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 19 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 58 33
Rank change year-on-year -22 -25 +45
Contract jobs citing VPN 84 39 90
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 2.74% 2.87% 4.69%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 25.85% 25.00% 23.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 25 53
10th Percentile £160 £145 £200
25th Percentile £246 £160 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £275 £375
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% -26.67% -25.00%
75th Percentile £456 £461 £625
90th Percentile £530 £583 £775
England median daily rate £475 £475 £438
% change year-on-year - +8.57% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 6 2
10th Percentile - £15.22 -
25th Percentile - £15.95 £70.97
Median hourly rate - £18.13 £71.93
Median % change year-on-year - -74.79% +379.53%
75th Percentile - £30.78 £72.90
90th Percentile - £38.49 -
England median hourly rate £16.71 £18.57 £16.56
% change year-on-year -10.02% +12.14% -21.98%

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 325 156 390
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 10.61% 11.48% 20.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 185 94 229
10th Percentile £209 £150 £210
25th Percentile £305 £266 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £475 £400
Median % change year-on-year -13.16% +18.75% -15.79%
75th Percentile £537 £592 £575
90th Percentile £600 £697 £688
England median daily rate £500 £500 £486
% change year-on-year - +2.88% -6.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 13 21
10th Percentile £17.68 £12.50 £10.50
25th Percentile £28.63 £15.22 £13.50
Median hourly rate £58.00 £18.13 £19.95
Median % change year-on-year +219.91% -9.12% +1.77%
75th Percentile £67.38 £33.75 £23.75
90th Percentile £70.29 £36.80 £28.75
England median hourly rate £48.72 £36.65 £40.00
% change year-on-year +32.95% -8.39% +111.30%

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 19 April 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 19 April 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 43 £438 +15.51% 5
Warwickshire -1 18 £350 - 2
Coventry -14 12 £450 -25.77% 4
Worcestershire -16 3 £175 +20.69% 4
Staffordshire -1 2 £444 -15.48% 1
Shropshire -51 2 £260 +23.57%
Solihull -17 1 £270 -16.92%
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 4 (4.76%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.38%) Confluence
3 1 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 7 (8.33%) MS Visio
2 4 (4.76%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 24 (28.57%) Azure
2 18 (21.43%) AWS
3 14 (16.67%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (9.52%) Entra ID
4 8 (9.52%) GCP
4 8 (9.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 5 (5.95%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 4 (4.76%) OneDrive
7 3 (3.57%) AWS Direct Connect
7 3 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (3.57%) Azure Sentinel
7 3 (3.57%) GitHub
7 3 (3.57%) Power Platform
8 2 (2.38%) Amazon EKS
8 2 (2.38%) Amazon ELB
8 2 (2.38%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (2.38%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (2.38%) Microsoft Copilot
8 2 (2.38%) Route 53
9 1 (1.19%) AWS CloudTrail
Communications & Networking
1 51 (60.71%) DNS
2 37 (44.05%) Firewall
3 36 (42.86%) BGP
4 27 (32.14%) WAN
5 26 (30.95%) DMZ
5 26 (30.95%) Multicast
6 21 (25.00%) LAN
7 18 (21.43%) Network Security
8 14 (16.67%) DHCP
8 14 (16.67%) SSL
9 13 (15.48%) IPsec
9 13 (15.48%) Wireless
10 11 (13.10%) Cisco ASA
11 10 (11.90%) MPLS
11 10 (11.90%) SD-WAN
12 8 (9.52%) OSPF
12 8 (9.52%) VLAN
12 8 (9.52%) Wireshark
13 7 (8.33%) Cisco Nexus
13 7 (8.33%) Ethereal
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.19%) Apache Hive
1 1 (1.19%) Big Data
1 1 (1.19%) Data Lake
1 1 (1.19%) DocumentDB
1 1 (1.19%) Hadoop
1 1 (1.19%) Impala
1 1 (1.19%) MongoDB
1 1 (1.19%) NoSQL
1 1 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (1.19%) Power BI
1 1 (1.19%) Redis
Development Applications
1 10 (11.90%) JIRA
2 3 (3.57%) Chocolatey
3 2 (2.38%) Browser DevTools
3 2 (2.38%) GitLab
4 1 (1.19%) AppScan
4 1 (1.19%) Burp Suite
4 1 (1.19%) Git
4 1 (1.19%) Jenkins
4 1 (1.19%) Metasploit
4 1 (1.19%) MSI
General
1 23 (27.38%) Social Skills
2 14 (16.67%) Banking
2 14 (16.67%) Investment Banking
