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 12 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 194 152 102
Rank change year-on-year -42 -50 +67
Contract jobs citing WAN 526 587 1,099
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.49% 1.62% 2.36%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 13.25% 13.45% 16.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 354 354 651
10th Percentile £206 £250 £250
25th Percentile £325 £366 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £493
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +1.42% +4.01%
75th Percentile £573 £598 £638
90th Percentile £675 £674 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -11.11% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 16 37
10th Percentile £14.74 £19.64 £17.10
25th Percentile £15.50 £29.04 £20.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £40.00 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% +73.91% -4.17%
75th Percentile £32.00 £74.06 £67.50
90th Percentile £50.45 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.50 £67.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year -57.78% +193.48% -

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 3,970 4,363 6,531
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.28% 12.04% 14.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,572 2,521 4,068
10th Percentile £208 £225 £213
25th Percentile £358 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -4.63% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 161 341
10th Percentile £15.50 £18.03 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.04 £26.25 £23.00
Median hourly rate £34.00 £47.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.42% -13.64% +30.95%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £67.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £50.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -15.00% -11.49% +25.53%

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 12 November 2025.

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 12 November 2025.

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 12 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
England -52 434 £450 -10.00% 671
UK excluding London -50 299 £400 -11.11% 520
London +5 173 £525 -4.55% 203
Work from Home -36 115 £500 -2.44% 435
Midlands -23 83 £400 +6.67% 65
West Midlands -1 79 £400 -4.76% 34
North of England -65 68 £363 -19.44% 57
South East -42 50 £425 -15.00% 244
North West -28 48 £335 -25.56% 29
Scotland +39 44 £368 -8.13% 12
East of England -24 24 £388 -31.11% 70
South West -15 18 £456 +8.63% 56
Yorkshire -54 18 £393 +31.38% 18
Wales +1 9 £263 -3.67% 22
East Midlands -33 4 £315 -16.00% 31
Channel Islands - 4 £743 -
Northern Ireland -7 2 £600 - 7
North East -9 2 £550 +57.14% 10

