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 26 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 386 326 318
Rank change year-on-year -60 -8 +171
Contract jobs citing Network Design 201 237 296
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.54% 0.70% 0.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.61% 0.80% 0.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 144 140 168
10th Percentile £400 £400 £421
25th Percentile £413 £461 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £523 £575
Median % change year-on-year -9.13% -9.09% +21.05%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £638
90th Percentile £663 £653 £711
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -0.50% -9.09% +22.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 15
10th Percentile - £27.75 £34.42
25th Percentile - £35.63 £59.99
Median hourly rate £74.26 £50.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +48.52% -24.22% -5.74%
75th Percentile - £63.13 -
90th Percentile - £70.25 £68.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £50.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +48.52% -24.22% -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 32,744 29,791 38,561
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.06% 88.28% 88.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,623 18,168 25,704
10th Percentile £300 £308 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,071 964 1,544
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -25.29% +24.29%
75th Percentile £51.23 £62.59 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £74.31 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £31.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -25.16% -30.00% +40.63%

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 26 December 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 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 26 December 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 -71 183 £475 -8.65% 39
UK excluding London -66 114 £498 -0.50% 40
London -1 79 £460 -12.38% 10
Work from Home -32 42 £520 +4.00% 19
South East -22 34 £500 -1.23% 12
West Midlands -8 30 £400 -23.15%
Midlands -25 30 £400 -25.27% 2
North of England -77 21 £537 +7.40% 5
North West -21 19 £525 +10.53% 5
South West -26 11 £450 -13.88% 11
Scotland - 11 £453 - 3
East of England -19 6 £419 -16.25% 2
North East -8 2 £550 -
Wales -1 1 - - 5
Yorkshire -64 1 £650 +30.00%

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 (3.98%) OpenStack
Applications
1 5 (2.49%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.50%) DELMIA
2 1 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 41 (20.40%) Azure
2 33 (16.42%) AWS
3 12 (5.97%) GCP
4 7 (3.48%) PaaS
5 5 (2.49%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (1.99%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
6 4 (1.99%) IaaS
7 3 (1.49%) AWS Direct Connect
7 3 (1.49%) SaaS
7 3 (1.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.00%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.00%) OpenShift
9 1 (0.50%) Akamai
9 1 (0.50%) AWS IoT
9 1 (0.50%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.50%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 98 (48.76%) WAN
2 93 (46.27%) Firewall
3 68 (33.83%) LAN
4 48 (23.88%) VPN
5 45 (22.39%) BGP
6 41 (20.40%) Network Security
6 41 (20.40%) SD-WAN
7 40 (19.90%) MPLS
7 40 (19.90%) Wi-Fi
8 24 (11.94%) VLAN
9 21 (10.45%) Cisco Nexus
9 21 (10.45%) TCP/IP
10 20 (9.95%) Radio Access Network
11 19 (9.45%) IPsec
12 17 (8.46%) Cisco ISE
12 17 (8.46%) DNS
13 16 (7.96%) 4G
14 12 (5.97%) 3GPP
14 12 (5.97%) NetScaler
14 12 (5.97%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.49%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (2.49%) Git
2 2 (1.00%) GitLab
3 1 (0.50%) Robot Framework
3 1 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 49 (24.38%) Social Skills
2 47 (23.38%) Telecoms
3 26 (12.94%) Public Sector
4 20 (9.95%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (4.98%) Manufacturing
6 7 (3.48%) Finance
7 5 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.49%) Legal
8 4 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (1.00%) Aviation
9 2 (1.00%) Electronics
10 1 (0.50%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.50%) Law
10 1 (0.50%) Local Government
10 1 (0.50%) Marketing
10 1 (0.50%) Military
10 1 (0.50%) Police
10 1 (0.50%) Publishing
10 1 (0.50%) Retail
Job Titles
1 72 (35.82%) Network Engineer
2 68 (33.83%) Architect
3 53 (26.37%) Network Architect
4 21 (10.45%) Network Design Specialist
