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 6 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 66 39
Rank change year-on-year -1 -27 +41
Contract jobs citing VPN 93 36 88
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 3.32% 2.60% 4.62%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 28.18% 18.46% 21.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 57 22 50
10th Percentile £141 £145 £200
25th Percentile £200 £149 £272
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £243 £375
Median % change year-on-year +44.33% -35.33% -15.25%
75th Percentile £450 £425 £400
90th Percentile £530 £521 £569
England median daily rate £460 £480 £425
% change year-on-year -4.17% +12.94% -3.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 8 2
10th Percentile - £15.22 -
25th Percentile - £17.40 £70.97
Median hourly rate - £26.57 £71.93
Median % change year-on-year - -63.07% +379.53%
75th Percentile - £35.00 £72.90
90th Percentile - £37.09 -
England median hourly rate £16.71 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -52.27% +75.00% +5.46%

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 330 195 408
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 11.78% 14.10% 21.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 184 113 230
10th Percentile £175 £150 £206
25th Percentile £293 £281 £316
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £475 £400
Median % change year-on-year -15.79% +18.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £525 £583 £538
90th Percentile £604 £674 £650
England median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 15 27
10th Percentile £25.10 £13.40 £12.15
25th Percentile £35.00 £15.74 £13.75
Median hourly rate £58.00 £24.22 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +139.47% +7.64% +4.37%
75th Percentile £59.50 £35.00 £26.25
90th Percentile £65.80 £40.08 £67.50
England median hourly rate £34.50 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.43% -12.50% +108.88%

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 6 March 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 6 March 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 +20 51 £275 -33.93% 6
Warwickshire -1 19 £375 - 1
Coventry -15 10 £450 - 1
Staffordshire -1 3 £338 -32.50% 2
Worcestershire -24 3 £175 +20.69% 4
Shropshire -44 3 £400 +90.48% 1
Solihull -12 1 £270 -16.92% 1
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 1 (1.08%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (5.38%) Microsoft Office
1 5 (5.38%) MS Visio
2 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 21 (22.58%) AWS
2 19 (20.43%) Azure
3 14 (15.05%) Microsoft 365
4 11 (11.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 8 (8.60%) GCP
6 6 (6.45%) Amazon ELB
6 6 (6.45%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 5 (5.38%) Amazon EC2
7 5 (5.38%) Amazon S3
8 4 (4.30%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 3 (3.23%) AWS Direct Connect
9 3 (3.23%) Entra ID
9 3 (3.23%) GitHub
10 2 (2.15%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (2.15%) AWS CloudFormation
10 2 (2.15%) Azure Sentinel
10 2 (2.15%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (2.15%) Route 53
11 1 (1.08%) AWS CloudTrail
11 1 (1.08%) CloudFront
Communications & Networking
1 51 (54.84%) DNS
2 40 (43.01%) Firewall
3 35 (37.63%) BGP
4 31 (33.33%) WAN
5 21 (22.58%) Network Security
6 20 (21.51%) IPsec
7 18 (19.35%) DMZ
7 18 (19.35%) Multicast
8 17 (18.28%) MPLS
9 16 (17.20%) DHCP
9 16 (17.20%) LAN
10 14 (15.05%) SSL
11 13 (13.98%) Wireless
12 12 (12.90%) TCP/IP
13 9 (9.68%) Cisco ASA
14 7 (7.53%) OSPF
14 7 (7.53%) SD-WAN
14 7 (7.53%) VLAN
15 6 (6.45%) WLAN
16 5 (5.38%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.08%) Apache Hive
1 1 (1.08%) Big Data
1 1 (1.08%) Data Lake
1 1 (1.08%) DocumentDB
1 1 (1.08%) Hadoop
1 1 (1.08%) Impala
1 1 (1.08%) MongoDB
1 1 (1.08%) NoSQL
1 1 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (1.08%) Redis
Development Applications
1 8 (8.60%) JIRA
2 6 (6.45%) Git
3 5 (5.38%) GitLab
3 5 (5.38%) Jenkins
4 3 (3.23%) Chocolatey
5 1 (1.08%) AppScan
5 1 (1.08%) Burp Suite
5 1 (1.08%) Metasploit
General
1 28 (30.11%) Social Skills
2 15 (16.13%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (10.75%) Banking
3 10 (10.75%) Investment Banking
