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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 381 333 356
Rank change year-on-year -48 +23 +164
Contract jobs citing Network Design 178 239 324
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.55% 0.63% 0.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.61% 0.73% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 133 178
10th Percentile £400 £403 £413
25th Percentile £413 £450 £490
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% -8.70% +9.52%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £647
90th Percentile £678 £650 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £550
% change year-on-year - -9.09% +15.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 18
10th Percentile £56.13 £26.25 £49.21
25th Percentile £57.81 £31.88 £65.98
Median hourly rate £61.25 £55.00 £66.49
Median % change year-on-year +11.36% -17.28% +31.70%
75th Percentile £65.31 £75.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.38 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £67.99
% change year-on-year - -19.11% +33.92%

All Process and 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 29,370 32,658 44,778
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.49% 85.62% 89.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,234 20,154 30,464
10th Percentile £300 £310 £313
25th Percentile £403 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,777 1,475 1,557
10th Percentile £14.23 £14.84 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £18.78
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -41.51% +1.18% +47.06%
75th Percentile £43.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £66.70 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £43.00 £40.50
% change year-on-year -47.67% +6.17% +76.09%

Network Design
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Network Design as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Network Design 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 September 2025.

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 14 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 September 2025. 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 -42 154 £500 -4.76% 75
UK excluding London -22 117 £500 - 63
Work from Home +18 52 £575 +15.00% 43
London -7 45 £450 -14.29% 24
South East +13 40 £525 +5.00% 31
North of England -33 25 £475 -5.00% 12
North West +2 22 £475 - 8
West Midlands +4 21 £425 -30.61% 6
Midlands -6 21 £425 -22.73% 9
South West +16 19 £640 +42.22% 5
Scotland +3 9 £427 -28.83% 3
East of England +6 3 £410 -20.00% 2
Yorkshire -35 2 £575 +15.00% 4
North East -11 1 £550 -

