SD-WAN Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN)
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring SD-WAN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 8 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 98 81 90
Rank change year-on-year -17 +9 +77
Contract jobs citing SD-WAN 26 33 34
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 1.39% 1.74% 1.67%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.58% 12.55% 8.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 22 6
10th Percentile £431 £165 £248
25th Percentile £472 £413 £277
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £602 £298
Median % change year-on-year -8.56% +102.18% -31.61%
75th Percentile £600 £662 £381
90th Percentile £625 £675 £538
England median daily rate £500 £550 £530
% change year-on-year -9.09% +3.77% +11.58%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
West Midlands

SD-WAN 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 in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 303 263 416
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 16.23% 13.88% 20.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 174 151 213
10th Percentile £239 £170 £201
25th Percentile £325 £300 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £475 £425
Median % change year-on-year -6.32% +11.76% -
75th Percentile £550 £619 £575
90th Percentile £638 £675 £723
England median daily rate £485 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.00% - -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 4 20
10th Percentile £17.15 £25.38 £22.95
25th Percentile £24.00 £31.56 £23.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £28.75
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +21.74% +43.75%
75th Percentile £37.50 £41.25 £67.50
90th Percentile £47.40 £52.50 £67.63
England median hourly rate £35.00 £57.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -39.13% +1.79% +37.68%

SD-WAN
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SD-WAN relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

SD-WAN job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

SD-WAN
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SD-WAN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SD-WAN

SD-WAN
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SD-WAN in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 8 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SD-WAN in the West Midlands

SD-WAN
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SD-WAN within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 8 October 2025. 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
Birmingham 0 9 £550 +29.41% 5
Warwickshire -8 9 £600 -7.69%
Coventry - 5 £505 -
Solihull -3 2 - - 1
Staffordshire 0 1 £450 -
SD-WAN
England

SD-WAN
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 1 (3.85%) Confluence
1 1 (3.85%) IIS
1 1 (3.85%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 3 (11.54%) Azure
2 1 (3.85%) AWS
2 1 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (3.85%) Microsoft 365
2 1 (3.85%) n8n
2 1 (3.85%) Power Automate
2 1 (3.85%) Zapier
Communications & Networking
1 23 (88.46%) WAN
2 17 (65.38%) Firewall
3 11 (42.31%) LAN
3 11 (42.31%) Wireless
4 9 (34.62%) Network Security
5 6 (23.08%) DHCP
5 6 (23.08%) DNS
6 5 (19.23%) VPN
6 5 (19.23%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (15.38%) Wireshark
8 3 (11.54%) MPLS
8 3 (11.54%) NGFW
8 3 (11.54%) TCP/IP
8 3 (11.54%) VoIP
9 2 (7.69%) BGP
9 2 (7.69%) Cisco Nexus
9 2 (7.69%) Internet
9 2 (7.69%) OSPF
9 2 (7.69%) Unified Communications
9 2 (7.69%) Wireless Security
Development Applications
1 1 (3.85%) JIRA
General
1 5 (19.23%) Social Skills
2 3 (11.54%) Legal
2 3 (11.54%) Public Sector
3 1 (3.85%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (3.85%) Automotive
3 1 (3.85%) Finance
3 1 (3.85%) Fire and Rescue
3 1 (3.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 1 (3.85%) Manufacturing
3 1 (3.85%) Police
3 1 (3.85%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 10 (38.46%) Architect
1 10 (38.46%) Network Architect
2 4 (15.38%) Consultant
2 4 (15.38%) Network Consultant
2 4 (15.38%) Network Engineer
3 3 (11.54%) Senior
4 2 (7.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (7.69%) Infrastructure Specialist
4 2 (7.69%) IT Manager
4 2 (7.69%) IT Project Manager
4 2 (7.69%) Lead
4 2 (7.69%) Network Infrastructure Specialist
4 2 (7.69%) Network Manager
4 2 (7.69%) Network Project Manager
4 2 (7.69%) Network Specialist
4 2 (7.69%) Project Manager
4 2 (7.69%) Senior Consultant
4 2 (7.69%) Senior Network Consultant
4 2 (7.69%) Senior Technical Consultant
4 2 (7.69%) Technical Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (3.85%) 802.1X
1 1 (3.85%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 6 (23.08%) Data Centre
2 5 (19.23%) Operational Technology
3 4 (15.38%) Hybrid Cloud
3 4 (15.38%) Legacy Systems
4 3 (11.54%) Onboarding
5 1 (3.85%) Driving Licence
5 1 (3.85%) Industrial Internet of Things
5 1 (3.85%) IoT
5 1 (3.85%) Management Information System
5 1 (3.85%) NB-IoT
5 1 (3.85%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 1 (3.85%) Windows
1 1 (3.85%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 8 (30.77%) Network Design
2 7 (26.92%) Migration
3 6 (23.08%) High Availability
3 6 (23.08%) Network Architecture
4 5 (19.23%) ITIL
5 4 (15.38%) Data Protection
5 4 (15.38%) Roadmaps
5 4 (15.38%) Service Management
5 4 (15.38%) Zero Trust
6 3 (11.54%) Capacity Planning
6 3 (11.54%) Cybersecurity
6 3 (11.54%) Knowledge Transfer
6 3 (11.54%) Mentoring
6 3 (11.54%) Problem Management
6 3 (11.54%) Problem-Solving
6 3 (11.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 2 (7.69%) Disaster Recovery
7 2 (7.69%) Incident Management
7 2 (7.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 2 (7.69%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1 (3.85%) Bicep
1 1 (3.85%) PowerShell
1 1 (3.85%) Python
Qualifications
1 10 (38.46%) Cisco Certification
2 8 (30.77%) CCIE
2 8 (30.77%) CCNP
3 4 (15.38%) CCIE Routing and Switching
4 3 (11.54%) Security Cleared
5 2 (7.69%) ITIL Certification
5 2 (7.69%) SC Cleared
6 1 (3.85%) Azure Certification
6 1 (3.85%) CCIE Wireless
6 1 (3.85%) CCNA
6 1 (3.85%) CCSA
6 1 (3.85%) Citrix Certification
6 1 (3.85%) CWSP
6 1 (3.85%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (11.54%) SLA
2 1 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (3.85%) NCSC
Systems Management
1 4 (15.38%) OpenView
2 2 (7.69%) Cisco CUCM
3 1 (3.85%) Ansible
3 1 (3.85%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 12 (46.15%) Cisco
2 10 (38.46%) Fortinet
3 6 (23.08%) F5
4 3 (11.54%) Meraki
4 3 (11.54%) Palo Alto
4 3 (11.54%) SolarWinds
5 2 (7.69%) Aruba
5 2 (7.69%) Juniper
6 1 (3.85%) BT
6 1 (3.85%) CenturyLink
6 1 (3.85%) CheckPoint
6 1 (3.85%) Microsoft
6 1 (3.85%) Proofpoint
6 1 (3.85%) Zscaler