NLBS Contract Job Trends

Microsoft Network Load Balancing Services (NLBS)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring NLBS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 579 - -
Rank change year-on-year - - -
Contract jobs citing NLBS 1 0 0
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.003% - -
As % of the System Software category 0.022% - -
Number of daily rates quoted 1 0 0
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 - -
UK excluding London median daily rate - - -

All System Software Skills
UK

NLBS falls under the System Software category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring system software skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for system software skills 4,544 3,803 5,221
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.18% 11.95% 12.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,097 2,452 3,580
10th Percentile £213 £204 £190
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.20% +0.20% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £700 £713 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £460 £450
% change year-on-year +3.26% +2.22% -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 92 217
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.04 £14.76
25th Percentile £20.82 £21.20 £19.12
Median hourly rate £42.69 £27.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +55.22% -50.00% +61.76%
75th Percentile £74.26 £62.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £91.20 £75.00 £84.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £35.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +64.29% -36.36% +175.00%

NLBS
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing NLBS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

NLBS job vacancy trend in the UK

NLBS
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing NLBS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing NLBS

NLBS
Top 2 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NLBS within the UK over the 6 months to 17 January 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
London - 1 £400 -
England - 1 £400 -

NLBS
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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (100.00%) AWS
1 1 (100.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
General
1 1 (100.00%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 1 (100.00%) DevOps Engineer
Operating Systems
1 1 (100.00%) Linux
1 1 (100.00%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1 (100.00%) Cloud Security
1 1 (100.00%) DevOps
1 1 (100.00%) Incident Management
1 1 (100.00%) Key Management
1 1 (100.00%) RBAC
1 1 (100.00%) Runbook
1 1 (100.00%) Stakeholder Management
Qualifications
1 1 (100.00%) SC Cleared
1 1 (100.00%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 1 (100.00%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 1 (100.00%) Opsview