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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 489 377 334
Rank change year-on-year -112 -43 +14
Contract jobs citing Network Design 219 181 246
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.40% 0.55% 0.65%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.47% 0.60% 0.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 140 125 137
10th Percentile £363 £389 £408
25th Percentile £425 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% -8.70%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £650 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -9.09%
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 46,356 30,019 32,670
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.58% 85.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,940 18,640 19,751
10th Percentile £325 £300 £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 £632 £625 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,287 1,869 1,348
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.17 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.27
Median % change year-on-year +53.96% -40.49% -0.55%
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.02 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.86% -48.10% +1.18%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -105 177 £513 +7.89% 222
UK excluding London -105 126 £500 +5.26% 122
Work from Home -54 71 £500 -4.76% 79
London -72 53 £500 +11.11% 106
South East -61 38 £553 +10.50% 41
North of England -66 31 £575 +21.05% 27
North West -46 24 £575 +21.05% 15
Midlands -50 22 £450 +5.88% 17
West Midlands -42 21 £450 +5.88% 10
Scotland -18 16 £375 -17.13% 9
South West -43 11 £535 -16.41% 20
North East -39 7 £650 +18.18% 2
East of England -22 6 £500 +21.21% 6
Yorkshire -33 6 £519 -9.74% 11
Wales - 5 £575 -
East Midlands - 1 - - 7

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 10 (4.57%) OpenStack
2 4 (1.83%) Apache
2 4 (1.83%) ArcGIS
2 4 (1.83%) Confluence
3 3 (1.37%) CloudStack
4 1 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.46%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.46%) nginx
Applications
1 10 (4.57%) MS Visio
2 8 (3.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (3.20%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
5 3 (1.37%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.46%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 1 (0.46%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 63 (28.77%) Azure
2 60 (27.40%) AWS
3 15 (6.85%) OCI
4 12 (5.48%) GCP
5 10 (4.57%) Entra ID
5 10 (4.57%) GitHub
5 10 (4.57%) SaaS
6 7 (3.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 7 (3.20%) OpenShift
7 6 (2.74%) IaaS
8 5 (2.28%) Nutanix
9 4 (1.83%) Azure Sentinel
9 4 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
10 3 (1.37%) AWS Control Tower
10 3 (1.37%) AWS Direct Connect
10 3 (1.37%) Azure Storage
11 2 (0.91%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 2 (0.91%) Azure AKS
11 2 (0.91%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.91%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 102 (46.58%) Firewall
2 70 (31.96%) BGP
3 60 (27.40%) WAN
4 52 (23.74%) OSPF
5 45 (20.55%) Network Security
5 45 (20.55%) VLAN
6 39 (17.81%) LAN
7 35 (15.98%) VPN
8 31 (14.16%) SD-WAN
9 30 (13.70%) VXLAN
10 26 (11.87%) Ethernet VPN
10 26 (11.87%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (11.42%) MPLS
12 21 (9.59%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 20 (9.13%) Wireless
14 19 (8.68%) 4G
14 19 (8.68%) 5G
14 19 (8.68%) WLAN
15 18 (8.22%) BIG-IP
15 18 (8.22%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.83%) GIS
2 3 (1.37%) Metadata
3 1 (0.46%) Big Data
3 1 (0.46%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (0.46%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 14 (6.39%) GitLab
2 4 (1.83%) JIRA
3 3 (1.37%) Git
3 3 (1.37%) Jenkins
General
1 54 (24.66%) Social Skills
2 32 (14.61%) Telecoms
3 29 (13.24%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (8.22%) Public Sector
5 16 (7.31%) Manufacturing
6 11 (5.02%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (4.57%) Legal
8 7 (3.20%) Automotive
9 6 (2.74%) Finance
9 6 (2.74%) Retail
10 3 (1.37%) Agriculture
10 3 (1.37%) Billing
10 3 (1.37%) Cyber-Physical System
10 3 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.91%) Local Government
11 2 (0.91%) Military
12 1 (0.46%) Banking
12 1 (0.46%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.46%) Polish Language
12 1 (0.46%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 80 (36.53%) Network Engineer
2 49 (22.37%) Senior
3 47 (21.46%) Architect
4 25 (11.42%) Network Architect
5 24 (10.96%) Senior Network Engineer
6 21 (9.59%) Network Specialist
7 17 (7.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 16 (7.31%) Consultant
9 15 (6.85%) Design Engineer
10 13 (5.94%) Security Architect
10 13 (5.94%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 12 (5.48%) Network Consultant
12 11 (5.02%) Designer
