Wide Area Network (WAN)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for WAN skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited WAN over the 6 months to 14 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
14 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 126 133 185
Rank change year-on-year +7 +52 -6
Contract jobs citing WAN 779 1,142 1,368
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.83% 1.98% 1.55%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.38% 15.96% 14.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 436 697 899
10th Percentile £254 £261 £219
25th Percentile £350 £350 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% +5.56% +5.88%
75th Percentile £650 £588 £550
90th Percentile £738 £650 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £430 £400
% change year-on-year +10.47% +7.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 41 56
10th Percentile £13.78 £18.50 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.86 £27.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £24.69 £60.00 £31.75
Median % change year-on-year -58.86% +88.98% +58.75%
75th Percentile £40.00 £80.25 £50.94
90th Percentile £75.24 £85.05 £60.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.87 £57.33 £22.50
% change year-on-year -56.62% +154.80% +13.92%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

WAN is in the Communications and Computer Networking category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 5,417 7,157 9,627
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.70% 12.42% 10.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,232 4,624 6,284
10th Percentile £205 £235 £231
25th Percentile £350 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £518 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.41% +3.60% +11.11%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £610
90th Percentile £694 £722 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £450
% change year-on-year - +5.56% +12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 416 470 369
10th Percentile £13.50 £9.80 £15.20
25th Percentile £16.30 £10.63 £17.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £18.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +116.22% -32.73% +1.85%
75th Percentile £63.75 £60.00 £50.77
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £65.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.88 £18.22 £21.50
% change year-on-year +151.88% -15.28% -10.42%

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing WAN as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for WAN in the UK

WAN
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing WAN.

Daily rate trend for WAN in the UK

WAN
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WAN over the 6 months to 14 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for WAN in the UK

WAN
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing WAN.

Hourly rate trend for WAN in the UK

WAN
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing WAN over the 6 months to 14 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for WAN in the UK

WAN
Top 16 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing WAN within the UK over the 6 months to 14 May 2024. 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 +16 730 £488 +5.41% 381
UK excluding London +6 510 £475 +10.47% 294
London +2 218 £500 -4.76% 112
South East +1 165 £425 -5.56% 61
Midlands +22 150 £375 +6.99% 56
Work from Home -56 147 £550 +10.00% 139
West Midlands +24 140 £375 +7.14% 41
South West +15 93 £650 +33.33% 32
North of England -26 69 £413 +10.00% 93
Yorkshire +39 37 £500 +60.00% 27
North West -40 30 £350 -17.65% 60
East of England -11 18 £525 +54.98% 30
Scotland +16 15 £550 +10.00% 17
East Midlands +1 9 £630 +93.85% 15
North East +9 2 £400 +153.97% 6
Wales -2 2 £263 -22.22% 8

