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 15 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 415 337 312
Rank change year-on-year -78 -25 +160
Contract jobs citing Network Design 182 204 313
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.46% 0.66% 0.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.52% 0.74% 0.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 127 124 160
10th Percentile £344 £400 £425
25th Percentile £413 £461 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.59% +15.84%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £620
90th Percentile £675 £693 £689
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £521 £538
% change year-on-year -3.94% -3.16% +13.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 13
10th Percentile £72.88 - £25.80
25th Percentile £73.40 - £38.04
Median hourly rate £74.26 - £65.98
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - £69.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 - £65.98
% change year-on-year - - -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 34,716 27,671 39,074
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.89% 89.53% 87.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,993 16,979 25,588
10th Percentile £310 £306 £300
25th Percentile £409 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -3.43% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,102 844 2,136
10th Percentile £14.55 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.28
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -2.35% -1.12%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.29
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year -17.41% -13.00% +7.69%

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 15 February 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 15 February 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 -94 160 £500 -4.76% 49
UK excluding London -76 104 £500 -3.94% 48
London -20 66 £475 -9.52% 11
Work from Home -36 37 £475 -7.32% 19
South East -35 34 £500 -9.09% 12
West Midlands -25 23 £400 -16.49% 7
Midlands -36 23 £400 -16.49% 8
North of England -85 19 £537 +7.40% 9
North West -40 15 £525 +5.00% 8
Scotland +13 11 £650 +36.84% 8
South West -31 8 £475 -9.09% 11
East of England -17 6 £419 -9.46% 1
Yorkshire -75 4 £663 +32.50%
Northern Ireland - 2 £600 -
Wales -3 1 - -
North East -13 1 - - 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 5 (2.75%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.10%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (3.30%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.10%) DELMIA
1 2 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 50 (27.47%) Azure
2 34 (18.68%) AWS
3 12 (6.59%) GCP
4 6 (3.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 6 (3.30%) PaaS
5 5 (2.75%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (1.65%) AWS Direct Connect
7 3 (1.65%) IaaS
7 3 (1.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.10%) IBM Watson
9 1 (0.55%) Akamai
9 1 (0.55%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.55%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.55%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.55%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.55%) Google Ads
9 1 (0.55%) Mimecast
9 1 (0.55%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 81 (44.51%) WAN
2 75 (41.21%) Firewall
3 51 (28.02%) LAN
4 47 (25.82%) VPN
5 43 (23.63%) BGP
5 43 (23.63%) Network Security
6 39 (21.43%) MPLS
7 34 (18.68%) SD-WAN
8 29 (15.93%) VLAN
9 28 (15.38%) Wi-Fi
10 24 (13.19%) TCP/IP
11 17 (9.34%) DNS
11 17 (9.34%) OSPF
12 16 (8.79%) IPsec
12 16 (8.79%) Radio Access Network
13 14 (7.69%) Cisco ISE
14 13 (7.14%) 4G
14 13 (7.14%) 5G
15 12 (6.59%) DHCP
15 12 (6.59%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.65%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.75%) Git
2 3 (1.65%) JIRA
3 2 (1.10%) GitLab
4 1 (0.55%) Robot Framework
4 1 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 50 (27.47%) Social Skills
2 34 (18.68%) Telecoms
3 22 (12.09%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (9.34%) Public Sector
5 16 (8.79%) Finance
6 15 (8.24%) Legal
7 7 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (2.75%) Manufacturing
10 4 (2.20%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.65%) Aviation
12 2 (1.10%) Banking
12 2 (1.10%) Electronics
12 2 (1.10%) Police
12 2 (1.10%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.55%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.55%) Local Government
13 1 (0.55%) Marketing
13 1 (0.55%) Military
13 1 (0.55%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 60 (32.97%) Network Engineer
2 54 (29.67%) Architect
