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 13 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 183 172 128
Rank change year-on-year -11 -44 -7
Contract jobs citing WAN 733 472 756
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.47% 1.60% 1.73%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.36% 12.84% 13.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 490 303 418
10th Percentile £306 £243 £262
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £475 £481
Median % change year-on-year +4.74% -1.30% +1.32%
75th Percentile £580 £576 £638
90th Percentile £675 £673 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £430 £475
% change year-on-year +11.63% -9.47% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 16 32
10th Percentile £18.44 £19.54 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.56 £27.00 £17.88
Median hourly rate £24.61 £30.00 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -17.97% +20.63% -57.61%
75th Percentile £46.19 £44.94 £40.00
90th Percentile £78.88 £65.71 £64.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £24.87
% change year-on-year -25.00% +20.63% -55.65%

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 4,772 3,676 5,422
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.54% 12.46% 12.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,925 2,260 3,210
10th Percentile £263 £220 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £484 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.31% -3.20% -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £470 £488
% change year-on-year +2.20% -3.66% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 290 167 417
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £27.69 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.07% +10.00% +110.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.69 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.41 £70.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.25 £31.79 £47.50
% change year-on-year -4.84% -33.07% +150.00%

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 13 June 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 13 June 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 13 June 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 -21 621 £500 +2.09% 216
UK excluding London -3 444 £480 +11.63% 207
London -22 212 £515 -3.92% 55
Work from Home -15 183 £500 - 96
South East +13 171 £500 +11.11% 72
North of England -25 102 £475 +5.56% 39
North West -28 57 £527 +23.88% 21
Scotland +9 53 £500 +19.40% 16
Midlands -50 52 £339 -20.29% 28
West Midlands -50 43 £319 -22.73% 19
East of England -4 41 £438 +1.74% 16
Yorkshire -24 40 £450 -6.01% 15
South West -30 22 £583 +35.07% 20
North East -25 11 £650 +73.33% 4
Wales -18 7 £468 +133.75% 11
East Midlands -21 4 - - 9
Northern Ireland - 2 £468 - 12
Channel Islands - 1 £575 -

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 29 (3.96%) Microsoft Exchange
2 23 (3.14%) SharePoint
3 18 (2.46%) Confluence
4 8 (1.09%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.95%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.27%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.27%) IIS
7 1 (0.14%) CMS
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 23 (3.14%) MS Visio
2 16 (2.18%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.64%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.50%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.55%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.41%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.27%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 224 (30.56%) Azure
2 108 (14.73%) AWS
3 76 (10.37%) Microsoft 365
4 46 (6.28%) Entra ID
5 38 (5.18%) SaaS
6 27 (3.68%) GCP
7 25 (3.41%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 23 (3.14%) OCI
9 14 (1.91%) PaaS
10 13 (1.77%) OneDrive
