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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 138 71 89
Rank change year-on-year -67 +18 +49
Contract jobs citing VPN 100 97 103
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.49% 2.74% 2.13%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.53% 16.28% 10.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 65 72 57
10th Percentile £255 £358 £263
25th Percentile £405 £450 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% +1.50% +2.04%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £649 - £709
England median daily rate £500 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +11.11% -5.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 5 4
10th Percentile £62.27 £48.06 £17.89
25th Percentile £63.06 £71.00 £18.28
Median hourly rate £69.22 £89.63 £20.70
Median % change year-on-year -22.78% +333.00% +2.93%
75th Percentile £77.57 - £22.45
90th Percentile £88.63 - £22.53
England median hourly rate £17.50 £63.50 £16.22
% change year-on-year -72.44% +291.49% -18.90%

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 798 596 950
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.85% 16.81% 19.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 473 405 516
10th Percentile £300 £230 £254
25th Percentile £410 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - +8.70%
75th Percentile £600 £590 £608
90th Percentile £668 £638 £663
England median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 30 100
10th Percentile £17.50 £14.20 £25.90
25th Percentile £22.50 £22.94 £51.06
Median hourly rate £48.72 £54.94 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -11.32% -4.21% -1.46%
75th Percentile £56.21 £67.31 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.47 £89.63 £75.02
England median hourly rate £27.50 £43.75 £54.88
% change year-on-year -37.14% -20.27% -0.23%

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 August 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 18 August 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 18 August 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 -11 63 £520 +15.56% 13
Berkshire -13 34 £411 -8.61% 8
Buckinghamshire - 24 £615 -
Hampshire -52 19 £550 -4.35% 17
Surrey -13 14 £475 -9.52% 5
Oxfordshire -27 5 £325 -45.83% 5
Middlesex - 2 - -
Home Counties - 1 - -
West Sussex - 1 £105 - 2
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 7 (7.00%) SharePoint
2 3 (3.00%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (5.00%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.00%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (2.00%) Houdini
2 2 (2.00%) NUKE
3 1 (1.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.00%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 48 (48.00%) Azure
2 17 (17.00%) AWS
2 17 (17.00%) Entra ID
3 13 (13.00%) Microsoft 365
4 11 (11.00%) Azure Monitor
5 7 (7.00%) Azure Sentinel
5 7 (7.00%) OneDrive
6 6 (6.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 6 (6.00%) GCP
7 5 (5.00%) Azure AKS
7 5 (5.00%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (5.00%) OpenShift
7 5 (5.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 4 (4.00%) Azure Key Vault
9 3 (3.00%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (3.00%) AWS Direct Connect
10 2 (2.00%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (2.00%) Google Workspace
11 1 (1.00%) GitHub
11 1 (1.00%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 67 (67.00%) Firewall
2 53 (53.00%) DNS
3 39 (39.00%) WAN
4 37 (37.00%) DHCP
5 36 (36.00%) LAN
6 32 (32.00%) TCP/IP
7 25 (25.00%) Network Security
8 21 (21.00%) SD-WAN
9 19 (19.00%) VLAN
10 17 (17.00%) SSL
11 16 (16.00%) BGP
12 15 (15.00%) IPsec
13 14 (14.00%) MPLS
14 12 (12.00%) Cisco ASA
14 12 (12.00%) Cisco Firepower
14 12 (12.00%) OSPF
15 10 (10.00%) Wi-Fi
15 10 (10.00%) Wireless
16 7 (7.00%) BIG-IP
16 7 (7.00%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.00%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (2.00%) Git
1 2 (2.00%) JIRA
1 2 (2.00%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (1.00%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (1.00%) GitLab
2 1 (1.00%) Jenkins
General
1 41 (41.00%) Social Skills
2 18 (18.00%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (11.00%) Finance
4 9 (9.00%) Public Sector
4 9 (9.00%) Telecoms
5 5 (5.00%) Retail
6 4 (4.00%) Aerospace
6 4 (4.00%) Legal
7 2 (2.00%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (2.00%) Financial Institution
7 2 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (2.00%) Military
7 2 (2.00%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.00%) Local Government
8 1 (1.00%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 25 (25.00%) Senior
