WAN Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Wide Area Network (WAN)
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring WAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 139 71 67
Rank change year-on-year -68 -4 +46
Contract jobs citing WAN 72 94 133
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 1.52% 2.62% 2.86%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.79% 17.00% 19.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 52 45 111
10th Percentile £129 £209 £275
25th Percentile £158 £243 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £430 £425 £505
Median % change year-on-year +1.18% -15.84% +18.82%
75th Percentile £538 £503 £638
90th Percentile £566 £545 £672
England median daily rate £453 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -9.50% - +9.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 7
10th Percentile £29.98 - £15.42
25th Percentile £35.94 £18.03 £17.07
Median hourly rate £46.75 £18.07 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.79% -17.89% -
75th Percentile £57.44 £18.10 -
90th Percentile £63.33 - -
England median hourly rate £27.00 £72.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year -62.76% +215.22% +2.22%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
North of England

WAN 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 in the North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 563 553 694
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 11.91% 15.40% 14.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 346 311 513
10th Percentile £170 £163 £250
25th Percentile £305 £255 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £450 £486
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -7.41% +5.08%
75th Percentile £550 £556 £593
90th Percentile £672 £675 £671
England median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 12 23
10th Percentile - £12.59 £15.73
25th Percentile £15.50 £17.33 £16.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £32.88 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -31.57% +85.55% -17.58%
75th Percentile £67.25 £51.23 £24.39
90th Percentile £74.26 £51.91 £46.88
England median hourly rate £34.00 £41.00 £55.70
% change year-on-year -17.07% -26.39% +23.78%

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing WAN relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

WAN job vacancy trend in the North of England

WAN
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing WAN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing WAN

WAN
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WAN in the North of England over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for WAN in the North of England

WAN
Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing WAN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing WAN

WAN
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing WAN in the North of England over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for WAN in the North of England

WAN
Contract Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing WAN within the North of England region over the 6 months to 19 December 2025. 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
North West -29 55 £475 +5.56% 23
Yorkshire -68 15 £294 +19.90% 26
North East -6 2 £550 +22.22%
WAN
England

