VPN Contracts

Virtual Private Network (VPN)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring VPN skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited VPN over the 6 months leading up to 17 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 147 150 173
Rank change year-on-year +3 +23 +68
Contract jobs citing VPN 617 673 845
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.89% 1.59% 1.51%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.42% 12.80% 11.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 410 406 550
10th Percentile £235 £200 £163
25th Percentile £362 £275 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £443 £488
Median % change year-on-year +4.46% -9.18% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £590 £596
90th Percentile £649 £788 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 39 28
10th Percentile £31.32 £12.75 £15.72
25th Percentile £34.51 £13.87 £16.16
Median hourly rate £50.00 £16.25 £18.97
Median % change year-on-year +207.69% -14.32% -13.80%
75th Percentile £89.63 £22.51 £22.44
90th Percentile - £23.88 £62.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £89.63 £14.27 £18.93
% change year-on-year +528.10% -24.62% -6.54%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

VPN 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 4,001 5,259 7,105
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.28% 12.46% 12.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,401 3,103 4,621
10th Percentile £235 £213 £231
25th Percentile £370 £350 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £625
90th Percentile £675 £688 £719
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £463
% change year-on-year -4.04% +7.03% +2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 405 349
10th Percentile £14.90 £13.50 £10.63
25th Percentile £20.89 £17.63 £14.00
Median hourly rate £46.25 £40.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.63% +23.08% +13.04%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.30 £73.75 £76.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.48 £47.50 £47.73
% change year-on-year -12.68% -0.48% +107.52%

VPN
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing VPN as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for VPN in the UK

VPN
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing VPN.

Daily rate trend for VPN in the UK

VPN
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing VPN over the 6 months to 17 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for VPN in the UK

VPN
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing VPN.

Hourly rate trend for VPN in the UK

VPN
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing VPN over the 6 months to 17 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for VPN in the UK

VPN
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing VPN within the UK over the 6 months to 17 July 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
England +13 546 £463 +2.78% 482
UK excluding London -25 300 £450 +5.88% 372
London +87 266 £450 +2.86% 171
Work from Home +13 166 £475 -11.05% 218
South East +16 99 £500 +7.53% 116
North of England -40 67 £401 -30.35% 71
North West -30 42 £475 -40.63% 30
South West +53 39 £575 +17.95% 60
Midlands -51 37 £300 -20.00% 53
West Midlands -38 33 £275 -26.67% 36
Scotland -4 26 £450 +87.50% 21
East of England +3 23 £388 +40.91% 40
Yorkshire -25 22 £263 -12.50% 38
Wales +5 7 £425 +23.64% 17
Channel Islands - 6 £725 -
East Midlands -17 4 £450 -2.70% 17
North East 0 2 £300 - 4