2 21 (21.00%) Network Engineer
3 20 (20.00%) Architect
4 14 (14.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 12 (12.00%) Senior Network Engineer
6 11 (11.00%) Network Architect
7 8 (8.00%) Azure Engineer
7 8 (8.00%) IT Engineer
8 6 (6.00%) Security Engineer
8 6 (6.00%) Technical Architect
9 5 (5.00%) Cloud Engineer
9 5 (5.00%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 5 (5.00%) Head of Infrastructure
9 5 (5.00%) IT Support
9 5 (5.00%) IT Support Engineer
9 5 (5.00%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 5 (5.00%) Support Engineer
9 5 (5.00%) Systems Engineer
10 4 (4.00%) Head of IT Infrastructure
10 4 (4.00%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (10.00%) 802.1X
2 9 (9.00%) ARM Templates
3 2 (2.00%) ModSecurity
3 2 (2.00%) Unreal Engine
4 1 (1.00%) SAML
4 1 (1.00%) Software Packaging
4 1 (1.00%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (24.00%) Data Centre
2 21 (21.00%) Hybrid Cloud
3 13 (13.00%) Onboarding
4 9 (9.00%) Cloud Native
5 8 (8.00%) PKI
5 8 (8.00%) Public Cloud
6 6 (6.00%) Management Information System
7 5 (5.00%) Private Cloud
8 4 (4.00%) ARM Cortex
8 4 (4.00%) Fibre Optics
8 4 (4.00%) iPhone
9 3 (3.00%) Blackberry
9 3 (3.00%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (3.00%) Digital Signage
9 3 (3.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 3 (3.00%) Driving Licence
10 2 (2.00%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (2.00%) Operational Technology
10 2 (2.00%) Replication
10 2 (2.00%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 42 (42.00%) Windows
2 22 (22.00%) Linux
3 20 (20.00%) Windows Server
4 6 (6.00%) Windows 10
5 2 (2.00%) Mac OS
5 2 (2.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (1.00%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (27.00%) ITIL
2 20 (20.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 19 (19.00%) DevOps
3 19 (19.00%) Infrastructure as Code
4 18 (18.00%) Cybersecurity
5 16 (16.00%) CI/CD
5 16 (16.00%) Network Virtualisation
5 16 (16.00%) Project Delivery
6 15 (15.00%) Change Management
7 14 (14.00%) Analytics
7 14 (14.00%) Disaster Recovery
7 14 (14.00%) Problem-Solving
8 13 (13.00%) Migration
8 13 (13.00%) Stakeholder Management
8 13 (13.00%) Technical Leadership
8 13 (13.00%) Zero Trust
9 12 (12.00%) High Availability
9 12 (12.00%) Network Architecture
10 11 (11.00%) Roadmaps
11 10 (10.00%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 17 (17.00%) PowerShell
2 14 (14.00%) Bicep
3 10 (10.00%) Bash
4 8 (8.00%) Python
5 1 (1.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 60 (60.00%) Security Cleared
2 33 (33.00%) DV Cleared
2 33 (33.00%) SC Cleared
3 10 (10.00%) CCNP
3 10 (10.00%) Cisco Certification
4 9 (9.00%) Degree
5 7 (7.00%) Azure Certification
5 7 (7.00%) Microsoft Certification
6 6 (6.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 4 (4.00%) AWS Certification
8 3 (3.00%) PMP
9 2 (2.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (2.00%) CCIE
9 2 (2.00%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 1 (1.00%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (1.00%) MCSE
10 1 (1.00%) Network+ Certification
10 1 (1.00%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (11.00%) NCSC
2 9 (9.00%) NIST
3 7 (7.00%) JSP 440
4 5 (5.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (4.00%) GDPR
5 4 (4.00%) RMADS
6 2 (2.00%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (2.00%) NIST 800
7 1 (1.00%) QA
7 1 (1.00%) SLA
System Software
1 32 (32.00%) Active Directory
2 31 (31.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (17.00%) VMware NSX
4 10 (10.00%) Hyper-V
5 7 (7.00%) Docker
6 6 (6.00%) vSphere
7 5 (5.00%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (2.00%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (2.00%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (2.00%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 24 (24.00%) Terraform
2 16 (16.00%) Ansible
3 15 (15.00%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (13.00%) Kubernetes
5 8 (8.00%) SCCM
6 6 (6.00%) Grafana
7 5 (5.00%) Prometheus
8 4 (4.00%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (2.00%) Endace
9 2 (2.00%) FortiGate
9 2 (2.00%) Istio
9 2 (2.00%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (1.00%) Nagios
10 1 (1.00%) Rancher
Vendors
1 42 (42.00%) Microsoft
2 37 (37.00%) VMware
3 31 (31.00%) Cisco
4 18 (18.00%) Palo Alto
5 17 (17.00%) SolarWinds
6 15 (15.00%) F5
7 10 (10.00%) Juniper
8 8 (8.00%) CheckPoint
8 8 (8.00%) ServiceNow
9 7 (7.00%) Fortinet
10 6 (6.00%) Veeam
11 5 (5.00%) CrowdStrike
11 5 (5.00%) Google
11 5 (5.00%) Zscaler
12 4 (4.00%) Arista
12 4 (4.00%) Becrypt
12 4 (4.00%) Commvault
12 4 (4.00%) Meraki
12 4 (4.00%) Red Hat
12 4 (4.00%) Xerox