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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 467 378 333
Rank change year-on-year -89 -45 +11
Contract jobs citing Network Design 221 184 244
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.40% 0.56% 0.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.48% 0.61% 0.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 141 127 135
10th Percentile £363 £392 £405
25th Percentile £425 £413 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +7.37% -9.52% -8.70%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £594
90th Percentile £650 £650 £683
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +7.37% -5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 4
10th Percentile £45.00 - £26.25
25th Percentile £50.00 - £31.88
Median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -16.64%
75th Percentile £76.50 - £75.00
90th Percentile £85.01 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.00 £55.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +7.27% - -16.64%

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 46,382 29,970 32,481
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.48% 90.66% 85.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,008 18,622 19,630
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £733 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,245 1,858 1,349
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.19 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.64 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.01% -48.10% +1.18%

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 October 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 1 October 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 1 October 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 -85 178 £514 +8.16% 184
UK excluding London -87 126 £510 +7.37% 111
Work from Home -51 72 £500 -4.31% 81
London -84 54 £500 +11.11% 82
South East -59 38 £553 +10.50% 32
North of England -64 32 £575 +21.05% 22
North West -44 24 £575 +21.05% 13
Midlands -52 20 £450 +5.88% 18
West Midlands -42 19 £450 +5.88% 11
Scotland -15 16 £375 -16.67% 10
South West -40 12 £550 -14.06% 17
North East -31 7 £650 +18.18% 2
Yorkshire -35 7 £519 -9.74% 7
East of England -24 6 £500 +21.21% 4
Wales - 5 £575 - 5
East Midlands - 1 - - 7

