Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 3 March 2021

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for WAN skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited WAN over the 6 months to 3 March 2021 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Wide Area Network (WAN)
UK
6 months to
3 Mar 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 161 133 145
Rank change year-on-year -28 +12 +22
Contract jobs citing WAN 802 1,273 1,797
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.66% 1.90% 1.85%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 14.03% 14.10% 14.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 653 876 1,199
Median daily rate £425 £400 £400
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +6.25% - +3.23%
10th Percentile £213 £173 £193
90th Percentile £579 £588 £575
UK excluding London median daily rate £386 £400 £388
% change year-on-year -3.44% +3.23% +4.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 59 78
Median hourly rate £25.00 £21.53 £21.79
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +16.14% -1.23% +32.08%
10th Percentile £15.00 £12.64 £10.75
90th Percentile £54.00 £51.75 £47.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.63 £19.00 £19.00
% change year-on-year +24.34% - +15.15%

WAN is in the Communications and Computer Networking category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills.

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 5,716 9,029 12,452
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.84% 13.49% 12.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,612 5,583 7,677
Median daily rate £440 £415 £425
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +6.02% -2.35% +6.12%
10th Percentile £213 £178 £200
90th Percentile £613 £600 £610
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £400 £400
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 498 554
Median hourly rate £30.00 £21.00 £18.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +42.86% +16.67% -5.26%
10th Percentile £12.98 £13.34 £12.00
90th Percentile £61.00 £51.98 £48.75
Median hourly rate £25.00 £20.00 £17.23
% change year-on-year +25.00% +16.09% -12.99%

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing WAN as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for WAN in the UK

WAN
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing WAN.

Daily rate trend for WAN in the UK

WAN
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WAN over the 6 months to 3 March 2021.

Daily rate histogram for WAN in the UK

WAN
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing WAN.

Hourly rate trend for WAN in the UK

WAN
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing WAN over the 6 months to 3 March 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for WAN in the UK

WAN
Top 19 Contract 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 3 March 2021. 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
Job
Vacancies
England -14 678 £425 +6.25% 300
UK excluding London +17 485 £386 -3.44% 253
London -38 226 £475 +25.83% 64
Work from Home -113 165 £431 +7.76% 58
South East +28 151 £398 -6.33% 55
Midlands -2 94 £350 -12.50% 56
North of England -7 83 £385 +6.21% 71
West Midlands -7 69 £350 -22.22% 35
South West +46 58 £375 - 33
North West +9 58 £400 +0.63% 32
East of England +30 46 £408 -9.44% 19
Scotland +13 40 £330 -29.03% 10
East Midlands +10 22 £350 +16.67% 21
Yorkshire +6 22 £350 +4.48% 28
Wales +6 9 £280 -30.00% 6
Northern Ireland +13 5 £473 - 3
North East +7 3 £238 -34.48% 11
Isle of Man - 1 £413 -
Channel Islands - 1 - -

For the 6 months to 3 March 2021, IT contractor jobs citing WAN also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for WAN.

1 572 (71.32%) LAN
2 407 (50.75%) Cisco
3 358 (44.64%) Firewall
4 236 (29.43%) Windows
5 203 (25.31%) Microsoft
6 201 (25.06%) VPN
7 198 (24.69%) Azure
8 189 (23.57%) VMware
9 186 (23.19%) Security Cleared
10 185 (23.07%) Active Directory
11 178 (22.19%) Cisco Certification
12 163 (20.32%) Data Centre
13 142 (17.71%) Wireless
14 133 (16.58%) SC Cleared
15 127 (15.84%) Microsoft 365
16 125 (15.59%) DNS
17 123 (15.34%) CCNP
18 120 (14.96%) VMware Infrastructure
19 119 (14.84%) Linux
20 118 (14.71%) TCP/IP
21 107 (13.34%) CCNA
22 104 (12.97%) Telecoms
23 98 (12.22%) DHCP
23 98 (12.22%) Finance
24 92 (11.47%) ITIL
24 92 (11.47%) Windows Server
25 90 (11.22%) Public Sector
26 88 (10.97%) Juniper
27 87 (10.85%) Migration
27 87 (10.85%) F5

