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 19 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 109 94 81
Rank change year-on-year -15 -13 -19
Contract jobs citing WAN 76 36 41
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 1.94% 1.65% 1.71%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.87% 12.63% 13.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 30 19
10th Percentile £435 - £350
25th Percentile £500 £129 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £250 £450
Median % change year-on-year +114.80% -44.44% -18.18%
75th Percentile £588 £456 £570
90th Percentile £626 £531 £675
England median daily rate £513 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +13.89% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 1
10th Percentile £19.03 £33.95 -
25th Percentile £20.69 £45.88 £18.03
Median hourly rate £24.92 £66.50 £18.07
Median % change year-on-year -62.53% +268.12% -62.23%
75th Percentile £28.69 £68.71 £18.10
90th Percentile £30.08 £69.58 -
England median hourly rate £19.84 £30.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year -33.87% -58.62% +81.25%

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 479 285 293
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.22% 13.05% 12.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 301 171 167
10th Percentile £200 £147 £269
25th Percentile £340 £333 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -14.29% +8.02%
75th Percentile £573 £541 £675
90th Percentile £613 £680 £825
England median daily rate £500 £488 £508
% change year-on-year +2.56% -3.94% +1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 12 10
10th Percentile £14.04 £15.50 £25.43
25th Percentile £16.69 £17.75 £37.55
Median hourly rate £17.50 £20.00 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% -58.81% +191.13%
75th Percentile £23.25 £48.27 £51.91
90th Percentile £35.31 £67.25 £57.65
England median hourly rate £43.50 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +4.82% -27.64% +1.52%

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 19 September 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 19 September 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 19 September 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
Cheshire +17 24 £550 +69.23% 13
Cumbria -8 23 £519 -0.65%
Manchester -24 14 £500 +11.11% 25
Lancashire -12 9 £575 +125.49% 2
Merseyside -25 6 - - 10
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 6 (7.89%) Microsoft Exchange
1 6 (7.89%) Skype for Business
2 1 (1.32%) IIS
Applications
1 11 (14.47%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (6.58%) MS Visio
3 3 (3.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (3.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 19 (25.00%) Azure
2 15 (19.74%) AWS
3 12 (15.79%) OCI
4 10 (13.16%) SaaS
5 3 (3.95%) GCP
6 2 (2.63%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 1 (1.32%) AWS Direct Connect
7 1 (1.32%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.32%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.32%) GitHub
7 1 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
7 1 (1.32%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 41 (53.95%) LAN
2 40 (52.63%) Firewall
3 34 (44.74%) Wireless
4 33 (43.42%) SD-WAN
5 32 (42.11%) VPN
6 27 (35.53%) Network Security
6 27 (35.53%) Wi-Fi
7 22 (28.95%) BGP
7 22 (28.95%) OSPF
8 13 (17.11%) Broadband
8 13 (17.11%) Converged Networks
9 12 (15.79%) DNS
9 12 (15.79%) Ethernet VPN
10 11 (14.47%) VLAN
10 11 (14.47%) VXLAN
10 11 (14.47%) WLAN
11 10 (13.16%) BIG-IP
11 10 (13.16%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 9 (11.84%) MPLS
13 8 (10.53%) DHCP
Development Applications
1 11 (14.47%) GitLab
2 9 (11.84%) Git
3 1 (1.32%) Jenkins
3 1 (1.32%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 20 (26.32%) Social Skills
2 14 (18.42%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (10.53%) Banking
3 8 (10.53%) Public Sector
4 7 (9.21%) Finance
5 5 (6.58%) Legal
6 3 (3.95%) Investment Banking
6 3 (3.95%) Military
