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

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 434 361 344
Rank change year-on-year -73 -17 +108
Contract jobs citing Network Design 190 172 253
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.41% 0.59% 0.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.48% 0.64% 0.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 131 100 132
10th Percentile £400 £360 £363
25th Percentile £459 £434 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £538 £475
Median % change year-on-year -3.53% +13.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £675 £703 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £538 £450
% change year-on-year -6.98% +19.44% -8.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 4
10th Percentile £27.85 - £23.55
25th Percentile £33.25 £66.25 £24.00
Median hourly rate £54.25 £67.50 £47.25
Median % change year-on-year -19.63% +42.86% -32.50%
75th Percentile £71.76 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £72.23 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.00 - £70.00

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 39,566 26,667 37,661
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.67% 90.82% 86.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,976 17,238 24,315
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.42% -0.36% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £631 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,367 1,068 2,431
10th Percentile £14.87 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £29.15 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.22% -16.71% -6.67%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.24 £59.44
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £28.00 £35.95
% change year-on-year +49.79% -22.11% +0.14%

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 26 April 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 26 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Design in the UK

Network Design
Top 15 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 26 April 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 -85 162 £515 -6.36% 42
UK excluding London -84 105 £500 -6.98% 36
London -60 62 £525 +2.44% 10
South East -60 42 £500 -13.04% 7
Work from Home -32 40 £475 -7.32% 18
North of England -86 18 £517 +3.35% 15
South West -30 15 £500 -5.88% 3
North West -52 12 £508 -0.98% 11
Scotland +16 11 £450 +2.97% 3
Midlands -53 9 £463 +5.71% 5
West Midlands -53 9 £463 +5.71% 5
East of England -27 7 £475 +18.75% 3
Yorkshire -60 6 £585 +19.90%
Northern Ireland - 2 £600 -
Wales -13 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 6 (3.16%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.05%) Confluence
2 2 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.05%) Skype for Business
3 1 (0.53%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.53%) Smallworld
Applications
1 8 (4.21%) MS Visio
2 6 (3.16%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (2.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.53%) Autodesk Inventor
5 1 (0.53%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 2 (1.05%) DELMIA
1 2 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 41 (21.58%) Azure
2 28 (14.74%) AWS
3 5 (2.63%) Azure ExpressRoute
3 5 (2.63%) GitHub
4 4 (2.11%) GCP
4 4 (2.11%) PaaS
5 3 (1.58%) IaaS
6 2 (1.05%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (1.05%) IBM Watson
6 2 (1.05%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (0.53%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.53%) AWS IoT
7 1 (0.53%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (0.53%) Azure Storage
7 1 (0.53%) Datadog
7 1 (0.53%) Entra ID
7 1 (0.53%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (0.53%) Mimecast
7 1 (0.53%) Nutanix
7 1 (0.53%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 66 (34.74%) Firewall
2 64 (33.68%) WAN
3 41 (21.58%) LAN
4 40 (21.05%) BGP
5 39 (20.53%) VPN
6 35 (18.42%) Network Security
7 28 (14.74%) SD-WAN
7 28 (14.74%) VLAN
8 27 (14.21%) OSPF
9 24 (12.63%) MPLS
9 24 (12.63%) Wi-Fi
10 23 (12.11%) 5G
11 20 (10.53%) TCP/IP
12 16 (8.42%) 4G
12 16 (8.42%) Radio Access Network
13 15 (7.89%) DNS
13 15 (7.89%) IPsec
14 14 (7.37%) Wireless
15 13 (6.84%) DHCP
16 9 (4.74%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.53%) GIS
Development Applications
1 3 (1.58%) JIRA
2 2 (1.05%) Git
3 1 (0.53%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 44 (23.16%) Social Skills
2 26 (13.68%) Telecoms
3 17 (8.95%) Legal
4 15 (7.89%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (7.89%) Finance
5 14 (7.37%) Public Sector
6 8 (4.21%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.63%) Police
8 4 (2.11%) Banking
9 3 (1.58%) Manufacturing
10 2 (1.05%) Electronics
10 2 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (1.05%) Retail
10 2 (1.05%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.53%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.53%) Aviation
11 1 (0.53%) German Language
11 1 (0.53%) Local Government
11 1 (0.53%) Marketing
11 1 (0.53%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 60 (31.58%) Network Engineer
