VPN Contracts with Hybrid/Remote/WFH Options

Virtual Private Network (VPN)
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics for remote or hybrid contract work requiring VPN skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited VPN over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 145 163 210
Rank change year-on-year +18 +47 +73
Contract jobs citing VPN 173 196 307
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 1.75% 1.28% 1.19%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 16.59% 12.17% 10.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 125 126 202
10th Percentile £313 £208 £229
25th Percentile £399 £303 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +0.50%
75th Percentile £580 £575 £596
90th Percentile £625 £719 £700
UK median daily rate £455 £447 £450
% change year-on-year +1.79% -0.67% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 17 3
10th Percentile - £12.75 £21.35
25th Percentile £18.50 £14.27 £25.63
Median hourly rate £19.00 £18.00 £33.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -46.27% +17.54%
75th Percentile £19.50 £23.75 £46.76
90th Percentile - £44.01 £54.27
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £17.00 £21.61
% change year-on-year +35.29% -21.33% -1.77%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
Work from Home

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 with remote or hybrid options requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 1,043 1,610 2,954
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 10.53% 10.49% 11.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 667 1,029 1,967
10th Percentile £325 £300 £350
25th Percentile £400 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £650
90th Percentile £700 £703 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £495 £519
% change year-on-year -1.52% -4.53% +3.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 77 101
10th Percentile £13.78 £12.75 £24.50
25th Percentile £14.20 £14.27 £42.50
Median hourly rate £41.00 £24.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.35% -59.17% +23.51%
75th Percentile £64.38 £65.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £73.75 £87.46 £80.25
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £40.00 £19.00
% change year-on-year -27.50% +110.53% -32.74%

VPN
Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

Job vacancies with remote working options citing VPN as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

VPN trend for jobs with Hybrid/Remote/WFH options

VPN
Daily Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in job vacancies with remote working options citing VPN.

VPN daily rate for jobs with a WFH option

VPN
Daily Rate Histogram for Jobs with a WFH Option

Daily rate distribution for jobs with remote working options citing VPN over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

VPN daily rate histogram for jobs with a WFH option

VPN
Hourly Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average hourly rate quoted in job vacancies with remote working options citing VPN.

VPN hourly rate for jobs with a WFH option

VPN
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities with WFH Options 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:

Application Platforms
1 9 (5.20%) SharePoint
2 6 (3.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.16%) Confluence
3 2 (1.16%) Skype for Business
4 1 (0.58%) CMS
Applications
1 14 (8.09%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (1.16%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (1.73%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 70 (40.46%) Azure
2 39 (22.54%) AWS
3 16 (9.25%) Microsoft 365
4 15 (8.67%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 15 (8.67%) Entra ID
5 12 (6.94%) Amazon EC2
6 11 (6.36%) Route 53
7 9 (5.20%) AWS CloudFormation
8 8 (4.62%) GCP
8 8 (4.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 7 (4.05%) Amazon S3
9 7 (4.05%) Azure DevOps
10 6 (3.47%) Asana
10 6 (3.47%) Slack
11 4 (2.31%) Cloudflare
11 4 (2.31%) GitHub
11 4 (2.31%) Snowflake
12 3 (1.73%) Azure Monitor
12 3 (1.73%) Datadog
12 3 (1.73%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 108 (62.43%) Firewall
2 55 (31.79%) DNS
3 54 (31.21%) Network Security
3 54 (31.21%) WAN
4 47 (27.17%) BGP
5 45 (26.01%) MPLS
6 41 (23.70%) LAN
7 40 (23.12%) OSPF
8 36 (20.81%) TCP/IP
9 26 (15.03%) Wireless
10 21 (12.14%) IPsec
11 20 (11.56%) Cisco Nexus
11 20 (11.56%) SD-WAN
12 19 (10.98%) SSL
13 18 (10.40%) DHCP
14 16 (9.25%) Cisco Firepower
15 15 (8.67%) Cisco ASA
15 15 (8.67%) Multicast
16 14 (8.09%) VLAN
17 12 (6.94%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.05%) Amazon RDS
2 4 (2.31%) Data Lake
2 4 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (2.31%) Hadoop
3 3 (1.73%) Power BI
4 2 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (1.16%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (0.58%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.58%) MySQL
5 1 (0.58%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.58%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.58%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 8 (4.62%) Git
2 7 (4.05%) Jenkins
2 7 (4.05%) JIRA
3 3 (1.73%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.16%) GitLab
5 1 (0.58%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 1 (0.58%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.58%) MSI
General
1 36 (20.81%) Social Skills
2 25 (14.45%) Finance
3 12 (6.94%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (6.36%) Public Sector
5 8 (4.62%) Telecoms
6 5 (2.89%) Law
7 4 (2.31%) Banking
7 4 (2.31%) Legal
8 2 (1.16%) German Language
8 2 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.16%) Local Government
8 2 (1.16%) Retail
9 1 (0.58%) Aviation
9 1 (0.58%) Billing
9 1 (0.58%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.58%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.58%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.58%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 68 (39.31%) Network Engineer
2 38 (21.97%) Architect
3 18 (10.40%) Senior
4 17 (9.83%) Support Engineer
5 11 (6.36%) Principal Engineer
5 11 (6.36%) Principal Network Engineer
5 11 (6.36%) Security Engineer
6 10 (5.78%) Azure Engineer
6 10 (5.78%) Cisco Engineer
7 9 (5.20%) Consultant
7 9 (5.20%) IT Support
7 9 (5.20%) Network Security Engineer
7 9 (5.20%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
8 8 (4.62%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 8 (4.62%) Implementation Engineer
8 8 (4.62%) Technical Architect
9 7 (4.05%) IT Support Engineer
9 7 (4.05%) Network Architect
9 7 (4.05%) Network Support
9 7 (4.05%) Network Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (4.05%) ADO
2 4 (2.31%) 802.1X
3 3 (1.73%) Elastic Stack
3 3 (1.73%) LDAP
4 2 (1.16%) boto
4 2 (1.16%) Flask
4 2 (1.16%) SAML
4 2 (1.16%) YAML
5 1 (0.58%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.58%) HTML
5 1 (0.58%) Node.js
5 1 (0.58%) REST
5 1 (0.58%) Web Services
5 1 (0.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 20 (11.56%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.36%) Security Posture
3 9 (5.20%) PKI
3 9 (5.20%) Video Conferencing
4 7 (4.05%) Anti-Spyware
4 7 (4.05%) Cyber Threat
4 7 (4.05%) Onboarding
5 6 (3.47%) Public Cloud
6 5 (2.89%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (2.89%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (2.89%) Management Information System
6 5 (2.89%) Private Cloud
6 5 (2.89%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (2.31%) Cloud Native
7 4 (2.31%) Security Operations Centre
8 2 (1.16%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (1.16%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.58%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (0.58%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (0.58%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 38 (21.97%) Windows
2 19 (10.98%) Linux
3 9 (5.20%) Windows Server
4 7 (4.05%) Windows 10
5 4 (2.31%) Android
5 4 (2.31%) Apple iOS
5 4 (2.31%) Unix
6 3 (1.73%) VMS
6 3 (1.73%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.16%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (1.16%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.58%) CentOS
8 1 (0.58%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.58%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.58%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (32.37%) Migration
2 25 (14.45%) Problem-Solving
3 24 (13.87%) Infrastructure as Code
4 22 (12.72%) Network Monitoring
5 21 (12.14%) CI/CD
6 16 (9.25%) High Availability
6 16 (9.25%) ITIL
6 16 (9.25%) Network Architecture
7 14 (8.09%) DevOps
8 13 (7.51%) Mentoring
9 12 (6.94%) Agile
10 11 (6.36%) Cybersecurity
10 11 (6.36%) ITSM
10 11 (6.36%) Technical Leadership
11 10 (5.78%) Change Management
11 10 (5.78%) Validation
11 10 (5.78%) Zero Trust
12 9 (5.20%) Cloud Security
12 9 (5.20%) Network Design
12 9 (5.20%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 25 (14.45%) Python
2 18 (10.40%) PowerShell
3 9 (5.20%) Bash
4 3 (1.73%) Shell Script
4 3 (1.73%) SQL
5 2 (1.16%) Bicep
6 1 (0.58%) C
6 1 (0.58%) Java
6 1 (0.58%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.58%) Perl
Qualifications
1 46 (26.59%) Security Cleared
2 43 (24.86%) Cisco Certification
3 38 (21.97%) SC Cleared
4 28 (16.18%) CCNP
5 21 (12.14%) CCNA
6 14 (8.09%) CCIE
7 13 (7.51%) Degree
8 9 (5.20%) AWS Certification
9 8 (4.62%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (4.05%) Azure Certification
11 5 (2.89%) CCIE Service Provider
12 4 (2.31%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (1.73%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 3 (1.73%) MCSE
14 2 (1.16%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 2 (1.16%) CCDP
14 2 (1.16%) CCIE Security
14 2 (1.16%) JNCIA
14 2 (1.16%) JNCIS
14 2 (1.16%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.36%) NIST
2 3 (1.73%) Cyber Essentials
2 3 (1.73%) HIPAA
2 3 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (1.73%) NCSC
2 3 (1.73%) PCI DSS
2 3 (1.73%) QA
3 2 (1.16%) GDPR
3 2 (1.16%) SLA
4 1 (0.58%) SOC 2
System Software
1 26 (15.03%) Active Directory
2 11 (6.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (5.20%) Docker
3 9 (5.20%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (4.05%) Hyper-V
5 6 (3.47%) VMware NSX
6 3 (1.73%) vSphere
7 2 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.58%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.58%) Firmware
8 1 (0.58%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 33 (19.08%) Terraform
2 22 (12.72%) Ansible
3 12 (6.94%) FortiGate
4 11 (6.36%) Kubernetes
5 9 (5.20%) Microsoft Intune
6 8 (4.62%) ZABBIX
7 7 (4.05%) Progress Chef
7 7 (4.05%) Puppet
8 5 (2.89%) Cisco Prime
8 5 (2.89%) SCCM
9 3 (1.73%) Grafana
9 3 (1.73%) Nagios
9 3 (1.73%) Prometheus
10 2 (1.16%) OPNET
10 2 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.58%) CASB
11 1 (0.58%) Plesk
11 1 (0.58%) TrustSec
Vendors
1 73 (42.20%) Cisco
2 50 (28.90%) Palo Alto
3 35 (20.23%) Microsoft
4 22 (12.72%) CheckPoint
4 22 (12.72%) Fortinet
5 18 (10.40%) F5
6 17 (9.83%) SolarWinds
7 15 (8.67%) VMware
8 11 (6.36%) Juniper
8 11 (6.36%) Zscaler
9 8 (4.62%) Aruba
9 8 (4.62%) Infoblox
10 7 (4.05%) Citrix
11 6 (3.47%) Arista
11 6 (3.47%) Meraki
12 5 (2.89%) Nokia
12 5 (2.89%) ServiceNow
12 5 (2.89%) Splunk
13 4 (2.31%) CyberArk
13 4 (2.31%) Databricks