3 11 (13.10%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (7.14%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (7.14%) Public Sector
5 5 (5.95%) Telecoms
6 4 (4.76%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (3.57%) Finance
7 3 (3.57%) Legal
8 2 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 46 (54.76%) Network Engineer
2 30 (35.71%) Security Engineer
3 29 (34.52%) Network Security Engineer
4 26 (30.95%) Cisco Engineer
4 26 (30.95%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 26 (30.95%) Cisco Security Engineer
4 26 (30.95%) Data Engineer
4 26 (30.95%) Data Network Engineer
5 12 (14.29%) Web Engineer
6 9 (10.71%) IT Support
7 7 (8.33%) Architect
8 6 (7.14%) Analyst
8 6 (7.14%) Support Engineer
9 5 (5.95%) Network Architect
9 5 (5.95%) Test Engineer
10 4 (4.76%) 1st Line Support
10 4 (4.76%) IT Support Analyst
10 4 (4.76%) Network Security Specialist
10 4 (4.76%) Network Specialist
10 4 (4.76%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (10.71%) SAML
2 7 (8.33%) LDAP
3 3 (3.57%) 802.1X
4 2 (2.38%) RFC 2544
5 1 (1.19%) JSON
5 1 (1.19%) Kafka
5 1 (1.19%) REST
5 1 (1.19%) RESTful
5 1 (1.19%) SignalR
5 1 (1.19%) Spring
5 1 (1.19%) Spring Boot
5 1 (1.19%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (10.71%) Data Centre
2 7 (8.33%) Enterprise Software
3 5 (5.95%) Onboarding
4 3 (3.57%) PKI
4 3 (3.57%) Security Posture
5 2 (2.38%) Fibre Optics
5 2 (2.38%) Operational Technology
5 2 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (1.19%) NHS
6 1 (1.19%) Public Cloud
6 1 (1.19%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 25 (29.76%) Windows
2 9 (10.71%) Windows Server
3 6 (7.14%) Windows 10
4 5 (5.95%) Linux
5 3 (3.57%) CatOS
5 3 (3.57%) Mac OS
6 1 (1.19%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (39.29%) Load Balancing
2 14 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
3 12 (14.29%) ITIL
4 10 (11.90%) High Availability
5 9 (10.71%) Cloud Security
5 9 (10.71%) Customer Service
5 9 (10.71%) Problem-Solving
5 9 (10.71%) Zero Trust
6 6 (7.14%) Change Management
6 6 (7.14%) Network Architecture
6 6 (7.14%) Network Design
6 6 (7.14%) Roadmaps
6 6 (7.14%) Service Management
6 6 (7.14%) Vulnerability Remediation
7 5 (5.95%) Data Protection
7 5 (5.95%) ITSM
7 5 (5.95%) Security Architecture
7 5 (5.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 5 (5.95%) Stakeholder Management
7 5 (5.95%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 5 (5.95%) Python
2 3 (3.57%) PowerShell
3 2 (2.38%) SQL
4 1 (1.19%) Bash
4 1 (1.19%) Bicep
4 1 (1.19%) Java
4 1 (1.19%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.19%) Kotlin
4 1 (1.19%) Lisp
4 1 (1.19%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 16 (19.05%) Security Cleared
2 12 (14.29%) SC Cleared
3 11 (13.10%) Cisco Certification
4 7 (8.33%) CCNP
5 5 (5.95%) Azure Certification
5 5 (5.95%) CCIE
5 5 (5.95%) CCNA
6 4 (4.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 4 (4.76%) AWS Certification
6 4 (4.76%) CCSP
6 4 (4.76%) CISSP
6 4 (4.76%) Degree
7 3 (3.57%) CCIE Security
8 2 (2.38%) ISTQB
8 2 (2.38%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (2.38%) JNCIE
8 2 (2.38%) JNCIP
9 1 (1.19%) MCSE
9 1 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (8.33%) GDPR
2 6 (7.14%) NIST
3 5 (5.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (5.95%) PCI DSS
4 2 (2.38%) NCSC
4 2 (2.38%) SLA
5 1 (1.19%) COBIT
5 1 (1.19%) Data Quality
5 1 (1.19%) GRC
System Software
1 21 (25.00%) Active Directory
2 13 (15.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (13.10%) VMware NSX
4 2 (2.38%) Docker
5 1 (1.19%) HDFS
5 1 (1.19%) Hyper-V
5 1 (1.19%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 11 (13.10%) Microsoft Intune
2 10 (11.90%) Single Sign-On
3 9 (10.71%) Terraform
4 8 (9.52%) Ansible
5 1 (1.19%) CASB
5 1 (1.19%) FortiGate
5 1 (1.19%) Kubernetes
5 1 (1.19%) Nessus
5 1 (1.19%) Packer
5 1 (1.19%) Progress Chef
5 1 (1.19%) SCCM
Vendors
1 48 (57.14%) Cisco
2 40 (47.62%) F5
3 25 (29.76%) Microsoft
4 14 (16.67%) Palo Alto
5 13 (15.48%) VMware
6 10 (11.90%) CheckPoint
7 9 (10.71%) Juniper
8 8 (9.52%) ServiceNow
8 8 (9.52%) SolarWinds
9 7 (8.33%) Fortinet
10 4 (4.76%) Meraki
11 3 (3.57%) Citrix
11 3 (3.57%) Zscaler
12 2 (2.38%) Blue Coat
12 2 (2.38%) Forcepoint
13 1 (1.19%) Apple
13 1 (1.19%) CyberArk
13 1 (1.19%) HP
13 1 (1.19%) NetApp
13 1 (1.19%) Remedy