WAN Contract Job Trends in the South East

Wide Area Network (WAN)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring WAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 91 97 77
Rank change year-on-year +6 -20 -31
Contract jobs citing WAN 161 66 130
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.40% 1.88% 2.64%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 20.02% 10.89% 13.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 45 72
10th Percentile £365 £285 £206
25th Percentile £413 £381 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -10.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £600 £500 £638
90th Percentile £698 £605 £688
England median daily rate £511 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +13.61% -10.00% +4.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 6
10th Percentile £34.23 - £18.06
25th Percentile £41.93 - £19.48
Median hourly rate £45.71 - £47.95
75th Percentile £57.43 - £75.24
90th Percentile £74.71 - £76.12
England median hourly rate £24.61 £30.00 £24.87
% change year-on-year -17.97% +20.63% -43.37%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South East

WAN 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 804 606 964
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.01% 17.29% 19.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 470 417 515
10th Percentile £298 £217 £254
25th Percentile £411 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - +7.18%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £638 £658
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 30 102
10th Percentile £17.96 £14.20 £23.10
25th Percentile £23.81 £22.94 £53.40
Median hourly rate £49.36 £54.94 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -10.15% -4.21% -0.26%
75th Percentile £56.21 £67.31 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.47 £89.63 £75.24
England median hourly rate £28.00 £44.00 £54.94
% change year-on-year -36.36% -19.91% +5.87%

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing WAN relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

WAN job vacancy trend in the South East

WAN
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing WAN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing WAN

WAN
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WAN in the South East over the 6 months to 11 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for WAN in the South East

WAN
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing WAN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing WAN

WAN
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing WAN in the South East over the 6 months to 11 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for WAN in the South East

WAN
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 WAN within the South East region over the 6 months to 11 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 +16 105 £473 +14.04% 15
Berkshire +22 83 £413 -0.60% 9
Hampshire -20 35 £525 +5.00% 18
Buckinghamshire - 18 £645 - 4
Surrey -17 15 £475 +2.70% 8
Oxfordshire -22 4 £480 - 2
Sussex - 2 £236 -
Isle of Wight - 1 - -
Middlesex - 1 - -
WAN
England