2 48 (25.26%) Architect
3 35 (18.42%) Network Architect
4 28 (14.74%) Network Specialist
5 26 (13.68%) Senior
6 22 (11.58%) Designer
7 21 (11.05%) Network Design Specialist
8 17 (8.95%) Network Designer
9 14 (7.37%) Design Engineer
10 12 (6.32%) Network Design Engineer
10 12 (6.32%) Senior Network Engineer
11 11 (5.79%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 9 (4.74%) Senior Designer
12 9 (4.74%) Senior Network Designer
12 9 (4.74%) Technical Architect
13 8 (4.21%) Lead
14 7 (3.68%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
15 6 (3.16%) IP Specialist
16 5 (2.63%) Consultant
16 5 (2.63%) Senior Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (4.21%) 802.1X
1 8 (4.21%) NETCONF
1 8 (4.21%) YANG
2 4 (2.11%) Kafka
2 4 (2.11%) OpenConfig
2 4 (2.11%) RESTCONF
3 3 (1.58%) REST
4 2 (1.05%) Django
4 2 (1.05%) OpenID
4 2 (1.05%) SAML
5 1 (0.53%) JSON
5 1 (0.53%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 40 (21.05%) Data Centre
2 17 (8.95%) Hybrid Cloud
3 11 (5.79%) Data Protection Act
3 11 (5.79%) Management Information System
4 9 (4.74%) Cloud Native
5 5 (2.63%) IoT
6 4 (2.11%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.58%) CCTV
7 3 (1.58%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 3 (1.58%) Operational Technology
8 2 (1.05%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (1.05%) Hedge funds
8 2 (1.05%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.05%) PKI
8 2 (1.05%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.05%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.53%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (0.53%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.53%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 9 (4.74%) Windows
2 8 (4.21%) Linux
3 6 (3.16%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.05%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.53%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (18.42%) Network Architecture
2 27 (14.21%) Migration
3 24 (12.63%) High Availability
3 24 (12.63%) Problem-Solving
4 17 (8.95%) Roadmaps
5 16 (8.42%) Load Balancing
6 15 (7.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 14 (7.37%) Data Protection
7 14 (7.37%) Stakeholder Management
7 14 (7.37%) Technical Leadership
8 12 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
8 12 (6.32%) Network Segmentation
9 11 (5.79%) Capacity Planning
9 11 (5.79%) Continuous Improvement
9 11 (5.79%) Project Delivery
10 10 (5.26%) CI/CD
10 10 (5.26%) Cybersecurity
10 10 (5.26%) Security Architecture
11 9 (4.74%) DevOps
11 9 (4.74%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 19 (10.00%) Python
2 6 (3.16%) PowerShell
3 4 (2.11%) Bash
4 2 (1.05%) Bicep
4 2 (1.05%) SQL
5 1 (0.53%) Perl
5 1 (0.53%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 70 (36.84%) Security Cleared
2 53 (27.89%) Cisco Certification
3 44 (23.16%) SC Cleared
4 39 (20.53%) CCNP
5 29 (15.26%) DV Cleared
6 23 (12.11%) CCIE
7 15 (7.89%) CCNA
8 11 (5.79%) Degree
9 10 (5.26%) JNCIS
10 9 (4.74%) JNCIE
11 7 (3.68%) Azure Certification
12 5 (2.63%) AWS Certification
13 3 (1.58%) RIBA
13 3 (1.58%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 2 (1.05%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 2 (1.05%) CCDP
14 2 (1.05%) CEH
14 2 (1.05%) CISSP
14 2 (1.05%) JNCIP
14 2 (1.05%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (3.68%) NIST
2 3 (1.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (1.58%) JSP 440
2 3 (1.58%) NCSC
2 3 (1.58%) SLA
3 2 (1.05%) Def Stans
3 2 (1.05%) GDPR
4 1 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.53%) DO-160
4 1 (0.53%) NIST 800
System Software
1 13 (6.84%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (4.74%) VMware NSX
3 8 (4.21%) Active Directory
4 7 (3.68%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.58%) KVM
6 2 (1.05%) vSphere
7 1 (0.53%) Docker
7 1 (0.53%) EMC RecoverPoint
7 1 (0.53%) Firmware
7 1 (0.53%) NFS
7 1 (0.53%) RHEV
7 1 (0.53%) SRDF
7 1 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.53%) Xen
Systems Management
1 19 (10.00%) Ansible
2 16 (8.42%) FortiGate
3 11 (5.79%) Terraform
4 7 (3.68%) Kubernetes
5 5 (2.63%) Nagios
6 2 (1.05%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (1.05%) McAfee ePO
6 2 (1.05%) Network Intrusion Detection System
6 2 (1.05%) SCCM
7 1 (0.53%) Argo
7 1 (0.53%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.53%) EMC VPLEX
7 1 (0.53%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.53%) Grafana
7 1 (0.53%) Iperf
7 1 (0.53%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.53%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.53%) SnapMirror
7 1 (0.53%) SnapVault
7 1 (0.53%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 95 (50.00%) Cisco
2 39 (20.53%) Palo Alto
3 31 (16.32%) Juniper
4 27 (14.21%) Microsoft
5 24 (12.63%) Fortinet
6 19 (10.00%) F5
6 19 (10.00%) VMware
7 15 (7.89%) Meraki
7 15 (7.89%) Nokia
8 13 (6.84%) Aruba
9 12 (6.32%) Ericsson
10 11 (5.79%) CheckPoint
11 9 (4.74%) Huawei
12 8 (4.21%) SolarWinds
13 6 (3.16%) Zscaler
14 5 (2.63%) Arista
14 5 (2.63%) Ekahau
15 3 (1.58%) IBM
15 3 (1.58%) McAfee
15 3 (1.58%) NetScout