WAN Contracts with Hybrid/Remote/WFH Options

Wide Area Network (WAN)
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics for remote or hybrid contract work 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 8 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 188 195 153
Rank change year-on-year +7 -42 +65
Contract jobs citing WAN 117 158 426
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 1.20% 1.04% 1.68%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 11.25% 10.08% 14.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 81 94 279
10th Percentile £362 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £431 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £688 £619
90th Percentile £613 £749 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 8 16
10th Percentile - £13.25 £15.50
25th Percentile £18.50 £13.81 £40.50
Median hourly rate £19.00 £16.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.15% -72.50% +39.53%
75th Percentile £19.50 £24.00 £80.25
90th Percentile - £24.75 £81.00
UK median hourly rate £38.75 £24.50 £61.00
% change year-on-year +58.16% -59.84% +134.62%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
Work from Home

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

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 1,040 1,568 2,920
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 10.64% 10.36% 11.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 674 1,018 1,944
10th Percentile £325 £300 £350
25th Percentile £400 £411 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £650
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £520
% change year-on-year -2.50% -3.75% +3.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 77 95
10th Percentile £13.78 £12.75 £23.30
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% +21.73%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £72.63
90th Percentile £70.75 £87.46 £80.25
UK median hourly rate £30.32 £40.00 £18.88
% change year-on-year -24.20% +111.92% -31.36%

WAN
Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

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

WAN trend for jobs with Hybrid/Remote/WFH options

WAN
Daily Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

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

WAN daily rate for jobs with a WFH option

WAN
Daily Rate Histogram for Jobs with a WFH Option

Daily rate distribution for jobs with remote working options citing WAN over the 6 months to 8 May 2025.

