Wide Area Network (WAN)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies requiring WAN skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the annual salaries offered in vacancies that cited WAN over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 162 123 179
Rank change year-on-year -39 +56 +62
Permanent jobs citing WAN 959 2,244 2,140
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 1.84% 2.28% 2.06%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 13.83% 16.47% 13.35%
Number of salaries quoted 763 1,716 1,589
10th Percentile £29,250 £27,359 £30,000
25th Percentile £36,750 £34,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £47,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.06%
75th Percentile £65,000 £60,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £75,000 £80,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £48,000 £42,500 £42,500
% change year-on-year +12.94% - -

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

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.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 6,936 13,623 16,032
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 13.30% 13.85% 15.42%
Number of salaries quoted 4,252 9,516 8,186
10th Percentile £23,731 £26,250 £27,750
25th Percentile £30,500 £32,500 £36,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,500 £47,500 £50,250
Median % change year-on-year - -5.47% -4.29%
75th Percentile £67,500 £63,750 £71,250
90th Percentile £85,000 £77,715 £87,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £40,000 £43,500 £45,000
% change year-on-year -8.05% -3.33% -

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing WAN as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for WAN in the UK

WAN
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing WAN.

Salary trend for WAN in the UK

WAN
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing WAN over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Salary histogram for WAN in the UK

WAN
Top 18 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing WAN within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 2025. 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
England -28 910 £50,000 +5.26% 359
UK excluding London -33 665 £48,000 +12.94% 271
Work from Home -65 245 £50,000 -2.91% 176
London -71 232 £60,000 +4.35% 113
Midlands -9 197 £51,500 +22.62% 55
South East +27 175 £42,500 -10.53% 65
West Midlands -12 169 £50,000 +19.05% 31
North of England -82 140 £47,500 +11.76% 55
North West -73 83 £50,000 +17.65% 24
South West +2 77 £47,500 -3.06% 39
East of England -16 55 £43,250 +1.76% 34
Yorkshire -20 51 £37,500 -28.57% 24
East Midlands +8 28 £54,000 +20.00% 22
Scotland +54 12 £50,000 +28.21% 21
Wales +8 7 £37,733 -6.83% 6
North East +15 6 £33,599 -13.85% 9
Northern Ireland +34 1 £50,000 +33.33% 5
Isle of Man +15 1 - -

