WLAN Contract Job Trends

Wireless LAN (WLAN)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring WLAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 547 464 459
Rank change year-on-year -83 -5 +192
Contract jobs citing WLAN 41 78 136
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.11% 0.24% 0.32%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.03% 1.84% 2.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 50 87
10th Percentile £304 £218 £281
25th Percentile £400 £414 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £513 £490
Median % change year-on-year -8.78% +4.59% +8.89%
75th Percentile £495 £581 £626
90th Percentile £623 £675 £875
UK excluding London median daily rate £468 £463 £486
% change year-on-year +1.08% -4.84% +14.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 6
10th Percentile - £22.93 £24.63
25th Percentile £65.75 £25.44 £31.63
Median hourly rate £66.50 £30.25 £33.72
Median % change year-on-year +119.83% -10.29% +2.18%
75th Percentile £67.25 £34.44 £35.75
90th Percentile - £36.58 £37.02
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £22.50 £33.22
% change year-on-year +195.56% -32.27% +0.67%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

WLAN 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 3,970 4,228 5,851
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.70% 12.75% 13.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,600 2,480 3,605
10th Percentile £206 £220 £209
25th Percentile £356 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £473
% change year-on-year -5.26% +0.53% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 138 329
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.86 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.88 £23.00
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -38.04% +68.63%
75th Percentile £65.50 £57.81 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.38 £75.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £32.50 £57.99
% change year-on-year +30.77% -43.96% +50.62%

WLAN
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing WLAN relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

WLAN job vacancy trend in the UK

WLAN
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing WLAN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing WLAN

WLAN
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WLAN over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for WLAN in the UK

WLAN
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing WLAN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing WLAN

WLAN
Top 13 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing WLAN within the UK over the 6 months to 1 January 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 -76 33 £453 -11.61% 41
UK excluding London -69 26 £468 +1.08% 35
Work from Home -4 12 £460 -29.23% 30
London -28 12 £438 -14.63% 12
Midlands -33 9 £500 +10.74% 4
West Midlands -26 8 £525 -9.95% 3
South East -14 6 £456 -21.78% 19
North West -30 4 £425 -15.00% 2
North of England -73 4 £425 -2.30% 6
Northern Ireland - 3 £475 - 3
Scotland +10 2 £270 -25.00%
South West -8 2 £413 -21.43% 4
East Midlands -19 1 £200 -23.08% 1

