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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 187 176 128
Rank change year-on-year -11 -48 -12
Contract jobs citing WAN 757 523 776
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.44% 1.60% 1.82%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.14% 13.12% 14.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 493 339 433
10th Percentile £300 £238 £263
25th Percentile £400 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.74% -5.00% +4.05%
75th Percentile £580 £578 £638
90th Percentile £650 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £431 £488
% change year-on-year +13.62% -11.54% +14.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 19 40
10th Percentile £16.94 £22.07 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £28.00 £19.59
Median hourly rate £24.61 £30.00 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -17.97% +20.63% -50.26%
75th Percentile £42.38 £41.63 £40.25
90th Percentile £75.37 £63.03 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £31.19
% change year-on-year -25.00% -3.80% -22.04%

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 5,000 3,986 5,363
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.49% 12.20% 12.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,038 2,436 3,162
10th Percentile £238 £233 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% -3.45% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £472 £490
% change year-on-year +2.81% -3.67% +5.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 319 193 425
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.64
25th Percentile £19.34 £24.66 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.00 £46.25 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.78% +7.56% +49.57%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £81.28 £73.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £42.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -38.82% -10.53% +5.56%

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 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 13 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 13 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 -23 644 £500 +4.17% 232
UK excluding London -8 469 £490 +13.62% 202
London -49 208 £515 -0.48% 75
Work from Home -8 172 £520 +4.00% 98
South East +5 169 £520 +15.56% 64
North of England -35 115 £500 +17.65% 52
North West -35 67 £537 +53.43% 24
Midlands -43 59 £375 -11.76% 32
Scotland +7 55 £413 -4.35% 21
West Midlands -70 44 £358 -13.33% 24
East of England +5 43 £438 +2.94% 10
Yorkshire -25 43 £450 -5.76% 26
South West -39 25 £553 +22.89% 18
North East -26 11 £650 +73.33% 5
East Midlands -8 10 £275 -47.62% 8
Wales -19 7 £468 +133.75% 6
Northern Ireland - 2 £468 - 6
Channel Islands -2 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 26 (3.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 24 (3.17%) SharePoint
3 18 (2.38%) Confluence
4 13 (1.72%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.92%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.26%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.26%) IIS
7 1 (0.13%) CMS
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 34 (4.49%) MS Visio
2 22 (2.91%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.19%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.40%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 209 (27.61%) Azure
2 118 (15.59%) AWS
3 68 (8.98%) Microsoft 365
4 48 (6.34%) Entra ID
5 36 (4.76%) SaaS
6 32 (4.23%) GCP
7 25 (3.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 23 (3.04%) OCI
9 18 (2.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 15 (1.98%) OneDrive
11 14 (1.85%) PaaS
12 13 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
12 13 (1.72%) Azure Sentinel
12 13 (1.72%) Serverless
13 11 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
13 11 (1.45%) AWS Direct Connect
14 9 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
