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

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 74 79 58
Rank change year-on-year +5 -21 +3
Contract jobs citing WAN 168 75 168
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.86% 2.48% 3.05%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 22.70% 14.29% 13.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 49 59
10th Percentile £405 £310 £148
25th Percentile £431 £408 £348
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £463 £425
Median % change year-on-year +7.03% +8.82% -5.56%
75th Percentile £538 £573 £570
90th Percentile £596 £643 £650
England median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - +8.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 6
10th Percentile £34.23 - £21.38
25th Percentile £41.93 £18.50 £34.94
Median hourly rate £45.71 £19.00 £70.26
Median % change year-on-year +140.59% -72.96% +13.32%
75th Percentile £57.43 £19.50 £75.24
90th Percentile £74.71 - £76.12
England median hourly rate £22.50 £45.00 £24.69
% change year-on-year -50.00% +82.30% -58.86%

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 740 525 1,213
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.59% 17.36% 21.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 480 337 601
10th Percentile £280 £206 £205
25th Percentile £404 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +7.37% -2.56% +1.44%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £588
90th Percentile £676 £630 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £495
% change year-on-year - +1.01% -5.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 29 130
10th Percentile £17.06 £14.20 £16.25
25th Percentile £20.87 £20.85 £27.50
Median hourly rate £48.72 £54.88 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -11.22% -4.32% +9.24%
75th Percentile £56.16 £62.50 £64.69
90th Percentile £60.90 £66.25 £85.65
England median hourly rate £41.94 £29.66 £40.00
% change year-on-year +41.40% -25.85% +116.22%

