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

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 71 89 53
Rank change year-on-year +18 -36 +73
Contract jobs citing VPN 73 22 70
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 3.55% 1.15% 3.61%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.73% 8.37% 16.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 57 12 40
10th Percentile £171 £181 £192
25th Percentile £263 £246 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £380 £345 £400
Median % change year-on-year +10.14% -13.75% -5.88%
75th Percentile £438 £468 £531
90th Percentile £530 £521 £728
England median daily rate £450 £475 £471
% change year-on-year -5.26% +0.96% +4.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 0
Median hourly rate - £35.00 -
England median hourly rate £25.47 £35.00 £20.75
% change year-on-year -27.23% +68.67% -5.68%

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 336 263 418
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 16.34% 13.78% 21.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 195 150 217
10th Percentile £233 £177 £200
25th Percentile £300 £320 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £500 £400
Median % change year-on-year -15.00% +25.00% -8.05%
75th Percentile £525 £600 £538
90th Percentile £600 £673 £675
England median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 6 21
10th Percentile £20.15 £26.25 -
25th Percentile £29.00 £32.19 £23.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +27.27% +13.40%
75th Percentile £41.81 - £67.50
90th Percentile £49.95 £47.50 -
England median hourly rate £31.39 £53.75 £56.49
% change year-on-year -41.61% -4.85% +28.39%