WAN
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 26 (3.34%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (1.80%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.39%) Skype for Business
4 2 (0.26%) Confluence
4 2 (0.26%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.13%) Apache
5 1 (0.13%) IIS
Applications
1 38 (4.88%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (1.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.93%) MS Visio
3 8 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.13%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.13%) Dynamics NAV
2 1 (0.13%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
2 1 (0.13%) RMDS
2 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 112 (14.38%) Azure
2 67 (8.60%) AWS
3 62 (7.96%) Microsoft 365
4 40 (5.13%) Cloud Computing
4 40 (5.13%) IaaS
5 36 (4.62%) PaaS
6 34 (4.36%) SaaS
7 23 (2.95%) GCP
8 13 (1.67%) Entra ID
9 7 (0.90%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (0.77%) Cloudflare
10 6 (0.77%) OneDrive
11 5 (0.64%) GitHub
12 3 (0.39%) Google Workspace
12 3 (0.39%) iPaaS
12 3 (0.39%) Mimecast
12 3 (0.39%) Nutanix
12 3 (0.39%) Route 53
12 3 (0.39%) WhatsApp
13 2 (0.26%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 511 (65.60%) LAN
2 251 (32.22%) Firewall
3 218 (27.98%) VPN
4 193 (24.78%) MPLS
5 177 (22.72%) BGP
6 159 (20.41%) SD-WAN
7 126 (16.17%) Wi-Fi
8 117 (15.02%) Wireless
9 102 (13.09%) IPsec
10 95 (12.20%) DNS
11 88 (11.30%) OSPF
12 77 (9.88%) DHCP
13 69 (8.86%) Network Security
14 62 (7.96%) WLAN
15 57 (7.32%) Junos
16 44 (5.65%) Cisco ASA
17 43 (5.52%) Cisco Nexus
18 42 (5.39%) VoIP
19 40 (5.13%) TCP/IP
20 39 (5.01%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (2.31%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.26%) MySQL
4 1 (0.13%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.13%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 7 (0.90%) Rational DOORS
2 6 (0.77%) Sonatype Nexus
3 5 (0.64%) JIRA
4 3 (0.39%) Git
5 1 (0.13%) GitLab
5 1 (0.13%) Hudson
5 1 (0.13%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.13%) Katalon Studio
General
1 182 (23.36%) Social Skills
2 113 (14.51%) Public Sector
3 102 (13.09%) Finance
4 61 (7.83%) Telecoms
5 53 (6.80%) Analytical Skills
6 19 (2.44%) Presentation Skills
7 15 (1.93%) Aerospace
8 14 (1.80%) Banking
9 12 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.41%) Mandarin Language
11 9 (1.16%) Legal
11 9 (1.16%) Manufacturing
11 9 (1.16%) Military
12 8 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (0.90%) Aeronautics
13 7 (0.90%) Back Office
13 7 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
14 6 (0.77%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (0.64%) Retail
Job Titles
1 224 (28.75%) Network Engineer
2 205 (26.32%) Architect
3 152 (19.51%) Network Architect
4 64 (8.22%) Senior
5 56 (7.19%) WAN Engineer
6 51 (6.55%) Support Engineer
7 42 (5.39%) Network Support
8 36 (4.62%) 3rd Line Engineer
9 35 (4.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 33 (4.24%) 2nd Line Support
10 33 (4.24%) Senior Network Engineer
11 31 (3.98%) 3rd Line Support
12 30 (3.85%) Analyst
12 30 (3.85%) Consultant
13 28 (3.59%) Lead
14 22 (2.82%) 2nd Line Engineer
14 22 (2.82%) Cisco Engineer
14 22 (2.82%) Cisco Network Engineer
14 22 (2.82%) Project Manager
15 20 (2.57%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (1.54%) Web Services
2 9 (1.16%) Middleware
3 6 (0.77%) 802.1X
3 6 (0.77%) JSON
3 6 (0.77%) LDAP
4 5 (0.64%) XML
5 4 (0.51%) .NET
5 4 (0.51%) EDI
6 3 (0.39%) J2EE
6 3 (0.39%) Jinja
6 3 (0.39%) NETCONF
6 3 (0.39%) RESTful
6 3 (0.39%) XMPP
6 3 (0.39%) YANG
7 2 (0.26%) XSLT
8 1 (0.13%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.13%) HTML
8 1 (0.13%) LAMP
8 1 (0.13%) libvirt
8 1 (0.13%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 127 (16.30%) Data Centre
2 93 (11.94%) PKI
3 26 (3.34%) Video Conferencing
4 21 (2.70%) Clustering
4 21 (2.70%) Public Cloud
4 21 (2.70%) Self-Motivation
5 20 (2.57%) Driving Licence
6 16 (2.05%) NHS
7 15 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
7 15 (1.93%) Operational Technology
8 14 (1.80%) Client/Server
9 13 (1.67%) Management Information System
10 11 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
11 9 (1.16%) CMDB
12 8 (1.03%) CCTV
13 6 (0.77%) Replication
