WAN Contract Job Trends

Wide Area Network (WAN)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring WAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 190 169 129
Rank change year-on-year -21 -40 -15
Contract jobs citing WAN 747 519 762
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.42% 1.60% 1.81%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.91% 13.13% 14.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 484 335 428
10th Percentile £300 £238 £263
25th Percentile £400 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +4.05%
75th Percentile £575 £583 £638
90th Percentile £645 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £436 £475
% change year-on-year +12.32% -8.16% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 18 36
10th Percentile £16.25 £26.03 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £29.00 £18.38
Median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £31.19
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% -3.80% -37.63%
75th Percentile £42.38 £42.44 £41.69
90th Percentile £74.70 £63.92 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -25.00% -20.00% -6.25%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 5,011 3,952 5,259
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.52% 12.15% 12.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,028 2,401 3,103
10th Percentile £250 £235 £213
25th Percentile £400 £370 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £670 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +2.58% -4.04% +7.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 329 192 405
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.11 £17.63
Median hourly rate £26.44 £48.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.76% +21.88% +23.08%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £83.90 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.22 £42.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -38.31% -10.53% -0.48%

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend

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

WAN job vacancy trend in the UK

WAN
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

WAN
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WAN over the 6 months to 17 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for WAN in the UK

WAN
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

WAN
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing WAN over the 6 months to 17 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for WAN in the UK

WAN
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing WAN within the UK over the 6 months to 17 July 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
England -25 636 £500 +5.26% 235
UK excluding London -3 463 £490 +12.32% 218
London -67 204 £514 +1.73% 62
Work from Home -13 175 £520 +4.00% 106
South East +16 171 £520 +15.56% 67
North of England -36 112 £498 +24.22% 57
North West -34 64 £532 +63.54% 30
Midlands -53 56 £380 -13.14% 31
Scotland +11 53 £406 -7.14% 24
Yorkshire -17 43 £450 -3.33% 25
East of England +7 42 £425 +13.33% 18
West Midlands -68 40 £380 -10.59% 21
South West -46 26 £550 +20.55% 21
East Midlands -7 11 £275 -47.62% 10
North East -28 11 £650 +225.00% 5
Wales -17 7 £468 +133.75% 3
Northern Ireland - 2 £468 - 5
Channel Islands -1 1 £575 -22.56%

WAN
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:

Application Platforms
1 24 (3.21%) SharePoint
2 22 (2.95%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (2.41%) Confluence
4 13 (1.74%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.54%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.27%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.27%) IIS
7 1 (0.13%) CMS
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 30 (4.02%) MS Visio
2 19 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (2.41%) Microsoft Office
4 12 (1.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.20%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.40%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 201 (26.91%) Azure
2 117 (15.66%) AWS
3 67 (8.97%) Microsoft 365
4 48 (6.43%) Entra ID
5 36 (4.82%) SaaS
6 31 (4.15%) GCP
7 25 (3.35%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 23 (3.08%) OCI
9 18 (2.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 14 (1.87%) PaaS
11 13 (1.74%) Azure DevOps
11 13 (1.74%) Azure Sentinel
11 13 (1.74%) OneDrive
11 13 (1.74%) Serverless
12 11 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
12 11 (1.47%) AWS Direct Connect
13 9 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
14 8 (1.07%) Power Platform
15 7 (0.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 7 (0.94%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 496 (66.40%) LAN
2 395 (52.88%) Firewall
3 264 (35.34%) SD-WAN
4 253 (33.87%) BGP
5 198 (26.51%) VPN
6 182 (24.36%) Network Security
6 182 (24.36%) OSPF
7 147 (19.68%) MPLS
8 139 (18.61%) DNS
9 128 (17.14%) Wi-Fi
10 120 (16.06%) Wireless
11 88 (11.78%) VLAN
12 86 (11.51%) TCP/IP
13 85 (11.38%) DHCP
14 78 (10.44%) VXLAN
15 74 (9.91%) IPsec
16 64 (8.57%) WLAN
17 62 (8.30%) Ethernet VPN
18 59 (7.90%) BIG-IP
19 51 (6.83%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.07%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.67%) Data Lake
3 3 (0.40%) NoSQL
3 3 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.27%) Apache Cassandra
4 2 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.27%) Flink
4 2 (0.27%) InfluxDB
4 2 (0.27%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.27%) MySQL
4 2 (0.27%) TimescaleDB
5 1 (0.13%) Power BI
5 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 29 (3.88%) JIRA
2 21 (2.81%) GitLab
3 14 (1.87%) Git
4 6 (0.80%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.80%) Sonatype Nexus
5 5 (0.67%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.27%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.27%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.13%) Chocolatey
7 1 (0.13%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.13%) MSI
7 1 (0.13%) Subversion
7 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio
General
1 176 (23.56%) Social Skills
2 88 (11.78%) Telecoms
3 72 (9.64%) Analytical Skills
4 68 (9.10%) Public Sector
5 57 (7.63%) Finance
6 31 (4.15%) Documentation Skills
7 23 (3.08%) Legal
8 19 (2.54%) Financial Institution
9 14 (1.87%) Manufacturing
9 14 (1.87%) Retail
10 13 (1.74%) Banking
11 12 (1.61%) Organisational Skills
12 8 (1.07%) Billing
12 8 (1.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 8 (1.07%) Military
13 7 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
13 7 (0.94%) Law
14 5 (0.67%) Police
15 3 (0.40%) German Language
15 3 (0.40%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 295 (39.49%) Network Engineer
2 111 (14.86%) Senior
3 108 (14.46%) Architect
4 68 (9.10%) Network Architect
5 50 (6.69%) Senior Network Engineer
6 40 (5.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 34 (4.55%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 33 (4.42%) Cisco Engineer
9 30 (4.02%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 29 (3.88%) Consultant
11 27 (3.61%) Security Engineer
12 26 (3.48%) Support Engineer
13 25 (3.35%) IT Support
13 25 (3.35%) Lead
14 24 (3.21%) Project Manager
15 22 (2.95%) Network Manager
16 20 (2.68%) Network Security Engineer
16 20 (2.68%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 19 (2.54%) Field Engineer
17 19 (2.54%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (7.63%) 802.1X
2 15 (2.01%) REST
3 13 (1.74%) NETCONF
3 13 (1.74%) SAML
3 13 (1.74%) YANG
4 10 (1.34%) Microsoft Graph
5 7 (0.94%) LDAP
6 6 (0.80%) OpenConfig
6 6 (0.80%) RESTCONF
7 4 (0.54%) Django
7 4 (0.54%) Jinja
7 4 (0.54%) Middleware
8 3 (0.40%) ARM Templates
9 2 (0.27%) .NET
9 2 (0.27%) AWS CDK
9 2 (0.27%) Kafka
9 2 (0.27%) OpenAPI
9 2 (0.27%) RabbitMQ
9 2 (0.27%) Swagger
9 2 (0.27%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 200 (26.77%) Data Centre
2 54 (7.23%) Hybrid Cloud
3 36 (4.82%) PKI
