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

6 months to
8 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 142 78 81
Rank change year-on-year -64 +3 +56
Contract jobs citing VPN 95 88 107
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.44% 2.54% 2.31%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.58% 14.81% 12.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 62 70 60
10th Percentile £268 £353 £259
25th Percentile £405 £450 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year - +2.44% +13.89%
75th Percentile £622 £600 £578
90th Percentile £650 £604 £702
England median daily rate £500 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +11.11% -10.00% +6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 5 3
10th Percentile £61.74 £48.06 £17.80
25th Percentile £63.50 £71.00 £18.06
Median hourly rate £71.43 £89.63 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.31% +371.74% -10.46%
75th Percentile £96.00 - £20.95
90th Percentile - - £21.82
England median hourly rate £25.75 £50.00 £15.23
% change year-on-year -48.50% +228.30% -30.77%

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 755 594 858
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.44% 17.13% 18.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 444 412 461
10th Percentile £254 £213 £255
25th Percentile £405 £348 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - +10.50%
75th Percentile £590 £588 £608
90th Percentile £650 £638 £672
England median daily rate £500 £490 £508
% change year-on-year +2.04% -3.45% +1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 26 93
10th Percentile £17.50 £14.20 £27.00
25th Percentile £22.94 £28.00 £53.40
Median hourly rate £50.75 £55.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -7.73% -4.10% -4.42%
75th Percentile £60.00 £70.16 £70.00
90th Percentile £70.59 £89.63 £75.19
England median hourly rate £28.00 £41.48 £57.35
% change year-on-year -32.49% -27.68% +1.52%

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 8 September 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing VPN in the South East over the 6 months to 8 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for VPN in the South East

