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

6 months to
15 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 84 64
Rank change year-on-year +12 -20 -11
Contract jobs citing WAN 170 69 165
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.79% 2.28% 2.87%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 23.10% 13.02% 13.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 97 44 56
10th Percentile £400 £283 £231
25th Percentile £431 £381 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £470
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -4.26% +4.44%
75th Percentile £538 £506 £586
90th Percentile £600 £625 £688
England median daily rate £500 £490 £488
% change year-on-year +2.09% +0.46% +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 £30.00 £24.87
% change year-on-year -25.00% +20.63% -58.55%

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 736 530 1,196
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 12.10% 17.54% 20.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 470 353 575
10th Percentile £300 £214 £228
25th Percentile £413 £325 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.85% -4.00% +4.05%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £623 £650
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -2.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 25 140
10th Percentile £17.74 £14.20 £17.55
25th Percentile £22.50 £20.85 £34.44
Median hourly rate £42.25 £41.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +3.05% -28.51% -4.42%
75th Percentile £56.21 £58.69 £70.00
90th Percentile £60.00 £61.55 £85.65
England median hourly rate £30.77 £37.50 £41.50
% change year-on-year -17.95% -9.64% +130.56%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +21 102 £458 +10.42% 19
Berkshire +22 84 £425 +2.41% 5
Hampshire -16 37 £525 +5.00% 16
Surrey -15 16 £475 +11.76% 13
Buckinghamshire - 14 £543 - 8
Kent +11 11 £445 +1.71% 2
Oxfordshire -26 4 £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 6 (3.53%) OpenStack
2 1 (0.59%) Confluence
2 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (2.94%) MS Visio
2 4 (2.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.76%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.76%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 37 (21.76%) Azure
2 28 (16.47%) AWS
3 4 (2.35%) Entra ID
3 4 (2.35%) GCP
4 3 (1.76%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (1.76%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (1.18%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (0.59%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.59%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (0.59%) IaaS
6 1 (0.59%) PaaS
6 1 (0.59%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 139 (81.76%) LAN
2 103 (60.59%) Firewall
3 86 (50.59%) BGP
4 71 (41.76%) OSPF
5 61 (35.88%) SD-WAN
6 47 (27.65%) DNS
7 46 (27.06%) VPN
8 45 (26.47%) DHCP
9 42 (24.71%) MPLS
10 32 (18.82%) Network Security
11 30 (17.65%) Ethernet VPN
11 30 (17.65%) IPsec
11 30 (17.65%) VXLAN
12 29 (17.06%) BIG-IP
13 26 (15.29%) Cisco ISE
14 25 (14.71%) Junos
15 23 (13.53%) Wi-Fi
16 20 (11.76%) Wireless
17 18 (10.59%) TCP/IP
18 13 (7.65%) VLAN
Development Applications
1 5 (2.94%) JIRA
2 2 (1.18%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.59%) GitLab
3 1 (0.59%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 36 (21.18%) Social Skills
2 17 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (7.65%) Documentation Skills
3 13 (7.65%) Public Sector
4 12 (7.06%) Finance
4 12 (7.06%) Telecoms
5 8 (4.71%) Manufacturing
6 6 (3.53%) Military
7 4 (2.35%) Financial Institution
7 4 (2.35%) Legal
8 3 (1.76%) Billing
9 2 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.59%) Police
Job Titles
1 62 (36.47%) Network Engineer
2 31 (18.24%) Architect
3 29 (17.06%) Senior
4 21 (12.35%) Senior Network Engineer
5 19 (11.18%) Network Architect
6 15 (8.82%) Network Specialist
7 14 (8.24%) Firewall Specialist
8 13 (7.65%) Cisco Engineer
8 13 (7.65%) Network Manager
