WPA Job Trends in the North West

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the North West requiring WPA skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 2 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 221 202 278
Rank change year-on-year -19 +76 -
Permanent jobs citing WPA 2 1 5
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 0.019% 0.024% 0.054%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.099% 0.12% 0.47%
Number of salaries quoted 2 0 5
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £29,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £43,000 - £36,000
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - £47,400
England median annual salary £43,000 - £55,000

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
North West

WPA falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in the North West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 2,022 806 1,055
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 19.50% 19.41% 11.40%
Number of salaries quoted 408 332 867
10th Percentile £27,000 £24,500 £26,000
25th Percentile £29,000 £31,250 £31,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £58,750 £61,250 £62,500
90th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £73,750
England median annual salary £45,000 £50,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -5.00%

WPA
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing WPA relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the North West.

WPA job vacancy trend in the North West

WPA
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing WPA.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing WPA

WPA
Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing WPA within the North West region over the 6 months to 2 May 2026. 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Manchester -14 2 £43,000 - 1
WPA
England

WPA
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 2 (100.00%) Microsoft Exchange
1 2 (100.00%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 2 (100.00%) Azure
1 2 (100.00%) Entra ID
1 2 (100.00%) Microsoft 365
1 2 (100.00%) Mimecast
1 2 (100.00%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 2 (100.00%) DHCP
1 2 (100.00%) DNS
1 2 (100.00%) Firewall
1 2 (100.00%) SD-WAN
1 2 (100.00%) VPN
1 2 (100.00%) WAN
1 2 (100.00%) Wireshark
General
1 2 (100.00%) Finance
1 2 (100.00%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 2 (100.00%) Infrastructure Specialist
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (100.00%) Change Control
1 2 (100.00%) Configuration Management
1 2 (100.00%) Mentoring
1 2 (100.00%) System Testing
Programming Languages
1 2 (100.00%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 2 (100.00%) Degree
System Software
1 2 (100.00%) Active Directory
1 2 (100.00%) Virtual Desktop
1 2 (100.00%) Virtual Machines
1 2 (100.00%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (100.00%) FortiGate
1 2 (100.00%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 2 (100.00%) CrowdStrike
1 2 (100.00%) Microsoft
1 2 (100.00%) Netskope
1 2 (100.00%) VMware