51%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (7.36%) 802.1X
2 12 (2.15%) LDAP
3 10 (1.80%) Microsoft Graph
3 10 (1.80%) 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%) YANG
6 1 (0.18%) LAPP Stack
6 1 (0.18%) libvirt
6 1 (0.18%) Node.js
6 1 (0.18%) React
6 1 (0.18%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 109 (19.57%) Data Centre
2 27 (4.85%) PKI
3 24 (4.31%) Clustering
4 23 (4.13%) Onboarding
5 19 (3.41%) Hybrid Cloud
6 14 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
7 13 (2.33%) Public Cloud
8 12 (2.15%) Driving Licence
8 12 (2.15%) Security Posture
9 11 (1.97%) NHS
10 10 (1.80%) CMDB
10 10 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
10 10 (1.80%) IoT
10 10 (1.80%) Operational Technology
10 10 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
11 8 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
11 8 (1.44%) Virtual Team
12 7 (1.26%) iPhone
13 6 (1.08%) Smartphone
13 6 (1.08%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 172 (30.88%) Windows
2 52 (9.34%) Windows Server
3 39 (7.00%) Windows 10
4 32 (5.75%) Linux
5 15 (2.69%) Windows Server 2019
6 12 (2.15%) Android
7 11 (1.97%) Mac OS
7 11 (1.97%) 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 91 (16.34%) ITIL
2 87 (15.62%) Problem-Solving
3 70 (12.57%) High Availability
4 66 (11.85%) Migration
5 53 (9.52%) Change Management
6 52 (9.34%) Load Balancing
7 51 (9.16%) ITSM
7 51 (9.16%) Stakeholder Management
8 47 (8.44%) Network Design
9 45 (8.08%) Network Architecture
10 40 (7.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 37 (6.64%) Service Management
12 36 (6.46%) Cybersecurity
13 34 (6.10%) Project Delivery
14 33 (5.92%) Technical Leadership
15 32 (5.75%) Continuous Improvement
15 32 (5.75%) Disaster Recovery
15 32 (5.75%) Network Monitoring
16 30 (5.39%) Customer Service
17 28 (5.03%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 50 (8.98%) PowerShell
2 35 (6.28%) Python
3 14 (2.51%) SQL
4 11 (1.97%) VBScript
5 9 (1.62%) VB
6 3 (0.54%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.54%) Perl
7 2 (0.36%) Bash
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
1 208 (37.34%) Security Cleared
2 161 (28.90%) Cisco Certification
3 151 (27.11%) SC Cleared
4 128 (22.98%) CCNP
5 65 (11.67%) DV Cleared
6 61 (10.95%) Degree
7 47 (8.44%) CCNA
8 45 (8.08%) CCIE
9 19 (3.41%) JNCIS
10 18 (3.23%) JNCIP
11 15 (2.69%) PMP
12 12 (2.15%) Azure Certification
12 12 (2.15%) JNCIA
13 11 (1.97%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (1.97%) PMI Certification
14 10 (1.80%) CCSE
14 10 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
14 10 (1.80%) Network+ Certification
15 9 (1.62%) AWS Certification
15 9 (1.62%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (2.87%) SLA
2 13 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (2.15%) NIST
4 11 (1.97%) GDPR
4 11 (1.97%) 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 (18.49%) Active Directory
2 51 (9.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.77%) VMware NSX
4 14 (2.51%) 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 3 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.36%) Firmware
10 2 (0.36%) KVM
10 2 (0.36%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
11 1 (0.18%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.18%) RHEV
11 1 (0.18%) Samba
11 1 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.18%) Xen
Systems Management
1 46 (8.26%) FortiGate
2 38 (6.82%) Microsoft Intune
3 32 (5.75%) Ansible
4 24 (4.31%) Terraform
5 23 (4.13%) SCCM
6 13 (2.33%) Jamf Pro
7 11 (1.97%) Single Sign-On
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%) Grafana
12 3 (0.54%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.36%) Check_MK
13 2 (0.36%) Nessus
13 2 (0.36%) SCOM
14 1 (0.18%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 261 (46.86%) Cisco
2 120 (21.54%) Microsoft
3 110 (19.75%) Palo Alto
4 83 (14.90%) Juniper
5 80 (14.36%) F5
6 70 (12.57%) Aruba
7 69 (12.39%) CheckPoint
8 65 (11.67%) VMware
9 55 (9.87%) Fortinet
10 54 (9.69%) SolarWinds
11 33 (5.92%) ServiceNow
12 30 (5.39%) Meraki
13 29 (5.21%) Extreme Networks
14 27 (4.85%) Splunk
15 22 (3.95%) Zscaler
16 16 (2.87%) Dell
17 15 (2.69%) Ekahau
17 15 (2.69%) Veeam
18 10 (1.80%) Arista
18 10 (1.80%) Citrix