11 12 (1.64%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (1.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 11 (1.50%) Serverless
13 10 (1.36%) Azure Sentinel
14 9 (1.23%) AWS CloudFormation
15 8 (1.09%) AWS Direct Connect
15 8 (1.09%) Azure Monitor
15 8 (1.09%) Power Platform
16 7 (0.95%) PowerApps
17 6 (0.82%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 479 (65.35%) LAN
2 369 (50.34%) Firewall
3 285 (38.88%) SD-WAN
4 238 (32.47%) BGP
5 194 (26.47%) VPN
6 185 (25.24%) OSPF
7 148 (20.19%) Network Security
8 138 (18.83%) Wi-Fi
9 131 (17.87%) DNS
10 117 (15.96%) MPLS
11 100 (13.64%) Wireless
12 88 (12.01%) VLAN
13 85 (11.60%) DHCP
14 84 (11.46%) VXLAN
15 71 (9.69%) TCP/IP
16 69 (9.41%) IPsec
17 66 (9.00%) Ethernet VPN
18 61 (8.32%) WLAN
19 60 (8.19%) BIG-IP
20 45 (6.14%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.09%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.68%) Data Lake
3 3 (0.41%) NoSQL
3 3 (0.41%) 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 (0.14%) Power BI
5 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 32 (4.37%) JIRA
2 21 (2.86%) GitLab
3 11 (1.50%) Git
4 5 (0.68%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (0.55%) Browser DevTools
6 3 (0.41%) Chocolatey
7 2 (0.27%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.27%) Robot Framework
General
1 161 (21.96%) Social Skills
2 77 (10.50%) Finance
3 64 (8.73%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (8.46%) Public Sector
5 52 (7.09%) Legal
6 48 (6.55%) Telecoms
7 28 (3.82%) Documentation Skills
8 19 (2.59%) Manufacturing
9 17 (2.32%) Financial Institution
10 13 (1.77%) Military
10 13 (1.77%) Retail
11 12 (1.64%) Law
12 9 (1.23%) Banking
12 9 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
14 6 (0.82%) Billing
15 5 (0.68%) Police
16 4 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
16 4 (0.55%) Local Government
17 3 (0.41%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 274 (37.38%) Network Engineer
2 123 (16.78%) Architect
3 102 (13.92%) Senior
4 73 (9.96%) Network Architect
5 45 (6.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 44 (6.00%) Senior Network Engineer
7 38 (5.18%) Cisco Engineer
8 33 (4.50%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 33 (4.50%) Lead
8 33 (4.50%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 25 (3.41%) Project Manager
9 25 (3.41%) Support Engineer
10 23 (3.14%) IT Support
11 22 (3.00%) Technical Architect
12 21 (2.86%) Analyst
12 21 (2.86%) Security Engineer
12 21 (2.86%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 19 (2.59%) Network Manager
14 18 (2.46%) IT Engineer
15 17 (2.32%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (7.64%) 802.1X
2 15 (2.05%) SAML
3 12 (1.64%) REST
4 10 (1.36%) LDAP
4 10 (1.36%) Microsoft Graph
5 8 (1.09%) NETCONF
5 8 (1.09%) YANG
6 5 (0.68%) Middleware
7 4 (0.55%) Jinja
8 3 (0.41%) ARM Templates
8 3 (0.41%) XMPP
9 2 (0.27%) CSS
9 2 (0.27%) Django
9 2 (0.27%) GraphQL
9 2 (0.27%) gRPC
9 2 (0.27%) OpenAPI
9 2 (0.27%) RabbitMQ
9 2 (0.27%) RFC 2544
9 2 (0.27%) Software Packaging
9 2 (0.27%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 199 (27.15%) Data Centre
2 50 (6.82%) Hybrid Cloud
3 37 (5.05%) PKI
4 27 (3.68%) Clustering
5 24 (3.27%) Onboarding
6 22 (3.00%) Cloud Native
7 19 (2.59%) Security Posture
8 17 (2.32%) Operational Technology
9 15 (2.05%) Driving Licence
10 14 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
11 10 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
11 10 (1.36%) IoT
11 10 (1.36%) Public Cloud
12 9 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
12 9 (1.23%) SCADA
13 8 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
14 7 (0.95%) NHS
15 5 (0.68%) CMDB
15 5 (0.68%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 183 (24.97%) Windows
2 58 (7.91%) Windows Server
3 49 (6.68%) Linux
4 19 (2.59%) Windows 10
5 17 (2.32%) Windows Server 2019
6 10 (1.36%) Android
7 8 (1.09%) VMS
