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

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 84 66
Rank change year-on-year +5 -18 -5
Contract jobs citing WAN 159 73 163
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.78% 2.44% 2.91%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.57% 14.12% 12.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 87 44 59
10th Percentile £413 £304 £148
25th Percentile £431 £406 £348
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% +5.88% -5.56%
75th Percentile £538 £561 £551
90th Percentile £600 £625 £610
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +8.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 6
10th Percentile £34.23 - £41.38
25th Percentile £41.93 £18.50 £60.63
Median hourly rate £45.71 £19.00 £70.26
Median % change year-on-year +140.59% -72.96% +15.18%
75th Percentile £57.43 £19.50 £75.24
90th Percentile £74.71 - £76.12
England median hourly rate £32.38 £53.75 £24.87
% change year-on-year -39.77% +116.12% -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 737 517 1,301
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.89% 17.27% 23.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 320 630
10th Percentile £258 £210 £205
25th Percentile £406 £336 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £486
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -1.29% -
75th Percentile £591 £588 £582
90th Percentile £688 £628 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £488
% change year-on-year - +2.56% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 28 129
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.20 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.30 £20.26 £27.50
Median hourly rate £48.72 £54.94 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -11.32% -4.21% +27.44%
75th Percentile £56.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £64.23 £66.88 £85.65
England median hourly rate £48.72 £36.65 £40.00
% change year-on-year +32.95% -8.39% +111.30%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 +2 89 £460 +2.22% 14
Berkshire +15 72 £434 -3.61% 7
Hampshire -11 32 £525 +12.00% 23
Kent +11 20 £443 +1.14% 5
Surrey -9 12 £509 +10.00% 3
Buckinghamshire -19 10 £543 -5.45% 3
Oxfordshire -12 7 £480 - 4
East Sussex +7 4 £475 +192.31%
West Sussex -10 1 - - 2
Isle of Wight - 1 - - 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 2 (1.26%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.63%) Confluence
2 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.63%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (3.77%) Microsoft Excel
1 6 (3.77%) MS Visio
2 5 (3.14%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (2.52%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 34 (21.38%) Azure
2 23 (14.47%) AWS
3 4 (2.52%) Entra ID
4 3 (1.89%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (1.89%) GCP
4 3 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (1.26%) Google Ads
6 1 (0.63%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (0.63%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (0.63%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (0.63%) IaaS
6 1 (0.63%) PaaS
6 1 (0.63%) SaaS
6 1 (0.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 125 (78.62%) LAN
2 98 (61.64%) Firewall
3 79 (49.69%) BGP
4 74 (46.54%) OSPF
5 51 (32.08%) SD-WAN
6 48 (30.19%) VPN
7 41 (25.79%) DNS
8 40 (25.16%) DHCP
9 31 (19.50%) MPLS
10 29 (18.24%) Ethernet VPN
11 28 (17.61%) BIG-IP
11 28 (17.61%) Network Security
11 28 (17.61%) VXLAN
12 25 (15.72%) Cisco ISE
13 24 (15.09%) IPsec
13 24 (15.09%) Junos
14 22 (13.84%) TCP/IP
15 18 (11.32%) Structured Cabling
16 17 (10.69%) Wireless
17 14 (8.81%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.63%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (3.14%) JIRA
2 2 (1.26%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.63%) GitLab
3 1 (0.63%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 34 (21.38%) Social Skills
2 22 (13.84%) Documentation Skills
3 21 (13.21%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (10.06%) Public Sector
5 12 (7.55%) Finance
5 12 (7.55%) Manufacturing
6 9 (5.66%) Telecoms
7 6 (3.77%) Military
8 4 (2.52%) Financial Institution
9 3 (1.89%) Billing
9 3 (1.89%) Legal
10 2 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.26%) Police
11 1 (0.63%) Retail
Job Titles
1 65 (40.88%) Network Engineer
2 31 (19.50%) Architect
