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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 187 172 131
Rank change year-on-year -15 -41 -10
Contract jobs citing WAN 718 475 756
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.45% 1.62% 1.73%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.13% 12.94% 13.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 478 309 415
10th Percentile £306 £249 £261
25th Percentile £400 £373 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.74% - -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £638
90th Percentile £675 £665 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £438 £475
% change year-on-year +8.57% -7.89% +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 16 33
10th Percentile £18.33 £19.54 £13.40
25th Percentile £19.19 £27.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £24.87
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% +20.63% -56.62%
75th Percentile £50.45 £44.94 £40.00
90th Percentile £79.13 £65.71 £62.82
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £24.87
% change year-on-year -25.00% +20.63% -54.64%

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 4,747 3,671 5,438
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.59% 12.50% 12.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,911 2,271 3,228
10th Percentile £263 £220 £206
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £498
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -2.51% -2.93%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £469 £483
% change year-on-year +1.28% -2.95% +1.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 165 420
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.82 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £27.50 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.50% +10.00% +113.73%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.13 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.61 £70.72
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £31.79 £47.50
% change year-on-year +2.23% -33.07% +156.76%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -16 612 £500 - 217
UK excluding London -6 436 £475 +8.57% 207
London -39 210 £520 +1.46% 57
Work from Home +7 180 £500 - 99
South East +12 172 £500 +11.11% 75
North of England -40 100 £483 +5.46% 47
North West -31 57 £525 +20.00% 27
Midlands -53 53 £339 -20.29% 21
Scotland +8 50 £500 +17.65% 21
West Midlands -46 43 £319 -22.73% 14
East of England -1 41 £438 +1.74% 15
Yorkshire -28 38 £450 -6.01% 16
South West -38 17 £565 +22.16% 15
North East -14 11 £650 +73.33% 4
Wales -18 7 £468 +133.75% 12
East Midlands -29 4 - - 7
Northern Ireland - 2 £468 - 7
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 (4.04%) Microsoft Exchange
2 23 (3.20%) SharePoint
3 19 (2.65%) Confluence
4 8 (1.11%) OpenStack
5 7 (0.97%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.28%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.28%) IIS
7 1 (0.14%) CMS
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 23 (3.20%) MS Visio
2 16 (2.23%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
4 11 (1.53%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.56%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.42%) AutoCAD
8 2 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.28%) DELMIA
Cloud Services
1 215 (29.94%) Azure
2 106 (14.76%) AWS
3 76 (10.58%) Microsoft 365
4 44 (6.13%) Entra ID
5 38 (5.29%) SaaS
6 28 (3.90%) GCP
7 23 (3.20%) OCI
8 18 (2.51%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 14 (1.95%) PaaS
10 13 (1.81%) OneDrive
11 12 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (1.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 8 (1.11%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (1.11%) AWS Direct Connect
12 8 (1.11%) Power Platform
12 8 (1.11%) Serverless
13 7 (0.97%) PowerApps
