Hybrid/Remote VPN Contract Job Trends

Virtual Private Network (VPN)
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for remote or hybrid contract work requiring VPN skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 170 136 151
Rank change year-on-year -34 +15 +76
Contract jobs citing VPN 148 205 261
As % of all contract jobs with remote/hybrid work options 1.46% 1.75% 1.51%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 13.84% 16.31% 11.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 86 116 163
10th Percentile £361 £255 £211
25th Percentile £413 £385 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £543 £475
Median % change year-on-year -12.44% +14.21% -3.06%
75th Percentile £555 £630 £575
90th Percentile £647 £675 £660
UK median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +7.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 15
10th Percentile £19.65 £20.90 £12.16
25th Percentile £21.38 £24.50 £15.00
Median hourly rate £24.50 £32.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.44% +45.45% -
75th Percentile £27.38 £40.50 £23.38
90th Percentile £28.95 £44.70 £24.90
UK median hourly rate £25.47 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year +10.74% +9.52% +5.00%

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 1,069 1,257 2,223
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 10.52% 10.75% 12.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 685 757 1,436
10th Percentile £309 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £613
90th Percentile £675 £696 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 28 79
10th Percentile £20.80 £17.32 £19.39
25th Percentile £34.50 £37.50 £20.66
Median hourly rate £65.00 £43.75 £46.39
Median % change year-on-year +48.56% -5.69% -26.37%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.77 £68.75
90th Percentile £70.03 £75.00 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year -4.00% -31.82% +31.50%

VPN
Job Vacancy Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing VPN and offering remote or hybrid work options relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

VPN job vacancy trend for remote/hybrid jobs

VPN
Daily Rate Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing VPN.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing VPN

VPN
Daily Rate Histogram for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Daily rate distribution for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing VPN over the 6 months to 15 December 2025.

VPN daily rate histogram for jobs with remote/hybrid work options

VPN
Hourly Rate Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing VPN.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing VPN

VPN
Hourly Rate Histogram for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Hourly rate distribution for jobs with remote working options citing VPN over the 6 months to 15 December 2025.

