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 15 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 75 42
Rank change year-on-year -17 -33 +9
Contract jobs citing VPN 80 32 76
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 2.36% 1.99% 3.72%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 25.72% 15.76% 21.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 38 18 47
10th Percentile £150 £145 £190
25th Percentile £213 £177 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £288 £288 £375
Median % change year-on-year - -23.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £450 £428 £625
90th Percentile £470 £518 £775
England median daily rate £500 £464 £450
% change year-on-year +7.82% +3.06% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £36.65 -
England median hourly rate £16.00 £38.75 £16.56
% change year-on-year -58.71% +134.07% -21.17%

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 311 203 354
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 9.17% 12.65% 17.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 176 114 215
10th Percentile £213 £239 £205
25th Percentile £313 £325 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £400
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +18.75% -6.43%
75th Percentile £541 £575 £594
90th Percentile £616 £718 £688
England median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 15 17
10th Percentile £18.67 £18.76 £10.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £27.00 £13.50
Median hourly rate £58.00 £30.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +93.33% +114.29% -38.74%
75th Percentile £70.00 £39.74 £23.75
90th Percentile £70.30 £43.70 £25.75
England median hourly rate £26.72 £43.75 £43.00
% change year-on-year -38.93% +1.74% +39.84%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 +4 46 £288 -23.33% 6
Coventry -15 13 £250 -39.87%
Warwickshire -12 12 £380 +72.73% 2
Shropshire -47 3 £119 -
Worcestershire -5 2 £175 +20.69% 9
Solihull -18 2 £270 +22.73% 3
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 (10.00%) SharePoint
2 3 (3.75%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (1.25%) Confluence
Applications
1 11 (13.75%) Microsoft Excel
1 11 (13.75%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (3.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (2.50%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 26 (32.50%) Microsoft 365
2 25 (31.25%) Azure
3 20 (25.00%) Entra ID
4 14 (17.50%) OneDrive
5 6 (7.50%) AWS
6 5 (6.25%) Azure Sentinel
6 5 (6.25%) Power Platform
7 4 (5.00%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (3.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (2.50%) Microsoft Copilot
10 1 (1.25%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 1 (1.25%) Amazon Macie
10 1 (1.25%) AWS CloudTrail
10 1 (1.25%) AWS Direct Connect
10 1 (1.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 1 (1.25%) Azure Functions
10 1 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Purview
10 1 (1.25%) SaaS
10 1 (1.25%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 50 (62.50%) DNS
2 38 (47.50%) BGP
3 33 (41.25%) DMZ
4 32 (40.00%) Multicast
5 21 (26.25%) Firewall
6 18 (22.50%) WAN
7 13 (16.25%) DHCP
7 13 (16.25%) LAN
8 10 (12.50%) Network Security
8 10 (12.50%) SSL
9 9 (11.25%) IPsec
10 7 (8.75%) MPLS
10 7 (8.75%) TCP/IP
10 7 (8.75%) Wi-Fi
11 6 (7.50%) Cisco IOS
11 6 (7.50%) SD-WAN
11 6 (7.50%) Wireless
12 5 (6.25%) Internet
12 5 (6.25%) OSPF
13 4 (5.00%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.25%) Data Lake
1 1 (1.25%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 8 (10.00%) JIRA
2 3 (3.75%) Browser DevTools
3 2 (2.50%) Chocolatey
4 1 (1.25%) AppScan
4 1 (1.25%) Burp Suite
4 1 (1.25%) GitLab
4 1 (1.25%) Metasploit
4 1 (1.25%) MSI
General
1 21 (26.25%) Social Skills
2 16 (20.00%) Banking
2 16 (20.00%) Investment Banking
3 8 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (5.00%) Finance
4 4 (5.00%) Public Sector
4 4 (5.00%) Telecoms
5 3 (3.75%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.25%) Legal
