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

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 443 361 328
Rank change year-on-year -82 -33 +126
Contract jobs citing Network Design 199 160 254
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.41% 0.56% 0.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.48% 0.61% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 97 126
10th Percentile £403 £362 £363
25th Percentile £463 £463 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £550 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.64% +15.79% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £675 £693 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £550 £450
% change year-on-year -9.09% +22.22% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 1
10th Percentile £27.85 - -
25th Percentile £33.25 £66.25 £23.25
Median hourly rate £54.25 £67.50 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.63% +187.23% -66.43%
75th Percentile £71.76 £68.75 £23.75
90th Percentile £72.23 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.00 - -

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 41,043 26,226 36,546
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.43% 91.02% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,708 16,839 23,557
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.74% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,422 1,067 2,473
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.26 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.87 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.28 £27.94 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +51.31% -22.39% -
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.09 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.25 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.85 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.33% -32.93% +7.14%

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 24 May 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 24 May 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 24 May 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 -89 168 £519 -5.68% 48
UK excluding London -83 116 £500 -9.09% 41
London -47 56 £525 +9.38% 15
Work from Home -45 49 £519 -0.38% 17
South East -54 41 £500 -13.04% 21
North of England -83 30 £575 +15.00% 8
North West -49 21 £555 +16.84% 7
South West -24 15 £565 -5.83% 2
Scotland +7 14 £425 +6.52% 5
West Midlands -63 8 £425 -18.35% 4
Midlands -71 8 £425 -18.35% 4
Yorkshire -56 7 £585 +16.90%
East of England - 7 £525 - 1
North East -24 4 £650 +18.18% 1
Northern Ireland - 2 £600 -