WLAN
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 2 (4.88%) SharePoint
2 1 (2.44%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (7.32%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (7.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 3 (7.32%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 19 (46.34%) Azure
2 11 (26.83%) AWS
3 8 (19.51%) GCP
4 4 (9.76%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 4 (9.76%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (9.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 3 (7.32%) AWS Direct Connect
6 2 (4.88%) Entra ID
6 2 (4.88%) Microsoft Purview
7 1 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (2.44%) Azure Functions
7 1 (2.44%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (2.44%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (2.44%) Azure Service Bus
7 1 (2.44%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 38 (92.68%) LAN
2 30 (73.17%) WAN
3 29 (70.73%) Firewall
4 20 (48.78%) Wireless
5 18 (43.90%) VPN
6 17 (41.46%) BGP
6 17 (41.46%) Network Security
7 15 (36.59%) SD-WAN
8 13 (31.71%) OSPF
9 12 (29.27%) DNS
9 12 (29.27%) VLAN
10 11 (26.83%) DHCP
10 11 (26.83%) MPLS
11 9 (21.95%) TCP/IP
12 7 (17.07%) Cisco ASA
13 6 (14.63%) Cisco Wireless
13 6 (14.63%) Wi-Fi
14 5 (12.20%) IPv4
14 5 (12.20%) IPv6
14 5 (12.20%) VXLAN
Development Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Git
1 1 (2.44%) JIRA
General
1 13 (31.71%) Social Skills
2 10 (24.39%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (14.63%) Documentation Skills
3 6 (14.63%) Public Sector
4 3 (7.32%) Influencing Skills
5 2 (4.88%) Finance
5 2 (4.88%) Legal
5 2 (4.88%) Local Government
5 2 (4.88%) Military
5 2 (4.88%) Presentation Skills
5 2 (4.88%) Retail
6 1 (2.44%) Financial Institution
6 1 (2.44%) French Language
6 1 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.44%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 19 (46.34%) Network Engineer
2 9 (21.95%) Architect
3 8 (19.51%) Network Architect
4 6 (14.63%) Senior
5 4 (9.76%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 4 (9.76%) Senior Network Engineer
5 4 (9.76%) Solutions Architect
6 3 (7.32%) Administrator
6 3 (7.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 3 (7.32%) Lead
7 2 (4.88%) Infrastructure Manager
7 2 (4.88%) Infrastructure Project Manager
7 2 (4.88%) Network Infrastructure Manager
7 2 (4.88%) Network Infrastructure Project Manager
7 2 (4.88%) Network Manager
7 2 (4.88%) Network Project Manager
7 2 (4.88%) Network Security Engineer
7 2 (4.88%) Network Specialist
7 2 (4.88%) Security Engineer
7 2 (4.88%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (9.76%) 802.1X
2 1 (2.44%) ARM Templates
2 1 (2.44%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 11 (26.83%) Data Centre
2 4 (9.76%) Virtual Team
3 2 (4.88%) Onboarding
3 2 (4.88%) PKI
3 2 (4.88%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (2.44%) Cyber Defence
4 1 (2.44%) Distributed Architecture
4 1 (2.44%) Fat Client
4 1 (2.44%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (2.44%) Legacy Applications
4 1 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (2.44%) Management Information System
4 1 (2.44%) Security Posture
4 1 (2.44%) Thin Client
4 1 (2.44%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.44%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (29.27%) Problem-Solving
2 11 (26.83%) Cybersecurity
3 10 (24.39%) Network Design
4 9 (21.95%) Network Architecture
4 9 (21.95%) Network Management
4 9 (21.95%) Stakeholder Management
5 8 (19.51%) Zero Trust
6 7 (17.07%) Incident Response
6 7 (17.07%) ITIL
6 7 (17.07%) Project Delivery
6 7 (17.07%) Roadmaps
7 6 (14.63%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 6 (14.63%) Network Monitoring
8 5 (12.20%) Customer Service
8 5 (12.20%) Load Balancing
8 5 (12.20%) Migration
8 5 (12.20%) Service Delivery
8 5 (12.20%) Task Automation
9 4 (9.76%) Computer Science
9 4 (9.76%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 11 (26.83%) Python
2 5 (12.20%) Perl
3 1 (2.44%) PowerShell
3 1 (2.44%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 23 (56.10%) Cisco Certification
2 20 (48.78%) CCNP
3 11 (26.83%) CCIE
4 10 (24.39%) Security Cleared
5 9 (21.95%) SC Cleared
6 5 (12.20%) AWS Certification
6 5 (12.20%) CISSP
6 5 (12.20%) Degree
7 4 (9.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 4 (9.76%) CCNA
7 4 (9.76%) CCSP
8 3 (7.32%) Azure Certification
8 3 (7.32%) CCDP
8 3 (7.32%) CCIE Security
8 3 (7.32%) Network+ Certification
9 2 (4.88%) CCIE Wireless
9 2 (4.88%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (4.88%) JNCIE
9 2 (4.88%) JNCIP
10 1 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (19.51%) GDPR
2 7 (17.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (14.63%) NIST
3 6 (14.63%) PCI DSS
4 1 (2.44%) COBIT
System Software
1 5 (12.20%) Active Directory
1 5 (12.20%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (9.76%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 9 (21.95%) Ansible
1 9 (21.95%) Terraform
2 3 (7.32%) FortiGate
2 3 (7.32%) Nagios
3 1 (2.44%) Grafana
3 1 (2.44%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (2.44%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 32 (78.05%) Cisco
2 18 (43.90%) Palo Alto
3 13 (31.71%) Fortinet
4 11 (26.83%) F5
4 11 (26.83%) Meraki
4 11 (26.83%) SolarWinds
5 10 (24.39%) Juniper
6 7 (17.07%) Aruba
6 7 (17.07%) Microsoft
7 6 (14.63%) VMware
8 2 (4.88%) Arista
8 2 (4.88%) Extreme Networks
8 2 (4.88%) Forcepoint
8 2 (4.88%) LogicMonitor
9 1 (2.44%) AirMagnet
9 1 (2.44%) Databricks
9 1 (2.44%) Ekahau
9 1 (2.44%) Google
9 1 (2.44%) ServiceNow
9 1 (2.44%) Zscaler