WAN Job Trends in the South West

Wide Area Network (WAN)
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South West requiring WAN skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 7 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 122 75 113
Rank change year-on-year -47 +38 -9
Permanent jobs citing WAN 91 86 219
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 1.19% 3.11% 2.22%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.50% 21.18% 18.65%
Number of salaries quoted 65 56 154
10th Percentile £31,250 £31,750 £30,375
25th Percentile £31,500 £36,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £37,500 £50,000 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% +11.11% +5.88%
75th Percentile £53,750 £57,057 £52,500
90th Percentile £75,750 £60,000 £60,918
England median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +5.00% +5.26% +2.15%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South West

WAN 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 South West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 587 406 1,174
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South West 7.65% 14.67% 11.89%
Number of salaries quoted 351 288 941
10th Percentile £26,250 £28,750 £26,250
25th Percentile £31,250 £30,500 £32,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £38,500 £45,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year -14.44% -5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £57,500 £57,500 £57,500
90th Percentile £72,500 £73,750 £72,500
England median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £47,500
% change year-on-year - - -5.00%

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

WAN job vacancy trend in the South West

WAN
Salary Trend in the South West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing WAN.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing WAN

WAN
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing WAN in the South West over the 6 months to 7 June 2026.

Salary histogram for WAN in the South West

WAN
Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing WAN within the South West region over the 6 months to 7 June 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
Wiltshire +7 33 £32,500 -5.80% 5
Devon -24 24 £32,500 -29.35% 2
Gloucestershire -15 19 £42,500 -19.05% 7
Bristol -23 12 £37,500 -37.50% 7
Somerset -33 2 £56,298 +0.32% 1
Cornwall -14 1 £32,000 +0.79%
WAN
England

