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

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 90 68
Rank change year-on-year +9 -22 +5
Contract jobs citing WAN 142 63 162
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.65% 2.14% 2.88%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.61% 12.28% 12.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 77 38 60
10th Percentile £406 £285 £148
25th Percentile £431 £406 £203
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £425
Median % change year-on-year - +11.76% -8.80%
75th Percentile £530 £584 £553
90th Percentile £564 £630 £591
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +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 £23.50
% change year-on-year -47.06% +80.85% -28.79%

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 724 513 1,333
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 13.52% 17.45% 23.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 501 302 651
10th Percentile £256 £210 £205
25th Percentile £400 £352 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £495 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.11% +4.11% -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £556
90th Percentile £655 £649 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 27 104
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.78 £13.86
25th Percentile £19.09 £28.00 £22.71
Median hourly rate £42.25 £55.00 £56.88
Median % change year-on-year -23.18% -3.30% +26.39%
75th Percentile £57.13 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.80 £72.75 £85.27
England median hourly rate £36.00 £36.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -1.37% +12.31% +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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +5 81 £456 -13.14% 22
Berkshire +10 66 £428 +14.77% 10
Hampshire -15 28 £500 +5.26% 24
Kent +7 20 £443 +1.14% 2
Surrey -10 9 £528 -8.26% 1
Buckinghamshire -22 8 £525 -9.87% 8
Oxfordshire - 7 £480 - 4
East Sussex +6 4 £475 +192.31% 4
West Sussex -15 1 - - 2
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 (1.41%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.70%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (4.23%) MS Visio
2 5 (3.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (2.82%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 29 (20.42%) Azure
2 20 (14.08%) AWS
3 4 (2.82%) Entra ID
4 3 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (2.11%) GCP
4 3 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (1.41%) Google Ads
6 1 (0.70%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (0.70%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (0.70%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (0.70%) IaaS
6 1 (0.70%) PaaS
6 1 (0.70%) SaaS
6 1 (0.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 110 (77.46%) LAN
2 85 (59.86%) Firewall
3 73 (51.41%) BGP
4 68 (47.89%) OSPF
5 45 (31.69%) VPN
6 43 (30.28%) SD-WAN
7 35 (24.65%) DNS
8 34 (23.94%) DHCP
9 29 (20.42%) MPLS
9 29 (20.42%) Network Security
10 25 (17.61%) Ethernet VPN
10 25 (17.61%) IPsec
11 24 (16.90%) BIG-IP
12 23 (16.20%) Cisco ISE
12 23 (16.20%) VXLAN
13 21 (14.79%) Junos
14 20 (14.08%) TCP/IP
15 18 (12.68%) Structured Cabling
16 17 (11.97%) Wireless
17 9 (6.34%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.70%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (2.82%) JIRA
2 2 (1.41%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.70%) GitLab
3 1 (0.70%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 29 (20.42%) Social Skills
2 22 (15.49%) Documentation Skills
3 20 (14.08%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (11.27%) Public Sector
5 12 (8.45%) Manufacturing
6 11 (7.75%) Finance
7 8 (5.63%) Telecoms
8 6 (4.23%) Military
9 3 (2.11%) Billing
9 3 (2.11%) Financial Institution
10 2 (1.41%) Legal
11 1 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.70%) Police
11 1 (0.70%) Retail
Job Titles
1 60 (42.25%) Network Engineer
2 26 (18.31%) Architect
3 22 (15.49%) Senior
4 15 (10.56%) Senior Network Engineer
5 14 (9.86%) Network Architect
5 14 (9.86%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
