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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 432 363 336
Rank change year-on-year -69 -27 +131
Contract jobs citing Network Design 200 159 254
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.41% 0.56% 0.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.49% 0.61% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 99 126
10th Percentile £402 £362 £363
25th Percentile £463 £431 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +10.53% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £619 £600
90th Percentile £675 £690 £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 5 1 1
10th Percentile £29.05 - -
25th Percentile £36.25 £66.25 £23.25
Median hourly rate £71.00 £67.50 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.19% +187.23% -66.43%
75th Percentile £72.54 £68.75 £23.75
90th Percentile £77.02 - -
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 41,181 26,010 36,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 91.03% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,765 16,696 23,578
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.14% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,462 1,066 2,486
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.92 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £27.45 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +52.79% -23.80% -2.64%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £25.15 £37.75
% change year-on-year +69.72% -33.38% +7.86%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 £522 -5.09% 49
UK excluding London -98 116 £500 -9.09% 40
London -52 56 £525 +9.38% 19
Work from Home -41 50 £522 +0.29% 16
South East -54 42 £500 -13.04% 20
North of England -75 31 £575 +15.00% 9
North West -48 21 £575 +21.05% 8
South West -24 15 £565 -5.83% 2
Scotland +8 14 £425 +6.52% 5
Yorkshire -49 9 £585 +16.90%
West Midlands -61 8 £425 -18.35% 3
Midlands -70 8 £425 -18.35% 3
East of England - 6 £525 - 1
North East -20 5 £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 8 (4.00%) OpenStack
2 3 (1.50%) Confluence
3 2 (1.00%) Apache
3 2 (1.00%) CloudStack
3 2 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.00%) Skype for Business
4 1 (0.50%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.50%) Smallworld
Applications
1 8 (4.00%) MS Visio
2 5 (2.50%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.50%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.50%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.50%) Autodesk Inventor
5 1 (0.50%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 2 (1.00%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 56 (28.00%) Azure
2 43 (21.50%) AWS
3 13 (6.50%) OCI
4 8 (4.00%) SaaS
5 6 (3.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 6 (3.00%) GitHub
5 6 (3.00%) IaaS
6 5 (2.50%) GCP
7 3 (1.50%) PaaS
8 2 (1.00%) IBM Watson
8 2 (1.00%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (1.00%) Nutanix
9 1 (0.50%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.50%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.50%) Azure Storage
9 1 (0.50%) Datadog
9 1 (0.50%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.50%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.50%) Mimecast
9 1 (0.50%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 81 (40.50%) Firewall
2 71 (35.50%) WAN
3 56 (28.00%) BGP
4 45 (22.50%) OSPF
5 37 (18.50%) LAN
5 37 (18.50%) VPN
6 35 (17.50%) SD-WAN
7 33 (16.50%) Network Security
8 28 (14.00%) VLAN
8 28 (14.00%) Wi-Fi
9 27 (13.50%) VXLAN
10 23 (11.50%) 5G
10 23 (11.50%) MPLS
11 20 (10.00%) Ethernet VPN
11 20 (10.00%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 16 (8.00%) 4G
12 16 (8.00%) BIG-IP
12 16 (8.00%) DNS
12 16 (8.00%) Radio Access Network
13 15 (7.50%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.50%) GIS
Development Applications
1 11 (5.50%) GitLab
2 5 (2.50%) JIRA
3 2 (1.00%) Git
3 2 (1.00%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 41 (20.50%) Social Skills
2 25 (12.50%) Telecoms
3 20 (10.00%) Public Sector
4 17 (8.50%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (8.50%) Legal
5 14 (7.00%) Finance
6 8 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (2.00%) Banking
7 4 (2.00%) Police
8 3 (1.50%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.50%) Retail
9 2 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.00%) Military
9 2 (1.00%) 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 58 (29.00%) Network Engineer
2 43 (21.50%) Architect
3 42 (21.00%) Senior
4 31 (15.50%) Network Architect
5 30 (15.00%) Network Specialist
6 26 (13.00%) Designer
7 21 (10.50%) Network Design Specialist
8 20 (10.00%) Network Designer
