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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 73 90
Rank change year-on-year -55 +17 +40
Contract jobs citing VPN 100 93 123
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.56% 2.82% 2.17%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.87% 16.09% 10.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 72 67 58
10th Percentile £226 £344 £184
25th Percentile £375 £450 £285
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £438
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +14.29% -12.50%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £552
90th Percentile £686 £600 £707
England median daily rate £498 £463 £450
% change year-on-year +7.57% +2.78% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 9
10th Percentile - - £17.93
25th Percentile - - £18.00
Median hourly rate - £32.77 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year - +72.47% -5.52%
75th Percentile - - £22.50
90th Percentile - - £22.53
England median hourly rate £16.00 £37.50 £16.86
% change year-on-year -57.33% +122.42% -19.71%

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 777 578 1,166
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.13% 17.55% 20.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 480 384 566
10th Percentile £281 £215 £214
25th Percentile £410 £325 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -2.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £625 £645
England median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 27 138
10th Percentile £17.50 £14.20 £17.21
25th Percentile £22.50 £22.76 £29.44
Median hourly rate £42.25 £50.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -15.50% -12.82% -0.26%
75th Percentile £56.21 £58.72 £70.00
90th Percentile £60.18 £65.56 £85.65
England median hourly rate £26.66 £40.50 £45.44
% change year-on-year -34.17% -10.87% +89.33%

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 7 July 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 7 July 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 -17 58 £428 -5.00% 24
Berkshire -29 35 £414 -8.06% 3
Hampshire -55 22 £550 - 22
Buckinghamshire -20 15 £560 +104.25% 4
Surrey -13 14 £475 -2.56% 13
Oxfordshire -19 8 £238 +11.76% 17
Kent -5 3 £180 -52.00% 7
Middlesex - 1 - - 2
West Sussex - 1 £105 - 3
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 14 (14.00%) SharePoint
2 3 (3.00%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (4.00%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.00%) MS Visio
3 1 (1.00%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 1 (1.00%) Houdini
3 1 (1.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.00%) NUKE
Cloud Services
1 46 (46.00%) Azure
2 20 (20.00%) Entra ID
3 19 (19.00%) AWS
4 18 (18.00%) Microsoft 365
5 12 (12.00%) OneDrive
6 10 (10.00%) GCP
7 4 (4.00%) Azure AKS
7 4 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (4.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (4.00%) Azure Monitor
7 4 (4.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 3 (3.00%) AWS CloudFormation
8 3 (3.00%) AWS Direct Connect
8 3 (3.00%) Azure Key Vault
9 2 (2.00%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (2.00%) IaaS
9 2 (2.00%) Nutanix
9 2 (2.00%) PaaS
9 2 (2.00%) Power Platform
10 1 (1.00%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 56 (56.00%) Firewall
2 45 (45.00%) LAN
3 43 (43.00%) WAN
4 36 (36.00%) DNS
5 26 (26.00%) SD-WAN
6 25 (25.00%) Network Security
7 24 (24.00%) BGP
8 22 (22.00%) TCP/IP
9 21 (21.00%) DHCP
9 21 (21.00%) OSPF
9 21 (21.00%) VLAN
10 19 (19.00%) MPLS
11 17 (17.00%) Wi-Fi
12 11 (11.00%) Cisco ASA
12 11 (11.00%) IPsec
12 11 (11.00%) SSL
13 9 (9.00%) Cisco Firepower
14 8 (8.00%) Cisco Nexus
14 8 (8.00%) Wireshark
15 7 (7.00%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.00%) Power BI
1 1 (1.00%) SQL Server
1 1 (1.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 4 (4.00%) Sonatype Nexus
2 3 (3.00%) JIRA
3 2 (2.00%) Git
3 2 (2.00%) GitLab
4 1 (1.00%) Browser DevTools
4 1 (1.00%) Jenkins
General
1 38 (38.00%) Social Skills
2 11 (11.00%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (10.00%) Finance
3 10 (10.00%) Telecoms
4 6 (6.00%) Legal
4 6 (6.00%) Public Sector
5 5 (5.00%) Retail
6 4 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (3.00%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (2.00%) Aviation
8 2 (2.00%) Financial Institution
8 2 (2.00%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.00%) Aerospace
9 1 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (1.00%) Manufacturing
9 1 (1.00%) Military
9 1 (1.00%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 25 (25.00%) Architect
2 21 (21.00%) Network Engineer
3 18 (18.00%) Senior
