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

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 108 69 87
Rank change year-on-year -39 +18 +37
Contract jobs citing VPN 111 88 123
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.92% 2.93% 2.21%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.94% 17.22% 9.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 69 59 56
10th Percentile £220 £283 £184
25th Percentile £400 £435 £248
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £403
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +24.22% -19.50%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £538
90th Percentile £608 £603 £583
England median daily rate £480 £467 £430
% change year-on-year +2.84% +8.60% -4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 8
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £18.50 £18.00
Median hourly rate - £19.00 £20.75
Median % change year-on-year - -8.43% -2.21%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £22.54
90th Percentile - - £23.23
England median hourly rate £16.71 £18.13 £17.00
% change year-on-year -7.86% +6.65% -19.89%

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 743 511 1,277
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.87% 17.03% 22.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 321 625
10th Percentile £286 £210 £205
25th Percentile £406 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £475 £484
Median % change year-on-year +6.32% -1.86% -0.72%
75th Percentile £598 £588 £584
90th Percentile £688 £630 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £488
% change year-on-year - +2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 28 130
10th Percentile £16.45 £14.20 £16.25
25th Percentile £20.08 £20.26 £27.50
Median hourly rate £48.72 £54.94 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -11.32% -4.21% +10.29%
75th Percentile £56.00 £62.50 £64.69
90th Percentile £62.01 £66.88 £85.65
England median hourly rate £42.60 £36.57 £40.00
% change year-on-year +16.49% -8.57% +111.30%

