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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 136 67 92
Rank change year-on-year -69 +25 +40
Contract jobs citing VPN 101 102 102
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.51% 2.91% 2.07%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.56% 16.83% 10.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 76 55
10th Percentile £241 £341 £270
25th Percentile £405 £450 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.50% - +2.04%
75th Percentile £600 £591 £588
90th Percentile £649 £600 £714
England median daily rate £500 £450 £465
% change year-on-year +11.11% -3.23% -2.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 5 4
10th Percentile £62.09 £48.06 £17.89
25th Percentile £62.62 £71.00 £18.28
Median hourly rate £67.00 £89.63 £20.70
Median % change year-on-year -25.25% +333.00% +2.93%
75th Percentile £70.97 - £22.45
90th Percentile £71.24 - £22.53
England median hourly rate £17.50 £63.50 £16.22
% change year-on-year -72.44% +291.49% -14.63%

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 804 606 964
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.01% 17.29% 19.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 470 417 515
10th Percentile £298 £217 £254
25th Percentile £411 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - +7.18%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £638 £658
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 30 102
10th Percentile £17.96 £14.20 £23.10
25th Percentile £23.81 £22.94 £53.40
Median hourly rate £49.36 £54.94 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -10.15% -4.21% -0.26%
75th Percentile £56.21 £67.31 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.47 £89.63 £75.24
England median hourly rate £28.00 £44.00 £54.94
% change year-on-year -36.36% -19.91% +5.87%

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 11 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
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 11 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 -23 67 £518 +15.00% 13
Berkshire -22 36 £414 -8.06% 6
Buckinghamshire - 25 £615 -
Hampshire -59 17 £550 -4.35% 16
Surrey -15 13 £475 -9.52% 3
Oxfordshire -27 6 £288 -52.08% 7
Middlesex - 2 - -
West Sussex - 1 £105 - 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 9 (8.91%) SharePoint
2 3 (2.97%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (3.96%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.98%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (1.98%) Houdini
2 2 (1.98%) NUKE
3 1 (0.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.99%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 52 (51.49%) Azure
2 20 (19.80%) Entra ID
3 18 (17.82%) AWS
4 14 (13.86%) Microsoft 365
5 11 (10.89%) Azure Monitor
6 9 (8.91%) OneDrive
7 8 (7.92%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 7 (6.93%) Azure Sentinel
9 6 (5.94%) GCP
10 5 (4.95%) Azure AKS
10 5 (4.95%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (4.95%) OpenShift
10 5 (4.95%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 4 (3.96%) Azure Key Vault
12 3 (2.97%) AWS CloudFormation
12 3 (2.97%) AWS Direct Connect
13 2 (1.98%) Amazon EKS
13 2 (1.98%) Google Workspace
14 1 (0.99%) GitHub
14 1 (0.99%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 67 (66.34%) Firewall
2 54 (53.47%) DNS
3 38 (37.62%) DHCP
3 38 (37.62%) WAN
4 37 (36.63%) LAN
5 32 (31.68%) TCP/IP
6 28 (27.72%) Network Security
7 21 (20.79%) SD-WAN
8 20 (19.80%) VLAN
9 17 (16.83%) BGP
10 16 (15.84%) SSL
11 14 (13.86%) IPsec
11 14 (13.86%) MPLS
12 13 (12.87%) OSPF
13 12 (11.88%) Cisco ASA
13 12 (11.88%) Cisco Firepower
14 11 (10.89%) Wi-Fi
15 9 (8.91%) Wireless
16 7 (6.93%) BIG-IP
16 7 (6.93%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.98%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (1.98%) Git
1 2 (1.98%) JIRA
1 2 (1.98%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.99%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (0.99%) GitLab
2 1 (0.99%) Jenkins
General
1 40 (39.60%) Social Skills
2 17 (16.83%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (10.89%) Finance
4 9 (8.91%) Public Sector
4 9 (8.91%) Telecoms
5 5 (4.95%) Retail
6 4 (3.96%) Aerospace
6 4 (3.96%) Legal
7 2 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.98%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.98%) Military
7 2 (1.98%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.99%) Local Government
8 1 (0.99%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 25 (24.75%) Senior
2 22 (21.78%) Network Engineer
3 20 (19.80%) Architect
