Software-Defined Networking Job Trends

Software-Defined Networking
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Software-Defined Networking skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 676 629 825
Rank change year-on-year -47 +196 +39
Permanent jobs citing Software-Defined Networking 27 11 51
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.031% 0.026% 0.054%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.26% 0.19% 0.39%
Number of salaries quoted 13 7 45
10th Percentile £28,500 £43,400 £39,000
25th Percentile £42,500 £62,500 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £90,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -44.44% +71.43% -34.38%
75th Percentile £82,500 £107,500 £71,725
90th Percentile £89,050 £110,000 £85,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £65,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -23.08% +23.81% -2.33%

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 permanent job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 10,440 5,651 12,979
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 11.90% 13.51% 13.74%
Number of salaries quoted 4,085 3,779 9,500
10th Percentile £27,000 £27,500 £26,250
25th Percentile £30,000 £35,000 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £44,927 £50,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.15% +5.26% -6.86%
75th Percentile £66,500 £68,750 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £87,500 £77,715
UK excluding London median annual salary £39,500 £45,000 £43,500
% change year-on-year -12.22% +3.45% -3.33%

Software-Defined Networking
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Software-Defined Networking job vacancy trend in the UK

Software-Defined Networking
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Software-Defined Networking.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Software-Defined Networking

Software-Defined Networking
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Software-Defined Networking over the 6 months to 21 April 2026.

Salary histogram for Software-Defined Networking in the UK

Software-Defined Networking
Top 11 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Software-Defined Networking within the UK over the 6 months to 21 April 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 -47 25 £50,000 -44.44% 19
London +3 16 £29,000 -73.64% 4
UK excluding London -67 11 £50,000 -23.08% 13
North of England - 5 £50,000 - 3
Yorkshire - 5 £50,000 - 2
Work from Home -1 2 - - 5
Scotland -20 2 £79,500 -
South West - 2 - - 5
West Midlands -26 1 £100,000 +11.11% 1
Midlands -32 1 £100,000 +11.11% 1
South East -44 1 £80,000 - 4

