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 14 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 63 82 54
Rank change year-on-year +19 -28 +80
Contract jobs citing VPN 65 28 73
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 3.45% 1.50% 3.62%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.24% 10.81% 16.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 14 39
10th Percentile £128 £124 £192
25th Percentile £263 £198 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £380 £345 £400
Median % change year-on-year +10.14% -13.75% +6.67%
75th Percentile £400 £425 £547
90th Percentile £475 £484 £735
England median daily rate £450 £488 £460
% change year-on-year -7.69% +5.98% -2.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 0
Median hourly rate - £35.00 -
England median hourly rate £58.50 £23.80 £21.00
% change year-on-year +145.80% +13.33% -4.55%

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 306 259 431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 16.25% 13.87% 21.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 176 152 221
10th Percentile £240 £170 £200
25th Percentile £319 £300 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £433 £488 £400
Median % change year-on-year -11.28% +21.88% -8.57%
75th Percentile £538 £603 £550
90th Percentile £619 £675 £713
England median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.45% - -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 4 20
10th Percentile £18.50 £25.38 £22.95
25th Percentile £24.75 £31.56 £23.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £28.75
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +21.74% +57.53%
75th Percentile £38.94 £41.25 £67.50
90th Percentile £48.25 £52.50 £67.63
England median hourly rate £34.00 £57.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -40.87% +1.79% +35.31%

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 14 October 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 14 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 +29 37 £400 -5.88% 10
Warwickshire +11 17 £380 +43.40% 1
Solihull -6 5 £300 -9.77% 1
Coventry -9 3 £226 +25.42%
Staffordshire +7 2 £325 -31.58% 6
Shropshire -23 1 £109 -6.84% 3
Worcestershire - 1 £538 - 6
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 2 (3.08%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 11 (16.92%) Microsoft 365
2 7 (10.77%) AWS
3 4 (6.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 4 (6.15%) Amazon EC2
3 4 (6.15%) Amazon ELB
3 4 (6.15%) Amazon S3
3 4 (6.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 3 (4.62%) Azure
5 2 (3.08%) GCP
6 1 (1.54%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (1.54%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (1.54%) Azure Monitor
6 1 (1.54%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (1.54%) Entra ID
6 1 (1.54%) OneDrive
6 1 (1.54%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 35 (53.85%) IPsec
2 32 (49.23%) WAN
3 28 (43.08%) BGP
3 28 (43.08%) Firewall
4 27 (41.54%) DNS
5 22 (33.85%) MPLS
6 20 (30.77%) Network Security
7 19 (29.23%) TCP/IP
8 17 (26.15%) SSL
9 13 (20.00%) Wireless
10 12 (18.46%) DHCP
11 9 (13.85%) Cisco IPT
11 9 (13.85%) DMVPN
12 6 (9.23%) Junos
12 6 (9.23%) OSPF
13 5 (7.69%) VLAN
14 4 (6.15%) SD-WAN
15 3 (4.62%) Wi-Fi
16 2 (3.08%) Ethereal
16 2 (3.08%) LAN
Development Applications
1 5 (7.69%) Git
2 4 (6.15%) Jenkins
3 3 (4.62%) GitLab
4 1 (1.54%) JIRA
General
1 16 (24.62%) Social Skills
2 14 (21.54%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (18.46%) Public Sector
4 11 (16.92%) Telecoms