WAN
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 43 (5.36%) SharePoint
2 27 (3.37%) Skype for Business
3 19 (2.37%) WebSphere
4 16 (2.00%) MS Exchange
5 10 (1.25%) Confluence
6 8 (1.00%) IIS
7 6 (0.75%) JBoss
8 5 (0.62%) Cloud Foundry
8 5 (0.62%) CMS
9 4 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2010
9 4 (0.50%) Tomcat
9 4 (0.50%) WebLogic
9 4 (0.50%) WebSphere Application Server
10 3 (0.37%) Apache
10 3 (0.37%) NetWeaver
10 3 (0.37%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.25%) Exchange Server 2013
12 1 (0.12%) Drupal
12 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 61 (7.61%) Microsoft Office
2 40 (4.99%) MS Visio
3 24 (2.99%) Microsoft Excel
4 14 (1.75%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.50%) CATIA
5 4 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.12%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 198 (24.69%) Azure
2 127 (15.84%) Microsoft 365
3 85 (10.60%) AWS
4 50 (6.23%) PaaS
5 43 (5.36%) IaaS
6 36 (4.49%) Azure Active Directory
7 32 (3.99%) SaaS
8 29 (3.62%) GCP
9 19 (2.37%) OneDrive
10 14 (1.75%) Cloud Computing
11 13 (1.62%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 11 (1.37%) Yammer
13 10 (1.25%) GitHub
14 5 (0.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 5 (0.62%) Power Automate
15 4 (0.50%) IBM Cloud
15 4 (0.50%) OpenShift
15 4 (0.50%) Power Platform
15 4 (0.50%) Route 53
15 4 (0.50%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 572 (71.32%) LAN
2 358 (44.64%) Firewall
3 201 (25.06%) VPN
4 142 (17.71%) Wireless
5 125 (15.59%) DNS
6 118 (14.71%) TCP/IP
7 98 (12.22%) DHCP
8 86 (10.72%) MPLS
8 86 (10.72%) Wi-Fi
9 80 (9.98%) Network Security
10 79 (9.85%) Internet
11 74 (9.23%) Cisco Nexus
12 73 (9.10%) OSPF
13 71 (8.85%) VLAN
14 70 (8.73%) BGP
15 69 (8.60%) VoIP
16 63 (7.86%) Cisco ASA
17 60 (7.48%) SAN
18 52 (6.48%) IPsec
19 46 (5.74%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (2.99%) SQL Server
2 14 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (1.62%) HBase
4 12 (1.50%) DB2
4 12 (1.50%) Hadoop
5 9 (1.12%) MongoDB
6 5 (0.62%) NoSQL
7 4 (0.50%) Power BI
8 3 (0.37%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.37%) Cosmos DB
8 3 (0.37%) MySQL
8 3 (0.37%) Oracle Reports
8 3 (0.37%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.37%) SAP HANA
9 2 (0.25%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.25%) Oracle Database
9 2 (0.25%) Riak
10 1 (0.12%) Amazon RDS
10 1 (0.12%) Big Data
10 1 (0.12%) Ingres
Development Applications
1 46 (5.74%) JIRA
2 18 (2.24%) Jenkins
3 15 (1.87%) Git (software)
4 12 (1.50%) LoadRunner
5 9 (1.12%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.75%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.62%) Bitbucket Server
7 5 (0.62%) Team Foundation Server
8 3 (0.37%) Subversion
8 3 (0.37%) VSS/SourceSafe
9 1 (0.12%) Ant
9 1 (0.12%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.12%) Gerrit
9 1 (0.12%) GitLab
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.12%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.12%) TestDirector
9 1 (0.12%) Travis CI
General
1 104 (12.97%) Telecoms
2 98 (12.22%) Finance
3 90 (11.22%) Public Sector
4 25 (3.12%) Banking
5 13 (1.62%) Billing
6 11 (1.37%) Back Office
6 11 (1.37%) Retail
7 9 (1.12%) Legal
