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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 463 380 329
Rank change year-on-year -83 -51 +3
Contract jobs citing Network Design 221 175 251
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.40% 0.53% 0.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.48% 0.58% 0.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 140 123 143
10th Percentile £363 £400 £413
25th Percentile £425 £411 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% -8.70%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £650 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £513
% change year-on-year +5.26% -7.32% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 4
10th Percentile - - £26.25
25th Percentile £45.00 - £31.88
Median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -16.64%
75th Percentile £74.75 - £75.00
90th Percentile £83.76 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £55.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -18.18% - -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 46,195 29,974 32,629
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.49% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,749 18,609 19,667
10th Percentile £325 £294 £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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,350 1,884 1,294
10th Percentile £13.54 £14.35 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.03
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.16
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.38% -8.38%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £73.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £41.50
% change year-on-year +68.43% -46.35% -2.35%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -99 179 £510 +7.37% 224
UK excluding London -70 126 £500 +5.26% 121
Work from Home -42 72 £500 -9.09% 89
London -81 56 £494 +9.72% 107
South East -68 37 £560 +12.00% 41
North of England -60 31 £575 +21.05% 21
North West -39 25 £575 +21.05% 11
Midlands -43 23 £450 +9.09% 20
West Midlands -47 22 £450 +9.09% 14
Scotland -12 15 £375 -17.58% 11
South West -36 11 £535 -16.41% 17
East of England -31 7 £500 +21.21% 7
North East -36 7 £650 +18.18% 2
Yorkshire -26 5 £519 -9.74% 8
Wales - 5 £575 -
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 9 (4.07%) OpenStack
2 4 (1.81%) Apache
2 4 (1.81%) ArcGIS
2 4 (1.81%) Confluence
3 3 (1.36%) CloudStack
4 1 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.45%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.45%) nginx
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 64 (28.96%) Azure
2 59 (26.70%) AWS
3 15 (6.79%) OCI
4 12 (5.43%) GCP
5 10 (4.52%) Entra ID
5 10 (4.52%) SaaS
6 9 (4.07%) GitHub
7 7 (3.17%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 6 (2.71%) IaaS
8 6 (2.71%) OpenShift
9 5 (2.26%) Nutanix
10 4 (1.81%) Azure Sentinel
11 3 (1.36%) AWS Control Tower
11 3 (1.36%) AWS Direct Connect
11 3 (1.36%) GitHub Actions
12 2 (0.90%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 2 (0.90%) Azure AKS
12 2 (0.90%) Azure Monitor
12 2 (0.90%) Azure Storage
12 2 (0.90%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 103 (46.61%) Firewall
2 69 (31.22%) BGP
3 59 (26.70%) WAN
4 51 (23.08%) OSPF
5 48 (21.72%) Network Security
6 45 (20.36%) VLAN
7 41 (18.55%) LAN
8 35 (15.84%) VPN
9 30 (13.57%) SD-WAN
9 30 (13.57%) VXLAN
10 26 (11.76%) Ethernet VPN
10 26 (11.76%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (11.31%) MPLS
12 23 (10.41%) Wireless
13 22 (9.95%) WLAN
14 20 (9.05%) 4G
14 20 (9.05%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 20 (9.05%) TCP/IP
15 19 (8.60%) 5G
16 17 (7.69%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.81%) GIS
2 3 (1.36%) Metadata
3 1 (0.45%) Big Data
3 1 (0.45%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (0.45%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 15 (6.79%) GitLab
2 4 (1.81%) JIRA
3 3 (1.36%) Git
3 3 (1.36%) Jenkins
General
1 52 (23.53%) Social Skills
2 32 (14.48%) Telecoms
3 31 (14.03%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (8.14%) Public Sector
5 16 (7.24%) Manufacturing
6 13 (5.88%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (4.52%) Legal
8 9 (4.07%) Finance
9 7 (3.17%) Automotive
10 6 (2.71%) Retail
11 3 (1.36%) Agriculture
11 3 (1.36%) Banking
11 3 (1.36%) Billing
11 3 (1.36%) Cyber-Physical System
11 3 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.90%) Local Government
12 2 (0.90%) Military
13 1 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
13 1 (0.45%) Polish Language
13 1 (0.45%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 83 (37.56%) Network Engineer
2 49 (22.17%) Senior
3 44 (19.91%) Architect
4 23 (10.41%) Network Architect
4 23 (10.41%) Senior Network Engineer
5 19 (8.60%) Network Specialist
6 17 (7.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 16 (7.24%) Consultant