14 6 (0.84%) GitHub
14 6 (0.84%) IaaS
15 5 (0.70%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 473 (65.88%) LAN
2 363 (50.56%) Firewall
3 278 (38.72%) SD-WAN
4 235 (32.73%) BGP
5 196 (27.30%) VPN
6 187 (26.04%) OSPF
7 146 (20.33%) Network Security
8 136 (18.94%) Wi-Fi
9 128 (17.83%) DNS
10 116 (16.16%) MPLS
11 94 (13.09%) Wireless
12 87 (12.12%) VLAN
13 84 (11.70%) DHCP
13 84 (11.70%) VXLAN
14 71 (9.89%) TCP/IP
15 70 (9.75%) IPsec
16 66 (9.19%) Ethernet VPN
17 60 (8.36%) BIG-IP
18 59 (8.22%) WLAN
19 46 (6.41%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.11%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
2 3 (0.42%) Data Lake
2 3 (0.42%) NoSQL
2 3 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (0.28%) Apache Cassandra
3 2 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
3 2 (0.28%) Flink
3 2 (0.28%) InfluxDB
3 2 (0.28%) MongoDB
3 2 (0.28%) MySQL
3 2 (0.28%) TimescaleDB
4 1 (0.14%) Power BI
4 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 32 (4.46%) JIRA
2 21 (2.92%) GitLab
3 11 (1.53%) Git
4 5 (0.70%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (0.56%) Browser DevTools
5 4 (0.56%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.42%) Chocolatey
7 2 (0.28%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.28%) Robot Framework
General
1 153 (21.31%) Social Skills
2 77 (10.72%) Finance
3 63 (8.77%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (8.50%) Public Sector
5 52 (7.24%) Legal
6 47 (6.55%) Telecoms
7 29 (4.04%) Documentation Skills
8 20 (2.79%) Manufacturing
9 17 (2.37%) Financial Institution
10 14 (1.95%) Military
11 12 (1.67%) Law
11 12 (1.67%) Retail
12 9 (1.25%) Banking
13 7 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.84%) Billing
15 5 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
15 5 (0.70%) Police
16 4 (0.56%) Influencing Skills
16 4 (0.56%) Local Government
17 3 (0.42%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 269 (37.47%) Network Engineer
2 122 (16.99%) Architect
3 100 (13.93%) Senior
4 74 (10.31%) Network Architect
5 45 (6.27%) Senior Network Engineer
6 44 (6.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 37 (5.15%) Cisco Engineer
8 34 (4.74%) Lead
8 34 (4.74%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 32 (4.46%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 24 (3.34%) Project Manager
11 23 (3.20%) IT Support
11 23 (3.20%) Support Engineer
12 21 (2.92%) Security Engineer
12 21 (2.92%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 21 (2.92%) Technical Architect
13 20 (2.79%) Analyst
14 18 (2.51%) IT Engineer
15 17 (2.37%) Network Manager
15 17 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (7.80%) 802.1X
2 15 (2.09%) SAML
3 12 (1.67%) REST
4 10 (1.39%) LDAP
4 10 (1.39%) Microsoft Graph
5 8 (1.11%) NETCONF
5 8 (1.11%) YANG
6 5 (0.70%) Middleware
7 4 (0.56%) Jinja
8 3 (0.42%) ARM Templates
8 3 (0.42%) XMPP
9 2 (0.28%) CSS
9 2 (0.28%) Django
9 2 (0.28%) GraphQL
9 2 (0.28%) gRPC
9 2 (0.28%) Kafka
9 2 (0.28%) RabbitMQ
9 2 (0.28%) RFC 2544
9 2 (0.28%) Software Packaging
9 2 (0.28%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 200 (27.86%) Data Centre
2 50 (6.96%) Hybrid Cloud
3 38 (5.29%) PKI
4 27 (3.76%) Clustering
5 23 (3.20%) Onboarding
6 22 (3.06%) Cloud Native
7 19 (2.65%) Security Posture
8 17 (2.37%) Operational Technology
9 14 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
10 13 (1.81%) Driving Licence
11 10 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
11 10 (1.39%) IoT
11 10 (1.39%) Public Cloud
12 9 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
12 9 (1.25%) SCADA
13 7 (0.97%) Linux Command Line
14 6 (0.84%) NHS
15 5 (0.70%) CMDB
15 5 (0.70%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 174 (24.23%) Windows
2 58 (8.08%) Windows Server
3 48 (6.69%) Linux
4 19 (2.65%) Windows 10
5 16 (2.23%) Windows Server 2019
6 10 (1.39%) Android
