Network Design Contract Job Trends

Network Design
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Network Design skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 394 319 328
Rank change year-on-year -75 +9 +154
Contract jobs citing Network Design 200 231 294
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.54% 0.70% 0.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.61% 0.79% 0.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 143 138 164
10th Percentile £400 £400 £425
25th Percentile £413 £463 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -8.70% +21.05%
75th Percentile £576 £588 £638
90th Percentile £675 £658 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £550
% change year-on-year - -9.09% +20.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 15
10th Percentile - £27.75 £34.42
25th Percentile - £35.63 £59.99
Median hourly rate £74.26 £50.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +48.52% -24.22% -5.74%
75th Percentile - £63.13 -
90th Percentile - £70.25 £68.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £50.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +48.52% -24.22% -5.74%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Network Design falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 32,670 29,303 37,803
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.06% 88.34% 87.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,630 17,837 25,180
10th Percentile £304 £308 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,024 946 1,523
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £18.98
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +27.14%
75th Percentile £52.72 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.25 £74.60 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £30.45 £45.21
% change year-on-year -22.58% -32.65% +44.86%

Network Design
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Network Design relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Network Design job vacancy trend in the UK

Network Design
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Design.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Design

Network Design
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Design over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Design in the UK

Network Design
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Design.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Design

Network Design
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 Network Design within the UK over the 6 months to 1 January 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 -60 181 £498 -4.37% 39
UK excluding London -62 113 £500 - 38
London -11 79 £475 -9.52% 9
Work from Home -40 42 £520 +4.00% 11
South East -20 34 £500 -1.23% 14
West Midlands -7 29 £413 -20.75% 1
Midlands -16 29 £413 -22.93% 4
North of England -73 20 £539 +7.70% 6
North West -21 18 £531 +11.79% 5
South West -26 11 £450 -14.29% 7
Scotland - 11 £463 - 3
East of England -14 6 £419 -16.25% 3
North East -6 2 £550 -
Wales -3 1 - - 1
Yorkshire -76 1 £650 +30.00% 1
Northern Ireland - 1 £600 - 1

