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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 88 67
Rank change year-on-year +10 -21 +3
Contract jobs citing WAN 140 69 162
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.66% 2.33% 2.88%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.61% 13.09% 12.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 75 44 61
10th Percentile £406 £250 £148
25th Percentile £431 £359 £203
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £456 £425
Median % change year-on-year +4.11% +7.35% -8.80%
75th Percentile £530 £565 £553
90th Percentile £565 £629 £600
England median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 5
10th Percentile £30.18 - £21.85
25th Percentile £41.55 £18.50 £24.25
Median hourly rate £42.48 £19.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +123.57% -24.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £50.45 £19.50 £67.02
90th Percentile £62.29 - £67.31
England median hourly rate £22.50 £42.50 £24.50
% change year-on-year -47.06% +73.47% -25.76%

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 714 527 1,327
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 13.55% 17.76% 23.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 495 310 645
10th Percentile £256 £206 £205
25th Percentile £400 £350 £345
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £494 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.21% +4.00% -5.00%
75th Percentile £576 £600 £556
90th Percentile £655 £650 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 27 101
10th Percentile £17.50 £16.78 £13.00
25th Percentile £24.62 £28.00 £22.58
Median hourly rate £45.10 £55.00 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -18.00% +0.23% +21.94%
75th Percentile £57.88 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.00 £72.75 £85.65
England median hourly rate £40.02 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +14.34% +7.69% +71.05%

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 17 March 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 17 March 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 17 March 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 -6 79 £450 -2.70% 24
Berkshire +8 66 £428 +17.12% 9
Hampshire -17 28 £500 +8.11% 15
Kent +8 20 £443 +4.12% 4
Surrey -4 9 £528 -8.26% 4
Buckinghamshire -22 8 £525 -8.50% 9
Oxfordshire - 5 £475 - 6
East Sussex +7 4 £475 +192.31% 6
West Sussex -18 1 - - 3
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 2 (1.43%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.71%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.71%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (4.29%) MS Visio
2 5 (3.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (2.86%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 29 (20.71%) Azure
2 20 (14.29%) AWS
3 4 (2.86%) Entra ID
4 3 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (2.14%) GCP
4 3 (2.14%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (1.43%) Google Ads
6 1 (0.71%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (0.71%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (0.71%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (0.71%) IaaS
6 1 (0.71%) PaaS
6 1 (0.71%) SaaS
6 1 (0.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 108 (77.14%) LAN
2 82 (58.57%) Firewall
3 70 (50.00%) BGP
4 65 (46.43%) OSPF
5 44 (31.43%) VPN
6 42 (30.00%) SD-WAN
7 33 (23.57%) DNS
8 32 (22.86%) DHCP
9 28 (20.00%) MPLS
10 27 (19.29%) Network Security
11 25 (17.86%) Ethernet VPN
11 25 (17.86%) IPsec
12 24 (17.14%) BIG-IP
13 23 (16.43%) Cisco ISE
13 23 (16.43%) VXLAN
14 21 (15.00%) Junos
15 19 (13.57%) TCP/IP
16 18 (12.86%) Structured Cabling
17 15 (10.71%) Wireless
18 9 (6.43%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.71%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (2.86%) JIRA
2 2 (1.43%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.71%) GitLab
3 1 (0.71%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 28 (20.00%) Social Skills
2 22 (15.71%) Documentation Skills
3 18 (12.86%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (11.43%) Public Sector
5 12 (8.57%) Manufacturing
6 11 (7.86%) Finance
7 8 (5.71%) Telecoms
8 6 (4.29%) Military
9 3 (2.14%) Billing
9 3 (2.14%) Financial Institution
10 2 (1.43%) Legal
11 1 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.71%) Police
11 1 (0.71%) Retail
