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

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 78 59
Rank change year-on-year +11 -19 -3
Contract jobs citing WAN 180 73 168
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.02% 2.49% 3.04%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 23.84% 14.29% 14.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 103 47 59
10th Percentile £400 £308 £198
25th Percentile £431 £394 £348
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% - -
75th Percentile £538 £568 £572
90th Percentile £579 £630 £658
England median daily rate £498 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -0.50% +2.56% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 5
10th Percentile £34.23 - £37.91
25th Percentile £41.93 £18.50 £67.02
Median hourly rate £45.71 £19.00 £73.50
Median % change year-on-year +140.59% -74.15% +22.49%
75th Percentile £57.43 £19.50 £75.24
90th Percentile £74.71 - £76.29
England median hourly rate £22.50 £37.50 £24.19
% change year-on-year -40.00% +55.05% -57.81%

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 755 511 1,197
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.66% 17.46% 21.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 487 342 584
10th Percentile £295 £207 £205
25th Percentile £413 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +8.42% -3.06% +1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £595
90th Percentile £675 £625 £646
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 28 132
10th Percentile £16.84 £14.20 £16.39
25th Percentile £22.50 £20.26 £29.38
Median hourly rate £42.48 £45.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -6.64% -20.66% +9.24%
75th Percentile £56.00 £59.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £59.40 £64.13 £85.65
England median hourly rate £33.86 £37.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -9.71% -6.25% +128.57%

