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

6 months to
8 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 110 95 71
Rank change year-on-year -15 -24 -21
Contract jobs citing WAN 132 70 122
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.00% 2.02% 2.63%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.48% 11.78% 14.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 87 42 76
10th Percentile £346 £251 £200
25th Percentile £410 £350 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -10.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £568 £500 £638
90th Percentile £700 £571 £694
England median daily rate £513 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +13.89% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 6
10th Percentile £17.56 - £18.06
25th Percentile £23.75 - £19.48
Median hourly rate £45.49 - £47.95
75th Percentile £52.58 - £75.24
90th Percentile £66.82 - £76.12
England median hourly rate £19.42 £30.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year -35.27% -58.62% +190.00%

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 755 594 858
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 11.44% 17.13% 18.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 444 412 461
10th Percentile £254 £213 £255
25th Percentile £405 £348 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - +10.50%
75th Percentile £590 £588 £608
90th Percentile £650 £638 £672
England median daily rate £500 £490 £508
% change year-on-year +2.04% -3.45% +1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 26 93
10th Percentile £17.50 £14.20 £27.00
25th Percentile £22.94 £28.00 £53.40
Median hourly rate £50.75 £55.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -7.73% -4.10% -4.42%
75th Percentile £60.00 £70.16 £70.00
90th Percentile £70.59 £89.63 £75.19
England median hourly rate £28.00 £41.48 £57.35
% change year-on-year -32.49% -27.68% +1.52%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 -4 81 £458 +16.38% 18
Berkshire +2 62 £410 +4.13% 12
Hampshire -24 30 £525 +7.69% 26
Buckinghamshire - 16 £645 - 5
Surrey -14 14 £475 +15.15% 14
Oxfordshire -19 3 £480 - 1
Sussex - 2 £236 -
Middlesex - 2 - -
West Sussex - 1 £500 - 8
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 7 (5.30%) OpenStack
2 2 (1.52%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (3.03%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (3.03%) Microsoft Office
1 4 (3.03%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 32 (24.24%) Azure
2 26 (19.70%) AWS
3 4 (3.03%) Entra ID
3 4 (3.03%) GCP
3 4 (3.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 3 (2.27%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
5 2 (1.52%) IaaS
5 2 (1.52%) OpenShift
6 1 (0.76%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.76%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (0.76%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 100 (75.76%) LAN
2 70 (53.03%) Firewall
3 60 (45.45%) BGP
4 54 (40.91%) SD-WAN
5 38 (28.79%) MPLS
6 36 (27.27%) DNS
7 35 (26.52%) IPsec
7 35 (26.52%) VPN
8 34 (25.76%) Network Security
8 34 (25.76%) OSPF
9 25 (18.94%) DHCP
10 24 (18.18%) Wi-Fi
11 21 (15.91%) Wireless
12 19 (14.39%) TCP/IP
13 16 (12.12%) BIG-IP
13 16 (12.12%) VLAN
13 16 (12.12%) VXLAN
14 15 (11.36%) Cisco Firepower
14 15 (11.36%) NGFW
14 15 (11.36%) SSL
Development Applications
1 5 (3.79%) JIRA
2 2 (1.52%) Sonatype Nexus
3 1 (0.76%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.76%) GitLab
3 1 (0.76%) Jenkins
General
1 37 (28.03%) Social Skills
2 23 (17.42%) Telecoms
3 15 (11.36%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (5.30%) Public Sector
5 5 (3.79%) Finance
5 5 (3.79%) Organisational Skills
6 3 (2.27%) Billing
6 3 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.52%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.52%) Legal
7 2 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.76%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.76%) Military
8 1 (0.76%) Police
Job Titles
1 39 (29.55%) Architect
2 38 (28.79%) Network Engineer
3 27 (20.45%) Network Architect
4 20 (15.15%) Senior
5 13 (9.85%) Senior Network Engineer
