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 16 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 386 323 340
Rank change year-on-year -63 +17 +181
Contract jobs citing Network Design 182 254 323
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.55% 0.68% 0.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.60% 0.79% 0.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 131 146 185
10th Percentile £400 £411 £413
25th Percentile £410 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% -8.70% +15.00%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £638
90th Percentile £650 £675 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% +15.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 4 15
10th Percentile - £26.25 £44.42
25th Percentile - £31.88 -
Median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year - -16.64% -5.74%
75th Percentile - £75.00 £66.49
90th Percentile - - £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year - -16.64% -5.74%

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 30,120 32,351 42,343
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.53% 86.01% 88.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,720 19,487 28,729
10th Percentile £296 £308 £313
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £623 £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 1,911 1,239 1,585
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.12 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -10.11% +36.92%
75th Percentile £42.79 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £66.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.27 £40.00 £43.90
% change year-on-year -44.34% -8.88% +65.99%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 -35 162 £475 -9.52% 78
UK excluding London -56 110 £475 -5.00% 59
London +3 59 £450 -14.29% 21
Work from Home -4 52 £535 +7.00% 46
South East -6 36 £500 -4.76% 12
West Midlands +3 24 £400 -46.67% 12
Midlands -11 24 £400 -27.27% 15
South West +4 20 £630 +40.00% 10
North of England -53 17 £475 -5.00% 16
North West -13 15 £475 - 12
Scotland - 8 £455 - 2
East of England +2 5 £413 -19.51% 4
North East -18 1 £550 -
Yorkshire -51 1 £500 - 4

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 (4.40%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.10%) nginx
3 1 (0.55%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (1.10%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 33 (18.13%) Azure
2 25 (13.74%) AWS
3 8 (4.40%) GCP
4 7 (3.85%) SaaS
5 5 (2.75%) PaaS
6 4 (2.20%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (1.65%) IaaS
7 3 (1.65%) Serverless
8 2 (1.10%) Amazon EKS
8 2 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.10%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (1.10%) Entra ID
8 2 (1.10%) GitHub
8 2 (1.10%) OpenShift
9 1 (0.55%) Akamai
9 1 (0.55%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 1 (0.55%) Azure Key Vault
9 1 (0.55%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.55%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.55%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 80 (43.96%) WAN
2 76 (41.76%) Firewall
3 60 (32.97%) LAN
4 43 (23.63%) BGP
5 39 (21.43%) Network Security
6 33 (18.13%) VPN
7 31 (17.03%) MPLS
7 31 (17.03%) Wi-Fi
8 30 (16.48%) SD-WAN
9 23 (12.64%) Cisco Nexus
10 19 (10.44%) IPsec
11 16 (8.79%) Wireless
12 15 (8.24%) 4G
12 15 (8.24%) Radio Access Network
13 14 (7.69%) TCP/IP
13 14 (7.69%) VLAN
14 13 (7.14%) OSPF
15 12 (6.59%) DNS
16 11 (6.04%) 3GPP
16 11 (6.04%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.10%) GIS
Development Applications
1 4 (2.20%) GitLab
2 2 (1.10%) Bitbucket
2 2 (1.10%) Git
2 2 (1.10%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.55%) Robot Framework
General
1 43 (23.63%) Telecoms
2 41 (22.53%) Social Skills
3 20 (10.99%) Public Sector
4 12 (6.59%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (4.95%) Manufacturing
6 6 (3.30%) Aviation
7 5 (2.75%) Finance
8 3 (1.65%) Aerospace
8 3 (1.65%) Legal
9 2 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (1.10%) Retail
10 1 (0.55%) Fire and Rescue
10 1 (0.55%) French Language
10 1 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.55%) Law
10 1 (0.55%) Local Government
10 1 (0.55%) Military
10 1 (0.55%) Police
10 1 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.55%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 71 (39.01%) Architect
2 56 (30.77%) Network Engineer
3 51 (28.02%) Network Architect