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 (4.56%) SharePoint
2 21 (3.99%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (2.28%) OpenStack
4 10 (1.90%) Confluence
5 6 (1.14%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.38%) nginx
7 1 (0.19%) Apache
7 1 (0.19%) CICS
7 1 (0.19%) IIS
7 1 (0.19%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.19%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 40 (7.60%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (2.28%) MS Visio
3 10 (1.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (1.71%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.19%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 2 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 117 (22.24%) Azure
2 75 (14.26%) AWS
3 45 (8.56%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (5.13%) Entra ID
5 25 (4.75%) GCP
6 14 (2.66%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 13 (2.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 12 (2.28%) GitHub
9 11 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.33%) OneDrive
11 6 (1.14%) AWS Direct Connect
11 6 (1.14%) OpenShift
11 6 (1.14%) SaaS
12 5 (0.95%) Azure Monitor
12 5 (0.95%) Cloud Computing
13 4 (0.76%) IaaS
13 4 (0.76%) PaaS
14 3 (0.57%) Microsoft Copilot
15 2 (0.38%) Azure Sentinel
15 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 326 (61.98%) LAN
2 242 (46.01%) Firewall
3 183 (34.79%) SD-WAN
4 165 (31.37%) VPN
5 112 (21.29%) BGP
6 99 (18.82%) DNS
7 94 (17.87%) MPLS
8 93 (17.68%) Wi-Fi
9 90 (17.11%) Network Security
10 83 (15.78%) Wireless
11 79 (15.02%) OSPF
12 72 (13.69%) DHCP
13 63 (11.98%) VLAN
14 61 (11.60%) TCP/IP
15 55 (10.46%) IPsec
16 45 (8.56%) Cisco Nexus
17 33 (6.27%) Cisco ISE
18 31 (5.89%) WLAN
19 29 (5.51%) EIGRP
20 25 (4.75%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.76%) MS Access
2 2 (0.38%) RDBMS
2 2 (0.38%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.38%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.19%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.19%) MySQL
3 1 (0.19%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.19%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.19%) Power BI
3 1 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 13 (2.47%) JIRA
2 7 (1.33%) GitLab
3 6 (1.14%) Jenkins
3 6 (1.14%) Sonatype Nexus
4 5 (0.95%) Git
5 2 (0.38%) Bitbucket
General
1 142 (27.00%) Social Skills
2 55 (10.46%) Public Sector
3 53 (10.08%) Finance
4 52 (9.89%) Telecoms
5 31 (5.89%) Analytical Skills
6 27 (5.13%) Documentation Skills
7 15 (2.85%) Manufacturing
8 10 (1.90%) Local Government
9 9 (1.71%) Banking
9 9 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.52%) Legal
11 7 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.33%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.95%) Spanish Language
13 4 (0.76%) Aerospace
13 4 (0.76%) Law
13 4 (0.76%) Military
14 3 (0.57%) French Language
14 3 (0.57%) Retail
Job Titles
1 166 (31.56%) Network Engineer
2 107 (20.34%) Architect
3 73 (13.88%) Network Architect
4 50 (9.51%) Support Engineer
5 41 (7.79%) Senior
6 31 (5.89%) Analyst
7 27 (5.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 26 (4.94%) 2nd Line Support
9 25 (4.75%) Security Engineer
10 24 (4.56%) Senior Network Engineer
11 23 (4.37%) WAN Engineer
12 22 (4.18%) 3rd Line Engineer
12 22 (4.18%) Consultant
12 22 (4.18%) Solutions Architect
13 21 (3.99%) 3rd Line Support
13 21 (3.99%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
13 21 (3.99%) Field Engineer
14 19 (3.61%) 2nd Line Engineer
14 19 (3.61%) Network Security Engineer
14 19 (3.61%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (5.13%) 802.1X
2 11 (2.09%) Middleware
3 7 (1.33%) NETCONF
3 7 (1.33%) YANG
4 6 (1.14%) REST
5 3 (0.57%) EDI
5 3 (0.57%) Jinja
6 2 (0.38%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.19%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.19%) Java RMI
7 1 (0.19%) JSON
7 1 (0.19%) LAMP
7 1 (0.19%) LDAP
7 1 (0.19%) Node.js
7 1 (0.19%) RESTCONF
7 1 (0.19%) XML
7 1 (0.19%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 124 (23.57%) Data Centre
2 35 (6.65%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (5.13%) PKI
4 22 (4.18%) Driving Licence
5 21 (3.99%) Cloud Native
6 16 (3.04%) Public Cloud
7 14 (2.66%) Virtual Team
8 13 (2.47%) CMDB
9 12 (2.28%) Onboarding
10 10 (1.90%) Management Information System
11 9 (1.71%) NHS
11 9 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
