Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 1 August 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 1 August 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
1 Aug 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 186 126 133
Rank change year-on-year -60 +7 +34
Contract jobs citing WAN 1,026 704 1,798
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.43% 1.94% 1.97%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.54% 14.49% 15.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 652 447 1,182
10th Percentile £231 £195 £200
25th Percentile £331 £306 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £425 £415
Median % change year-on-year - +2.41% +5.06%
75th Percentile £515 £519 £525
90th Percentile £594 £600 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £425 £400
% change year-on-year -2.94% +6.25% +6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 50 81
10th Percentile £14.19 £15.71 £12.00
25th Percentile £16.00 £18.50 £14.50
Median hourly rate £20.00 £28.41 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.59% +62.31% -0.71%
75th Percentile £43.75 £43.75 £28.75
90th Percentile £53.15 £48.21 £46.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.50 £20.00 £17.25
% change year-on-year -2.50% +15.94% -1.43%

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 8,179 4,857 11,758
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.38% 13.37% 12.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,218 3,001 7,336
10th Percentile £248 £200 £200
25th Percentile £360 £315 £315
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £438 £425
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% +2.94% -
75th Percentile £550 £538 £538
90th Percentile £650 £638 £607
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £413 £400
% change year-on-year +3.03% +3.13% +1.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 374 246 573
10th Percentile £12.00 £14.39 £12.05
25th Percentile £15.00 £17.26 £15.34
Median hourly rate £22.44 £30.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.22% +33.33% +18.42%
75th Percentile £49.69 £46.25 £45.00
90th Percentile £64.85 £52.50 £50.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.00 £22.19 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.86% +5.65% +11.17%

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 1 August 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 1 August 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for WAN in the UK

WAN
Top 18 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 1 August 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 -56 836 £425 -3.13% 441
UK excluding London -39 562 £413 -2.94% 375
London -29 325 £465 +3.33% 98
Work from Home -137 220 £463 +12.12% 60
South East -10 187 £425 -5.56% 90
Midlands -34 101 £375 -13.04% 77
North of England -28 92 £400 +14.29% 112
West Midlands -28 78 £363 -21.62% 38
South West -2 70 £425 -5.56% 43
Scotland -52 51 £413 +28.91% 20
Yorkshire -8 50 £380 +4.83% 45
East of England -32 39 £400 -5.88% 21
North West -42 30 £375 +25.00% 59
East Midlands -17 25 £388 +10.71% 39
Wales -4 19 £250 -28.57% 11
North East +6 12 £550 +15.79% 8
Northern Ireland - 8 £496 - 1
Isle of Man - 1 £413 -

For the 6 months to 1 August 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.

1 743 (72.42%) LAN
2 476 (46.39%) Cisco
3 418 (40.74%) Firewall
4 253 (24.66%) Windows
5 242 (23.59%) VMware
6 228 (22.22%) Azure
7 223 (21.73%) Active Directory
8 217 (21.15%) Cisco Certification
9 216 (21.05%) SD-WAN
10 210 (20.47%) Microsoft
11 196 (19.10%) VPN
