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 5 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 220 213 167
Rank change year-on-year -7 -46 -29
Contract jobs citing LAN 585 362 620
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.19% 1.25% 1.45%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.26% 9.96% 11.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 367 214 359
10th Percentile £225 £225 £200
25th Percentile £358 £325 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.26%
75th Percentile £538 £567 £644
90th Percentile £615 £625 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £430 £450
% change year-on-year +4.65% -4.44% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 13 41
10th Percentile £12.43 £17.01 £12.86
25th Percentile £18.21 £27.00 £15.75
Median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% +33.33% -65.65%
75th Percentile £53.29 £40.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £79.25 £48.65 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -25.00% +33.33% -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 4,771 3,635 5,392
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.72% 12.56% 12.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,920 2,249 3,208
10th Percentile £263 £214 £206
25th Percentile £400 £360 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £495
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -3.03% -3.41%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.15% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 282 163 415
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.96 £16.30
Median hourly rate £28.96 £41.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.22% +3.75% +119.30%
75th Percentile £65.00 £59.44 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.93 £80.81 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.86 £31.79 £45.88
% change year-on-year +6.51% -30.71% +154.89%

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 5 June 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 5 June 2026.

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 5 June 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 -8 501 £450 -5.26% 201
UK excluding London +6 408 £450 +4.65% 185
South East +17 173 £475 -9.09% 67
London -60 123 £500 +4.17% 51
Work from Home -3 122 £455 -4.21% 100
North of England -56 69 £450 +16.13% 33
Midlands -23 57 £285 -34.86% 29
East of England -3 43 £350 -18.60% 15
West Midlands -35 43 £335 -20.00% 21
Scotland +13 41 £431 +9.66% 19
North West -38 35 £500 +33.33% 16
Yorkshire -23 34 £425 +6.18% 13
South West -43 15 £500 +53.85% 14
East Midlands -19 11 £200 -61.90% 8
Wales -22 8 £475 +80.95% 10
Northern Ireland - 3 £468 - 3
Channel Islands - 1 £575 -

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 (4.96%) SharePoint
2 22 (3.76%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (2.39%) Confluence
4 5 (0.85%) OpenStack
4 5 (0.85%) Skype for Business
5 2 (0.34%) IIS
6 1 (0.17%) CMS
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 21 (3.59%) MS Visio
2 16 (2.74%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (1.54%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.68%) Acrobat
4 4 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.34%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 135 (23.08%) Azure
2 86 (14.70%) Microsoft 365
3 60 (10.26%) AWS
4 38 (6.50%) Entra ID
5 21 (3.59%) SaaS
6 16 (2.74%) OneDrive
7 12 (2.05%) PaaS
8 10 (1.71%) GCP
9 8 (1.37%) Power Platform
10 7 (1.20%) PowerApps
10 7 (1.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 6 (1.03%) Azure DevOps
12 5 (0.85%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 5 (0.85%) IaaS
13 4 (0.68%) Nutanix
14 3 (0.51%) Google Ads
15 2 (0.34%) AWS Direct Connect
15 2 (0.34%) IBM Watson
15 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Copilot
15 2 (0.34%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 482 (82.39%) WAN
2 280 (47.86%) Firewall
3 160 (27.35%) VPN
4 149 (25.47%) BGP
5 143 (24.44%) Wi-Fi
6 135 (23.08%) OSPF
