Network Design Job Trends

Network Design
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Network Design skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 557 436 522
Rank change year-on-year -121 +86 +144
Permanent jobs citing Network Design 134 220 334
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.51% 0.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.23% 0.55% 0.45%
Number of salaries quoted 79 169 245
10th Percentile £51,250 £47,500 £33,750
25th Percentile £55,250 £52,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £61,644 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.56% +2.74% +18.01%
75th Percentile £75,900 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £91,500 £95,000 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £56,121 £55,000
% change year-on-year +15.82% +2.04% +11.11%

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 permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 58,222 40,192 73,990
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 77.86% 93.47% 87.20%
Number of salaries quoted 35,232 22,295 56,140
10th Percentile £29,750 £31,750 £29,035
25th Percentile £40,000 £44,188 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.41%
75th Percentile £77,424 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £93,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

Network Design
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Network Design relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Network Design job vacancy trend in the UK

Network Design
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Design.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Design

Network Design
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Network Design over the 6 months to 17 March 2026.

Salary histogram for Network Design in the UK

Network Design
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Network Design within the UK over the 6 months to 17 March 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -93 127 £70,000 +13.56% 45
UK excluding London -93 86 £65,000 +15.82% 32
London -9 40 £70,000 -15.15% 15
Work from Home +4 39 £75,000 +33.64% 13
South East -33 34 £72,000 +30.91% 9
Midlands -39 20 £55,000 +4.76% 2
West Midlands -15 16 £55,000 +4.76% 2
North of England -34 16 £65,000 +23.81% 13
North West -15 10 £63,500 +20.95% 11
East of England -11 9 £75,000 +21.95% 7
South West -43 5 - - 2
Scotland -25 4 £72,500 -23.68% 1
East Midlands -29 4 £53,000 -3.64%
Yorkshire -38 4 £65,000 -2.26% 2
North East -22 2 £71,250 -6.25%
Wales -15 1 £52,500 +5.53%