15 8 (1.06%) Power Platform
16 7 (0.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 7 (0.92%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 498 (65.79%) LAN
2 396 (52.31%) Firewall
3 274 (36.20%) SD-WAN
4 250 (33.03%) BGP
5 200 (26.42%) VPN
6 181 (23.91%) OSPF
7 176 (23.25%) Network Security
8 144 (19.02%) DNS
8 144 (19.02%) MPLS
9 130 (17.17%) Wi-Fi
10 119 (15.72%) Wireless
11 90 (11.89%) VLAN
12 88 (11.62%) DHCP
13 86 (11.36%) TCP/IP
14 77 (10.17%) VXLAN
15 71 (9.38%) IPsec
16 65 (8.59%) WLAN
17 62 (8.19%) BIG-IP
18 61 (8.06%) Ethernet VPN
19 53 (7.00%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.06%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.66%) Data Lake
3 3 (0.40%) NoSQL
3 3 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.26%) Apache Cassandra
4 2 (0.26%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.26%) Flink
4 2 (0.26%) InfluxDB
4 2 (0.26%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.26%) MySQL
4 2 (0.26%) TimescaleDB
5 1 (0.13%) Power BI
5 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 30 (3.96%) JIRA
2 21 (2.77%) GitLab
3 14 (1.85%) Git
4 7 (0.92%) Sonatype Nexus
5 6 (0.79%) Jenkins
6 5 (0.66%) Browser DevTools
7 2 (0.26%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.26%) Chocolatey
7 2 (0.26%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.13%) Fiddler
8 1 (0.13%) MSI
8 1 (0.13%) Subversion
8 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio
General
1 178 (23.51%) Social Skills
2 83 (10.96%) Telecoms
3 73 (9.64%) Analytical Skills
4 68 (8.98%) Public Sector
5 64 (8.45%) Finance
6 32 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
6 32 (4.23%) Legal
7 19 (2.51%) Financial Institution
8 14 (1.85%) Manufacturing
8 14 (1.85%) Retail
9 12 (1.59%) Banking
9 12 (1.59%) Organisational Skills
10 9 (1.19%) Billing
10 9 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (1.19%) Military
11 7 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (0.79%) Law
13 5 (0.66%) Police
14 3 (0.40%) German Language
14 3 (0.40%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 294 (38.84%) Network Engineer
2 118 (15.59%) Architect
3 107 (14.13%) Senior
4 70 (9.25%) Network Architect
5 48 (6.34%) Senior Network Engineer
6 41 (5.42%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 33 (4.36%) Cisco Engineer
8 32 (4.23%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 30 (3.96%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 27 (3.57%) Consultant
11 26 (3.43%) Support Engineer
12 25 (3.30%) IT Support
12 25 (3.30%) Lead
12 25 (3.30%) Security Engineer
13 24 (3.17%) Project Manager
14 22 (2.91%) Network Manager
14 22 (2.91%) Technical Architect
15 20 (2.64%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 19 (2.51%) Field Engineer
16 19 (2.51%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (7.00%) 802.1X
2 16 (2.11%) SAML
3 15 (1.98%) REST
4 13 (1.72%) NETCONF
4 13 (1.72%) YANG
5 10 (1.32%) LDAP
5 10 (1.32%) Microsoft Graph
6 6 (0.79%) OpenConfig
6 6 (0.79%) RESTCONF
7 4 (0.53%) Django
7 4 (0.53%) Jinja
7 4 (0.53%) Middleware
8 3 (0.40%) ARM Templates
9 2 (0.26%) GraphQL
9 2 (0.26%) gRPC
9 2 (0.26%) Kafka
9 2 (0.26%) OpenAPI
9 2 (0.26%) RabbitMQ
9 2 (0.26%) RFC 2544
9 2 (0.26%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 200 (26.42%) Data Centre
2 55 (7.27%) Hybrid Cloud
3 35 (4.62%) PKI
4 29 (3.83%) Driving Licence
5 27 (3.57%) Cloud Native
5 27 (3.57%) Clustering
6 20 (2.64%) Security Posture
7 16 (2.11%) Operational Technology
7 16 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
8 15 (1.98%) IoT
8 15 (1.98%) Onboarding
9 14 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
10 13 (1.72%) Public Cloud
11 12 (1.59%) Private Cloud
12 11 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (1.45%) NHS
13 10 (1.32%) Virtual Team
14 9 (1.19%) SCADA
15 7 (0.92%) Linux Command Line
16 6 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 173 (22.85%) Windows
2 53 (7.00%) Windows Server
3 48 (6.34%) Linux
4 17 (2.25%) Windows Server 2019