11 196 (19.10%) Data Centre
12 194 (18.91%) Social Skills
13 185 (18.03%) Security Cleared
14 170 (16.57%) VMware Infrastructure
15 157 (15.30%) Microsoft 365
15 157 (15.30%) ITIL
16 149 (14.52%) Telecoms
17 146 (14.23%) Wireless
18 142 (13.84%) SC Cleared
19 141 (13.74%) CCNP
20 139 (13.55%) DNS
21 132 (12.87%) CheckPoint
21 132 (12.87%) Network Security
22 127 (12.38%) TCP/IP
23 121 (11.79%) Migration
24 118 (11.50%) Finance
25 116 (11.31%) MPLS
26 114 (11.11%) Agile Software Development
26 114 (11.11%) 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 56 (5.46%) SharePoint
2 31 (3.02%) Skype for Business
3 24 (2.34%) MS Exchange
4 22 (2.14%) WebSphere
5 17 (1.66%) Confluence
5 17 (1.66%) Tomcat
6 14 (1.36%) Apache
7 11 (1.07%) JBoss
7 11 (1.07%) WebSphere Application Server
8 10 (0.97%) IIS
9 7 (0.68%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.58%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.49%) Exchange Server 2013
11 5 (0.49%) NetWeaver
12 4 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2010
13 3 (0.29%) CMS
13 3 (0.29%) Drupal
13 3 (0.29%) IBM Notes
13 3 (0.29%) nginx
14 2 (0.19%) Elasticsearch
Applications
1 77 (7.50%) Microsoft Office
2 50 (4.87%) MS Visio
3 32 (3.12%) Microsoft Excel
4 18 (1.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (1.46%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.097%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 5 (0.49%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.29%) Remedy AR System
2 3 (0.29%) StreamServe
3 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.097%) MIS ActiveH
4 1 (0.097%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
4 1 (0.097%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 228 (22.22%) Azure
2 157 (15.30%) Microsoft 365
3 93 (9.06%) AWS
4 62 (6.04%) PaaS
5 61 (5.95%) IaaS
6 40 (3.90%) SaaS
7 38 (3.70%) GCP
8 32 (3.12%) Azure Active Directory
9 23 (2.24%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 19 (1.85%) GitHub
11 18 (1.75%) OneDrive
12 12 (1.17%) Cloud Computing
13 11 (1.07%) Yammer
14 8 (0.78%) Azure Pipelines
14 8 (0.78%) Mimecast
15 7 (0.68%) AWS CloudFormation
15 7 (0.68%) OpenShift
16 6 (0.58%) Amazon EKS
16 6 (0.58%) AWS CodeCommit
16 6 (0.58%) IBM Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 743 (72.42%) LAN
2 418 (40.74%) Firewall
3 216 (21.05%) SD-WAN
4 196 (19.10%) VPN
5 146 (14.23%) Wireless
6 139 (13.55%) DNS
7 132 (12.87%) Network Security
8 127 (12.38%) TCP/IP
9 116 (11.31%) MPLS
10 107 (10.43%) DHCP
11 103 (10.04%) Internet
12 97 (9.45%) BGP
13 95 (9.26%) VoIP
14 92 (8.97%) Wi-Fi
15 87 (8.48%) OSPF
16 84 (8.19%) Cisco ASA
17 81 (7.89%) VLAN
18 71 (6.92%) Cisco Nexus
19 68 (6.63%) WLAN
20 67 (6.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.36%) SQL Server
2 16 (1.56%) Data Warehouse
3 14 (1.36%) MongoDB
4 12 (1.17%) MySQL
4 12 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (1.07%) NoSQL
5 11 (1.07%) SQL Server 2012
6 9 (0.88%) SQL Server 2014
6 9 (0.88%) SQL Server 2016
7 8 (0.78%) Hadoop
7 8 (0.78%) HBase
8 6 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
8 6 (0.58%) DB2
8 6 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
9 5 (0.49%) Amazon DynamoDB
9 5 (0.49%) SAP HANA
10 3 (0.29%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.29%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.29%) Riak
11 2 (0.19%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 39 (3.80%) JIRA
2 26 (2.53%) Jenkins
3 19 (1.85%) Git (software)
3 19 (1.85%) Sonatype Nexus
4 14 (1.36%) LoadRunner
5 8 (0.78%) GitLab
6 7 (0.68%) Artifactory
