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

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 198 155 105
Rank change year-on-year -43 -50 +59
Contract jobs citing WAN 522 594 1,044
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.45% 1.63% 2.28%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 13.00% 13.39% 16.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 342 366 618
10th Percentile £213 £243 £250
25th Percentile £325 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - +8.11%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £638
90th Percentile £673 £675 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £440 £460
% change year-on-year -9.09% -4.35% +2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 18 37
10th Percentile £14.74 £20.28 £19.35
25th Percentile £15.50 £32.13 £22.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £55.00 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.45% +124.49% +7.69%
75th Percentile £35.00 £75.00 £69.62
90th Percentile £68.12 - £75.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £72.50 £23.75
% change year-on-year -58.62% +205.26% +7.95%

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 4,016 4,435 6,382
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.14% 12.16% 13.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,597 2,557 3,955
10th Percentile £206 £225 £211
25th Percentile £356 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £610
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 171 346
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.26 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.75 £23.59 £22.81
Median hourly rate £34.00 £42.50 £55.70
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -23.70% +34.22%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £48.56 £56.49
% change year-on-year -12.48% -14.04% +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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -48 428 £450 -10.00% 349
UK excluding London -52 294 £400 -9.09% 352
London -1 175 £525 -4.55% 81
Work from Home -23 120 £500 -4.76% 91
Midlands -23 80 £400 +6.67% 43
West Midlands +5 76 £400 -4.76% 26
North of England -70 70 £363 -17.61% 65
North West -27 50 £335 -25.56% 35
South East -46 48 £444 -11.25% 138
Scotland +33 45 £310 -22.50% 25
East of England -26 26 £375 -32.43% 41
Yorkshire -58 18 £393 +44.70% 28
South West -30 14 £500 +19.05% 37
Wales 0 7 £250 -35.48% 11
East Midlands -34 4 £315 -16.00% 15
Channel Islands - 4 £743 -
Northern Ireland -6 2 £600 - 4
North East -8 2 £550 +57.14% 2

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 23 (4.41%) Microsoft Exchange
1 23 (4.41%) SharePoint
2 12 (2.30%) OpenStack
3 8 (1.53%) Confluence
4 6 (1.15%) Skype for Business
5 2 (0.38%) Apache
5 2 (0.38%) nginx
6 1 (0.19%) CICS
6 1 (0.19%) IIS
6 1 (0.19%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.19%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.19%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 39 (7.47%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (2.49%) MS Visio
3 12 (2.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.19%) Acrobat
Business Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 119 (22.80%) Azure
2 78 (14.94%) AWS
3 39 (7.47%) Microsoft 365
4 28 (5.36%) Entra ID
5 26 (4.98%) GCP
6 14 (2.68%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 13 (2.49%) GitHub
7 13 (2.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 12 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
9 6 (1.15%) AWS Direct Connect
9 6 (1.15%) Azure Monitor
9 6 (1.15%) OneDrive
9 6 (1.15%) OpenShift
9 6 (1.15%) SaaS
10 5 (0.96%) Cloud Computing
10 5 (0.96%) IaaS
10 5 (0.96%) PaaS
11 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Purview
12 3 (0.57%) Microsoft Copilot
