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 3 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 462 370 324
Rank change year-on-year -92 -46 +38
Contract jobs citing Network Design 218 187 239
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.41% 0.58% 0.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.48% 0.64% 0.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 141 127 127
10th Percentile £363 £392 £400
25th Percentile £425 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -2.44% -10.87%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £588
90th Percentile £650 £680 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 2 4
10th Percentile £32.65 £56.13 £26.25
25th Percentile £50.31 £57.81 £31.88
Median hourly rate £65.50 £61.25 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.94% +11.36% -17.91%
75th Percentile £74.75 £65.31 £75.00
90th Percentile £83.76 £67.38 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.00 £55.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +30.91% - -21.43%

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 45,377 29,398 32,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.44% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,769 18,279 20,543
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.49%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,906 1,760 1,592
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.73 £17.30 £18.69
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.03 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.58 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +88.14% -47.37% +14.67%

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 3 September 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Design over the 6 months to 3 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Design in the UK

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 3 September 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 -106 183 £525 +5.00% 161
UK excluding London -107 113 £510 +2.00% 86
London -55 66 £525 +13.51% 93
Work from Home -39 64 £500 -15.68% 78
South East -74 35 £525 -10.64% 19
North of England -52 32 £575 +21.05% 10
North West -43 24 £575 +21.05% 6
Scotland -17 15 £378 -11.59% 10
South West -45 13 £533 -16.80% 15
Midlands -57 11 £425 - 17
West Midlands -58 10 £425 - 11
East of England -16 8 £525 +28.05% 11
North East -36 7 £650 +18.18% 2
Yorkshire -36 7 £519 -9.74% 2
Wales - 2 £363 - 1
East Midlands - 1 - - 6