7 131 (22.39%) SD-WAN
8 121 (20.68%) Network Security
9 113 (19.32%) DNS
10 99 (16.92%) Wireless
11 90 (15.38%) DHCP
12 77 (13.16%) VLAN
13 74 (12.65%) WLAN
14 72 (12.31%) MPLS
15 68 (11.62%) TCP/IP
16 52 (8.89%) IPsec
17 48 (8.21%) Cisco ISE
18 43 (7.35%) VXLAN
19 42 (7.18%) BIG-IP
19 42 (7.18%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.03%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.17%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.17%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (0.17%) DynamoDB
2 1 (0.17%) MariaDB
2 1 (0.17%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.17%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.17%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (0.17%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.17%) Power BI
2 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 33 (5.64%) JIRA
2 4 (0.68%) Browser DevTools
3 3 (0.51%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.34%) GitLab
4 2 (0.34%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.17%) Git
5 1 (0.17%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 155 (26.50%) Social Skills
2 46 (7.86%) Public Sector
3 45 (7.69%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (6.15%) Finance
4 36 (6.15%) Telecoms
5 28 (4.79%) Documentation Skills
6 25 (4.27%) Manufacturing
7 23 (3.93%) Legal
8 17 (2.91%) Financial Institution
9 12 (2.05%) Military
10 10 (1.71%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (1.54%) Law
12 8 (1.37%) Banking
13 6 (1.03%) Police
13 6 (1.03%) Retail
14 4 (0.68%) Local Government
15 3 (0.51%) German Language
15 3 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
16 2 (0.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 2 (0.34%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 234 (40.00%) Network Engineer
2 85 (14.53%) Architect
3 65 (11.11%) Senior
4 62 (10.60%) Network Architect
5 43 (7.35%) IT Support
6 39 (6.67%) Support Engineer
7 33 (5.64%) IT Engineer
8 31 (5.30%) Cisco Engineer
8 31 (5.30%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 30 (5.13%) Senior Network Engineer
10 29 (4.96%) IT Support Engineer
11 28 (4.79%) Analyst
11 28 (4.79%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 28 (4.79%) Lead
12 27 (4.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 18 (3.08%) Technical Architect
14 15 (2.56%) Network Specialist
14 15 (2.56%) Test Engineer
15 14 (2.39%) Firewall Specialist
15 14 (2.39%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (8.38%) 802.1X
2 10 (1.71%) LDAP
2 10 (1.71%) Microsoft Graph
2 10 (1.71%) SAML
3 6 (1.03%) REST
4 5 (0.85%) Middleware
4 5 (0.85%) NETCONF
4 5 (0.85%) YANG
5 3 (0.51%) Software Packaging
5 3 (0.51%) XMPP
6 2 (0.34%) .NET
6 2 (0.34%) CSS
6 2 (0.34%) Django
6 2 (0.34%) HTML
6 2 (0.34%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.17%) Apache NiFi
7 1 (0.17%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.17%) Node.js
7 1 (0.17%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.17%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 121 (20.68%) Data Centre
2 34 (5.81%) PKI
3 26 (4.44%) Clustering
3 26 (4.44%) Onboarding
4 23 (3.93%) Hybrid Cloud
5 17 (2.91%) Security Posture
6 14 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
7 12 (2.05%) Data Protection Act
8 11 (1.88%) Operational Technology
9 10 (1.71%) Driving Licence
9 10 (1.71%) Public Cloud
9 10 (1.71%) Virtual Team
10 9 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
11 8 (1.37%) NHS
12 7 (1.20%) Cloud Native
12 7 (1.20%) CMDB
12 7 (1.20%) IoT
13 6 (1.03%) Smartphone
14 5 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
14 5 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 174 (29.74%) Windows
2 48 (8.21%) Windows Server
3 41 (7.01%) Linux
4 31 (5.30%) Windows 10
5 16 (2.74%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (2.22%) Mac OS
7 10 (1.71%) Android
8 8 (1.37%) Windows 7
9 7 (1.20%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.85%) VMS
10 5 (0.85%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.51%) CatOS