VPN hourly rate histogram for jobs with remote/hybrid working options

VPN
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Remote/Hybrid Jobs 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 15 (10.14%) SharePoint
2 8 (5.41%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (2.03%) Confluence
3 3 (2.03%) Skype for Business
4 1 (0.68%) Anypoint
4 1 (0.68%) Apache
4 1 (0.68%) Exchange Server 2010
4 1 (0.68%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (0.68%) IIS
4 1 (0.68%) nginx
4 1 (0.68%) Tomcat
Applications
1 7 (4.73%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.70%) MS Visio
3 2 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (2.70%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.68%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 55 (37.16%) Azure
2 44 (29.73%) AWS
3 25 (16.89%) Entra ID
4 23 (15.54%) Microsoft 365
5 17 (11.49%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 17 (11.49%) GCP
6 16 (10.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 12 (8.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 12 (8.11%) Amazon EC2
7 12 (8.11%) Amazon S3
8 9 (6.08%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (6.08%) Serverless
9 8 (5.41%) Amazon ELB
9 8 (5.41%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (5.41%) GitHub
10 7 (4.73%) AWS Direct Connect
11 6 (4.05%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (4.05%) Azure Key Vault
11 6 (4.05%) IaaS
11 6 (4.05%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 92 (62.16%) Firewall
2 41 (27.70%) WAN
3 35 (23.65%) DNS
4 34 (22.97%) LAN
5 30 (20.27%) TCP/IP
6 27 (18.24%) Network Security
7 26 (17.57%) BGP
8 23 (15.54%) OSPF
9 18 (12.16%) SD-WAN
10 17 (11.49%) DHCP
11 15 (10.14%) SSL
12 12 (8.11%) MPLS
12 12 (8.11%) VLAN
13 11 (7.43%) Wi-Fi
13 11 (7.43%) Wireless
14 10 (6.76%) Cisco ASA
14 10 (6.76%) Cisco Nexus
15 7 (4.73%) Skype
15 7 (4.73%) WLAN
16 6 (4.05%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.38%) Data Lake
2 4 (2.70%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (2.03%) Azure SQL Database
4 2 (1.35%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.68%) DocumentDB
5 1 (0.68%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.68%) MySQL
5 1 (0.68%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.68%) Power BI
5 1 (0.68%) Redis
5 1 (0.68%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (7.43%) GitLab
1 11 (7.43%) Jenkins
2 9 (6.08%) Git
3 4 (2.70%) JIRA
4 1 (0.68%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.68%) Maven
4 1 (0.68%) MSI
General
1 45 (30.41%) Social Skills
2 20 (13.51%) Analytical Skills
2 20 (13.51%) Public Sector
3 18 (12.16%) Finance
4 12 (8.11%) Telecoms
5 10 (6.76%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (6.08%) Banking
7 7 (4.73%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (3.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (3.38%) Retail
9 4 (2.70%) Manufacturing
10 3 (2.03%) Electronics
10 3 (2.03%) Marketing
10 3 (2.03%) Military
11 2 (1.35%) Aerospace
11 2 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.68%) Italian Language
12 1 (0.68%) Local Government
12 1 (0.68%) Polish Language
Job Titles
1 33 (22.30%) Network Engineer
2 27 (18.24%) Architect
3 21 (14.19%) Senior
4 12 (8.11%) Consultant
4 12 (8.11%) Network Architect
5 11 (7.43%) Analyst
5 11 (7.43%) Azure Engineer
5 11 (7.43%) Security Engineer
6 10 (6.76%) 1st Line Support
6 10 (6.76%) DevOps Engineer
6 10 (6.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (6.08%) AWS Engineer
7 9 (6.08%) Cloud Engineer
8 8 (5.41%) Support Analyst
9 7 (4.73%) Azure Architect
9 7 (4.73%) Cloud Architect
9 7 (4.73%) Technical Architect
10 5 (3.38%) 1st Line Support Analyst
10 5 (3.38%) IT Support
10 5 (3.38%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (2.70%) VML
2 3 (2.03%) SAML
3 2 (1.35%) ARM Templates
3 2 (1.35%) Azure Blueprints
3 2 (1.35%) Node.js
3 2 (1.35%) React
4 1 (0.68%) .NET
4 1 (0.68%) ADO
4 1 (0.68%) AngularJS
4 1 (0.68%) HTML
4 1 (0.68%) Kafka
4 1 (0.68%) LDAP
4 1 (0.68%) MUnit
4 1 (0.68%) RAML
4 1 (0.68%) REST
4 1 (0.68%) RESTful
4 1 (0.68%) SignalR
4 1 (0.68%) Spring Boot
4 1 (0.68%) XML
4 1 (0.68%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 22 (14.86%) Data Centre
2 12 (8.11%) Hybrid Cloud
3 9 (6.08%) Cloud Native
4 5 (3.38%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (3.38%) Operational Technology