12 11 (5.02%) Network Design Engineer
12 11 (5.02%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
12 11 (5.02%) Senior Network Specialist
13 10 (4.57%) Network Design Specialist
14 8 (3.65%) RAN Engineer
14 8 (3.65%) Security Engineer
14 8 (3.65%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (20.55%) Terraform
2 9 (4.11%) NETCONF
2 9 (4.11%) YANG
3 7 (3.20%) 802.1X
3 7 (3.20%) REST
4 4 (1.83%) Azure Blueprints
4 4 (1.83%) Kafka
4 4 (1.83%) OpenConfig
4 4 (1.83%) RESTCONF
5 3 (1.37%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (0.91%) YAML
7 1 (0.46%) eBPF
7 1 (0.46%) JSON
7 1 (0.46%) Spark Streaming
Miscellaneous
1 66 (30.14%) Data Centre
2 42 (19.18%) Hybrid Cloud
3 25 (11.42%) Cloud Native
4 14 (6.39%) Operational Technology
5 12 (5.48%) Management Information System
6 9 (4.11%) IoT
7 8 (3.65%) Public Cloud
8 7 (3.20%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (3.20%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (3.20%) Private Cloud
9 6 (2.74%) Security Posture
10 5 (2.28%) CMDB
10 5 (2.28%) PKI
11 4 (1.83%) Data Fabric
11 4 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (1.83%) Handset
11 4 (1.83%) SCADA
12 3 (1.37%) Onboarding
12 3 (1.37%) Product Ownership
13 2 (0.91%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 17 (7.76%) Linux
2 15 (6.85%) Windows
3 8 (3.65%) Ubuntu
3 8 (3.65%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.83%) Alpine Linux
4 4 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.91%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (21.92%) Stakeholder Management
2 43 (19.63%) Zero Trust
3 42 (19.18%) Migration
4 37 (16.89%) Infrastructure as Code
4 37 (16.89%) Problem-Solving
5 36 (16.44%) Project Delivery
6 35 (15.98%) Network Architecture
6 35 (15.98%) Validation
7 33 (15.07%) High Availability
8 31 (14.16%) DevOps
9 30 (13.70%) Roadmaps
10 28 (12.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 26 (11.87%) Load Balancing
11 26 (11.87%) Technical Leadership
12 25 (11.42%) Cybersecurity
13 24 (10.96%) CI/CD
14 22 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 17 (7.76%) Continuous Improvement
16 16 (7.31%) Mentoring
16 16 (7.31%) Network Segmentation
Programming Languages
1 44 (20.09%) Python
2 7 (3.20%) Bicep
2 7 (3.20%) PowerShell
3 4 (1.83%) Bash
4 2 (0.91%) JavaScript
5 1 (0.46%) ActionScript
5 1 (0.46%) C#
5 1 (0.46%) Java
5 1 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
5 1 (0.46%) SQL
Qualifications
1 66 (30.14%) Security Cleared
2 54 (24.66%) Cisco Certification
3 45 (20.55%) SC Cleared
4 40 (18.26%) CCNP
5 16 (7.31%) CCIE
5 16 (7.31%) DV Cleared
6 14 (6.39%) CCNA
6 14 (6.39%) Degree
7 10 (4.57%) AWS Certification
7 10 (4.57%) JNCIE
8 8 (3.65%) CISSP
9 7 (3.20%) Azure Certification
10 6 (2.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 5 (2.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (1.83%) CISM
13 3 (1.37%) CCSE
14 2 (0.91%) CCSA
14 2 (0.91%) GIAC
14 2 (0.91%) ISSAP
14 2 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (7.31%) NIST
2 14 (6.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (2.28%) Cyber Essentials
3 5 (2.28%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.83%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 4 (1.83%) SOC 2
5 3 (1.37%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (1.37%) GxP
5 3 (1.37%) NIST 800
5 3 (1.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 2 (0.91%) Def Stans
6 2 (0.91%) GDPR
6 2 (0.91%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.91%) NCSC
6 2 (0.91%) QA
7 1 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.46%) GLBA
7 1 (0.46%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.46%) SLA
System Software
1 17 (7.76%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (4.57%) Active Directory
3 9 (4.11%) Hyper-V
3 9 (4.11%) vSphere
4 7 (3.20%) VMware NSX
5 5 (2.28%) Firmware
6 4 (1.83%) FreeRADIUS
7 3 (1.37%) Docker
7 3 (1.37%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.91%) EMC RecoverPoint
8 2 (0.91%) NFS
8 2 (0.91%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 45 (20.55%) Ansible
2 12 (5.48%) Kubernetes
3 10 (4.57%) Grafana
3 10 (4.57%) Prometheus
4 8 (3.65%) FortiGate
5 3 (1.37%) Check_MK
5 3 (1.37%) Cisco Prime
5 3 (1.37%) SolarWinds Orion
5 3 (1.37%) vCenter Server
6 2 (0.91%) Argo
6 2 (0.91%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (0.91%) EMC VPLEX
6 2 (0.91%) NetBackup
6 2 (0.91%) SnapMirror
6 2 (0.91%) SnapVault
7 1 (0.46%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.46%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.46%) QRadar
7 1 (0.46%) Suricata
7 1 (0.46%) vRealize
Vendors
1 92 (42.01%) Cisco
2 55 (25.11%) Palo Alto
3 46 (21.00%) Fortinet
4 38 (17.35%) F5
5 26 (11.87%) Microsoft
6 24 (10.96%) Arista
7 23 (10.50%) Aruba
8 22 (10.05%) VMware
9 21 (9.59%) Juniper
10 18 (8.22%) Nokia
11 14 (6.39%) CheckPoint
11 14 (6.39%) Ericsson
11 14 (6.39%) Zscaler
12 10 (4.57%) Meraki
13 9 (4.11%) Splunk
14 6 (2.74%) Google
14 6 (2.74%) ServiceNow
14 6 (2.74%) SolarWinds
15 5 (2.28%) EMC
15 5 (2.28%) Huawei