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 17 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 588 502 501
Rank change year-on-year -86 -1 -23
Contract jobs citing WLAN 93 57 72
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.17% 0.19%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.82% 1.50% 1.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 56 28 34
10th Percentile £363 £232 £293
25th Percentile £425 £325 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £407 £550
Median % change year-on-year +16.85% -26.09% +13.17%
75th Percentile £533 £488 £609
90th Percentile £588 £556 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £340 £583
% change year-on-year +43.38% -41.68% +19.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 10 4
10th Percentile - - £25.30
25th Percentile £18.50 £29.00 £31.38
Median hourly rate £51.50 £30.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +71.67% -20.00% +11.21%
75th Percentile £63.56 £40.19 £40.25
90th Percentile £68.75 £59.60 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.50 £30.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +71.67% -20.00% +12.88%

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 5,111 3,807 4,537
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.35% 11.56% 11.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,962 2,354 2,642
10th Percentile £232 £225 £225
25th Percentile £390 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £476 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.04% -4.80% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £677 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £452 £500
% change year-on-year +5.20% -9.70% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 419 198 255
10th Percentile £14.74 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £21.37
Median hourly rate £32.50 £43.00 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -24.42% -14.85% -10.60%
75th Percentile £68.75 £64.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.55 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.69 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -37.20% -25.89% -0.26%

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 17 September 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing WLAN over the 6 months to 17 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for WLAN in the UK

WLAN
Top 16 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 17 September 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 -87 87 £475 +18.68% 75
UK excluding London -80 66 £488 +43.38% 56
North of England -55 35 £500 +53.85% 13
Work from Home -37 22 £530 +81.52% 43
Yorkshire - 21 £463 - 4
London -94 16 £500 +19.40% 21
North West -38 14 £575 +76.92% 9
Midlands -43 13 £288 +43.75% 11
West Midlands -48 11 £452 - 6
South East -63 9 £378 +11.03% 14
East of England -26 8 £420 -3.45% 10
North East - 6 - - 1
East Midlands -6 2 £200 - 5
Scotland -24 2 £515 +174.67% 3
Northern Ireland +2 1 £550 +15.79%
South West -45 1 £400 -46.67% 6

