WAN Contracts in the West Midlands

Wide Area Network (WAN)
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the West Midlands requiring WAN skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited WAN over the 6 months leading up to 16 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 58 24 37
Rank change year-on-year -34 +13 +54
Contract jobs citing WAN 49 121 122
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the West Midlands 3.06% 5.91% 5.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 23.67% 34.08% 28.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 31 67 48
10th Percentile £238 £263 £198
25th Percentile £300 £300 £274
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £375 £325
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% +15.38% -23.53%
75th Percentile £544 £456 £423
90th Percentile £600 £683 £497
England median daily rate £478 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -4.50% +5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 8 3
10th Percentile - £13.78 -
25th Percentile £29.00 £14.00 £12.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £21.23 £13.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.34% +63.27% -35.00%
75th Percentile £31.00 £23.75 £14.25
90th Percentile £37.13 - £14.70
England median hourly rate £30.00 £24.87 £47.83
% change year-on-year +20.63% -48.00% +107.96%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
West Midlands

WAN 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 207 355 427
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 12.91% 17.33% 18.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 117 217 255
10th Percentile £241 £208 £251
25th Percentile £325 £313 £316
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £400 £430
Median % change year-on-year +18.75% -6.98% +1.18%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £591
90th Percentile £710 £688 £720
England median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 17 10
10th Percentile £14.45 £10.50 £12.50
25th Percentile £24.81 £13.50 £15.81
Median hourly rate £30.00 £14.00 £22.85
Median % change year-on-year +114.29% -38.74% +21.88%
75th Percentile £38.62 £23.75 £28.75
90th Percentile £43.63 £25.75 £28.88
England median hourly rate £43.00 £40.00 £33.75
% change year-on-year +7.50% +18.52% +35.00%

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

Job vacancy trend for WAN in the West Midlands

WAN
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing WAN in the West Midlands.

Daily rate trend for WAN in the West Midlands

WAN
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing WAN in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 16 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for WAN in the West Midlands

WAN
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing WAN in the West Midlands.

Hourly rate trend for WAN in the West Midlands

WAN
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 WAN within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 16 July 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 -15 17 £475 +26.67% 18
Warwickshire -6 12 £350 -53.33% 13
Staffordshire +8 6 - - 7
Coventry - 5 £503 - 5
Herefordshire - 2 £525 - 2
Solihull -14 1 - - 4
WAN
England

WAN
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:

Applications
1 5 (10.20%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (2.04%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (2.04%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (2.04%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 3 (6.12%) Azure
2 2 (4.08%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (2.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 1 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
3 1 (2.04%) Amazon EventBridge
3 1 (2.04%) Amazon S3
3 1 (2.04%) AWS
3 1 (2.04%) AWS CloudTrail
3 1 (2.04%) AWS KMS
3 1 (2.04%) AWS Lambda
3 1 (2.04%) Route 53
3 1 (2.04%) Serverless
3 1 (2.04%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 28 (57.14%) LAN
2 17 (34.69%) Firewall
2 17 (34.69%) SD-WAN
3 16 (32.65%) BGP
4 15 (30.61%) MPLS
5 13 (26.53%) Wireless
6 11 (22.45%) DHCP
6 11 (22.45%) DNS
6 11 (22.45%) IPsec
6 11 (22.45%) Network Security
7 10 (20.41%) VPN
8 8 (16.33%) Wireshark
9 7 (14.29%) Cisco IOS
10 6 (12.24%) EIGRP
10 6 (12.24%) OSPF
10 6 (12.24%) WLAN
11 5 (10.20%) Cisco Nexus
11 5 (10.20%) PuTTY
11 5 (10.20%) VLAN
12 4 (8.16%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.04%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (2.04%) SQL Server
General
1 8 (16.33%) Telecoms
2 5 (10.20%) Manufacturing
2 5 (10.20%) Public Sector
2 5 (10.20%) Social Skills
3 3 (6.12%) Legal
4 2 (4.08%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (4.08%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 20 (40.82%) Network Engineer
2 10 (20.41%) Support Engineer
3 9 (18.37%) Architect
4 8 (16.33%) Network Architect
5 7 (14.29%) Network Support
5 7 (14.29%) Network Support Engineer
6 6 (12.24%) 2nd Line Engineer
6 6 (12.24%) 2nd Line Support
6 6 (12.24%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
6 6 (12.24%) Analyst
7 5 (10.20%) Support Analyst
7 5 (10.20%) Test Engineer
8 4 (8.16%) 2nd Line Network Engineer
8 4 (8.16%) Senior
9 3 (6.12%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 2 (4.08%) 1st/2nd Line Support
10 2 (4.08%) 1st/2nd Line Support Engineer
10 2 (4.08%) 3rd Line Network Engineer
10 2 (4.08%) Network Infrastructure Specialist
10 2 (4.08%) WAN Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (4.08%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 10 (20.41%) PKI
2 6 (12.24%) Data Centre
2 6 (12.24%) Virtual Team
3 5 (10.20%) Cloud Native
4 4 (8.16%) Legacy Systems
4 4 (8.16%) Operational Technology
5 3 (6.12%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (4.08%) Driving Licence
6 2 (4.08%) SCADA
7 1 (2.04%) CCTV
7 1 (2.04%) Industrial Internet of Things
7 1 (2.04%) IoT
7 1 (2.04%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (2.04%) NB-IoT
7 1 (2.04%) Replication
7 1 (2.04%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 3 (6.12%) Windows
1 3 (6.12%) Windows Server
2 2 (4.08%) Windows Server 2016
2 2 (4.08%) Windows Server 2019
3 1 (2.04%) Linux
3 1 (2.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (2.04%) SUSE
3 1 (2.04%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (22.45%) Network Design
2 8 (16.33%) Change Management
2 8 (16.33%) Computer Science
3 7 (14.29%) DevOps
3 7 (14.29%) Migration
3 7 (14.29%) Network Architecture
3 7 (14.29%) Project Management
4 6 (12.24%) Continuous Improvement
5 5 (10.20%) End-to-End Testing
5 5 (10.20%) High Availability
5 5 (10.20%) ITIL
5 5 (10.20%) Load Balancing
5 5 (10.20%) Process Improvement
5 5 (10.20%) Remote Testing
6 4 (8.16%) Data Protection
6 4 (8.16%) Knowledge Transfer
6 4 (8.16%) Problem-Solving
6 4 (8.16%) Roadmaps
6 4 (8.16%) Zero Trust
7 3 (6.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 3 (6.12%) Python
2 2 (4.08%) PowerShell
3 1 (2.04%) SQL
Qualifications
1 18 (36.73%) Cisco Certification
2 15 (30.61%) Security Cleared
3 13 (26.53%) CCNP
4 9 (18.37%) CCNA
4 9 (18.37%) SC Cleared
5 8 (16.33%) Degree
6 6 (12.24%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (10.20%) CCIE
8 2 (4.08%) CCIE Routing and Switching
8 2 (4.08%) CompTIA Security+
8 2 (4.08%) DV Cleared
9 1 (2.04%) AWS Certification
9 1 (2.04%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
9 1 (2.04%) JNCIA
9 1 (2.04%) JNCIS
9 1 (2.04%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 2 (4.08%) QA
2 1 (2.04%) Def Stans
2 1 (2.04%) GDPR
2 1 (2.04%) NCSC
System Software
1 1 (2.04%) Active Directory
1 1 (2.04%) Virtual Machines
1 1 (2.04%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 5 (10.20%) HP ALM
2 4 (8.16%) OpenView
3 3 (6.12%) Ansible
3 3 (6.12%) Cisco CUCM
4 2 (4.08%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (2.04%) PowerCLI
5 1 (2.04%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 26 (53.06%) Cisco
2 13 (26.53%) Juniper
3 6 (12.24%) Microsoft
3 6 (12.24%) Remedy
4 5 (10.20%) Fortinet
4 5 (10.20%) HP
4 5 (10.20%) Micro Focus
4 5 (10.20%) Peregrine
4 5 (10.20%) Progress
5 4 (8.16%) SolarWinds
6 3 (6.12%) Meraki
7 2 (4.08%) F5
7 2 (4.08%) Infoblox
8 1 (2.04%) CenturyLink
8 1 (2.04%) Fujitsu
8 1 (2.04%) Huawei
8 1 (2.04%) Palo Alto
8 1 (2.04%) Veeam
8 1 (2.04%) VMware
8 1 (2.04%) Zscaler