3 26 (16.35%) Senior
4 18 (11.32%) Network Architect
5 17 (10.69%) Senior Network Engineer
6 15 (9.43%) Lead
6 15 (9.43%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 13 (8.18%) Firewall Specialist
7 13 (8.18%) Network Specialist
8 11 (6.92%) Network Manager
8 11 (6.92%) Project Manager
8 11 (6.92%) Technical Architect
9 10 (6.29%) Cisco Engineer
9 10 (6.29%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 8 (5.03%) Senior Architect
11 7 (4.40%) Network Project Manager
11 7 (4.40%) Senior Network Architect
12 6 (3.77%) SC Cleared Project Manager
13 5 (3.14%) IP Specialist
13 5 (3.14%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (18.87%) 802.1X
2 8 (5.03%) Middleware
3 6 (3.77%) NETCONF
3 6 (3.77%) YANG
4 4 (2.52%) OpenConfig
4 4 (2.52%) RESTCONF
5 2 (1.26%) REST
6 1 (0.63%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 70 (44.03%) Data Centre
2 24 (15.09%) Clustering
3 23 (14.47%) PKI
4 12 (7.55%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (6.92%) Public Cloud
6 8 (5.03%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (3.77%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (3.14%) Cloud Native
9 3 (1.89%) BYOD
9 3 (1.89%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (1.26%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 2 (1.26%) Onboarding
10 2 (1.26%) Private Cloud
10 2 (1.26%) Virtual Team
11 1 (0.63%) Cyber Defence
11 1 (0.63%) Driving Licence
11 1 (0.63%) Enterprise Cloud
11 1 (0.63%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.63%) Operational Technology
11 1 (0.63%) TM Forum
Operating Systems
1 39 (24.53%) Windows
2 15 (9.43%) Linux
3 2 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.63%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.63%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (26.42%) High Availability
2 38 (23.90%) Problem-Solving
3 35 (22.01%) ITIL
4 29 (18.24%) Identity Access Management
4 29 (18.24%) Load Balancing
5 28 (17.61%) Observability
6 19 (11.95%) ITSM
6 19 (11.95%) Migration
7 16 (10.06%) Stakeholder Management
8 14 (8.81%) Technical Leadership
9 13 (8.18%) Network Design
9 13 (8.18%) Project Delivery
9 13 (8.18%) Project Management
10 12 (7.55%) Change Management
10 12 (7.55%) Customer Requirements
10 12 (7.55%) Network Architecture
11 11 (6.92%) Network Virtualisation
12 10 (6.29%) Network Monitoring
12 10 (6.29%) Roadmaps
12 10 (6.29%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 9 (5.66%) Python
2 4 (2.52%) SQL
Qualifications
1 108 (67.92%) Security Cleared
2 71 (44.65%) Cisco Certification
3 70 (44.03%) SC Cleared
4 45 (28.30%) CCNP
5 34 (21.38%) DV Cleared
6 20 (12.58%) Degree
7 17 (10.69%) CCNA
8 10 (6.29%) PMP
9 9 (5.66%) JNCIA
9 9 (5.66%) JNCIS
10 8 (5.03%) CCIE
10 8 (5.03%) JNCIP
11 6 (3.77%) JNCIE
11 6 (3.77%) Network+ Certification
12 3 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
12 3 (1.89%) PMI Certification
13 2 (1.26%) CCSE
13 2 (1.26%) Computer Science Degree
13 2 (1.26%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (1.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.52%) SLA
2 3 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (1.89%) NIST
3 2 (1.26%) JSP 440
3 2 (1.26%) NCSC
3 2 (1.26%) QA
4 1 (0.63%) GDPR
System Software
1 15 (9.43%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (4.40%) Active Directory
2 7 (4.40%) VMware NSX
3 4 (2.52%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.63%) KVM
4 1 (0.63%) RHEV
4 1 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.63%) Virtual Servers
4 1 (0.63%) vSphere
4 1 (0.63%) Xen
Systems Management
1 28 (17.61%) FortiGate
2 14 (8.81%) Ansible
3 6 (3.77%) Nagios
3 6 (3.77%) Terraform
4 5 (3.14%) Endace
5 2 (1.26%) WSUS
6 1 (0.63%) Backup Exec
6 1 (0.63%) CASB
6 1 (0.63%) Cisco CUCM
6 1 (0.63%) Norton AntiVirus
6 1 (0.63%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.63%) SCOM
6 1 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.63%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 90 (56.60%) Cisco
2 50 (31.45%) Juniper
3 37 (23.27%) F5
4 35 (22.01%) SolarWinds
5 31 (19.50%) Palo Alto
6 27 (16.98%) Aruba
7 24 (15.09%) Splunk
8 22 (13.84%) CheckPoint
9 21 (13.21%) Extreme Networks
10 20 (12.58%) Fortinet
10 20 (12.58%) VMware
11 14 (8.81%) Microsoft
12 8 (5.03%) MuleSoft
13 5 (3.14%) Meraki
13 5 (3.14%) Zscaler
14 4 (2.52%) Mellanox
14 4 (2.52%) NVIDIA
15 3 (1.89%) Infoblox
15 3 (1.89%) ServiceNow
16 2 (1.26%) Veeam