Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 21 October 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 21 October 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
21 Oct 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 201 152 137
Rank change year-on-year -49 -15 +20
Contract jobs citing WAN 1,160 563 1,684
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.37% 1.78% 1.98%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 12.25% 13.40% 14.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 710 371 1,125
10th Percentile £200 £200 £200
25th Percentile £319 £313 £288
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +6.25% +0.63%
75th Percentile £539 £503 £500
90th Percentile £635 £575 £575
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £388 £400
% change year-on-year +3.23% -3.13% +6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 32 70
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.75 £12.00
25th Percentile £19.50 £18.50 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.50 £30.75 £18.38
Median % change year-on-year -26.83% +67.32% -3.28%
75th Percentile £36.33 £50.75 £44.13
90th Percentile £50.67 £64.50 £48.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.00 £25.92 £17.50
% change year-on-year -22.82% +48.09% -

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 9,472 4,201 11,263
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.21% 13.26% 13.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,126 2,638 6,962
10th Percentile £213 £206 £192
25th Percentile £363 £325 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £448 £425
Median % change year-on-year +6.09% +5.35% -
75th Percentile £585 £538 £525
90th Percentile £675 £625 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £402 £400
% change year-on-year +5.85% +0.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 412 186 596
10th Percentile £12.00 £14.00 £13.50
25th Percentile £14.30 £17.06 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.00 £31.50 £25.84
Median % change year-on-year -30.16% +21.90% +38.18%
75th Percentile £48.75 £46.11 £46.40
90th Percentile £64.95 £55.00 £52.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.00 £30.00 £23.50
% change year-on-year -33.33% +27.66% +27.03%

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 21 October 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 21 October 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for WAN in the UK

WAN
Top 17 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 21 October 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 -40 940 £425 - 480
UK excluding London -40 615 £400 +3.23% 413
London -50 365 £478 +4.95% 104
Work from Home -86 247 £480 +20.00% 60
South East -38 181 £425 +1.49% 93
North of England -11 110 £388 -3.13% 134
South West -20 107 £400 -5.88% 44
Midlands -42 99 £338 -3.57% 62
Yorkshire +4 64 £300 -25.00% 47
West Midlands -52 62 £335 -10.67% 38
Scotland -56 52 £450 +56.52% 23
East of England -50 38 £400 +45.45% 43
East Midlands -21 37 £344 +22.22% 24
North West -58 35 £363 -9.38% 67
Wales -11 25 £225 -10.89% 14
North East - 11 £550 - 20
Northern Ireland - 4 £140 -

For the 6 months to 21 October 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.

1 786 (67.76%) LAN
2 510 (43.97%) Cisco
3 448 (38.62%) Firewall
4 308 (26.55%) Windows
5 282 (24.31%) Azure
6 281 (24.22%) Active Directory
7 277 (23.88%) VMware
8 265 (22.84%) Microsoft
9 259 (22.33%) SD-WAN
10 236 (20.34%) VPN
11 229 (19.74%) Data Centre
12 215 (18.53%) Security Cleared
13 210 (18.10%) Social Skills