6 7 (0.68%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.58%) Vagrant
7 6 (0.58%) VSS/SourceSafe
8 5 (0.49%) Team Foundation Server
9 3 (0.29%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.29%) Hudson
9 3 (0.29%) Subversion
10 2 (0.19%) eggPlant
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.19%) Rational Team Concert
10 2 (0.19%) TeamCity
11 1 (0.097%) JUnit
11 1 (0.097%) Maven
General
1 194 (18.91%) Social Skills
2 149 (14.52%) Telecoms
3 118 (11.50%) Finance
4 94 (9.16%) Public Sector
5 48 (4.68%) Analytical Skills
6 35 (3.41%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (3.02%) Presentation Skills
8 28 (2.73%) Banking
9 21 (2.05%) Organisational Skills
10 16 (1.56%) Back Office
11 12 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
11 12 (1.17%) Legal
12 10 (0.97%) Billing
12 10 (0.97%) Manufacturing
13 9 (0.88%) Marketing
14 8 (0.78%) Electronics
15 7 (0.68%) Retail
16 6 (0.58%) French Language
16 6 (0.58%) Local Government
17 5 (0.49%) Police
Job Titles
1 276 (26.90%) Network Engineer
2 214 (20.86%) Architect
3 79 (7.70%) Analyst
4 77 (7.50%) Network Architect
5 72 (7.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 63 (6.14%) Project Manager
7 58 (5.65%) Cisco Engineer
8 55 (5.36%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 54 (5.26%) Support Engineer
10 53 (5.17%) Solutions Architect
11 40 (3.90%) Infrastructure Manager
12 38 (3.70%) Consultant
12 38 (3.70%) Infrastructure Architect
13 37 (3.61%) Technical Architect
14 32 (3.12%) Infrastructure Project Manager
14 32 (3.12%) Senior Network Engineer
15 25 (2.44%) Azure Engineer
15 25 (2.44%) Security Engineer
16 24 (2.34%) Network Consultant
17 23 (2.24%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (2.53%) Middleware
2 21 (2.05%) 802.1X
3 15 (1.46%) JSON
4 10 (0.97%) .NET
5 9 (0.88%) Node.js
5 9 (0.88%) Spine.js
5 9 (0.88%) Web Services
6 8 (0.78%) .NET Core
7 7 (0.68%) LDAP
7 7 (0.68%) RESTful
8 6 (0.58%) AngularJS
8 6 (0.58%) XML
8 6 (0.58%) YAML
9 5 (0.49%) ASP.NET
9 5 (0.49%) Django
9 5 (0.49%) Express
9 5 (0.49%) HTML
9 5 (0.49%) MEAN Stack
9 5 (0.49%) Ruby on Rails
9 5 (0.49%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 196 (19.10%) Data Centre
2 39 (3.80%) Public Cloud
3 34 (3.31%) Clustering
3 34 (3.31%) Management Information System
4 31 (3.02%) Self-Motivation
5 30 (2.92%) Hybrid Cloud
6 29 (2.83%) PKI
7 27 (2.63%) Video Conferencing
8 22 (2.14%) Driving Licence
9 18 (1.75%) Greenfield Project
10 15 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
11 13 (1.27%) NHS
12 12 (1.17%) Private Cloud
13 11 (1.07%) Virtual Team
14 10 (0.97%) Replication
14 10 (0.97%) Tandem
15 9 (0.88%) Enterprise Storage
16 7 (0.68%) VxBlock/Vblock
17 6 (0.58%) Algorithms
17 6 (0.58%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
Operating Systems
1 253 (24.66%) Windows
2 105 (10.23%) Linux
3 96 (9.36%) Windows Server
4 54 (5.26%) Windows 10
5 36 (3.51%) Unix
6 35 (3.41%) Windows Server 2016
7 28 (2.73%) Windows Server 2012
8 20 (1.95%) Windows Server 2019
9 16 (1.56%) Android
9 16 (1.56%) Solaris
10 15 (1.46%) Apple iOS
11 13 (1.27%) Windows 7
11 13 (1.27%) Windows Server 2008
12 9 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 8 (0.78%) Mac OS
13 8 (0.78%) Ubuntu
14 6 (0.58%) AIX
15 4 (0.39%) CentOS
15 4 (0.39%) Windows 8
15 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (15.30%) ITIL
2 121 (11.79%) Migration
3 114 (11.11%) Agile Software Development
4 103 (10.04%) Project Management
5 95 (9.26%) Network Design
6 94 (9.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 77 (7.50%) Disaster Recovery
8 73 (7.12%) Network Architecture