4 21 (10.45%) Network Specialist
5 16 (7.96%) Design Engineer
6 15 (7.46%) Network Design Architect
6 15 (7.46%) Network Design Engineer
7 14 (6.97%) Senior
8 13 (6.47%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 11 (5.47%) Performance Specialist
10 10 (4.98%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 9 (4.48%) 3rd Line Support
11 9 (4.48%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
11 9 (4.48%) Support Engineer
12 8 (3.98%) Designer
12 8 (3.98%) IP Specialist
12 8 (3.98%) Lead
12 8 (3.98%) Network Designer
12 8 (3.98%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (6.47%) 802.1X
2 10 (4.98%) YANG
3 9 (4.48%) NETCONF
4 6 (2.99%) REST
5 4 (1.99%) OpenID
5 4 (1.99%) SAML
6 2 (1.00%) eBPF
6 2 (1.00%) JSON
6 2 (1.00%) OpenConfig
6 2 (1.00%) RESTCONF
7 1 (0.50%) gRPC
7 1 (0.50%) Jinja
7 1 (0.50%) Middleware
7 1 (0.50%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 47 (23.38%) Data Centre
2 18 (8.96%) Hybrid Cloud
3 16 (7.96%) Operational Technology
4 12 (5.97%) SCADA
5 11 (5.47%) PKI
6 10 (4.98%) Cloud Native
7 8 (3.98%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (3.98%) IoT
8 5 (2.49%) Security Posture
9 4 (1.99%) Life Science
9 4 (1.99%) Management Information System
9 4 (1.99%) NB-IoT
9 4 (1.99%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.99%) Renewable Energy
9 4 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (1.49%) Distributed Architecture
11 2 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (1.00%) Fibre Optics
11 2 (1.00%) Insider Threat
11 2 (1.00%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 10 (4.98%) Windows
2 6 (2.99%) Linux
3 1 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (26.87%) Network Architecture
2 36 (17.91%) Load Balancing
3 23 (11.44%) Cybersecurity
3 23 (11.44%) Problem-Solving
4 21 (10.45%) Roadmaps
5 20 (9.95%) High Availability
6 18 (8.96%) Migration
6 18 (8.96%) Network Management
6 18 (8.96%) Stakeholder Management
7 17 (8.46%) Root Cause Analysis
8 16 (7.96%) Network Virtualisation
9 15 (7.46%) Network Segmentation
9 15 (7.46%) Zero Trust
10 13 (6.47%) Data Protection
10 13 (6.47%) DevOps
10 13 (6.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 12 (5.97%) Impact Assessments
11 12 (5.97%) ITIL
11 12 (5.97%) Network Monitoring
11 12 (5.97%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 25 (12.44%) Python
2 6 (2.99%) SQL
3 3 (1.49%) Bash
3 3 (1.49%) Perl
3 3 (1.49%) PowerShell
4 2 (1.00%) C
5 1 (0.50%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 84 (41.79%) Security Cleared
2 53 (26.37%) Cisco Certification
3 51 (25.37%) SC Cleared
4 40 (19.90%) CCNP
5 28 (13.93%) DV Cleared
6 25 (12.44%) CCIE
7 21 (10.45%) Degree
8 15 (7.46%) CCNA
8 15 (7.46%) CISSP
9 12 (5.97%) JNCIE
10 10 (4.98%) JNCIS
11 6 (2.99%) AWS Certification
11 6 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
12 5 (2.49%) Azure Certification
12 5 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
12 5 (2.49%) JNCIP
13 4 (1.99%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (1.99%) CCSP
14 3 (1.49%) CCIE Security
15 2 (1.00%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (4.98%) GDPR
2 9 (4.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (3.48%) NIST
3 7 (3.48%) PCI DSS
4 3 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.50%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.50%) DO-160
5 1 (0.50%) GRC
5 1 (0.50%) NCSC
5 1 (0.50%) QA
System Software
1 6 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (2.49%) VMware NSX
3 4 (1.99%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.49%) Firmware
4 3 (1.49%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.50%) KVM
5 1 (0.50%) RHEV
5 1 (0.50%) Xen
Systems Management
1 21 (10.45%) Ansible
2 15 (7.46%) FortiGate
3 12 (5.97%) Terraform
4 4 (1.99%) Nagios
5 2 (1.00%) Kubernetes
6 1 (0.50%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.50%) Dell DRAC
6 1 (0.50%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.50%) Grafana
6 1 (0.50%) Host Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.50%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.50%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 87 (43.28%) Cisco
2 45 (22.39%) Palo Alto
3 39 (19.40%) Juniper
4 30 (14.93%) Fortinet
5 23 (11.44%) Meraki
6 22 (10.95%) F5
7 18 (8.96%) Microsoft
8 16 (7.96%) Nokia
9 11 (5.47%) CheckPoint
9 11 (5.47%) Ericsson
10 10 (4.98%) Actix
10 10 (4.98%) SolarWinds
11 9 (4.48%) VMware
12 8 (3.98%) Aruba
13 7 (3.48%) Arista
14 3 (1.49%) LogicMonitor
14 3 (1.49%) Rockwell
14 3 (1.49%) Zscaler
15 2 (1.00%) Virgin Media
15 2 (1.00%) Wind River