WAN
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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
1 123 (12.83%) Microsoft Exchange
2 68 (7.09%) SharePoint
3 7 (0.73%) IBM Domino
4 3 (0.31%) Exchange Server 2013
5 2 (0.21%) Confluence
5 2 (0.21%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.21%) WebSphere
5 2 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
6 1 (0.10%) SharePoint 2010
6 1 (0.10%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 84 (8.76%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.29%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.21%) Acrobat
4 2 (0.21%) Simulink
5 1 (0.10%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (0.52%) Dynamics NAV
1 5 (0.52%) Exchequer
1 5 (0.52%) SAP ERP
2 1 (0.10%) Carpe Diem
2 1 (0.10%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.10%) Elite 3E
2 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 445 (46.40%) Azure
2 284 (29.61%) Microsoft 365
3 124 (12.93%) AWS
4 101 (10.53%) Entra ID
5 42 (4.38%) GCP
6 33 (3.44%) Azure Sentinel
7 27 (2.82%) OneDrive
8 21 (2.19%) IaaS
9 18 (1.88%) GitHub
9 18 (1.88%) Mimecast
9 18 (1.88%) SaaS
10 12 (1.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 12 (1.25%) PaaS
11 10 (1.04%) Cloud Computing
11 10 (1.04%) Microsoft Purview
12 9 (0.94%) AWS Direct Connect
13 6 (0.63%) Route 53
14 5 (0.52%) Azure DevOps
14 5 (0.52%) Power Platform
15 4 (0.42%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 670 (69.86%) LAN
2 446 (46.51%) Firewall
3 277 (28.88%) SD-WAN
4 261 (27.22%) VPN
5 145 (15.12%) DNS
6 143 (14.91%) TCP/IP
7 140 (14.60%) Wi-Fi
8 132 (13.76%) BGP
9 131 (13.66%) Wireless
10 128 (13.35%) Network Security
11 123 (12.83%) MPLS
12 118 (12.30%) DHCP
13 105 (10.95%) OSPF
14 100 (10.43%) VLAN
15 91 (9.49%) VoIP
16 74 (7.72%) Internet
17 62 (6.47%) IPsec
18 54 (5.63%) Cisco ISE
19 52 (5.42%) WLAN
20 32 (3.34%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (3.96%) SQL Server
2 7 (0.73%) Relational Database
3 5 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
3 5 (0.52%) Power BI
4 2 (0.21%) EDMS
4 2 (0.21%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.10%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.10%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.10%) DB2
5 1 (0.10%) MS Access
5 1 (0.10%) MySQL
5 1 (0.10%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 17 (1.77%) Git
2 12 (1.25%) Sonatype Nexus
3 8 (0.83%) Visual Studio
4 7 (0.73%) JIRA
5 6 (0.63%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.42%) LabVIEW
6 4 (0.42%) Spinnaker
6 4 (0.42%) Subversion
7 2 (0.21%) GitLab
8 1 (0.10%) Eclipse
General
1 303 (31.60%) Social Skills
2 87 (9.07%) Finance
3 83 (8.65%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (6.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 54 (5.63%) Retail
6 52 (5.42%) Presentation Skills
7 28 (2.92%) Banking
8 27 (2.82%) Telecoms
9 25 (2.61%) Public Sector
10 24 (2.50%) Manufacturing
11 23 (2.40%) Organisational Skills
12 18 (1.88%) Legal
13 16 (1.67%) Electronics
14 13 (1.36%) Automotive
14 13 (1.36%) Local Government
15 12 (1.25%) Aerospace
15 12 (1.25%) Marketing
16 11 (1.15%) Law
16 11 (1.15%) Police
17 10 (1.04%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 194 (20.23%) Network Engineer
2 143 (14.91%) Architect
3 121 (12.62%) IT Support
4 115 (11.99%) Senior
5 113 (11.78%) Network Architect
6 111 (11.57%) Support Engineer
7 85 (8.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 63 (6.57%) Lead
9 60 (6.26%) Analyst
10 51 (5.32%) 2nd Line Support
11 45 (4.69%) 3rd Line Engineer
12 44 (4.59%) 3rd Line Support
12 44 (4.59%) IT Engineer
13 43 (4.48%) Junior
14 41 (4.28%) Senior Network Engineer
15 40 (4.17%) Consultant
15 40 (4.17%) Infrastructure Support
16 39 (4.07%) Support Specialist
17 35 (3.65%) IT Support Specialist
18 33 (3.44%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (2.71%) JSON
2 19 (1.98%) 802.1X
3 10 (1.04%) LDAP
4 5 (0.52%) Middleware
4 5 (0.52%) SAML
5 4 (0.42%) HTML
5 4 (0.42%) pytest
5 4 (0.42%) SOAP
5 4 (0.42%) XML
5 4 (0.42%) XSLT
6 3 (0.31%) EDI
7 2 (0.21%) gRPC
7 2 (0.21%) YAML
8 1 (0.10%) .NET
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Identity Foundation
Miscellaneous
1 114 (11.89%) Data Centre
2 59 (6.15%) Driving Licence
3 41 (4.28%) Public Cloud
4 40 (4.17%) Onboarding
5 39 (4.07%) Self-Motivation
6 37 (3.86%) CCTV
7 24 (2.50%) Self-Driving Car
8 23 (2.40%) Virtual Team
9 21 (2.19%) Video Conferencing
10 18 (1.88%) Management Information System
11 17 (1.77%) Client/Server
11 17 (1.77%) IoT