14 207 (17.84%) Cisco Certification
15 206 (17.76%) Microsoft 365
16 203 (17.50%) VMware Infrastructure
17 186 (16.03%) SC Cleared
18 169 (14.57%) ITIL
19 168 (14.48%) DNS
20 154 (13.28%) Wireless
21 147 (12.67%) CCNP
22 144 (12.41%) Migration
22 144 (12.41%) Network Security
23 138 (11.90%) MPLS
24 135 (11.64%) TCP/IP
24 135 (11.64%) DHCP
25 133 (11.47%) Windows Server
26 130 (11.21%) Agile Software Development
27 129 (11.12%) BGP
28 126 (10.86%) Linux

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 63 (5.43%) SharePoint
2 40 (3.45%) MS Exchange
3 23 (1.98%) WebSphere
4 20 (1.72%) Tomcat
5 19 (1.64%) Apache
5 19 (1.64%) Confluence
6 18 (1.55%) IIS
7 10 (0.86%) Apache Spark
8 9 (0.78%) Skype for Business
9 7 (0.60%) Exchange Server 2010
9 7 (0.60%) JBoss
9 7 (0.60%) WebSphere Application Server
10 6 (0.52%) IBM Notes
10 6 (0.52%) nginx
10 6 (0.52%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.43%) CMS
11 5 (0.43%) Exchange Server 2013
11 5 (0.43%) NetWeaver
12 4 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
12 4 (0.34%) OpenStack
Applications
1 91 (7.84%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (2.33%) MS Visio
3 22 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
4 17 (1.47%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 7 (0.60%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 3 (0.26%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.086%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.086%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (0.43%) Remedy AR System
3 4 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.26%) StreamServe
5 1 (0.086%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
5 1 (0.086%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 282 (24.31%) Azure
2 206 (17.76%) Microsoft 365
3 116 (10.00%) AWS
4 78 (6.72%) PaaS
5 77 (6.64%) IaaS
6 56 (4.83%) SaaS
7 42 (3.62%) GCP
8 41 (3.53%) Azure Active Directory
9 32 (2.76%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 20 (1.72%) Cloud Computing
11 17 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
11 17 (1.47%) GitHub
12 15 (1.29%) AWS CodeCommit
12 15 (1.29%) AWS CodePipeline
13 13 (1.12%) OneDrive
14 11 (0.95%) Amazon EKS
14 11 (0.95%) Azure Pipelines
14 11 (0.95%) Serverless
15 10 (0.86%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 10 (0.86%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 786 (67.76%) LAN
2 448 (38.62%) Firewall
3 259 (22.33%) SD-WAN
4 236 (20.34%) VPN
5 168 (14.48%) DNS
6 154 (13.28%) Wireless
7 144 (12.41%) Network Security
8 138 (11.90%) MPLS
9 135 (11.64%) DHCP
9 135 (11.64%) TCP/IP
10 129 (11.12%) BGP
11 119 (10.26%) Wi-Fi
12 102 (8.79%) Internet
12 102 (8.79%) OSPF
13 87 (7.50%) VoIP
14 86 (7.41%) VLAN
15 82 (7.07%) SAN
16 73 (6.29%) Ethernet
17 70 (6.03%) Cisco ASA
18 64 (5.52%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (5.09%) SQL Server
2 16 (1.38%) Hadoop
3 15 (1.29%) Amazon DynamoDB
4 14 (1.21%) NoSQL
5 13 (1.12%) MySQL
5 13 (1.12%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (1.03%) DB2
6 12 (1.03%) MongoDB
7 9 (0.78%) Apache Hive
8 8 (0.69%) Data Mining
8 8 (0.69%) Tableau
9 6 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
9 6 (0.52%) SQL Server 2012
10 5 (0.43%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (0.43%) Relational Database
10 5 (0.43%) SAP HANA
11 4 (0.34%) HBase
11 4 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
11 4 (0.34%) Riak
11 4 (0.34%) SQL Server 2014
Development Applications
1 26 (2.24%) JIRA
2 25 (2.16%) Jenkins
3 23 (1.98%) Git (software)
4 18 (1.55%) GitLab
5 14 (1.21%) Sonatype Nexus