8 8 (1.00%) Financial Institution
8 8 (1.00%) Military
9 6 (0.75%) Manufacturing
10 5 (0.62%) Aerospace
10 5 (0.62%) Automotive
10 5 (0.62%) Law
10 5 (0.62%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (0.62%) Police
11 3 (0.37%) Electronics
11 3 (0.37%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.37%) Publishing
12 2 (0.25%) Multimedia
Job Titles
1 203 (25.31%) Network Engineer
2 155 (19.33%) Architect
3 63 (7.86%) Network Architect
4 57 (7.11%) Analyst
5 49 (6.11%) Consultant
5 49 (6.11%) Project Manager
6 44 (5.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 43 (5.36%) Support Engineer
8 35 (4.36%) Infrastructure Architect
9 33 (4.11%) Senior Network Engineer
10 29 (3.62%) Infrastructure Manager
10 29 (3.62%) Solutions Architect
11 27 (3.37%) Infrastructure Project Manager
11 27 (3.37%) Network Consultant
12 26 (3.24%) Cisco Engineer
13 24 (2.99%) Cisco Network Engineer
14 23 (2.87%) Network Support
14 23 (2.87%) Security Engineer
15 20 (2.49%) Azure Engineer
16 17 (2.12%) Network Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (3.87%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.75%) JSON
3 11 (1.37%) Middleware
4 9 (1.12%) WebSphere MQ
5 8 (1.00%) .NET
5 8 (1.00%) REST
5 8 (1.00%) SOAP
6 5 (0.62%) Jinja
6 5 (0.62%) YAML
7 4 (0.50%) ASP.NET
7 4 (0.50%) Ruby on Rails
7 4 (0.50%) Web Services
7 4 (0.50%) WebRTC
7 4 (0.50%) XML
8 3 (0.37%) CGI
8 3 (0.37%) LDAP
8 3 (0.37%) SAP Basis
9 2 (0.25%) Flash
9 2 (0.25%) SAML
9 2 (0.25%) X-Windows
Miscellaneous
1 163 (20.32%) Data Centre
2 37 (4.61%) Self-Motivation
3 35 (4.36%) Analytical Skills
3 35 (4.36%) PKI
4 27 (3.37%) Management Information System
4 27 (3.37%) Video Conferencing
5 26 (3.24%) Public Cloud
6 16 (2.00%) Driving Licence
6 16 (2.00%) NHS
6 16 (2.00%) Private Cloud
7 15 (1.87%) Clustering
7 15 (1.87%) User Experience
8 13 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (1.37%) Greenfield Project
10 10 (1.25%) iPhone
10 10 (1.25%) Tandem
11 9 (1.12%) Robotics
11 9 (1.12%) Virtual Team
12 8 (1.00%) Mobile App
12 8 (1.00%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 236 (29.43%) Windows
2 119 (14.84%) Linux
3 92 (11.47%) Windows Server
4 71 (8.85%) Windows 10
5 35 (4.36%) Unix
6 28 (3.49%) Windows 7
7 24 (2.99%) Windows Server 2016
8 19 (2.37%) Windows Server 2012
9 17 (2.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 16 (2.00%) Ubuntu
11 11 (1.37%) CentOS
11 11 (1.37%) Windows Server 2008
12 10 (1.25%) Apple iOS
13 9 (1.12%) Windows 8
13 9 (1.12%) Windows Server 2019
14 8 (1.00%) Mac OS
14 8 (1.00%) Solaris
15 7 (0.87%) Android
15 7 (0.87%) Windows Server 2003
16 5 (0.62%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (11.47%) ITIL
2 87 (10.85%) Migration
3 86 (10.72%) Load Balancing
4 77 (9.60%) Agile Software Development
5 74 (9.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 67 (8.35%) DevOps
7 55 (6.86%) Network Design
8 47 (5.86%) Kalman Filter
9 44 (5.49%) Disaster Recovery
9 44 (5.49%) Project Delivery
10 42 (5.24%) Change Management
11 41 (5.11%) Project Management
12 40 (4.99%) Stakeholder Management
13 39 (4.86%) High Availability
13 39 (4.86%) Network Architecture
14 38 (4.74%) Problem-Solving
15 37 (4.61%) Network Management
15 37 (4.61%) Service Management
16 34 (4.24%) Web Filtering
