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 31 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 211 203 128
Rank change year-on-year -8 -75 +35
Contract jobs citing LAN 552 366 805
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.24% 1.26% 1.82%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.43% 9.67% 13.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 353 228 480
10th Percentile £206 £224 £205
25th Percentile £319 £325 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £443 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.67% -5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £538 £563 £650
90th Percentile £624 £631 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +2.94% -10.53% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 6 46
10th Percentile £12.43 £13.62 £12.86
25th Percentile £16.31 £16.12 £15.75
Median hourly rate £22.50 £25.75 £23.69
Median % change year-on-year -12.62% +8.72% -63.56%
75th Percentile £53.29 £41.25 £40.00
90th Percentile £75.62 £46.88 £50.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £15.33 £23.69
% change year-on-year +46.77% -35.28% -38.68%

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 4,441 3,783 5,918
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.97% 13.01% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,843 2,352 3,561
10th Percentile £223 £213 £205
25th Percentile £380 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £489 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.30% +2.89% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +1.06% -1.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 147 407
10th Percentile £15.52 £14.99 £13.94
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.46 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.24 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +17.83% +7.69% +71.05%
75th Percentile £69.49 £63.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £77.20 £75.00 £67.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.10 £31.79 £43.00
% change year-on-year +41.88% -26.07% +132.43%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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 -32 457 £450 -1.05% 197
UK excluding London -4 372 £438 +2.94% 181
South East +15 140 £450 -7.69% 65
Work from Home +12 139 £447 -10.55% 52
London -37 133 £495 +3.66% 40
North of England -69 64 £430 +4.18% 43
Midlands -36 52 £340 -22.29% 30
Scotland +36 46 £288 -28.13% 9
West Midlands -28 43 £413 -5.71% 24
East of England -17 40 £350 -18.60% 17
North West -42 35 £500 +12.36% 20
Yorkshire -41 29 £313 +27.76% 20
South West -47 16 £513 +24.24% 16
Wales -2 12 £425 +6.25% 6
East Midlands -38 6 £200 -37.50% 6
Northern Ireland - 3 £385 -

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 33 (5.98%) SharePoint
2 28 (5.07%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (2.72%) 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 (5.80%) Microsoft Office
2 21 (3.80%) MS Visio
3 11 (1.99%) Microsoft Excel
4 10 (1.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.91%) Acrobat
5 5 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.36%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 130 (23.55%) Azure
2 85 (15.40%) Microsoft 365
3 61 (11.05%) AWS
4 39 (7.07%) Entra ID
5 19 (3.44%) GCP
6 17 (3.08%) SaaS
7 14 (2.54%) OneDrive
8 12 (2.17%) PaaS
9 9 (1.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 7 (1.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 7 (1.27%) Power Platform
11 6 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
11 6 (1.09%) IaaS
11 6 (1.09%) Nutanix
11 6 (1.09%) PowerApps
12 4 (0.72%) AWS Direct Connect
12 4 (0.72%) Google Ads
13 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Purview
14 2 (0.36%) Azure Monitor
14 2 (0.36%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 453 (82.07%) WAN
2 252 (45.65%) Firewall
3 153 (27.72%) VPN
4 141 (25.54%) BGP
5 132 (23.91%) OSPF
6 127 (23.01%) Wi-Fi
7 114 (20.65%) SD-WAN
8 107 (19.38%) DNS
9 103 (18.66%) Network Security
10 88 (15.94%) DHCP
11 81 (14.67%) VLAN
12 80 (14.49%) TCP/IP
13 77 (13.95%) Wireless
14 72 (13.04%) MPLS
15 58 (10.51%) WLAN
16 44 (7.97%) IPsec
17 41 (7.43%) Cisco ISE
18 38 (6.88%) BIG-IP
18 38 (6.88%) Cisco ASA
19 37 (6.70%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.45%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.36%) MariaDB
2 2 (0.36%) MS Access
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 32 (5.80%) JIRA
2 2 (0.36%) Browser DevTools
2 2 (0.36%) GitLab
2 2 (0.36%) Jenkins
2 2 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.18%) Git
3 1 (0.18%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 158 (28.62%) Social Skills
2 58 (10.51%) Public Sector
3 55 (9.96%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (9.06%) Finance
5 37 (6.70%) Telecoms
6 32 (5.80%) Documentation Skills
7 29 (5.25%) Manufacturing
8 21 (3.80%) Legal
9 20 (3.62%) Financial Institution
10 18 (3.26%) Military
11 14 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
12 12 (2.17%) Banking
13 9 (1.63%) Law
14 7 (1.27%) Retail
15 6 (1.09%) Local Government
15 6 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
16 5 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 5 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