5 4 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (2.70%) NHS
5 4 (2.70%) Onboarding
6 3 (2.03%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (2.03%) IoT
6 3 (2.03%) PKI
6 3 (2.03%) Public Cloud
6 3 (2.03%) SCADA
6 3 (2.03%) Security Posture
6 3 (2.03%) Video Conferencing
6 3 (2.03%) Virtual Team
7 2 (1.35%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.35%) Enterprise Cloud
7 2 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 39 (26.35%) Windows
2 12 (8.11%) Windows 10
3 11 (7.43%) Windows Server
4 6 (4.05%) Linux
5 5 (3.38%) Windows Server 2016
6 4 (2.70%) VMS
7 3 (2.03%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (1.35%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.68%) CatOS
9 1 (0.68%) CentOS
9 1 (0.68%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.68%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.68%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.68%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (24.32%) Infrastructure as Code
2 33 (22.30%) DevOps
2 33 (22.30%) Migration
3 29 (19.59%) CI/CD
4 28 (18.92%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (18.24%) Cloud Security
6 24 (16.22%) High Availability
7 22 (14.86%) ITIL
8 18 (12.16%) Agile
9 16 (10.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 16 (10.81%) Load Balancing
10 14 (9.46%) Customer Service
10 14 (9.46%) Technical Leadership
11 13 (8.78%) Mentoring
11 13 (8.78%) Network Monitoring
11 13 (8.78%) Stakeholder Management
12 12 (8.11%) Containerisation
12 12 (8.11%) Cybersecurity
12 12 (8.11%) Incident Response
12 12 (8.11%) Infrastructure Automation
Programming Languages
1 24 (16.22%) Python
2 23 (15.54%) PowerShell
3 15 (10.14%) Bash
4 9 (6.08%) SQL
5 8 (5.41%) Bicep
6 3 (2.03%) JavaScript
7 2 (1.35%) Java
7 2 (1.35%) VB
7 2 (1.35%) VBScript
8 1 (0.68%) C#
8 1 (0.68%) Go
8 1 (0.68%) Objective-C
8 1 (0.68%) Perl
8 1 (0.68%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.68%) Swift
8 1 (0.68%) T-SQL
8 1 (0.68%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 33 (22.30%) Security Cleared
2 29 (19.59%) Cisco Certification
3 27 (18.24%) CCNP
3 27 (18.24%) SC Cleared
4 17 (11.49%) Degree
5 15 (10.14%) Azure Certification
6 14 (9.46%) CCIE
7 12 (8.11%) CCNA
8 8 (5.41%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (4.73%) CISSP
9 7 (4.73%) JNCIP
10 4 (2.70%) CCSE
11 3 (2.03%) CCSA
11 3 (2.03%) CISM
11 3 (2.03%) DV Cleared
11 3 (2.03%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (2.03%) JNCIA
11 3 (2.03%) JNCIE
11 3 (2.03%) JNCIS
11 3 (2.03%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (8.78%) GDPR
2 12 (8.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (7.43%) NIST
4 4 (2.70%) PCI DSS
5 3 (2.03%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (2.03%) HIPAA
5 3 (2.03%) NCSC
6 1 (0.68%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.68%) Government Security Classifications
6 1 (0.68%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.68%) PMO
6 1 (0.68%) QA
6 1 (0.68%) SLA
System Software
1 30 (20.27%) Active Directory
2 19 (12.84%) Docker
3 14 (9.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (4.05%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (2.70%) Hyper-V
6 3 (2.03%) VMware NSX
7 2 (1.35%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.68%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.68%) UAG
8 1 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.68%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 38 (25.68%) Terraform
2 25 (16.89%) Ansible
3 17 (11.49%) Kubernetes
4 11 (7.43%) Microsoft Intune
5 9 (6.08%) FortiGate
6 8 (5.41%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (4.05%) QRadar
8 5 (3.38%) SCCM
9 3 (2.03%) Fluentd
9 3 (2.03%) Grafana
9 3 (2.03%) Iperf
9 3 (2.03%) Nmap
10 2 (1.35%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.68%) CASB
11 1 (0.68%) CloudHub
11 1 (0.68%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.68%) Puppet
11 1 (0.68%) Salt
11 1 (0.68%) SCOM
11 1 (0.68%) SysTrack
Vendors
1 57 (38.51%) Cisco
2 41 (27.70%) Microsoft
3 29 (19.59%) CheckPoint
3 29 (19.59%) Palo Alto
4 20 (13.51%) F5
5 18 (12.16%) Zscaler
6 17 (11.49%) VMware
7 16 (10.81%) Fortinet
8 15 (10.14%) Juniper
9 12 (8.11%) ServiceNow
10 11 (7.43%) Citrix
10 11 (7.43%) Meraki
11 7 (4.73%) Aruba
11 7 (4.73%) Remedy
11 7 (4.73%) SolarWinds
12 4 (2.70%) Extreme Networks
12 4 (2.70%) Netskope
12 4 (2.70%) Qualys
12 4 (2.70%) Splunk
13 3 (2.03%) Darktrace