12 3 (0.57%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 319 (61.11%) LAN
2 242 (46.36%) Firewall
3 189 (36.21%) SD-WAN
4 170 (32.57%) VPN
5 116 (22.22%) BGP
6 100 (19.16%) MPLS
7 92 (17.62%) Wi-Fi
8 90 (17.24%) Network Security
9 89 (17.05%) DNS
10 84 (16.09%) Wireless
11 79 (15.13%) OSPF
12 68 (13.03%) DHCP
13 67 (12.84%) TCP/IP
13 67 (12.84%) VLAN
14 53 (10.15%) IPsec
15 42 (8.05%) Cisco Nexus
16 36 (6.90%) WLAN
17 33 (6.32%) Cisco ISE
18 31 (5.94%) EIGRP
19 28 (5.36%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.77%) MS Access
2 2 (0.38%) MySQL
2 2 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
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%) MariaDB
3 1 (0.19%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.19%) Power BI
3 1 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (2.11%) JIRA
2 7 (1.34%) GitLab
3 6 (1.15%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.96%) Git
4 5 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.38%) Bitbucket
General
1 137 (26.25%) Social Skills
2 57 (10.92%) Public Sector
3 52 (9.96%) Telecoms
4 50 (9.58%) Finance
5 36 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
6 25 (4.79%) Documentation Skills
7 16 (3.07%) Manufacturing
8 12 (2.30%) Local Government
9 9 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (1.53%) Banking
10 8 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.34%) Legal
12 6 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (1.15%) Spanish Language
13 4 (0.77%) Financial Institution
13 4 (0.77%) Law
13 4 (0.77%) Military
13 4 (0.77%) Retail
14 3 (0.57%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 167 (31.99%) Network Engineer
2 107 (20.50%) Architect
3 70 (13.41%) Network Architect
4 44 (8.43%) Senior
5 43 (8.24%) Support Engineer
6 29 (5.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 28 (5.36%) Analyst
8 26 (4.98%) Security Engineer
8 26 (4.98%) Senior Network Engineer
9 24 (4.60%) 2nd Line Support
9 24 (4.60%) Solutions Architect
10 23 (4.41%) WAN Engineer
11 22 (4.21%) Project Manager
12 21 (4.02%) Consultant
13 20 (3.83%) 3rd Line Engineer
14 19 (3.64%) 3rd Line Support
14 19 (3.64%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
14 19 (3.64%) Field Engineer
14 19 (3.64%) Network Security Engineer
14 19 (3.64%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (5.17%) 802.1X
2 12 (2.30%) Middleware
3 9 (1.72%) NETCONF
3 9 (1.72%) YANG
4 6 (1.15%) REST
5 3 (0.57%) EDI
5 3 (0.57%) Jinja
5 3 (0.57%) LDAP
5 3 (0.57%) RESTCONF
6 2 (0.38%) ARM Templates
6 2 (0.38%) LAMP
6 2 (0.38%) OpenConfig
7 1 (0.19%) Java RMI
7 1 (0.19%) JSON
7 1 (0.19%) LAPP Stack
7 1 (0.19%) libvirt
7 1 (0.19%) Node.js
7 1 (0.19%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.19%) XML
7 1 (0.19%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 119 (22.80%) Data Centre
2 36 (6.90%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (5.17%) PKI
4 22 (4.21%) Driving Licence
5 20 (3.83%) Cloud Native
6 17 (3.26%) Public Cloud
7 13 (2.49%) CMDB
7 13 (2.49%) Virtual Team
8 11 (2.11%) Onboarding
9 10 (1.92%) Management Information System
9 10 (1.92%) Operational Technology
10 9 (1.72%) NHS
10 9 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
11 8 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
11 8 (1.53%) Replication
12 6 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
12 6 (1.15%) SCADA
12 6 (1.15%) Security Posture
13 5 (0.96%) Private Cloud
14 4 (0.77%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 90 (17.24%) Windows
2 33 (6.32%) Windows Server
3 25 (4.79%) Linux
3 25 (4.79%) Windows 10
4 9 (1.72%) Windows Server 2019
5 8 (1.53%) Windows Server 2016
6 7 (1.34%) Windows 7
7 4 (0.77%) Android
7 4 (0.77%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.57%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.19%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.19%) MVS
