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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 78 91
Rank change year-on-year -57 +13 +44
Contract jobs citing VPN 97 89 100
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.45% 2.52% 2.10%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.66% 15.06% 11.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 64 71 55
10th Percentile £278 £356 £270
25th Percentile £405 £450 £369
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.46% -1.90% +7.14%
75th Percentile £606 £600 £588
90th Percentile £649 - £714
England median daily rate £500 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +11.11% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 5 4
10th Percentile £62.44 £48.06 £17.89
25th Percentile £63.50 £71.00 £18.28
Median hourly rate £71.43 £89.63 £20.70
Median % change year-on-year -20.31% +333.00% +2.93%
75th Percentile £96.00 - £22.45
90th Percentile - - £22.53
England median hourly rate £19.85 £50.00 £16.19
% change year-on-year -60.30% +208.83% -22.90%

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 766 591 904
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.47% 16.75% 18.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 446 406 481
10th Percentile £291 £220 £254
25th Percentile £405 £358 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - +8.70%
75th Percentile £600 £589 £608
90th Percentile £660 £638 £670
England median daily rate £500 £492 £505
% change year-on-year +1.63% -2.57% +1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 31 99
10th Percentile £17.50 £14.20 £25.55
25th Percentile £22.50 £24.63 £51.06
Median hourly rate £50.00 £55.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -4.10% -1.46%
75th Percentile £56.66 £70.16 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.47 £89.63 £75.05
England median hourly rate £27.11 £43.00 £55.75
% change year-on-year -36.95% -22.86% -1.32%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -13 59 £519 +15.28% 21
Berkshire -21 33 £410 -8.89% 9
Buckinghamshire - 22 £615 - 4
Hampshire -48 20 £550 -4.35% 13
Surrey -13 14 £475 -9.52% 7
Oxfordshire -28 4 £363 -39.58% 8
Middlesex - 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 6 (6.19%) SharePoint
2 3 (3.09%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (5.15%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.06%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (2.06%) Houdini
2 2 (2.06%) NUKE
3 1 (1.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.03%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 45 (46.39%) Azure
2 15 (15.46%) AWS
2 15 (15.46%) Entra ID
3 12 (12.37%) Microsoft 365
4 11 (11.34%) Azure Monitor
5 7 (7.22%) Azure Sentinel
6 6 (6.19%) OneDrive
7 5 (5.15%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (5.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 5 (5.15%) GCP
7 5 (5.15%) OpenShift
7 5 (5.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 4 (4.12%) Azure AKS
9 3 (3.09%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (3.09%) Azure Key Vault
10 2 (2.06%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (2.06%) AWS Direct Connect
10 2 (2.06%) Google Workspace
11 1 (1.03%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 1 (1.03%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 65 (67.01%) Firewall
2 53 (54.64%) DNS
3 38 (39.18%) WAN
4 37 (38.14%) DHCP
5 33 (34.02%) LAN
6 32 (32.99%) TCP/IP
7 26 (26.80%) Network Security
8 20 (20.62%) SD-WAN
9 18 (18.56%) SSL
9 18 (18.56%) VLAN
10 16 (16.49%) IPsec
11 15 (15.46%) BGP
12 13 (13.40%) MPLS
13 12 (12.37%) Cisco ASA
13 12 (12.37%) Cisco Firepower
14 11 (11.34%) OSPF
15 9 (9.28%) Wi-Fi
16 8 (8.25%) Wireless
17 7 (7.22%) BIG-IP
17 7 (7.22%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.06%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (2.06%) Git
1 2 (2.06%) JIRA
1 2 (2.06%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (1.03%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (1.03%) GitLab
2 1 (1.03%) Jenkins
General
1 40 (41.24%) Social Skills
2 18 (18.56%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (11.34%) Finance
4 10 (10.31%) Telecoms
5 9 (9.28%) Public Sector
6 5 (5.15%) Retail
7 4 (4.12%) Aerospace
7 4 (4.12%) Legal
8 2 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (2.06%) Financial Institution
8 2 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (2.06%) Military
8 2 (2.06%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (1.03%) Local Government
9 1 (1.03%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 25 (25.77%) Senior
