VPLS Contract Job Trends

Virtual private LAN service (VPLS)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring VPLS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 6 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 572 540 600
Rank change year-on-year -32 +60 +195
Contract jobs citing VPLS 2 11 34
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.006% 0.030% 0.073%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.051% 0.25% 0.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 5 23
10th Percentile £414 - £430
25th Percentile £416 £450 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £488 £575
Median % change year-on-year -5.13% -15.22% +17.95%
75th Percentile £522 £598 £673
90th Percentile £531 £689 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate - - £500
% change year-on-year - - +25.00%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

VPLS 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 3,929 4,399 6,489
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.35% 12.04% 13.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,548 2,532 4,040
10th Percentile £213 £221 £213
25th Percentile £360 £369 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £681 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -4.95% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 159 339
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.95 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £26.25 £22.75
Median hourly rate £34.00 £47.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.42% -13.64% +34.05%
75th Percentile £65.00 £66.01 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £50.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -15.00% -11.49% +25.53%

VPLS
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing VPLS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

VPLS job vacancy trend in the UK

VPLS
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing VPLS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing VPLS

VPLS
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing VPLS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing VPLS

VPLS
Top 3 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing VPLS within the UK over the 6 months to 6 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
Work from Home +11 1 £450 -
England -7 1 £450 -7.69% 3
London -12 1 £450 -7.69% 3

VPLS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (50.00%) AWS
1 1 (50.00%) AWS Direct Connect
1 1 (50.00%) Azure
1 1 (50.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 2 (100.00%) MPLS
1 2 (100.00%) VLAN
2 1 (50.00%) BGP
2 1 (50.00%) Firewall
2 1 (50.00%) Network Security
2 1 (50.00%) OSPF
2 1 (50.00%) VPN
Job Titles
1 1 (50.00%) Network Engineer
1 1 (50.00%) Network Specialist
Miscellaneous
1 2 (100.00%) Data Centre
2 1 (50.00%) Hybrid Cloud
Processes & Methodologies
1 1 (50.00%) Collaborative Culture
1 1 (50.00%) Incident Response
1 1 (50.00%) Mentoring
1 1 (50.00%) Performance Tuning
1 1 (50.00%) Strategic Thinking
Qualifications
1 1 (50.00%) CCNP
1 1 (50.00%) Cisco Certification
1 1 (50.00%) JNCIS
Systems Management
1 1 (50.00%) Ansible
1 1 (50.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 2 (100.00%) Mellanox
1 2 (100.00%) Meraki