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 30 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 66 94
Rank change year-on-year -60 +28 +36
Contract jobs citing VPN 97 92 119
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.54% 2.95% 2.10%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.86% 16.55% 10.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 70 65 55
10th Percentile £223 £364 £184
25th Percentile £400 £450 £290
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £425
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +17.65% -15.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £550
90th Percentile £691 £600 £714
England median daily rate £500 £470 £446
% change year-on-year +6.38% +5.44% -8.56%
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 £38.75 £16.93
% change year-on-year -58.71% +128.88% -23.05%

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 754 556 1,164
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.99% 17.80% 20.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 475 366 560
10th Percentile £281 £220 £212
25th Percentile £411 £325 £390
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 £650
England median daily rate £500 £493 £500
% change year-on-year +1.42% -1.40% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 27 141
10th Percentile £17.55 £14.20 £17.63
25th Percentile £22.50 £22.76 £36.75
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 £60.00 £65.56 £85.65
England median hourly rate £27.88 £41.00 £46.69
% change year-on-year -32.00% -12.19% +125.50%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 -27 56 £430 -4.44% 22
Berkshire -34 34 £414 -8.06% 5
Hampshire -49 21 £550 - 17
Surrey -13 15 £475 -2.56% 10
Buckinghamshire -23 15 £560 +104.25% 5
Oxfordshire -21 7 £238 +11.76% 12
Kent -4 3 £180 -52.00% 5
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 11 (11.34%) SharePoint
2 1 (1.03%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (4.12%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (2.06%) MS Visio
3 1 (1.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 43 (44.33%) Azure
2 20 (20.62%) AWS
3 18 (18.56%) Entra ID
4 15 (15.46%) Microsoft 365
5 12 (12.37%) GCP
6 10 (10.31%) OneDrive
7 4 (4.12%) Azure AKS
7 4 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (4.12%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (4.12%) Azure Monitor
7 4 (4.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 3 (3.09%) AWS CloudFormation
8 3 (3.09%) AWS Direct Connect
8 3 (3.09%) Azure Key Vault
9 2 (2.06%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (2.06%) IaaS
9 2 (2.06%) Nutanix
9 2 (2.06%) PaaS
9 2 (2.06%) Power Platform
10 1 (1.03%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 50 (51.55%) Firewall
2 47 (48.45%) LAN
3 45 (46.39%) WAN
4 32 (32.99%) DNS
5 28 (28.87%) SD-WAN
6 24 (24.74%) Network Security
7 22 (22.68%) BGP
8 21 (21.65%) OSPF
9 19 (19.59%) MPLS
9 19 (19.59%) VLAN
10 17 (17.53%) DHCP
10 17 (17.53%) TCP/IP
10 17 (17.53%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (11.34%) IPsec
12 10 (10.31%) Cisco ASA
13 9 (9.28%) Cisco Firepower
13 9 (9.28%) SSL
14 8 (8.25%) Cisco Nexus
14 8 (8.25%) Wireshark
15 6 (6.19%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.03%) Power BI
1 1 (1.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 4 (4.12%) Sonatype Nexus
2 3 (3.09%) JIRA
3 2 (2.06%) Git
3 2 (2.06%) GitLab
4 1 (1.03%) Browser DevTools
4 1 (1.03%) Jenkins
General
1 35 (36.08%) Social Skills
2 11 (11.34%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (10.31%) Telecoms
4 9 (9.28%) Finance
5 6 (6.19%) Legal
5 6 (6.19%) Public Sector
6 5 (5.15%) Retail
7 4 (4.12%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (3.09%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (2.06%) Aviation
9 2 (2.06%) Financial Institution
9 2 (2.06%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (1.03%) Aerospace
10 1 (1.03%) Manufacturing
10 1 (1.03%) Military
10 1 (1.03%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 25 (25.77%) Architect
2 21 (21.65%) Network Engineer
3 18 (18.56%) Senior
4 14 (14.43%) Network Architect
5 9 (9.28%) Lead
5 9 (9.28%) Senior Network Engineer
6 7 (7.22%) Infrastructure Architect
6 7 (7.22%) Support Engineer
7 6 (6.19%) IT Engineer