9 15 (7.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 15 (7.50%) Senior Network Engineer
10 13 (6.50%) Design Engineer
11 12 (6.00%) Network Design Engineer
11 12 (6.00%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 9 (4.50%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 9 (4.50%) Senior Designer
12 9 (4.50%) Senior Network Designer
12 9 (4.50%) Technical Architect
13 7 (3.50%) Lead
13 7 (3.50%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
13 7 (3.50%) Senior Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (4.00%) NETCONF
1 8 (4.00%) YANG
2 6 (3.00%) 802.1X
2 6 (3.00%) REST
3 4 (2.00%) Kafka
4 2 (1.00%) Django
4 2 (1.00%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (1.00%) OpenConfig
4 2 (1.00%) RESTCONF
5 1 (0.50%) JSON
5 1 (0.50%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 57 (28.50%) Data Centre
2 31 (15.50%) Hybrid Cloud
3 20 (10.00%) Cloud Native
4 12 (6.00%) Management Information System
5 8 (4.00%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (2.00%) IoT
6 4 (2.00%) Operational Technology
7 3 (1.50%) CCTV
7 3 (1.50%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 3 (1.50%) PKI
7 3 (1.50%) Public Cloud
8 2 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (1.00%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (1.00%) Hedge funds
8 2 (1.00%) Onboarding
8 2 (1.00%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.00%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.50%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (0.50%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 13 (6.50%) Windows
2 12 (6.00%) Linux
3 8 (4.00%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.00%) Ubuntu
4 2 (1.00%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.50%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (20.50%) Network Architecture
2 33 (16.50%) High Availability
3 29 (14.50%) Problem-Solving
4 28 (14.00%) Load Balancing
4 28 (14.00%) Migration
5 25 (12.50%) Infrastructure as Code
6 24 (12.00%) Zero Trust
7 23 (11.50%) CI/CD
8 21 (10.50%) DevOps
8 21 (10.50%) Roadmaps
9 18 (9.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 16 (8.00%) Project Delivery
11 14 (7.00%) Technical Leadership
11 14 (7.00%) Validation
12 13 (6.50%) Continuous Improvement
12 13 (6.50%) Network Segmentation
12 13 (6.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 13 (6.50%) Stakeholder Management
13 11 (5.50%) Data Protection
13 11 (5.50%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 32 (16.00%) Python
2 6 (3.00%) PowerShell
3 4 (2.00%) Bash
4 3 (1.50%) Bicep
5 2 (1.00%) SQL
6 1 (0.50%) ActionScript
Qualifications
1 71 (35.50%) Security Cleared
2 56 (28.00%) Cisco Certification
3 45 (22.50%) SC Cleared
4 42 (21.00%) CCNP
5 23 (11.50%) DV Cleared
6 20 (10.00%) CCIE
7 15 (7.50%) CCNA
8 11 (5.50%) Degree
9 10 (5.00%) Azure Certification
10 9 (4.50%) JNCIE
11 8 (4.00%) AWS Certification
12 7 (3.50%) JNCIS
13 5 (2.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (2.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (1.50%) CEH
14 3 (1.50%) CISSP
14 3 (1.50%) RIBA
15 2 (1.00%) BC Cleared
15 2 (1.00%) CCDP
15 2 (1.00%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.50%) NIST
2 3 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (1.50%) JSP 440
2 3 (1.50%) NCSC
2 3 (1.50%) SLA
3 2 (1.00%) NIST 800
3 2 (1.00%) QA
4 1 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.50%) Def Stans
4 1 (0.50%) GDPR
System Software
1 18 (9.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (5.50%) VMware NSX
3 9 (4.50%) Hyper-V
4 8 (4.00%) Active Directory
5 5 (2.50%) vSphere
6 3 (1.50%) 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 30 (15.00%) Ansible
2 23 (11.50%) Terraform
3 15 (7.50%) FortiGate
4 9 (4.50%) Kubernetes
5 5 (2.50%) Nagios
6 3 (1.50%) Grafana
6 3 (1.50%) Prometheus
7 2 (1.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (1.00%) Check_MK
7 2 (1.00%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (1.00%) McAfee ePO
7 2 (1.00%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 2 (1.00%) SCCM
7 2 (1.00%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.50%) EMC NetWorker
8 1 (0.50%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.50%) Iperf
8 1 (0.50%) NetBackup
8 1 (0.50%) Nmap
8 1 (0.50%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 90 (45.00%) Cisco
2 48 (24.00%) Palo Alto
3 32 (16.00%) F5
4 29 (14.50%) Fortinet
5 26 (13.00%) Juniper
6 25 (12.50%) Aruba
6 25 (12.50%) VMware
7 24 (12.00%) Microsoft
8 18 (9.00%) Arista
9 17 (8.50%) Nokia
10 13 (6.50%) Ericsson
11 12 (6.00%) Huawei
12 11 (5.50%) CheckPoint
12 11 (5.50%) Meraki
13 9 (4.50%) SolarWinds
14 6 (3.00%) Zscaler
15 5 (2.50%) Ekahau
16 3 (1.50%) NetScout
16 3 (1.50%) Splunk
16 3 (1.50%) Veeam