4 6 (6.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 6 (6.45%) Public Sector
5 5 (5.38%) Documentation Skills
5 5 (5.38%) Legal
5 5 (5.38%) Telecoms
6 3 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (2.15%) Finance
8 1 (1.08%) Military
8 1 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 36 (38.71%) Network Engineer
2 22 (23.66%) Security Engineer
3 21 (22.58%) Network Security Engineer
4 18 (19.35%) Cisco Engineer
4 18 (19.35%) Cisco Network Engineer
4 18 (19.35%) Cisco Security Engineer
4 18 (19.35%) Data Engineer
4 18 (19.35%) Data Network Engineer
5 13 (13.98%) Analyst
6 12 (12.90%) IT Support
7 11 (11.83%) Support Analyst
8 10 (10.75%) Support Engineer
9 8 (8.60%) 1st Line Support
9 8 (8.60%) Architect
9 8 (8.60%) Web Engineer
10 7 (7.53%) IT Analyst
10 7 (7.53%) IT Support Analyst
10 7 (7.53%) Network Architect
11 6 (6.45%) 1st Line Support Analyst
11 6 (6.45%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.38%) LDAP
1 5 (5.38%) SAML
2 4 (4.30%) 802.1X
3 2 (2.15%) RFC 2544
4 1 (1.08%) Azure Blueprints
4 1 (1.08%) JSON
4 1 (1.08%) Kafka
4 1 (1.08%) REST
4 1 (1.08%) RESTful
4 1 (1.08%) SignalR
4 1 (1.08%) Spring
4 1 (1.08%) Spring Boot
4 1 (1.08%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (15.05%) Data Centre
2 10 (10.75%) PKI
3 5 (5.38%) Self-Motivation
3 5 (5.38%) Team-Oriented Environment
4 4 (4.30%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (4.30%) Onboarding
4 4 (4.30%) Operational Technology
5 3 (3.23%) SCADA
5 3 (3.23%) Security Posture
6 2 (2.15%) Fibre Optics
6 2 (2.15%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (2.15%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 26 (27.96%) Windows
2 10 (10.75%) Windows 10
2 10 (10.75%) Windows Server
3 5 (5.38%) Linux
4 3 (3.23%) CatOS
5 2 (2.15%) Mac OS
6 1 (1.08%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (31.18%) Load Balancing
2 18 (19.35%) Customer Service
3 16 (17.20%) ITIL
3 16 (17.20%) Problem-Solving
4 14 (15.05%) High Availability
5 13 (13.98%) Change Management
6 12 (12.90%) Network Design
7 11 (11.83%) Cybersecurity
8 10 (10.75%) Zero Trust
9 8 (8.60%) CI/CD
9 8 (8.60%) Cloud Security
9 8 (8.60%) Incident Response
9 8 (8.60%) Mentoring
10 7 (7.53%) DevOps
10 7 (7.53%) Network Architecture
11 6 (6.45%) DevSecOps
11 6 (6.45%) Knowledge Transfer
11 6 (6.45%) Mobile Device Management
11 6 (6.45%) Service Management
11 6 (6.45%) Vulnerability Remediation
Programming Languages
1 9 (9.68%) Python
2 7 (7.53%) Bash
3 4 (4.30%) PowerShell
4 1 (1.08%) Bicep
4 1 (1.08%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.08%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 25 (26.88%) Security Cleared
2 21 (22.58%) SC Cleared
3 13 (13.98%) Cisco Certification
4 9 (9.68%) CCNP
5 7 (7.53%) CCIE
5 7 (7.53%) Microsoft Certification
6 6 (6.45%) CISSP
6 6 (6.45%) Microsoft Certified Professional
7 5 (5.38%) CCNA
7 5 (5.38%) MCDST
8 4 (4.30%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 4 (4.30%) AWS Certification
8 4 (4.30%) Azure Certification
8 4 (4.30%) CCSP
8 4 (4.30%) Degree
9 3 (3.23%) CCIE Security
10 2 (2.15%) ISTQB
10 2 (2.15%) ITIL Certification
10 2 (2.15%) JNCIE
10 2 (2.15%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (7.53%) GDPR
2 6 (6.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (6.45%) NIST
3 5 (5.38%) PCI DSS
4 3 (3.23%) NCSC
5 2 (2.15%) SLA
6 1 (1.08%) COBIT
6 1 (1.08%) GRC
System Software
1 22 (23.66%) Active Directory
2 11 (11.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (9.68%) VMware NSX
4 6 (6.45%) Docker
5 2 (2.15%) Hyper-V
6 1 (1.08%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 14 (15.05%) Terraform
2 12 (12.90%) Ansible
3 8 (8.60%) Microsoft Intune
4 7 (7.53%) SCCM
5 5 (5.38%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (3.23%) FortiGate
7 1 (1.08%) Kubernetes
7 1 (1.08%) Nessus
7 1 (1.08%) Packer
7 1 (1.08%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 46 (49.46%) Cisco
2 35 (37.63%) F5
3 27 (29.03%) Microsoft
4 18 (19.35%) Juniper
5 17 (18.28%) Palo Alto
6 15 (16.13%) CheckPoint
7 11 (11.83%) VMware
8 7 (7.53%) ServiceNow
9 6 (6.45%) Fortinet
9 6 (6.45%) SolarWinds
10 5 (5.38%) iManage
10 5 (5.38%) Mitel
11 4 (4.30%) Blue Coat
11 4 (4.30%) Meraki
11 4 (4.30%) Netskope
12 2 (2.15%) Forcepoint
13 1 (1.08%) Apple
13 1 (1.08%) CyberArk
13 1 (1.08%) LogRhythm
13 1 (1.08%) Remedy