16 5 (0.91%) Marketing
17 4 (0.72%) Police
Job Titles
1 197 (35.69%) Network Engineer
2 87 (15.76%) Architect
3 65 (11.78%) Senior
4 60 (10.87%) Network Architect
5 45 (8.15%) IT Support
6 37 (6.70%) Analyst
7 36 (6.52%) Support Engineer
8 34 (6.16%) IT Engineer
9 29 (5.25%) IT Support Engineer
9 29 (5.25%) Senior Network Engineer
10 28 (5.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 26 (4.71%) Lead
12 25 (4.53%) Cisco Engineer
12 25 (4.53%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 24 (4.35%) Cisco Network Engineer
14 23 (4.17%) Technical Architect
15 19 (3.44%) Project Manager
16 17 (3.08%) Field Engineer
16 17 (3.08%) Network Manager
17 15 (2.72%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (6.52%) 802.1X
2 12 (2.17%) LDAP
3 9 (1.63%) Microsoft Graph
4 8 (1.45%) Middleware
4 8 (1.45%) SAML
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%) LAPP Stack
6 1 (0.18%) libvirt
6 1 (0.18%) Node.js
6 1 (0.18%) React
Miscellaneous
1 106 (19.20%) Data Centre
2 26 (4.71%) PKI
3 23 (4.17%) Clustering
3 23 (4.17%) Onboarding
4 17 (3.08%) Hybrid Cloud
5 16 (2.90%) Driving Licence
6 13 (2.36%) Data Protection Act
7 12 (2.17%) NHS
8 11 (1.99%) CMDB
8 11 (1.99%) Operational Technology
8 11 (1.99%) Public Cloud
8 11 (1.99%) Security Posture
9 9 (1.63%) IoT
10 8 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (1.45%) Virtual Team
11 7 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
11 7 (1.27%) iPhone
11 7 (1.27%) Management Information System
12 6 (1.09%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 169 (30.62%) Windows
2 53 (9.60%) Windows Server
3 39 (7.07%) Windows 10
4 32 (5.80%) Linux
5 15 (2.72%) Windows Server 2019
6 12 (2.17%) Android
7 11 (1.99%) Windows 7
8 9 (1.63%) Mac OS
9 8 (1.45%) Apple iOS
10 7 (1.27%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (1.09%) VMS
12 5 (0.91%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.72%) CatOS
13 4 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 4 (0.72%) Ubuntu
14 3 (0.54%) Windows Server 2003
15 2 (0.36%) AIX
15 2 (0.36%) Unix
16 1 (0.18%) CentOS
16 1 (0.18%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (15.94%) Problem-Solving
2 87 (15.76%) ITIL
3 68 (12.32%) High Availability
4 66 (11.96%) Migration
5 54 (9.78%) Change Management
6 51 (9.24%) Stakeholder Management
7 50 (9.06%) ITSM
7 50 (9.06%) Load Balancing
8 46 (8.33%) Network Design
9 44 (7.97%) Network Architecture
10 41 (7.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 38 (6.88%) Project Delivery
12 37 (6.70%) Cybersecurity
13 36 (6.52%) Service Management
14 32 (5.80%) Network Monitoring
15 31 (5.62%) Technical Leadership
16 30 (5.43%) Customer Service
17 29 (5.25%) Disaster Recovery
18 28 (5.07%) Continuous Improvement
19 27 (4.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 51 (9.24%) PowerShell
2 34 (6.16%) Python
3 14 (2.54%) SQL
4 11 (1.99%) VBScript
5 9 (1.63%) 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
1 197 (35.69%) Security Cleared
2 153 (27.72%) Cisco Certification
3 143 (25.91%) SC Cleared
4 122 (22.10%) CCNP
5 63 (11.41%) DV Cleared
6 59 (10.69%) Degree
7 46 (8.33%) CCNA
8 42 (7.61%) CCIE
9 20 (3.62%) JNCIS
10 19 (3.44%) JNCIP
11 15 (2.72%) PMP
12 12 (2.17%) JNCIA
13 11 (1.99%) Azure Certification
13 11 (1.99%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (1.99%) PMI Certification
14 10 (1.81%) CCSE
14 10 (1.81%) Network+ Certification
15 9 (1.63%) AWS Certification
15 9 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
15 9 (1.63%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.08%) SLA
2 16 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (2.36%) NIST
4 11 (1.99%) GDPR
4 11 (1.99%) QA
5 6 (1.09%) NCSC
6 5 (0.91%) PCI DSS
6 5 (0.91%) PMO
7 4 (0.72%) JSP 440
8 3 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.54%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.36%) RMADS
10 1 (0.18%) DICOM
10 1 (0.18%) GRC
10 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 101 (18.30%) Active Directory
2 49 (8.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (3.80%) VMware NSX
4 13 (2.36%) vSphere
5 9 (1.63%) BitLocker
6 7 (1.27%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.91%) 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%) iptables
10 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.18%) RHEV
10 1 (0.18%) Samba
10 1 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.18%) Xen
Systems Management
1 42 (7.61%) FortiGate
2 38 (6.88%) Microsoft Intune
3 32 (5.80%) Ansible
4 25 (4.53%) Terraform
5 23 (4.17%) SCCM
6 12 (2.17%) Jamf Pro
7 9 (1.63%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.09%) Cisco Prime
8 6 (1.09%) Nagios
9 5 (0.91%) Endace
9 5 (0.91%) 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
1 257 (46.56%) Cisco
2 121 (21.92%) Microsoft
3 107 (19.38%) Palo Alto
4 80 (14.49%) Juniper
5 76 (13.77%) F5
6 67 (12.14%) CheckPoint
7 66 (11.96%) Aruba
8 62 (11.23%) VMware
9 53 (9.60%) Fortinet
10 51 (9.24%) SolarWinds
11 36 (6.52%) ServiceNow
12 28 (5.07%) Extreme Networks
12 28 (5.07%) Meraki
13 26 (4.71%) Splunk
14 21 (3.80%) Zscaler
15 15 (2.72%) Dell
16 14 (2.54%) Veeam
17 12 (2.17%) Ekahau
18 11 (1.99%) Arista
19 9 (1.63%) Citrix