WAN
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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 12 (13.19%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (8.79%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.20%) Confluence
4 1 (1.10%) OpenStack
Applications
1 19 (20.88%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (1.10%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 47 (51.65%) Microsoft 365
2 32 (35.16%) Azure
3 15 (16.48%) AWS
4 12 (13.19%) Entra ID
5 10 (10.99%) GitHub
6 4 (4.40%) OneDrive
7 2 (2.20%) IaaS
7 2 (2.20%) OCI
7 2 (2.20%) OpenShift
7 2 (2.20%) PaaS
7 2 (2.20%) Rubrik
7 2 (2.20%) Serverless
8 1 (1.10%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 1 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 67 (73.63%) LAN
2 45 (49.45%) Firewall
3 36 (39.56%) VPN
4 33 (36.26%) VLAN
5 29 (31.87%) Wi-Fi
6 21 (23.08%) SD-WAN
7 19 (20.88%) DNS
8 16 (17.58%) DHCP
9 12 (13.19%) Network Security
10 11 (12.09%) Cisco ASA
10 11 (12.09%) TCP/IP
10 11 (12.09%) Unified Communications
11 10 (10.99%) 5G
11 10 (10.99%) WebEx
12 9 (9.89%) Cisco Firepower
13 7 (7.69%) WLAN
14 5 (5.49%) DMZ
14 5 (5.49%) NGFW
15 4 (4.40%) BGP
15 4 (4.40%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.30%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.10%) InfluxDB
2 1 (1.10%) MariaDB
2 1 (1.10%) MySQL
2 1 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.10%) RDBMS
2 1 (1.10%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 12 (13.19%) Git
2 10 (10.99%) LabVIEW
3 1 (1.10%) Jenkins
General
1 19 (20.88%) Social Skills
2 11 (12.09%) Retail
3 10 (10.99%) Electronics
3 10 (10.99%) Marketing
3 10 (10.99%) Public Sector
4 9 (9.89%) Banking
4 9 (9.89%) Telecoms
5 8 (8.79%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (8.79%) Documentation Skills
5 8 (8.79%) Manufacturing
5 8 (8.79%) Presentation Skills
6 5 (5.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 5 (5.49%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (2.20%) Aerospace
7 2 (2.20%) Finance
7 2 (2.20%) Police
8 1 (1.10%) Fire and Rescue
8 1 (1.10%) Games
Job Titles
1 25 (27.47%) Support Engineer
2 21 (23.08%) IT Support
3 19 (20.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 16 (17.58%) Analyst
4 16 (17.58%) IT Engineer
4 16 (17.58%) Support Analyst
5 11 (12.09%) IT Support Engineer
6 10 (10.99%) Infrastructure Support
6 10 (10.99%) IT Analyst
6 10 (10.99%) IT Support Analyst
6 10 (10.99%) Product Engineer
6 10 (10.99%) Product Test Engineer
6 10 (10.99%) Test Engineer
6 10 (10.99%) Verification Engineer
7 9 (9.89%) Network Manager
8 8 (8.79%) Network Engineer
9 7 (7.69%) 2nd Line Support
9 7 (7.69%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
9 7 (7.69%) Collaboration Engineer
9 7 (7.69%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (10.99%) pytest
1 10 (10.99%) XMPP
2 2 (2.20%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 17 (18.68%) Driving Licence
2 13 (14.29%) Replication
3 11 (12.09%) Hybrid Cloud
3 11 (12.09%) Onboarding
4 10 (10.99%) FlexPod
4 10 (10.99%) Self-Driving Car
4 10 (10.99%) Video Conferencing
5 9 (9.89%) Self-Motivation
6 8 (8.79%) Client/Server
7 3 (3.30%) Data Centre
7 3 (3.30%) Security Posture
8 2 (2.20%) BYOD
9 1 (1.10%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (1.10%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (1.10%) Product Ownership
9 1 (1.10%) Social Media
9 1 (1.10%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 55 (60.44%) Windows
2 21 (23.08%) Windows Server
3 17 (18.68%) Linux
4 10 (10.99%) Unix
4 10 (10.99%) Windows 10
5 3 (3.30%) CentOS
5 3 (3.30%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (3.30%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (2.20%) CoreOS
6 2 (2.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (1.10%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (27.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 24 (26.37%) Problem-Solving
3 19 (20.88%) Customer Service
4 16 (17.58%) ITIL
5 15 (16.48%) Cybersecurity
6 13 (14.29%) Mentoring
6 13 (14.29%) Service Delivery
7 12 (13.19%) Data Management
8 10 (10.99%) B2B
8 10 (10.99%) Disk Encryption
8 10 (10.99%) Kalman Filter
8 10 (10.99%) Test Assurance
8 10 (10.99%) Test Automation
9 9 (9.89%) Business Intelligence
9 9 (9.89%) Infrastructure as Code
9 9 (9.89%) Performance Management
10 8 (8.79%) Disaster Recovery
10 8 (8.79%) ERP
10 8 (8.79%) Validation
11 7 (7.69%) Physics
Programming Languages
1 23 (25.27%) Python
2 11 (12.09%) SQL
3 10 (10.99%) MATLAB
4 8 (8.79%) JavaScript
5 4 (4.40%) Bash
6 2 (2.20%) PowerShell
7 1 (1.10%) C
7 1 (1.10%) PL/SQL
7 1 (1.10%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 20 (21.98%) Degree
2 10 (10.99%) HND
3 9 (9.89%) Microsoft Certification
3 9 (9.89%) Security Cleared
4 7 (7.69%) Cisco Certification
5 6 (6.59%) CCNA
6 5 (5.49%) CCNP
7 4 (4.40%) DV Cleared
8 3 (3.30%) Network+ Certification
8 3 (3.30%) SC Cleared
9 2 (2.20%) Azure Certification
9 2 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (2.20%) CompTIA Security+
9 2 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (1.10%) RHCE
10 1 (1.10%) VCAP
10 1 (1.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (15.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (8.79%) Cyber Essentials
3 7 (7.69%) GDPR
4 3 (3.30%) PCI DSS
5 2 (2.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (1.10%) SLA
System Software
1 28 (30.77%) Active Directory
2 23 (25.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (23.08%) Hyper-V
4 10 (10.99%) BitLocker
5 8 (8.79%) vSphere
6 6 (6.59%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 6 (6.59%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (5.49%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (1.10%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 1 (1.10%) Docker
8 1 (1.10%) KVM
8 1 (1.10%) QEMU
8 1 (1.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (1.10%) VMware NSX
8 1 (1.10%) Xen
Systems Management
1 14 (15.38%) Ansible
2 11 (12.09%) SCCM
3 10 (10.99%) Cisco CUCM
3 10 (10.99%) Grafana
4 9 (9.89%) Terraform
5 7 (7.69%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (6.59%) FortiGate
7 3 (3.30%) Kubernetes
8 2 (2.20%) McAfee ePO
8 2 (2.20%) SCVMM
9 1 (1.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (1.10%) Autotask
9 1 (1.10%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (1.10%) Puppet
Vendors
1 52 (57.14%) Microsoft
2 31 (34.07%) VMware
3 20 (21.98%) Cisco
4 17 (18.68%) Fortinet
5 12 (13.19%) Palo Alto
6 10 (10.99%) Splunk
7 8 (8.79%) NetApp
8 5 (5.49%) Veeam
9 4 (4.40%) Red Hat
10 3 (3.30%) CrowdStrike
10 3 (3.30%) Dell
11 2 (2.20%) Aruba
11 2 (2.20%) HP
11 2 (2.20%) McAfee
11 2 (2.20%) Meraki
11 2 (2.20%) Oracle
12 1 (1.10%) Apple
12 1 (1.10%) CheckPoint
12 1 (1.10%) Juniper
12 1 (1.10%) SolarWinds