WAN Contract Job Trends in the North West

Wide Area Network (WAN)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring WAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 76 99
Rank change year-on-year -28 +23 -44
Contract jobs citing WAN 64 48 36
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 1.83% 2.39% 1.29%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.32% 15.84% 10.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 44 32 27
10th Percentile £412 £129 £272
25th Percentile £486 £309 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year +26.12% +6.25% -5.88%
75th Percentile £588 £500 £506
90th Percentile £626 £599 £651
England median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 0
10th Percentile £19.03 - -
25th Percentile £20.69 - -
Median hourly rate £24.92 £70.16 -
Median % change year-on-year -64.48% - -
75th Percentile £28.69 - -
90th Percentile £30.08 - -
England median hourly rate £26.72 £30.00 £24.87
% change year-on-year -10.93% +20.63% -56.62%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
North West

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 447 303 331
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.76% 15.09% 11.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 286 182 230
10th Percentile £295 £193 £210
25th Percentile £375 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.78% -10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £669
90th Percentile £632 £638 £825
England median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 2 12
10th Percentile £15.10 £27.70 £20.93
25th Percentile £16.69 £34.78 £25.13
Median hourly rate £18.92 £47.37 £40.44
Median % change year-on-year -60.06% +17.14% +29.41%
75th Percentile £40.74 £59.17 £46.60
90th Percentile £74.26 £65.76 £50.78
England median hourly rate £28.96 £39.66 £45.88
% change year-on-year -26.98% -13.56% +141.47%

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

WAN job vacancy trend in the North West

WAN
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

WAN
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WAN in the North West over the 6 months to 26 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for WAN in the North West

WAN
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

WAN
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing WAN in the North West over the 6 months to 26 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for WAN in the North West

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 WAN within the North West region over the 6 months to 26 June 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Cumbria -7 23 £535 +8.08% 1
Cheshire -4 16 £514 +58.15% 5
Manchester -40 13 £498 +4.74% 11
Lancashire +2 9 £575 - 4
Merseyside -20 1 - -
WAN
England

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:

Application Platforms
1 4 (6.25%) Microsoft Exchange
1 4 (6.25%) Skype for Business
2 2 (3.13%) IIS
Applications
1 7 (10.94%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (3.13%) MS Visio
3 1 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 17 (26.56%) Azure
2 13 (20.31%) AWS
3 11 (17.19%) OCI
4 10 (15.63%) SaaS
5 2 (3.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 2 (3.13%) IBM Watson
5 2 (3.13%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (1.56%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (1.56%) GCP
6 1 (1.56%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 45 (70.31%) Firewall
2 38 (59.38%) LAN
3 32 (50.00%) VPN
4 28 (43.75%) Wi-Fi
5 25 (39.06%) SD-WAN
5 25 (39.06%) Wireless
6 24 (37.50%) Network Security
7 21 (32.81%) BGP
7 21 (32.81%) OSPF
8 16 (25.00%) VLAN
9 13 (20.31%) Broadband
9 13 (20.31%) Converged Networks
10 12 (18.75%) Ethernet VPN
10 12 (18.75%) VXLAN
11 11 (17.19%) DNS
12 10 (15.63%) BIG-IP
12 10 (15.63%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 10 (15.63%) WLAN
13 8 (12.50%) MPLS
14 7 (10.94%) TCP/IP
Development Applications
1 10 (15.63%) GitLab
General
1 12 (18.75%) Social Skills
2 8 (12.50%) Public Sector
3 5 (7.81%) Finance
4 4 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (6.25%) Banking
5 2 (3.13%) Legal
5 2 (3.13%) Military
6 1 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (1.56%) Retail
6 1 (1.56%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 35 (54.69%) Network Engineer
2 14 (21.88%) Senior
3 10 (15.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 9 (14.06%) Architect
4 9 (14.06%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 9 (14.06%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 5 (7.81%) Network Architect
5 5 (7.81%) Support Engineer
6 4 (6.25%) Cisco Engineer
6 4 (6.25%) Senior Network Engineer
6 4 (6.25%) Technical Architect
7 3 (4.69%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 2 (3.13%) 1st/2nd Line Support
8 2 (3.13%) 1st/2nd Line Support Engineer
8 2 (3.13%) 2nd Line Engineer
8 2 (3.13%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
8 2 (3.13%) IT Engineer
8 2 (3.13%) IT Support
8 2 (3.13%) Service Desk Engineer
8 2 (3.13%) Service Desk Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (14.06%) 802.1X
2 2 (3.13%) Software Packaging
3 1 (1.56%) Django
3 1 (1.56%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 17 (26.56%) Data Centre
2 12 (18.75%) Hybrid Cloud
3 9 (14.06%) Cloud Native
4 3 (4.69%) Onboarding
4 3 (4.69%) Security Posture
5 2 (3.13%) iPhone
5 2 (3.13%) PKI
6 1 (1.56%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 11 (17.19%) Windows
2 6 (9.38%) Windows 10
3 4 (6.25%) Windows 7
4 3 (4.69%) Windows Server
5 2 (3.13%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (43.75%) Load Balancing
2 17 (26.56%) Zero Trust
3 15 (23.44%) Network Design
4 13 (20.31%) High Availability
4 13 (20.31%) Network Architecture
5 12 (18.75%) Impact Assessments
5 12 (18.75%) Infrastructure as Code
6 11 (17.19%) CI/CD
7 10 (15.63%) DevOps
7 10 (15.63%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 9 (14.06%) Project Delivery
9 8 (12.50%) Network Monitoring
9 8 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
9 8 (12.50%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 6 (9.38%) Capacity Planning
10 6 (9.38%) Network Segmentation
10 6 (9.38%) Roadmaps
10 6 (9.38%) Technical Leadership
10 6 (9.38%) Validation
11 5 (7.81%) Operational Stability
Programming Languages
1 16 (25.00%) Python
2 6 (9.38%) PowerShell
3 4 (6.25%) VB
3 4 (6.25%) VBScript
4 2 (3.13%) Perl
4 2 (3.13%) SQL
5 1 (1.56%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 29 (45.31%) Cisco Certification
1 29 (45.31%) Security Cleared
2 25 (39.06%) SC Cleared
3 21 (32.81%) CCNA
4 13 (20.31%) CCNP
5 9 (14.06%) Degree
6 4 (6.25%) CCIE
7 3 (4.69%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (3.13%) DV Cleared
8 2 (3.13%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (1.56%) JNCIA
9 1 (1.56%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (9.38%) SLA
2 2 (3.13%) GDPR
3 1 (1.56%) Data Quality
System Software
1 5 (7.81%) Firmware
2 4 (6.25%) Active Directory
2 4 (6.25%) BitLocker
3 2 (3.13%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (1.56%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 17 (26.56%) Ansible
2 13 (20.31%) Terraform
3 7 (10.94%) SCCM
4 2 (3.13%) AirWatch
4 2 (3.13%) FortiGate
5 1 (1.56%) CASB
5 1 (1.56%) Nessus
Vendors
1 30 (46.88%) Cisco
2 20 (31.25%) Palo Alto
3 18 (28.13%) Aruba
4 14 (21.88%) Arista
5 12 (18.75%) F5
6 10 (15.63%) Microsoft
7 8 (12.50%) Fortinet
8 6 (9.38%) ServiceNow
9 5 (7.81%) CheckPoint
9 5 (7.81%) Ekahau
10 4 (6.25%) HP
10 4 (6.25%) Juniper
10 4 (6.25%) Splunk
11 3 (4.69%) Infoblox
11 3 (4.69%) VMware
12 2 (3.13%) Bloomberg
12 2 (3.13%) Forcepoint
12 2 (3.13%) IBM
12 2 (3.13%) McAfee
12 2 (3.13%) NetScout