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 8 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
Thames Valley -24 57 £523 +16.11% 27
Berkshire -20 31 £410 -8.89% 14
Buckinghamshire - 22 £615 - 4
Hampshire -51 21 £550 -4.35% 20
Surrey -11 13 £475 -11.63% 27
Oxfordshire -24 4 £363 -39.58% 9
West Sussex - 2 £315 - 7
Middlesex - 2 - - 2
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 6 (6.32%) SharePoint
2 4 (4.21%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (5.26%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (2.11%) Houdini
2 2 (2.11%) NUKE
3 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.05%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 41 (43.16%) Azure
2 15 (15.79%) Entra ID
3 13 (13.68%) AWS
3 13 (13.68%) Microsoft 365
4 11 (11.58%) Azure Monitor
5 7 (7.37%) Azure Sentinel
5 7 (7.37%) OpenShift
6 6 (6.32%) OneDrive
7 5 (5.26%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 5 (5.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 4 (4.21%) GCP
9 3 (3.16%) Azure AKS
9 3 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (2.11%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (2.11%) AWS CloudFormation
10 2 (2.11%) AWS Direct Connect
10 2 (2.11%) Azure Key Vault
10 2 (2.11%) Google Workspace
11 1 (1.05%) Amazon EC2
11 1 (1.05%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 61 (64.21%) Firewall
2 54 (56.84%) DNS
3 38 (40.00%) DHCP
4 35 (36.84%) WAN
5 33 (34.74%) TCP/IP
6 30 (31.58%) LAN
7 26 (27.37%) Network Security
8 21 (22.11%) SSL
9 18 (18.95%) IPsec
9 18 (18.95%) VLAN
10 17 (17.89%) SD-WAN
11 14 (14.74%) BGP
12 13 (13.68%) Cisco Firepower
13 12 (12.63%) Cisco ASA
14 10 (10.53%) MPLS
14 10 (10.53%) OSPF
14 10 (10.53%) Wireless
15 9 (9.47%) BIG-IP
16 8 (8.42%) NGFW
16 8 (8.42%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.16%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (2.11%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (1.05%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (1.05%) Git
2 1 (1.05%) GitLab
2 1 (1.05%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.05%) JIRA
General
1 38 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 18 (18.95%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (10.53%) Telecoms
4 6 (6.32%) Aerospace
4 6 (6.32%) Finance
4 6 (6.32%) Public Sector
5 3 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (2.11%) Legal
6 2 (2.11%) Military
6 2 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
6 2 (2.11%) Retail
7 1 (1.05%) Financial Institution
7 1 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.05%) Local Government
7 1 (1.05%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 24 (25.26%) Senior
2 20 (21.05%) Architect
3 17 (17.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 17 (17.89%) Network Engineer
4 11 (11.58%) Network Architect
5 10 (10.53%) Senior Network Engineer
6 8 (8.42%) Security Engineer
7 7 (7.37%) Azure Engineer
7 7 (7.37%) IT Engineer
7 7 (7.37%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 7 (7.37%) Systems Engineer
8 6 (6.32%) Cloud Engineer
9 5 (5.26%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 5 (5.26%) Platform Engineer
10 4 (4.21%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
10 4 (4.21%) IT Support
10 4 (4.21%) Lead
10 4 (4.21%) Network Security Architect
10 4 (4.21%) Network Security Engineer
10 4 (4.21%) Security Assurance Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (25.26%) Terraform
2 14 (14.74%) 802.1X
3 11 (11.58%) ARM Templates
4 2 (2.11%) ModSecurity
4 2 (2.11%) Unreal Engine
5 1 (1.05%) gRPC
5 1 (1.05%) NETCONF
5 1 (1.05%) REST
5 1 (1.05%) RESTCONF
5 1 (1.05%) SAML
5 1 (1.05%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 24 (25.26%) Hybrid Cloud
2 22 (23.16%) Data Centre
3 13 (13.68%) Onboarding
4 12 (12.63%) PKI
5 9 (9.47%) Cloud Native
6 7 (7.37%) Management Information System
7 5 (5.26%) Private Cloud
8 4 (4.21%) ARM Cortex
8 4 (4.21%) Fibre Optics
8 4 (4.21%) iPhone
8 4 (4.21%) Public Cloud
9 3 (3.16%) Blackberry
9 3 (3.16%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (3.16%) Digital Signage
9 3 (3.16%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 3 (3.16%) Driving Licence
10 2 (2.11%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (2.11%) Distributed Computing
10 2 (2.11%) Operational Technology
10 2 (2.11%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 41 (43.16%) Windows
2 25 (26.32%) Linux
3 21 (22.11%) Windows Server
4 6 (6.32%) Windows 10
5 2 (2.11%) Mac OS
5 2 (2.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (1.05%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (29.47%) ITIL
2 26 (27.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 20 (21.05%) Infrastructure as Code
4 18 (18.95%) DevOps
4 18 (18.95%) Technical Leadership
5 16 (16.84%) Cybersecurity
6 14 (14.74%) Disaster Recovery
6 14 (14.74%) Network Virtualisation
6 14 (14.74%) Zero Trust
7 13 (13.68%) Business Continuity
7 13 (13.68%) Change Management
7 13 (13.68%) CI/CD
7 13 (13.68%) Migration
7 13 (13.68%) Problem-Solving
7 13 (13.68%) Stakeholder Management
8 12 (12.63%) Observability
8 12 (12.63%) Project Delivery
9 11 (11.58%) Incident Response
9 11 (11.58%) Platform Engineering
9 11 (11.58%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 19 (20.00%) PowerShell
2 14 (14.74%) Bicep
3 13 (13.68%) Bash
4 10 (10.53%) Python
Qualifications
1 61 (64.21%) Security Cleared
2 34 (35.79%) DV Cleared
3 33 (34.74%) SC Cleared
4 11 (11.58%) Degree
5 10 (10.53%) Cisco Certification
6 9 (9.47%) CCNP
7 8 (8.42%) Azure Certification
8 7 (7.37%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (7.37%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 4 (4.21%) AWS Certification
10 3 (3.16%) CCIE
10 3 (3.16%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 2 (2.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (2.11%) PMP
12 1 (1.05%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (1.05%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (1.05%) JNCIE
12 1 (1.05%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (12.63%) NCSC
2 10 (10.53%) JSP 440
3 7 (7.37%) NIST
4 4 (4.21%) RMADS
5 2 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (2.11%) NIST 800
5 2 (2.11%) SLA
6 1 (1.05%) GDPR
6 1 (1.05%) QA
System Software
1 33 (34.74%) Active Directory
2 31 (32.63%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (15.79%) VMware NSX
4 12 (12.63%) Hyper-V
5 6 (6.32%) Docker
5 6 (6.32%) vSphere
6 5 (5.26%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (2.11%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (2.11%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (2.11%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 18 (18.95%) Ansible
2 13 (13.68%) Kubernetes
3 11 (11.58%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (9.47%) SCCM
5 7 (7.37%) Grafana
6 6 (6.32%) Prometheus
7 4 (4.21%) Cisco CUCM
8 3 (3.16%) FortiGate
8 3 (3.16%) Istio
9 2 (2.11%) Endace
9 2 (2.11%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (1.05%) Rancher
Vendors
1 47 (49.47%) Microsoft
2 37 (38.95%) VMware
3 33 (34.74%) Cisco
4 20 (21.05%) Palo Alto
5 19 (20.00%) F5
6 16 (16.84%) SolarWinds
7 13 (13.68%) Juniper
8 10 (10.53%) CheckPoint
9 8 (8.42%) Fortinet
9 8 (8.42%) ServiceNow
10 7 (7.37%) Zscaler
11 6 (6.32%) Veeam
12 5 (5.26%) Blue Coat
12 5 (5.26%) CrowdStrike
12 5 (5.26%) Google
12 5 (5.26%) Red Hat
13 4 (4.21%) Becrypt
13 4 (4.21%) BT
13 4 (4.21%) Commvault
13 4 (4.21%) NetApp