5 7 (10.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (3.08%) Finance
7 1 (1.54%) Automotive
7 1 (1.54%) Legal
7 1 (1.54%) Manufacturing
7 1 (1.54%) Military
7 1 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 19 (29.23%) Support Engineer
2 16 (24.62%) Network Engineer
3 13 (20.00%) 3rd Line Engineer
4 12 (18.46%) 3rd Line Support
4 12 (18.46%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
5 10 (15.38%) 2nd Line Support
5 10 (15.38%) Analyst
6 9 (13.85%) 2nd Line Engineer
6 9 (13.85%) Support Analyst
6 9 (13.85%) WAN Engineer
7 6 (9.23%) 1st/2nd Line Support
7 6 (9.23%) Network Support
7 6 (9.23%) Network Support Engineer
7 6 (9.23%) Security Engineer
8 5 (7.69%) 1st/2nd Line Support Analyst
8 5 (7.69%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
8 5 (7.69%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
8 5 (7.69%) IT Analyst
8 5 (7.69%) IT Support
8 5 (7.69%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (13.85%) 802.1X
2 1 (1.54%) Azure Blueprints
Miscellaneous
1 22 (33.85%) PKI
2 13 (20.00%) Data Centre
3 9 (13.85%) Self-Motivation
4 5 (7.69%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 4 (6.15%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (3.08%) Onboarding
6 2 (3.08%) Operational Technology
6 2 (3.08%) Product Ownership
6 2 (3.08%) SCADA
7 1 (1.54%) Driving Licence
7 1 (1.54%) Educational Technology
7 1 (1.54%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 12 (18.46%) Windows
2 8 (12.31%) Windows 10
3 4 (6.15%) Check Point GAiA
4 2 (3.08%) Mac OS
5 1 (1.54%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (30.77%) Problem-Solving
2 17 (26.15%) Load Balancing
3 16 (24.62%) Change Management
4 14 (21.54%) ITIL
5 12 (18.46%) Network Design
6 10 (15.38%) Customer Service
6 10 (15.38%) Inventory Management
7 9 (13.85%) High Availability
8 8 (12.31%) Problem Management
9 7 (10.77%) DevOps
10 6 (9.23%) CI/CD
10 6 (9.23%) Infrastructure as Code
10 6 (9.23%) Mobile Device Management
11 5 (7.69%) CRM
11 5 (7.69%) Disk Encryption
11 5 (7.69%) Knowledge Transfer
11 5 (7.69%) Mentoring
11 5 (7.69%) Service Delivery
12 4 (6.15%) Root Cause Analysis
12 4 (6.15%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 5 (7.69%) Bash
1 5 (7.69%) Python
2 2 (3.08%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 38 (58.46%) Security Cleared
2 33 (50.77%) SC Cleared
3 8 (12.31%) Cisco Certification
3 8 (12.31%) Microsoft Certification
4 7 (10.77%) CCNP
4 7 (10.77%) MCP
5 5 (7.69%) MCDST
6 4 (6.15%) CCIE
6 4 (6.15%) CCNA
6 4 (6.15%) CCSE
7 2 (3.08%) CISSP
7 2 (3.08%) Degree
7 2 (3.08%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (1.54%) A+ Certification
8 1 (1.54%) Azure Certification
8 1 (1.54%) CCSA
8 1 (1.54%) DV Cleared
8 1 (1.54%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 1 (1.54%) MCSA
8 1 (1.54%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (4.62%) SLA
2 1 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.54%) NCSC
System Software
1 11 (16.92%) Active Directory
2 6 (9.23%) Docker
3 1 (1.54%) Hyper-V
3 1 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 8 (12.31%) SCCM
2 6 (9.23%) FortiGate
3 5 (7.69%) Terraform
4 4 (6.15%) Ansible
5 2 (3.08%) Kubernetes
5 2 (3.08%) OpenView
Vendors
1 32 (49.23%) Juniper
2 30 (46.15%) Cisco
3 20 (30.77%) CheckPoint
4 15 (23.08%) F5
5 14 (21.54%) Microsoft
6 9 (13.85%) Blue Coat
7 8 (12.31%) Fortinet
8 7 (10.77%) Palo Alto
9 5 (7.69%) iManage
9 5 (7.69%) Mitel
10 4 (6.15%) Netskope
11 2 (3.08%) Dell
11 2 (3.08%) Google
11 2 (3.08%) HP
11 2 (3.08%) Salesforce
11 2 (3.08%) ServiceNow
12 1 (1.54%) Apple
12 1 (1.54%) Infoblox
12 1 (1.54%) SolarWinds
12 1 (1.54%) VMware