Network Design
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 8 (4.49%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.12%) Confluence
2 2 (1.12%) nginx
3 1 (0.56%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (1.12%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 26 (14.61%) Azure
2 22 (12.36%) AWS
3 9 (5.06%) GCP
4 6 (3.37%) SaaS
5 3 (1.69%) Serverless
6 2 (1.12%) Amazon EKS
6 2 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (1.12%) Entra ID
6 2 (1.12%) GitHub
6 2 (1.12%) IaaS
6 2 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (1.12%) OpenShift
6 2 (1.12%) PaaS
7 1 (0.56%) Akamai
7 1 (0.56%) Azure Key Vault
7 1 (0.56%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 80 (44.94%) Firewall
2 79 (44.38%) WAN
3 61 (34.27%) LAN
4 43 (24.16%) BGP
5 40 (22.47%) Network Security
6 34 (19.10%) VPN
7 33 (18.54%) Wi-Fi
8 32 (17.98%) MPLS
9 30 (16.85%) SD-WAN
10 25 (14.04%) Wireless
11 21 (11.80%) Cisco Nexus
12 16 (8.99%) OSPF
13 15 (8.43%) VLAN
14 14 (7.87%) IPsec
15 11 (6.18%) DNS
15 11 (6.18%) Radio Access Network
15 11 (6.18%) TCP/IP
16 10 (5.62%) 4G
16 10 (5.62%) Intrusion Detection
17 9 (5.06%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.56%) GIS
Development Applications
1 4 (2.25%) GitLab
2 2 (1.12%) Bitbucket
2 2 (1.12%) Git
2 2 (1.12%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.56%) JIRA
3 1 (0.56%) Robot Framework
General
1 44 (24.72%) Social Skills
2 34 (19.10%) Telecoms
3 16 (8.99%) Public Sector
4 9 (5.06%) Manufacturing
5 6 (3.37%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (2.81%) Finance
7 4 (2.25%) Aviation
8 3 (1.69%) Aerospace
8 3 (1.69%) Legal
9 2 (1.12%) Retail
10 1 (0.56%) Banking
10 1 (0.56%) Billing
10 1 (0.56%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.56%) French Language
10 1 (0.56%) German Language
10 1 (0.56%) Law
10 1 (0.56%) Local Government
10 1 (0.56%) Military
10 1 (0.56%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.56%) Police
Job Titles
1 70 (39.33%) Architect
2 54 (30.34%) Network Engineer
3 49 (27.53%) Network Architect
4 18 (10.11%) Senior
5 12 (6.74%) Network Design Architect
6 10 (5.62%) Network Design Specialist
6 10 (5.62%) Network Specialist
7 7 (3.93%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 7 (3.93%) Cisco Architect
7 7 (3.93%) Cisco Network Architect
7 7 (3.93%) Designer
7 7 (3.93%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
7 7 (3.93%) Lead
7 7 (3.93%) Network Designer
7 7 (3.93%) Security Engineer
7 7 (3.93%) Senior Architect
7 7 (3.93%) Senior Network Architect
7 7 (3.93%) Senior Network Engineer
7 7 (3.93%) Solutions Architect
7 7 (3.93%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (7.30%) 802.1X
2 7 (3.93%) YANG
3 6 (3.37%) NETCONF
3 6 (3.37%) REST
4 5 (2.81%) Middleware
5 3 (1.69%) Web Services
6 2 (1.12%) eBPF
6 2 (1.12%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.56%) gRPC
7 1 (0.56%) Jinja
7 1 (0.56%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 36 (20.22%) Data Centre
2 18 (10.11%) Hybrid Cloud
3 17 (9.55%) Operational Technology
4 14 (7.87%) Cloud Native
5 11 (6.18%) PKI
5 11 (6.18%) SCADA
6 9 (5.06%) Onboarding
7 7 (3.93%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (2.81%) Life Science
9 4 (2.25%) Fibre Optics
9 4 (2.25%) Management Information System
9 4 (2.25%) Renewable Energy
9 4 (2.25%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.69%) IoT
10 3 (1.69%) Private Cloud
11 2 (1.12%) CMDB
11 2 (1.12%) Insider Threat
11 2 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (1.12%) Public Cloud
11 2 (1.12%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 6 (3.37%) Windows
2 5 (2.81%) Linux
3 1 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.56%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (25.28%) Network Architecture
2 20 (11.24%) Cybersecurity
2 20 (11.24%) Load Balancing
3 18 (10.11%) Roadmaps
4 17 (9.55%) Migration
5 16 (8.99%) High Availability
5 16 (8.99%) Network Monitoring
6 15 (8.43%) Network Segmentation
6 15 (8.43%) Stakeholder Management
7 14 (7.87%) Problem-Solving
8 13 (7.30%) Computer Science
8 13 (7.30%) DevOps
8 13 (7.30%) Network Virtualisation
8 13 (7.30%) Zero Trust
9 12 (6.74%) Service Design
9 12 (6.74%) TOGAF
10 11 (6.18%) Data Protection
10 11 (6.18%) Network Management
10 11 (6.18%) Project Delivery
11 10 (5.62%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 15 (8.43%) Python
2 2 (1.12%) C
3 1 (0.56%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 72 (40.45%) Security Cleared
2 48 (26.97%) Cisco Certification
3 44 (24.72%) SC Cleared
4 30 (16.85%) CCNP
5 29 (16.29%) DV Cleared
6 24 (13.48%) Degree
7 23 (12.92%) CCIE
8 13 (7.30%) JNCIE
9 11 (6.18%) CCNA
9 11 (6.18%) Computer Science Degree
10 10 (5.62%) CISSP
11 7 (3.93%) Master's Degree
12 4 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
13 3 (1.69%) Azure Certification
13 3 (1.69%) JNCIA
14 2 (1.12%) CCDP
14 2 (1.12%) JNCIP
14 2 (1.12%) JNCIS
14 2 (1.12%) PMI Certification
14 2 (1.12%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.06%) NCSC
2 4 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 2 (1.12%) GDPR
4 2 (1.12%) NIST
4 2 (1.12%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.56%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.56%) GRC
5 1 (0.56%) GxP
5 1 (0.56%) HIPAA
System Software
1 4 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (1.69%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.69%) Firmware
2 3 (1.69%) Virtual Machines
2 3 (1.69%) VMware NSX
3 1 (0.56%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (9.55%) Ansible
2 7 (3.93%) FortiGate
3 6 (3.37%) Terraform
4 2 (1.12%) Cisco CUCM
4 2 (1.12%) HAProxy
4 2 (1.12%) Kubernetes
4 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (1.12%) NSN NetAct
5 1 (0.56%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (0.56%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.56%) Host Intrusion Detection System
5 1 (0.56%) Nagios
5 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 83 (46.63%) Cisco
2 29 (16.29%) Palo Alto
3 28 (15.73%) Fortinet
3 28 (15.73%) Juniper
4 21 (11.80%) Meraki
5 13 (7.30%) F5
5 13 (7.30%) VMware
6 9 (5.06%) CheckPoint
6 9 (5.06%) Ericsson
6 9 (5.06%) Microsoft
7 8 (4.49%) Aruba
7 8 (4.49%) Nokia
8 7 (3.93%) Actix
9 5 (2.81%) AirMagnet
9 5 (2.81%) Ekahau
9 5 (2.81%) ServiceNow
9 5 (2.81%) SolarWinds
9 5 (2.81%) Zscaler
10 4 (2.25%) Extreme Networks
11 3 (1.69%) Rockwell