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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 67 78 50
Rank change year-on-year +11 -28 +87
Contract jobs citing VPN 57 33 78
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the West Midlands 3.13% 1.73% 3.65%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 20.43% 13.25% 17.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 21 44
10th Percentile £221 £141 £180
25th Percentile £289 £285 £215
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £380 £475 £438
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +8.57% +16.67%
75th Percentile £447 £675 £691
90th Percentile £548 £775 £731
England median daily rate £450 £520 £450
% change year-on-year -13.46% +15.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £35.00 -
England median hourly rate £58.50 £17.75 £21.61
% change year-on-year +229.58% -17.86% -9.96%

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 279 249 439
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 15.32% 13.02% 20.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 172 150 239
10th Percentile £243 £200 £211
25th Percentile £325 £300 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £425
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +17.65% -3.85%
75th Percentile £552 £635 £588
90th Percentile £636 £728 £731
England median daily rate £490 £510 £500
% change year-on-year -3.92% +2.00% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 3 17
10th Percentile £16.81 £24.00 £18.05
25th Percentile £22.63 £28.13 £23.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +27.27% +57.14%
75th Percentile £35.63 £47.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £43.63 £55.00 £68.00
England median hourly rate £41.23 £57.35 £56.49
% change year-on-year -28.12% +1.52% +34.50%

VPN
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Job postings citing VPN as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Job vacancy trend for VPN 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 13 September 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 13 September 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 +24 30 £400 -11.11% 8
Warwickshire +1 13 £380 -49.33% 4
Coventry -7 5 £416 -36.04%
Solihull -7 5 £300 -9.77% 1
Staffordshire - 1 £450 - 7
Worcestershire - 1 £538 - 3
VPN
England

VPN
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the West Midlands by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Cloud Services
1 9 (15.79%) Microsoft 365
2 7 (12.28%) AWS
3 3 (5.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 3 (5.26%) Amazon EC2
3 3 (5.26%) Amazon ELB
3 3 (5.26%) Amazon S3
3 3 (5.26%) Azure
3 3 (5.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 2 (3.51%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 35 (61.40%) IPsec
2 31 (54.39%) WAN
3 30 (52.63%) Firewall
4 28 (49.12%) BGP
5 23 (40.35%) DNS
6 22 (38.60%) Network Security
7 20 (35.09%) MPLS
8 18 (31.58%) SSL
9 17 (29.82%) TCP/IP
10 13 (22.81%) Wireless
11 9 (15.79%) Cisco IPT
11 9 (15.79%) DHCP
11 9 (15.79%) DMVPN
12 8 (14.04%) OSPF
13 7 (12.28%) VLAN
14 6 (10.53%) Junos
15 5 (8.77%) SD-WAN
16 2 (3.51%) Cisco Firepower
16 2 (3.51%) Ethereal
16 2 (3.51%) NGFW
Development Applications
1 3 (5.26%) Git
1 3 (5.26%) Jenkins
2 2 (3.51%) GitLab
General
1 15 (26.32%) Social Skills
2 13 (22.81%) Telecoms
3 12 (21.05%) Public Sector
4 10 (17.54%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (5.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (3.51%) Finance
7 1 (1.75%) Automotive
7 1 (1.75%) Manufacturing
7 1 (1.75%) Military
7 1 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 20 (35.09%) Support Engineer
2 19 (33.33%) Network Engineer
3 12 (21.05%) 2nd Line Support
4 10 (17.54%) 2nd Line Engineer
4 10 (17.54%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 9 (15.79%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
5 9 (15.79%) 3rd Line Support
5 9 (15.79%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
5 9 (15.79%) Network Support
5 9 (15.79%) Network Support Engineer
6 7 (12.28%) 2nd Line Network Engineer
7 6 (10.53%) Check Point Expert
7 6 (10.53%) Security Engineer
7 6 (10.53%) WAN Engineer
8 5 (8.77%) 1st/2nd Line Support
8 5 (8.77%) Architect
8 5 (8.77%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 4 (7.02%) Analyst
9 4 (7.02%) Network Architect
9 4 (7.02%) Network Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (15.79%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 20 (35.09%) PKI
2 9 (15.79%) Data Centre
3 7 (12.28%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (7.02%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (5.26%) Operational Technology
5 3 (5.26%) SCADA
5 3 (5.26%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 2 (3.51%) Product Ownership
7 1 (1.75%) Driving Licence
7 1 (1.75%) Educational Technology
7 1 (1.75%) Industrial Internet of Things
7 1 (1.75%) IoT
7 1 (1.75%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.75%) NB-IoT
7 1 (1.75%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.75%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 8 (14.04%) Windows
2 6 (10.53%) Check Point GAiA
3 4 (7.02%) Windows 10
4 1 (1.75%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (28.07%) Problem-Solving
2 15 (26.32%) Load Balancing
3 14 (24.56%) Change Management
4 11 (19.30%) High Availability
5 10 (17.54%) ITIL
5 10 (17.54%) Network Design
6 9 (15.79%) Inventory Management
7 6 (10.53%) Problem Management
7 6 (10.53%) SIEM
8 5 (8.77%) DevOps
9 4 (7.02%) CI/CD
9 4 (7.02%) Infrastructure as Code
9 4 (7.02%) Mentoring
9 4 (7.02%) Migration
10 3 (5.26%) CRM
10 3 (5.26%) Network Architecture
10 3 (5.26%) Project Delivery
10 3 (5.26%) Root Cause Analysis
10 3 (5.26%) Service Delivery
10 3 (5.26%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 3 (5.26%) Bash
1 3 (5.26%) Python
2 1 (1.75%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 34 (59.65%) Security Cleared
2 29 (50.88%) SC Cleared
3 8 (14.04%) Cisco Certification
4 7 (12.28%) CCNP
5 6 (10.53%) CCSE
6 4 (7.02%) CCIE
6 4 (7.02%) CCNA
6 4 (7.02%) MCP
6 4 (7.02%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (5.26%) MCDST
8 2 (3.51%) CISSP
8 2 (3.51%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (1.75%) CCIE Routing and Switching
9 1 (1.75%) CCSA
9 1 (1.75%) Degree
9 1 (1.75%) DV Cleared
9 1 (1.75%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 1 (1.75%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.51%) SLA
2 1 (1.75%) NCSC
System Software
1 6 (10.53%) Active Directory
2 5 (8.77%) Docker
3 1 (1.75%) Hyper-V
3 1 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 8 (14.04%) FortiGate
2 4 (7.02%) SCCM
3 3 (5.26%) Ansible
3 3 (5.26%) Terraform
4 2 (3.51%) Kubernetes
4 2 (3.51%) OpenView
5 1 (1.75%) CASB
Vendors
1 30 (52.63%) Juniper
2 23 (40.35%) Cisco
3 21 (36.84%) CheckPoint
4 14 (24.56%) F5
5 10 (17.54%) Fortinet
6 9 (15.79%) Blue Coat
6 9 (15.79%) Microsoft
7 6 (10.53%) Palo Alto
8 3 (5.26%) iManage
8 3 (5.26%) Mitel
9 2 (3.51%) Dell
9 2 (3.51%) Google
9 2 (3.51%) HP
9 2 (3.51%) Salesforce
10 1 (1.75%) Infoblox
10 1 (1.75%) Meraki
10 1 (1.75%) SolarWinds
10 1 (1.75%) VMware