14 5 (0.64%) Product Ownership
14 5 (0.64%) SCADA
15 4 (0.51%) Cloud Native
15 4 (0.51%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 155 (19.90%) Windows
2 68 (8.73%) Windows Server
3 62 (7.96%) Linux
4 29 (3.72%) Windows 10
5 23 (2.95%) Mac OS
6 17 (2.18%) Unix
7 14 (1.80%) Windows Server 2012
8 10 (1.28%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (1.16%) Ubuntu
10 8 (1.03%) Android
11 7 (0.90%) Windows Server 2016
12 6 (0.77%) CentOS
12 6 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 3 (0.39%) Debian
13 3 (0.39%) Windows 7
14 2 (0.26%) Apple iOS
14 2 (0.26%) Mac OS X
14 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
14 2 (0.26%) zOS
15 1 (0.13%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (12.84%) Problem-Solving
2 88 (11.30%) Network Design
3 84 (10.78%) ITIL
4 82 (10.53%) Network Management
5 72 (9.24%) Load Balancing
6 67 (8.60%) Migration
7 63 (8.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 54 (6.93%) Project Management
9 53 (6.80%) Change Management
10 51 (6.55%) Cybersecurity
10 51 (6.55%) Network Architecture
10 51 (6.55%) Project Delivery
11 50 (6.42%) Customer Service
12 45 (5.78%) Customer Requirements
13 43 (5.52%) Business Strategy
13 43 (5.52%) Technical Leadership
14 42 (5.39%) Zero Trust
15 38 (4.88%) Agile
16 37 (4.75%) Stakeholder Management
17 31 (3.98%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 39 (5.01%) PowerShell
2 27 (3.47%) Python
3 14 (1.80%) SQL
4 6 (0.77%) Bash
5 5 (0.64%) Kusto Query Language
6 4 (0.51%) Java
7 2 (0.26%) Perl
8 1 (0.13%) Bicep
8 1 (0.13%) C
8 1 (0.13%) C#
8 1 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 315 (40.44%) Security Cleared
2 150 (19.26%) Cisco Certification
3 131 (16.82%) SC Cleared
4 97 (12.45%) CCNP
5 89 (11.42%) Degree
6 85 (10.91%) DV Cleared
7 77 (9.88%) CCNA
8 38 (4.88%) CCIE
9 14 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.80%) JNCIA
9 14 (1.80%) Microsoft Certification
10 10 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
11 9 (1.16%) CCIE Data Center
12 8 (1.03%) HND
12 8 (1.03%) Network+ Certification
13 7 (0.90%) BC Cleared
14 6 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
14 6 (0.77%) JNCIS
15 5 (0.64%) CCDP
15 5 (0.64%) CCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (5.39%) SLA
2 22 (2.82%) QA
3 19 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (1.28%) ISO 9000
4 10 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 9 (1.16%) NCSC
6 4 (0.51%) GDPR
7 3 (0.39%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.13%) COBIT
9 1 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.13%) ISO 22301
9 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.13%) NIST
9 1 (0.13%) PMO
9 1 (0.13%) RMADS
System Software
1 95 (12.20%) Active Directory
2 82 (10.53%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (3.59%) Hyper-V
4 26 (3.34%) VMware NSX
5 21 (2.70%) Virtual Servers
6 17 (2.18%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (1.28%) Firmware
7 10 (1.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (1.03%) VMware Workstation
8 8 (1.03%) vSphere
9 5 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (0.51%) VMware Server
11 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.39%) XenApp
12 2 (0.26%) Terminal Services
13 1 (0.13%) Docker
13 1 (0.13%) iptables
13 1 (0.13%) KVM
13 1 (0.13%) NFS
13 1 (0.13%) Samba
Systems Management
1 37 (4.75%) SCCM
2 31 (3.98%) FortiGate
3 26 (3.34%) Endace
4 21 (2.70%) Ansible
5 20 (2.57%) Terraform
6 14 (1.80%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.28%) Microsoft Clustering
7 10 (1.28%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.16%) Kubernetes
9 8 (1.03%) Failover Clustering
9 8 (1.03%) Jamf Pro
9 8 (1.03%) Nagios
9 8 (1.03%) NetBackup
9 8 (1.03%) SCOM
10 6 (0.77%) Autotask
10 6 (0.77%) VxRail
11 5 (0.64%) Nessus
11 5 (0.64%) OpenView
12 3 (0.39%) AppManager
12 3 (0.39%) OPNET
Vendors
1 376 (48.27%) Cisco
2 207 (26.57%) Juniper
3 113 (14.51%) Microsoft
4 106 (13.61%) VMware
5 98 (12.58%) Palo Alto
6 80 (10.27%) F5
7 62 (7.96%) Fortinet
8 50 (6.42%) CheckPoint
9 43 (5.52%) Meraki
10 42 (5.39%) Aruba
11 30 (3.85%) Citrix
12 23 (2.95%) Zscaler
13 21 (2.70%) HP
13 21 (2.70%) SolarWinds
14 18 (2.31%) Infoblox
15 14 (1.80%) ServiceNow
16 13 (1.67%) Dell
17 12 (1.54%) Apple
17 12 (1.54%) Google
18 11 (1.41%) Brocade