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 7 (3.52%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.01%) Apache
2 2 (1.01%) CloudStack
2 2 (1.01%) Confluence
2 2 (1.01%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.01%) Skype for Business
3 1 (0.50%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.50%) Smallworld
Applications
1 9 (4.52%) MS Visio
2 5 (2.51%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.01%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (1.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.50%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.50%) Autodesk Inventor
5 1 (0.50%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 2 (1.01%) DELMIA
2 1 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 54 (27.14%) Azure
2 41 (20.60%) AWS
3 11 (5.53%) OCI
4 6 (3.02%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 6 (3.02%) GCP
4 6 (3.02%) SaaS
5 5 (2.51%) GitHub
5 5 (2.51%) IaaS
6 4 (2.01%) PaaS
7 2 (1.01%) IBM Watson
7 2 (1.01%) Microsoft 365
7 2 (1.01%) Nutanix
8 1 (0.50%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.50%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.50%) Azure Storage
8 1 (0.50%) Datadog
8 1 (0.50%) Entra ID
8 1 (0.50%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.50%) Mimecast
8 1 (0.50%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 80 (40.20%) Firewall
2 71 (35.68%) WAN
3 54 (27.14%) BGP
4 43 (21.61%) OSPF
5 37 (18.59%) VPN
6 35 (17.59%) LAN
7 34 (17.09%) SD-WAN
8 33 (16.58%) Network Security
9 29 (14.57%) Wi-Fi
10 28 (14.07%) VLAN
11 24 (12.06%) VXLAN
12 23 (11.56%) 5G
12 23 (11.56%) MPLS
13 18 (9.05%) Ethernet VPN
14 17 (8.54%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 16 (8.04%) 4G
15 16 (8.04%) Radio Access Network
15 16 (8.04%) TCP/IP
16 14 (7.04%) DNS
16 14 (7.04%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.50%) GIS
Development Applications
1 9 (4.52%) GitLab
2 3 (1.51%) JIRA
3 2 (1.01%) Git
4 1 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 40 (20.10%) Social Skills
2 25 (12.56%) Telecoms
3 19 (9.55%) Public Sector
4 17 (8.54%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (8.54%) Legal
5 14 (7.04%) Finance
6 8 (4.02%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (2.01%) Banking
7 4 (2.01%) Police
8 3 (1.51%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.51%) Retail
9 2 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.01%) Military
9 2 (1.01%) Retail Banking
10 1 (0.50%) Aviation
10 1 (0.50%) German Language
10 1 (0.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 59 (29.65%) Network Engineer
2 42 (21.11%) Architect
3 39 (19.60%) Senior
4 30 (15.08%) Network Architect
4 30 (15.08%) Network Specialist
5 26 (13.07%) Designer
6 21 (10.55%) Network Design Specialist
7 20 (10.05%) Network Designer
8 14 (7.04%) Senior Network Engineer
9 13 (6.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 12 (6.03%) Design Engineer
11 11 (5.53%) Network Design Engineer
12 10 (5.03%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 10 (5.03%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 9 (4.52%) Senior Designer
13 9 (4.52%) Senior Network Designer
13 9 (4.52%) Technical Architect
14 8 (4.02%) Lead
15 7 (3.52%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
15 7 (3.52%) Senior Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (4.02%) 802.1X
1 8 (4.02%) NETCONF
1 8 (4.02%) YANG
2 5 (2.51%) REST
3 4 (2.01%) Kafka
4 3 (1.51%) OpenConfig
4 3 (1.51%) RESTCONF
5 2 (1.01%) Django
5 2 (1.01%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.50%) JSON
6 1 (0.50%) OpenID
6 1 (0.50%) SAML
6 1 (0.50%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 57 (28.64%) Data Centre
2 29 (14.57%) Hybrid Cloud
3 17 (8.54%) Cloud Native
4 12 (6.03%) Management Information System
5 8 (4.02%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (2.01%) IoT
6 4 (2.01%) Operational Technology
7 3 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (1.51%) CCTV
7 3 (1.51%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 3 (1.51%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.51%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (1.01%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (1.01%) Hedge funds
8 2 (1.01%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.01%) PKI
8 2 (1.01%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.01%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.50%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (0.50%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 11 (5.53%) Windows
2 10 (5.03%) Linux
3 8 (4.02%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.01%) Ubuntu
4 2 (1.01%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.50%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (21.11%) Network Architecture
2 32 (16.08%) High Availability
3 29 (14.57%) Migration
3 29 (14.57%) Problem-Solving
4 28 (14.07%) Load Balancing
5 23 (11.56%) Infrastructure as Code
6 22 (11.06%) Zero Trust
7 20 (10.05%) CI/CD
7 20 (10.05%) Roadmaps
8 18 (9.05%) DevOps
9 16 (8.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 16 (8.04%) Project Delivery
10 14 (7.04%) Stakeholder Management
10 14 (7.04%) Validation
11 13 (6.53%) Technical Leadership
12 12 (6.03%) Continuous Improvement
12 12 (6.03%) Network Segmentation
13 11 (5.53%) Capacity Planning
13 11 (5.53%) Data Protection
13 11 (5.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 29 (14.57%) Python
2 6 (3.02%) PowerShell
3 4 (2.01%) Bash
4 3 (1.51%) Bicep
5 2 (1.01%) SQL
Qualifications
1 71 (35.68%) Security Cleared
2 56 (28.14%) Cisco Certification
3 47 (23.62%) SC Cleared
4 42 (21.11%) CCNP
5 22 (11.06%) DV Cleared
6 21 (10.55%) CCIE
7 15 (7.54%) CCNA
8 10 (5.03%) Azure Certification
8 10 (5.03%) Degree
9 9 (4.52%) JNCIE
10 8 (4.02%) AWS Certification
11 7 (3.52%) JNCIS
12 5 (2.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 5 (2.51%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (1.51%) RIBA
14 2 (1.01%) BC Cleared
14 2 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
14 2 (1.01%) SANS
14 2 (1.01%) VCAP
14 2 (1.01%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.02%) NIST
2 3 (1.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (1.51%) JSP 440
2 3 (1.51%) NCSC
2 3 (1.51%) SLA
3 2 (1.01%) GDPR
3 2 (1.01%) NIST 800
3 2 (1.01%) QA
4 1 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.50%) Def Stans
System Software
1 17 (8.54%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (5.03%) VMware NSX
3 9 (4.52%) Hyper-V
4 7 (3.52%) Active Directory
5 5 (2.51%) vSphere
6 3 (1.51%) KVM
7 1 (0.50%) Docker
7 1 (0.50%) EMC RecoverPoint
7 1 (0.50%) Firmware
7 1 (0.50%) NFS
7 1 (0.50%) RHEV
7 1 (0.50%) SRDF
7 1 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.50%) Xen
Systems Management
1 29 (14.57%) Ansible
2 22 (11.06%) Terraform
3 15 (7.54%) FortiGate
4 9 (4.52%) Kubernetes
5 5 (2.51%) Nagios
6 3 (1.51%) Grafana
6 3 (1.51%) Prometheus
7 2 (1.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (1.01%) Check_MK
7 2 (1.01%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (1.01%) McAfee ePO
7 2 (1.01%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 2 (1.01%) SCCM
7 2 (1.01%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.50%) EMC VPLEX
8 1 (0.50%) Iperf
8 1 (0.50%) QRadar
8 1 (0.50%) SnapMirror
8 1 (0.50%) SolarWinds Orion
8 1 (0.50%) vRealize
Vendors
1 93 (46.73%) Cisco
2 48 (24.12%) Palo Alto
3 30 (15.08%) F5
3 30 (15.08%) Fortinet
4 27 (13.57%) Juniper
5 26 (13.07%) Microsoft
6 24 (12.06%) VMware
7 22 (11.06%) Aruba
8 17 (8.54%) Nokia
9 16 (8.04%) Arista
10 14 (7.04%) Meraki
11 13 (6.53%) Ericsson
12 12 (6.03%) Huawei
13 10 (5.03%) CheckPoint
14 8 (4.02%) SolarWinds
15 6 (3.02%) Zscaler
16 5 (2.51%) Ekahau
17 3 (1.51%) NetScout
17 3 (1.51%) Splunk
17 3 (1.51%) Veeam