12 8 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
12 8 (1.52%) Operational Technology
12 8 (1.52%) Replication
13 6 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
13 6 (1.14%) Private Cloud
13 6 (1.14%) SCADA
13 6 (1.14%) Security Posture
14 5 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 99 (18.82%) Windows
2 33 (6.27%) Windows Server
3 30 (5.70%) Windows 10
4 23 (4.37%) Linux
5 9 (1.71%) Mac OS
6 8 (1.52%) Windows Server 2016
6 8 (1.52%) Windows Server 2019
7 7 (1.33%) Android
7 7 (1.33%) Windows 7
8 3 (0.57%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.19%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.19%) MVS
10 1 (0.19%) Solaris
10 1 (0.19%) SUSE
10 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.19%) Unix
10 1 (0.19%) VMS
10 1 (0.19%) Windows 8
10 1 (0.19%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (17.30%) Network Design
2 76 (14.45%) Migration
3 75 (14.26%) Network Architecture
4 66 (12.55%) Problem-Solving
5 60 (11.41%) ITIL
6 51 (9.70%) Load Balancing
7 41 (7.79%) Network Monitoring
7 41 (7.79%) Stakeholder Management
8 40 (7.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 39 (7.41%) Change Management
10 38 (7.22%) Project Delivery
11 37 (7.03%) Cybersecurity
12 34 (6.46%) Service Management
13 33 (6.27%) Zero Trust
14 32 (6.08%) Customer Service
15 31 (5.89%) High Availability
15 31 (5.89%) Roadmaps
16 30 (5.70%) DevOps
16 30 (5.70%) Network Management
16 30 (5.70%) Network Virtualisation
Programming Languages
1 54 (10.27%) Python
2 20 (3.80%) PowerShell
3 6 (1.14%) Bicep
3 6 (1.14%) VBScript
4 5 (0.95%) VB
5 4 (0.76%) Bash
5 4 (0.76%) Perl
5 4 (0.76%) SQL
6 2 (0.38%) Java
7 1 (0.19%) C
7 1 (0.19%) C#
7 1 (0.19%) Go
Qualifications
1 137 (26.05%) Security Cleared
2 123 (23.38%) Cisco Certification
3 104 (19.77%) SC Cleared
4 89 (16.92%) CCNP
5 46 (8.75%) CCIE
6 38 (7.22%) CCNA
7 36 (6.84%) Degree
8 30 (5.70%) DV Cleared
9 19 (3.61%) JNCIE
10 14 (2.66%) AWS Certification
11 11 (2.09%) Computer Science Degree
12 10 (1.90%) JNCIP
13 9 (1.71%) Azure Certification
13 9 (1.71%) CISSP
14 8 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
15 7 (1.33%) CCSA
16 6 (1.14%) ECDL
16 6 (1.14%) JNCIS
16 6 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
17 5 (0.95%) CCDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (4.18%) SLA
2 18 (3.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.09%) NIST
4 9 (1.71%) PCI DSS
5 8 (1.52%) GDPR
6 4 (0.76%) PMO
6 4 (0.76%) QA
7 3 (0.57%) NCSC
8 2 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.38%) GRC
9 1 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.19%) Def Stans
9 1 (0.19%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.19%) MiFID
9 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 73 (13.88%) Active Directory
2 31 (5.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (3.61%) VMware NSX
4 13 (2.47%) Hyper-V
4 13 (2.47%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (2.09%) Firmware
6 8 (1.52%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.95%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.95%) vSphere
8 2 (0.38%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.38%) ProxySG
8 2 (0.38%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.19%) KVM
9 1 (0.19%) NFS
9 1 (0.19%) SRDF
9 1 (0.19%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 1 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 52 (9.89%) Ansible
2 33 (6.27%) Terraform
3 26 (4.94%) SCCM
4 18 (3.42%) FortiGate
5 16 (3.04%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (1.90%) CASB
7 6 (1.14%) SCOrch
8 4 (0.76%) CA Spectrum
8 4 (0.76%) Cisco CUCM
8 4 (0.76%) Cisco Prime
8 4 (0.76%) HP ALM
8 4 (0.76%) OpenView
9 3 (0.57%) HAProxy
9 3 (0.57%) Nagios
9 3 (0.57%) SCOM
9 3 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.57%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.38%) AppManager
10 2 (0.38%) Failover Clustering
10 2 (0.38%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 233 (44.30%) Cisco
2 86 (16.35%) Microsoft
3 84 (15.97%) Palo Alto
4 83 (15.78%) Juniper
5 72 (13.69%) Fortinet
6 57 (10.84%) F5
7 52 (9.89%) VMware
8 51 (9.70%) Meraki
9 36 (6.84%) SolarWinds
10 31 (5.89%) CheckPoint
11 24 (4.56%) ServiceNow
12 20 (3.80%) Aruba
13 16 (3.04%) Zscaler
14 15 (2.85%) Citrix
15 13 (2.47%) HP
16 12 (2.28%) Blue Coat
16 12 (2.28%) Remedy
17 7 (1.33%) Arista
17 7 (1.33%) Nokia
17 7 (1.33%) Peregrine