Network Design
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 8 (4.00%) OpenStack
Applications
1 5 (2.50%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.50%) DELMIA
2 1 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 44 (22.00%) Azure
2 33 (16.50%) AWS
3 12 (6.00%) GCP
4 7 (3.50%) PaaS
5 5 (2.50%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (2.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (2.00%) Dynamics 365
6 4 (2.00%) IaaS
7 3 (1.50%) AWS Direct Connect
7 3 (1.50%) SaaS
7 3 (1.50%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.00%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.00%) OpenShift
9 1 (0.50%) Akamai
9 1 (0.50%) AWS IoT
9 1 (0.50%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.50%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 98 (49.00%) WAN
2 90 (45.00%) Firewall
3 65 (32.50%) LAN
4 47 (23.50%) VPN
5 43 (21.50%) BGP
6 41 (20.50%) SD-WAN
7 40 (20.00%) Network Security
8 39 (19.50%) MPLS
9 38 (19.00%) Wi-Fi
10 23 (11.50%) VLAN
11 21 (10.50%) TCP/IP
12 20 (10.00%) Radio Access Network
13 19 (9.50%) Cisco Nexus
14 18 (9.00%) IPsec
15 17 (8.50%) Cisco ISE
15 17 (8.50%) DNS
16 16 (8.00%) 4G
17 12 (6.00%) DHCP
17 12 (6.00%) NetScaler
17 12 (6.00%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.50%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.50%) Git
2 2 (1.00%) GitLab
3 1 (0.50%) Robot Framework
3 1 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 48 (24.00%) Social Skills
2 45 (22.50%) Telecoms
3 24 (12.00%) Public Sector
4 20 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (5.00%) Manufacturing
6 9 (4.50%) Finance
7 8 (4.00%) Legal
8 5 (2.50%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (2.00%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (1.00%) Aviation
10 2 (1.00%) Electronics
11 1 (0.50%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.50%) Law
11 1 (0.50%) Local Government
11 1 (0.50%) Marketing
11 1 (0.50%) Military
11 1 (0.50%) Police
11 1 (0.50%) Publishing
11 1 (0.50%) Retail
Job Titles
1 69 (34.50%) Architect
2 68 (34.00%) Network Engineer
3 54 (27.00%) Network Architect
4 20 (10.00%) Network Design Specialist
4 20 (10.00%) Network Specialist
5 15 (7.50%) Design Engineer
6 14 (7.00%) Network Design Architect
6 14 (7.00%) Network Design Engineer
6 14 (7.00%) Senior
7 13 (6.50%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
8 11 (5.50%) Performance Specialist
9 9 (4.50%) 3rd Line Engineer
9 9 (4.50%) 3rd Line Support
9 9 (4.50%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
9 9 (4.50%) Support Engineer
10 8 (4.00%) Designer
10 8 (4.00%) IP Specialist
10 8 (4.00%) Lead
10 8 (4.00%) Network Designer
10 8 (4.00%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (6.50%) 802.1X
2 10 (5.00%) YANG
3 9 (4.50%) NETCONF
4 6 (3.00%) REST
5 4 (2.00%) OpenID
5 4 (2.00%) SAML
6 2 (1.00%) eBPF
6 2 (1.00%) JSON
6 2 (1.00%) OpenConfig
6 2 (1.00%) RESTCONF
7 1 (0.50%) gRPC
7 1 (0.50%) Jinja
7 1 (0.50%) Middleware
7 1 (0.50%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 47 (23.50%) Data Centre
2 18 (9.00%) Hybrid Cloud
3 16 (8.00%) Operational Technology
4 12 (6.00%) SCADA
5 10 (5.00%) Cloud Native
5 10 (5.00%) PKI
6 8 (4.00%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (4.00%) IoT
7 5 (2.50%) Security Posture
8 4 (2.00%) Life Science
8 4 (2.00%) Management Information System
8 4 (2.00%) NB-IoT
8 4 (2.00%) Onboarding
8 4 (2.00%) Renewable Energy
8 4 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.50%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (1.00%) Fibre Optics
10 2 (1.00%) Insider Threat
10 2 (1.00%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 11 (5.50%) Windows
2 7 (3.50%) Linux
3 1 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (27.00%) Network Architecture
2 35 (17.50%) Load Balancing
3 24 (12.00%) Problem-Solving
4 23 (11.50%) Cybersecurity
5 21 (10.50%) Roadmaps
6 20 (10.00%) High Availability
7 18 (9.00%) Migration
7 18 (9.00%) Network Management
7 18 (9.00%) Root Cause Analysis
7 18 (9.00%) Stakeholder Management
8 16 (8.00%) Network Virtualisation
9 15 (7.50%) Network Segmentation
9 15 (7.50%) Zero Trust
10 13 (6.50%) Data Protection
10 13 (6.50%) DevOps
10 13 (6.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 12 (6.00%) Impact Assessments
11 12 (6.00%) ITIL
11 12 (6.00%) Strategic Thinking
12 11 (5.50%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 25 (12.50%) Python
2 6 (3.00%) SQL
3 4 (2.00%) Bash
3 4 (2.00%) PowerShell
4 3 (1.50%) Perl
5 2 (1.00%) C
6 1 (0.50%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 82 (41.00%) Security Cleared
2 53 (26.50%) Cisco Certification
3 48 (24.00%) SC Cleared
4 39 (19.50%) CCNP
5 29 (14.50%) DV Cleared
6 25 (12.50%) CCIE
7 20 (10.00%) Degree
8 15 (7.50%) CCNA
8 15 (7.50%) CISSP
9 12 (6.00%) JNCIE
10 10 (5.00%) JNCIS
11 6 (3.00%) AWS Certification
11 6 (3.00%) Computer Science Degree
12 5 (2.50%) Azure Certification
12 5 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
12 5 (2.50%) JNCIP
13 4 (2.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (2.00%) CCSP
14 3 (1.50%) CCIE Security
15 2 (1.00%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.00%) GDPR
2 9 (4.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (3.50%) NIST
3 7 (3.50%) PCI DSS
4 3 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.50%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.50%) DO-160
5 1 (0.50%) GRC
5 1 (0.50%) NCSC
5 1 (0.50%) QA
System Software
1 6 (3.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (2.50%) VMware NSX
3 4 (2.00%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.50%) Firmware
4 3 (1.50%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.50%) KVM
5 1 (0.50%) RHEV
5 1 (0.50%) Xen
Systems Management
1 21 (10.50%) Ansible
2 17 (8.50%) FortiGate
3 12 (6.00%) Terraform
4 4 (2.00%) Nagios
5 2 (1.00%) Kubernetes
6 1 (0.50%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.50%) Dell DRAC
6 1 (0.50%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.50%) Grafana
6 1 (0.50%) Host Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.50%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.50%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 86 (43.00%) Cisco
2 46 (23.00%) Palo Alto
3 38 (19.00%) Juniper
4 28 (14.00%) Fortinet
5 23 (11.50%) Meraki
6 22 (11.00%) F5
7 20 (10.00%) Microsoft
8 16 (8.00%) Nokia
9 11 (5.50%) CheckPoint
9 11 (5.50%) Ericsson
10 10 (5.00%) Actix
10 10 (5.00%) SolarWinds
11 9 (4.50%) Aruba
11 9 (4.50%) VMware
12 7 (3.50%) Arista
13 3 (1.50%) LogicMonitor
13 3 (1.50%) Rockwell
14 2 (1.00%) Virgin Media
14 2 (1.00%) Wind River
14 2 (1.00%) Zscaler