Hybrid/Remote WAN Job Trends

Wide Area Network (WAN)
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for remote or hybrid work requiring WAN skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 175 193 126
Rank change year-on-year +18 -67 +16
Permanent jobs citing WAN 320 273 730
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 1.49% 1.66% 2.37%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 13.53% 13.96% 15.80%
Number of salaries quoted 206 196 545
10th Percentile £32,261 £28,000 £33,500
25th Percentile £42,000 £41,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £63,750 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +27.50% -9.09% +8.91%
75th Percentile £77,500 £66,563 £70,000
90th Percentile £84,375 £88,750 £84,919
UK median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £47,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% - -

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 permanent job vacancies with remote or hybrid options requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 2,365 1,955 4,619
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 11.04% 11.86% 15.01%
Number of salaries quoted 1,280 1,193 2,847
10th Percentile £29,750 £25,087 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £31,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -8.70%
75th Percentile £73,750 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £86,250 £85,000 £81,250
UK median annual salary £47,500 £45,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -7.77%

WAN
Job Vacancy Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

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

WAN job vacancy trend for remote/hybrid jobs

WAN
Salary Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Salary distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing WAN.

Salary distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing WAN

WAN
Salary Histogram for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Salary distribution for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing WAN over the 6 months to 17 July 2026.

