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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 591 493 495
Rank change year-on-year -98 +2 +1
Contract jobs citing WLAN 92 55 75
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.17% 0.20%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.82% 1.45% 1.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 56 27 34
10th Percentile £363 £226 £293
25th Percentile £425 £325 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £413 £538
Median % change year-on-year +15.15% -23.26% +10.60%
75th Percentile £533 £488 £609
90th Percentile £588 £558 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £338 £583
% change year-on-year +44.44% -42.11% +19.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 10 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £18.50 £29.00 £23.92
Median hourly rate £19.00 £30.00 £31.19
Median % change year-on-year -36.67% -3.80% -7.52%
75th Percentile £54.75 £40.19 £40.25
90th Percentile £56.93 £59.60 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.00 £30.00 £31.19
% change year-on-year -36.67% -3.80% -6.13%

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 5,054 3,781 4,531
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.42% 11.70% 11.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,983 2,320 2,685
10th Percentile £235 £237 £231
25th Percentile £398 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £467 £500
% change year-on-year +2.73% -6.55% +10.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 376 199 279
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.10 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £21.31
Median hourly rate £26.00 £43.50 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.23% -13.86% -9.67%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.75 £73.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.84 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -39.20% -25.89% +1.52%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -72 86 £475 +18.60% 38
UK excluding London -61 66 £488 +44.44% 24
North of England -51 35 £500 +53.85% 5
Work from Home -41 22 £530 +81.52% 17
Yorkshire - 21 £463 - 2
Midlands -40 15 £288 +43.75% 5
London -92 15 £500 +19.40% 17
North West -43 14 £575 +76.92% 3
West Midlands -40 13 £452 - 1
South East -64 8 £378 - 6
East of England -16 7 £420 -3.45% 6
North East - 6 - -
East Midlands -20 2 £200 - 4
Scotland -22 2 £515 +174.67%
Northern Ireland +3 1 £550 +15.79%
South West -47 1 £400 -46.67%

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 (3.26%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 24 (26.09%) Azure
2 15 (16.30%) AWS
3 13 (14.13%) OCI
3 13 (14.13%) SaaS
4 11 (11.96%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (2.17%) GCP
6 1 (1.09%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (1.09%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 71 (77.17%) LAN
2 65 (70.65%) WAN
3 47 (51.09%) SD-WAN
3 47 (51.09%) Wireless
4 41 (44.57%) Firewall
5 38 (41.30%) Wi-Fi
6 36 (39.13%) BGP
7 35 (38.04%) OSPF
8 25 (27.17%) VLAN
9 19 (20.65%) VPN
10 18 (19.57%) Network Security
11 16 (17.39%) Cisco ISE
12 14 (15.22%) BIG-IP
12 14 (15.22%) DNS
12 14 (15.22%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 14 (15.22%) VXLAN
13 13 (14.13%) Cisco Nexus
13 13 (14.13%) DHCP
14 11 (11.96%) Cisco Wireless
14 11 (11.96%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.09%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 11 (11.96%) GitLab
2 2 (2.17%) JIRA
3 1 (1.09%) Git
3 1 (1.09%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 20 (21.74%) Public Sector
2 18 (19.57%) Social Skills
3 6 (6.52%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (5.43%) Police
5 4 (4.35%) Telecoms