VPN
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 53 (8.59%) Microsoft Exchange
2 46 (7.46%) SharePoint
3 23 (3.73%) Confluence
4 13 (2.11%) Skype for Business
5 8 (1.30%) Exchange Server 2003
5 8 (1.30%) Exchange Server 2007
5 8 (1.30%) Exchange Server 2010
5 8 (1.30%) Exchange Server 2013
5 8 (1.30%) Office Communications Server
5 8 (1.30%) SharePoint Server
6 5 (0.81%) CMS
7 2 (0.32%) IBM Notes
7 2 (0.32%) nginx
8 1 (0.16%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.16%) Apache
8 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.16%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.16%) IIS
8 1 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 74 (11.99%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (2.43%) MS Visio
3 12 (1.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.81%) Microsoft Excel
5 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (0.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.16%) Eikon
2 1 (0.16%) Eze OMS
2 1 (0.16%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 214 (34.68%) Azure
2 140 (22.69%) AWS
3 113 (18.31%) Microsoft 365
4 56 (9.08%) GCP
5 52 (8.43%) Entra ID
6 41 (6.65%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 35 (5.67%) Serverless
8 30 (4.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 26 (4.21%) AWS CloudFormation
10 25 (4.05%) IaaS
11 24 (3.89%) GitHub
12 23 (3.73%) PaaS
13 21 (3.40%) Amazon EC2
14 19 (3.08%) Amazon S3
14 19 (3.08%) AWS Lambda
14 19 (3.08%) OneDrive
15 18 (2.92%) Azure DevOps
15 18 (2.92%) Azure Monitor
16 17 (2.76%) SaaS
17 12 (1.94%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 360 (58.35%) Firewall
2 192 (31.12%) DNS
3 180 (29.17%) WAN
4 164 (26.58%) Network Security
5 135 (21.88%) BGP
6 126 (20.42%) LAN
7 115 (18.64%) TCP/IP
8 112 (18.15%) OSPF
9 108 (17.50%) DHCP
10 91 (14.75%) MPLS
11 72 (11.67%) VLAN
12 68 (11.02%) Wireless
13 64 (10.37%) SD-WAN
14 58 (9.40%) IPsec
15 44 (7.13%) SSL
16 43 (6.97%) Wi-Fi
17 40 (6.48%) Cisco Nexus
18 31 (5.02%) EIGRP
19 27 (4.38%) SAN
20 25 (4.05%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (5.35%) Amazon RDS
2 12 (1.94%) Data Lake
3 9 (1.46%) Big Data
3 9 (1.46%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (1.13%) Power BI
4 7 (1.13%) SQL Server
5 6 (0.97%) Azure SQL Database
5 6 (0.97%) DynamoDB
6 3 (0.49%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.49%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.32%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.32%) MySQL
8 1 (0.16%) Cloudera CDH
8 1 (0.16%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.16%) DocumentDB
8 1 (0.16%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.16%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.16%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 36 (5.83%) JIRA
2 14 (2.27%) Jenkins
3 13 (2.11%) Git
4 12 (1.94%) Sonatype Nexus
5 9 (1.46%) GitLab
6 4 (0.65%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.49%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.16%) Fiddler
8 1 (0.16%) Maven
8 1 (0.16%) MSI
8 1 (0.16%) Postman
8 1 (0.16%) TeamCity
General
1 210 (34.04%) Social Skills
2 93 (15.07%) Analytical Skills
3 67 (10.86%) Finance
4 61 (9.89%) Public Sector
5 36 (5.83%) Telecoms
6 24 (3.89%) Legal
7 21 (3.40%) Banking
8 20 (3.24%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 13 (2.11%) Law
11 12 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
12 11 (1.78%) Local Government
12 11 (1.78%) Manufacturing
13 10 (1.62%) Marketing
14 8 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
15 6 (0.97%) French Language
16 5 (0.81%) Retail
17 4 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
17 4 (0.65%) Military
18 3 (0.49%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 167 (27.07%) Network Engineer
2 104 (16.86%) Support Engineer
3 75 (12.16%) Architect
4 51 (8.27%) Senior
5 45 (7.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 33 (5.35%) Azure Engineer
7 31 (5.02%) Desktop Engineer
7 31 (5.02%) Desktop Support
8 30 (4.86%) IT Support
9 27 (4.38%) 2nd Line Support
9 27 (4.38%) IT Engineer
9 27 (4.38%) Network Architect
10 26 (4.21%) Desktop Support Engineer
11 25 (4.05%) 2nd Line Engineer
12 23 (3.73%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
12 23 (3.73%) Cloud Engineer
12 23 (3.73%) Security Engineer
13 22 (3.57%) Consultant
13 22 (3.57%) Network Support
13 22 (3.57%) Network Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (2.76%) ADO
2 9 (1.46%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.46%) Elastic Stack
2 9 (1.46%) NETCONF
2 9 (1.46%) RESTCONF
3 7 (1.13%) ARM Templates
3 7 (1.13%) JSON
4 6 (0.97%) REST
5 5 (0.81%) Node.js
6 4 (0.65%) XML
7 3 (0.49%) SOAP
7 3 (0.49%) YAML
8 2 (0.32%) SAML
8 2 (0.32%) Symfony
8 2 (0.32%) Web Services
8 2 (0.32%) YANG
9 1 (0.16%) Azure Blueprints
9 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Graph