2 21 (21.65%) Network Engineer
3 17 (17.53%) Architect
4 15 (15.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 12 (12.37%) Senior Network Engineer
6 9 (9.28%) Network Architect
7 8 (8.25%) Azure Engineer
8 7 (7.22%) IT Engineer
8 7 (7.22%) Security Engineer
9 6 (6.19%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 5 (5.15%) Cloud Engineer
10 5 (5.15%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 5 (5.15%) Head of Infrastructure
10 5 (5.15%) Platform Engineer
10 5 (5.15%) Systems Engineer
11 4 (4.12%) Head of IT Infrastructure
11 4 (4.12%) Infrastructure Services Engineer
11 4 (4.12%) IT Support
11 4 (4.12%) Lead
11 4 (4.12%) Security Assurance Coordinator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (24.74%) Terraform
2 12 (12.37%) 802.1X
3 10 (10.31%) ARM Templates
4 2 (2.06%) ModSecurity
4 2 (2.06%) Unreal Engine
5 1 (1.03%) SAML
5 1 (1.03%) Software Packaging
5 1 (1.03%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (24.74%) Data Centre
2 22 (22.68%) Hybrid Cloud
3 13 (13.40%) Onboarding
4 10 (10.31%) PKI
5 9 (9.28%) Cloud Native
6 6 (6.19%) Management Information System
7 5 (5.15%) Private Cloud
7 5 (5.15%) Public Cloud
8 4 (4.12%) ARM Cortex
8 4 (4.12%) Fibre Optics
8 4 (4.12%) iPhone
9 3 (3.09%) Blackberry
9 3 (3.09%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (3.09%) Digital Signage
9 3 (3.09%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 3 (3.09%) Driving Licence
10 2 (2.06%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (2.06%) Operational Technology
10 2 (2.06%) Replication
10 2 (2.06%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 42 (43.30%) Windows
2 23 (23.71%) Linux
3 21 (21.65%) Windows Server
4 6 (6.19%) Windows 10
5 2 (2.06%) Mac OS
5 2 (2.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (1.03%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (27.84%) ITIL
2 22 (22.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 19 (19.59%) Cybersecurity
3 19 (19.59%) DevOps
3 19 (19.59%) Infrastructure as Code
4 17 (17.53%) Network Virtualisation
5 16 (16.49%) Change Management
5 16 (16.49%) Project Delivery
6 15 (15.46%) CI/CD
7 14 (14.43%) Analytics
7 14 (14.43%) Disaster Recovery
7 14 (14.43%) Problem-Solving
7 14 (14.43%) Technical Leadership
8 13 (13.40%) Migration
8 13 (13.40%) Stakeholder Management
8 13 (13.40%) Zero Trust
9 12 (12.37%) High Availability
10 11 (11.34%) Observability
10 11 (11.34%) Roadmaps
10 11 (11.34%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 17 (17.53%) PowerShell
2 14 (14.43%) Bicep
3 11 (11.34%) Bash
4 8 (8.25%) Python
5 1 (1.03%) SQL
Qualifications
1 59 (60.82%) Security Cleared
2 35 (36.08%) DV Cleared
3 30 (30.93%) SC Cleared
4 10 (10.31%) Degree
5 9 (9.28%) CCNP
5 9 (9.28%) Cisco Certification
6 7 (7.22%) Azure Certification
7 6 (6.19%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (6.19%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 4 (4.12%) AWS Certification
9 3 (3.09%) PMP
10 2 (2.06%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (2.06%) CCIE
10 2 (2.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 1 (1.03%) BPSS Clearance
11 1 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
11 1 (1.03%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (10.31%) NCSC
2 8 (8.25%) JSP 440
3 7 (7.22%) NIST
4 5 (5.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (4.12%) GDPR
5 4 (4.12%) RMADS
6 2 (2.06%) NIST 800
7 1 (1.03%) QA
7 1 (1.03%) SLA
System Software
1 33 (34.02%) Active Directory
2 31 (31.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (17.53%) VMware NSX
4 10 (10.31%) Hyper-V
5 7 (7.22%) Docker
6 6 (6.19%) vSphere
7 5 (5.15%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (2.06%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (2.06%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (2.06%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 16 (16.49%) Ansible
2 14 (14.43%) Microsoft Intune
3 13 (13.40%) Kubernetes
4 8 (8.25%) SCCM
5 6 (6.19%) Grafana
6 5 (5.15%) Prometheus
7 4 (4.12%) Cisco CUCM
8 2 (2.06%) Endace
8 2 (2.06%) FortiGate
8 2 (2.06%) Istio
8 2 (2.06%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (1.03%) Rancher
Vendors
1 43 (44.33%) Microsoft
2 37 (38.14%) VMware
3 31 (31.96%) Cisco
4 19 (19.59%) Palo Alto
5 16 (16.49%) F5
5 16 (16.49%) SolarWinds
6 10 (10.31%) Juniper
7 9 (9.28%) CheckPoint
8 8 (8.25%) ServiceNow
9 7 (7.22%) Fortinet
10 6 (6.19%) Veeam
10 6 (6.19%) Zscaler
11 5 (5.15%) CrowdStrike
11 5 (5.15%) Google
12 4 (4.12%) Becrypt
12 4 (4.12%) BT
12 4 (4.12%) Commvault
12 4 (4.12%) Meraki
12 4 (4.12%) NetApp
12 4 (4.12%) Red Hat