VPN Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Virtual Private Network (VPN)
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring VPN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 27 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 71 39
Rank change year-on-year -13 -32 +14
Contract jobs citing VPN 84 32 80
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 2.52% 2.18% 3.93%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 27.18% 18.08% 22.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 18 48
10th Percentile £150 £145 £197
25th Percentile £213 £161 £339
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £288 £275 £375
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -26.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £450 £394 £600
90th Percentile £474 £518 £775
England median daily rate £500 £475 £438
% change year-on-year +5.26% +8.57% -7.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £31.32 £70.97
Median hourly rate - £36.65 £71.93
Median % change year-on-year - -49.05% +379.53%
75th Percentile - £41.97 £72.90
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £16.00 £37.50 £16.93
% change year-on-year -57.33% +121.50% -23.05%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
West Midlands

VPN 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 309 177 361
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 9.27% 12.08% 17.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 178 96 219
10th Percentile £203 £225 £210
25th Percentile £302 £300 £303
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £400
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +18.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £538 £589 £584
90th Percentile £604 £713 £688
England median daily rate £500 £494 £500
% change year-on-year +1.21% -1.20% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 15 18
10th Percentile £18.67 £18.76 £10.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £27.00 £13.50
Median hourly rate £58.00 £30.00 £16.98
Median % change year-on-year +93.33% +76.73% -24.25%
75th Percentile £70.00 £39.74 £23.75
90th Percentile £70.30 £43.70 £28.75
England median hourly rate £28.88 £40.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year -27.80% -12.82% +121.59%

VPN
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

VPN job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

VPN
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing VPN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing VPN

VPN
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing VPN in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 27 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for VPN in the West Midlands

VPN
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing VPN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing VPN

VPN
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 VPN within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 27 June 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
Birmingham +8 49 £288 -17.86% 6
Coventry -10 14 £275 -33.85% 1
Warwickshire -11 11 £378 +71.59% 3
Worcestershire -4 3 £175 +20.69% 10
Shropshire -49 3 £119 -
Solihull -18 2 £270 +22.73% 4
VPN
England

