WAN Contract Job Trends in the South West

Wide Area Network (WAN)
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring WAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 82 73
Rank change year-on-year -41 -9 +2
Contract jobs citing WAN 23 31 89
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 0.65% 1.76% 2.71%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.49% 11.92% 16.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 17 62
10th Percentile £436 £206 £469
25th Percentile £495 £300 £531
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £556 £450 £650
Median % change year-on-year +23.56% -30.77% +40.54%
75th Percentile £600 £525 £675
90th Percentile £668 £653 £725
England median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 12
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate - £11.91 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - -70.23% -52.94%
75th Percentile - - £74.06
90th Percentile - - £75.00
England median hourly rate £26.72 £30.00 £24.87
% change year-on-year -10.93% +20.63% -56.62%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South West

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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 271 260 554
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 7.61% 14.77% 16.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 149 171 354
10th Percentile £213 £235 £316
25th Percentile £413 £385 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £545 £538
Median % change year-on-year -9.17% +1.40% +2.38%
75th Percentile £588 £623 £650
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 3 43
10th Percentile £12.98 £13.09 £12.55
25th Percentile £19.33 £14.85 £15.75
Median hourly rate £60.00 £17.79 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +237.27% -68.51% +476.43%
75th Percentile £71.50 £41.40 £71.88
90th Percentile £75.00 £55.56 £75.00
England median hourly rate £28.96 £39.66 £45.88
% change year-on-year -26.98% -13.56% +141.47%

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing WAN relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

WAN job vacancy trend in the South West

WAN
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing WAN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing WAN

WAN
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WAN in the South West over the 6 months to 26 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for WAN in the South West

WAN
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing WAN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing WAN

WAN
Contract Job Locations in the South West

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 West region over the 6 months to 26 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
Bristol -28 10 £600 +33.33% 4
Devon -15 4 £490 - 1
Dorset -7 3 - - 3
Wiltshire -9 3 £565 +22.16% 2
Gloucestershire -14 3 £475 +18.75% 4
WAN
England

