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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 84 78 129
Rank change year-on-year -6 +51 -3
Contract jobs citing VPN 83 112 82
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 2.38% 2.42% 1.48%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 13.74% 13.21% 7.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 64 42
10th Percentile £344 £235 £185
25th Percentile £450 £359 £261
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +16.67% -14.29%
75th Percentile £600 £578 £548
90th Percentile £615 £694 £679
England median daily rate £450 £513 £450
% change year-on-year -12.20% +13.89% -2.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 3 2
10th Percentile £48.06 £17.80 £19.10
25th Percentile £71.00 £18.06 £20.00
Median hourly rate £89.63 £19.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +371.74% -13.64% -
75th Percentile - £20.95 £24.00
90th Percentile - £21.82 £24.90
England median hourly rate £58.50 £17.75 £22.00
% change year-on-year +229.58% -19.32% -

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 604 848 1,101
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 17.32% 18.34% 19.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 422 459 653
10th Percentile £204 £245 £207
25th Percentile £329 £400 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £500 £460
Median % change year-on-year -1.80% +8.70% -0.27%
75th Percentile £588 £608 £588
90th Percentile £638 £672 £675
England median daily rate £488 £508 £500
% change year-on-year -3.94% +1.50% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 83 72
10th Percentile £15.22 £27.00 £15.50
25th Percentile £31.58 £53.40 £32.38
Median hourly rate £55.00 £57.35 £61.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.10% -5.98% +35.56%
75th Percentile £70.87 £71.88 £75.00
90th Percentile £89.63 £75.24 £77.90
England median hourly rate £41.72 £57.35 £56.49
% change year-on-year -27.25% +1.52% +34.02%

VPN
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings citing VPN as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for VPN 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 September 2025.

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 September 2025.

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 September 2025. 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
Hampshire +15 36 £575 +2.22% 31
Thames Valley -11 31 £450 -10.00% 26
Berkshire -4 24 £450 -2.70% 19
Kent +3 10 £259 +65.82% 5
Oxfordshire -2 7 £600 +29.03% 5
Surrey -14 6 £538 +7.50% 6
VPN
England