4 16 (8.79%) Network Design Specialist
4 16 (8.79%) Network Specialist
5 15 (8.24%) Network Design Architect
6 13 (7.14%) Senior
7 10 (5.49%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 10 (5.49%) Support Engineer
8 9 (4.95%) 3rd Line Support
8 9 (4.95%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 9 (4.95%) Performance Specialist
9 8 (4.40%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 8 (4.40%) Senior Architect
9 8 (4.40%) Senior Network Architect
9 8 (4.40%) Solutions Architect
10 7 (3.85%) Cisco Architect
10 7 (3.85%) Cisco Network Architect
10 7 (3.85%) Lead
10 7 (3.85%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (3.85%) 802.1X
1 7 (3.85%) YANG
2 6 (3.30%) NETCONF
2 6 (3.30%) REST
3 5 (2.75%) Middleware
4 3 (1.65%) Web Services
5 2 (1.10%) eBPF
5 2 (1.10%) OpenID
5 2 (1.10%) RFC 2544
5 2 (1.10%) SAML
6 1 (0.55%) gRPC
6 1 (0.55%) Jinja
6 1 (0.55%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 33 (18.13%) Data Centre
2 17 (9.34%) Operational Technology
3 16 (8.79%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (7.14%) Cloud Native
5 11 (6.04%) Onboarding
5 11 (6.04%) PKI
5 11 (6.04%) SCADA
6 8 (4.40%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (3.85%) IoT
8 5 (2.75%) Fibre Optics
9 4 (2.20%) Life Science
9 4 (2.20%) Management Information System
9 4 (2.20%) Renewable Energy
9 4 (2.20%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.65%) NB-IoT
11 2 (1.10%) CMDB
11 2 (1.10%) Insider Threat
11 2 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (1.10%) Private Cloud
11 2 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 9 (4.95%) Windows
2 6 (3.30%) Linux
3 1 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.55%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (20.88%) Network Architecture
2 23 (12.64%) Load Balancing
3 20 (10.99%) Migration
4 18 (9.89%) Cybersecurity
5 16 (8.79%) Network Monitoring
5 16 (8.79%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (8.79%) Roadmaps
6 15 (8.24%) DevOps
6 15 (8.24%) High Availability
6 15 (8.24%) Network Segmentation
6 15 (8.24%) Root Cause Analysis
7 14 (7.69%) Network Virtualisation
7 14 (7.69%) Stakeholder Management
8 12 (6.59%) Data Protection
9 11 (6.04%) Zero Trust
10 10 (5.49%) Service Design
11 9 (4.95%) Digital Transformation Programme
11 9 (4.95%) Microservices
11 9 (4.95%) Project Delivery
11 9 (4.95%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 16 (8.79%) Python
2 4 (2.20%) SQL
3 2 (1.10%) C
4 1 (0.55%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 73 (40.11%) Security Cleared
2 43 (23.63%) Cisco Certification
3 41 (22.53%) SC Cleared
4 30 (16.48%) DV Cleared
5 27 (14.84%) CCNP
6 18 (9.89%) CCIE
6 18 (9.89%) Degree
7 12 (6.59%) CCNA
8 11 (6.04%) JNCIE
9 10 (5.49%) CISSP
10 6 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
11 5 (2.75%) Master's Degree
12 4 (2.20%) JNCIP
12 4 (2.20%) JNCIS
13 3 (1.65%) JNCIA
14 2 (1.10%) Azure Certification
14 2 (1.10%) CCDP
15 1 (0.55%) CCNA CyberOps
15 1 (0.55%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.40%) NCSC
2 4 (2.20%) GDPR
2 4 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 2 (1.10%) NIST
4 2 (1.10%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.55%) GRC
5 1 (0.55%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.55%) QA
System Software
1 5 (2.75%) Firmware
2 4 (2.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.65%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.65%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.65%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.55%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 17 (9.34%) Ansible
2 7 (3.85%) Terraform
3 5 (2.75%) FortiGate
4 2 (1.10%) Cisco CUCM
4 2 (1.10%) HAProxy
4 2 (1.10%) Kubernetes
4 2 (1.10%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (1.10%) NSN NetAct
5 1 (0.55%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (0.55%) Dell DRAC
5 1 (0.55%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.55%) Host Intrusion Detection System
5 1 (0.55%) Nagios
5 1 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 74 (40.66%) Cisco
2 30 (16.48%) Juniper
3 27 (14.84%) Palo Alto
4 25 (13.74%) Fortinet
5 15 (8.24%) Meraki
6 14 (7.69%) F5
7 13 (7.14%) VMware
8 10 (5.49%) CheckPoint
8 10 (5.49%) Microsoft
9 9 (4.95%) Actix
9 9 (4.95%) Ericsson
9 9 (4.95%) Nokia
10 6 (3.30%) SolarWinds
10 6 (3.30%) Zscaler
11 5 (2.75%) Aruba
12 3 (1.65%) Arista
12 3 (1.65%) HP
12 3 (1.65%) Rockwell
13 2 (1.10%) LogicMonitor
13 2 (1.10%) Virgin Media