11 3 (0.51%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.51%) Unix
11 3 (0.51%) Windows Server 2003
11 3 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.34%) AIX
12 2 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 1 (0.17%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.17%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (16.07%) ITIL
2 87 (14.87%) High Availability
3 81 (13.85%) Problem-Solving
4 64 (10.94%) Load Balancing
5 56 (9.57%) Migration
6 48 (8.21%) ITSM
6 48 (8.21%) Stakeholder Management
7 47 (8.03%) Continuous Improvement
8 46 (7.86%) Change Management
9 45 (7.69%) Project Delivery
10 41 (7.01%) Network Architecture
11 40 (6.84%) Technical Leadership
12 39 (6.67%) Network Monitoring
12 39 (6.67%) Roadmaps
13 38 (6.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 38 (6.50%) Network Design
14 34 (5.81%) Agile
15 33 (5.64%) Service Management
16 32 (5.47%) Disaster Recovery
17 29 (4.96%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 37 (6.32%) PowerShell
2 36 (6.15%) Python
3 12 (2.05%) SQL
4 5 (0.85%) VBScript
5 4 (0.68%) VB
6 3 (0.51%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.17%) Bash
7 1 (0.17%) C
7 1 (0.17%) C#
7 1 (0.17%) C++
7 1 (0.17%) Java
7 1 (0.17%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.17%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 209 (35.73%) Security Cleared
2 177 (30.26%) Cisco Certification
3 140 (23.93%) SC Cleared
4 122 (20.85%) CCNP
5 65 (11.11%) DV Cleared
6 54 (9.23%) CCNA
7 51 (8.72%) Degree
8 46 (7.86%) CCIE
9 15 (2.56%) PMP
10 14 (2.39%) JNCIP
11 13 (2.22%) JNCIS
11 13 (2.22%) Microsoft Certification
12 12 (2.05%) Azure Certification
12 12 (2.05%) JNCIA
12 12 (2.05%) PMI Certification
13 10 (1.71%) CCSE
13 10 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
14 9 (1.54%) JNCIE
15 6 (1.03%) AWS Certification
15 6 (1.03%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (3.59%) QA
2 12 (2.05%) NIST
2 12 (2.05%) SLA
3 8 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.20%) Disclosure Scotland
5 6 (1.03%) NCSC
6 5 (0.85%) GDPR
7 3 (0.51%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.34%) PMO
8 2 (0.34%) RMADS
9 1 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.17%) DICOM
9 1 (0.17%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.17%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 102 (17.44%) Active Directory
2 51 (8.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.59%) VMware NSX
4 18 (3.08%) vSphere
5 9 (1.54%) Hyper-V
6 7 (1.20%) Firmware
6 7 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.68%) BitLocker
8 3 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.17%) Citrix Presentation Server
9 1 (0.17%) Docker
9 1 (0.17%) KVM
9 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.17%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.17%) RHEV
9 1 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.17%) Xen
Systems Management
1 51 (8.72%) FortiGate
2 32 (5.47%) Microsoft Intune
3 31 (5.30%) Ansible
4 17 (2.91%) Terraform
5 13 (2.22%) SCCM
6 11 (1.88%) Jamf Pro
6 11 (1.88%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (1.20%) Nagios
8 6 (1.03%) Cisco Prime
9 5 (0.85%) Endace
10 4 (0.68%) Cisco CUCM
10 4 (0.68%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.68%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 3 (0.51%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.51%) WSUS
12 2 (0.34%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.34%) Grafana
13 1 (0.17%) EMC VPLEX
13 1 (0.17%) Iperf
13 1 (0.17%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 287 (49.06%) Cisco
2 121 (20.68%) Microsoft
3 109 (18.63%) Palo Alto
4 90 (15.38%) F5
5 83 (14.19%) Juniper
6 69 (11.79%) Aruba
7 67 (11.45%) Fortinet
8 65 (11.11%) CheckPoint
8 65 (11.11%) VMware
9 64 (10.94%) SolarWinds
10 34 (5.81%) ServiceNow
11 30 (5.13%) Extreme Networks
12 28 (4.79%) Splunk
13 27 (4.62%) Meraki
14 22 (3.76%) Zscaler
15 16 (2.74%) Dell
15 16 (2.74%) Ekahau
16 14 (2.39%) Veeam
17 10 (1.71%) Arista
18 9 (1.54%) Citrix