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 3 (3.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 24 (25.81%) Azure
2 15 (16.13%) AWS
3 13 (13.98%) OCI
3 13 (13.98%) SaaS
4 11 (11.83%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (2.15%) GCP
6 1 (1.08%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (1.08%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 72 (77.42%) LAN
2 64 (68.82%) WAN
3 46 (49.46%) SD-WAN
4 45 (48.39%) Wireless
5 43 (46.24%) Firewall
6 36 (38.71%) BGP
6 36 (38.71%) Wi-Fi
7 35 (37.63%) OSPF
8 24 (25.81%) VLAN
9 20 (21.51%) Network Security
10 19 (20.43%) VPN
11 14 (15.05%) BIG-IP
11 14 (15.05%) Cisco ISE
11 14 (15.05%) DNS
11 14 (15.05%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 14 (15.05%) VXLAN
12 13 (13.98%) Cisco Nexus
12 13 (13.98%) DHCP
13 11 (11.83%) Cisco Wireless
13 11 (11.83%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.08%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 11 (11.83%) GitLab
2 2 (2.15%) JIRA
3 1 (1.08%) Git
3 1 (1.08%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 20 (21.51%) Public Sector
2 18 (19.35%) Social Skills
3 6 (6.45%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (5.38%) Police
5 4 (4.30%) Telecoms
6 3 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (2.15%) Manufacturing
8 1 (1.08%) Finance
8 1 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.08%) Legal
8 1 (1.08%) Military
8 1 (1.08%) Retail
Job Titles
1 49 (52.69%) Network Engineer
2 24 (25.81%) Senior
3 13 (13.98%) Senior Network Engineer
4 11 (11.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 10 (10.75%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 9 (9.68%) Architect
7 8 (8.60%) Cisco Engineer
7 8 (8.60%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 7 (7.53%) Network Architect
9 6 (6.45%) Wireless Engineer
10 5 (5.38%) IT Engineer
10 5 (5.38%) IT Support
10 5 (5.38%) IT Support Engineer
10 5 (5.38%) Support Engineer
11 4 (4.30%) Wireless Network Engineer
12 3 (3.23%) Delivery Manager
12 3 (3.23%) Lead
12 3 (3.23%) Network Implementation Engineer
12 3 (3.23%) Network Security Engineer
12 3 (3.23%) WAN Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (13.98%) 802.1X
1 13 (13.98%) Terraform
2 1 (1.08%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 29 (31.18%) Data Centre
2 14 (15.05%) Self-Motivation
3 12 (12.90%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (10.75%) Cloud Native
5 7 (7.53%) Operational Technology
6 6 (6.45%) Onboarding
6 6 (6.45%) PKI
7 2 (2.15%) CMDB
7 2 (2.15%) Driving Licence
7 2 (2.15%) SCADA
7 2 (2.15%) Video Conferencing
7 2 (2.15%) Virtual Team
8 1 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (1.08%) Life Science
8 1 (1.08%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 12 (12.90%) Windows
2 5 (5.38%) Linux
2 5 (5.38%) Windows Server
3 2 (2.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (1.08%) Solaris
4 1 (1.08%) Unix
4 1 (1.08%) Windows Server 2003
4 1 (1.08%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (25.81%) High Availability
2 17 (18.28%) Load Balancing
2 17 (18.28%) Network Architecture
3 16 (17.20%) Zero Trust
4 15 (16.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 14 (15.05%) Network Design
5 14 (15.05%) Network Management
6 13 (13.98%) Infrastructure as Code
7 12 (12.90%) CI/CD
7 12 (12.90%) DevOps
7 12 (12.90%) Problem-Solving
8 10 (10.75%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 9 (9.68%) ITIL
10 8 (8.60%) Validation
11 7 (7.53%) Collaborative Working
12 6 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
12 6 (6.45%) Migration
12 6 (6.45%) Network Segmentation
12 6 (6.45%) Project Delivery
12 6 (6.45%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 16 (17.20%) Python
2 1 (1.08%) C
Qualifications
1 34 (36.56%) Cisco Certification
2 30 (32.26%) CCNP
3 24 (25.81%) Security Cleared
4 17 (18.28%) SC Cleared
5 14 (15.05%) CCIE
6 7 (7.53%) CCNA
7 4 (4.30%) CWNA
8 3 (3.23%) CCIE Wireless
8 3 (3.23%) CWDP
8 3 (3.23%) CWNE
8 3 (3.23%) CWSP
9 2 (2.15%) DV Cleared
10 1 (1.08%) AWS Certification
10 1 (1.08%) Azure Certification
10 1 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (1.08%) CISSP
10 1 (1.08%) Degree
10 1 (1.08%) JNCIP
10 1 (1.08%) Master's Degree
10 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
1 1 (1.08%) Disclosure Scotland
1 1 (1.08%) PCI DSS
1 1 (1.08%) PMO
System Software
1 6 (6.45%) Active Directory
2 4 (4.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (2.15%) Virtual Servers
3 2 (2.15%) vSphere
4 1 (1.08%) Firmware
4 1 (1.08%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 17 (18.28%) Ansible
2 8 (8.60%) FortiGate
3 6 (6.45%) Nagios
4 2 (2.15%) Cisco Prime
4 2 (2.15%) vCenter Server
5 1 (1.08%) Backup Exec
5 1 (1.08%) Grafana
5 1 (1.08%) Nessus
5 1 (1.08%) Prometheus
5 1 (1.08%) SCCM
Vendors
1 56 (60.22%) Cisco
2 33 (35.48%) Aruba
3 25 (26.88%) Palo Alto
4 14 (15.05%) F5
5 13 (13.98%) Fortinet
5 13 (13.98%) Meraki
6 12 (12.90%) Arista
6 12 (12.90%) Juniper
7 9 (9.68%) CheckPoint
7 9 (9.68%) Ekahau
8 6 (6.45%) Microsoft
8 6 (6.45%) SolarWinds
8 6 (6.45%) VMware
9 5 (5.38%) ServiceNow
10 4 (4.30%) Extreme Networks
11 3 (3.23%) LogicMonitor
11 3 (3.23%) NetScout
12 2 (2.15%) SevOne
13 1 (1.08%) Rockwell
13 1 (1.08%) Tenable