9 70 (6.82%) Problem-Solving
10 68 (6.63%) DevOps
11 67 (6.53%) Load Balancing
12 61 (5.95%) Cybersecurity
13 52 (5.07%) Stakeholder Management
14 47 (4.58%) Business Continuity
15 44 (4.29%) Computer Science
16 43 (4.19%) Infrastructure as Code
17 41 (4.00%) PRINCE2
17 41 (4.00%) Project Delivery
18 40 (3.90%) Network Management
19 37 (3.61%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 79 (7.70%) SQL
2 59 (5.75%) PowerShell
3 55 (5.36%) Python
4 23 (2.24%) Java
5 16 (1.56%) Bash Shell
6 14 (1.36%) JavaScript
7 13 (1.27%) C
8 11 (1.07%) Perl
9 10 (0.97%) C#
10 9 (0.88%) C++
11 8 (0.78%) PHP
11 8 (0.78%) Ruby
12 5 (0.49%) Shell Script
12 5 (0.49%) VB
12 5 (0.49%) VB.NET
13 4 (0.39%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.29%) Ada
14 3 (0.29%) Rust
15 2 (0.19%) PL/SQL
16 1 (0.097%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 217 (21.15%) Cisco Certification
2 185 (18.03%) Security Cleared
3 142 (13.84%) SC Cleared
4 141 (13.74%) CCNP
5 99 (9.65%) CCNA
6 74 (7.21%) Degree
7 64 (6.24%) CCIE
8 32 (3.12%) DV Cleared
9 27 (2.63%) Microsoft Certification
10 25 (2.44%) CCDP
11 20 (1.95%) CISSP
12 19 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
13 18 (1.75%) JNCIA
14 14 (1.36%) CCSE
15 11 (1.07%) CCSA
15 11 (1.07%) PMI Certification
15 11 (1.07%) PMP
16 10 (0.97%) BPSS Clearance
16 10 (0.97%) CCDA
16 10 (0.97%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (3.02%) SLA
2 26 (2.53%) QA
3 17 (1.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 14 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (1.36%) PCI DSS
4 14 (1.36%) PMO
5 7 (0.68%) GDPR
6 5 (0.49%) COBIT
6 5 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
7 4 (0.39%) NCSC
7 4 (0.39%) NIST
8 3 (0.29%) HL7
9 2 (0.19%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.19%) GRC
9 2 (0.19%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.19%) PMBOK
10 1 (0.097%) HAZOP
10 1 (0.097%) ISO 9000
10 1 (0.097%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.097%) SEPA
System Software
1 223 (21.73%) Active Directory
2 170 (16.57%) VMware Infrastructure
3 82 (7.99%) Hyper-V
4 39 (3.80%) VMware NSX
5 33 (3.22%) Docker
5 33 (3.22%) VMware ESXi
6 24 (2.34%) Virtual Machines
6 24 (2.34%) vSphere
7 15 (1.46%) KVM
7 15 (1.46%) NFS
8 13 (1.27%) ProxySG
9 11 (1.07%) SRDF
9 11 (1.07%) Virtual Desktop
9 11 (1.07%) VMware Workstation
9 11 (1.07%) Xen
9 11 (1.07%) XenApp
10 7 (0.68%) Oracle RAC
10 7 (0.68%) XenDesktop
11 5 (0.49%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 68 (6.63%) Ansible
2 55 (5.36%) SCCM
3 45 (4.39%) Terraform
4 39 (3.80%) FortiGate
5 30 (2.92%) Kubernetes
6 23 (2.24%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (2.24%) Puppet
7 18 (1.75%) Cisco CUCM
8 17 (1.66%) NetBackup
9 15 (1.46%) CASB
10 14 (1.36%) vRealize
11 12 (1.17%) Cisco Prime
11 12 (1.17%) SCOM
11 12 (1.17%) vCenter Server
11 12 (1.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 11 (1.07%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 10 (0.97%) Opscode Chef
13 10 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
14 9 (0.88%) Packer
14 9 (0.88%) WSUS
Vendors
1 476 (46.39%) Cisco
2 242 (23.59%) VMware
3 210 (20.47%) Microsoft
4 132 (12.87%) CheckPoint
5 114 (11.11%) F5
6 83 (8.09%) Juniper
7 79 (7.70%) Palo Alto
8 77 (7.50%) Fortinet
9 75 (7.31%) Citrix
10 72 (7.02%) Meraki
11 57 (5.56%) SolarWinds
12 51 (4.97%) Aruba
13 49 (4.78%) Oracle
14 42 (4.09%) HP
15 35 (3.41%) McAfee
15 35 (3.41%) Riverbed
16 27 (2.63%) Dell
16 27 (2.63%) Red Hat
17 26 (2.53%) NetApp
18 24 (2.34%) SAP
481 WAN job vacancies Nationwide