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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 100 116
Rank change year-on-year -17 +16 -51
Contract jobs citing WAN 40 22 24
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 1.06% 1.11% 0.91%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.86% 8.66% 6.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 28 11 12
10th Percentile £339 £203 £401
25th Percentile £513 £246 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £556 £400 £550
Median % change year-on-year +39.00% -27.27% +22.22%
75th Percentile £624 £556 £675
90th Percentile £688 £713 £743
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 - - £67.50
25th Percentile - - £72.19
Median hourly rate £12.71 - £75.00
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £19.84 £30.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year -33.87% -58.62% +81.25%

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 311 254 395
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 8.28% 12.87% 14.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 176 172 236
10th Percentile £205 £213 £334
25th Percentile £413 £283 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £473 £525
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £659 £588 £600
90th Percentile £725 £649 £672
England median daily rate £500 £488 £508
% change year-on-year +2.56% -3.94% +1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 4 27
10th Percentile £12.71 £26.70 £11.75
25th Percentile £18.50 £40.07 £39.75
Median hourly rate £39.82 £57.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.75% -11.54% +15.06%
75th Percentile £86.25 £65.00 £74.38
90th Percentile £99.17 - £79.00
England median hourly rate £43.50 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +4.82% -27.64% +1.52%

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 19 September 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 19 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
Wiltshire +1 16 £560 +29.86% 7
Bristol -17 11 £600 +6.67% 8
Devon - 6 - -
Gloucestershire -1 5 £400 +35.59% 11
Dorset -14 2 - - 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 (5.00%) SharePoint
2 1 (2.50%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 14 (35.00%) Azure
2 9 (22.50%) Azure ExpressRoute
3 8 (20.00%) Entra ID
4 7 (17.50%) Azure Sentinel
5 5 (12.50%) Azure Monitor
6 4 (10.00%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 4 (10.00%) Azure Functions
6 4 (10.00%) Azure Key Vault
6 4 (10.00%) Azure Storage
6 4 (10.00%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (10.00%) Serverless
7 1 (2.50%) AWS
7 1 (2.50%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 22 (55.00%) LAN
2 14 (35.00%) BGP
3 13 (32.50%) Firewall
3 13 (32.50%) MPLS
4 8 (20.00%) IPsec
4 8 (20.00%) SD-WAN
5 7 (17.50%) DNS
5 7 (17.50%) Network Security
5 7 (17.50%) VPN
6 5 (12.50%) Wireless
7 4 (10.00%) Cisco IOS
7 4 (10.00%) OSPF
7 4 (10.00%) VLAN
8 3 (7.50%) SSL
9 2 (5.00%) DHCP
9 2 (5.00%) DMVPN
9 2 (5.00%) NAS
9 2 (5.00%) SAN
10 1 (2.50%) Cisco ISE
10 1 (2.50%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (10.00%) Azure SQL Database
1 4 (10.00%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 1 (2.50%) Bitbucket
1 1 (2.50%) JIRA
General
1 17 (42.50%) Social Skills
2 8 (20.00%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (15.00%) Retail
3 6 (15.00%) Telecoms
4 2 (5.00%) Public Sector
5 1 (2.50%) Police
5 1 (2.50%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 11 (27.50%) Architect
2 8 (20.00%) IT Support
3 6 (15.00%) IT Support Technician
3 6 (15.00%) IT Technician
3 6 (15.00%) Junior
3 6 (15.00%) Junior IT Support
3 6 (15.00%) Junior IT Technician
3 6 (15.00%) Junior Support Technician
3 6 (15.00%) Support Technician
4 5 (12.50%) Azure Consultant
4 5 (12.50%) Consultant
4 5 (12.50%) Developer
5 4 (10.00%) Network Engineer
6 3 (7.50%) Technical Architect
6 3 (7.50%) Technical Specialist
7 2 (5.00%) Firewall Consultant
7 2 (5.00%) Network Architect
7 2 (5.00%) Network Manager
7 2 (5.00%) Security Consultant
7 2 (5.00%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (12.50%) Terraform
2 1 (2.50%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 6 (15.00%) EPoS
1 6 (15.00%) Onboarding
2 2 (5.00%) Cyber Security Posture
2 2 (5.00%) Driving Licence
2 2 (5.00%) Security Posture
2 2 (5.00%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (2.50%) CCTV
3 1 (2.50%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 9 (22.50%) Windows
2 2 (5.00%) Linux
2 2 (5.00%) Mac OS
2 2 (5.00%) Windows Server
2 2 (5.00%) Windows Server 2019
3 1 (2.50%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (40.00%) Problem-Solving
2 8 (20.00%) Architecture Governance
2 8 (20.00%) Service Delivery
3 7 (17.50%) Continuous Improvement
3 7 (17.50%) Incident Management
3 7 (17.50%) Incident Response
3 7 (17.50%) ITIL
3 7 (17.50%) Roadmaps
4 6 (15.00%) Customer Service
4 6 (15.00%) Infrastructure as Code
4 6 (15.00%) Network Monitoring
5 5 (12.50%) Analytics
5 5 (12.50%) Change Control
5 5 (12.50%) Cybersecurity
5 5 (12.50%) Knowledge Transfer
5 5 (12.50%) Log Analytics
5 5 (12.50%) Operational Stability
5 5 (12.50%) Requirements Workshops
5 5 (12.50%) Runbook
5 5 (12.50%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 4 (10.00%) SQL
2 2 (5.00%) PowerShell
3 1 (2.50%) C
Qualifications
1 18 (45.00%) Security Cleared
2 12 (30.00%) DV Cleared
3 8 (20.00%) Cisco Certification
4 7 (17.50%) CCNP
4 7 (17.50%) SC Cleared
5 6 (15.00%) CCIE
6 5 (12.50%) CISSP
6 5 (12.50%) JNCIE
6 5 (12.50%) JNCIP
7 2 (5.00%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (5.00%) CCNA
8 1 (2.50%) CCDP
8 1 (2.50%) DBS Check
8 1 (2.50%) VCDX
8 1 (2.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (5.00%) Cyber Essentials
1 2 (5.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
1 2 (5.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 2 (5.00%) QA
2 1 (2.50%) NIST
2 1 (2.50%) NIST 800
2 1 (2.50%) SLA
System Software
1 6 (15.00%) Active Directory
1 6 (15.00%) Virtual Desktop
2 4 (10.00%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (7.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (5.00%) VMware NSX
4 2 (5.00%) vSphere
5 1 (2.50%) BitLocker
5 1 (2.50%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 6 (15.00%) FortiGate
2 2 (5.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (5.00%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (2.50%) Nagios
3 1 (2.50%) OPNET
3 1 (2.50%) QRadar
3 1 (2.50%) SCCM
3 1 (2.50%) Suricata
Vendors
1 20 (50.00%) Microsoft
2 11 (27.50%) Cisco
3 6 (15.00%) Zscaler
4 4 (10.00%) VMware
5 2 (5.00%) F5
5 2 (5.00%) Meraki
6 1 (2.50%) Blue Coat
6 1 (2.50%) CheckPoint
6 1 (2.50%) Fortinet
6 1 (2.50%) Google
6 1 (2.50%) Infoblox
6 1 (2.50%) Juniper
6 1 (2.50%) NetScout
6 1 (2.50%) Palo Alto
6 1 (2.50%) Splunk