12 13 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
13 12 (1.25%) Cyber Threat
13 12 (1.25%) GNSS
13 12 (1.25%) Security Operations Centre
14 11 (1.15%) Operational Technology
14 11 (1.15%) Replication
15 9 (0.94%) PMI
16 8 (0.83%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 377 (39.31%) Windows
2 184 (19.19%) Windows Server
3 85 (8.86%) Windows 10
4 81 (8.45%) Linux
5 64 (6.67%) Windows Server 2016
6 49 (5.11%) Windows Server 2019
7 30 (3.13%) Mac OS
8 29 (3.02%) Windows Server 2012
9 22 (2.29%) Apple iOS
10 16 (1.67%) Android
11 12 (1.25%) Unix
12 7 (0.73%) VMS
13 5 (0.52%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
15 3 (0.31%) Mac OS X
15 3 (0.31%) Windows Server 2008
16 2 (0.21%) Solaris
17 1 (0.10%) CentOS
17 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 191 (19.92%) Problem-Solving
2 154 (16.06%) ITIL
3 110 (11.47%) Customer Service
4 99 (10.32%) Cybersecurity
4 99 (10.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 92 (9.59%) Network Management
6 75 (7.82%) Network Design
7 74 (7.72%) Network Monitoring
8 72 (7.51%) Mentoring
8 72 (7.51%) Migration
9 70 (7.30%) Continuous Improvement
10 62 (6.47%) Disaster Recovery
11 57 (5.94%) Presales
12 52 (5.42%) Project Management
13 50 (5.21%) Business Continuity
14 48 (5.01%) Technical Leadership
15 46 (4.80%) Change Management
16 45 (4.69%) Network Architecture
17 44 (4.59%) Project Delivery
18 42 (4.38%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 98 (10.22%) PowerShell
2 85 (8.86%) Python
3 45 (4.69%) SQL
4 21 (2.19%) C
5 20 (2.09%) Bash
6 18 (1.88%) C++
7 15 (1.56%) Perl
8 6 (0.63%) MATLAB
9 4 (0.42%) JavaScript
9 4 (0.42%) Jython
10 3 (0.31%) Java
11 2 (0.21%) Progress 4GL
12 1 (0.10%) Bicep
12 1 (0.10%) R
12 1 (0.10%) RPG
12 1 (0.10%) RPG IV
12 1 (0.10%) Scala
Qualifications
1 213 (22.21%) Cisco Certification
2 175 (18.25%) Security Cleared
3 154 (16.06%) Degree
4 138 (14.39%) CCNA
5 126 (13.14%) SC Cleared
6 121 (12.62%) CCNP
7 75 (7.82%) Microsoft Certification
8 40 (4.17%) JNCIA
9 38 (3.96%) CCIE
10 36 (3.75%) Azure Certification
11 28 (2.92%) JNCIS
12 27 (2.82%) DV Cleared
13 20 (2.09%) Master's Degree
14 19 (1.98%) MBA
15 18 (1.88%) MCSA
16 17 (1.77%) MCP
16 17 (1.77%) MCSE
17 15 (1.56%) A+ Certification
18 14 (1.46%) CCSA
18 14 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (6.67%) SLA
2 22 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 19 (1.98%) PMO
4 13 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials
5 11 (1.15%) GDPR
6 10 (1.04%) PCI DSS
7 9 (0.94%) NIST
8 8 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 8 (0.83%) QA
9 7 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 4 (0.42%) ISO 9000
12 3 (0.31%) Government Security Classifications
13 1 (0.10%) Accessibility
13 1 (0.10%) COBIT
13 1 (0.10%) HIPAA
13 1 (0.10%) ISO 14001
13 1 (0.10%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 298 (31.07%) Active Directory
2 153 (15.95%) VMware Infrastructure
3 82 (8.55%) Hyper-V
4 40 (4.17%) VMware NSX
5 25 (2.61%) Firmware
6 19 (1.98%) Virtual Desktop
6 19 (1.98%) Virtual Machines
6 19 (1.98%) XenApp
7 15 (1.56%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.83%) Virtual Servers
9 7 (0.73%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 7 (0.73%) vSphere
10 6 (0.63%) Embedded Firmware
10 6 (0.63%) Terminal Services
11 4 (0.42%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.31%) DFS Replication
12 3 (0.31%) KVM
12 3 (0.31%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.21%) NFS
13 2 (0.21%) Xen
Systems Management
1 126 (13.14%) Microsoft Intune
2 66 (6.88%) Ansible
3 63 (6.57%) Terraform
4 57 (5.94%) FortiGate
5 36 (3.75%) SCCM
6 13 (1.36%) WSUS
7 11 (1.15%) Jamf Pro
7 11 (1.15%) SCOM
8 10 (1.04%) vCenter Server
9 9 (0.94%) Kubernetes
9 9 (0.94%) NetBackup
10 8 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.73%) Puppet
12 6 (0.63%) PaperCut
12 6 (0.63%) QRadar
13 5 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.52%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.52%) SmoothWall
14 4 (0.42%) Iperf
14 4 (0.42%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 447 (46.61%) Cisco
2 382 (39.83%) Microsoft
3 215 (22.42%) VMware
4 178 (18.56%) Juniper
5 138 (14.39%) Fortinet
6 107 (11.16%) Palo Alto
7 92 (9.59%) Meraki
8 90 (9.38%) CheckPoint
9 68 (7.09%) Aruba
10 66 (6.88%) SolarWinds
11 52 (5.42%) Citrix
12 45 (4.69%) F5
13 39 (4.07%) Google
14 35 (3.65%) Dell
15 32 (3.34%) Veeam
16 30 (3.13%) HP
17 25 (2.61%) Blue Coat
18 24 (2.50%) ServiceNow
19 23 (2.40%) Apple
20 20 (2.09%) SonicWALL