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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 93 65
Rank change year-on-year +8 -28 -11
Contract jobs citing WAN 167 68 165
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.61% 2.06% 2.91%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.49% 11.76% 14.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 94 44 62
10th Percentile £400 £283 £208
25th Percentile £427 £381 £372
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £516 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +14.72% -10.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £550 £506 £638
90th Percentile £673 £625 £699
England median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.71% -4.50% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 7
10th Percentile £31.86 - £18.15
25th Percentile £41.74 - £20.45
Median hourly rate £42.71 - £67.02
75th Percentile £62.29 - £75.24
90th Percentile £75.62 - £75.94
England median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £24.87
% change year-on-year -25.00% +20.63% -52.70%

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 777 578 1,166
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.13% 17.55% 20.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 480 384 566
10th Percentile £281 £215 £214
25th Percentile £410 £325 £392
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 £645
England median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 27 138
10th Percentile £17.50 £14.20 £17.21
25th Percentile £22.50 £22.76 £29.44
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 £60.18 £65.56 £85.65
England median hourly rate £26.66 £40.50 £45.44
% change year-on-year -34.17% -10.87% +89.33%

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 7 July 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 7 July 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 7 July 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 +28 106 £480 +15.66% 16
Berkshire +20 85 £425 +2.41% 4
Hampshire -24 35 £525 +5.00% 16
Buckinghamshire - 17 £560 - 7
Surrey -17 16 £475 +11.76% 13
Kent +2 5 £445 +1.71% 1
Oxfordshire -23 4 £480 - 5
East Sussex - 2 - - 1
Sussex - 1 £226 -
West Sussex - 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 8 (4.79%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.60%) Confluence
2 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 6 (3.59%) MS Visio
2 5 (2.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (2.40%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (1.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (1.20%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 43 (25.75%) Azure
2 35 (20.96%) AWS
3 6 (3.59%) GCP
4 4 (2.40%) Entra ID
4 4 (2.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 3 (1.80%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (1.80%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (1.20%) AWS Direct Connect
7 1 (0.60%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.60%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 1 (0.60%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (0.60%) IaaS
7 1 (0.60%) OpenShift
7 1 (0.60%) PaaS
7 1 (0.60%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 135 (80.84%) LAN
2 99 (59.28%) Firewall
3 87 (52.10%) BGP
4 66 (39.52%) OSPF
5 65 (38.92%) SD-WAN
6 51 (30.54%) DNS
7 48 (28.74%) MPLS
8 45 (26.95%) DHCP
9 43 (25.75%) VPN
10 34 (20.36%) Network Security
11 33 (19.76%) BIG-IP
12 31 (18.56%) IPsec
12 31 (18.56%) VXLAN
13 29 (17.37%) Ethernet VPN
14 26 (15.57%) Cisco ISE
15 25 (14.97%) Junos
15 25 (14.97%) Wi-Fi
16 23 (13.77%) TCP/IP
17 22 (13.17%) Wireless
18 17 (10.18%) VLAN
Development Applications
1 5 (2.99%) JIRA
2 3 (1.80%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (1.20%) Browser DevTools
4 1 (0.60%) GitLab
4 1 (0.60%) Jenkins
General
1 39 (23.35%) Social Skills
2 18 (10.78%) Analytical Skills
3 17 (10.18%) Telecoms
4 14 (8.38%) Public Sector
5 11 (6.59%) Finance
6 8 (4.79%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (3.59%) Military
8 4 (2.40%) Billing
8 4 (2.40%) Financial Institution
8 4 (2.40%) Legal
8 4 (2.40%) Manufacturing
8 4 (2.40%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.60%) Police
Job Titles
1 54 (32.34%) Network Engineer
2 38 (22.75%) Architect
