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

6 months to
8 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 88 62
Rank change year-on-year +17 -26 -11
Contract jobs citing WAN 175 64 168
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.90% 2.15% 2.94%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 23.36% 12.45% 13.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 101 40 58
10th Percentile £405 £298 £203
25th Percentile £431 £381 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £458
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -1.64% +1.67%
75th Percentile £538 £527 £583
90th Percentile £581 £632 £688
England median daily rate £500 £500 £488
% change year-on-year - +2.56% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 5
10th Percentile £31.86 - £37.91
25th Percentile £41.74 - £67.02
Median hourly rate £42.71 - £73.50
75th Percentile £62.29 - £75.24
90th Percentile £75.62 - £76.29
England median hourly rate £22.50 £33.75 £24.87
% change year-on-year -33.33% +35.71% -56.62%

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 749 514 1,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.43% 17.27% 21.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 476 346 579
10th Percentile £300 £216 £205
25th Percentile £412 £325 £387
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +9.47% -5.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £623 £650
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 26 138
10th Percentile £17.63 £14.20 £17.26
25th Percentile £22.50 £21.80 £28.13
Median hourly rate £42.71 £45.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -6.14% -20.66% -4.42%
75th Percentile £56.21 £58.73 £66.52
90th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £85.65
England median hourly rate £32.50 £39.66 £40.00
% change year-on-year -18.05% -0.85% +134.40%

