VPN Contract Job Trends in the North West

Virtual Private Network (VPN)
England > North West

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

6 months to
19 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 114 67 83
Rank change year-on-year -47 +16 +28
Contract jobs citing VPN 19 51 59
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 0.84% 2.14% 2.05%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 6.23% 16.45% 11.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 19 34
10th Percentile £357 £360 £221
25th Percentile £400 £421 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £409 £475 £465
Median % change year-on-year -13.89% +2.15% +3.91%
75th Percentile £531 £566 £498
90th Percentile £638 £585 £561
England median daily rate £450 £481 £455
% change year-on-year -6.49% +5.77% -1.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 7
10th Percentile - - £15.72
25th Percentile - £46.25 £15.74
Median hourly rate - £47.50 £16.50
Median % change year-on-year - +187.88% +102.08%
75th Percentile - £48.75 £17.34
90th Percentile - - £29.21
England median hourly rate £40.00 £23.80 £21.00
% change year-on-year +68.07% +13.33% -4.55%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
North West

VPN 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 305 310 493
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.53% 12.99% 17.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 183 154 343
10th Percentile £148 £245 £325
25th Percentile £343 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £498 £493
Median % change year-on-year -9.55% +0.91% +4.89%
75th Percentile £549 £579 £593
90th Percentile £687 £688 £660
England median daily rate £486 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.75% - -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 9 10
10th Percentile - £24.61 £15.72
25th Percentile £15.50 £35.00 £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 £52.02 £49.35
England median hourly rate £33.39 £55.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -39.30% -2.64% +37.68%

VPN
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

VPN job vacancy trend in the North West

VPN
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing VPN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing VPN

VPN
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing VPN in the North West over the 6 months to 19 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for VPN in the North West

VPN
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing VPN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing VPN

VPN
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 VPN within the North West region over the 6 months to 19 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 -6 7 £405 -20.98% 15
Cheshire -29 6 £475 +18.75% 11
Cumbria +9 4 £403 -10.40% 4
Merseyside -10 2 £475 -17.39% 1
VPN
England

VPN
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:

Application Platforms
1 3 (15.79%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (10.53%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (5.26%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 7 (36.84%) AWS
2 6 (31.58%) Azure
3 4 (21.05%) GCP
4 3 (15.79%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (10.53%) OpenShift
6 1 (5.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (5.26%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (5.26%) Amazon ELB
6 1 (5.26%) Amazon S3
6 1 (5.26%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (5.26%) Entra ID
6 1 (5.26%) Microsoft Purview
6 1 (5.26%) OneDrive
6 1 (5.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 14 (73.68%) Firewall
2 5 (26.32%) Network Security
3 4 (21.05%) MPLS
3 4 (21.05%) SNMP
3 4 (21.05%) TCP/IP
4 3 (15.79%) SD-WAN
4 3 (15.79%) WAN
5 2 (10.53%) BGP
5 2 (10.53%) OSPF
5 2 (10.53%) Remote Desktop
5 2 (10.53%) SSL
5 2 (10.53%) VLAN
5 2 (10.53%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (5.26%) 802.11
6 1 (5.26%) Cisco IOS
6 1 (5.26%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (5.26%) Internet
6 1 (5.26%) Software-Defined Networking
6 1 (5.26%) WebEx
6 1 (5.26%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 3 (15.79%) GitLab
2 1 (5.26%) Git
2 1 (5.26%) Jenkins
2 1 (5.26%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 5 (26.32%) Social Skills
2 4 (21.05%) Finance
3 2 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (5.26%) Banking
4 1 (5.26%) Financial Institution
4 1 (5.26%) Italian Language
4 1 (5.26%) Polish Language
4 1 (5.26%) Public Sector
4 1 (5.26%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 10 (52.63%) Network Engineer
2 4 (21.05%) Senior
2 4 (21.05%) Senior Network Engineer
3 3 (15.79%) Security Engineer
4 2 (10.53%) Designer
4 2 (10.53%) Lead
4 2 (10.53%) Network Designer
4 2 (10.53%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 2 (10.53%) Solutions Designer
4 2 (10.53%) Support Engineer
5 1 (5.26%) 1st Line Engineer
5 1 (5.26%) 1st Line Support Engineer
5 1 (5.26%) 2nd Line Engineer
5 1 (5.26%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
5 1 (5.26%) Cloud Engineer
5 1 (5.26%) Cloud Security Engineer
5 1 (5.26%) Cybersecurity Engineer
5 1 (5.26%) Implementation Engineer
5 1 (5.26%) IT Support
5 1 (5.26%) Network Implementation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (5.26%) 802.1X
1 1 (5.26%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 5 (26.32%) Data Centre
2 2 (10.53%) Hybrid Cloud
2 2 (10.53%) Onboarding
3 1 (5.26%) Cloud Native
3 1 (5.26%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (5.26%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 7 (36.84%) Windows
2 4 (21.05%) Linux
3 1 (5.26%) Windows 10
3 1 (5.26%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (31.58%) Containerisation
2 4 (21.05%) Dashboard Development
2 4 (21.05%) High Availability
2 4 (21.05%) Load Balancing
2 4 (21.05%) Network Architecture
2 4 (21.05%) Performance Monitoring
2 4 (21.05%) Server Building
3 3 (15.79%) CI/CD
3 3 (15.79%) Cloud Security
3 3 (15.79%) DevOps
3 3 (15.79%) Incident Response
3 3 (15.79%) Infrastructure as Code
3 3 (15.79%) Migration
3 3 (15.79%) Network Design
3 3 (15.79%) User Experience
4 2 (10.53%) Observability
4 2 (10.53%) Performance Optimisation
4 2 (10.53%) Roadmaps
4 2 (10.53%) Strategic Roadmap
4 2 (10.53%) Technology Strategy
Programming Languages
1 6 (31.58%) Python
2 5 (26.32%) Bash
3 4 (21.05%) PowerShell
4 3 (15.79%) Perl
Qualifications
1 5 (26.32%) SC Cleared
1 5 (26.32%) Security Cleared
2 3 (15.79%) CCIE
2 3 (15.79%) CCNP
2 3 (15.79%) Cisco Certification
2 3 (15.79%) Degree
3 2 (10.53%) CISM
3 2 (10.53%) CISSP
3 2 (10.53%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (10.53%) JNCIE
3 2 (10.53%) Master's Degree
3 2 (10.53%) Microsoft Certification
4 1 (5.26%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (15.79%) NIST
2 2 (10.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (5.26%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 5 (26.32%) Docker
2 4 (21.05%) Active Directory
2 4 (21.05%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (10.53%) Ansible
1 2 (10.53%) Fluentd
1 2 (10.53%) Kubernetes
2 1 (5.26%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (5.26%) QRadar
2 1 (5.26%) Terraform
Vendors
1 10 (52.63%) Cisco
2 5 (26.32%) Microsoft
3 4 (21.05%) F5
3 4 (21.05%) Juniper
3 4 (21.05%) VMware
4 3 (15.79%) Fortinet
5 2 (10.53%) Blue Prism
5 2 (10.53%) Citrix
5 2 (10.53%) Cribl.io
5 2 (10.53%) Palo Alto
5 2 (10.53%) Splunk
5 2 (10.53%) Zscaler
6 1 (5.26%) Apple
6 1 (5.26%) Aruba
6 1 (5.26%) CheckPoint
6 1 (5.26%) Darktrace
6 1 (5.26%) HP
6 1 (5.26%) Meraki
6 1 (5.26%) WatchGuard