VPN
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 8 (9.52%) SharePoint
2 3 (3.57%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (1.19%) Confluence
Applications
1 11 (13.10%) Microsoft Excel
1 11 (13.10%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (4.76%) MS Visio
3 3 (3.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 26 (30.95%) Microsoft 365
2 25 (29.76%) Azure
3 19 (22.62%) Entra ID
4 14 (16.67%) OneDrive
5 7 (8.33%) AWS
6 5 (5.95%) Azure Sentinel
6 5 (5.95%) Power Platform
7 3 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (3.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (2.38%) Microsoft Copilot
9 1 (1.19%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 1 (1.19%) Amazon Macie
9 1 (1.19%) AWS CloudTrail
9 1 (1.19%) AWS Direct Connect
9 1 (1.19%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 1 (1.19%) CloudFront
9 1 (1.19%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (1.19%) Microsoft Purview
9 1 (1.19%) Route 53
9 1 (1.19%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 53 (63.10%) DNS
2 39 (46.43%) BGP
3 34 (40.48%) DMZ
4 33 (39.29%) Multicast
5 24 (28.57%) Firewall
6 20 (23.81%) WAN
7 14 (16.67%) LAN
8 13 (15.48%) DHCP
9 11 (13.10%) SSL
10 10 (11.90%) IPsec
10 10 (11.90%) Network Security
11 8 (9.52%) Wireless
12 7 (8.33%) MPLS
12 7 (8.33%) Wi-Fi
13 6 (7.14%) Cisco IOS
13 6 (7.14%) TCP/IP
13 6 (7.14%) Wireshark
14 5 (5.95%) Cisco ASA
14 5 (5.95%) Cisco Nexus
14 5 (5.95%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.19%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 8 (9.52%) JIRA
2 3 (3.57%) Chocolatey
3 2 (2.38%) Browser DevTools
4 1 (1.19%) AppScan
4 1 (1.19%) Burp Suite
4 1 (1.19%) GitLab
4 1 (1.19%) Metasploit
4 1 (1.19%) MSI
General
1 25 (29.76%) Social Skills
2 17 (20.24%) Banking
2 17 (20.24%) Investment Banking
3 8 (9.52%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (4.76%) Documentation Skills
4 4 (4.76%) Public Sector
4 4 (4.76%) Telecoms
5 3 (3.57%) Finance
6 1 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.19%) Legal
Job Titles
1 49 (58.33%) Network Engineer
2 37 (44.05%) Security Engineer
3 36 (42.86%) Network Security Engineer
4 33 (39.29%) Cisco Engineer
4 33 (39.29%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 33 (39.29%) Cisco Security Engineer
4 33 (39.29%) Data Engineer
4 33 (39.29%) Data Network Engineer
5 16 (19.05%) Web Engineer
6 9 (10.71%) Support Technician
7 8 (9.52%) IT Support
8 7 (8.33%) Support Engineer
9 6 (7.14%) Analyst
9 6 (7.14%) Help Desk Support
9 6 (7.14%) Help Desk Support Technician
9 6 (7.14%) Help Desk Technician
10 5 (5.95%) Test Engineer
11 4 (4.76%) Architect
11 4 (4.76%) Desktop Engineer
11 4 (4.76%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (8.33%) SAML
2 5 (5.95%) LDAP
3 3 (3.57%) 802.1X
4 2 (2.38%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 13 (15.48%) Onboarding
2 7 (8.33%) Enterprise Software
3 6 (7.14%) Smartphone
4 5 (5.95%) Data Centre
5 3 (3.57%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (2.38%) Fibre Optics
6 2 (2.38%) Operational Technology
6 2 (2.38%) PKI
7 1 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (1.19%) Public Cloud
7 1 (1.19%) Replication
7 1 (1.19%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 31 (36.90%) Windows
2 12 (14.29%) Windows 10
3 6 (7.14%) Android
3 6 (7.14%) Windows Server
4 5 (5.95%) Linux
4 5 (5.95%) Mac OS
5 1 (1.19%) CatOS
5 1 (1.19%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (44.05%) Load Balancing
2 16 (19.05%) Customer Service
3 15 (17.86%) ITSM
4 8 (9.52%) Problem-Solving
5 7 (8.33%) Asset Management
5 7 (8.33%) Cybersecurity
6 6 (7.14%) Customer Experience
6 6 (7.14%) ITIL
6 6 (7.14%) Problem Management
7 5 (5.95%) Change Management
7 5 (5.95%) Cloud Security
7 5 (5.95%) High Availability
7 5 (5.95%) Zero Trust
8 4 (4.76%) DevOps
8 4 (4.76%) Network Optimisation
8 4 (4.76%) Network Segmentation
8 4 (4.76%) Performance Metrics
9 3 (3.57%) Collaborative Working
9 3 (3.57%) Scenario Testing
9 3 (3.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 2 (2.38%) PowerShell
1 2 (2.38%) Python
1 2 (2.38%) SQL
2 1 (1.19%) Bicep
2 1 (1.19%) Java
2 1 (1.19%) Kotlin
2 1 (1.19%) Lisp
2 1 (1.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 11 (13.10%) Security Cleared
2 9 (10.71%) SC Cleared
3 7 (8.33%) Cisco Certification
4 5 (5.95%) CCNA
5 3 (3.57%) CCNP
6 2 (2.38%) Azure Certification
6 2 (2.38%) ISTQB
7 1 (1.19%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (1.19%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.19%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.19%) CCSP
7 1 (1.19%) CISSP
7 1 (1.19%) Degree
7 1 (1.19%) JNCIP
7 1 (1.19%) MCSE
7 1 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (11.90%) SLA
2 2 (2.38%) NCSC
2 2 (2.38%) NIST
2 2 (2.38%) PCI DSS
3 1 (1.19%) COBIT
3 1 (1.19%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.19%) GDPR
3 1 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 32 (38.10%) Active Directory
2 6 (7.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (5.95%) VMware NSX
4 2 (2.38%) Hyper-V
4 2 (2.38%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (1.19%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 19 (22.62%) Microsoft Intune
2 9 (10.71%) SCCM
3 8 (9.52%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (3.57%) Ansible
4 3 (3.57%) Terraform
5 1 (1.19%) CASB
5 1 (1.19%) FortiGate
5 1 (1.19%) Nessus
5 1 (1.19%) Packer
5 1 (1.19%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 55 (65.48%) Cisco
2 41 (48.81%) F5
3 30 (35.71%) Microsoft
4 9 (10.71%) ServiceNow
5 8 (9.52%) CheckPoint
6 7 (8.33%) VMware
7 6 (7.14%) Canon
7 6 (7.14%) Palo Alto
8 5 (5.95%) Juniper
9 4 (4.76%) SolarWinds
10 3 (3.57%) Apple
10 3 (3.57%) Citrix
10 3 (3.57%) Zscaler
11 2 (2.38%) Blue Coat
11 2 (2.38%) Fortinet
12 1 (1.19%) Aruba
12 1 (1.19%) Motorola
12 1 (1.19%) NetApp
12 1 (1.19%) Remedy
12 1 (1.19%) Veeam