Job Titles
1 58 (41.43%) Network Engineer
2 27 (19.29%) Architect
3 22 (15.71%) Senior
4 15 (10.71%) Network Architect
4 15 (10.71%) Senior Network Engineer
5 14 (10.00%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 12 (8.57%) Lead
7 10 (7.14%) Cisco Engineer
7 10 (7.14%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 10 (7.14%) Firewall Specialist
7 10 (7.14%) Network Specialist
8 9 (6.43%) Project Manager
9 8 (5.71%) Network Manager
9 8 (5.71%) Technical Architect
10 6 (4.29%) Senior Architect
11 5 (3.57%) IP Specialist
11 5 (3.57%) Network Project Manager
11 5 (3.57%) SC Cleared Project Manager
11 5 (3.57%) Senior Network Architect
12 4 (2.86%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (18.57%) 802.1X
2 7 (5.00%) Middleware
3 6 (4.29%) NETCONF
3 6 (4.29%) YANG
4 4 (2.86%) OpenConfig
4 4 (2.86%) RESTCONF
5 2 (1.43%) REST
6 1 (0.71%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 61 (43.57%) Data Centre
2 21 (15.00%) Clustering
3 20 (14.29%) PKI
4 9 (6.43%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (5.71%) Public Cloud
6 7 (5.00%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (4.29%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (3.57%) Cloud Native
9 3 (2.14%) BYOD
9 3 (2.14%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (1.43%) Virtual Team
11 1 (0.71%) Cyber Defence
11 1 (0.71%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 1 (0.71%) Driving Licence
11 1 (0.71%) Enterprise Cloud
11 1 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
11 1 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.71%) Onboarding
11 1 (0.71%) Operational Technology
11 1 (0.71%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 34 (24.29%) Windows
2 12 (8.57%) Linux
3 2 (1.43%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.71%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.71%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (25.71%) High Availability
2 35 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
3 31 (22.14%) ITIL
4 25 (17.86%) Identity Access Management
5 24 (17.14%) Load Balancing
6 23 (16.43%) Observability
7 19 (13.57%) ITSM
8 16 (11.43%) Migration
9 12 (8.57%) Network Architecture
9 12 (8.57%) Network Design
9 12 (8.57%) Stakeholder Management
10 11 (7.86%) Customer Requirements
10 11 (7.86%) Project Delivery
10 11 (7.86%) Project Management
10 11 (7.86%) Technical Leadership
11 10 (7.14%) Change Management
11 10 (7.14%) Service Management
12 9 (6.43%) Availability Management
12 9 (6.43%) Network Monitoring
12 9 (6.43%) Network Virtualisation
Programming Languages
1 8 (5.71%) Python
2 4 (2.86%) SQL
Qualifications
1 92 (65.71%) Security Cleared
2 63 (45.00%) Cisco Certification
3 60 (42.86%) SC Cleared
4 40 (28.57%) CCNP
5 30 (21.43%) DV Cleared
6 17 (12.14%) Degree
7 16 (11.43%) CCNA
8 9 (6.43%) JNCIA
8 9 (6.43%) JNCIS
9 8 (5.71%) CCIE
9 8 (5.71%) JNCIP
9 8 (5.71%) PMP
10 6 (4.29%) JNCIE
10 6 (4.29%) Network+ Certification
11 3 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.43%) CCSE
12 2 (1.43%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (1.43%) PMI Certification
13 1 (0.71%) CCDA
13 1 (0.71%) CCDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.86%) SLA
2 3 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (2.14%) NIST
3 2 (1.43%) NCSC
4 1 (0.71%) GDPR
4 1 (0.71%) JSP 440
4 1 (0.71%) QA
System Software
1 11 (7.86%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (4.29%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.86%) VMware NSX
4 3 (2.14%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.71%) KVM
5 1 (0.71%) RHEV
5 1 (0.71%) Xen
Systems Management
1 23 (16.43%) FortiGate
2 13 (9.29%) Ansible
3 6 (4.29%) Nagios
3 6 (4.29%) Terraform
4 4 (2.86%) Endace
5 1 (0.71%) Amdocs OSS
5 1 (0.71%) Backup Exec
5 1 (0.71%) CASB
5 1 (0.71%) Cisco CUCM
5 1 (0.71%) Norton AntiVirus
5 1 (0.71%) Proxmox
5 1 (0.71%) SCOM
5 1 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.71%) WhatsUp Gold
5 1 (0.71%) WSUS
Vendors
1 80 (57.14%) Cisco
2 46 (32.86%) Juniper
3 33 (23.57%) F5
4 30 (21.43%) Palo Alto
5 29 (20.71%) SolarWinds
6 26 (18.57%) Aruba
7 22 (15.71%) CheckPoint
8 20 (14.29%) Splunk
9 18 (12.86%) Extreme Networks
10 16 (11.43%) Fortinet
11 13 (9.29%) VMware
12 8 (5.71%) Microsoft
13 7 (5.00%) MuleSoft
14 5 (3.57%) Zscaler
15 4 (2.86%) Mellanox
15 4 (2.86%) NVIDIA
16 3 (2.14%) Meraki
16 3 (2.14%) ServiceNow
17 2 (1.43%) HP
17 2 (1.43%) Pegasus