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 11 (4.98%) OpenStack
2 4 (1.81%) ArcGIS
2 4 (1.81%) Confluence
3 3 (1.36%) Apache
3 3 (1.36%) CloudStack
4 1 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 10 (4.52%) MS Visio
2 8 (3.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (3.17%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
5 3 (1.36%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.45%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 1 (0.45%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 62 (28.05%) Azure
2 60 (27.15%) AWS
3 15 (6.79%) OCI
4 12 (5.43%) GCP
5 10 (4.52%) SaaS
6 9 (4.07%) Entra ID
6 9 (4.07%) GitHub
7 7 (3.17%) OpenShift
8 6 (2.71%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 6 (2.71%) IaaS
9 5 (2.26%) Nutanix
10 4 (1.81%) Azure Sentinel
10 4 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (1.36%) AWS Control Tower
11 3 (1.36%) AWS Direct Connect
12 2 (0.90%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 2 (0.90%) Azure Storage
12 2 (0.90%) Datadog
12 2 (0.90%) PaaS
13 1 (0.45%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 101 (45.70%) Firewall
2 72 (32.58%) BGP
3 61 (27.60%) WAN
4 54 (24.43%) OSPF
5 45 (20.36%) VLAN
6 44 (19.91%) Network Security
7 40 (18.10%) LAN
8 35 (15.84%) VPN
9 31 (14.03%) SD-WAN
10 30 (13.57%) VXLAN
11 26 (11.76%) Ethernet VPN
11 26 (11.76%) MPLS
11 26 (11.76%) Wi-Fi
12 22 (9.95%) 5G
13 21 (9.50%) 4G
13 21 (9.50%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 20 (9.05%) Wireless
15 19 (8.60%) WLAN
16 18 (8.14%) BIG-IP
17 17 (7.69%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.81%) GIS
2 3 (1.36%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 14 (6.33%) GitLab
2 4 (1.81%) JIRA
3 3 (1.36%) Git
3 3 (1.36%) Jenkins
General
1 55 (24.89%) Social Skills
2 34 (15.38%) Telecoms
3 28 (12.67%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (8.14%) Public Sector
5 16 (7.24%) Manufacturing
6 11 (4.98%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (4.52%) Legal
8 6 (2.71%) Automotive
8 6 (2.71%) Retail
9 4 (1.81%) Finance
10 3 (1.36%) Billing
10 3 (1.36%) Cyber-Physical System
10 3 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.90%) Agriculture
11 2 (0.90%) Local Government
11 2 (0.90%) Military
12 1 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.45%) Police
12 1 (0.45%) Polish Language
12 1 (0.45%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 80 (36.20%) Network Engineer
2 50 (22.62%) Senior
3 47 (21.27%) Architect
4 25 (11.31%) Network Architect
4 25 (11.31%) Senior Network Engineer
5 23 (10.41%) Network Specialist
6 16 (7.24%) Consultant
6 16 (7.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 14 (6.33%) Design Engineer
8 13 (5.88%) Designer
8 13 (5.88%) Security Architect
8 13 (5.88%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 12 (5.43%) Network Consultant
9 12 (5.43%) Network Design Specialist
10 11 (4.98%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
10 11 (4.98%) Senior Network Specialist
11 10 (4.52%) Network Design Engineer
12 8 (3.62%) RAN Engineer
12 8 (3.62%) Security Engineer
12 8 (3.62%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (19.91%) Terraform
2 9 (4.07%) NETCONF
2 9 (4.07%) YANG
3 7 (3.17%) 802.1X
3 7 (3.17%) REST
4 4 (1.81%) Azure Blueprints
4 4 (1.81%) OpenConfig
4 4 (1.81%) RESTCONF
5 3 (1.36%) Elastic Stack
5 3 (1.36%) Kafka
6 2 (0.90%) YAML
7 1 (0.45%) eBPF
7 1 (0.45%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 67 (30.32%) Data Centre
2 42 (19.00%) Hybrid Cloud
3 26 (11.76%) Cloud Native
4 14 (6.33%) Operational Technology
5 12 (5.43%) Management Information System
6 9 (4.07%) IoT
7 8 (3.62%) Public Cloud
8 7 (3.17%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (3.17%) Private Cloud
9 6 (2.71%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (2.71%) Security Posture
10 5 (2.26%) CMDB
10 5 (2.26%) PKI
11 4 (1.81%) Data Fabric
11 4 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (1.81%) Handset
11 4 (1.81%) Onboarding
11 4 (1.81%) SCADA
12 3 (1.36%) Product Ownership
13 2 (0.90%) EMC VNX
Operating Systems
1 16 (7.24%) Linux
2 14 (6.33%) Windows
3 8 (3.62%) Ubuntu
3 8 (3.62%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.81%) Alpine Linux
4 4 (1.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.90%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (21.27%) Stakeholder Management
2 44 (19.91%) Migration
3 43 (19.46%) Zero Trust
4 38 (17.19%) Problem-Solving
5 36 (16.29%) Infrastructure as Code
5 36 (16.29%) Project Delivery
6 34 (15.38%) High Availability
6 34 (15.38%) Network Architecture
6 34 (15.38%) Validation
7 30 (13.57%) DevOps
7 30 (13.57%) Roadmaps
8 26 (11.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 26 (11.76%) Technical Leadership
9 25 (11.31%) Load Balancing
10 24 (10.86%) CI/CD
10 24 (10.86%) Cybersecurity
11 22 (9.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 17 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
13 16 (7.24%) Cloud Security
13 16 (7.24%) Network Segmentation
Programming Languages
1 43 (19.46%) Python
2 7 (3.17%) Bicep
3 6 (2.71%) PowerShell
4 3 (1.36%) Bash
5 2 (0.90%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.45%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 67 (30.32%) Security Cleared
2 55 (24.89%) Cisco Certification
3 46 (20.81%) SC Cleared
4 40 (18.10%) CCNP
5 17 (7.69%) CCIE
5 17 (7.69%) DV Cleared
6 14 (6.33%) CCNA
7 13 (5.88%) Degree
8 11 (4.98%) JNCIE
9 10 (4.52%) AWS Certification
10 8 (3.62%) CISSP
11 7 (3.17%) Azure Certification
12 6 (2.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 5 (2.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 4 (1.81%) CISM
15 3 (1.36%) CCSE
16 2 (0.90%) CCSA
16 2 (0.90%) GIAC
16 2 (0.90%) ISSAP
16 2 (0.90%) NCDA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (6.79%) NIST
2 14 (6.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.26%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (1.81%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 4 (1.81%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.81%) SOC 2
5 3 (1.36%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (1.36%) GxP
5 3 (1.36%) NIST 800
5 3 (1.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 2 (0.90%) Def Stans
6 2 (0.90%) GDPR
6 2 (0.90%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.90%) NCSC
6 2 (0.90%) QA
7 1 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.45%) SLA
System Software
1 17 (7.69%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (4.07%) Active Directory
2 9 (4.07%) Hyper-V
2 9 (4.07%) vSphere
3 7 (3.17%) VMware NSX
4 5 (2.26%) Firmware
5 4 (1.81%) FreeRADIUS
6 3 (1.36%) Docker
6 3 (1.36%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.90%) EMC RecoverPoint
7 2 (0.90%) NFS
7 2 (0.90%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 44 (19.91%) Ansible
2 12 (5.43%) Kubernetes
3 9 (4.07%) Grafana
3 9 (4.07%) Prometheus
4 8 (3.62%) FortiGate
5 3 (1.36%) Check_MK
5 3 (1.36%) Cisco Prime
5 3 (1.36%) SolarWinds Orion
5 3 (1.36%) vCenter Server
6 2 (0.90%) Argo
6 2 (0.90%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (0.90%) EMC VPLEX
6 2 (0.90%) NetBackup
6 2 (0.90%) SnapMirror
6 2 (0.90%) SnapVault
7 1 (0.45%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.45%) QRadar
7 1 (0.45%) SCCM
7 1 (0.45%) Suricata
7 1 (0.45%) vRealize
Vendors
1 94 (42.53%) Cisco
2 55 (24.89%) Palo Alto
3 45 (20.36%) Fortinet
4 37 (16.74%) F5
5 26 (11.76%) Microsoft
6 23 (10.41%) Arista
6 23 (10.41%) Aruba
7 22 (9.95%) Juniper
7 22 (9.95%) VMware
8 20 (9.05%) Nokia
9 16 (7.24%) Ericsson
10 14 (6.33%) CheckPoint
10 14 (6.33%) Zscaler
11 10 (4.52%) Meraki
12 9 (4.07%) Splunk
13 7 (3.17%) Huawei
14 6 (2.71%) ServiceNow
14 6 (2.71%) SolarWinds
15 5 (2.26%) Google
15 5 (2.26%) Veeam