8 7 (0.95%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.82%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 4 (0.55%) Windows 7
11 4 (0.55%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.41%) CatOS
12 3 (0.41%) Unix
13 1 (0.14%) CentOS
13 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (14.87%) Problem-Solving
2 107 (14.60%) ITIL
3 102 (13.92%) High Availability
4 95 (12.96%) Load Balancing
5 79 (10.78%) Migration
6 78 (10.64%) Zero Trust
7 75 (10.23%) Network Design
8 65 (8.87%) Network Architecture
9 64 (8.73%) Stakeholder Management
10 60 (8.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 59 (8.05%) Change Management
12 58 (7.91%) Infrastructure as Code
13 56 (7.64%) Roadmaps
14 55 (7.50%) Agile
15 52 (7.09%) Project Delivery
15 52 (7.09%) Technical Leadership
16 50 (6.82%) Network Monitoring
17 46 (6.28%) DevOps
17 46 (6.28%) Identity Access Management
17 46 (6.28%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 101 (13.78%) Python
2 52 (7.09%) PowerShell
3 24 (3.27%) SQL
4 11 (1.50%) Bash
5 5 (0.68%) VBScript
6 4 (0.55%) VB
7 3 (0.41%) C++
7 3 (0.41%) Java
7 3 (0.41%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.27%) C
8 2 (0.27%) Groovy
9 1 (0.14%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.14%) Perl
9 1 (0.14%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 226 (30.83%) Security Cleared
2 205 (27.97%) Cisco Certification
3 162 (22.10%) SC Cleared
4 138 (18.83%) CCNP
5 64 (8.73%) DV Cleared
6 62 (8.46%) CCNA
7 51 (6.96%) CCIE
7 51 (6.96%) Degree
8 23 (3.14%) PMP
9 16 (2.18%) PMI Certification
10 15 (2.05%) Azure Certification
11 14 (1.91%) JNCIP
12 13 (1.77%) AWS Certification
13 12 (1.64%) JNCIE
13 12 (1.64%) JNCIS
14 11 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
14 11 (1.50%) JNCIA
15 9 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
16 7 (0.95%) CCSE
17 5 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (2.73%) QA
1 20 (2.73%) SLA
2 18 (2.46%) NIST
3 11 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (1.23%) NCSC
5 6 (0.82%) GDPR
6 4 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
6 4 (0.55%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.55%) PMO
7 3 (0.41%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 2 (0.27%) RMADS
9 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.14%) DICOM
9 1 (0.14%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 103 (14.05%) Active Directory
2 66 (9.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (3.82%) VMware NSX
4 19 (2.59%) vSphere
5 17 (2.32%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (1.91%) Hyper-V
7 13 (1.77%) Firmware
8 10 (1.36%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.55%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.41%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.27%) Squid
12 1 (0.14%) Docker
12 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.14%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 84 (11.46%) Ansible
2 81 (11.05%) FortiGate
3 77 (10.50%) Terraform
4 28 (3.82%) Microsoft Intune
5 22 (3.00%) Grafana
6 19 (2.59%) Prometheus
7 15 (2.05%) SCCM
7 15 (2.05%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (1.09%) Jamf Pro
9 6 (0.82%) Cisco Prime
10 5 (0.68%) Cisco CUCM
10 5 (0.68%) Kubernetes
11 4 (0.55%) Endace
11 4 (0.55%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.55%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 3 (0.41%) Nagios
12 3 (0.41%) Packer
12 3 (0.41%) Puppet
13 2 (0.27%) AirWatch
13 2 (0.27%) McAfee ePO
Vendors
1 372 (50.75%) Cisco
2 173 (23.60%) Palo Alto
3 149 (20.33%) Microsoft
4 112 (15.28%) F5
5 97 (13.23%) Aruba
6 94 (12.82%) Fortinet
7 90 (12.28%) Juniper
8 80 (10.91%) VMware
9 66 (9.00%) CheckPoint
10 65 (8.87%) SolarWinds
11 59 (8.05%) Arista
12 50 (6.82%) Zscaler
13 43 (5.87%) Meraki
14 34 (4.64%) ServiceNow
15 30 (4.09%) Splunk
16 28 (3.82%) Extreme Networks
17 16 (2.18%) Dell
18 13 (1.77%) Ekahau
18 13 (1.77%) Veeam
19 9 (1.23%) Infoblox