4 14 (14.00%) Network Architect
5 9 (9.00%) Senior Network Engineer
6 8 (8.00%) Support Engineer
7 7 (7.00%) IT Engineer
7 7 (7.00%) IT Support
7 7 (7.00%) IT Support Engineer
7 7 (7.00%) Lead
8 5 (5.00%) Azure Engineer
8 5 (5.00%) Head of Infrastructure
8 5 (5.00%) Infrastructure Architect
8 5 (5.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (5.00%) Network Manager
8 5 (5.00%) Senior Architect
8 5 (5.00%) Senior Network Architect
8 5 (5.00%) Technical Architect
9 4 (4.00%) Coordinator
9 4 (4.00%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (7.00%) 802.1X
2 2 (2.00%) ModSecurity
3 1 (1.00%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (1.00%) SAML
3 1 (1.00%) Software Packaging
3 1 (1.00%) Unreal Engine
3 1 (1.00%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 31 (31.00%) Data Centre
2 10 (10.00%) Hybrid Cloud
3 9 (9.00%) Cloud Native
3 9 (9.00%) Public Cloud
4 6 (6.00%) Onboarding
5 5 (5.00%) PKI
5 5 (5.00%) Private Cloud
6 3 (3.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 3 (3.00%) Management Information System
7 2 (2.00%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (2.00%) Operational Technology
7 2 (2.00%) SCADA
8 1 (1.00%) Fibre Optics
8 1 (1.00%) iPad
8 1 (1.00%) iPhone
8 1 (1.00%) Motion Graphics
8 1 (1.00%) Replication
8 1 (1.00%) Security Posture
8 1 (1.00%) Smartcard
8 1 (1.00%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 27 (27.00%) Windows
2 10 (10.00%) Linux
3 6 (6.00%) Windows Server
4 5 (5.00%) Windows 10
5 3 (3.00%) Mac OS
6 2 (2.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (1.00%) Apple iOS
7 1 (1.00%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (21.00%) ITIL
2 15 (15.00%) Network Architecture
2 15 (15.00%) Project Delivery
3 12 (12.00%) Migration
4 11 (11.00%) Analytics
4 11 (11.00%) Change Management
4 11 (11.00%) CI/CD
4 11 (11.00%) Cybersecurity
4 11 (11.00%) High Availability
4 11 (11.00%) Stakeholder Management
4 11 (11.00%) Zero Trust
5 10 (10.00%) Infrastructure as Code
5 10 (10.00%) Network Design
5 10 (10.00%) Network Virtualisation
5 10 (10.00%) Problem-Solving
5 10 (10.00%) Roadmaps
5 10 (10.00%) Technical Leadership
6 9 (9.00%) Customer Service
6 9 (9.00%) Load Balancing
6 9 (9.00%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 10 (10.00%) PowerShell
2 7 (7.00%) Python
3 4 (4.00%) Bicep
4 2 (2.00%) Bash
5 1 (1.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 50 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 29 (29.00%) SC Cleared
3 28 (28.00%) DV Cleared
4 19 (19.00%) CCNP
4 19 (19.00%) Cisco Certification
5 10 (10.00%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (5.00%) CCIE
6 5 (5.00%) Degree
7 4 (4.00%) PMP
7 4 (4.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 3 (3.00%) AWS Certification
8 3 (3.00%) Azure Certification
9 2 (2.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (2.00%) BC Cleared
9 2 (2.00%) CCIP
9 2 (2.00%) CCNA
9 2 (2.00%) ISTQB
9 2 (2.00%) Network+ Certification
10 1 (1.00%) GIAC
10 1 (1.00%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (12.00%) NCSC
2 9 (9.00%) NIST
3 6 (6.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (6.00%) JSP 440
4 4 (4.00%) GDPR
4 4 (4.00%) RMADS
5 2 (2.00%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (2.00%) NIST 800
5 2 (2.00%) QA
5 2 (2.00%) SLA
6 1 (1.00%) GRC
System Software
1 27 (27.00%) Active Directory
2 23 (23.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (15.00%) VMware NSX
4 7 (7.00%) Hyper-V
5 5 (5.00%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (5.00%) vSphere
6 4 (4.00%) Docker
7 2 (2.00%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (2.00%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (2.00%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (1.00%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 17 (17.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (15.00%) Terraform
3 12 (12.00%) Ansible
4 6 (6.00%) Kubernetes
5 4 (4.00%) Grafana
5 4 (4.00%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (3.00%) Endace
6 3 (3.00%) Nagios
6 3 (3.00%) Prometheus
6 3 (3.00%) SCCM
7 2 (2.00%) Cisco CUCM
7 2 (2.00%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (2.00%) FortiGate
7 2 (2.00%) Iperf
7 2 (2.00%) Nmap
8 1 (1.00%) CASB
8 1 (1.00%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (1.00%) Rancher
Vendors
1 35 (35.00%) Cisco
2 32 (32.00%) Microsoft
3 30 (30.00%) VMware
4 19 (19.00%) SolarWinds
5 16 (16.00%) Palo Alto
6 13 (13.00%) F5
7 12 (12.00%) Fortinet
7 12 (12.00%) Juniper
8 10 (10.00%) CheckPoint
9 7 (7.00%) ServiceNow
10 5 (5.00%) Arista
10 5 (5.00%) BT
10 5 (5.00%) Google
10 5 (5.00%) Meraki
10 5 (5.00%) Veeam
11 4 (4.00%) Commvault
11 4 (4.00%) NetApp
11 4 (4.00%) Xerox
11 4 (4.00%) Zscaler
12 3 (3.00%) Virgin Media