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 5 (18.52%) Apache
2 3 (11.11%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 15 (55.56%) AWS
2 12 (44.44%) Azure
2 12 (44.44%) GCP
3 5 (18.52%) AWS CloudFormation
4 3 (11.11%) OCI
5 2 (7.41%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 17 (62.96%) Firewall
2 14 (51.85%) LAN
2 14 (51.85%) WAN
3 13 (48.15%) VPN
4 11 (40.74%) Wireless
5 8 (29.63%) Network Security
6 7 (25.93%) BGP
6 7 (25.93%) SD-WAN
6 7 (25.93%) VoIP
7 6 (22.22%) MPLS
8 5 (18.52%) DHCP
8 5 (18.52%) DNS
9 4 (14.81%) Asterisk PBX
9 4 (14.81%) Cisco Nexus
9 4 (14.81%) VPLS
10 3 (11.11%) IPv4
10 3 (11.11%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (11.11%) WLAN
11 2 (7.41%) Cisco Firepower
11 2 (7.41%) VXLAN
Development Applications
1 8 (29.63%) Git
2 7 (25.93%) GitLab
3 5 (18.52%) JIRA
4 4 (14.81%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (11.11%) Bitbucket
5 3 (11.11%) Jenkins
General
1 16 (59.26%) Social Skills
2 6 (22.22%) Aerospace
3 3 (11.11%) Automotive
3 3 (11.11%) Electronics
3 3 (11.11%) Manufacturing
4 2 (7.41%) Banking
4 2 (7.41%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 6 (22.22%) Network Engineer
2 5 (18.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 4 (14.81%) IT Engineer
3 4 (14.81%) IT Support
3 4 (14.81%) IT Support Engineer
3 4 (14.81%) Support Engineer
4 3 (11.11%) Architect
4 3 (11.11%) DevSecOps Engineer
4 3 (11.11%) Lead
4 3 (11.11%) Network Architect
4 3 (11.11%) Network Support
4 3 (11.11%) Network Support Technician
4 3 (11.11%) Network Technician
4 3 (11.11%) Principal Architect
4 3 (11.11%) Support Technician
5 2 (7.41%) Cisco Consultant
5 2 (7.41%) Cisco Network Consultant
5 2 (7.41%) Consultant
5 2 (7.41%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
5 2 (7.41%) Network Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (14.81%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 10 (37.04%) Data Centre
2 4 (14.81%) PKI
2 4 (14.81%) Public Cloud
3 3 (11.11%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (11.11%) Renewable Energy
4 2 (7.41%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (7.41%) Product Ownership
5 1 (3.70%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 13 (48.15%) Linux
2 12 (44.44%) Windows
3 5 (18.52%) Ubuntu
3 5 (18.52%) VMS
4 3 (11.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (55.56%) Agile
2 11 (40.74%) Infrastructure as Code
3 10 (37.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 9 (33.33%) Security Patching
5 8 (29.63%) Containerisation
5 8 (29.63%) DevSecOps
5 8 (29.63%) Scrum
5 8 (29.63%) Zero Trust
6 6 (22.22%) Customer Requirements
6 6 (22.22%) Network Monitoring
6 6 (22.22%) Observability
6 6 (22.22%) Root Cause Analysis
6 6 (22.22%) Service Delivery
7 5 (18.52%) CI/CD
7 5 (18.52%) Collaborative Culture
7 5 (18.52%) ITIL
7 5 (18.52%) Platform Engineering
7 5 (18.52%) Proactive Monitoring
7 5 (18.52%) Problem-Solving
7 5 (18.52%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 13 (48.15%) Python
2 9 (33.33%) PowerShell
3 3 (11.11%) Bash
3 3 (11.11%) Java
Qualifications
1 19 (70.37%) Security Cleared
2 16 (59.26%) Cisco Certification
3 12 (44.44%) DV Cleared
4 9 (33.33%) CCNP
5 7 (25.93%) CCNA
6 6 (22.22%) AWS Certification
7 5 (18.52%) CCIE
8 4 (14.81%) SC Cleared
9 3 (11.11%) Azure Certification
9 3 (11.11%) CCIE Security
9 3 (11.11%) CCSA
9 3 (11.11%) CCSE
9 3 (11.11%) DBS Check
9 3 (11.11%) ISTQB
9 3 (11.11%) JNCIE
9 3 (11.11%) JNCIP
9 3 (11.11%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (11.11%) OSCP
9 3 (11.11%) RHCE
9 3 (11.11%) RHCSA
System Software
1 12 (44.44%) Active Directory
2 9 (33.33%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (33.33%) VMware NSX
3 8 (29.63%) Docker
4 7 (25.93%) vSphere
5 4 (14.81%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (11.11%) KVM
6 3 (11.11%) Squid
Systems Management
1 22 (81.48%) Ansible
2 16 (59.26%) Terraform
3 8 (29.63%) Kubernetes
4 7 (25.93%) Grafana
4 7 (25.93%) Prometheus
5 5 (18.52%) Argo
5 5 (18.52%) Docker Swarm
5 5 (18.52%) Istio
5 5 (18.52%) linkerd
5 5 (18.52%) Mesos
6 4 (14.81%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (14.81%) WSUS
7 3 (11.11%) Packer
7 3 (11.11%) ZABBIX
8 2 (7.41%) vRealize
Vendors
1 11 (40.74%) Cisco
2 9 (33.33%) Splunk
2 9 (33.33%) VMware
3 6 (22.22%) CheckPoint
4 5 (18.52%) Fortinet
5 3 (11.11%) F5
5 3 (11.11%) Microsoft
5 3 (11.11%) Oracle
5 3 (11.11%) Palo Alto
5 3 (11.11%) Red Hat
5 3 (11.11%) Zscaler
6 2 (7.41%) AlgoSec
6 2 (7.41%) ServiceNow
6 2 (7.41%) SolarWinds
7 1 (3.70%) Google
7 1 (3.70%) Infoblox