5 16 (2.11%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.32%) Android
7 8 (1.06%) VMS
8 7 (0.92%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.92%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.66%) Unix
10 5 (0.66%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.66%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.53%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.40%) CatOS
13 1 (0.13%) CentOS
13 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (14.66%) Problem-Solving
2 108 (14.27%) Load Balancing
3 107 (14.13%) High Availability
4 105 (13.87%) ITIL
5 85 (11.23%) Zero Trust
6 75 (9.91%) Migration
7 72 (9.51%) Stakeholder Management
8 71 (9.38%) Network Architecture
8 71 (9.38%) Network Design
9 70 (9.25%) Infrastructure as Code
10 68 (8.98%) Project Delivery
11 63 (8.32%) Roadmaps
12 61 (8.06%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 55 (7.27%) Change Management
14 53 (7.00%) Agile
15 52 (6.87%) Network Monitoring
16 50 (6.61%) DevOps
17 47 (6.21%) CI/CD
17 47 (6.21%) Technical Leadership
18 46 (6.08%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 119 (15.72%) Python
2 55 (7.27%) PowerShell
3 20 (2.64%) SQL
4 13 (1.72%) Bash
5 5 (0.66%) VBScript
6 4 (0.53%) C++
6 4 (0.53%) Java
6 4 (0.53%) VB
7 2 (0.26%) C
7 2 (0.26%) Groovy
7 2 (0.26%) Perl
8 1 (0.13%) Bicep
8 1 (0.13%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.13%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 235 (31.04%) Security Cleared
2 219 (28.93%) Cisco Certification
3 152 (20.08%) SC Cleared
4 141 (18.63%) CCNP
5 80 (10.57%) CCNA
6 72 (9.51%) DV Cleared
7 56 (7.40%) CCIE
8 52 (6.87%) Degree
9 18 (2.38%) PMP
10 15 (1.98%) JNCIE
10 15 (1.98%) JNCIP
10 15 (1.98%) JNCIS
11 14 (1.85%) Azure Certification
12 13 (1.72%) AWS Certification
12 13 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
12 13 (1.72%) PMI Certification
13 12 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
14 10 (1.32%) JNCIA
15 8 (1.06%) CISSP
16 7 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (2.64%) SLA
2 16 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 16 (2.11%) NIST
2 16 (2.11%) QA
3 11 (1.45%) NCSC
4 5 (0.66%) GDPR
4 5 (0.66%) PCI DSS
5 4 (0.53%) Disclosure Scotland
5 4 (0.53%) PMO
6 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.13%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.13%) DICOM
7 1 (0.13%) GRC
7 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.13%) NIST 800
System Software
1 98 (12.95%) Active Directory
2 71 (9.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (4.89%) VMware NSX
4 18 (2.38%) Virtual Machines
4 18 (2.38%) vSphere
5 16 (2.11%) Firmware
6 14 (1.85%) Hyper-V
7 10 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.53%) BitLocker
9 3 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.26%) NFS
10 2 (0.26%) Squid
10 2 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.13%) Docker
11 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.13%) Samba
Systems Management
1 97 (12.81%) Ansible
2 84 (11.10%) Terraform
3 75 (9.91%) FortiGate
4 23 (3.04%) Microsoft Intune
5 22 (2.91%) Grafana
6 20 (2.64%) Prometheus
7 17 (2.25%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (1.85%) SCCM
9 8 (1.06%) Jamf Pro
10 6 (0.79%) Kubernetes
11 5 (0.66%) Nagios
11 5 (0.66%) Puppet
12 4 (0.53%) CASB
12 4 (0.53%) Packer
12 4 (0.53%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.53%) vRealize Orchestrator
13 3 (0.40%) Cisco CUCM
13 3 (0.40%) Cisco Prime
13 3 (0.40%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.26%) McAfee ePO
Vendors
1 372 (49.14%) Cisco
2 172 (22.72%) Palo Alto
3 157 (20.74%) Microsoft
4 121 (15.98%) F5
5 107 (14.13%) Fortinet
6 97 (12.81%) Juniper
7 91 (12.02%) VMware
8 81 (10.70%) Aruba
9 67 (8.85%) SolarWinds
10 59 (7.79%) Arista
11 58 (7.66%) CheckPoint
12 47 (6.21%) Zscaler
13 39 (5.15%) Meraki
14 36 (4.76%) Splunk
15 33 (4.36%) ServiceNow
16 28 (3.70%) Extreme Networks
17 14 (1.85%) Dell
17 14 (1.85%) Ekahau
18 13 (1.72%) Nokia
19 9 (1.19%) Citrix