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 9 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 410 339 305
Rank change year-on-year -71 -34 +177
Contract jobs citing Network Design 187 190 317
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.62% 0.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.55% 0.69% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 128 116 166
10th Percentile £346 £388 £425
25th Percentile £413 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £570
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -7.89% +20.00%
75th Percentile £578 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £700 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £538
% change year-on-year -1.96% -5.12% +13.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 13
10th Percentile £72.88 - £25.80
25th Percentile £73.40 - £38.04
Median hourly rate £74.26 - £65.98
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - £69.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 - £65.98
% change year-on-year - - -5.74%

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 33,920 27,613 39,240
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.99% 89.40% 87.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,498 16,798 25,769
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £718 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £497 £500
% change year-on-year -3.92% -0.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,057 854 2,142
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.05 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.66 £34.36
Median % change year-on-year -22.98% -4.95% +5.71%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.81% -9.26% +11.93%

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 9 February 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
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 9 February 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 -65 166 £500 -4.76% 47
UK excluding London -51 110 £500 -1.96% 45
London -38 67 £475 -9.52% 12
South East -25 38 £500 -9.09% 7
Work from Home -31 36 £509 -1.36% 18
West Midlands -28 24 £400 -16.49% 6
Midlands -30 24 £400 -23.15% 8
North of England -63 19 £540 +8.00% 10
North West -20 15 £537 +10.15% 9
Scotland +21 12 £650 +36.84% 8
South West -25 8 £450 -13.88% 10
East of England -14 6 £419 -9.46% 2
Yorkshire -68 3 £650 +30.00% 1
North East -14 2 £550 -
Northern Ireland - 2 £600 - 1
Wales -5 1 - -

