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 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 119 89 67
Rank change year-on-year -30 -22 +37
Contract jobs citing WAN 14 41 99
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 0.62% 1.75% 3.20%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 5.47% 11.55% 20.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 27 59
10th Percentile £361 £223 £280
25th Percentile £425 £378 £333
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £420 £525
Median % change year-on-year +19.05% -20.00% +5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £681
90th Percentile £653 £685 £738
England median daily rate £450 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -10.00% - +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 8 9
10th Percentile - £69.00 £68.20
25th Percentile - £74.06 £69.62
Median hourly rate - £75.00 £70.65
Median % change year-on-year - +6.16% +228.60%
75th Percentile - - £75.00
90th Percentile - - £91.00
England median hourly rate £30.00 £72.50 £24.50
% change year-on-year -58.62% +195.92% +7.69%

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 256 355 479
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 11.27% 15.16% 15.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 193 220 276
10th Percentile £225 £306 £229
25th Percentile £325 £413 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £523 £550
Median % change year-on-year +3.35% -5.00% +16.28%
75th Percentile £638 £613 £650
90th Percentile £715 £675 £723
England median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 19 70
10th Percentile £15.62 £11.75 £45.71
25th Percentile £23.59 £38.13 £48.32
Median hourly rate £56.50 £67.02 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -15.70% +18.64% -13.09%
75th Percentile £64.88 £75.00 £66.18
90th Percentile £66.42 - £76.25
England median hourly rate £31.39 £48.56 £56.49
% change year-on-year -35.37% -14.04% +26.38%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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
Wiltshire -8 5 £463 -26.00% 6
Bristol -14 4 £513 +8.47% 4
Somerset 0 3 £588 - 3
Dorset +3 2 £205 -8.89% 1
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 (14.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (7.14%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (7.14%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 6 (42.86%) Azure
2 5 (35.71%) AWS
3 3 (21.43%) GCP
4 2 (14.29%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (7.14%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (7.14%) AWS Direct Connect
5 1 (7.14%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 1 (7.14%) OneDrive
5 1 (7.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 8 (57.14%) LAN
2 6 (42.86%) Firewall
3 5 (35.71%) SD-WAN
3 5 (35.71%) VPN
4 4 (28.57%) BGP
4 4 (28.57%) OSPF
5 3 (21.43%) DHCP
5 3 (21.43%) DNS
5 3 (21.43%) VLAN
6 2 (14.29%) Network Security
6 2 (14.29%) SAN
6 2 (14.29%) TCP/IP
6 2 (14.29%) VoIP
7 1 (7.14%) Cisco ASA
7 1 (7.14%) Cisco IOS
7 1 (7.14%) Cisco ISE
7 1 (7.14%) MPLS
7 1 (7.14%) NAS
7 1 (7.14%) TACACS
7 1 (7.14%) WLAN
General
1 6 (42.86%) Social Skills
2 4 (28.57%) Finance
3 2 (14.29%) Manufacturing
3 2 (14.29%) Telecoms
4 1 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (7.14%) Electronics
4 1 (7.14%) Financial Institution
4 1 (7.14%) French Language
4 1 (7.14%) Influencing Skills
4 1 (7.14%) Marketing
4 1 (7.14%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 5 (35.71%) Architect
2 4 (28.57%) Network Architect
2 4 (28.57%) Network Engineer
3 2 (14.29%) Enterprise Architect
4 1 (7.14%) 2nd Line Support
4 1 (7.14%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
4 1 (7.14%) Cisco Engineer
4 1 (7.14%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 1 (7.14%) Cloud Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Infrastructure Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 1 (7.14%) Integration Engineer
4 1 (7.14%) IT Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Network Security Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Security Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Solutions Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Storage Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Support Engineer
4 1 (7.14%) Systems Engineer
4 1 (7.14%) Systems Integration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (7.14%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 4 (28.57%) Cloud Native
1 4 (28.57%) Data Centre
2 3 (21.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 2 (14.29%) Virtual Team
4 1 (7.14%) CMDB
4 1 (7.14%) Management Information System
4 1 (7.14%) NHS
4 1 (7.14%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 6 (42.86%) Windows
2 4 (28.57%) Windows Server
3 2 (14.29%) Linux
4 1 (7.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (7.14%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (21.43%) Network Architecture
1 3 (21.43%) Presales
1 3 (21.43%) Stakeholder Management
1 3 (21.43%) Zero Trust
2 2 (14.29%) Architectural Design
2 2 (14.29%) BCP
2 2 (14.29%) Business Continuity
2 2 (14.29%) Cost Optimisation
2 2 (14.29%) Customer Service
2 2 (14.29%) Digital Transformation Strategy
2 2 (14.29%) High Availability
2 2 (14.29%) Infrastructure as Code
2 2 (14.29%) Mentoring
2 2 (14.29%) Migration
2 2 (14.29%) Network Design
2 2 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
2 2 (14.29%) TOGAF
2 2 (14.29%) Virtual Team Management
2 2 (14.29%) Vulnerability Management
3 1 (7.14%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 2 (14.29%) Python
2 1 (7.14%) Bicep
2 1 (7.14%) Perl
2 1 (7.14%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 6 (42.86%) Security Cleared
2 5 (35.71%) SC Cleared
3 3 (21.43%) DV Cleared
4 2 (14.29%) CCNP
4 2 (14.29%) Cisco Certification
5 1 (7.14%) AWS Certification
5 1 (7.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 1 (7.14%) Azure Certification
5 1 (7.14%) CCIE
5 1 (7.14%) CCNA
5 1 (7.14%) JNCIE
5 1 (7.14%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (7.14%) Government Security Classifications
1 1 (7.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 1 (7.14%) NCSC
System Software
1 3 (21.43%) Active Directory
2 2 (14.29%) Hyper-V
2 2 (14.29%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (7.14%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 1 (7.14%) Ansible
1 1 (7.14%) AppManager
1 1 (7.14%) SCCM
1 1 (7.14%) Single Sign-On
1 1 (7.14%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (35.71%) Cisco
1 5 (35.71%) VMware
2 2 (14.29%) Juniper
2 2 (14.29%) Microsoft
3 1 (7.14%) Aruba
3 1 (7.14%) Brocade
3 1 (7.14%) Extreme Networks
3 1 (7.14%) Fortinet
3 1 (7.14%) Google
3 1 (7.14%) Ivanti
3 1 (7.14%) LogicMonitor
3 1 (7.14%) Palo Alto
3 1 (7.14%) SAP
3 1 (7.14%) SolarWinds