7 2 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.32%) Automotive
8 1 (1.32%) Financial Institution
8 1 (1.32%) Manufacturing
8 1 (1.32%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (1.32%) Retail
8 1 (1.32%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 39 (51.32%) Network Engineer
2 18 (23.68%) Senior
3 11 (14.47%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 10 (13.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 9 (11.84%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 8 (10.53%) Developer
6 8 (10.53%) Senior Network Engineer
7 5 (6.58%) Automation Developer
7 5 (6.58%) Cisco Engineer
7 5 (6.58%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 4 (5.26%) Support Engineer
9 3 (3.95%) Compliance Specialist
9 3 (3.95%) Core Network Engineer
9 3 (3.95%) LAN Specialist
9 3 (3.95%) Network Specialist
9 3 (3.95%) Senior Core Network Engineer
9 3 (3.95%) VMware Engineer
9 3 (3.95%) WAN Specialist
10 2 (2.63%) CyberArk Engineer
10 2 (2.63%) Senior Cisco Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (18.42%) Terraform
2 9 (11.84%) REST
3 8 (10.53%) JSON
4 7 (9.21%) Django
5 5 (6.58%) Flask
6 2 (2.63%) 802.1X
6 2 (2.63%) XML
7 1 (1.32%) ModSecurity
7 1 (1.32%) NETCONF
7 1 (1.32%) Software Packaging
7 1 (1.32%) YAML
7 1 (1.32%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 18 (23.68%) Data Centre
2 11 (14.47%) Hybrid Cloud
3 9 (11.84%) Cloud Native
4 4 (5.26%) Driving Licence
4 4 (5.26%) Management Information System
4 4 (5.26%) Onboarding
5 2 (2.63%) PKI
6 1 (1.32%) Enterprise Storage
6 1 (1.32%) iPhone
6 1 (1.32%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.32%) SCADA
6 1 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 11 (14.47%) Windows
2 8 (10.53%) Linux
3 7 (9.21%) Windows 10
4 6 (7.89%) Windows 7
5 4 (5.26%) Windows Server
6 1 (1.32%) Unix
6 1 (1.32%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (35.53%) Load Balancing
2 23 (30.26%) CI/CD
3 21 (27.63%) Infrastructure as Code
4 17 (22.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 16 (21.05%) High Availability
6 14 (18.42%) Observability
6 14 (18.42%) Problem-Solving
7 13 (17.11%) Network Architecture
7 13 (17.11%) Project Delivery
7 13 (17.11%) Zero Trust
8 12 (15.79%) Impact Assessments
8 12 (15.79%) Network Design
9 11 (14.47%) Continuous Improvement
9 11 (14.47%) DevOps
10 10 (13.16%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 8 (10.53%) Network Monitoring
12 7 (9.21%) Change Management
12 7 (9.21%) Migration
12 7 (9.21%) Root Cause Analysis
13 6 (7.89%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 30 (39.47%) Python
2 9 (11.84%) PowerShell
3 6 (7.89%) VB
3 6 (7.89%) VBScript
4 4 (5.26%) Search Processing Language
5 2 (2.63%) Perl
6 1 (1.32%) Bash
6 1 (1.32%) Bicep
6 1 (1.32%) SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (40.79%) Security Cleared
2 26 (34.21%) Cisco Certification
2 26 (34.21%) SC Cleared
3 16 (21.05%) CCNA
4 12 (15.79%) CCNP
5 5 (6.58%) CCIE
5 5 (6.58%) Degree
6 1 (1.32%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.32%) ITIL Certification
6 1 (1.32%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (6.58%) Data Quality
2 3 (3.95%) GRC
3 2 (2.63%) GDPR
4 1 (1.32%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (7.89%) BitLocker
2 5 (6.58%) Firmware
2 5 (6.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (3.95%) Active Directory
4 2 (2.63%) VMware NSX
5 1 (1.32%) Docker
5 1 (1.32%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 20 (26.32%) Ansible
2 8 (10.53%) SCCM
3 3 (3.95%) FortiGate
4 1 (1.32%) AirWatch
4 1 (1.32%) CASB
4 1 (1.32%) Kubernetes
4 1 (1.32%) Nagios
4 1 (1.32%) Progress Chef
4 1 (1.32%) Puppet
Vendors
1 38 (50.00%) Cisco
2 21 (27.63%) Palo Alto
3 16 (21.05%) Arista
3 16 (21.05%) F5
4 14 (18.42%) Aruba
5 11 (14.47%) Fortinet
5 11 (14.47%) Microsoft
6 10 (13.16%) VMware
7 8 (10.53%) Splunk
8 7 (9.21%) ServiceNow
9 6 (7.89%) CyberArk
10 5 (6.58%) Juniper
11 4 (5.26%) Meraki
12 3 (3.95%) HP
12 3 (3.95%) Infoblox
12 3 (3.95%) SolarWinds
12 3 (3.95%) Zscaler
13 2 (2.63%) Ekahau
13 2 (2.63%) Forcepoint
13 2 (2.63%) McAfee