9 1 (0.19%) Solaris
9 1 (0.19%) SUSE
9 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.19%) Unix
9 1 (0.19%) VMS
9 1 (0.19%) Windows 8
9 1 (0.19%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (17.24%) Network Design
2 77 (14.75%) Migration
3 76 (14.56%) Network Architecture
4 69 (13.22%) Problem-Solving
5 58 (11.11%) ITIL
6 49 (9.39%) Load Balancing
7 43 (8.24%) Change Management
7 43 (8.24%) Stakeholder Management
8 41 (7.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 39 (7.47%) Cybersecurity
9 39 (7.47%) Network Monitoring
10 35 (6.70%) Project Delivery
10 35 (6.70%) Zero Trust
11 33 (6.32%) Roadmaps
12 32 (6.13%) Service Management
13 30 (5.75%) DevOps
13 30 (5.75%) High Availability
14 29 (5.56%) Customer Service
14 29 (5.56%) Network Management
14 29 (5.56%) Network Virtualisation
Programming Languages
1 56 (10.73%) Python
2 21 (4.02%) PowerShell
3 7 (1.34%) Bicep
4 6 (1.15%) Perl
4 6 (1.15%) VBScript
5 5 (0.96%) Bash
5 5 (0.96%) SQL
5 5 (0.96%) VB
6 1 (0.19%) Go
6 1 (0.19%) Java
6 1 (0.19%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 138 (26.44%) Security Cleared
2 124 (23.75%) Cisco Certification
3 104 (19.92%) SC Cleared
4 90 (17.24%) CCNP
5 49 (9.39%) CCIE
6 37 (7.09%) CCNA
7 35 (6.70%) Degree
8 31 (5.94%) DV Cleared
9 21 (4.02%) JNCIE
10 13 (2.49%) AWS Certification
11 11 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
12 10 (1.92%) Azure Certification
13 9 (1.72%) CISSP
13 9 (1.72%) JNCIP
14 8 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
15 7 (1.34%) CCSA
15 7 (1.34%) Network+ Certification
16 6 (1.15%) CCDP
16 6 (1.15%) ECDL
16 6 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (3.83%) SLA
2 19 (3.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.11%) NIST
4 9 (1.72%) GDPR
4 9 (1.72%) PCI DSS
5 5 (0.96%) PMO
6 4 (0.77%) QA
7 3 (0.57%) NCSC
8 2 (0.38%) GRC
9 1 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.19%) Def Stans
9 1 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.19%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.19%) MiFID
9 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
System Software
1 70 (13.41%) Active Directory
2 31 (5.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (3.64%) VMware NSX
4 14 (2.68%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (2.49%) Hyper-V
6 11 (2.11%) Firmware
7 6 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.96%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.96%) vSphere
9 2 (0.38%) KVM
9 2 (0.38%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.38%) NFS
9 2 (0.38%) ProxySG
9 2 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.38%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.19%) Ceph
10 1 (0.19%) iptables
10 1 (0.19%) Samba
10 1 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 55 (10.54%) Ansible
2 36 (6.90%) Terraform
3 23 (4.41%) SCCM
4 17 (3.26%) FortiGate
5 15 (2.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (2.11%) CASB
7 7 (1.34%) SCOrch
8 4 (0.77%) CA Spectrum
8 4 (0.77%) Cisco Prime
8 4 (0.77%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.57%) Cisco CUCM
9 3 (0.57%) HAProxy
9 3 (0.57%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.57%) Kubernetes
9 3 (0.57%) Nagios
9 3 (0.57%) OpenView
9 3 (0.57%) SCOM
9 3 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
10 2 (0.38%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 235 (45.02%) Cisco
2 91 (17.43%) Microsoft
3 89 (17.05%) Palo Alto
4 86 (16.48%) Juniper
5 75 (14.37%) Fortinet
6 56 (10.73%) F5
7 55 (10.54%) Meraki
8 53 (10.15%) VMware
9 36 (6.90%) CheckPoint
9 36 (6.90%) SolarWinds
10 23 (4.41%) Aruba
11 19 (3.64%) ServiceNow
12 18 (3.45%) Zscaler
13 13 (2.49%) Blue Coat
14 12 (2.30%) Citrix
15 11 (2.11%) HP
15 11 (2.11%) Remedy
16 9 (1.72%) Arista
17 8 (1.53%) Infoblox
18 7 (1.34%) Nokia