WAN
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 (8.70%) Microsoft Exchange
1 2 (8.70%) SharePoint
1 2 (8.70%) Skype for Business
2 1 (4.35%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 13 (56.52%) Azure
2 9 (39.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
3 7 (30.43%) Azure Sentinel
4 6 (26.09%) Entra ID
5 5 (21.74%) Azure Monitor
6 4 (17.39%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 4 (17.39%) Azure Functions
6 4 (17.39%) Azure Key Vault
6 4 (17.39%) Azure Storage
6 4 (17.39%) Serverless
7 2 (8.70%) AWS
7 2 (8.70%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (4.35%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 13 (56.52%) Firewall
2 10 (43.48%) LAN
3 8 (34.78%) BGP
4 7 (30.43%) DNS
5 5 (21.74%) VLAN
6 4 (17.39%) VPN
7 3 (13.04%) DHCP
7 3 (13.04%) MPLS
7 3 (13.04%) NAS
7 3 (13.04%) OSPF
7 3 (13.04%) SAN
8 2 (8.70%) Cisco IOS
8 2 (8.70%) IPsec
8 2 (8.70%) SD-WAN
8 2 (8.70%) Skype
8 2 (8.70%) SSL
8 2 (8.70%) VoIP
8 2 (8.70%) Wireless
9 1 (4.35%) TCP/IP
9 1 (4.35%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (17.39%) Azure SQL Database
1 4 (17.39%) Data Lake
2 1 (4.35%) NoSQL
2 1 (4.35%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (4.35%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (8.70%) Bitbucket
2 1 (4.35%) GitLab
2 1 (4.35%) Jenkins
2 1 (4.35%) JIRA
General
1 4 (17.39%) Social Skills
2 2 (8.70%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (4.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 1 (4.35%) Police
3 1 (4.35%) Presentation Skills
3 1 (4.35%) Public Sector
3 1 (4.35%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 7 (30.43%) Architect
2 5 (21.74%) Azure Consultant
2 5 (21.74%) Consultant
3 3 (13.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 3 (13.04%) Support Engineer
3 3 (13.04%) Technical Architect
3 3 (13.04%) Technical Specialist
4 2 (8.70%) Azure Architect
4 2 (8.70%) Firewall Consultant
4 2 (8.70%) IT Engineer
4 2 (8.70%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (8.70%) Network Architect
4 2 (8.70%) Network Engineer
4 2 (8.70%) Security Consultant
4 2 (8.70%) Senior
4 2 (8.70%) Senior Consultant
4 2 (8.70%) Wintel Engineer
4 2 (8.70%) Wintel Support
4 2 (8.70%) Wintel Support Engineer
5 1 (4.35%) Network Field Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (4.35%) Apache NiFi
1 1 (4.35%) LDAP
1 1 (4.35%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 2 (8.70%) Data Centre
2 1 (4.35%) CCTV
2 1 (4.35%) Cloud Native
2 1 (4.35%) Cyber Security Posture
2 1 (4.35%) Onboarding
2 1 (4.35%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 13 (56.52%) Windows
2 5 (21.74%) Windows Server
3 2 (8.70%) Linux
3 2 (8.70%) Windows Server 2016
3 2 (8.70%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (4.35%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (30.43%) Infrastructure as Code
1 7 (30.43%) Knowledge Transfer
2 6 (26.09%) Incident Response
2 6 (26.09%) Migration
2 6 (26.09%) Problem-Solving
3 5 (21.74%) Analytics
3 5 (21.74%) Change Control
3 5 (21.74%) Log Analytics
3 5 (21.74%) Requirements Workshops
3 5 (21.74%) Roadmaps
3 5 (21.74%) Runbook
3 5 (21.74%) Technical Discovery
3 5 (21.74%) Validation
4 4 (17.39%) Architectural Patterns
4 4 (17.39%) Architecture Governance
4 4 (17.39%) Cost Optimisation
4 4 (17.39%) Cybersecurity
4 4 (17.39%) Decision-Making
4 4 (17.39%) Network Design
4 4 (17.39%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 5 (21.74%) PowerShell
1 5 (21.74%) SQL
2 1 (4.35%) C
2 1 (4.35%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 7 (30.43%) SC Cleared
1 7 (30.43%) Security Cleared
2 3 (13.04%) Cisco Certification
2 3 (13.04%) DV Cleared
3 2 (8.70%) BPSS Clearance
3 2 (8.70%) CCNA
3 2 (8.70%) CCNP
4 1 (4.35%) CCDP
4 1 (4.35%) CCIE
4 1 (4.35%) VCDX
4 1 (4.35%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (8.70%) Cyber Essentials
1 2 (8.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
1 2 (8.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 2 (8.70%) QA
2 1 (4.35%) NIST
2 1 (4.35%) NIST 800
System Software
1 8 (34.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (26.09%) Active Directory
2 6 (26.09%) Virtual Desktop
3 4 (17.39%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (13.04%) Hyper-V
4 3 (13.04%) VMware NSX
5 2 (8.70%) vSphere
6 1 (4.35%) Docker
6 1 (4.35%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 5 (21.74%) FortiGate
1 5 (21.74%) Terraform
2 2 (8.70%) McAfee ePO
2 2 (8.70%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (8.70%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (4.35%) Cisco CUCM
3 1 (4.35%) EMC VPLEX
3 1 (4.35%) Grafana
3 1 (4.35%) Kibana
3 1 (4.35%) Kubernetes
3 1 (4.35%) logstash
3 1 (4.35%) Nagios
3 1 (4.35%) OPNET
3 1 (4.35%) QRadar
3 1 (4.35%) SCCM
3 1 (4.35%) Suricata
Vendors
1 14 (60.87%) Microsoft
2 8 (34.78%) Cisco
2 8 (34.78%) VMware
3 5 (21.74%) Zscaler
4 2 (8.70%) McAfee
5 1 (4.35%) Citrix
5 1 (4.35%) Dell
5 1 (4.35%) EMC
5 1 (4.35%) Genesys
5 1 (4.35%) Google
5 1 (4.35%) Infoblox
5 1 (4.35%) NetScout
5 1 (4.35%) Netskope
5 1 (4.35%) Splunk