SD-WAN Contract Job Trends in the North West

Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring SD-WAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 8 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 130 112 140
Rank change year-on-year -18 +28 +19
Contract jobs citing SD-WAN 5 10 7
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 0.23% 0.41% 0.25%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.68% 3.25% 1.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 9 3
10th Percentile £321 £438 -
25th Percentile £330 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £393 £495 £475
Median % change year-on-year -20.71% +4.21% -
75th Percentile £478 £550 £606
90th Percentile £484 £554 £678
England median daily rate £500 £550 £530
% change year-on-year -9.09% +3.77% +11.58%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
North West

SD-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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 297 308 463
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.50% 12.75% 16.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 177 151 317
10th Percentile £147 £243 £323
25th Percentile £330 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +2.56% +2.63%
75th Percentile £538 £600 £594
90th Percentile £680 £750 £655
England median daily rate £485 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.00% - -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 10 10
10th Percentile - £25.43 £15.72
25th Percentile £15.50 £37.55 £15.75
Median hourly rate £19.00 £48.56 £16.68
Median % change year-on-year -60.87% +191.13% -16.10%
75th Percentile £34.97 £51.91 £46.88
90th Percentile £67.25 £57.65 £49.35
England median hourly rate £35.00 £57.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -39.13% +1.79% +37.68%

SD-WAN
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

SD-WAN job vacancy trend in the North West

SD-WAN
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing SD-WAN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing SD-WAN

SD-WAN
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SD-WAN in the North West over the 6 months to 8 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SD-WAN in the North West

SD-WAN
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SD-WAN within the North West region over the 6 months to 8 October 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
Manchester -8 3 £463 -9.31% 8
Cheshire -21 1 £330 -26.67% 1
Lancashire - 1 £335 - 6
SD-WAN
England

SD-WAN
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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:

Communications & Networking
1 5 (100.00%) WAN
2 4 (80.00%) Firewall
2 4 (80.00%) LAN
3 3 (60.00%) Cisco Nexus
3 3 (60.00%) MPLS
3 3 (60.00%) VPN
3 3 (60.00%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (20.00%) 802.11
4 1 (20.00%) Cisco ASA
4 1 (20.00%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (20.00%) DWDM
4 1 (20.00%) Ethernet
4 1 (20.00%) Internet
4 1 (20.00%) Network Security
4 1 (20.00%) Software-Defined Networking
4 1 (20.00%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 1 (20.00%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1 (20.00%) Law
1 1 (20.00%) Legal
1 1 (20.00%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 5 (100.00%) Network Engineer
2 2 (40.00%) Senior
2 2 (40.00%) Senior Network Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Cisco Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Cisco Network Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Network Support
3 1 (20.00%) Network Support Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Senior Cisco Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Senior Cisco Network Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Server Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Server Support
3 1 (20.00%) Server Support Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (20.00%) 802.1X
1 1 (20.00%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 2 (40.00%) Security Posture
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (40.00%) Network Architecture
1 2 (40.00%) Network Design
1 2 (40.00%) Network Monitoring
1 2 (40.00%) Security Management
2 1 (20.00%) BCP
2 1 (20.00%) Break/Fix
2 1 (20.00%) Change Management
2 1 (20.00%) ITIL
2 1 (20.00%) Problem Management
2 1 (20.00%) Project Delivery
2 1 (20.00%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 2 (40.00%) Python
Qualifications
1 3 (60.00%) CCNP
1 3 (60.00%) Cisco Certification
2 2 (40.00%) CCNA
3 1 (20.00%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (20.00%) PCI DSS
Systems Management
1 2 (40.00%) Ansible
2 1 (20.00%) Cisco Prime
2 1 (20.00%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 5 (100.00%) Cisco
2 3 (60.00%) Palo Alto
3 2 (40.00%) Aruba
3 2 (40.00%) SolarWinds
4 1 (20.00%) CheckPoint
4 1 (20.00%) Fortinet
4 1 (20.00%) HP
4 1 (20.00%) LogicMonitor
4 1 (20.00%) Meraki