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 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 11 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 11 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 +7 92 £458 +1.78% 20
Berkshire +13 76 £428 -5.00% 7
Hampshire -5 36 £525 +5.00% 22
Kent +10 20 £443 +1.14% 4
Surrey -8 15 £509 +10.00% 11
Buckinghamshire -31 11 £560 -3.86% 7
Oxfordshire -16 5 £480 - 6
East Sussex +3 3 £475 +192.31% 1
West Sussex -15 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 (2.38%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.60%) Confluence
2 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.60%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (4.17%) MS Visio
2 6 (3.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.98%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (2.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (2.38%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 37 (22.02%) Azure
2 26 (15.48%) AWS
3 4 (2.38%) Entra ID
4 3 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (1.79%) GCP
4 3 (1.79%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (1.19%) AWS Direct Connect
5 2 (1.19%) Google Ads
6 1 (0.60%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (0.60%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (0.60%) IaaS
6 1 (0.60%) PaaS
6 1 (0.60%) SaaS
6 1 (0.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 137 (81.55%) LAN
2 104 (61.90%) Firewall
3 87 (51.79%) BGP
4 77 (45.83%) OSPF
5 50 (29.76%) SD-WAN
6 48 (28.57%) VPN
7 44 (26.19%) DNS
8 43 (25.60%) DHCP
9 35 (20.83%) MPLS
10 31 (18.45%) Network Security
11 30 (17.86%) Ethernet VPN
11 30 (17.86%) VXLAN
12 29 (17.26%) BIG-IP
12 29 (17.26%) IPsec
13 26 (15.48%) Cisco ISE
14 25 (14.88%) Junos
15 22 (13.10%) TCP/IP
16 19 (11.31%) Wireless
17 18 (10.71%) Structured Cabling
18 15 (8.93%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.60%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (2.98%) JIRA
2 2 (1.19%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.60%) GitLab
3 1 (0.60%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 35 (20.83%) Social Skills
2 23 (13.69%) Documentation Skills
3 22 (13.10%) Analytical Skills
4 14 (8.33%) Public Sector
5 12 (7.14%) Finance
5 12 (7.14%) Manufacturing
6 8 (4.76%) Telecoms
7 6 (3.57%) Military
8 4 (2.38%) Financial Institution
9 3 (1.79%) Billing
9 3 (1.79%) Legal
10 2 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.60%) Police
11 1 (0.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 68 (40.48%) Network Engineer
2 31 (18.45%) Architect
3 27 (16.07%) Senior
4 19 (11.31%) Senior Network Engineer
5 18 (10.71%) Network Architect
6 16 (9.52%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 15 (8.93%) Lead
8 14 (8.33%) Firewall Specialist
8 14 (8.33%) Network Specialist
9 11 (6.55%) Network Manager
9 11 (6.55%) Project Manager
9 11 (6.55%) Technical Architect
10 10 (5.95%) Cisco Engineer
10 10 (5.95%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 7 (4.17%) Network Project Manager
11 7 (4.17%) Senior Architect
11 7 (4.17%) Senior Network Architect
12 6 (3.57%) SC Cleared Project Manager
12 6 (3.57%) Test Engineer
13 5 (2.98%) IP Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (19.05%) 802.1X
2 8 (4.76%) Middleware
2 8 (4.76%) NETCONF
2 8 (4.76%) YANG
3 4 (2.38%) OpenConfig
3 4 (2.38%) REST
3 4 (2.38%) RESTCONF
4 1 (0.60%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 73 (43.45%) Data Centre
2 25 (14.88%) Clustering
2 25 (14.88%) PKI
3 14 (8.33%) Hybrid Cloud
4 11 (6.55%) Public Cloud
5 8 (4.76%) Analytical Mindset
6 6 (3.57%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.38%) Cloud Native
8 3 (1.79%) BYOD
8 3 (1.79%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (1.19%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 2 (1.19%) Private Cloud
9 2 (1.19%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.60%) Cyber Defence
10 1 (0.60%) Cyber Kill Chain
10 1 (0.60%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (0.60%) NHS
10 1 (0.60%) Onboarding
10 1 (0.60%) Operational Technology
10 1 (0.60%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 41 (24.40%) Windows
2 16 (9.52%) Linux
3 2 (1.19%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.60%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.60%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (25.60%) High Availability
2 37 (22.02%) ITIL
3 36 (21.43%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (17.86%) Identity Access Management
4 30 (17.86%) Load Balancing
5 26 (15.48%) Observability
6 19 (11.31%) ITSM
6 19 (11.31%) Migration
7 18 (10.71%) Network Design
8 16 (9.52%) Network Architecture
9 15 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
10 14 (8.33%) Customer Requirements
10 14 (8.33%) Network Virtualisation
10 14 (8.33%) Stakeholder Management
11 13 (7.74%) Project Delivery
11 13 (7.74%) Project Management
11 13 (7.74%) Roadmaps
12 11 (6.55%) Change Management
12 11 (6.55%) Network Monitoring
13 10 (5.95%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 11 (6.55%) Python
2 4 (2.38%) SQL
Qualifications
1 113 (67.26%) Security Cleared
2 75 (44.64%) Cisco Certification
3 71 (42.26%) SC Cleared
4 47 (27.98%) CCNP
5 38 (22.62%) DV Cleared
6 20 (11.90%) Degree
7 16 (9.52%) CCNA
8 10 (5.95%) CCIE
8 10 (5.95%) PMP
9 9 (5.36%) JNCIA
9 9 (5.36%) JNCIS
10 8 (4.76%) JNCIE
10 8 (4.76%) JNCIP
11 6 (3.57%) Network+ Certification
12 3 (1.79%) PMI Certification
13 2 (1.19%) Azure Certification
13 2 (1.19%) CCSE
13 2 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
13 2 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (1.19%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.38%) NIST
1 4 (2.38%) QA
2 3 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.19%) JSP 440
3 2 (1.19%) NCSC
4 1 (0.60%) GDPR
4 1 (0.60%) SLA
System Software
1 17 (10.12%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (4.76%) Active Directory
2 8 (4.76%) VMware NSX
3 4 (2.38%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (1.19%) vSphere
5 1 (0.60%) KVM
5 1 (0.60%) RHEV
5 1 (0.60%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (0.60%) Xen
Systems Management
1 30 (17.86%) FortiGate
2 17 (10.12%) Ansible
3 7 (4.17%) Terraform
4 6 (3.57%) Nagios
5 5 (2.98%) Endace
6 2 (1.19%) WSUS
7 1 (0.60%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.60%) CASB
7 1 (0.60%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.60%) Norton AntiVirus
7 1 (0.60%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.60%) SCOM
7 1 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.60%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 92 (54.76%) Cisco
2 49 (29.17%) Juniper
3 39 (23.21%) F5
4 37 (22.02%) SolarWinds
5 33 (19.64%) Palo Alto
6 27 (16.07%) Aruba
7 25 (14.88%) Splunk
8 22 (13.10%) CheckPoint
8 22 (13.10%) Extreme Networks
8 22 (13.10%) VMware
9 19 (11.31%) Fortinet
10 15 (8.93%) Microsoft
11 8 (4.76%) MuleSoft
12 6 (3.57%) Meraki
13 4 (2.38%) Mellanox
13 4 (2.38%) NVIDIA
13 4 (2.38%) ServiceNow
13 4 (2.38%) Zscaler
14 3 (1.79%) BT
14 3 (1.79%) Infoblox