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 April 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 25 April 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 -23 59 £425 -5.56% 16
Berkshire -18 41 £430 -4.44% 6
Hampshire -40 31 £550 +4.76% 24
Surrey -10 12 £400 +10.34% 4
Oxfordshire -11 9 £238 +11.76% 7
Buckinghamshire -31 9 £554 -2.04% 3
Kent - 4 £180 - 4
West Sussex -15 3 £253 +32.89% 6
M4 Corridor - 1 £375 -
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 10 (9.01%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (4.50%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (3.60%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 46 (41.44%) Azure
2 25 (22.52%) AWS
3 18 (16.22%) Entra ID
4 15 (13.51%) GCP
4 15 (13.51%) Microsoft 365
5 8 (7.21%) OneDrive
6 4 (3.60%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 3 (2.70%) Azure AKS
7 3 (2.70%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (2.70%) Azure Monitor
7 3 (2.70%) Nutanix
8 2 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (1.80%) Azure Key Vault
8 2 (1.80%) IaaS
8 2 (1.80%) PaaS
8 2 (1.80%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.90%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.90%) AWS Direct Connect
9 1 (0.90%) SaaS
9 1 (0.90%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 51 (45.95%) Firewall
2 49 (44.14%) WAN
3 47 (42.34%) LAN
4 32 (28.83%) BGP
5 29 (26.13%) OSPF
5 29 (26.13%) SD-WAN
6 24 (21.62%) MPLS
6 24 (21.62%) Network Security
7 23 (20.72%) DNS
8 17 (15.32%) TCP/IP
9 15 (13.51%) VLAN
10 12 (10.81%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (9.91%) DHCP
12 8 (7.21%) IPsec
13 7 (6.31%) Ethernet VPN
13 7 (6.31%) Junos
13 7 (6.31%) WLAN
14 6 (5.41%) Wireless
15 5 (4.50%) IPv6
15 5 (4.50%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.90%) Power BI
1 1 (0.90%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 5 (4.50%) JIRA
2 2 (1.80%) GitLab
2 2 (1.80%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.90%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.90%) Git
General
1 37 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 11 (9.91%) Finance
3 10 (9.01%) Public Sector
4 9 (8.11%) Telecoms
5 8 (7.21%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (7.21%) Documentation Skills
5 8 (7.21%) Retail
6 6 (5.41%) Legal
7 2 (1.80%) Aviation
7 2 (1.80%) Electronics
7 2 (1.80%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.80%) Manufacturing
7 2 (1.80%) Marketing
8 1 (0.90%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.90%) Military
8 1 (0.90%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 31 (27.93%) Network Engineer
2 30 (27.03%) Architect
3 19 (17.12%) Senior
4 14 (12.61%) Lead
5 12 (10.81%) Network Architect
6 11 (9.91%) Infrastructure Architect
7 7 (6.31%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
7 7 (6.31%) Senior Architect
7 7 (6.31%) Senior Network Engineer
8 6 (5.41%) Senior Network Architect
8 6 (5.41%) Support Engineer
9 5 (4.50%) Design Engineer
9 5 (4.50%) Head of Infrastructure
9 5 (4.50%) IP Engineer
9 5 (4.50%) IT Engineer
9 5 (4.50%) IT Support
9 5 (4.50%) IT Support Engineer
9 5 (4.50%) Network Manager
9 5 (4.50%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 4 (3.60%) Head of IT Infrastructure
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (3.60%) 802.1X
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Graph
2 1 (0.90%) SAML
2 1 (0.90%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (26.13%) Data Centre
2 14 (12.61%) Cloud Native
3 13 (11.71%) Public Cloud
4 7 (6.31%) Onboarding
5 5 (4.50%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (4.50%) PKI
6 4 (3.60%) Algorithms
6 4 (3.60%) Smartcard
7 3 (2.70%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (1.80%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.80%) NHS
9 1 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.90%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 1 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
9 1 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.90%) Life Science
9 1 (0.90%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.90%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 20 (18.02%) Windows
2 6 (5.41%) Linux
2 6 (5.41%) Windows 10
3 5 (4.50%) Mac OS
3 5 (4.50%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.90%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (18.02%) ITIL
2 14 (12.61%) High Availability
3 12 (10.81%) Continuous Improvement
3 12 (10.81%) DevOps
3 12 (10.81%) ITSM
3 12 (10.81%) Network Design
4 11 (9.91%) Cybersecurity
4 11 (9.91%) Problem-Solving
5 10 (9.01%) Customer Service
6 9 (8.11%) Analytics
6 9 (8.11%) Identity Access Management
6 9 (8.11%) Migration
6 9 (8.11%) Network Monitoring
6 9 (8.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 9 (8.11%) Technical Leadership
6 9 (8.11%) Validation
6 9 (8.11%) Zero Trust
7 8 (7.21%) Agile
7 8 (7.21%) Change Management
7 8 (7.21%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 7 (6.31%) PowerShell
1 7 (6.31%) Python
2 3 (2.70%) Bicep
3 2 (1.80%) Bash
4 1 (0.90%) SQL
Qualifications
1 51 (45.95%) Security Cleared
2 27 (24.32%) Cisco Certification
2 27 (24.32%) DV Cleared
2 27 (24.32%) SC Cleared
3 26 (23.42%) CCNP
4 11 (9.91%) CCNA
5 10 (9.01%) JNCIS
6 7 (6.31%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (5.41%) Network+ Certification
8 4 (3.60%) CCIE
8 4 (3.60%) CISM
8 4 (3.60%) CISSP
8 4 (3.60%) GIAC
8 4 (3.60%) PMP
9 3 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (2.70%) JNCIA
10 2 (1.80%) Azure Certification
10 2 (1.80%) BC Cleared
10 2 (1.80%) CCDP
10 2 (1.80%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (8.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (6.31%) NIST
3 5 (4.50%) NCSC
3 5 (4.50%) SLA
4 4 (3.60%) GDPR
5 2 (1.80%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.90%) GRC
6 1 (0.90%) QA
System Software
1 21 (18.92%) Active Directory
2 18 (16.22%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (9.91%) Hyper-V
4 10 (9.01%) VMware NSX
5 3 (2.70%) Docker
6 1 (0.90%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.90%) KVM
6 1 (0.90%) RHEV
6 1 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.90%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.90%) vSphere
6 1 (0.90%) Xen
Systems Management
1 14 (12.61%) Ansible
2 13 (11.71%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (11.71%) Terraform
3 9 (8.11%) Nagios
4 8 (7.21%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (4.50%) Endace
6 4 (3.60%) Kubernetes
7 3 (2.70%) SCCM
8 2 (1.80%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (1.80%) FortiGate
8 2 (1.80%) Iperf
8 2 (1.80%) Nmap
9 1 (0.90%) CASB
9 1 (0.90%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.90%) Jamf Pro
9 1 (0.90%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 41 (36.94%) Cisco
2 27 (24.32%) Juniper
3 24 (21.62%) VMware
4 20 (18.02%) Microsoft
5 14 (12.61%) SolarWinds
6 13 (11.71%) Palo Alto
7 11 (9.91%) Fortinet
8 9 (8.11%) Zscaler
9 7 (6.31%) F5
10 6 (5.41%) CheckPoint
10 6 (5.41%) ServiceNow
11 4 (3.60%) Mellanox
11 4 (3.60%) NVIDIA
11 4 (3.60%) Thales
12 3 (2.70%) HP
12 3 (2.70%) Meraki
12 3 (2.70%) SAP
12 3 (2.70%) Virgin Media
13 2 (1.80%) BT
13 2 (1.80%) Nokia