6 12 (9.09%) Developer
7 9 (6.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 8 (6.06%) Technical Architect
9 7 (5.30%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
9 7 (5.30%) Lead
9 7 (5.30%) Network Manager
9 7 (5.30%) Security Engineer
10 6 (4.55%) Cisco Engineer
10 6 (4.55%) Network Specialist
10 6 (4.55%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 6 (4.55%) Solutions Architect
11 5 (3.79%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 5 (3.79%) Network Security Engineer
11 5 (3.79%) Project Manager
11 5 (3.79%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (12.12%) 802.1X
2 8 (6.06%) NETCONF
3 7 (5.30%) YANG
4 6 (4.55%) REST
5 5 (3.79%) Terraform
6 4 (3.03%) Middleware
7 3 (2.27%) RESTCONF
8 2 (1.52%) OpenConfig
9 1 (0.76%) gRPC
9 1 (0.76%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 38 (28.79%) Data Centre
2 17 (12.88%) Hybrid Cloud
3 11 (8.33%) PKI
3 11 (8.33%) Private Cloud
4 9 (6.82%) Cloud Native
5 6 (4.55%) Clustering
5 6 (4.55%) Public Cloud
6 5 (3.79%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 4 (3.03%) Analytical Mindset
7 4 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (3.03%) Security Posture
8 3 (2.27%) Onboarding
8 3 (2.27%) Operational Technology
9 2 (1.52%) Driving Licence
9 2 (1.52%) Fibre Optics
9 2 (1.52%) IoT
9 2 (1.52%) NHS
9 2 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (1.52%) Social Media
10 1 (0.76%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 22 (16.67%) Windows
2 14 (10.61%) Linux
3 5 (3.79%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.52%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (25.76%) ITIL
2 28 (21.21%) Technical Leadership
3 25 (18.94%) High Availability
3 25 (18.94%) Stakeholder Management
4 22 (16.67%) Network Architecture
5 19 (14.39%) Roadmaps
6 17 (12.88%) Problem-Solving
7 16 (12.12%) Migration
7 16 (12.12%) Network Design
7 16 (12.12%) Network Virtualisation
7 16 (12.12%) TOGAF
8 15 (11.36%) Change Management
9 14 (10.61%) Agile
9 14 (10.61%) Project Delivery
10 13 (9.85%) Identity Access Management
10 13 (9.85%) Network Monitoring
11 12 (9.09%) Vulnerability Management
12 11 (8.33%) DevOps
12 11 (8.33%) Load Balancing
12 11 (8.33%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 12 (9.09%) Python
Qualifications
1 80 (60.61%) Security Cleared
2 40 (30.30%) SC Cleared
3 38 (28.79%) Cisco Certification
3 38 (28.79%) DV Cleared
4 21 (15.91%) CCNP
5 16 (12.12%) CCIE
6 8 (6.06%) Degree
6 8 (6.06%) JNCIE
7 6 (4.55%) Azure Certification
7 6 (4.55%) CCNA
7 6 (4.55%) PMP
7 6 (4.55%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 5 (3.79%) AWS Certification
9 4 (3.03%) PMI Certification
10 3 (2.27%) BC Cleared
10 3 (2.27%) JNCIP
10 3 (2.27%) JNCIS
11 2 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.52%) CISSP
11 2 (1.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (6.06%) NIST
2 7 (5.30%) NCSC
3 4 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (3.03%) JSP 440
3 4 (3.03%) QA
4 2 (1.52%) PMO
4 2 (1.52%) SLA
5 1 (0.76%) GDPR
System Software
1 21 (15.91%) VMware Infrastructure
2 15 (11.36%) VMware NSX
3 12 (9.09%) Active Directory
4 5 (3.79%) Hyper-V
4 5 (3.79%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (3.03%) Virtual Servers
5 4 (3.03%) vSphere
6 3 (2.27%) Firmware
6 3 (2.27%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (1.52%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 15 (11.36%) Ansible
2 14 (10.61%) FortiGate
3 2 (1.52%) CASB
3 2 (1.52%) Cisco CUCM
3 2 (1.52%) Endace
3 2 (1.52%) WSUS
4 1 (0.76%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.76%) Nagios
4 1 (0.76%) SCCM
4 1 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 66 (50.00%) Cisco
2 32 (24.24%) VMware
3 30 (22.73%) F5
4 29 (21.97%) Palo Alto
5 26 (19.70%) Juniper
5 26 (19.70%) Microsoft
5 26 (19.70%) SolarWinds
6 21 (15.91%) Fortinet
7 11 (8.33%) ServiceNow
8 9 (6.82%) CheckPoint
9 8 (6.06%) Splunk
10 7 (5.30%) Extreme Networks
10 7 (5.30%) Meraki
11 6 (4.55%) BT
11 6 (4.55%) Zscaler
12 5 (3.79%) Aruba
12 5 (3.79%) Blue Coat
13 4 (3.03%) Becrypt
13 4 (3.03%) Infoblox
13 4 (3.03%) Veeam