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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 77 84
Rank change year-on-year -50 +7 +60
Contract jobs citing VPN 102 89 103
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.55% 2.53% 2.18%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 13.28% 14.78% 11.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 70 57
10th Percentile £288 £353 £274
25th Percentile £405 £450 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -0.95% +7.14%
75th Percentile £622 £600 £588
90th Percentile £650 - £709
England median daily rate £500 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +11.11% -10.00% +6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 5 4
10th Percentile £61.74 £48.06 £17.89
25th Percentile £63.06 £71.00 £18.28
Median hourly rate £69.72 £89.63 £20.70
Median % change year-on-year -22.22% +333.00% -2.45%
75th Percentile £96.00 - £22.45
90th Percentile - - £22.53
England median hourly rate £25.75 £50.00 £15.23
% change year-on-year -48.50% +228.30% -29.52%

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 768 602 877
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.64% 17.08% 18.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 449 413 459
10th Percentile £300 £219 £260
25th Percentile £406 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - +9.78%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £650 £638 £665
England median daily rate £500 £490 £505
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.97% +1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 30 97
10th Percentile £17.50 £14.20 £26.25
25th Percentile £23.38 £22.94 £51.06
Median hourly rate £51.50 £54.94 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -6.26% -4.21% -3.54%
75th Percentile £59.19 £67.31 £70.00
90th Percentile £69.50 £89.63 £75.10
England median hourly rate £27.11 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -36.21% -25.89% +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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -2 64 £520 +15.56% 21
Berkshire -11 38 £411 -8.61% 9
Buckinghamshire - 22 £615 - 5
Hampshire -48 21 £550 -4.35% 19
Surrey -9 14 £475 -11.63% 17
Oxfordshire -26 4 £363 -39.58% 7
Middlesex - 2 - -
Home Counties - 1 - -
West Sussex - 1 £105 - 6
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 (5.88%) SharePoint
2 3 (2.94%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (4.90%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.96%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (1.96%) Houdini
2 2 (1.96%) NUKE
3 1 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.98%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 47 (46.08%) Azure
2 15 (14.71%) AWS
2 15 (14.71%) Entra ID
3 12 (11.76%) Azure Monitor
3 12 (11.76%) Microsoft 365
4 7 (6.86%) Azure Sentinel
4 7 (6.86%) OpenShift
5 6 (5.88%) OneDrive
6 5 (4.90%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (4.90%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (4.90%) GCP
6 5 (4.90%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (3.92%) Azure AKS
8 3 (2.94%) AWS CloudFormation
8 3 (2.94%) Azure Key Vault
9 2 (1.96%) Amazon EKS
9 2 (1.96%) AWS Direct Connect
9 2 (1.96%) Google Workspace
10 1 (0.98%) GitHub
10 1 (0.98%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 67 (65.69%) Firewall
2 56 (54.90%) DNS
3 39 (38.24%) DHCP
3 39 (38.24%) WAN
4 34 (33.33%) TCP/IP
5 33 (32.35%) LAN
6 28 (27.45%) Network Security
7 21 (20.59%) SSL
8 20 (19.61%) SD-WAN
8 20 (19.61%) VLAN
9 18 (17.65%) IPsec
10 17 (16.67%) BGP
11 13 (12.75%) Cisco Firepower
11 13 (12.75%) MPLS
11 13 (12.75%) OSPF
12 12 (11.76%) Cisco ASA
13 9 (8.82%) BIG-IP
13 9 (8.82%) Wi-Fi
13 9 (8.82%) Wireless
14 8 (7.84%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.96%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (1.96%) Git
1 2 (1.96%) JIRA
1 2 (1.96%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.98%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (0.98%) GitLab
2 1 (0.98%) Jenkins
General
1 41 (40.20%) Social Skills
2 19 (18.63%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (10.78%) Finance
4 10 (9.80%) Telecoms
5 9 (8.82%) Public Sector
6 6 (5.88%) Aerospace
7 5 (4.90%) Retail
8 3 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (2.94%) Legal
9 2 (1.96%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.96%) Military
9 2 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.98%) Local Government
10 1 (0.98%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 25 (24.51%) Senior
2 20 (19.61%) Architect
2 20 (19.61%) Network Engineer