9 1 (0.16%) MUnit
9 1 (0.16%) RAML
Miscellaneous
1 71 (11.51%) Data Centre
2 44 (7.13%) PKI
3 35 (5.67%) Hybrid Cloud
4 23 (3.73%) Self-Motivation
5 22 (3.57%) Management Information System
6 20 (3.24%) Anti-Spyware
7 17 (2.76%) Cloud Native
8 16 (2.59%) Onboarding
9 15 (2.43%) Public Cloud
10 14 (2.27%) Security Posture
11 13 (2.11%) Video Conferencing
12 10 (1.62%) Clustering
12 10 (1.62%) Cyber Threat
12 10 (1.62%) Replication
13 8 (1.30%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 8 (1.30%) Operational Technology
13 8 (1.30%) Private Cloud
14 7 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
15 6 (0.97%) Linux Command Line
15 6 (0.97%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 197 (31.93%) Windows
2 73 (11.83%) Linux
3 69 (11.18%) Windows 10
4 54 (8.75%) Windows Server
5 26 (4.21%) Unix
6 23 (3.73%) Windows Server 2003
7 11 (1.78%) Android
7 11 (1.78%) Apple iOS
7 11 (1.78%) Windows Server 2016
8 10 (1.62%) Mac OS
9 9 (1.46%) Windows Server 2012
10 8 (1.30%) Windows 7
11 7 (1.13%) CentOS
11 7 (1.13%) VMS
12 6 (0.97%) Check Point GAiA
12 6 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 5 (0.81%) Windows 8
13 5 (0.81%) Windows Server 2008
13 5 (0.81%) Windows XP
14 3 (0.49%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (24.64%) Problem-Solving
2 124 (20.10%) Migration
3 97 (15.72%) ITIL
4 78 (12.64%) Infrastructure as Code
5 77 (12.48%) High Availability
6 58 (9.40%) Agile
6 58 (9.40%) DevOps
7 57 (9.24%) Network Monitoring
8 56 (9.08%) CI/CD
9 55 (8.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 55 (8.91%) Network Architecture
10 50 (8.10%) Computer Science
11 49 (7.94%) Cloud Security
11 49 (7.94%) ITSM
12 47 (7.62%) Project Management
13 45 (7.29%) Customer Service
14 44 (7.13%) Cybersecurity
15 40 (6.48%) Zero Trust
16 37 (6.00%) Network Design
16 37 (6.00%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 94 (15.24%) Python
2 61 (9.89%) PowerShell
3 28 (4.54%) Bash
4 19 (3.08%) Bicep
5 17 (2.76%) Java
6 15 (2.43%) SQL
7 11 (1.78%) Shell Script
8 9 (1.46%) Perl
9 6 (0.97%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.65%) VB
10 4 (0.65%) VBScript
11 3 (0.49%) Go
12 1 (0.16%) Groovy
12 1 (0.16%) Scala
12 1 (0.16%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 172 (27.88%) Security Cleared
2 142 (23.01%) Cisco Certification
3 122 (19.77%) SC Cleared
4 115 (18.64%) Degree
5 112 (18.15%) CCNP
6 47 (7.62%) CCNA
7 40 (6.48%) DV Cleared
8 38 (6.16%) Computer Science Degree
9 35 (5.67%) Microsoft Certification
10 30 (4.86%) Azure Certification
11 28 (4.54%) CCIE
12 22 (3.57%) AWS Certification
13 19 (3.08%) CCSA
14 16 (2.59%) A+ Certification
15 15 (2.43%) CCSE
15 15 (2.43%) CISSP
16 14 (2.27%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 13 (2.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 12 (1.94%) ISTQB
18 12 (1.94%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (5.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 25 (4.05%) NIST
3 18 (2.92%) SLA
4 15 (2.43%) GDPR
5 8 (1.30%) JSP 440
5 8 (1.30%) NCSC
6 7 (1.13%) RMADS
7 6 (0.97%) PCI DSS
8 5 (0.81%) SOC 2
9 4 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
9 4 (0.65%) QA
10 3 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.32%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.16%) COBIT
12 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.16%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.16%) GRC
12 1 (0.16%) GxP
System Software
1 140 (22.69%) Active Directory
2 48 (7.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 41 (6.65%) Docker
4 30 (4.86%) Hyper-V
5 22 (3.57%) Virtual Machines
6 21 (3.40%) BitLocker
7 20 (3.24%) VMware ESXi
8 16 (2.59%) Firmware
9 15 (2.43%) vSphere
10 13 (2.11%) Terminal Services
11 12 (1.94%) Microsoft App-V
12 8 (1.30%) Brightmail
12 8 (1.30%) ISA Server
12 8 (1.30%) VMware NSX
13 7 (1.13%) Virtual Desktop
14 1 (0.16%) iptables
Systems Management
1 97 (15.72%) Terraform
2 90 (14.59%) Ansible
3 65 (10.53%) Microsoft Intune
4 49 (7.94%) Kubernetes
5 47 (7.62%) SCCM
6 28 (4.54%) FortiGate
7 24 (3.89%) Puppet
8 14 (2.27%) Nagios
9 13 (2.11%) Progress Chef
9 13 (2.11%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (1.94%) vCenter Server
11 10 (1.62%) vMotion
12 8 (1.30%) Cisco Prime
12 8 (1.30%) Microsoft Clustering
13 7 (1.13%) CA Spectrum
13 7 (1.13%) Prometheus
13 7 (1.13%) ZABBIX
14 6 (0.97%) Grafana
14 6 (0.97%) Tivoli
15 5 (0.81%) CASB
Vendors
1 208 (33.71%) Microsoft
2 202 (32.74%) Cisco
3 101 (16.37%) Palo Alto
4 75 (12.16%) Fortinet
5 68 (11.02%) VMware
6 67 (10.86%) CheckPoint
7 60 (9.72%) Citrix
8 59 (9.56%) Juniper
9 50 (8.10%) SolarWinds
10 48 (7.78%) ServiceNow
11 46 (7.46%) F5
12 37 (6.00%) Google
13 24 (3.89%) Meraki
13 24 (3.89%) Zscaler
14 17 (2.76%) HP
14 17 (2.76%) Infoblox
14 17 (2.76%) Splunk
15 14 (2.27%) Arista
16 12 (1.94%) Aruba
17 11 (1.78%) CyberArk