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 9 (6.72%) SharePoint
2 4 (2.99%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.75%) Confluence
Applications
1 8 (5.97%) CATIA
2 4 (2.99%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (1.49%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 21 (15.67%) Azure
2 11 (8.21%) Microsoft 365
3 9 (6.72%) AWS
4 5 (3.73%) Entra ID
5 3 (2.24%) Azure AKS
5 3 (2.24%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 3 (2.24%) Datadog
5 3 (2.24%) Power Platform
6 2 (1.49%) AWS Direct Connect
6 2 (1.49%) Azure API Management
6 2 (1.49%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (1.49%) GCP
6 2 (1.49%) Nutanix
6 2 (1.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 1 (0.75%) dbt
7 1 (0.75%) IaaS
7 1 (0.75%) PaaS
7 1 (0.75%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 54 (40.30%) Firewall
2 48 (35.82%) WAN
3 32 (23.88%) LAN
4 29 (21.64%) BGP
5 28 (20.90%) VPN
6 26 (19.40%) Network Security
7 25 (18.66%) Wireless
8 22 (16.42%) MPLS
9 19 (14.18%) SD-WAN
10 17 (12.69%) Ethernet VPN
11 13 (9.70%) Cisco IOS
12 12 (8.96%) Broadband
12 12 (8.96%) OSPF
13 11 (8.21%) 4G
13 11 (8.21%) IOS XR
14 10 (7.46%) Cisco ISE
14 10 (7.46%) VLAN
14 10 (7.46%) Wi-Fi
15 9 (6.72%) Cisco Wireless
16 7 (5.22%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.24%) Power BI
2 2 (1.49%) Big Data
3 1 (0.75%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 11 (8.21%) Git
2 10 (7.46%) JIRA
3 8 (5.97%) Rational DOORS
4 2 (1.49%) Snyk
5 1 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 34 (25.37%) Social Skills
2 23 (17.16%) Finance
3 17 (12.69%) Telecoms
4 14 (10.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 7 (5.22%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (4.48%) Marketing
7 5 (3.73%) Manufacturing
7 5 (3.73%) Public Sector
8 4 (2.99%) Banking
9 2 (1.49%) Advertising
9 2 (1.49%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.49%) Law
9 2 (1.49%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (1.49%) Retail
10 1 (0.75%) Fire and Rescue
10 1 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 46 (34.33%) Network Engineer
2 30 (22.39%) Architect
3 20 (14.93%) Senior
4 13 (9.70%) Senior Network Engineer
5 12 (8.96%) Lead
5 12 (8.96%) Network Manager
6 9 (6.72%) Consultant
6 9 (6.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 9 (6.72%) Network Architect
6 9 (6.72%) Systems Engineer
7 8 (5.97%) Associate Engineer
7 8 (5.97%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
8 7 (5.22%) Principal Engineer
9 6 (4.48%) Lead Architect
9 6 (4.48%) Network Consultant
9 6 (4.48%) Principal Systems Engineer
10 5 (3.73%) Cisco Architect
10 5 (3.73%) Cisco Network Architect
10 5 (3.73%) Network Design Architect
10 5 (3.73%) Wireless Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (8.21%) Jinja
1 11 (8.21%) NETCONF
1 11 (8.21%) YANG
2 2 (1.49%) OAuth
2 2 (1.49%) OAuth2
3 1 (0.75%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 22 (16.42%) Data Centre
2 11 (8.21%) Social Media
3 10 (7.46%) PKI
4 8 (5.97%) Security Posture
5 6 (4.48%) Acoustics
5 6 (4.48%) Augmented Reality
6 4 (2.99%) CMDB
6 4 (2.99%) Management Information System
6 4 (2.99%) Public Cloud
6 4 (2.99%) SCADA
6 4 (2.99%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (2.24%) Cloud Native
7 3 (2.24%) Operational Technology
8 2 (1.49%) CCTV
8 2 (1.49%) Cloud Security Posture
8 2 (1.49%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (1.49%) Product Ownership
8 2 (1.49%) Renewable Energy
8 2 (1.49%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 22 (16.42%) Windows
2 16 (11.94%) Windows Server
3 4 (2.99%) Linux
4 1 (0.75%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (20.15%) Technical Leadership
2 26 (19.40%) Agile
3 16 (11.94%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 14 (10.45%) Problem-Solving
5 13 (9.70%) High Availability
5 13 (9.70%) Mentoring
5 13 (9.70%) Migration
6 12 (8.96%) Project Delivery
7 11 (8.21%) Data Science
7 11 (8.21%) Requirements Gathering
7 11 (8.21%) Roadmaps
7 11 (8.21%) Site Reliability Engineering
8 10 (7.46%) ITIL
8 10 (7.46%) Requirements Management
8 10 (7.46%) Software Engineering
8 10 (7.46%) Systems Engineering
9 9 (6.72%) Continuous Improvement
9 9 (6.72%) Disaster Recovery
9 9 (6.72%) Network Architecture
9 9 (6.72%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 16 (11.94%) Python
2 2 (1.49%) C
2 2 (1.49%) C#
2 2 (1.49%) C++
2 2 (1.49%) Ladder Logic
2 2 (1.49%) VB
2 2 (1.49%) VBA
3 1 (0.75%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 42 (31.34%) Cisco Certification
2 33 (24.63%) Security Cleared
3 28 (20.90%) CCNP
4 23 (17.16%) SC Cleared
5 21 (15.67%) DV Cleared
6 12 (8.96%) CCNA
6 12 (8.96%) Degree
7 11 (8.21%) CCIE
8 9 (6.72%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (5.22%) Azure Certification
9 7 (5.22%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (3.73%) JNCIS
11 4 (2.99%) AWS Certification
11 4 (2.99%) JNCIP
12 3 (2.24%) CCSE
12 3 (2.24%) CISSP
12 3 (2.24%) CWNA
12 3 (2.24%) RIBA
13 2 (1.49%) HND
13 2 (1.49%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (5.97%) ISO/IEC 12207
1 8 (5.97%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 7 (5.22%) NIST
3 4 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (2.24%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.49%) GRC
5 2 (1.49%) NIST 800
System Software
1 9 (6.72%) VMware NSX
2 7 (5.22%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.49%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.75%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 9 (6.72%) vRealize
2 7 (5.22%) Endace
3 5 (3.73%) FortiGate
4 4 (2.99%) Ansible
5 3 (2.24%) Kubernetes
5 3 (2.24%) Nagios
6 1 (0.75%) CA Spectrum
6 1 (0.75%) Terraform
Vendors
1 69 (51.49%) Cisco
2 23 (17.16%) Fortinet
3 21 (15.67%) Juniper
4 17 (12.69%) F5
5 16 (11.94%) Palo Alto
6 15 (11.19%) VMware
7 14 (10.45%) Meraki
8 10 (7.46%) Arista
8 10 (7.46%) Microsoft
9 8 (5.97%) CheckPoint
9 8 (5.97%) IBM
10 6 (4.48%) SolarWinds
11 4 (2.99%) Aruba
11 4 (2.99%) Zscaler
12 3 (2.24%) ForeScout
12 3 (2.24%) Infoblox
12 3 (2.24%) SevOne
12 3 (2.24%) Splunk
13 2 (1.49%) Checkmarx
13 2 (1.49%) Salesforce