3 16 (15.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 11 (10.78%) Network Architect
4 11 (10.78%) Senior Network Engineer
5 8 (7.84%) Azure Engineer
5 8 (7.84%) Security Engineer
6 7 (6.86%) IT Engineer
6 7 (6.86%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 7 (6.86%) Systems Engineer
7 6 (5.88%) Cloud Engineer
8 5 (4.90%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
8 5 (4.90%) Head of Infrastructure
8 5 (4.90%) Platform Engineer
9 4 (3.92%) Head of IT Infrastructure
9 4 (3.92%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
9 4 (3.92%) IT Support
9 4 (3.92%) Lead
9 4 (3.92%) Security Assurance Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (25.49%) Terraform
2 14 (13.73%) 802.1X
3 11 (10.78%) ARM Templates
4 2 (1.96%) ModSecurity
4 2 (1.96%) Unreal Engine
5 1 (0.98%) gRPC
5 1 (0.98%) NETCONF
5 1 (0.98%) REST
5 1 (0.98%) RESTCONF
5 1 (0.98%) SAML
5 1 (0.98%) Software Packaging
5 1 (0.98%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 26 (25.49%) Data Centre
2 24 (23.53%) Hybrid Cloud
3 13 (12.75%) Onboarding
4 11 (10.78%) PKI
5 10 (9.80%) Cloud Native
6 7 (6.86%) Management Information System
7 5 (4.90%) Private Cloud
7 5 (4.90%) Public Cloud
8 4 (3.92%) ARM Cortex
8 4 (3.92%) Fibre Optics
8 4 (3.92%) iPhone
9 3 (2.94%) Blackberry
9 3 (2.94%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (2.94%) Digital Signage
9 3 (2.94%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 3 (2.94%) Driving Licence
10 2 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (1.96%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (1.96%) Distributed Computing
10 2 (1.96%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 44 (43.14%) Windows
2 25 (24.51%) Linux
3 23 (22.55%) Windows Server
4 6 (5.88%) Windows 10
5 2 (1.96%) Mac OS
5 2 (1.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.98%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (28.43%) ITIL
2 24 (23.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 21 (20.59%) DevOps
3 21 (20.59%) Infrastructure as Code
4 19 (18.63%) Cybersecurity
5 17 (16.67%) Change Management
5 17 (16.67%) Technical Leadership
6 16 (15.69%) Disaster Recovery
6 16 (15.69%) Network Virtualisation
6 16 (15.69%) Project Delivery
7 15 (14.71%) CI/CD
7 15 (14.71%) Problem-Solving
8 14 (13.73%) Migration
8 14 (13.73%) Stakeholder Management
8 14 (13.73%) Zero Trust
9 13 (12.75%) Analytics
10 12 (11.76%) Business Continuity
10 12 (11.76%) High Availability
10 12 (11.76%) Observability
10 12 (11.76%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 19 (18.63%) PowerShell
2 15 (14.71%) Bicep
3 13 (12.75%) Bash
4 12 (11.76%) Python
5 1 (0.98%) SQL
Qualifications
1 64 (62.75%) Security Cleared
2 35 (34.31%) DV Cleared
2 35 (34.31%) SC Cleared
3 11 (10.78%) Degree
4 10 (9.80%) Cisco Certification
5 9 (8.82%) CCNP
6 8 (7.84%) Azure Certification
7 7 (6.86%) Microsoft Certification
7 7 (6.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 4 (3.92%) AWS Certification
9 3 (2.94%) CCIE
9 3 (2.94%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (2.94%) PMP
10 2 (1.96%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (1.96%) Computer Science Degree
11 1 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
11 1 (0.98%) JNCIE
11 1 (0.98%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (10.78%) NCSC
2 9 (8.82%) JSP 440
3 7 (6.86%) NIST
4 5 (4.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (3.92%) GDPR
5 4 (3.92%) RMADS
6 2 (1.96%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.98%) QA
7 1 (0.98%) SLA
System Software
1 34 (33.33%) Active Directory
2 32 (31.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (15.69%) VMware NSX
4 12 (11.76%) Hyper-V
5 8 (7.84%) Docker
6 6 (5.88%) vSphere
7 5 (4.90%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (1.96%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (1.96%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 20 (19.61%) Ansible
2 15 (14.71%) Kubernetes
3 14 (13.73%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (7.84%) SCCM
5 7 (6.86%) Grafana
6 6 (5.88%) Prometheus
7 4 (3.92%) Cisco CUCM
8 3 (2.94%) FortiGate
8 3 (2.94%) Istio
9 2 (1.96%) Endace
9 2 (1.96%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.98%) Rancher
Vendors
1 46 (45.10%) Microsoft
2 38 (37.25%) VMware
3 34 (33.33%) Cisco
4 20 (19.61%) Palo Alto
5 19 (18.63%) F5
6 16 (15.69%) SolarWinds
7 13 (12.75%) Juniper
8 10 (9.80%) CheckPoint
9 9 (8.82%) Fortinet
10 8 (7.84%) ServiceNow
11 7 (6.86%) Zscaler
12 6 (5.88%) Veeam
13 5 (4.90%) Blue Coat
13 5 (4.90%) CrowdStrike
13 5 (4.90%) Google
13 5 (4.90%) Red Hat
14 4 (3.92%) Arista
14 4 (3.92%) BT
14 4 (3.92%) Commvault
14 4 (3.92%) Xerox