WAN
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 7 (4.35%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.24%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (3.73%) MS Visio
2 5 (3.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (3.11%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 39 (24.22%) Azure
2 30 (18.63%) AWS
3 5 (3.11%) GCP
4 4 (2.48%) Entra ID
4 4 (2.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 3 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (1.86%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (1.24%) AWS Direct Connect
6 2 (1.24%) IaaS
6 2 (1.24%) OpenShift
7 1 (0.62%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.62%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 1 (0.62%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 128 (79.50%) LAN
2 96 (59.63%) Firewall
3 84 (52.17%) BGP
4 58 (36.02%) SD-WAN
5 56 (34.78%) DNS
5 56 (34.78%) OSPF
6 47 (29.19%) DHCP
7 45 (27.95%) MPLS
8 38 (23.60%) VPN
9 36 (22.36%) Network Security
10 33 (20.50%) VXLAN
11 32 (19.88%) BIG-IP
12 31 (19.25%) IPsec
13 30 (18.63%) Ethernet VPN
14 26 (16.15%) Cisco ISE
14 26 (16.15%) Wi-Fi
15 25 (15.53%) Junos
16 24 (14.91%) TCP/IP
17 22 (13.66%) Wireless
18 18 (11.18%) VLAN
Development Applications
1 6 (3.73%) JIRA
2 2 (1.24%) Browser DevTools
2 2 (1.24%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.62%) GitLab
3 1 (0.62%) Jenkins
General
1 37 (22.98%) Social Skills
2 22 (13.66%) Telecoms
3 21 (13.04%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (7.45%) Public Sector
5 9 (5.59%) Finance
6 5 (3.11%) Military
6 5 (3.11%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (2.48%) Billing
7 4 (2.48%) Financial Institution
7 4 (2.48%) Legal
8 3 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.62%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.62%) Police
10 1 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 51 (31.68%) Network Engineer
2 41 (25.47%) Architect
3 30 (18.63%) Senior
4 26 (16.15%) Network Architect
5 23 (14.29%) Senior Network Engineer
6 15 (9.32%) Network Specialist
7 14 (8.70%) Firewall Specialist
8 12 (7.45%) Developer
9 11 (6.83%) Technical Architect
10 9 (5.59%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 9 (5.59%) Lead
11 8 (4.97%) Network Manager
12 7 (4.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 7 (4.35%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 6 (3.73%) Cisco Engineer
13 6 (3.73%) Lead Architect
13 6 (3.73%) Project Manager
13 6 (3.73%) Solutions Architect
13 6 (3.73%) Test Engineer
14 5 (3.11%) Network Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (21.74%) 802.1X
2 9 (5.59%) NETCONF
2 9 (5.59%) YANG
3 6 (3.73%) Middleware
4 5 (3.11%) REST
5 4 (2.48%) OpenConfig
5 4 (2.48%) RESTCONF
6 1 (0.62%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 56 (34.78%) Data Centre
2 28 (17.39%) PKI
3 25 (15.53%) Clustering
4 19 (11.80%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (6.83%) Private Cloud
6 9 (5.59%) Cloud Native
6 9 (5.59%) Public Cloud
7 8 (4.97%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (3.11%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 4 (2.48%) Security Posture
9 4 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (1.86%) BYOD
10 3 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (1.24%) Driving Licence
11 2 (1.24%) Fibre Optics
11 2 (1.24%) IoT
11 2 (1.24%) NHS
11 2 (1.24%) Onboarding
12 1 (0.62%) Enterprise Software
12 1 (0.62%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 41 (25.47%) Windows
2 15 (9.32%) Linux
3 3 (1.86%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.24%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (27.95%) High Availability
2 41 (25.47%) ITIL
3 34 (21.12%) Problem-Solving
4 32 (19.88%) Identity Access Management
5 29 (18.01%) Load Balancing
6 27 (16.77%) Observability
7 26 (16.15%) Network Architecture
8 24 (14.91%) Technical Leadership
9 22 (13.66%) Stakeholder Management
10 20 (12.42%) Network Design
10 20 (12.42%) Roadmaps
11 19 (11.80%) Network Virtualisation
12 16 (9.94%) Migration
12 16 (9.94%) TOGAF
13 14 (8.70%) Agile
13 14 (8.70%) Change Management
13 14 (8.70%) Network Monitoring
13 14 (8.70%) Project Delivery
14 12 (7.45%) DevOps
14 12 (7.45%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 13 (8.07%) Python
2 2 (1.24%) SQL
Qualifications
1 103 (63.98%) Security Cleared
2 56 (34.78%) Cisco Certification
3 53 (32.92%) DV Cleared
4 41 (25.47%) SC Cleared
5 25 (15.53%) CCNP
6 16 (9.94%) CCIE
7 9 (5.59%) JNCIE
7 9 (5.59%) JNCIP
7 9 (5.59%) JNCIS
8 8 (4.97%) CCNA
8 8 (4.97%) Degree
9 7 (4.35%) JNCIA
9 7 (4.35%) PMP
10 6 (3.73%) Azure Certification
10 6 (3.73%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 5 (3.11%) AWS Certification
12 4 (2.48%) PMI Certification
13 2 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (1.24%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (1.24%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.59%) NIST
2 8 (4.97%) NCSC
3 4 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.48%) JSP 440
3 4 (2.48%) QA
4 1 (0.62%) GDPR
4 1 (0.62%) PMO
4 1 (0.62%) SLA
System Software
1 23 (14.29%) VMware Infrastructure
2 17 (10.56%) VMware NSX
3 11 (6.83%) Active Directory
4 5 (3.11%) Hyper-V
5 4 (2.48%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (2.48%) vSphere
6 3 (1.86%) Firmware
6 3 (1.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (1.86%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (1.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 33 (20.50%) FortiGate
2 16 (9.94%) Ansible
3 5 (3.11%) Terraform
4 3 (1.86%) Nagios
5 2 (1.24%) CASB
5 2 (1.24%) Cisco CUCM
5 2 (1.24%) Endace
5 2 (1.24%) WSUS
6 1 (0.62%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.62%) SCCM
6 1 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 85 (52.80%) Cisco
2 46 (28.57%) SolarWinds
3 45 (27.95%) F5
4 44 (27.33%) Juniper
5 34 (21.12%) VMware
6 30 (18.63%) Palo Alto
7 28 (17.39%) Microsoft
8 26 (16.15%) Splunk
9 22 (13.66%) Extreme Networks
9 22 (13.66%) Fortinet
10 10 (6.21%) ServiceNow
11 8 (4.97%) Aruba
12 7 (4.35%) Meraki
13 6 (3.73%) CheckPoint
14 5 (3.11%) BT
15 4 (2.48%) Becrypt
15 4 (2.48%) Commvault
15 4 (2.48%) Infoblox
15 4 (2.48%) NetApp
15 4 (2.48%) Veeam