WAN daily rate histogram for jobs with a WFH option

WAN
Hourly Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

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

WAN hourly rate for jobs with a WFH option

WAN
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 3 (2.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.85%) Confluence
Applications
1 9 (7.69%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (2.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (1.71%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.71%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 44 (37.61%) Azure
2 28 (23.93%) AWS
3 16 (13.68%) Entra ID
4 6 (5.13%) Microsoft 365
5 5 (4.27%) Amazon EC2
5 5 (4.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 5 (4.27%) Route 53
6 2 (1.71%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (1.71%) Azure Monitor
6 2 (1.71%) Cloudflare
7 1 (0.85%) Akamai
7 1 (0.85%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (0.85%) GCP
7 1 (0.85%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 75 (64.10%) LAN
2 70 (59.83%) Firewall
3 54 (46.15%) VPN
4 47 (40.17%) SD-WAN
5 38 (32.48%) BGP
6 29 (24.79%) MPLS
6 29 (24.79%) Wireless
7 28 (23.93%) OSPF
8 27 (23.08%) DNS
8 27 (23.08%) Network Security
9 20 (17.09%) TCP/IP
10 19 (16.24%) DHCP
10 19 (16.24%) Wi-Fi
11 18 (15.38%) Cisco Nexus
12 14 (11.97%) Internet
13 11 (9.40%) EIGRP
14 9 (7.69%) Cisco ASA
15 8 (6.84%) 4G
16 7 (5.98%) IPsec
16 7 (5.98%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (2.56%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (0.85%) JIRA
General
1 31 (26.50%) Social Skills
2 21 (17.95%) Finance
3 11 (9.40%) Public Sector
4 5 (4.27%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (4.27%) Law
4 5 (4.27%) Retail
4 5 (4.27%) Telecoms
5 4 (3.42%) Legal
6 3 (2.56%) Banking
6 3 (2.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 3 (2.56%) Military
7 2 (1.71%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.71%) Local Government
8 1 (0.85%) Back Office
8 1 (0.85%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.85%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.85%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.85%) Police
Job Titles
1 51 (43.59%) Network Engineer
2 24 (20.51%) Architect
3 20 (17.09%) Senior
4 11 (9.40%) Senior Network Engineer
5 10 (8.55%) Network Architect
6 9 (7.69%) Cisco Engineer
6 9 (7.69%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 7 (5.98%) Consultant
7 7 (5.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 6 (5.13%) Project Manager
9 5 (4.27%) Active Directory Architect
9 5 (4.27%) Network Consultant
9 5 (4.27%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 5 (4.27%) Wintel Architect
10 4 (3.42%) Infrastructure Support
10 4 (3.42%) Network Security Engineer
10 4 (3.42%) Security Engineer
10 4 (3.42%) Technical Architect
11 3 (2.56%) Lead Architect
11 3 (2.56%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (2.56%) 802.1X
2 2 (1.71%) Middleware
2 2 (1.71%) NETCONF
3 1 (0.85%) HTML
3 1 (0.85%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 23 (19.66%) Data Centre
2 6 (5.13%) PKI
2 6 (5.13%) Public Cloud
3 5 (4.27%) Security Posture
3 5 (4.27%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (3.42%) Security Operations Centre
5 3 (2.56%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (2.56%) IVR
6 2 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.71%) Fibre Optics
6 2 (1.71%) Management Information System
6 2 (1.71%) Operational Technology
6 2 (1.71%) Raspberry Pi
7 1 (0.85%) Driving Licence
7 1 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.85%) EPoS
7 1 (0.85%) FMCG
7 1 (0.85%) IoT
7 1 (0.85%) SCADA
7 1 (0.85%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 22 (18.80%) Windows
2 12 (10.26%) Linux
3 8 (6.84%) Windows Server
4 3 (2.56%) Android
4 3 (2.56%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (16.24%) Migration
2 14 (11.97%) Change Management
2 14 (11.97%) ITIL
3 13 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 13 (11.11%) Problem-Solving
4 11 (9.40%) Network Design
4 11 (9.40%) Network Monitoring
5 10 (8.55%) Incident Management
5 10 (8.55%) Network Management
6 9 (7.69%) Network Architecture
6 9 (7.69%) Patch Management
6 9 (7.69%) Project Management
7 8 (6.84%) High Availability
7 8 (6.84%) Mentoring
8 7 (5.98%) Business Strategy
8 7 (5.98%) Load Balancing
8 7 (5.98%) RBAC
8 7 (5.98%) Service Delivery
8 7 (5.98%) Zero Trust
9 6 (5.13%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 8 (6.84%) PowerShell
2 5 (4.27%) Python
3 2 (1.71%) Bicep
3 2 (1.71%) SQL
Qualifications
1 34 (29.06%) Cisco Certification
2 30 (25.64%) CCNP
3 29 (24.79%) Security Cleared
4 27 (23.08%) SC Cleared
5 17 (14.53%) CCNA
6 7 (5.98%) CCIE
7 6 (5.13%) AWS Certification
7 6 (5.13%) Degree
8 5 (4.27%) Azure Certification
8 5 (4.27%) DV Cleared
9 3 (2.56%) CCDP
10 2 (1.71%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (1.71%) JNCIA
10 2 (1.71%) JNCIS
11 1 (0.85%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 1 (0.85%) CCIE Data Center
11 1 (0.85%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.85%) TOGAF Certification
11 1 (0.85%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (4.27%) NIST
2 4 (3.42%) QA
3 3 (2.56%) Cyber Essentials
3 3 (2.56%) NCSC
3 3 (2.56%) SLA
4 1 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 14 (11.97%) Active Directory
2 10 (8.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (3.42%) Virtual Servers
3 4 (3.42%) VMware NSX
4 3 (2.56%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 2 (1.71%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.85%) Firmware
6 1 (0.85%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 15 (12.82%) FortiGate
2 10 (8.55%) Terraform
3 5 (4.27%) Ansible
4 4 (3.42%) Cisco Prime
5 3 (2.56%) Progress Chef
5 3 (2.56%) vRealize Orchestrator
6 2 (1.71%) CASB
7 1 (0.85%) Icinga
7 1 (0.85%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.85%) Nagios
7 1 (0.85%) Observium
7 1 (0.85%) TrustSec
Vendors
1 64 (54.70%) Cisco
2 32 (27.35%) Palo Alto
3 18 (15.38%) Fortinet
4 17 (14.53%) Juniper
5 16 (13.68%) Microsoft
6 12 (10.26%) Aruba
7 11 (9.40%) VMware
8 8 (6.84%) Arista
8 8 (6.84%) Meraki
9 7 (5.98%) CheckPoint
9 7 (5.98%) F5
10 5 (4.27%) ServiceNow
10 5 (4.27%) SolarWinds
11 3 (2.56%) Apple
11 3 (2.56%) Citrix
11 3 (2.56%) Zscaler
12 2 (1.71%) BMC
12 2 (1.71%) Databricks
12 2 (1.71%) HP
12 2 (1.71%) Remedy