6 11 (0.95%) SonarQube
7 7 (0.60%) Artifactory
7 7 (0.60%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.52%) Vagrant
9 3 (0.26%) Bitbucket Server
9 3 (0.26%) Maven
9 3 (0.26%) TestLink
9 3 (0.26%) TestRail
9 3 (0.26%) VSS/SourceSafe
10 2 (0.17%) eggPlant
10 2 (0.17%) TeamCity
11 1 (0.086%) Appium
11 1 (0.086%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.086%) Selenium
11 1 (0.086%) VectorCAST
General
1 210 (18.10%) Social Skills
2 111 (9.57%) Finance
3 109 (9.40%) Telecoms
4 90 (7.76%) Public Sector
5 72 (6.21%) Analytical Skills
6 32 (2.76%) Presentation Skills
7 27 (2.33%) Organisational Skills
8 25 (2.16%) Banking
9 22 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
10 16 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.21%) Legal
12 13 (1.12%) Local Government
12 13 (1.12%) Retail
13 10 (0.86%) Billing
14 9 (0.78%) Marketing
15 8 (0.69%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.52%) French Language
16 6 (0.52%) Law
17 5 (0.43%) Aerospace
17 5 (0.43%) Military
Job Titles
1 274 (23.62%) Network Engineer
2 252 (21.72%) Architect
3 91 (7.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 85 (7.33%) Support Engineer
5 77 (6.64%) Analyst
6 71 (6.12%) Network Architect
7 59 (5.09%) Solutions Architect
8 53 (4.57%) Project Manager
9 47 (4.05%) Cisco Engineer
10 42 (3.62%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 42 (3.62%) Infrastructure Architect
11 41 (3.53%) 2nd Line Support
12 39 (3.36%) Technical Architect
13 36 (3.10%) IT Engineer
14 34 (2.93%) Azure Engineer
14 34 (2.93%) Consultant
14 34 (2.93%) Security Architect
15 32 (2.76%) Senior Network Engineer
16 31 (2.67%) 2nd Line Engineer
16 31 (2.67%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (2.50%) Middleware
2 23 (1.98%) JSON
3 14 (1.21%) 802.1X
4 12 (1.03%) Kafka
4 12 (1.03%) XMPP
5 11 (0.95%) Apache NiFi
6 10 (0.86%) .NET
6 10 (0.86%) XML
7 9 (0.78%) Web Services
8 8 (0.69%) JDBC
8 8 (0.69%) Node.js
8 8 (0.69%) Regular Expression
8 8 (0.69%) RESTful
8 8 (0.69%) Spine.js
9 7 (0.60%) ODBC
9 7 (0.60%) OLE DB
9 7 (0.60%) REST
9 7 (0.60%) SOAP
9 7 (0.60%) WebSphere MQ
9 7 (0.60%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 229 (19.74%) Data Centre
2 64 (5.52%) Public Cloud
3 47 (4.05%) Hybrid Cloud
4 40 (3.45%) Management Information System
5 32 (2.76%) Clustering
6 26 (2.24%) PKI
7 25 (2.16%) Self-Motivation
8 24 (2.07%) Driving Licence
9 22 (1.90%) Video Conferencing
10 21 (1.81%) Private Cloud
11 17 (1.47%) NHS
12 14 (1.21%) Mobile App
13 12 (1.03%) iPad
13 12 (1.03%) Replication
14 11 (0.95%) Enterprise Storage
15 10 (0.86%) iPhone
16 9 (0.78%) BYOD
16 9 (0.78%) Greenfield Project
16 9 (0.78%) Virtual Team
17 8 (0.69%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 308 (26.55%) Windows
2 133 (11.47%) Windows Server
3 126 (10.86%) Linux
4 88 (7.59%) Windows 10
5 46 (3.97%) Windows Server 2016
6 40 (3.45%) Unix
7 35 (3.02%) Windows Server 2012
8 34 (2.93%) Windows Server 2008
9 30 (2.59%) Windows Server 2019
10 29 (2.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 28 (2.41%) Windows 7
12 24 (2.07%) Android
13 23 (1.98%) Apple iOS
14 15 (1.29%) Ubuntu
15 12 (1.03%) Mac OS
15 12 (1.03%) Solaris
16 6 (0.52%) AIX
17 5 (0.43%) Mac OS X
17 5 (0.43%) Windows Phone
18 4 (0.34%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 169 (14.57%) ITIL
2 144 (12.41%) Migration
3 130 (11.21%) Agile Software Development
4 107 (9.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 103 (8.88%) Network Architecture
6 95 (8.19%) Problem-Solving
7 92 (7.93%) Network Design
7 92 (7.93%) Project Management