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 6 (3.21%) OpenStack
Applications
1 6 (3.21%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.60%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.07%) DELMIA
1 2 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.53%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 49 (26.20%) Azure
2 32 (17.11%) AWS
3 11 (5.88%) GCP
4 6 (3.21%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (2.67%) PaaS
6 4 (2.14%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (1.60%) AWS Direct Connect
7 3 (1.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.07%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.07%) IaaS
8 2 (1.07%) IBM Watson
9 1 (0.53%) Akamai
9 1 (0.53%) AWS IoT
9 1 (0.53%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.53%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.53%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.53%) Google Ads
9 1 (0.53%) Mimecast
9 1 (0.53%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 87 (46.52%) WAN
2 78 (41.71%) Firewall
3 55 (29.41%) LAN
4 47 (25.13%) VPN
5 45 (24.06%) BGP
6 42 (22.46%) MPLS
7 38 (20.32%) Network Security
8 34 (18.18%) SD-WAN
9 29 (15.51%) VLAN
10 28 (14.97%) Wi-Fi
11 24 (12.83%) TCP/IP
12 17 (9.09%) IPsec
12 17 (9.09%) OSPF
12 17 (9.09%) Radio Access Network
13 16 (8.56%) DNS
14 15 (8.02%) Cisco ISE
15 14 (7.49%) 4G
16 13 (6.95%) 5G
16 13 (6.95%) Wireless
17 12 (6.42%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.60%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.67%) Git
2 2 (1.07%) GitLab
3 1 (0.53%) JIRA
3 1 (0.53%) Robot Framework
3 1 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 49 (26.20%) Social Skills
2 37 (19.79%) Telecoms
3 21 (11.23%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (9.63%) Public Sector
5 15 (8.02%) Finance
5 15 (8.02%) Legal
6 8 (4.28%) Manufacturing
7 7 (3.74%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (2.67%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.60%) Aviation
11 2 (1.07%) Electronics
11 2 (1.07%) Military
11 2 (1.07%) Police
12 1 (0.53%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.53%) Law
12 1 (0.53%) Local Government
12 1 (0.53%) Marketing
12 1 (0.53%) Publishing
12 1 (0.53%) Retail
Job Titles
1 65 (34.76%) Network Engineer
2 52 (27.81%) Architect
3 40 (21.39%) Network Architect
4 18 (9.63%) Network Specialist
4 18 (9.63%) Senior
5 16 (8.56%) Network Design Specialist
6 15 (8.02%) Design Engineer
7 14 (7.49%) Network Design Engineer
8 9 (4.81%) Designer
8 9 (4.81%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
8 9 (4.81%) Network Designer
8 9 (4.81%) Performance Specialist
8 9 (4.81%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 9 (4.81%) Senior Designer
8 9 (4.81%) Senior Network Designer
8 9 (4.81%) Solutions Architect
9 8 (4.28%) IP Specialist
9 8 (4.28%) Lead
10 7 (3.74%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 7 (3.74%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.35%) 802.1X
1 10 (5.35%) YANG
2 9 (4.81%) NETCONF
3 6 (3.21%) REST
4 4 (2.14%) OpenID
4 4 (2.14%) SAML
5 2 (1.07%) Django
5 2 (1.07%) JSON
5 2 (1.07%) OpenConfig
5 2 (1.07%) RESTCONF
6 1 (0.53%) gRPC
6 1 (0.53%) Jinja
6 1 (0.53%) Middleware
6 1 (0.53%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 42 (22.46%) Data Centre
2 14 (7.49%) Hybrid Cloud
3 11 (5.88%) SCADA
4 9 (4.81%) Operational Technology
4 9 (4.81%) PKI
5 8 (4.28%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (4.28%) IoT
6 7 (3.74%) Management Information System
7 6 (3.21%) Cloud Native
8 5 (2.67%) Security Posture
9 4 (2.14%) Life Science
9 4 (2.14%) NB-IoT
9 4 (2.14%) Onboarding
9 4 (2.14%) Renewable Energy
10 3 (1.60%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (1.07%) CCTV
11 2 (1.07%) Insider Threat
11 2 (1.07%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 9 (4.81%) Windows
2 7 (3.74%) Linux
3 2 (1.07%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (22.99%) Network Architecture
2 31 (16.58%) Load Balancing
3 23 (12.30%) Problem-Solving
4 21 (11.23%) High Availability
4 21 (11.23%) Migration
5 20 (10.70%) Cybersecurity
5 20 (10.70%) Roadmaps
6 17 (9.09%) Stakeholder Management
7 16 (8.56%) Network Management
7 16 (8.56%) Network Segmentation
7 16 (8.56%) Root Cause Analysis
8 14 (7.49%) ITIL
9 13 (6.95%) Data Protection
9 13 (6.95%) DevOps
9 13 (6.95%) Zero Trust
10 12 (6.42%) Security Architecture
10 12 (6.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 11 (5.88%) Mentoring
11 11 (5.88%) Network Monitoring
11 11 (5.88%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 27 (14.44%) Python
2 7 (3.74%) SQL
3 5 (2.67%) Bash
3 5 (2.67%) PowerShell
4 3 (1.60%) Perl
5 1 (0.53%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 65 (34.76%) Security Cleared
2 57 (30.48%) Cisco Certification
3 44 (23.53%) CCNP
4 39 (20.86%) SC Cleared
5 27 (14.44%) CCIE
6 24 (12.83%) DV Cleared
7 20 (10.70%) Degree
8 17 (9.09%) CCNA
9 12 (6.42%) CISSP
9 12 (6.42%) JNCIS
10 10 (5.35%) JNCIE
11 7 (3.74%) AWS Certification
12 6 (3.21%) Azure Certification
12 6 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (3.21%) JNCIP
13 4 (2.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (2.14%) CCSP
14 3 (1.60%) CCIE Security
15 2 (1.07%) RIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.35%) GDPR
1 10 (5.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (3.74%) NIST
2 7 (3.74%) PCI DSS
3 3 (1.60%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 2 (1.07%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.53%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.53%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.53%) DO-160
5 1 (0.53%) GRC
5 1 (0.53%) NCSC
5 1 (0.53%) QA
5 1 (0.53%) SLA
System Software
1 8 (4.28%) VMware Infrastructure
1 8 (4.28%) VMware NSX
2 6 (3.21%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.60%) Firmware
3 3 (1.60%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (1.07%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.07%) KVM
5 1 (0.53%) RHEV
5 1 (0.53%) Xen
Systems Management
1 22 (11.76%) Ansible
2 20 (10.70%) FortiGate
3 10 (5.35%) Terraform
4 5 (2.67%) Nagios
5 2 (1.07%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (0.53%) Dell DRAC
6 1 (0.53%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.53%) Grafana
6 1 (0.53%) Host Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.53%) Iperf
6 1 (0.53%) Nmap
6 1 (0.53%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.53%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.53%) SCCM
6 1 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 85 (45.45%) Cisco
2 47 (25.13%) Palo Alto
3 37 (19.79%) Juniper
4 25 (13.37%) Microsoft
5 23 (12.30%) Fortinet
6 22 (11.76%) F5
6 22 (11.76%) Meraki
7 14 (7.49%) Nokia
8 13 (6.95%) CheckPoint
9 12 (6.42%) SolarWinds
9 12 (6.42%) VMware
10 9 (4.81%) Aruba
10 9 (4.81%) Ericsson
11 8 (4.28%) Actix
12 7 (3.74%) Arista
13 3 (1.60%) LogicMonitor
13 3 (1.60%) Rockwell
14 2 (1.07%) SevOne
14 2 (1.07%) Virgin Media
14 2 (1.07%) Zscaler