Job Titles
1 45 (56.25%) Network Engineer
2 36 (45.00%) Security Engineer
3 35 (43.75%) Network Security Engineer
4 32 (40.00%) Cisco Engineer
4 32 (40.00%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 32 (40.00%) Cisco Security Engineer
4 32 (40.00%) Data Engineer
4 32 (40.00%) Data Network Engineer
5 16 (20.00%) Web Engineer
6 8 (10.00%) Support Technician
7 6 (7.50%) Analyst
7 6 (7.50%) Help Desk Support
7 6 (7.50%) Help Desk Support Technician
7 6 (7.50%) Help Desk Technician
7 6 (7.50%) IT Support
7 6 (7.50%) Support Engineer
8 5 (6.25%) Architect
8 5 (6.25%) Test Engineer
9 4 (5.00%) Desktop Engineer
9 4 (5.00%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (7.50%) SAML
2 3 (3.75%) 802.1X
2 3 (3.75%) LDAP
3 2 (2.50%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 12 (15.00%) Onboarding
2 7 (8.75%) Enterprise Software
3 6 (7.50%) Smartphone
4 5 (6.25%) Data Centre
5 4 (5.00%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (3.75%) Operational Technology
7 2 (2.50%) Fibre Optics
7 2 (2.50%) PKI
8 1 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (1.25%) Cloud Native
8 1 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (1.25%) Embedded Systems
8 1 (1.25%) Industrial Internet of Things
8 1 (1.25%) Industry 4.0
8 1 (1.25%) IoT
8 1 (1.25%) Public Cloud
8 1 (1.25%) Replication
8 1 (1.25%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 29 (36.25%) Windows
2 11 (13.75%) Windows 10
3 6 (7.50%) Android
3 6 (7.50%) Mac OS
4 5 (6.25%) Linux
4 5 (6.25%) Windows Server
5 1 (1.25%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (43.75%) Load Balancing
2 15 (18.75%) ITSM
3 14 (17.50%) Customer Service
4 9 (11.25%) Problem-Solving
5 7 (8.75%) Asset Management
5 7 (8.75%) ITIL
6 6 (7.50%) Cloud Security
6 6 (7.50%) Customer Experience
6 6 (7.50%) Problem Management
6 6 (7.50%) Zero Trust
7 5 (6.25%) Change Management
7 5 (6.25%) Cybersecurity
7 5 (6.25%) DevOps
8 4 (5.00%) Incident Management
8 4 (5.00%) Manual Testing
8 4 (5.00%) Network Segmentation
8 4 (5.00%) Performance Metrics
8 4 (5.00%) Scenario Testing
8 4 (5.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 4 (5.00%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (2.50%) PowerShell
1 2 (2.50%) Python
1 2 (2.50%) SQL
2 1 (1.25%) Bicep
2 1 (1.25%) Java
2 1 (1.25%) Kotlin
2 1 (1.25%) Lisp
2 1 (1.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 12 (15.00%) Security Cleared
2 10 (12.50%) SC Cleared
3 6 (7.50%) Cisco Certification
4 4 (5.00%) Azure Certification
4 4 (5.00%) CCNA
5 3 (3.75%) CCNP
6 2 (2.50%) ISTQB
7 1 (1.25%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (1.25%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.25%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.25%) CCSP
7 1 (1.25%) CISSP
7 1 (1.25%) Degree
7 1 (1.25%) JNCIP
7 1 (1.25%) MCSE
7 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (12.50%) SLA
2 2 (2.50%) NCSC
2 2 (2.50%) NIST
2 2 (2.50%) PCI DSS
3 1 (1.25%) COBIT
3 1 (1.25%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.25%) GDPR
3 1 (1.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 29 (36.25%) Active Directory
2 4 (5.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (3.75%) VMware NSX
4 2 (2.50%) Hyper-V
4 2 (2.50%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (1.25%) Docker
5 1 (1.25%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 17 (21.25%) Microsoft Intune
2 9 (11.25%) SCCM
3 7 (8.75%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (3.75%) Ansible
4 3 (3.75%) Terraform
5 1 (1.25%) CASB
5 1 (1.25%) FortiGate
5 1 (1.25%) Nessus
5 1 (1.25%) Packer
5 1 (1.25%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 52 (65.00%) Cisco
2 38 (47.50%) F5
3 26 (32.50%) Microsoft
4 9 (11.25%) ServiceNow
5 6 (7.50%) Canon
5 6 (7.50%) CheckPoint
6 5 (6.25%) Juniper
6 5 (6.25%) VMware
7 4 (5.00%) Citrix
7 4 (5.00%) Palo Alto
7 4 (5.00%) Zscaler
8 3 (3.75%) Apple
8 3 (3.75%) SolarWinds
9 2 (2.50%) Blue Coat
9 2 (2.50%) Fortinet
10 1 (1.25%) HP
10 1 (1.25%) Motorola
10 1 (1.25%) NetApp
10 1 (1.25%) Remedy
10 1 (1.25%) Veeam