9 12 (7.06%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 12 (7.06%) Lead
9 12 (7.06%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 11 (6.47%) Project Manager
11 8 (4.71%) Technical Architect
12 7 (4.12%) Developer
12 7 (4.12%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 7 (4.12%) Network Project Manager
13 6 (3.53%) Senior Architect
13 6 (3.53%) Senior Network Architect
13 6 (3.53%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (20.00%) 802.1X
2 8 (4.71%) NETCONF
2 8 (4.71%) YANG
3 6 (3.53%) REST
4 5 (2.94%) Middleware
5 2 (1.18%) OpenConfig
5 2 (1.18%) RESTCONF
6 1 (0.59%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 67 (39.41%) Data Centre
2 28 (16.47%) PKI
3 25 (14.71%) Clustering
4 13 (7.65%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (4.71%) Public Cloud
6 6 (3.53%) Analytical Mindset
6 6 (3.53%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.94%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (2.35%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.76%) BYOD
9 3 (1.76%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (1.18%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 2 (1.18%) Private Cloud
10 2 (1.18%) Virtual Team
11 1 (0.59%) Data Protection Act
11 1 (0.59%) Enterprise Software
11 1 (0.59%) Fibre Optics
11 1 (0.59%) iSeries
11 1 (0.59%) NHS
11 1 (0.59%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 40 (23.53%) Windows
2 16 (9.41%) Linux
3 2 (1.18%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.59%) VMS
4 1 (0.59%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (24.71%) High Availability
2 39 (22.94%) ITIL
3 33 (19.41%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (17.65%) Identity Access Management
4 30 (17.65%) Load Balancing
5 26 (15.29%) Observability
6 20 (11.76%) Migration
6 20 (11.76%) Network Architecture
6 20 (11.76%) Stakeholder Management
7 19 (11.18%) ITSM
7 19 (11.18%) Network Design
7 19 (11.18%) Technical Leadership
8 18 (10.59%) Network Virtualisation
9 16 (9.41%) Roadmaps
10 15 (8.82%) Change Management
10 15 (8.82%) Project Delivery
11 13 (7.65%) Network Monitoring
12 12 (7.06%) Agile
12 12 (7.06%) DevOps
12 12 (7.06%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 11 (6.47%) Python
2 3 (1.76%) SQL
Qualifications
1 109 (64.12%) Security Cleared
2 69 (40.59%) Cisco Certification
3 61 (35.88%) SC Cleared
4 44 (25.88%) DV Cleared
5 40 (23.53%) CCNP
6 14 (8.24%) CCIE
6 14 (8.24%) CCNA
7 13 (7.65%) Degree
8 11 (6.47%) PMP
9 8 (4.71%) JNCIA
9 8 (4.71%) JNCIE
9 8 (4.71%) JNCIP
9 8 (4.71%) JNCIS
10 5 (2.94%) AWS Certification
10 5 (2.94%) PMI Certification
11 4 (2.35%) Azure Certification
12 2 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (1.18%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (1.18%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 1 (0.59%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.71%) NIST
2 4 (2.35%) QA
3 3 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.18%) NCSC
5 1 (0.59%) GDPR
5 1 (0.59%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.59%) SLA
System Software
1 20 (11.76%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (6.47%) Active Directory
2 11 (6.47%) VMware NSX
3 4 (2.35%) Hyper-V
3 4 (2.35%) Virtual Machines
3 4 (2.35%) vSphere
4 3 (1.76%) Firmware
5 1 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.59%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 29 (17.06%) FortiGate
2 18 (10.59%) Ansible
3 8 (4.71%) Terraform
4 4 (2.35%) Endace
5 2 (1.18%) CASB
5 2 (1.18%) Cisco CUCM
5 2 (1.18%) Nagios
6 1 (0.59%) SCCM
6 1 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.59%) WSUS
Vendors
1 93 (54.71%) Cisco
2 44 (25.88%) Juniper
3 41 (24.12%) SolarWinds
4 38 (22.35%) F5
5 28 (16.47%) Palo Alto
6 27 (15.88%) VMware
7 25 (14.71%) Splunk
8 22 (12.94%) Aruba
8 22 (12.94%) Extreme Networks
9 18 (10.59%) Fortinet
9 18 (10.59%) Microsoft
10 16 (9.41%) CheckPoint
11 10 (5.88%) ServiceNow
12 8 (4.71%) Meraki
13 5 (2.94%) BT
13 5 (2.94%) MuleSoft
13 5 (2.94%) Veeam
14 4 (2.35%) Commvault
14 4 (2.35%) NetApp
14 4 (2.35%) Xerox