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 8 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 8 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 +29 40 £400 -12.57% 18
Warwickshire +10 19 £380 +43.40% 3
Coventry -12 5 £232 +43.57% 3
Solihull -1 4 £300 +3.45% 1
Shropshire -34 3 £400 +90.48% 2
Staffordshire +3 2 £325 -35.00% 7
Worcestershire - 1 £538 - 9
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 3 (4.11%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 15 (20.55%) AWS
2 11 (15.07%) Azure
2 11 (15.07%) Microsoft 365
3 8 (10.96%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 5 (6.85%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 5 (6.85%) GCP
5 4 (5.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 4 (5.48%) Amazon EC2
5 4 (5.48%) Amazon ELB
5 4 (5.48%) Amazon S3
6 2 (2.74%) AWS Direct Connect
7 1 (1.37%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.37%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.37%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.37%) Entra ID
7 1 (1.37%) OneDrive
7 1 (1.37%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 37 (50.68%) WAN
2 34 (46.58%) DNS
2 34 (46.58%) Firewall
3 33 (45.21%) IPsec
4 30 (41.10%) BGP
5 27 (36.99%) MPLS
6 20 (27.40%) Network Security
7 18 (24.66%) DHCP
8 17 (23.29%) TCP/IP
8 17 (23.29%) Wireless
9 14 (19.18%) SSL
10 9 (12.33%) Cisco IPT
10 9 (12.33%) DMVPN
11 8 (10.96%) SD-WAN
12 7 (9.59%) OSPF
13 6 (8.22%) Junos
13 6 (8.22%) LAN
13 6 (8.22%) VLAN
14 4 (5.48%) Cisco ASA
14 4 (5.48%) VXLAN
Development Applications
1 5 (6.85%) Git
2 4 (5.48%) Jenkins
3 3 (4.11%) GitLab
4 2 (2.74%) JIRA
General
1 22 (30.14%) Social Skills
2 14 (19.18%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (16.44%) Public Sector
4 8 (10.96%) Telecoms
5 6 (8.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (5.48%) Legal
7 3 (4.11%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.37%) Automotive
8 1 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.37%) Finance
8 1 (1.37%) Manufacturing
8 1 (1.37%) Military
8 1 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 20 (27.40%) Support Engineer
2 16 (21.92%) Network Engineer
3 14 (19.18%) 3rd Line Engineer
4 13 (17.81%) 3rd Line Support
4 13 (17.81%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
5 10 (13.70%) Analyst
5 10 (13.70%) WAN Engineer
6 9 (12.33%) 2nd Line Engineer
6 9 (12.33%) 2nd Line Support
6 9 (12.33%) Support Analyst
7 7 (9.59%) Architect
7 7 (9.59%) Network Architect
8 6 (8.22%) Security Engineer
9 5 (6.85%) 1st Line Support
9 5 (6.85%) 1st/2nd Line Support
9 5 (6.85%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
9 5 (6.85%) IT Analyst
9 5 (6.85%) IT Support Analyst
9 5 (6.85%) Network Support
9 5 (6.85%) Network Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (12.33%) 802.1X
2 1 (1.37%) Azure Blueprints
Miscellaneous
1 23 (31.51%) PKI
2 17 (23.29%) Data Centre
3 9 (12.33%) Self-Motivation
4 5 (6.85%) Team-Oriented Environment
5 3 (4.11%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (4.11%) Security Posture
6 2 (2.74%) NHS
6 2 (2.74%) Onboarding
6 2 (2.74%) Operational Technology
6 2 (2.74%) SCADA
7 1 (1.37%) Driving Licence
7 1 (1.37%) Educational Technology
7 1 (1.37%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.37%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 18 (24.66%) Windows
2 8 (10.96%) Windows 10
3 6 (8.22%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.74%) Mac OS
5 1 (1.37%) Check Point GAiA
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (30.14%) Load Balancing
2 20 (27.40%) Problem-Solving
3 18 (24.66%) ITIL
4 17 (23.29%) Change Management
5 16 (21.92%) Network Design
6 10 (13.70%) Customer Service
6 10 (13.70%) Inventory Management
6 10 (13.70%) Mentoring
7 8 (10.96%) High Availability
7 8 (10.96%) Problem Management
8 6 (8.22%) DevOps
8 6 (8.22%) Incident Response
8 6 (8.22%) Knowledge Transfer
8 6 (8.22%) Mobile Device Management
8 6 (8.22%) Zero Trust
9 5 (6.85%) CI/CD
9 5 (6.85%) Disk Encryption
9 5 (6.85%) Infrastructure as Code
9 5 (6.85%) Network Architecture
9 5 (6.85%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 8 (10.96%) Python
2 7 (9.59%) Bash
3 4 (5.48%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 41 (56.16%) Security Cleared
2 35 (47.95%) SC Cleared
3 11 (15.07%) Cisco Certification
4 10 (13.70%) CCNP
5 8 (10.96%) Microsoft Certification
6 7 (9.59%) CCIE
6 7 (9.59%) MCP
7 5 (6.85%) CISSP
7 5 (6.85%) Degree
7 5 (6.85%) MCDST
8 4 (5.48%) Azure Certification
8 4 (5.48%) CCNA
9 3 (4.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 3 (4.11%) AWS Certification
9 3 (4.11%) CCIE Security
9 3 (4.11%) CCSP
10 2 (2.74%) ITIL Certification
10 2 (2.74%) JNCIE
10 2 (2.74%) JNCIP
11 1 (1.37%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (6.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (5.48%) GDPR
2 4 (5.48%) NIST
2 4 (5.48%) PCI DSS
3 3 (4.11%) SLA
4 1 (1.37%) NCSC
System Software
1 13 (17.81%) Active Directory
2 7 (9.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (6.85%) Docker
4 4 (5.48%) VMware NSX
5 3 (4.11%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 9 (12.33%) Terraform
2 8 (10.96%) Ansible
2 8 (10.96%) SCCM
3 3 (4.11%) FortiGate
3 3 (4.11%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (2.74%) OpenView
5 1 (1.37%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 35 (47.95%) Juniper
2 33 (45.21%) Cisco
3 19 (26.03%) F5
4 17 (23.29%) CheckPoint
4 17 (23.29%) Microsoft
5 11 (15.07%) Palo Alto
6 9 (12.33%) Blue Coat
6 9 (12.33%) Fortinet
7 7 (9.59%) VMware
8 5 (6.85%) iManage
8 5 (6.85%) Meraki
8 5 (6.85%) Mitel
8 5 (6.85%) SolarWinds
9 4 (5.48%) Netskope
10 3 (4.11%) ServiceNow
11 2 (2.74%) Dell
11 2 (2.74%) Forcepoint
11 2 (2.74%) HP
12 1 (1.37%) Apple
12 1 (1.37%) Salesforce