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 12 (5.50%) OpenStack
2 3 (1.38%) Apache
2 3 (1.38%) CloudStack
3 2 (0.92%) Confluence
4 1 (0.46%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.46%) Smallworld
Applications
1 10 (4.59%) MS Visio
2 8 (3.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (3.21%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (2.75%) Microsoft Excel
5 3 (1.38%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.46%) Autodesk Inventor
6 1 (0.46%) CPLEX
6 1 (0.46%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 1 (0.46%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 62 (28.44%) Azure
2 59 (27.06%) AWS
3 15 (6.88%) OCI
4 10 (4.59%) SaaS
5 9 (4.13%) GCP
5 9 (4.13%) GitHub
6 8 (3.67%) Entra ID
7 7 (3.21%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 7 (3.21%) OpenShift
8 6 (2.75%) IaaS
9 5 (2.29%) Nutanix
10 4 (1.83%) Azure Sentinel
11 3 (1.38%) AWS Control Tower
11 3 (1.38%) GitHub Actions
12 2 (0.92%) Azure Storage
12 2 (0.92%) Datadog
12 2 (0.92%) PaaS
13 1 (0.46%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 1 (0.46%) Microsoft 365
13 1 (0.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 95 (43.58%) Firewall
2 74 (33.94%) BGP
3 60 (27.52%) OSPF
4 57 (26.15%) WAN
5 42 (19.27%) VLAN
6 37 (16.97%) Network Security
6 37 (16.97%) VPN
7 32 (14.68%) LAN
7 32 (14.68%) SD-WAN
7 32 (14.68%) VXLAN
8 29 (13.30%) 5G
8 29 (13.30%) Wi-Fi
9 27 (12.39%) 4G
10 25 (11.47%) Ethernet VPN
11 24 (11.01%) MPLS
12 23 (10.55%) Radio Access Network
13 22 (10.09%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 18 (8.26%) BIG-IP
14 18 (8.26%) Wireless
15 16 (7.34%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.38%) Metadata
2 1 (0.46%) GIS
Development Applications
1 13 (5.96%) GitLab
2 3 (1.38%) Jenkins
2 3 (1.38%) JIRA
3 2 (0.92%) Git
General
1 48 (22.02%) Social Skills
2 36 (16.51%) Telecoms
3 22 (10.09%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (8.72%) Public Sector
5 14 (6.42%) Manufacturing
6 13 (5.96%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (4.13%) Legal
8 7 (3.21%) Retail
9 5 (2.29%) Finance
10 4 (1.83%) Automotive
11 3 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.92%) Banking
12 2 (0.92%) Billing
12 2 (0.92%) Cyber-Physical System
12 2 (0.92%) Military
12 2 (0.92%) Police
13 1 (0.46%) German Language
13 1 (0.46%) Local Government
13 1 (0.46%) Polish Language
13 1 (0.46%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 72 (33.03%) Network Engineer
2 50 (22.94%) Architect
3 49 (22.48%) Senior
4 31 (14.22%) Network Specialist
5 27 (12.39%) Network Architect
6 24 (11.01%) Senior Network Engineer
7 20 (9.17%) Designer
7 20 (9.17%) Network Design Specialist
8 16 (7.34%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 14 (6.42%) Network Designer
10 13 (5.96%) Design Engineer
10 13 (5.96%) Security Architect
10 13 (5.96%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 11 (5.05%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
11 11 (5.05%) Senior Network Specialist
12 9 (4.13%) Consultant
13 8 (3.67%) Lead
13 8 (3.67%) Network Design Engineer
13 8 (3.67%) Senior Architect
14 7 (3.21%) Senior Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (19.27%) Terraform
2 9 (4.13%) NETCONF
2 9 (4.13%) YANG
3 6 (2.75%) 802.1X
3 6 (2.75%) REST
4 4 (1.83%) Azure Blueprints
4 4 (1.83%) Kafka
4 4 (1.83%) OpenConfig
4 4 (1.83%) RESTCONF
5 3 (1.38%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.46%) eBPF
6 1 (0.46%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 67 (30.73%) Data Centre
2 43 (19.72%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (12.39%) Cloud Native
4 12 (5.50%) Operational Technology
5 11 (5.05%) Management Information System
6 10 (4.59%) IoT
7 8 (3.67%) Public Cloud
8 7 (3.21%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (3.21%) Private Cloud
9 6 (2.75%) Analytical Mindset
10 5 (2.29%) PKI
10 5 (2.29%) Security Posture
11 4 (1.83%) CMDB
11 4 (1.83%) Data Fabric
12 3 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
12 3 (1.38%) Onboarding
12 3 (1.38%) Product Ownership
12 3 (1.38%) SCADA
13 2 (0.92%) Enterprise Storage
13 2 (0.92%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 15 (6.88%) Linux
2 12 (5.50%) Windows
3 8 (3.67%) Ubuntu
3 8 (3.67%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.83%) Alpine Linux
4 4 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.92%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (19.27%) Stakeholder Management
1 42 (19.27%) Zero Trust
2 41 (18.81%) Migration
3 40 (18.35%) High Availability
4 39 (17.89%) Network Architecture
5 35 (16.06%) Project Delivery
6 34 (15.60%) Infrastructure as Code
7 33 (15.14%) Problem-Solving
8 31 (14.22%) Validation
9 30 (13.76%) Roadmaps
10 29 (13.30%) DevOps
10 29 (13.30%) Technical Leadership
11 26 (11.93%) Load Balancing
12 23 (10.55%) Cybersecurity
12 23 (10.55%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 22 (10.09%) CI/CD
14 18 (8.26%) Continuous Improvement
14 18 (8.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 17 (7.80%) Capacity Planning
15 17 (7.80%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 41 (18.81%) Python
2 6 (2.75%) Bicep
3 5 (2.29%) PowerShell
4 2 (0.92%) Bash
5 1 (0.46%) ActionScript
5 1 (0.46%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 64 (29.36%) Security Cleared
2 56 (25.69%) Cisco Certification
3 42 (19.27%) CCNP
4 41 (18.81%) SC Cleared
5 18 (8.26%) CCIE
6 15 (6.88%) CCNA
7 14 (6.42%) DV Cleared
8 12 (5.50%) Degree
9 11 (5.05%) JNCIE
10 9 (4.13%) AWS Certification
10 9 (4.13%) Azure Certification
11 6 (2.75%) CISSP
11 6 (2.75%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 5 (2.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (1.83%) CISM
14 2 (0.92%) GIAC
14 2 (0.92%) ISSAP
14 2 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (0.92%) NCDA
14 2 (0.92%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (6.42%) NIST
2 12 (5.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.29%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (1.83%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (1.38%) GxP
5 3 (1.38%) NIST 800
5 3 (1.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 3 (1.38%) SOC 2
6 2 (0.92%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.92%) Def Stans
6 2 (0.92%) GDPR
6 2 (0.92%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.92%) NCSC
6 2 (0.92%) QA
6 2 (0.92%) SLA
7 1 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 20 (9.17%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (4.59%) vSphere
3 9 (4.13%) Hyper-V
4 8 (3.67%) Active Directory
4 8 (3.67%) VMware NSX
5 5 (2.29%) Firmware
6 3 (1.38%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.92%) EMC RecoverPoint
7 2 (0.92%) FreeRADIUS
7 2 (0.92%) NFS
7 2 (0.92%) SRDF
8 1 (0.46%) Docker
8 1 (0.46%) KVM
Systems Management
1 44 (20.18%) Ansible
2 13 (5.96%) Kubernetes
3 7 (3.21%) FortiGate
4 6 (2.75%) Grafana
4 6 (2.75%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.38%) Check_MK
5 3 (1.38%) Cisco Prime
5 3 (1.38%) SolarWinds Orion
5 3 (1.38%) vCenter Server
6 2 (0.92%) Argo
6 2 (0.92%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (0.92%) EMC VPLEX
6 2 (0.92%) NetBackup
6 2 (0.92%) SnapMirror
6 2 (0.92%) SnapVault
7 1 (0.46%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.46%) QRadar
7 1 (0.46%) SCCM
7 1 (0.46%) Suricata
7 1 (0.46%) vRealize
Vendors
1 91 (41.74%) Cisco
2 50 (22.94%) Palo Alto
3 39 (17.89%) Fortinet
4 38 (17.43%) F5
5 28 (12.84%) Microsoft
6 25 (11.47%) VMware
7 23 (10.55%) Nokia
8 22 (10.09%) Aruba
8 22 (10.09%) Juniper
9 21 (9.63%) Arista
10 19 (8.72%) Ericsson
11 12 (5.50%) CheckPoint
11 12 (5.50%) Zscaler
12 11 (5.05%) Huawei
13 9 (4.13%) Splunk
14 7 (3.21%) Meraki
15 6 (2.75%) ServiceNow
15 6 (2.75%) SolarWinds
16 5 (2.29%) Google
16 5 (2.29%) Veeam