6 12 (8.45%) Lead
7 10 (7.04%) Cisco Engineer
7 10 (7.04%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 10 (7.04%) Firewall Specialist
7 10 (7.04%) Network Specialist
7 10 (7.04%) Project Manager
8 9 (6.34%) Network Manager
9 8 (5.63%) Technical Architect
10 6 (4.23%) Network Project Manager
10 6 (4.23%) SC Cleared Project Manager
10 6 (4.23%) Senior Architect
11 5 (3.52%) IP Specialist
11 5 (3.52%) Senior Network Architect
12 4 (2.82%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (18.31%) 802.1X
2 7 (4.93%) Middleware
3 6 (4.23%) NETCONF
3 6 (4.23%) YANG
4 4 (2.82%) OpenConfig
4 4 (2.82%) RESTCONF
5 2 (1.41%) REST
6 1 (0.70%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 62 (43.66%) Data Centre
2 21 (14.79%) Clustering
3 20 (14.08%) PKI
4 9 (6.34%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (5.63%) Public Cloud
6 7 (4.93%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (4.23%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (3.52%) Cloud Native
9 3 (2.11%) BYOD
9 3 (2.11%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (1.41%) Virtual Team
11 1 (0.70%) Cyber Defence
11 1 (0.70%) Cyber Kill Chain
11 1 (0.70%) Driving Licence
11 1 (0.70%) Enterprise Cloud
11 1 (0.70%) Enterprise Software
11 1 (0.70%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.70%) Onboarding
11 1 (0.70%) Operational Technology
11 1 (0.70%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 34 (23.94%) Windows
2 12 (8.45%) Linux
3 2 (1.41%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.70%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.70%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (26.76%) Problem-Solving
2 36 (25.35%) High Availability
3 32 (22.54%) ITIL
4 25 (17.61%) Identity Access Management
5 24 (16.90%) Load Balancing
6 23 (16.20%) Observability
7 19 (13.38%) ITSM
8 16 (11.27%) Migration
9 13 (9.15%) Stakeholder Management
10 12 (8.45%) Network Architecture
10 12 (8.45%) Project Delivery
10 12 (8.45%) Project Management
11 11 (7.75%) Change Management
11 11 (7.75%) Customer Requirements
11 11 (7.75%) Network Design
11 11 (7.75%) Technical Leadership
12 10 (7.04%) Service Management
13 9 (6.34%) Availability Management
13 9 (6.34%) Network Monitoring
13 9 (6.34%) Network Virtualisation
Programming Languages
1 8 (5.63%) Python
2 4 (2.82%) SQL
Qualifications
1 95 (66.90%) Security Cleared
2 63 (44.37%) Cisco Certification
2 63 (44.37%) SC Cleared
3 40 (28.17%) CCNP
4 30 (21.13%) DV Cleared
5 17 (11.97%) Degree
6 16 (11.27%) CCNA
7 9 (6.34%) JNCIA
7 9 (6.34%) JNCIS
7 9 (6.34%) PMP
8 8 (5.63%) CCIE
8 8 (5.63%) JNCIP
9 6 (4.23%) JNCIE
9 6 (4.23%) Network+ Certification
10 3 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.41%) CCSE
11 2 (1.41%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (1.41%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.70%) CCDA
12 1 (0.70%) CCDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.82%) SLA
2 3 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (2.11%) NIST
3 2 (1.41%) NCSC
4 1 (0.70%) GDPR
4 1 (0.70%) JSP 440
4 1 (0.70%) QA
System Software
1 11 (7.75%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (4.23%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.82%) VMware NSX
4 3 (2.11%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.70%) KVM
5 1 (0.70%) RHEV
5 1 (0.70%) Xen
Systems Management
1 23 (16.20%) FortiGate
2 13 (9.15%) Ansible
3 6 (4.23%) Nagios
3 6 (4.23%) Terraform
4 4 (2.82%) Endace
5 1 (0.70%) Amdocs OSS
5 1 (0.70%) Backup Exec
5 1 (0.70%) CASB
5 1 (0.70%) Cisco CUCM
5 1 (0.70%) Norton AntiVirus
5 1 (0.70%) Proxmox
5 1 (0.70%) SCOM
5 1 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.70%) WhatsUp Gold
5 1 (0.70%) WSUS
Vendors
1 80 (56.34%) Cisco
2 46 (32.39%) Juniper
3 33 (23.24%) F5
4 30 (21.13%) Palo Alto
5 29 (20.42%) SolarWinds
6 26 (18.31%) Aruba
7 22 (15.49%) CheckPoint
8 20 (14.08%) Splunk
9 18 (12.68%) Extreme Networks
9 18 (12.68%) Fortinet
10 13 (9.15%) VMware
11 8 (5.63%) Microsoft
12 7 (4.93%) MuleSoft
13 5 (3.52%) Zscaler
14 4 (2.82%) Mellanox
14 4 (2.82%) NVIDIA
15 3 (2.11%) Infoblox
15 3 (2.11%) Meraki
15 3 (2.11%) ServiceNow
16 2 (1.41%) Pegasus