7 6 (6.19%) IT Support
7 6 (6.19%) IT Support Engineer
8 5 (5.15%) Azure Engineer
8 5 (5.15%) Head of Infrastructure
8 5 (5.15%) Network Manager
8 5 (5.15%) Senior Architect
8 5 (5.15%) Senior Network Architect
8 5 (5.15%) Technical Architect
9 4 (4.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 4 (4.12%) Project Manager
9 4 (4.12%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (7.22%) 802.1X
2 2 (2.06%) ModSecurity
3 1 (1.03%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (1.03%) SAML
3 1 (1.03%) Software Packaging
3 1 (1.03%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 31 (31.96%) Data Centre
2 11 (11.34%) Cloud Native
3 10 (10.31%) Hybrid Cloud
4 9 (9.28%) Public Cloud
5 6 (6.19%) Onboarding
6 5 (5.15%) PKI
6 5 (5.15%) Private Cloud
7 3 (3.09%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 2 (2.06%) Management Information System
9 1 (1.03%) Algorithms
9 1 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (1.03%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 1 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (1.03%) iPad
9 1 (1.03%) iPhone
9 1 (1.03%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (1.03%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 23 (23.71%) Windows
2 7 (7.22%) Linux
3 5 (5.15%) Windows 10
4 4 (4.12%) Windows Server
5 3 (3.09%) Mac OS
6 1 (1.03%) Apple iOS
6 1 (1.03%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (23.71%) ITIL
2 14 (14.43%) Network Architecture
2 14 (14.43%) Project Delivery
3 12 (12.37%) Migration
4 11 (11.34%) High Availability
4 11 (11.34%) Stakeholder Management
4 11 (11.34%) Zero Trust
5 10 (10.31%) Change Management
5 10 (10.31%) Infrastructure as Code
5 10 (10.31%) Network Design
5 10 (10.31%) Network Virtualisation
5 10 (10.31%) Roadmaps
5 10 (10.31%) Technical Leadership
6 9 (9.28%) Analytics
6 9 (9.28%) CI/CD
6 9 (9.28%) Customer Service
6 9 (9.28%) DevOps
6 9 (9.28%) Problem-Solving
7 8 (8.25%) Budget Management
7 8 (8.25%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 9 (9.28%) PowerShell
2 7 (7.22%) Python
3 4 (4.12%) Bicep
4 2 (2.06%) Bash
5 1 (1.03%) SQL
Qualifications
1 48 (49.48%) Security Cleared
2 28 (28.87%) DV Cleared
3 27 (27.84%) SC Cleared
4 19 (19.59%) CCNP
4 19 (19.59%) Cisco Certification
5 9 (9.28%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (5.15%) CCIE
6 5 (5.15%) Degree
7 4 (4.12%) PMP
7 4 (4.12%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 3 (3.09%) AWS Certification
8 3 (3.09%) Azure Certification
9 2 (2.06%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (2.06%) BC Cleared
9 2 (2.06%) CCIP
9 2 (2.06%) CCNA
9 2 (2.06%) ISTQB
9 2 (2.06%) Network+ Certification
10 1 (1.03%) GIAC
10 1 (1.03%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (12.37%) NCSC
2 9 (9.28%) NIST
3 6 (6.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (6.19%) JSP 440
4 4 (4.12%) GDPR
4 4 (4.12%) RMADS
5 2 (2.06%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (2.06%) NIST 800
5 2 (2.06%) QA
5 2 (2.06%) SLA
6 1 (1.03%) GRC
System Software
1 24 (24.74%) Active Directory
2 20 (20.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (15.46%) VMware NSX
4 7 (7.22%) Hyper-V
5 5 (5.15%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (4.12%) Docker
6 4 (4.12%) vSphere
7 1 (1.03%) BitLocker
7 1 (1.03%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (1.03%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 15 (15.46%) Microsoft Intune
1 15 (15.46%) Terraform
2 12 (12.37%) Ansible
3 4 (4.12%) Kubernetes
3 4 (4.12%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (3.09%) Endace
4 3 (3.09%) Nagios
4 3 (3.09%) SCCM
5 2 (2.06%) Cisco CUCM
5 2 (2.06%) Cisco Prime
5 2 (2.06%) FortiGate
5 2 (2.06%) Grafana
5 2 (2.06%) Iperf
5 2 (2.06%) Nmap
6 1 (1.03%) CASB
6 1 (1.03%) Jamf Pro
6 1 (1.03%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 34 (35.05%) Cisco
2 29 (29.90%) Microsoft
3 26 (26.80%) VMware
4 19 (19.59%) SolarWinds
5 16 (16.49%) Palo Alto
6 12 (12.37%) F5
6 12 (12.37%) Fortinet
6 12 (12.37%) Juniper
7 9 (9.28%) CheckPoint
8 7 (7.22%) ServiceNow
9 5 (5.15%) Arista
9 5 (5.15%) BT
9 5 (5.15%) Meraki
10 4 (4.12%) Commvault
10 4 (4.12%) Google
10 4 (4.12%) NetApp
10 4 (4.12%) Veeam
10 4 (4.12%) Xerox
10 4 (4.12%) Zscaler
11 3 (3.09%) Becrypt