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 8 June 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 8 June 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 8 June 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 +21 104 £450 +4.05% 16
Berkshire +23 85 £425 -1.73% 8
Hampshire -6 39 £525 +5.00% 10
Surrey -17 15 £475 +11.76% 19
Buckinghamshire - 14 £543 - 2
Kent +11 13 £445 +1.71% 3
Oxfordshire -24 5 £480 - 6
East Sussex - 2 - - 3
West Sussex - 1 - - 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 5 (2.86%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.57%) Confluence
2 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 6 (3.43%) MS Visio
2 4 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.71%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.71%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (1.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 36 (20.57%) Azure
2 28 (16.00%) AWS
3 4 (2.29%) Entra ID
4 3 (1.71%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (1.71%) GCP
5 2 (1.14%) AWS Direct Connect
5 2 (1.14%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (0.57%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.57%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (0.57%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (0.57%) IaaS
6 1 (0.57%) PaaS
6 1 (0.57%) SaaS
6 1 (0.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 144 (82.29%) LAN
2 109 (62.29%) Firewall
3 89 (50.86%) BGP
4 75 (42.86%) OSPF
5 60 (34.29%) SD-WAN
6 55 (31.43%) VPN
7 49 (28.00%) DNS
8 47 (26.86%) DHCP
9 41 (23.43%) MPLS
10 35 (20.00%) Network Security
11 31 (17.71%) IPsec
11 31 (17.71%) VXLAN
12 30 (17.14%) Ethernet VPN
13 29 (16.57%) BIG-IP
14 26 (14.86%) Cisco ISE
15 25 (14.29%) Junos
16 21 (12.00%) TCP/IP
17 19 (10.86%) Wi-Fi
17 19 (10.86%) Wireless
18 17 (9.71%) VLAN
Development Applications
1 5 (2.86%) JIRA
2 2 (1.14%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.57%) GitLab
3 1 (0.57%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 35 (20.00%) Social Skills
2 21 (12.00%) Analytical Skills
3 17 (9.71%) Documentation Skills
4 14 (8.00%) Public Sector
5 11 (6.29%) Finance
6 10 (5.71%) Telecoms
7 9 (5.14%) Manufacturing
8 6 (3.43%) Military
9 4 (2.29%) Financial Institution
9 4 (2.29%) Legal
10 3 (1.71%) Billing
11 2 (1.14%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.57%) Police
Job Titles
1 68 (38.86%) Network Engineer
2 31 (17.71%) Senior
3 30 (17.14%) Architect
4 22 (12.57%) Senior Network Engineer
5 20 (11.43%) Network Architect
6 15 (8.57%) Lead
6 15 (8.57%) Network Specialist
7 14 (8.00%) Firewall Specialist
7 14 (8.00%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 13 (7.43%) Cisco Engineer
9 12 (6.86%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 11 (6.29%) Network Manager
10 11 (6.29%) Project Manager
11 8 (4.57%) Technical Architect
12 7 (4.00%) Developer
12 7 (4.00%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 7 (4.00%) Network Project Manager
12 7 (4.00%) Senior Architect
12 7 (4.00%) Senior Network Architect
13 6 (3.43%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (19.43%) 802.1X
2 7 (4.00%) NETCONF
2 7 (4.00%) YANG
3 5 (2.86%) Middleware
3 5 (2.86%) REST
4 2 (1.14%) OpenConfig
4 2 (1.14%) RESTCONF
5 1 (0.57%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 69 (39.43%) Data Centre
2 28 (16.00%) PKI
3 25 (14.29%) Clustering
4 13 (7.43%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (4.57%) Public Cloud
6 6 (3.43%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (2.86%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (2.29%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.71%) BYOD
9 3 (1.71%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (1.14%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 2 (1.14%) Private Cloud
10 2 (1.14%) Virtual Team
11 1 (0.57%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 1 (0.57%) Fibre Optics
11 1 (0.57%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.57%) NHS
11 1 (0.57%) Onboarding
11 1 (0.57%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 39 (22.29%) Windows
2 16 (9.14%) Linux
3 1 (0.57%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.57%) VMS
3 1 (0.57%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (25.14%) High Availability
2 39 (22.29%) ITIL
3 32 (18.29%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (17.14%) Identity Access Management
4 30 (17.14%) Load Balancing
5 26 (14.86%) Observability
6 22 (12.57%) ITSM
7 20 (11.43%) Migration
7 20 (11.43%) Technical Leadership
8 19 (10.86%) Network Architecture
8 19 (10.86%) Network Design
9 18 (10.29%) Stakeholder Management
10 17 (9.71%) Network Virtualisation
11 15 (8.57%) Project Delivery
11 15 (8.57%) Roadmaps
12 14 (8.00%) Network Monitoring
13 13 (7.43%) Change Management
14 12 (6.86%) Project Management
15 11 (6.29%) Customer Requirements
15 11 (6.29%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 10 (5.71%) Python
2 3 (1.71%) SQL
Qualifications
1 114 (65.14%) Security Cleared
2 73 (41.71%) Cisco Certification
3 64 (36.57%) SC Cleared
4 45 (25.71%) CCNP
4 45 (25.71%) DV Cleared
5 15 (8.57%) Degree
6 14 (8.00%) CCNA
7 13 (7.43%) CCIE
8 9 (5.14%) JNCIA
8 9 (5.14%) JNCIS
8 9 (5.14%) PMP
9 8 (4.57%) JNCIP
10 7 (4.00%) JNCIE
11 6 (3.43%) Network+ Certification
12 3 (1.71%) AWS Certification
12 3 (1.71%) PMI Certification
13 2 (1.14%) Azure Certification
13 2 (1.14%) Computer Science Degree
13 2 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (1.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.57%) NIST
2 4 (2.29%) QA
3 3 (1.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.14%) NCSC
5 1 (0.57%) GDPR
5 1 (0.57%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.57%) SLA
System Software
1 21 (12.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (6.29%) VMware NSX
3 10 (5.71%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.29%) Hyper-V
4 4 (2.29%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (2.29%) vSphere
5 3 (1.71%) Firmware
6 1 (0.57%) KVM
6 1 (0.57%) RHEV
6 1 (0.57%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.57%) Xen
Systems Management
1 30 (17.14%) FortiGate
2 17 (9.71%) Ansible
3 8 (4.57%) Terraform
4 6 (3.43%) Nagios
5 5 (2.86%) Endace
6 2 (1.14%) CASB
6 2 (1.14%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.57%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.57%) WSUS
Vendors
1 97 (55.43%) Cisco
2 48 (27.43%) Juniper
3 43 (24.57%) SolarWinds
4 39 (22.29%) F5
5 31 (17.71%) Palo Alto
6 26 (14.86%) VMware
7 25 (14.29%) Splunk
8 22 (12.57%) Aruba
8 22 (12.57%) Extreme Networks
9 20 (11.43%) Fortinet
10 18 (10.29%) CheckPoint
11 16 (9.14%) Microsoft
12 10 (5.71%) ServiceNow
13 8 (4.57%) Meraki
14 5 (2.86%) BT
14 5 (2.86%) MuleSoft
14 5 (2.86%) Veeam
15 4 (2.29%) Commvault
15 4 (2.29%) NetApp
15 4 (2.29%) Xerox