7 8 (1.11%) VMS
8 7 (0.97%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.70%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.56%) Windows 7
10 4 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.42%) CatOS
11 3 (0.42%) Unix
12 1 (0.14%) CentOS
12 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (15.04%) Problem-Solving
2 105 (14.62%) ITIL
3 102 (14.21%) High Availability
4 96 (13.37%) Load Balancing
5 78 (10.86%) Zero Trust
6 74 (10.31%) Network Design
7 71 (9.89%) Migration
8 64 (8.91%) Network Architecture
9 61 (8.50%) Stakeholder Management
10 60 (8.36%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 55 (7.66%) Change Management
12 54 (7.52%) Roadmaps
13 52 (7.24%) Infrastructure as Code
14 51 (7.10%) Agile
14 51 (7.10%) Project Delivery
14 51 (7.10%) Technical Leadership
15 47 (6.55%) Network Monitoring
16 46 (6.41%) Identity Access Management
16 46 (6.41%) ITSM
16 46 (6.41%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 99 (13.79%) Python
2 51 (7.10%) PowerShell
3 22 (3.06%) SQL
4 11 (1.53%) Bash
5 5 (0.70%) VBScript
6 4 (0.56%) VB
7 3 (0.42%) C++
7 3 (0.42%) Java
7 3 (0.42%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.28%) C
8 2 (0.28%) Groovy
9 1 (0.14%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.14%) Perl
9 1 (0.14%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 226 (31.48%) Security Cleared
2 204 (28.41%) Cisco Certification
3 162 (22.56%) SC Cleared
4 139 (19.36%) CCNP
5 64 (8.91%) DV Cleared
6 60 (8.36%) CCNA
7 53 (7.38%) Degree
8 51 (7.10%) CCIE
9 21 (2.92%) PMP
10 15 (2.09%) Azure Certification
11 14 (1.95%) JNCIP
11 14 (1.95%) PMI Certification
12 13 (1.81%) AWS Certification
12 13 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
13 12 (1.67%) JNCIE
13 12 (1.67%) JNCIS
14 11 (1.53%) JNCIA
15 8 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
16 7 (0.97%) CCSE
17 5 (0.70%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (2.79%) SLA
2 19 (2.65%) QA
3 18 (2.51%) NIST
4 11 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 9 (1.25%) NCSC
6 6 (0.84%) GDPR
7 4 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
7 4 (0.56%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.56%) PMO
8 3 (0.42%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 2 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 2 (0.28%) RMADS
10 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.14%) DICOM
10 1 (0.14%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 102 (14.21%) Active Directory
2 66 (9.19%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (3.90%) VMware NSX
4 19 (2.65%) vSphere
5 15 (2.09%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (1.95%) Hyper-V
7 12 (1.67%) Firmware
8 8 (1.11%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.56%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.28%) 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 83 (11.56%) Ansible
2 76 (10.58%) FortiGate
3 71 (9.89%) Terraform
4 28 (3.90%) Microsoft Intune
5 22 (3.06%) Grafana
6 19 (2.65%) Prometheus
7 15 (2.09%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (1.95%) SCCM
9 8 (1.11%) Jamf Pro
10 6 (0.84%) Cisco Prime
11 5 (0.70%) Cisco CUCM
11 5 (0.70%) Kubernetes
12 4 (0.56%) Endace
12 4 (0.56%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.56%) vRealize Orchestrator
13 3 (0.42%) Nagios
14 2 (0.28%) Amdocs OSS
14 2 (0.28%) McAfee ePO
14 2 (0.28%) Packer
14 2 (0.28%) Puppet
Vendors
1 367 (51.11%) Cisco
2 175 (24.37%) Palo Alto
3 141 (19.64%) Microsoft
4 113 (15.74%) F5
5 98 (13.65%) Aruba
6 93 (12.95%) Fortinet
7 88 (12.26%) Juniper
8 80 (11.14%) VMware
9 69 (9.61%) CheckPoint
10 63 (8.77%) SolarWinds
11 59 (8.22%) Arista
12 45 (6.27%) Zscaler
13 40 (5.57%) Meraki
14 35 (4.87%) ServiceNow
15 30 (4.18%) Splunk
16 27 (3.76%) Extreme Networks
17 16 (2.23%) Dell
18 13 (1.81%) Ekahau
18 13 (1.81%) Veeam
19 9 (1.25%) Infoblox