VPN Contract Job Trends in the South East

Virtual Private Network (VPN)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring VPN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 79 91
Rank change year-on-year -19 +12 +42
Contract jobs citing VPN 110 86 122
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.93% 2.87% 2.17%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.93% 16.60% 9.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 68 56 59
10th Percentile £218 £279 £184
25th Percentile £400 £433 £272
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £500 £425
Median % change year-on-year -6.50% +17.65% -15.00%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £550
90th Percentile £611 £608 £595
England median daily rate £475 £475 £438
% change year-on-year - +8.57% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 7
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £18.50 £18.00
Median hourly rate - £19.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year - -15.56% +11.88%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £22.55
90th Percentile - - £23.45
England median hourly rate £16.71 £18.57 £16.56
% change year-on-year -10.02% +12.14% -21.98%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 737 518 1,302
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.96% 17.28% 23.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 319 630
10th Percentile £257 £209 £205
25th Percentile £405 £334 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% +1.05% -2.31%
75th Percentile £591 £588 £575
90th Percentile £688 £628 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £481
% change year-on-year - +4.06% -8.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 27 128
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.20 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.30 £19.68 £27.50
Median hourly rate £48.72 £54.88 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -11.22% -4.32% +27.44%
75th Percentile £56.00 £62.50 £64.06
90th Percentile £64.23 £67.50 £85.65
England median hourly rate £48.72 £36.65 £40.00
% change year-on-year +32.95% -8.39% +111.30%

VPN
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

VPN job vacancy trend in the South East

VPN
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing VPN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing VPN

VPN
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing VPN in the South East over the 6 months to 18 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for VPN in the South East

VPN
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing VPN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing VPN

VPN
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing VPN within the South East region over the 6 months to 18 April 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
Thames Valley -33 58 £424 -5.83% 14
Berkshire -20 41 £430 -4.44% 6
Hampshire -30 31 £550 +5.77% 20
Surrey -8 12 £400 +10.34% 8
Oxfordshire -10 9 £238 +11.76% 4
Buckinghamshire -22 8 £539 -4.56% 4
Kent - 4 £180 - 5
West Sussex -11 3 £253 +32.89% 7
M4 Corridor - 1 £375 -
Home Counties - 1 - -
VPN
England

