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 26 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 67 92 50
Rank change year-on-year +25 -42 +75
Contract jobs citing VPN 72 25 70
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 3.35% 1.33% 3.69%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 20.63% 9.77% 16.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 60 15 40
10th Percentile £153 £191 £190
25th Percentile £263 £210 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £380 £325 £388
Median % change year-on-year +16.92% -16.13% -8.82%
75th Percentile £441 £424 £541
90th Percentile £539 £510 £728
England median daily rate £450 £458 £450
% change year-on-year -1.80% +1.83% +0.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 0
Median hourly rate - £35.00 -
England median hourly rate £25.47 £35.00 £21.50
% change year-on-year -27.23% +62.79% -2.27%

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 349 256 417
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 16.25% 13.62% 21.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 214 143 225
10th Percentile £213 £201 £200
25th Percentile £300 £306 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £401 £500 £400
Median % change year-on-year -19.80% +25.00% -10.11%
75th Percentile £525 £594 £550
90th Percentile £584 £675 £683
England median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 9 20
10th Percentile £19.05 £12.18 £22.83
25th Percentile £27.75 £15.22 £23.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% +18.18% +13.40%
75th Percentile £35.63 £35.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £42.68 £40.00 £67.63
England median hourly rate £31.39 £48.56 £56.49
% change year-on-year -35.37% -14.04% +26.38%

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 26 November 2025.

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 26 November 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 +26 40 £400 -12.57% 9
Warwickshire +9 18 £380 +43.40% 3
Staffordshire +4 3 £450 -10.00% 4
Coventry -15 3 £525 +225.58% 2
Shropshire -36 3 £400 +90.48% 1
Solihull +3 2 £363 +17.89% 2
Worcestershire -14 1 £538 - 5
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:

Applications
1 4 (5.56%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 15 (20.83%) AWS
2 11 (15.28%) Azure
3 8 (11.11%) Microsoft 365
3 8 (11.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 5 (6.94%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 5 (6.94%) GCP
5 4 (5.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 4 (5.56%) Amazon EC2
5 4 (5.56%) Amazon ELB
5 4 (5.56%) Amazon S3
6 2 (2.78%) AWS Direct Connect
7 1 (1.39%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.39%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.39%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.39%) Entra ID
7 1 (1.39%) OneDrive
7 1 (1.39%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 39 (54.17%) WAN
2 33 (45.83%) IPsec
3 32 (44.44%) Firewall
4 31 (43.06%) DNS
5 30 (41.67%) BGP
6 28 (38.89%) MPLS
7 19 (26.39%) Network Security
8 15 (20.83%) TCP/IP
9 14 (19.44%) DHCP
9 14 (19.44%) Wireless
10 13 (18.06%) SSL
11 9 (12.50%) Cisco IPT
11 9 (12.50%) DMVPN
12 8 (11.11%) LAN
13 7 (9.72%) SD-WAN
14 6 (8.33%) Junos
14 6 (8.33%) OSPF
14 6 (8.33%) VLAN
15 5 (6.94%) WLAN
16 4 (5.56%) IPv4
Development Applications
1 5 (6.94%) Git
2 4 (5.56%) Jenkins
3 3 (4.17%) GitLab
3 3 (4.17%) JIRA
General
1 20 (27.78%) Social Skills
2 14 (19.44%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (16.67%) Public Sector
4 7 (9.72%) Telecoms
5 5 (6.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 5 (6.94%) Legal
6 3 (4.17%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.39%) Military
7 1 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 19 (26.39%) Support Engineer
2 17 (23.61%) Network Engineer
3 14 (19.44%) 3rd Line Engineer
4 13 (18.06%) 3rd Line Support
4 13 (18.06%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
5 11 (15.28%) WAN Engineer
6 10 (13.89%) 2nd Line Engineer
6 10 (13.89%) Analyst
6 10 (13.89%) Support Analyst
7 9 (12.50%) 2nd Line Support
8 7 (9.72%) 1st Line Support
8 7 (9.72%) Architect
8 7 (9.72%) Network Architect
9 6 (8.33%) IT Analyst
9 6 (8.33%) IT Support
9 6 (8.33%) IT Support Analyst
9 6 (8.33%) Security Engineer
10 5 (6.94%) 1st Line Support Analyst
10 5 (6.94%) 1st/2nd Line Support
10 5 (6.94%) 1st/2nd Line Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (12.50%) 802.1X
2 1 (1.39%) Azure Blueprints
Miscellaneous
1 24 (33.33%) PKI
2 17 (23.61%) Data Centre
3 9 (12.50%) Self-Motivation
4 5 (6.94%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 3 (4.17%) Security Posture
6 2 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (2.78%) NHS
6 2 (2.78%) Onboarding
6 2 (2.78%) Operational Technology
6 2 (2.78%) SCADA
7 1 (1.39%) Driving Licence
7 1 (1.39%) Educational Technology
Operating Systems
1 16 (22.22%) Windows
2 7 (9.72%) Windows 10
3 6 (8.33%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.78%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (30.56%) Load Balancing
2 19 (26.39%) Problem-Solving
3 18 (25.00%) Network Design
4 16 (22.22%) Change Management
5 13 (18.06%) ITIL
6 11 (15.28%) Customer Service
7 10 (13.89%) Inventory Management
8 8 (11.11%) Mentoring
9 7 (9.72%) High Availability
9 7 (9.72%) Incident Response
9 7 (9.72%) Knowledge Transfer
10 6 (8.33%) Mobile Device Management
10 6 (8.33%) Network Architecture
10 6 (8.33%) Project Delivery
10 6 (8.33%) Zero Trust
11 5 (6.94%) CRM
11 5 (6.94%) DevOps
11 5 (6.94%) Disk Encryption
11 5 (6.94%) Performance Monitoring
11 5 (6.94%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 8 (11.11%) Python
2 7 (9.72%) Bash
3 4 (5.56%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 43 (59.72%) Security Cleared
2 37 (51.39%) SC Cleared
3 9 (12.50%) CCNP
3 9 (12.50%) Cisco Certification
4 7 (9.72%) Microsoft Certification
5 6 (8.33%) CCIE
5 6 (8.33%) MCP
6 5 (6.94%) CISSP
6 5 (6.94%) Degree
6 5 (6.94%) MCDST
7 4 (5.56%) Azure Certification
8 3 (4.17%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 3 (4.17%) AWS Certification
8 3 (4.17%) CCIE Security
8 3 (4.17%) CCNA
8 3 (4.17%) CCSP
9 2 (2.78%) JNCIE
9 2 (2.78%) JNCIP
10 1 (1.39%) CCSA
10 1 (1.39%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (6.94%) GDPR
1 5 (6.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (5.56%) NIST
2 4 (5.56%) PCI DSS
3 1 (1.39%) NCSC
3 1 (1.39%) SLA
System Software
1 12 (16.67%) Active Directory
2 7 (9.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (5.56%) Docker
3 4 (5.56%) VMware NSX
4 3 (4.17%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 10 (13.89%) Terraform
2 9 (12.50%) Ansible
3 8 (11.11%) SCCM
4 3 (4.17%) FortiGate
4 3 (4.17%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 37 (51.39%) Juniper
2 32 (44.44%) Cisco
3 17 (23.61%) F5
4 16 (22.22%) CheckPoint
5 15 (20.83%) Microsoft
6 12 (16.67%) Palo Alto
7 9 (12.50%) Blue Coat
8 7 (9.72%) Fortinet
8 7 (9.72%) VMware
9 5 (6.94%) iManage
9 5 (6.94%) Meraki
9 5 (6.94%) Mitel
9 5 (6.94%) ServiceNow
9 5 (6.94%) SolarWinds
10 4 (5.56%) Netskope
11 2 (2.78%) Forcepoint
12 1 (1.39%) Apple
12 1 (1.39%) Infoblox