WAN salary histogram for jobs with remote/hybrid work options

WAN
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 37 (11.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 30 (9.38%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.31%) IIS
3 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
Applications
1 9 (2.81%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.94%) AutoCAD
3 3 (0.94%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.94%) SOLIDWORKS
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 189 (59.06%) Azure
2 114 (35.63%) Microsoft 365
3 70 (21.88%) AWS
4 54 (16.88%) Cloud Computing
5 50 (15.63%) Entra ID
6 31 (9.69%) Power Platform
7 16 (5.00%) GCP
8 10 (3.13%) AWS Direct Connect
8 10 (3.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 9 (2.81%) SaaS
10 8 (2.50%) Google Workspace
10 8 (2.50%) OneDrive
11 6 (1.88%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (1.56%) OCI
13 3 (0.94%) Azure Monitor
13 3 (0.94%) IaaS
13 3 (0.94%) Mimecast
13 3 (0.94%) PaaS
14 2 (0.63%) Azure AKS
14 2 (0.63%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 266 (83.13%) LAN
2 156 (48.75%) Firewall
3 102 (31.88%) VPN
4 95 (29.69%) SD-WAN
5 81 (25.31%) DNS
6 69 (21.56%) DHCP
6 69 (21.56%) Network Security
7 61 (19.06%) Wi-Fi
8 52 (16.25%) TCP/IP
9 51 (15.94%) MPLS
9 51 (15.94%) VLAN
10 49 (15.31%) BGP
11 44 (13.75%) Wireless
11 44 (13.75%) WLAN
12 29 (9.06%) Cisco Firepower
13 28 (8.75%) OSPF
14 27 (8.44%) Cisco ISE
15 22 (6.88%) Cisco ASA
16 21 (6.56%) IPsec
17 20 (6.25%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.56%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.31%) InfluxDB
2 1 (0.31%) MariaDB
2 1 (0.31%) MySQL
2 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.31%) RDBMS
2 1 (0.31%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 3 (0.94%) JIRA
2 1 (0.31%) GitLab
2 1 (0.31%) Jenkins
General
1 148 (46.25%) Social Skills
2 81 (25.31%) Finance
3 57 (17.81%) Presentation Skills
4 40 (12.50%) Telecoms
5 37 (11.56%) Public Sector
6 33 (10.31%) Law
7 18 (5.63%) Banking
8 15 (4.69%) Marketing
8 15 (4.69%) Retail
9 12 (3.75%) Analytical Skills
9 12 (3.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.25%) Electronics
11 4 (1.25%) Military
12 3 (0.94%) Legal
12 3 (0.94%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.63%) Local Government
13 2 (0.63%) Retail Banking
14 1 (0.31%) Dutch Language
14 1 (0.31%) French Language
Job Titles
1 108 (33.75%) Architect
2 75 (23.44%) Network Engineer
3 53 (16.56%) Senior
4 51 (15.94%) Systems Architect
5 48 (15.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 34 (10.63%) IT Engineer
7 33 (10.31%) Network Architect
8 30 (9.38%) Support Engineer
9 29 (9.06%) IT Support
10 23 (7.19%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 22 (6.88%) IT Support Engineer
12 20 (6.25%) Senior Network Engineer
13 18 (5.63%) 2nd Line Engineer
13 18 (5.63%) 2nd Line Support
13 18 (5.63%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
14 16 (5.00%) Analyst
14 16 (5.00%) Solutions Architect
15 13 (4.06%) Network Manager
16 12 (3.75%) Lead
17 11 (3.44%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (3.13%) OAuth
1 10 (3.13%) SAML
2 9 (2.81%) XMPP
3 4 (1.25%) 802.1X
3 4 (1.25%) LDAP
4 3 (0.94%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.31%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 45 (14.06%) Data Centre
2 24 (7.50%) Hybrid Cloud
3 15 (4.69%) Security Posture
4 14 (4.38%) Cyber Kill Chain
5 13 (4.06%) Onboarding
6 12 (3.75%) PKI
7 10 (3.13%) Driving Licence
7 10 (3.13%) Video Conferencing
8 9 (2.81%) FlexPod
8 9 (2.81%) Replication
9 8 (2.50%) Cloud Native
10 7 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (1.25%) Clustering
11 4 (1.25%) Cyber Defence
11 4 (1.25%) Cyber Threat
11 4 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (1.25%) Management Information System
12 3 (0.94%) Public Cloud
12 3 (0.94%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 70 (21.88%) Windows
2 58 (18.13%) Windows Server
3 21 (6.56%) Linux
4 18 (5.63%) Mac OS
5 13 (4.06%) Windows Server 2016
6 12 (3.75%) Windows Server 2019
7 11 (3.44%) Windows 10
8 8 (2.50%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (1.25%) Unix
10 2 (0.63%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.63%) CentOS
10 2 (0.63%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.31%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.31%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (26.25%) Problem-Solving
2 78 (24.38%) Project Delivery
3 71 (22.19%) Network Architecture
4 67 (20.94%) Infrastructure as Code
4 67 (20.94%) Roadmaps
5 65 (20.31%) Network Design
6 62 (19.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 57 (17.81%) Technical Architecture
8 56 (17.50%) Logistics
9 54 (16.88%) Information Security
10 53 (16.56%) Risk Management
11 52 (16.25%) Business Strategy
11 52 (16.25%) Containerisation
12 51 (15.94%) Business Case
13 47 (14.69%) Cybersecurity
14 42 (13.13%) Continuous Improvement
15 41 (12.81%) Stakeholder Management
16 38 (11.88%) Disaster Recovery
17 35 (10.94%) Mentoring
18 32 (10.00%) Presales
Programming Languages
1 29 (9.06%) Python
2 21 (6.56%) PowerShell
3 2 (0.63%) Bash
4 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
4 1 (0.31%) SQL
4 1 (0.31%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 64 (20.00%) Cisco Certification
2 52 (16.25%) CCNP
3 35 (10.94%) CCNA
4 31 (9.69%) Security Cleared
5 24 (7.50%) SC Cleared
6 22 (6.88%) Degree
7 18 (5.63%) Azure Certification
7 18 (5.63%) CCIE
8 15 (4.69%) DV Cleared
9 13 (4.06%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
12 5 (1.56%) CCSA
12 5 (1.56%) CCSE
12 5 (1.56%) PMP
13 4 (1.25%) DBS Check
13 4 (1.25%) JNCIE
14 3 (0.94%) AWS Certification
14 3 (0.94%) CCIE Security
14 3 (0.94%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (15.94%) GRC
2 24 (7.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (3.75%) NIST
4 10 (3.13%) SLA
5 9 (2.81%) Cyber Essentials
6 7 (2.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 4 (1.25%) GDPR
8 3 (0.94%) QA
9 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.31%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.31%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 66 (20.63%) Active Directory
2 40 (12.50%) Hyper-V
3 39 (12.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (5.00%) vSphere
5 8 (2.50%) VMware NSX
6 7 (2.19%) Virtual Servers
7 6 (1.88%) Firmware
7 6 (1.88%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 6 (1.88%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.31%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.31%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 1 (0.31%) Docker
8 1 (0.31%) KVM
8 1 (0.31%) QEMU
8 1 (0.31%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.31%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.31%) Xen
Systems Management
1 26 (8.13%) Ansible
1 26 (8.13%) Microsoft Intune
2 25 (7.81%) FortiGate
3 17 (5.31%) Terraform
4 10 (3.13%) CASB
5 9 (2.81%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 9 (2.81%) Cisco CUCM
5 9 (2.81%) Grafana
6 5 (1.56%) Endace
6 5 (1.56%) vCenter Server
7 4 (1.25%) Kubernetes
7 4 (1.25%) QRadar
8 3 (0.94%) Failover Clustering
8 3 (0.94%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 2 (0.63%) OpenView
9 2 (0.63%) SCCM
9 2 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.63%) Tivoli
9 2 (0.63%) WhatsUp Gold
10 1 (0.31%) Puppet
Vendors
1 165 (51.56%) Microsoft
2 140 (43.75%) Cisco
3 63 (19.69%) Palo Alto
4 54 (16.88%) VMware
5 50 (15.63%) Fortinet
6 36 (11.25%) Meraki
7 23 (7.19%) Juniper
8 20 (6.25%) Aruba
9 19 (5.94%) CheckPoint
9 19 (5.94%) SolarWinds
10 17 (5.31%) Splunk
11 12 (3.75%) F5
12 11 (3.44%) Zscaler
13 10 (3.13%) Dynatrace
14 8 (2.50%) Google
15 6 (1.88%) ArcSight
15 6 (1.88%) NetApp
16 5 (1.56%) Citrix
16 5 (1.56%) ServiceNow
17 4 (1.25%) EMC