VPN
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 10 (9.09%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (4.55%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (3.64%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 46 (41.82%) Azure
2 25 (22.73%) AWS
3 18 (16.36%) Entra ID
4 15 (13.64%) GCP
4 15 (13.64%) Microsoft 365
5 8 (7.27%) OneDrive
6 4 (3.64%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 3 (2.73%) Azure AKS
7 3 (2.73%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (2.73%) Azure Monitor
7 3 (2.73%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.82%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (1.82%) Azure Key Vault
8 2 (1.82%) IaaS
8 2 (1.82%) PaaS
8 2 (1.82%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.91%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.91%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.91%) SaaS
9 1 (0.91%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 50 (45.45%) Firewall
2 48 (43.64%) WAN
3 46 (41.82%) LAN
4 32 (29.09%) BGP
5 29 (26.36%) OSPF
5 29 (26.36%) SD-WAN
6 24 (21.82%) MPLS
7 23 (20.91%) Network Security
8 22 (20.00%) DNS
9 17 (15.45%) TCP/IP
10 15 (13.64%) VLAN
11 12 (10.91%) Wi-Fi
12 10 (9.09%) DHCP
13 7 (6.36%) Ethernet VPN
13 7 (6.36%) IPsec
13 7 (6.36%) Junos
13 7 (6.36%) WLAN
14 6 (5.45%) Wireless
15 5 (4.55%) IPv6
15 5 (4.55%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.91%) Power BI
1 1 (0.91%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 5 (4.55%) JIRA
2 2 (1.82%) GitLab
2 2 (1.82%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.91%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.91%) Git
General
1 37 (33.64%) Social Skills
2 11 (10.00%) Finance
3 10 (9.09%) Public Sector
4 9 (8.18%) Telecoms
5 8 (7.27%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (7.27%) Documentation Skills
5 8 (7.27%) Retail
6 6 (5.45%) Legal
7 2 (1.82%) Aviation
7 2 (1.82%) Electronics
7 2 (1.82%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.82%) Manufacturing
7 2 (1.82%) Marketing
8 1 (0.91%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.91%) Military
8 1 (0.91%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 30 (27.27%) Architect
1 30 (27.27%) Network Engineer
2 18 (16.36%) Senior
3 14 (12.73%) Lead
4 12 (10.91%) Network Architect
5 11 (10.00%) Infrastructure Architect
6 7 (6.36%) Senior Architect
7 6 (5.45%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
7 6 (5.45%) Senior Network Architect
7 6 (5.45%) Senior Network Engineer
7 6 (5.45%) Support Engineer
8 5 (4.55%) Design Engineer
8 5 (4.55%) Head of Infrastructure
8 5 (4.55%) IP Engineer
8 5 (4.55%) IT Engineer
8 5 (4.55%) IT Support
8 5 (4.55%) IT Support Engineer
8 5 (4.55%) Network Manager
8 5 (4.55%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 4 (3.64%) Head of IT
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (2.73%) 802.1X
2 1 (0.91%) Microsoft Graph
2 1 (0.91%) SAML
2 1 (0.91%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (26.36%) Data Centre
2 14 (12.73%) Cloud Native
3 13 (11.82%) Public Cloud
4 7 (6.36%) Onboarding
5 5 (4.55%) Hybrid Cloud
6 4 (3.64%) Algorithms
6 4 (3.64%) PKI
6 4 (3.64%) Smartcard
7 3 (2.73%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (1.82%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.82%) NHS
9 1 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.91%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 1 (0.91%) Driving Licence
9 1 (0.91%) Enterprise Cloud
9 1 (0.91%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.91%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.91%) Life Science
9 1 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.91%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 19 (17.27%) Windows
2 6 (5.45%) Windows 10
3 5 (4.55%) Linux
3 5 (4.55%) Mac OS
3 5 (4.55%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.91%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (17.27%) ITIL
2 14 (12.73%) High Availability
3 12 (10.91%) Continuous Improvement
3 12 (10.91%) DevOps
3 12 (10.91%) ITSM
4 11 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
4 11 (10.00%) Network Design
4 11 (10.00%) Problem-Solving
5 10 (9.09%) Customer Service
6 9 (8.18%) Analytics
6 9 (8.18%) Identity Access Management
6 9 (8.18%) Migration
6 9 (8.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 9 (8.18%) Validation
6 9 (8.18%) Zero Trust
7 8 (7.27%) Agile
7 8 (7.27%) Change Management
7 8 (7.27%) Network Architecture
7 8 (7.27%) Network Monitoring
7 8 (7.27%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 7 (6.36%) PowerShell
1 7 (6.36%) Python
2 3 (2.73%) Bicep
3 2 (1.82%) Bash
4 1 (0.91%) SQL
Qualifications
1 50 (45.45%) Security Cleared
2 27 (24.55%) Cisco Certification
2 27 (24.55%) SC Cleared
3 26 (23.64%) CCNP
3 26 (23.64%) DV Cleared
4 11 (10.00%) CCNA
5 10 (9.09%) JNCIS
6 7 (6.36%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (5.45%) Network+ Certification
8 4 (3.64%) CCIE
8 4 (3.64%) CISM
8 4 (3.64%) CISSP
8 4 (3.64%) GIAC
8 4 (3.64%) PMP
9 3 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (2.73%) JNCIA
10 2 (1.82%) Azure Certification
10 2 (1.82%) Degree
10 2 (1.82%) ISTQB
10 2 (1.82%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (8.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (5.45%) NIST
3 5 (4.55%) NCSC
3 5 (4.55%) SLA
4 4 (3.64%) GDPR
5 2 (1.82%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.91%) GRC
6 1 (0.91%) QA
System Software
1 20 (18.18%) Active Directory
2 17 (15.45%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (10.00%) Hyper-V
4 9 (8.18%) VMware NSX
5 3 (2.73%) Docker
6 1 (0.91%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.91%) KVM
6 1 (0.91%) RHEV
6 1 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.91%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.91%) vSphere
6 1 (0.91%) Xen
Systems Management
1 14 (12.73%) Ansible
2 13 (11.82%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (11.82%) Terraform
3 9 (8.18%) Nagios
4 8 (7.27%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (4.55%) Endace
6 4 (3.64%) Kubernetes
7 3 (2.73%) SCCM
8 2 (1.82%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (1.82%) FortiGate
8 2 (1.82%) Iperf
8 2 (1.82%) Nmap
9 1 (0.91%) CASB
9 1 (0.91%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.91%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.91%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 40 (36.36%) Cisco
2 27 (24.55%) Juniper
3 23 (20.91%) VMware
4 20 (18.18%) Microsoft
5 13 (11.82%) SolarWinds
6 12 (10.91%) Palo Alto
7 11 (10.00%) Fortinet
8 9 (8.18%) Zscaler
9 7 (6.36%) F5
10 6 (5.45%) CheckPoint
11 5 (4.55%) ServiceNow
12 4 (3.64%) Mellanox
12 4 (3.64%) NVIDIA
12 4 (3.64%) Thales
13 3 (2.73%) HP
13 3 (2.73%) Meraki
13 3 (2.73%) SAP
13 3 (2.73%) Virgin Media
14 2 (1.82%) Apple
14 2 (1.82%) Nokia