VPN
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 21 (25.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 19 (22.89%) SharePoint
3 13 (15.66%) Exchange Server 2003
3 13 (15.66%) Exchange Server 2007
3 13 (15.66%) Exchange Server 2010
3 13 (15.66%) Exchange Server 2013
3 13 (15.66%) Office Communications Server
3 13 (15.66%) SharePoint Server
3 13 (15.66%) Skype for Business
4 6 (7.23%) Confluence
5 1 (1.20%) Anypoint
5 1 (1.20%) IIS
5 1 (1.20%) Tomcat
Applications
1 18 (21.69%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 17 (20.48%) Azure
2 14 (16.87%) AWS
3 9 (10.84%) IaaS
4 8 (9.64%) GCP
4 8 (9.64%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (9.64%) OpenShift
4 8 (9.64%) PaaS
5 5 (6.02%) Entra ID
6 3 (3.61%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 3 (3.61%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (2.41%) SaaS
8 1 (1.20%) Akamai
8 1 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (1.20%) Azure AKS
8 1 (1.20%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (1.20%) GitHub
8 1 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (1.20%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (1.20%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 44 (53.01%) Firewall
2 40 (48.19%) DNS
3 30 (36.14%) DHCP
3 30 (36.14%) TCP/IP
4 23 (27.71%) SAN
5 20 (24.10%) WAN
6 18 (21.69%) Network Security
6 18 (21.69%) VLAN
7 17 (20.48%) BGP
8 16 (19.28%) LAN
8 16 (19.28%) OSPF
9 14 (16.87%) MPLS
10 13 (15.66%) DDNS
10 13 (15.66%) Wireshark
11 10 (12.05%) ATM
11 10 (12.05%) Ethernet
11 10 (12.05%) GPRS
11 10 (12.05%) LTE
11 10 (12.05%) SDH
11 10 (12.05%) UMTS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (9.64%) Amazon RDS
1 8 (9.64%) Big Data
1 8 (9.64%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (1.20%) Data Lake
2 1 (1.20%) MongoDB
2 1 (1.20%) NoSQL
2 1 (1.20%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (12.05%) JIRA
2 2 (2.41%) GitLab
2 2 (2.41%) Jenkins
3 1 (1.20%) Bitbucket
3 1 (1.20%) Git
3 1 (1.20%) Maven
General
1 26 (31.33%) Social Skills
2 13 (15.66%) Public Sector
3 12 (14.46%) Telecoms
4 9 (10.84%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (8.43%) Legal
6 5 (6.02%) Law
7 4 (4.82%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (3.61%) Aerospace
9 2 (2.41%) Advertising
10 1 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (1.20%) Local Government
10 1 (1.20%) Military
Job Titles
1 25 (30.12%) Support Engineer
2 17 (20.48%) Network Engineer
3 14 (16.87%) 3rd Line Engineer
4 13 (15.66%) 3rd Line Support
4 13 (15.66%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
4 13 (15.66%) Exchange Engineer
4 13 (15.66%) Exchange Support
4 13 (15.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 9 (10.84%) IP Engineer
6 8 (9.64%) Infrastructure Support
6 8 (9.64%) Test Engineer
7 7 (8.43%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
7 7 (8.43%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Support
7 7 (8.43%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
8 6 (7.23%) IT Support
8 6 (7.23%) Support Officer
9 5 (6.02%) Azure Engineer
9 5 (6.02%) Help Desk Officer
9 5 (6.02%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 5 (6.02%) Service Desk Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (2.41%) JSON
1 2 (2.41%) REST
1 2 (2.41%) XML
2 1 (1.20%) 802.1X
2 1 (1.20%) Azure Blueprints
2 1 (1.20%) MUnit
2 1 (1.20%) NETCONF
2 1 (1.20%) RAML
2 1 (1.20%) RESTCONF
2 1 (1.20%) SOAP
2 1 (1.20%) YAML
2 1 (1.20%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 13 (15.66%) Data Centre
1 13 (15.66%) Replication
2 10 (12.05%) Self-Motivation
3 8 (9.64%) Clustering
3 8 (9.64%) PKI
4 3 (3.61%) SCADA
5 2 (2.41%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (2.41%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.20%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.20%) Cyber Defence
6 1 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.20%) Onboarding
6 1 (1.20%) Security Posture
6 1 (1.20%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 39 (46.99%) Windows
2 22 (26.51%) Linux
3 21 (25.30%) Windows Server 2003
4 16 (19.28%) Windows Server
5 11 (13.25%) Unix
6 6 (7.23%) Windows 10
7 5 (6.02%) Mac OS
7 5 (6.02%) Windows Server 2012
7 5 (6.02%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (1.20%) Android
8 1 (1.20%) Apple iOS
8 1 (1.20%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (33.73%) Problem-Solving
2 26 (31.33%) ITIL
3 17 (20.48%) High Availability
4 13 (15.66%) Architectural Design
4 13 (15.66%) Business Intelligence
4 13 (15.66%) Content Management
4 13 (15.66%) Enterprise Content Management
4 13 (15.66%) Enterprise Search
4 13 (15.66%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 11 (13.25%) Migration
5 11 (13.25%) Project Management
5 11 (13.25%) SIEM
6 10 (12.05%) DevOps
6 10 (12.05%) Fault Management
6 10 (12.05%) Regression Testing
6 10 (12.05%) Test Strategy
7 8 (9.64%) Artificial Intelligence
7 8 (9.64%) Cybersecurity
7 8 (9.64%) Machine Learning
7 8 (9.64%) Software Deployment
Programming Languages
1 12 (14.46%) Python
2 11 (13.25%) Java
2 11 (13.25%) PowerShell
3 4 (4.82%) Bash
4 2 (2.41%) SQL
5 1 (1.20%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 44 (53.01%) Security Cleared
2 30 (36.14%) Cisco Certification
3 27 (32.53%) CCNP
4 25 (30.12%) DV Cleared
5 15 (18.07%) Degree
5 15 (18.07%) SC Cleared
6 10 (12.05%) ISEB
6 10 (12.05%) ISTQB
6 10 (12.05%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 6 (7.23%) CCSA
7 6 (7.23%) CCSE
7 6 (7.23%) Check Point Certification
8 5 (6.02%) A+ Certification
8 5 (6.02%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (4.82%) CCNA
10 3 (3.61%) CCIE
11 2 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (2.41%) Network+ Certification
12 1 (1.20%) Azure Certification
12 1 (1.20%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (10.84%) GDPR
2 4 (4.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (2.41%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (2.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (1.20%) Government Security Classifications
4 1 (1.20%) JSP 440
4 1 (1.20%) NCSC
4 1 (1.20%) NIST
4 1 (1.20%) QA
System Software
1 32 (38.55%) Active Directory
2 18 (21.69%) Hyper-V
3 13 (15.66%) Brightmail
3 13 (15.66%) ISA Server
3 13 (15.66%) Terminal Services
3 13 (15.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (12.05%) Docker
4 10 (12.05%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (9.64%) BitLocker
5 8 (9.64%) Microsoft App-V
6 5 (6.02%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 22 (26.51%) Ansible
2 13 (15.66%) Microsoft Clustering
3 11 (13.25%) Kubernetes
4 10 (12.05%) vCenter Server
5 8 (9.64%) Nagios
5 8 (9.64%) Puppet
5 8 (9.64%) vMotion
6 6 (7.23%) Terraform
7 5 (6.02%) Tivoli
8 4 (4.82%) FortiGate
8 4 (4.82%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (3.61%) Iperf
9 3 (3.61%) Nmap
10 1 (1.20%) CloudHub
10 1 (1.20%) SCCM
Vendors
1 47 (56.63%) Microsoft
2 36 (43.37%) Cisco
3 19 (22.89%) Citrix
3 19 (22.89%) VMware
4 17 (20.48%) Palo Alto
5 13 (15.66%) CheckPoint
6 12 (14.46%) Juniper
7 9 (10.84%) SolarWinds
8 8 (9.64%) Google
8 8 (9.64%) HP
8 8 (9.64%) Symantec
9 7 (8.43%) Fortinet
10 5 (6.02%) Veeam
11 4 (4.82%) ServiceNow
12 3 (3.61%) Mellanox
12 3 (3.61%) NVIDIA
13 2 (2.41%) Sophos
13 2 (2.41%) Splunk
14 1 (1.20%) Dell KACE
14 1 (1.20%) Salesforce