17 33 (4.11%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 45 (5.61%) Python
2 39 (4.86%) PowerShell
3 23 (2.87%) C
4 18 (2.24%) SQL
5 14 (1.75%) Bash Shell
5 14 (1.75%) C#
6 9 (1.12%) Java
7 5 (0.62%) Ada
7 5 (0.62%) Perl
7 5 (0.62%) PHP
7 5 (0.62%) Shell Script
8 4 (0.50%) C++
8 4 (0.50%) MATLAB
8 4 (0.50%) Ruby
9 3 (0.37%) AWK
9 3 (0.37%) sed
10 1 (0.12%) Embedded C
10 1 (0.12%) Go
10 1 (0.12%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.12%) R
Qualifications
1 186 (23.19%) Security Cleared
2 178 (22.19%) Cisco Certification
3 133 (16.58%) SC Cleared
4 123 (15.34%) CCNP
5 107 (13.34%) CCNA
6 50 (6.23%) CCIE
7 46 (5.74%) Degree
7 46 (5.74%) Microsoft Certification
8 37 (4.61%) DV Cleared
9 20 (2.49%) MCSE
10 18 (2.24%) CISSP
11 16 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
11 16 (2.00%) MCSA
12 15 (1.87%) CCDP
12 15 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
13 13 (1.62%) CCDA
14 12 (1.50%) TOGAF Certification
15 8 (1.00%) BC Cleared
15 8 (1.00%) JNCIA
16 7 (0.87%) RHCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (2.24%) SLA
2 12 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 12 (1.50%) QA
3 11 (1.37%) NIST
4 10 (1.25%) PCI DSS
5 8 (1.00%) COBIT
6 7 (0.87%) GDPR
7 5 (0.62%) PMO
8 3 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 2 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.25%) HL7
9 2 (0.25%) ISO 22301
9 2 (0.25%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.25%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.25%) SEPA
10 1 (0.12%) BS25999
10 1 (0.12%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.12%) HAZOP
10 1 (0.12%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.12%) NCSC
System Software
1 185 (23.07%) Active Directory
2 120 (14.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 46 (5.74%) Hyper-V
4 42 (5.24%) vSphere
5 40 (4.99%) VMware NSX
6 37 (4.61%) VMware ESXi
7 17 (2.12%) Docker
8 15 (1.87%) Virtual Machines
9 12 (1.50%) KVM
10 11 (1.37%) ProxySG
11 9 (1.12%) HDFS
12 8 (1.00%) Xen
13 7 (0.87%) XenApp
14 6 (0.75%) NFS
14 6 (0.75%) vCloud
14 6 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
15 4 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
15 4 (0.50%) Snort
15 4 (0.50%) SRDF
15 4 (0.50%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 62 (7.73%) Ansible
2 40 (4.99%) SCCM
3 29 (3.62%) Terraform
4 23 (2.87%) Microsoft Intune
5 22 (2.74%) FortiGate
6 20 (2.49%) vCenter Server
7 19 (2.37%) Kubernetes
8 17 (2.12%) Cisco Prime
9 14 (1.75%) Cisco CUCM
10 12 (1.50%) NetBackup
11 10 (1.25%) Nessus
11 10 (1.25%) Single Sign-On
12 9 (1.12%) Packer
12 9 (1.12%) Puppet
13 7 (0.87%) Opscode Chef
13 7 (0.87%) WSUS
14 5 (0.62%) AirWatch
14 5 (0.62%) Cisco UCCX
14 5 (0.62%) Norton AntiVirus
14 5 (0.62%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 407 (50.75%) Cisco
2 203 (25.31%) Microsoft
3 189 (23.57%) VMware
4 88 (10.97%) Juniper
5 87 (10.85%) F5
6 81 (10.10%) CheckPoint
7 79 (9.85%) Palo Alto
8 58 (7.23%) Citrix
9 56 (6.98%) Fortinet
10 49 (6.11%) SolarWinds
11 41 (5.11%) Meraki
12 36 (4.49%) Dell
13 33 (4.11%) Blue Coat
14 31 (3.87%) EMC
15 29 (3.62%) Oracle
16 28 (3.49%) HP
17 27 (3.37%) Aruba
18 22 (2.74%) Zscaler
19 20 (2.49%) Red Hat
20 19 (2.37%) Avaya
328 WAN job vacancies Nationwide