6 3 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (2.17%) Manufacturing
8 1 (1.09%) Finance
8 1 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.09%) Legal
8 1 (1.09%) Military
8 1 (1.09%) Retail
Job Titles
1 48 (52.17%) Network Engineer
2 25 (27.17%) Senior
3 14 (15.22%) Senior Network Engineer
4 11 (11.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 10 (10.87%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 9 (9.78%) Architect
7 8 (8.70%) Cisco Engineer
7 8 (8.70%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 7 (7.61%) Network Architect
9 6 (6.52%) Wireless Engineer
10 5 (5.43%) IT Engineer
10 5 (5.43%) IT Support
10 5 (5.43%) IT Support Engineer
10 5 (5.43%) Support Engineer
11 4 (4.35%) Wireless Network Engineer
12 3 (3.26%) Delivery Manager
12 3 (3.26%) Network Implementation Engineer
12 3 (3.26%) Network Security Engineer
12 3 (3.26%) Security Engineer
12 3 (3.26%) WAN Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (14.13%) 802.1X
1 13 (14.13%) Terraform
2 1 (1.09%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 29 (31.52%) Data Centre
2 12 (13.04%) Hybrid Cloud
2 12 (13.04%) Self-Motivation
3 10 (10.87%) Cloud Native
4 6 (6.52%) Onboarding
4 6 (6.52%) PKI
5 5 (5.43%) Operational Technology
6 2 (2.17%) CMDB
6 2 (2.17%) Driving Licence
6 2 (2.17%) SCADA
6 2 (2.17%) Virtual Team
7 1 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.09%) Life Science
7 1 (1.09%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 10 (10.87%) Windows
2 3 (3.26%) Linux
2 3 (3.26%) Windows Server
3 1 (1.09%) Solaris
3 1 (1.09%) Unix
3 1 (1.09%) Windows Server 2003
3 1 (1.09%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (26.09%) High Availability
2 17 (18.48%) Network Architecture
3 16 (17.39%) Zero Trust
4 15 (16.30%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 15 (16.30%) Load Balancing
5 14 (15.22%) Network Design
5 14 (15.22%) Network Management
6 13 (14.13%) Infrastructure as Code
7 12 (13.04%) CI/CD
7 12 (13.04%) Problem-Solving
8 10 (10.87%) DevOps
8 10 (10.87%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 9 (9.78%) ITIL
10 8 (8.70%) Validation
11 7 (7.61%) Collaborative Working
11 7 (7.61%) Network Segmentation
12 6 (6.52%) Analytics
12 6 (6.52%) Continuous Improvement
12 6 (6.52%) Runbook
12 6 (6.52%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 16 (17.39%) Python
2 1 (1.09%) C
Qualifications
1 34 (36.96%) Cisco Certification
2 30 (32.61%) CCNP
3 22 (23.91%) Security Cleared
4 17 (18.48%) SC Cleared
5 16 (17.39%) CCIE
6 5 (5.43%) CCNA
7 4 (4.35%) CWNA
8 3 (3.26%) CCIE Wireless
8 3 (3.26%) CWDP
8 3 (3.26%) CWNE
8 3 (3.26%) CWSP
9 1 (1.09%) AWS Certification
9 1 (1.09%) Azure Certification
9 1 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (1.09%) CISSP
9 1 (1.09%) Degree
9 1 (1.09%) JNCIP
9 1 (1.09%) Master's Degree
9 1 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
1 1 (1.09%) Disclosure Scotland
1 1 (1.09%) PCI DSS
1 1 (1.09%) PMO
System Software
1 4 (4.35%) Active Directory
2 2 (2.17%) Virtual Servers
2 2 (2.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.09%) Firmware
3 1 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 17 (18.48%) Ansible
2 8 (8.70%) FortiGate
3 4 (4.35%) Nagios
4 2 (2.17%) Cisco Prime
4 2 (2.17%) vCenter Server
5 1 (1.09%) Backup Exec
5 1 (1.09%) Grafana
5 1 (1.09%) Nessus
5 1 (1.09%) Prometheus
5 1 (1.09%) SCCM
Vendors
1 56 (60.87%) Cisco
2 35 (38.04%) Aruba
3 25 (27.17%) Palo Alto
4 14 (15.22%) F5
5 13 (14.13%) Fortinet
5 13 (14.13%) Juniper
5 13 (14.13%) Meraki
6 12 (13.04%) Arista
7 11 (11.96%) Ekahau
8 9 (9.78%) CheckPoint
9 6 (6.52%) Microsoft
10 5 (5.43%) ServiceNow
11 4 (4.35%) Extreme Networks
11 4 (4.35%) SolarWinds
11 4 (4.35%) VMware
12 3 (3.26%) LogicMonitor
12 3 (3.26%) NetScout
13 2 (2.17%) SevOne
14 1 (1.09%) Infoblox
14 1 (1.09%) Veeam