8 86 (7.41%) DevOps
9 79 (6.81%) Load Balancing
10 76 (6.55%) Disaster Recovery
11 72 (6.21%) Cybersecurity
12 57 (4.91%) Computer Science
12 57 (4.91%) Network Management
13 50 (4.31%) Infrastructure as Code
14 48 (4.14%) Change Management
15 43 (3.71%) Project Delivery
16 42 (3.62%) Configuration Management
17 41 (3.53%) PRINCE2
18 40 (3.45%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 94 (8.10%) Python
2 93 (8.02%) SQL
3 79 (6.81%) PowerShell
4 34 (2.93%) Bash Shell
5 26 (2.24%) Java
6 19 (1.64%) C
7 17 (1.47%) JavaScript
8 14 (1.21%) C++
9 11 (0.95%) Perl
10 10 (0.86%) VB
11 8 (0.69%) Ruby
12 7 (0.60%) PHP
12 7 (0.60%) Scala
13 6 (0.52%) C#
14 5 (0.43%) Shell Script
14 5 (0.43%) TypeScript
14 5 (0.43%) VB.NET
14 5 (0.43%) VBScript
15 2 (0.17%) PL/SQL
15 2 (0.17%) Rust
Qualifications
1 215 (18.53%) Security Cleared
2 207 (17.84%) Cisco Certification
3 186 (16.03%) SC Cleared
4 147 (12.67%) CCNP
5 96 (8.28%) Degree
6 92 (7.93%) CCNA
7 56 (4.83%) CCIE
8 28 (2.41%) CISSP
9 25 (2.16%) DV Cleared
10 23 (1.98%) CCDP
11 18 (1.55%) CESG Certified Professional
11 18 (1.55%) Microsoft Certification
12 12 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
13 11 (0.95%) Master's Degree
13 11 (0.95%) MCSE
13 11 (0.95%) PMI Certification
13 11 (0.95%) PMP
14 10 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.78%) ISTQB
15 9 (0.78%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (3.02%) SLA
2 32 (2.76%) QA
3 20 (1.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 16 (1.38%) PMO
5 15 (1.29%) NCSC
5 15 (1.29%) PCI DSS
6 14 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 8 (0.69%) COBIT
7 8 (0.69%) GDPR
8 6 (0.52%) HL7
9 4 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
10 3 (0.26%) GRC
10 3 (0.26%) ISO 22301
10 3 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 3 (0.26%) NIST
11 2 (0.17%) DICOM
11 2 (0.17%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 2 (0.17%) PMBOK
12 1 (0.086%) Accessibility
12 1 (0.086%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 281 (24.22%) Active Directory
2 203 (17.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 94 (8.10%) Hyper-V
4 45 (3.88%) VMware ESXi
5 44 (3.79%) VMware NSX
6 37 (3.19%) vSphere
7 34 (2.93%) Docker
8 24 (2.07%) NFS
9 21 (1.81%) Virtual Machines
10 16 (1.38%) VMware Workstation
11 13 (1.12%) Virtual Desktop
12 12 (1.03%) KVM
12 12 (1.03%) XenApp
13 10 (0.86%) BitLocker
14 9 (0.78%) HDFS
15 8 (0.69%) Xen
15 8 (0.69%) XenDesktop
16 7 (0.60%) SRDF
17 4 (0.34%) Firmware
17 4 (0.34%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 90 (7.76%) SCCM
2 78 (6.72%) Ansible
3 67 (5.78%) Terraform
4 55 (4.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 38 (3.28%) FortiGate
6 30 (2.59%) Kubernetes
7 21 (1.81%) Puppet
8 17 (1.47%) CASB
9 16 (1.38%) vCenter Server
10 14 (1.21%) vRealize
11 13 (1.12%) Cisco CUCM
11 13 (1.12%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 11 (0.95%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 9 (0.78%) Cisco Prime
13 9 (0.78%) SCOM
14 8 (0.69%) Nagios
14 8 (0.69%) Oozie
14 8 (0.69%) Opscode Chef
14 8 (0.69%) Packer
14 8 (0.69%) WSUS
Vendors
1 510 (43.97%) Cisco
2 277 (23.88%) VMware
3 265 (22.84%) Microsoft
4 116 (10.00%) Citrix
5 111 (9.57%) CheckPoint
6 105 (9.05%) Juniper
7 94 (8.10%) F5
8 78 (6.72%) Palo Alto
9 71 (6.12%) Meraki
10 62 (5.34%) Oracle
11 50 (4.31%) Fortinet
12 47 (4.05%) SolarWinds
13 46 (3.97%) HP
13 46 (3.97%) Red Hat
14 44 (3.79%) Aruba
14 44 (3.79%) Dell
15 39 (3.36%) NetApp
16 29 (2.50%) Apple
16 29 (2.50%) Google
16 29 (2.50%) IBM
528 WAN job vacancies Nationwide