3 29 (17.37%) Senior
4 24 (14.37%) Network Architect
5 21 (12.57%) Senior Network Engineer
6 15 (8.98%) Network Specialist
7 14 (8.38%) Firewall Specialist
8 13 (7.78%) Network Manager
9 11 (6.59%) Lead
10 10 (5.99%) Project Manager
10 10 (5.99%) Technical Architect
11 9 (5.39%) Cisco Engineer
11 9 (5.39%) Developer
12 8 (4.79%) Cisco Network Engineer
12 8 (4.79%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 7 (4.19%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
13 7 (4.19%) Network Project Manager
14 6 (3.59%) Lead Architect
14 6 (3.59%) Senior Architect
14 6 (3.59%) Senior Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (20.36%) 802.1X
2 10 (5.99%) NETCONF
2 10 (5.99%) YANG
3 7 (4.19%) REST
4 4 (2.40%) Middleware
5 3 (1.80%) OpenConfig
5 3 (1.80%) RESTCONF
6 1 (0.60%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 64 (38.32%) Data Centre
2 28 (16.77%) PKI
3 25 (14.97%) Clustering
4 21 (12.57%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (6.59%) Cloud Native
6 8 (4.79%) Private Cloud
6 8 (4.79%) Public Cloud
7 7 (4.19%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (2.99%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 5 (2.99%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (2.40%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.80%) BYOD
11 2 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (1.20%) NHS
11 2 (1.20%) Virtual Team
12 1 (0.60%) Cyber Kill Chain
12 1 (0.60%) Driving Licence
12 1 (0.60%) Greenfield Project
12 1 (0.60%) iSeries
12 1 (0.60%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 39 (23.35%) Windows
2 13 (7.78%) Linux
3 2 (1.20%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.60%) VMS
4 1 (0.60%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (25.15%) High Availability
2 40 (23.95%) ITIL
3 34 (20.36%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (17.96%) Identity Access Management
4 30 (17.96%) Load Balancing
5 27 (16.17%) Network Architecture
6 26 (15.57%) Observability
7 25 (14.97%) Stakeholder Management
8 22 (13.17%) Network Design
9 21 (12.57%) Migration
10 20 (11.98%) Network Virtualisation
10 20 (11.98%) Roadmaps
11 19 (11.38%) Technical Leadership
12 17 (10.18%) Project Delivery
13 16 (9.58%) TOGAF
14 15 (8.98%) Agile
14 15 (8.98%) Change Management
14 15 (8.98%) ITSM
15 13 (7.78%) DevOps
15 13 (7.78%) Network Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 15 (8.98%) Python
2 3 (1.80%) SQL
Qualifications
1 105 (62.87%) Security Cleared
2 67 (40.12%) Cisco Certification
3 50 (29.94%) SC Cleared
4 48 (28.74%) DV Cleared
5 36 (21.56%) CCNP
6 18 (10.78%) CCIE
7 13 (7.78%) Degree
8 12 (7.19%) CCNA
9 10 (5.99%) JNCIE
9 10 (5.99%) PMP
10 9 (5.39%) JNCIP
10 9 (5.39%) JNCIS
11 8 (4.79%) JNCIA
12 6 (3.59%) AWS Certification
12 6 (3.59%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 5 (2.99%) Azure Certification
13 5 (2.99%) PMI Certification
14 2 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
14 2 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
14 2 (1.20%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.79%) NIST
2 7 (4.19%) NCSC
3 4 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (2.40%) QA
4 1 (0.60%) GDPR
4 1 (0.60%) JSP 440
4 1 (0.60%) SLA
System Software
1 21 (12.57%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (9.58%) VMware NSX
3 11 (6.59%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.40%) Hyper-V
4 4 (2.40%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (2.40%) vSphere
5 3 (1.80%) Firmware
6 1 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.60%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 32 (19.16%) FortiGate
2 20 (11.98%) Ansible
3 8 (4.79%) Terraform
4 3 (1.80%) CASB
4 3 (1.80%) Endace
5 2 (1.20%) Cisco CUCM
5 2 (1.20%) Nagios
6 1 (0.60%) SCCM
6 1 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.60%) WSUS
Vendors
1 91 (54.49%) Cisco
2 45 (26.95%) Juniper
2 45 (26.95%) SolarWinds
3 43 (25.75%) F5
4 32 (19.16%) VMware
5 29 (17.37%) Palo Alto
6 25 (14.97%) Splunk
7 24 (14.37%) Microsoft
8 23 (13.77%) Fortinet
9 22 (13.17%) Extreme Networks
10 16 (9.58%) Aruba
11 10 (5.99%) CheckPoint
11 10 (5.99%) ServiceNow
12 8 (4.79%) Meraki
13 5 (2.99%) BT
13 5 (2.99%) Veeam
14 4 (2.40%) Commvault
14 4 (2.40%) MuleSoft
14 4 (2.40%) NetApp
14 4 (2.40%) Xerox