WAN
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England 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 6 (8.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (6.94%) Skype for Business
3 2 (2.78%) SharePoint
4 1 (1.39%) CICS
4 1 (1.39%) Confluence
4 1 (1.39%) Tomcat
4 1 (1.39%) WebSphere
4 1 (1.39%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 6 (8.33%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (5.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 4 (5.56%) MS Visio
3 1 (1.39%) Acrobat
Cloud Services
1 13 (18.06%) Azure
2 10 (13.89%) Microsoft 365
3 4 (5.56%) Entra ID
4 3 (4.17%) AWS
5 2 (2.78%) GCP
6 1 (1.39%) GitHub
6 1 (1.39%) OCI
6 1 (1.39%) OneDrive
6 1 (1.39%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 49 (68.06%) LAN
2 35 (48.61%) Firewall
3 25 (34.72%) Wi-Fi
4 16 (22.22%) Cisco ISE
5 15 (20.83%) VPN
6 13 (18.06%) NetScaler
7 12 (16.67%) DHCP
7 12 (16.67%) DNS
7 12 (16.67%) SD-WAN
8 11 (15.28%) TCP/IP
8 11 (15.28%) VLAN
9 10 (13.89%) Network Security
9 10 (13.89%) Wireless
10 8 (11.11%) BGP
11 7 (9.72%) MPLS
12 6 (8.33%) Cisco IOS
13 5 (6.94%) Cisco Nexus
13 5 (6.94%) OSPF
13 5 (6.94%) Skype
13 5 (6.94%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (5.56%) MS Access
2 1 (1.39%) NoSQL
2 1 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.39%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (2.78%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (1.39%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.39%) JIRA
General
1 12 (16.67%) Public Sector
2 11 (15.28%) Social Skills
3 6 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (8.33%) Finance
4 5 (6.94%) Banking
5 4 (5.56%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.78%) Manufacturing
7 1 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.39%) Legal
7 1 (1.39%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 31 (43.06%) Network Engineer
2 11 (15.28%) Architect
2 11 (15.28%) IT Technician
3 9 (12.50%) Senior
4 8 (11.11%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 7 (9.72%) Network Architect
5 7 (9.72%) Support Engineer
6 5 (6.94%) IT Engineer
6 5 (6.94%) IT Support
6 5 (6.94%) Senior Network Engineer
7 4 (5.56%) Analyst
7 4 (5.56%) IT Support Engineer
8 3 (4.17%) 2nd Line Engineer
8 3 (4.17%) 2nd Line Support
8 3 (4.17%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
8 3 (4.17%) Risk Management Specialist
8 3 (4.17%) Support Analyst
8 3 (4.17%) Technical Architect
9 2 (2.78%) Field Engineer
9 2 (2.78%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (18.06%) 802.1X
2 2 (2.78%) Middleware
3 1 (1.39%) LDAP
3 1 (1.39%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 19 (26.39%) Data Centre
2 4 (5.56%) Onboarding
3 3 (4.17%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (4.17%) iPhone
4 2 (2.78%) Security Posture
5 1 (1.39%) Clustering
5 1 (1.39%) CMDB
5 1 (1.39%) Digital Signage
5 1 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.39%) IBM Mainframe
5 1 (1.39%) Mainframe
5 1 (1.39%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.39%) PKI
5 1 (1.39%) Replication
5 1 (1.39%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 16 (22.22%) Windows
2 13 (18.06%) Windows 10
3 8 (11.11%) Windows Server
4 6 (8.33%) Windows 7
5 3 (4.17%) Android
6 2 (2.78%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (1.39%) Linux
7 1 (1.39%) MVS
7 1 (1.39%) Solaris
7 1 (1.39%) Windows 8
7 1 (1.39%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (1.39%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (26.39%) Network Architecture
2 16 (22.22%) Network Design
2 16 (22.22%) Service Management
3 13 (18.06%) Impact Assessments
4 12 (16.67%) Customer Service
4 12 (16.67%) Load Balancing
5 11 (15.28%) Network Management
6 10 (13.89%) Migration
6 10 (13.89%) Problem-Solving
7 6 (8.33%) ITSM
8 5 (6.94%) Change Management
8 5 (6.94%) Disk Encryption
8 5 (6.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 4 (5.56%) Analytics
9 4 (5.56%) Compliance Audit
9 4 (5.56%) Data Analytics
9 4 (5.56%) ITIL
9 4 (5.56%) Risk Assessment
9 4 (5.56%) Risk Management
9 4 (5.56%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 9 (12.50%) PowerShell
2 8 (11.11%) Python
3 5 (6.94%) VB
3 5 (6.94%) VBScript
4 3 (4.17%) Perl
5 1 (1.39%) Bash
5 1 (1.39%) Java
5 1 (1.39%) SQL
Qualifications
1 26 (36.11%) Security Cleared
2 18 (25.00%) SC Cleared
3 15 (20.83%) Cisco Certification
4 12 (16.67%) CCNP
5 6 (8.33%) CCNA
6 5 (6.94%) CCIE
6 5 (6.94%) DV Cleared
7 3 (4.17%) CCDP
8 1 (1.39%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (1.39%) CCIE Data Center
8 1 (1.39%) CISSP
8 1 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (1.39%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 1 (1.39%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 12 (16.67%) Active Directory
2 5 (6.94%) BitLocker
3 2 (2.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (1.39%) Hyper-V
4 1 (1.39%) KVM
4 1 (1.39%) NFS
4 1 (1.39%) SRDF
4 1 (1.39%) Veritas Cluster Server
4 1 (1.39%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.39%) VMware Workstation
4 1 (1.39%) Xen
Systems Management
1 5 (6.94%) SCCM
2 4 (5.56%) Ansible
3 2 (2.78%) FortiGate
3 2 (2.78%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (2.78%) Terraform
4 1 (1.39%) Failover Clustering
4 1 (1.39%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (1.39%) Kubernetes
4 1 (1.39%) Puppet
Vendors
1 36 (50.00%) Cisco
2 24 (33.33%) Palo Alto
3 21 (29.17%) Meraki
4 16 (22.22%) Microsoft
5 6 (8.33%) F5
6 5 (6.94%) ServiceNow
6 5 (6.94%) SolarWinds
7 4 (5.56%) Fortinet
7 4 (5.56%) VMware
8 3 (4.17%) Aruba
9 2 (2.78%) CheckPoint
9 2 (2.78%) Juniper
10 1 (1.39%) Adobe
10 1 (1.39%) Citrix
10 1 (1.39%) EMC
10 1 (1.39%) Forcepoint
10 1 (1.39%) McAfee
10 1 (1.39%) NetApp
10 1 (1.39%) Nokia
10 1 (1.39%) Symantec