4 13 (12.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 12 (11.88%) Senior Network Engineer
6 11 (10.89%) Network Architect
7 9 (8.91%) Azure Engineer
8 7 (6.93%) IT Engineer
9 6 (5.94%) Cloud Engineer
9 6 (5.94%) Support Engineer
9 6 (5.94%) Technical Architect
10 5 (4.95%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 5 (4.95%) Head of Infrastructure
10 5 (4.95%) IT Support
10 5 (4.95%) IT Support Engineer
10 5 (4.95%) Platform Engineer
10 5 (4.95%) Security Engineer
10 5 (4.95%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 5 (4.95%) Systems Engineer
11 4 (3.96%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (8.91%) ARM Templates
2 8 (7.92%) 802.1X
3 2 (1.98%) ModSecurity
3 2 (1.98%) Unreal Engine
4 1 (0.99%) SAML
4 1 (0.99%) Software Packaging
4 1 (0.99%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (23.76%) Data Centre
2 21 (20.79%) Hybrid Cloud
3 14 (13.86%) Onboarding
4 9 (8.91%) Cloud Native
5 8 (7.92%) Public Cloud
6 7 (6.93%) PKI
7 6 (5.94%) Management Information System
8 5 (4.95%) Private Cloud
9 4 (3.96%) ARM Cortex
9 4 (3.96%) Fibre Optics
10 3 (2.97%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 3 (2.97%) iPhone
11 2 (1.98%) Blackberry
11 2 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (1.98%) Driving Licence
11 2 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
11 2 (1.98%) Motion Graphics
11 2 (1.98%) Replication
11 2 (1.98%) SCADA
11 2 (1.98%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 42 (41.58%) Windows
2 21 (20.79%) Linux
3 19 (18.81%) Windows Server
4 6 (5.94%) Windows 10
5 3 (2.97%) Mac OS
6 2 (1.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.99%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (25.74%) ITIL
2 19 (18.81%) DevOps
2 19 (18.81%) Infrastructure as Code
3 18 (17.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 17 (16.83%) Cybersecurity
5 16 (15.84%) CI/CD
5 16 (15.84%) Network Virtualisation
5 16 (15.84%) Project Delivery
6 14 (13.86%) Analytics
6 14 (13.86%) Change Management
7 13 (12.87%) Disaster Recovery
7 13 (12.87%) High Availability
7 13 (12.87%) Migration
7 13 (12.87%) Problem-Solving
7 13 (12.87%) Zero Trust
8 12 (11.88%) Network Architecture
8 12 (11.88%) Stakeholder Management
8 12 (11.88%) Technical Leadership
9 11 (10.89%) RBAC
9 11 (10.89%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 18 (17.82%) PowerShell
2 14 (13.86%) Bicep
3 10 (9.90%) Bash
4 8 (7.92%) Python
5 1 (0.99%) SQL
Qualifications
1 59 (58.42%) Security Cleared
2 33 (32.67%) SC Cleared
3 32 (31.68%) DV Cleared
4 11 (10.89%) CCNP
4 11 (10.89%) Cisco Certification
5 9 (8.91%) Degree
6 8 (7.92%) Microsoft Certification
7 7 (6.93%) Azure Certification
8 6 (5.94%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 4 (3.96%) AWS Certification
10 3 (2.97%) PMP
11 2 (1.98%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (1.98%) CCIE
11 2 (1.98%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 2 (1.98%) Network+ Certification
12 1 (0.99%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
12 1 (0.99%) MCSE
12 1 (0.99%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (9.90%) NCSC
2 9 (8.91%) NIST
3 6 (5.94%) JSP 440
4 5 (4.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (3.96%) GDPR
5 4 (3.96%) RMADS
6 2 (1.98%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (1.98%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.99%) QA
7 1 (0.99%) SLA
System Software
1 32 (31.68%) Active Directory
2 31 (30.69%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (16.83%) VMware NSX
4 10 (9.90%) Hyper-V
5 7 (6.93%) Docker
6 6 (5.94%) vSphere
7 5 (4.95%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (1.98%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (1.98%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (1.98%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 24 (23.76%) Terraform
2 18 (17.82%) Microsoft Intune
3 16 (15.84%) Ansible
4 13 (12.87%) Kubernetes
5 8 (7.92%) SCCM
6 6 (5.94%) Grafana
7 5 (4.95%) Prometheus
8 4 (3.96%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (1.98%) Endace
9 2 (1.98%) FortiGate
9 2 (1.98%) Istio
9 2 (1.98%) Nagios
9 2 (1.98%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.99%) Rancher
Vendors
1 41 (40.59%) Microsoft
2 37 (36.63%) VMware
3 31 (30.69%) Cisco
4 18 (17.82%) SolarWinds
5 17 (16.83%) Palo Alto
6 14 (13.86%) F5
7 10 (9.90%) Juniper
8 8 (7.92%) ServiceNow
9 7 (6.93%) CheckPoint
9 7 (6.93%) Fortinet
10 6 (5.94%) Veeam
11 5 (4.95%) CrowdStrike
11 5 (4.95%) Google
12 4 (3.96%) Arista
12 4 (3.96%) Becrypt
12 4 (3.96%) Commvault
12 4 (3.96%) Meraki
12 4 (3.96%) Red Hat
12 4 (3.96%) Xerox
12 4 (3.96%) Zscaler