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 25 May 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 25 May 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 25 May 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 +11 99 £450 - 21
Berkshire +20 83 £425 -5.56% 9
Hampshire -15 39 £525 +5.00% 16
Kent +10 20 £443 +1.14% 5
Surrey -10 17 £475 +26.67% 18
Buckinghamshire -39 11 £560 -6.47% 6
Oxfordshire -19 5 £480 - 6
East Sussex - 3 £475 - 2
West Sussex -17 1 - -
Isle of Wight - 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 4 (2.22%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.56%) Confluence
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.56%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (3.33%) MS Visio
2 5 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (2.22%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.22%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (1.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 38 (21.11%) Azure
2 28 (15.56%) AWS
3 4 (2.22%) Entra ID
4 3 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (1.67%) GCP
4 3 (1.67%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (1.11%) AWS Direct Connect
5 2 (1.11%) Google Ads
6 1 (0.56%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.56%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (0.56%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (0.56%) IaaS
6 1 (0.56%) PaaS
6 1 (0.56%) SaaS
6 1 (0.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 148 (82.22%) LAN
2 112 (62.22%) Firewall
3 93 (51.67%) BGP
4 81 (45.00%) OSPF
5 60 (33.33%) SD-WAN
6 51 (28.33%) VPN
7 46 (25.56%) DNS
8 45 (25.00%) DHCP
9 39 (21.67%) MPLS
10 32 (17.78%) IPsec
10 32 (17.78%) Network Security
11 31 (17.22%) VXLAN
12 30 (16.67%) Ethernet VPN
13 29 (16.11%) BIG-IP
14 26 (14.44%) Cisco ISE
15 25 (13.89%) Junos
16 22 (12.22%) TCP/IP
17 20 (11.11%) Wireless
18 19 (10.56%) Wi-Fi
19 18 (10.00%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (2.78%) JIRA
2 2 (1.11%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.56%) GitLab
3 1 (0.56%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 36 (20.00%) Social Skills
2 23 (12.78%) Documentation Skills
3 22 (12.22%) Analytical Skills
4 14 (7.78%) Public Sector
5 13 (7.22%) Manufacturing
6 12 (6.67%) Finance
7 9 (5.00%) Telecoms
8 6 (3.33%) Military
9 4 (2.22%) Financial Institution
10 3 (1.67%) Billing
10 3 (1.67%) Legal
10 3 (1.67%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.56%) Police
11 1 (0.56%) Retail
Job Titles
1 74 (41.11%) Network Engineer
2 30 (16.67%) Architect
3 28 (15.56%) Senior
4 19 (10.56%) Senior Network Engineer
5 18 (10.00%) Network Architect
6 16 (8.89%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 15 (8.33%) Cisco Engineer
7 15 (8.33%) Lead
8 14 (7.78%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 14 (7.78%) Firewall Specialist
8 14 (7.78%) Network Specialist
9 12 (6.67%) Project Manager
10 11 (6.11%) Network Manager
11 10 (5.56%) Technical Architect
12 7 (3.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 7 (3.89%) Network Project Manager
12 7 (3.89%) Senior Architect
12 7 (3.89%) Senior Network Architect
13 6 (3.33%) SC Cleared Project Manager
13 6 (3.33%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (17.78%) 802.1X
2 7 (3.89%) Middleware
2 7 (3.89%) NETCONF
2 7 (3.89%) YANG
3 4 (2.22%) REST
4 3 (1.67%) OpenConfig
4 3 (1.67%) RESTCONF
5 1 (0.56%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 76 (42.22%) Data Centre
2 25 (13.89%) Clustering
2 25 (13.89%) PKI
3 13 (7.22%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (5.56%) Public Cloud
5 7 (3.89%) Analytical Mindset
6 6 (3.33%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.22%) Cloud Native
7 4 (2.22%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.67%) BYOD
8 3 (1.67%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (1.11%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (1.11%) Private Cloud
9 2 (1.11%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.56%) Cyber Defence
10 1 (0.56%) Cyber Kill Chain
10 1 (0.56%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.56%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (0.56%) Onboarding
10 1 (0.56%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 40 (22.22%) Windows
2 15 (8.33%) Linux
3 2 (1.11%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.56%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.56%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (23.89%) High Availability
2 37 (20.56%) ITIL
3 35 (19.44%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (16.67%) Identity Access Management
4 30 (16.67%) Load Balancing
5 26 (14.44%) Observability
6 22 (12.22%) ITSM
7 20 (11.11%) Migration
8 17 (9.44%) Network Architecture
8 17 (9.44%) Network Design
9 16 (8.89%) Stakeholder Management
9 16 (8.89%) Technical Leadership
10 14 (7.78%) Customer Requirements
10 14 (7.78%) Network Virtualisation
10 14 (7.78%) Project Delivery
10 14 (7.78%) Roadmaps
11 13 (7.22%) Project Management
12 12 (6.67%) Change Management
13 11 (6.11%) Network Monitoring
14 10 (5.56%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 10 (5.56%) Python
2 4 (2.22%) SQL
Qualifications
1 116 (64.44%) Security Cleared
2 79 (43.89%) Cisco Certification
3 71 (39.44%) SC Cleared
4 52 (28.89%) CCNP
5 41 (22.78%) DV Cleared
6 20 (11.11%) Degree
7 16 (8.89%) CCNA
8 13 (7.22%) CCIE
9 10 (5.56%) PMP
10 9 (5.00%) JNCIA
10 9 (5.00%) JNCIS
11 8 (4.44%) JNCIP
12 7 (3.89%) JNCIE
13 6 (3.33%) Network+ Certification
14 3 (1.67%) AWS Certification
14 3 (1.67%) PMI Certification
15 2 (1.11%) Azure Certification
15 2 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
15 2 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
15 2 (1.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (2.78%) NIST
2 4 (2.22%) QA
3 3 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.11%) JSP 440
4 2 (1.11%) NCSC
5 1 (0.56%) GDPR
5 1 (0.56%) SLA
System Software
1 19 (10.56%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (4.44%) Active Directory
2 8 (4.44%) VMware NSX
3 4 (2.22%) Hyper-V
3 4 (2.22%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (2.22%) vSphere
4 3 (1.67%) Firmware
5 1 (0.56%) KVM
5 1 (0.56%) RHEV
5 1 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (0.56%) Xen
Systems Management
1 30 (16.67%) FortiGate
2 17 (9.44%) Ansible
3 8 (4.44%) Terraform
4 6 (3.33%) Nagios
5 5 (2.78%) Endace
6 2 (1.11%) CASB
6 2 (1.11%) WSUS
7 1 (0.56%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.56%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.56%) Norton AntiVirus
7 1 (0.56%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.56%) SCOM
7 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.56%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 101 (56.11%) Cisco
2 49 (27.22%) Juniper
3 40 (22.22%) F5
4 39 (21.67%) SolarWinds
5 34 (18.89%) Palo Alto
6 28 (15.56%) Aruba
7 25 (13.89%) Splunk
8 24 (13.33%) CheckPoint
8 24 (13.33%) VMware
9 22 (12.22%) Extreme Networks
10 19 (10.56%) Fortinet
11 17 (9.44%) Microsoft
12 8 (4.44%) Meraki
13 7 (3.89%) MuleSoft
13 7 (3.89%) ServiceNow
14 5 (2.78%) BT
14 5 (2.78%) Veeam
15 4 (2.22%) Commvault
15 4 (2.22%) NetApp
15 4 (2.22%) Xerox