8 15 (6.79%) Design Engineer
9 13 (5.88%) Security Architect
9 13 (5.88%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 12 (5.43%) Network Consultant
11 11 (4.98%) Network Design Engineer
12 9 (4.07%) Designer
12 9 (4.07%) Network Design Specialist
12 9 (4.07%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
12 9 (4.07%) Senior Network Specialist
13 8 (3.62%) Network Designer
13 8 (3.62%) RAN Engineer
13 8 (3.62%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (20.36%) 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%) Kafka
4 4 (1.81%) OpenConfig
4 4 (1.81%) RESTCONF
5 3 (1.36%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (0.90%) YAML
7 1 (0.45%) eBPF
7 1 (0.45%) JSON
7 1 (0.45%) Spark Streaming
Miscellaneous
1 66 (29.86%) Data Centre
2 41 (18.55%) Hybrid Cloud
3 23 (10.41%) Cloud Native
4 14 (6.33%) Operational Technology
5 13 (5.88%) Management Information System
6 9 (4.07%) IoT
7 7 (3.17%) Analytical Mindset
7 7 (3.17%) Public Cloud
8 6 (2.71%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (2.71%) Private Cloud
8 6 (2.71%) Security Posture
9 5 (2.26%) CMDB
9 5 (2.26%) PKI
10 4 (1.81%) Data Fabric
10 4 (1.81%) Handset
10 4 (1.81%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.81%) SCADA
11 3 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
11 3 (1.36%) Product Ownership
12 2 (0.90%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 17 (7.69%) Linux
2 15 (6.79%) 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 1 (0.45%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (21.72%) Stakeholder Management
2 43 (19.46%) Zero Trust
3 39 (17.65%) Project Delivery
4 38 (17.19%) Migration
4 38 (17.19%) Problem-Solving
5 37 (16.74%) Infrastructure as Code
6 36 (16.29%) Validation
7 35 (15.84%) Network Architecture
8 33 (14.93%) High Availability
9 31 (14.03%) DevOps
10 28 (12.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 28 (12.67%) Roadmaps
11 26 (11.76%) Load Balancing
11 26 (11.76%) Technical Leadership
12 25 (11.31%) Cybersecurity
13 23 (10.41%) CI/CD
14 22 (9.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 17 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
15 17 (7.69%) Network Segmentation
16 16 (7.24%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 44 (19.91%) Python
2 8 (3.62%) Bicep
3 7 (3.17%) PowerShell
4 3 (1.36%) Bash
5 2 (0.90%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.45%) ActionScript
6 1 (0.45%) C#
6 1 (0.45%) Java
6 1 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.45%) SQL
Qualifications
1 68 (30.77%) Security Cleared
2 52 (23.53%) Cisco Certification
3 46 (20.81%) SC Cleared
4 38 (17.19%) CCNP
5 16 (7.24%) CCIE
6 15 (6.79%) DV Cleared
7 14 (6.33%) CCNA
8 13 (5.88%) Degree
9 10 (4.52%) AWS Certification
9 10 (4.52%) JNCIE
10 8 (3.62%) CISSP
11 6 (2.71%) Azure Certification
12 5 (2.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (1.81%) CISM
13 4 (1.81%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (1.36%) CCSE
15 2 (0.90%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 2 (0.90%) CCNA CyberOps
15 2 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
15 2 (0.90%) ISSAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (7.24%) NIST
2 14 (6.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.26%) Cyber Essentials
3 5 (2.26%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.81%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
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%) GLBA
7 1 (0.45%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.45%) SLA
System Software
1 16 (7.24%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (4.52%) Active Directory
3 8 (3.62%) Hyper-V
3 8 (3.62%) vSphere
4 7 (3.17%) VMware NSX
5 5 (2.26%) Firmware
6 4 (1.81%) FreeRADIUS
7 3 (1.36%) Docker
8 2 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.45%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 1 (0.45%) NFS
9 1 (0.45%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 44 (19.91%) Ansible
2 10 (4.52%) 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
6 2 (0.90%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.45%) Argo
7 1 (0.45%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.45%) EMC NetWorker
7 1 (0.45%) EMC VPLEX
7 1 (0.45%) NetBackup
7 1 (0.45%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.45%) QRadar
7 1 (0.45%) SnapMirror
7 1 (0.45%) SnapVault
7 1 (0.45%) Suricata
7 1 (0.45%) vRealize
Vendors
1 91 (41.18%) Cisco
2 57 (25.79%) Palo Alto
3 47 (21.27%) Fortinet
4 38 (17.19%) F5
5 26 (11.76%) Arista
6 25 (11.31%) Aruba
6 25 (11.31%) Microsoft
7 23 (10.41%) Juniper
8 20 (9.05%) VMware
9 18 (8.14%) Nokia
10 15 (6.79%) CheckPoint
11 14 (6.33%) Ericsson
12 13 (5.88%) Zscaler
13 11 (4.98%) Meraki
14 9 (4.07%) Splunk
15 6 (2.71%) Google
15 6 (2.71%) ServiceNow
16 5 (2.26%) SolarWinds
17 4 (1.81%) Huawei
17 4 (1.81%) Qualys