4 31 (4.15%) Driving Licence
5 27 (3.61%) Cloud Native
5 27 (3.61%) Clustering
6 20 (2.68%) Security Posture
7 16 (2.14%) Operational Technology
7 16 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
8 15 (2.01%) Onboarding
9 14 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
10 13 (1.74%) IoT
10 13 (1.74%) Public Cloud
11 12 (1.61%) Private Cloud
12 11 (1.47%) NHS
13 10 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
13 10 (1.34%) Virtual Team
14 9 (1.20%) SCADA
15 7 (0.94%) Linux Command Line
16 6 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 164 (21.95%) Windows
2 51 (6.83%) Windows Server
3 47 (6.29%) Linux
4 15 (2.01%) Windows Server 2019
5 12 (1.61%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.34%) Android
7 8 (1.07%) VMS
8 7 (0.94%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.94%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (0.80%) Unix
10 5 (0.67%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.13%) CatOS
11 1 (0.13%) CentOS
11 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.13%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (14.99%) Problem-Solving
2 108 (14.46%) High Availability
2 108 (14.46%) Load Balancing
3 105 (14.06%) ITIL
4 85 (11.38%) Zero Trust
5 75 (10.04%) Migration
6 71 (9.50%) Network Architecture
6 71 (9.50%) Stakeholder Management
7 69 (9.24%) Infrastructure as Code
8 68 (9.10%) Network Design
9 67 (8.97%) Project Delivery
10 62 (8.30%) Roadmaps
11 60 (8.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 57 (7.63%) Change Management
13 53 (7.10%) Network Monitoring
14 51 (6.83%) Agile
15 49 (6.56%) DevOps
16 47 (6.29%) Technical Leadership
17 46 (6.16%) CI/CD
17 46 (6.16%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 117 (15.66%) Python
2 49 (6.56%) PowerShell
3 19 (2.54%) SQL
4 12 (1.61%) Bash
5 4 (0.54%) C++
5 4 (0.54%) Java
6 2 (0.27%) C
6 2 (0.27%) Groovy
6 2 (0.27%) Perl
6 2 (0.27%) VBScript
7 1 (0.13%) Bicep
7 1 (0.13%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.13%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.13%) VB
Qualifications
1 236 (31.59%) Security Cleared
2 217 (29.05%) Cisco Certification
3 148 (19.81%) SC Cleared
4 139 (18.61%) CCNP
5 79 (10.58%) CCNA
6 74 (9.91%) DV Cleared
7 55 (7.36%) CCIE
8 51 (6.83%) Degree
9 19 (2.54%) PMP
10 15 (2.01%) JNCIE
10 15 (2.01%) JNCIP
11 14 (1.87%) Azure Certification
11 14 (1.87%) JNCIS
12 13 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
12 13 (1.74%) PMI Certification
13 12 (1.61%) AWS Certification
13 12 (1.61%) BPSS Clearance
14 9 (1.20%) JNCIA
15 8 (1.07%) CISSP
16 7 (0.94%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (2.54%) SLA
2 17 (2.28%) NIST
3 16 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.01%) QA
5 11 (1.47%) NCSC
6 5 (0.67%) GDPR
6 5 (0.67%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.54%) Disclosure Scotland
7 4 (0.54%) PMO
8 2 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.13%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.13%) DICOM
9 1 (0.13%) GRC
9 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.13%) NIST 800
System Software
1 89 (11.91%) Active Directory
2 66 (8.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 35 (4.69%) VMware NSX
4 17 (2.28%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (2.14%) Firmware
5 16 (2.14%) vSphere
6 13 (1.74%) Hyper-V
7 8 (1.07%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.27%) NFS
9 2 (0.27%) Squid
9 2 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.13%) Docker
10 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.13%) Samba
Systems Management
1 96 (12.85%) Ansible
2 82 (10.98%) Terraform
3 72 (9.64%) FortiGate
4 23 (3.08%) Microsoft Intune
5 22 (2.95%) Grafana
6 20 (2.68%) Prometheus
7 14 (1.87%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (1.34%) SCCM
9 8 (1.07%) Jamf Pro
10 6 (0.80%) Kubernetes
11 5 (0.67%) Nagios
11 5 (0.67%) Puppet
12 4 (0.54%) CASB
12 4 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
12 4 (0.54%) Cisco Prime
12 4 (0.54%) Packer
12 4 (0.54%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.54%) vRealize Orchestrator
13 3 (0.40%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.27%) VxRail
Vendors
1 366 (49.00%) Cisco
2 171 (22.89%) Palo Alto
3 146 (19.54%) Microsoft
4 121 (16.20%) F5
5 109 (14.59%) Fortinet
6 100 (13.39%) Juniper
7 85 (11.38%) VMware
8 79 (10.58%) Aruba
9 68 (9.10%) SolarWinds
10 58 (7.76%) Arista
10 58 (7.76%) CheckPoint
11 50 (6.69%) Zscaler
12 37 (4.95%) Meraki
12 37 (4.95%) Splunk
13 30 (4.02%) ServiceNow
14 28 (3.75%) Extreme Networks
15 14 (1.87%) Nokia
16 13 (1.74%) Ekahau
17 12 (1.61%) Dell
18 10 (1.34%) Infoblox