3 42 (23.08%) Network Architect
4 17 (9.34%) Network Specialist
4 17 (9.34%) Senior
5 15 (8.24%) Design Engineer
5 15 (8.24%) Network Design Specialist
6 14 (7.69%) Network Design Engineer
7 9 (4.95%) Designer
7 9 (4.95%) Network Designer
7 9 (4.95%) Senior Designer
7 9 (4.95%) Senior Network Designer
8 8 (4.40%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
8 8 (4.40%) Lead
8 8 (4.40%) Network Security Architect
8 8 (4.40%) Performance Specialist
8 8 (4.40%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 8 (4.40%) Security Architect
8 8 (4.40%) Solutions Architect
9 7 (3.85%) IP Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (4.95%) 802.1X
1 9 (4.95%) YANG
2 8 (4.40%) NETCONF
3 5 (2.75%) REST
4 4 (2.20%) OpenID
4 4 (2.20%) SAML
5 2 (1.10%) Django
5 2 (1.10%) JSON
5 2 (1.10%) OpenConfig
5 2 (1.10%) RESTCONF
6 1 (0.55%) gRPC
6 1 (0.55%) Jinja
6 1 (0.55%) Middleware
6 1 (0.55%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 41 (22.53%) Data Centre
2 15 (8.24%) Hybrid Cloud
3 8 (4.40%) Data Protection Act
3 8 (4.40%) IoT
3 8 (4.40%) PKI
3 8 (4.40%) SCADA
4 7 (3.85%) Operational Technology
5 6 (3.30%) Cloud Native
5 6 (3.30%) Management Information System
6 4 (2.20%) NB-IoT
6 4 (2.20%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.65%) CCTV
7 3 (1.65%) Distributed Architecture
7 3 (1.65%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 3 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (1.10%) Hedge funds
8 2 (1.10%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.10%) Product Ownership
8 2 (1.10%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 10 (5.49%) Windows
2 7 (3.85%) Linux
3 3 (1.65%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (21.98%) Network Architecture
2 29 (15.93%) Load Balancing
3 24 (13.19%) Problem-Solving
4 23 (12.64%) Roadmaps
5 22 (12.09%) Migration
6 21 (11.54%) High Availability
7 20 (10.99%) Cybersecurity
8 17 (9.34%) Network Segmentation
9 16 (8.79%) Security Architecture
9 16 (8.79%) Stakeholder Management
10 15 (8.24%) Network Management
10 15 (8.24%) Root Cause Analysis
10 15 (8.24%) Zero Trust
11 14 (7.69%) ITIL
12 13 (7.14%) DevOps
12 13 (7.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 13 (7.14%) TOGAF
13 12 (6.59%) Data Protection
13 12 (6.59%) Mentoring
14 11 (6.04%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 26 (14.29%) Python
2 7 (3.85%) SQL
3 5 (2.75%) Bash
3 5 (2.75%) PowerShell
4 3 (1.65%) Perl
5 1 (0.55%) Bicep
5 1 (0.55%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 64 (35.16%) Security Cleared
2 55 (30.22%) Cisco Certification
3 43 (23.63%) CCNP
4 38 (20.88%) SC Cleared
5 26 (14.29%) CCIE
5 26 (14.29%) DV Cleared
6 19 (10.44%) Degree
7 15 (8.24%) CCNA
8 12 (6.59%) CISSP
8 12 (6.59%) JNCIS
9 9 (4.95%) AWS Certification
9 9 (4.95%) JNCIE
10 7 (3.85%) Azure Certification
11 6 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (3.30%) JNCIP
12 4 (2.20%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (2.20%) CCSP
13 3 (1.65%) CCIE Security
13 3 (1.65%) RIBA
14 2 (1.10%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.49%) GDPR
1 10 (5.49%) NIST
2 8 (4.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (3.85%) PCI DSS
4 3 (1.65%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.55%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.55%) DO-160
5 1 (0.55%) NCSC
5 1 (0.55%) QA
5 1 (0.55%) SLA
System Software
1 9 (4.95%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (4.40%) VMware NSX
3 6 (3.30%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.10%) Firmware
4 2 (1.10%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.10%) KVM
5 1 (0.55%) Docker
5 1 (0.55%) RHEV
5 1 (0.55%) Xen
Systems Management
1 21 (11.54%) Ansible
2 20 (10.99%) FortiGate
3 12 (6.59%) Terraform
4 5 (2.75%) Nagios
5 2 (1.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.10%) Cisco Prime
5 2 (1.10%) Network Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.55%) Dell DRAC
6 1 (0.55%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.55%) Grafana
6 1 (0.55%) Host Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.55%) Iperf
6 1 (0.55%) Kubernetes
6 1 (0.55%) Nmap
6 1 (0.55%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.55%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.55%) SCCM
Vendors
1 83 (45.60%) Cisco
2 47 (25.82%) Palo Alto
3 36 (19.78%) Juniper
4 24 (13.19%) Fortinet
4 24 (13.19%) Microsoft
5 21 (11.54%) F5
5 21 (11.54%) Meraki
6 13 (7.14%) CheckPoint
6 13 (7.14%) Nokia
7 12 (6.59%) SolarWinds
7 12 (6.59%) VMware
8 9 (4.95%) Aruba
9 8 (4.40%) Ericsson
10 7 (3.85%) Actix
10 7 (3.85%) Arista
11 3 (1.65%) LogicMonitor
12 2 (1.10%) BiZZdesign
12 2 (1.10%) SevOne
12 2 (1.10%) Virgin Media
12 2 (1.10%) Zscaler