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

6 months to
15 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 99 98 66
Rank change year-on-year -1 -32 +26
Contract jobs citing WAN 21 30 95
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 1.06% 1.19% 3.01%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.17% 8.50% 20.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 19 61
10th Percentile £203 £395 £250
25th Percentile £295 £410 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £550 £450
Median % change year-on-year -22.73% +22.22% -8.63%
75th Percentile £531 £663 £663
90th Percentile £645 £738 £738
England median daily rate £475 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 6 7
10th Percentile - £67.50 £66.77
25th Percentile - £72.19 -
Median hourly rate - £75.00 £69.62
Median % change year-on-year - +7.73% +28.93%
75th Percentile - - £72.83
90th Percentile - - £75.00
England median hourly rate £30.00 £70.00 £23.00
% change year-on-year -57.14% +204.35% -

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 257 353 469
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 12.93% 14.02% 14.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 186 204 266
10th Percentile £225 £332 £229
25th Percentile £275 £448 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% - +10.53%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £659 £675 £716
England median daily rate £485 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.00% - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 23 71
10th Percentile £26.70 £11.90 £46.25
25th Percentile £40.07 £64.38 £48.32
Median hourly rate £56.50 £65.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -13.08% +15.06% -5.35%
75th Percentile £64.63 £73.13 £65.98
90th Percentile £64.85 £75.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £34.00 £57.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -40.87% +1.79% +34.50%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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
Bristol +5 8 £450 -25.00% 1
Somerset +3 4 £588 - 3
Wiltshire +3 4 £431 -31.00% 1
Dorset +2 3 £205 -70.71%
Gloucestershire - 2 £295 - 3
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 3 (14.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (9.52%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (14.29%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (4.76%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 7 (33.33%) Azure
2 6 (28.57%) Microsoft 365
3 5 (23.81%) AWS
4 3 (14.29%) GCP
5 2 (9.52%) OneDrive
6 1 (4.76%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (4.76%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (4.76%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (4.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (71.43%) LAN
2 12 (57.14%) Firewall
3 8 (38.10%) DNS
3 8 (38.10%) VPN
4 5 (23.81%) DHCP
4 5 (23.81%) SD-WAN
4 5 (23.81%) VoIP
4 5 (23.81%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (19.05%) BGP
5 4 (19.05%) Network Security
5 4 (19.05%) OSPF
5 4 (19.05%) VLAN
6 2 (9.52%) Cisco Nexus
6 2 (9.52%) EIGRP
6 2 (9.52%) HSRP
6 2 (9.52%) SAN
6 2 (9.52%) TCP/IP
6 2 (9.52%) VRRP
6 2 (9.52%) WLAN
7 1 (4.76%) MPLS
General
1 8 (38.10%) Social Skills
2 4 (19.05%) Finance
3 2 (9.52%) Documentation Skills
3 2 (9.52%) Manufacturing
3 2 (9.52%) Telecoms
4 1 (4.76%) Electronics
4 1 (4.76%) Influencing Skills
4 1 (4.76%) Marketing
4 1 (4.76%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 7 (33.33%) Architect
2 6 (28.57%) Network Architect
3 5 (23.81%) Network Engineer
4 4 (19.05%) Support Engineer
5 3 (14.29%) IT Engineer
6 2 (9.52%) 2nd Line Engineer
6 2 (9.52%) 2nd Line Support
6 2 (9.52%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
6 2 (9.52%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
6 2 (9.52%) Enterprise Architect
6 2 (9.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 2 (9.52%) IT Support
6 2 (9.52%) IT Support Engineer
6 2 (9.52%) Network Technical Architect
6 2 (9.52%) Technical Architect
7 1 (4.76%) Data Centre Architect
7 1 (4.76%) Network Infrastructure Architect
7 1 (4.76%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
7 1 (4.76%) Network Security Architect
7 1 (4.76%) Storage Architect
Miscellaneous
1 6 (28.57%) Data Centre
2 4 (19.05%) Cloud Native
3 3 (14.29%) Enterprise Software
3 3 (14.29%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (9.52%) Virtual Team
5 1 (4.76%) CMDB
5 1 (4.76%) Management Information System
5 1 (4.76%) NHS
5 1 (4.76%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 10 (47.62%) Windows
2 5 (23.81%) Windows 10
3 4 (19.05%) Windows Server
4 3 (14.29%) Android
4 3 (14.29%) Mac OS
5 2 (9.52%) Linux
6 1 (4.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (23.81%) Network Architecture
2 4 (19.05%) High Availability
2 4 (19.05%) ITIL
3 3 (14.29%) Customer Service
3 3 (14.29%) ITSM
3 3 (14.29%) Network Design
3 3 (14.29%) Network Monitoring
3 3 (14.29%) Presales
3 3 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
3 3 (14.29%) Technical Leadership
3 3 (14.29%) Zero Trust
4 2 (9.52%) Architectural Design
4 2 (9.52%) Cost Optimisation
4 2 (9.52%) Customer Requirements
4 2 (9.52%) Infrastructure as Code
4 2 (9.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 2 (9.52%) Mentoring
4 2 (9.52%) Patch Management
4 2 (9.52%) Problem-Solving
4 2 (9.52%) Virtual Team Management
Programming Languages
1 1 (4.76%) Bicep
1 1 (4.76%) PowerShell
1 1 (4.76%) Python
Qualifications
1 9 (42.86%) Security Cleared
2 4 (19.05%) DV Cleared
2 4 (19.05%) SC Cleared
3 3 (14.29%) CCNP
3 3 (14.29%) Cisco Certification
4 2 (9.52%) CCNA
5 1 (4.76%) AWS Certification
5 1 (4.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 1 (4.76%) Azure Certification
5 1 (4.76%) CCIE
5 1 (4.76%) JNCIE
5 1 (4.76%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (14.29%) SLA
2 1 (4.76%) Government Security Classifications
2 1 (4.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (4.76%) NCSC
System Software
1 7 (33.33%) Active Directory
2 3 (14.29%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (9.52%) Hyper-V
4 1 (4.76%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 2 (9.52%) AppManager
1 2 (9.52%) Cisco Prime
1 2 (9.52%) SCCM
2 1 (4.76%) Ansible
2 1 (4.76%) Single Sign-On
2 1 (4.76%) Terraform
Vendors
1 6 (28.57%) VMware
2 5 (23.81%) Cisco
3 3 (14.29%) Microsoft
3 3 (14.29%) ServiceNow
4 2 (9.52%) Ivanti
4 2 (9.52%) Juniper
4 2 (9.52%) SolarWinds
5 1 (4.76%) Brocade
5 1 (4.76%) Extreme Networks
5 1 (4.76%) Fortinet
5 1 (4.76%) Google
5 1 (4.76%) Palo Alto
5 1 (4.76%) Remedy
5 1 (4.76%) SAP