Software-Defined Networking Contract Job Trends

Software-Defined Networking
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Software-Defined Networking skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 590 482 563
Rank change year-on-year -108 +81 +104
Contract jobs citing Software-Defined Networking 35 37 19
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.073% 0.13% 0.044%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.77% 0.99% 0.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 22 11
10th Percentile - £466 £381
25th Percentile £500 £535 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £600 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +14.29% -17.00%
75th Percentile £600 £730 £600
90th Percentile £700 £775 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £540 £600
% change year-on-year +20.37% -10.00% +0.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Median hourly rate £72.54 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.54 - -

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

Software-Defined Networking falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 4,555 3,752 5,473
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.57% 12.76% 12.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,821 2,310 3,274
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £489 £495
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -1.26% -4.44%
75th Percentile £588 £598 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £466 £475
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 169 418
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.13 £16.44
Median hourly rate £41.24 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.89% -18.75% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.91 £58.69 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.11 £24.66 £46.14
% change year-on-year +95.09% -46.55% +149.85%

Software-Defined Networking
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software-Defined Networking relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Software-Defined Networking job vacancy trend in the UK

Software-Defined Networking
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Software-Defined Networking.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Software-Defined Networking

Software-Defined Networking
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software-Defined Networking over the 6 months to 11 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software-Defined Networking in the UK

Software-Defined Networking
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Software-Defined Networking.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Software-Defined Networking

Software-Defined Networking
Top 12 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software-Defined Networking within the UK over the 6 months to 11 May 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 -127 19 £600 +2.35% 21
Work from Home -29 14 £532 +12.00% 7
London -54 14 £588 -17.25% 9
UK excluding London -95 9 £650 +20.37% 11
Scotland +5 2 £825 -
South East -59 2 £713 +18.75% 2
Wales - 2 £425 -
South West -35 1 - - 4
West Midlands -60 1 - - 2
Midlands -65 1 - - 2
North of England -72 1 - - 3
Yorkshire - 1 - - 2

Software-Defined Networking
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 1 (2.86%) JBoss
1 1 (2.86%) WebSphere
Cloud Services
1 13 (37.14%) Azure
2 7 (20.00%) Azure Stack
3 3 (8.57%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 13 (37.14%) OSPF
2 12 (34.29%) BGP
3 7 (20.00%) Firewall
4 5 (14.29%) Ethernet VPN
4 5 (14.29%) LAN
4 5 (14.29%) Network Security
4 5 (14.29%) VXLAN
4 5 (14.29%) WAN
5 3 (8.57%) MPLS
6 2 (5.71%) DHCP
6 2 (5.71%) DNS
6 2 (5.71%) Intrusion Detection
6 2 (5.71%) TCP/IP
6 2 (5.71%) Wireless
7 1 (2.86%) EIGRP
7 1 (2.86%) ICMP
7 1 (2.86%) Internet
7 1 (2.86%) L2TP
7 1 (2.86%) VLAN
7 1 (2.86%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (2.86%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (2.86%) Jaeger
General
1 8 (22.86%) Social Skills
2 3 (8.57%) Telecoms
3 2 (5.71%) Finance
4 1 (2.86%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (2.86%) Banking
4 1 (2.86%) Games
4 1 (2.86%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 11 (31.43%) Network Engineer
2 10 (28.57%) Consultant
2 10 (28.57%) VMware Consultant
3 7 (20.00%) Senior
4 6 (17.14%) Azure Consultant
4 6 (17.14%) Azure Engineer
4 6 (17.14%) Hyper-V Consultant
4 6 (17.14%) PowerShell Consultant
5 5 (14.29%) Data Network Engineer
5 5 (14.29%) Senior Network Engineer
6 4 (11.43%) Architect
6 4 (11.43%) Cloud Engineer
6 4 (11.43%) Data Centre Engineer
7 3 (8.57%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
7 3 (8.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 2 (5.71%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
8 2 (5.71%) Senior Consultant
8 2 (5.71%) Senior VMware Consultant
8 2 (5.71%) Solutions Architect
9 1 (2.86%) Network Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (8.57%) REST
2 1 (2.86%) 802.1X
2 1 (2.86%) Loki
2 1 (2.86%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 7 (20.00%) Hybrid Cloud
2 5 (14.29%) Data Centre
3 4 (11.43%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (8.57%) Cloud Native
5 2 (5.71%) Management Information System
6 1 (2.86%) Media Streaming
6 1 (2.86%) Online Games
6 1 (2.86%) Operational Technology
6 1 (2.86%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 3 (8.57%) Linux
2 1 (2.86%) Unix
2 1 (2.86%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (37.14%) Infrastructure as Code
2 7 (20.00%) RBAC
3 6 (17.14%) High Availability
3 6 (17.14%) Technical Leadership
4 5 (14.29%) Cloud Security
4 5 (14.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 5 (14.29%) Low Latency
4 5 (14.29%) Network Virtualisation
4 5 (14.29%) Performance Tuning
4 5 (14.29%) Validation
5 4 (11.43%) AI
5 4 (11.43%) Capacity Planning
5 4 (11.43%) Computer Science
5 4 (11.43%) Deployment Automation
5 4 (11.43%) Identity Access Management
5 4 (11.43%) Migration
5 4 (11.43%) Runbook
6 3 (8.57%) Agile
6 3 (8.57%) DevOps
6 3 (8.57%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 15 (42.86%) Python
2 13 (37.14%) PowerShell
3 6 (17.14%) JavaScript
4 4 (11.43%) Bicep
5 1 (2.86%) Go
5 1 (2.86%) Java
Qualifications
1 20 (57.14%) SC Cleared
1 20 (57.14%) Security Cleared
2 6 (17.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
3 5 (14.29%) Degree
4 4 (11.43%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (8.57%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (5.71%) CCNP
6 2 (5.71%) DV Cleared
7 1 (2.86%) CCIE
7 1 (2.86%) CCNA
7 1 (2.86%) CCSM
7 1 (2.86%) VCDX
System Software
1 14 (40.00%) Hyper-V
2 7 (20.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (20.00%) VMware NSX
3 1 (2.86%) KVM
Systems Management
1 12 (34.29%) Terraform
2 8 (22.86%) Ansible
2 8 (22.86%) vRealize
3 6 (17.14%) Failover Clustering
4 2 (5.71%) FortiGate
5 1 (2.86%) Grafana
5 1 (2.86%) Kubernetes
5 1 (2.86%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 13 (37.14%) VMware
2 5 (14.29%) Cisco
2 5 (14.29%) Microsoft
3 3 (8.57%) Google
3 3 (8.57%) Nokia
4 2 (5.71%) CheckPoint
4 2 (5.71%) F5
4 2 (5.71%) Fortinet
4 2 (5.71%) Juniper
4 2 (5.71%) Palo Alto
5 1 (2.86%) Citrix
5 1 (2.86%) Dell
5 1 (2.86%) IBM
5 1 (2.86%) Meraki
5 1 (2.86%) Oracle
5 1 (2.86%) Splunk