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 9 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 195 201 132
Rank change year-on-year +6 -69 +24
Permanent jobs citing WAN 253 268 790
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 1.30% 1.78% 2.32%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 11.78% 13.92% 15.48%
Number of salaries quoted 186 189 603
10th Percentile £31,625 £28,000 £34,750
25th Percentile £42,000 £41,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £77,906 £66,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £89,000 £84,919
UK median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +5.00% +5.26% -

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 2,147 1,925 5,103
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 11.03% 12.75% 14.98%
Number of salaries quoted 1,084 1,154 3,311
10th Percentile £29,750 £25,087 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £31,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £75,000 £68,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £87,500 £87,500 £80,000
UK median annual salary £47,500 £47,500 £47,500
% change year-on-year - - -5.94%

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 9 June 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 42 (16.60%) Microsoft Exchange
2 33 (13.04%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.79%) Confluence
4 1 (0.40%) IIS
4 1 (0.40%) OpenStack
Applications
1 12 (4.74%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.58%) MS Visio
3 3 (1.19%) AutoCAD
3 3 (1.19%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 2 (0.79%) SAP HR
2 1 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 136 (53.75%) Azure
2 80 (31.62%) Microsoft 365
3 73 (28.85%) AWS
4 43 (17.00%) Entra ID
5 17 (6.72%) GCP
6 14 (5.53%) AWS Direct Connect
6 14 (5.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 13 (5.14%) Google Workspace
7 13 (5.14%) SaaS
8 10 (3.95%) OneDrive
9 6 (2.37%) Azure Sentinel
10 5 (1.98%) OCI
11 3 (1.19%) IaaS
11 3 (1.19%) PaaS
12 2 (0.79%) Azure AKS
12 2 (0.79%) Azure Monitor
12 2 (0.79%) Datadog
12 2 (0.79%) Dynamics 365
12 2 (0.79%) Power Platform
12 2 (0.79%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 183 (72.33%) LAN
2 128 (50.59%) Firewall
3 115 (45.45%) SD-WAN
4 105 (41.50%) VPN
5 79 (31.23%) DNS
6 65 (25.69%) DHCP
7 54 (21.34%) TCP/IP
8 50 (19.76%) Wi-Fi
9 48 (18.97%) Network Security
10 47 (18.58%) BGP
10 47 (18.58%) MPLS
11 44 (17.39%) WLAN
12 38 (15.02%) VLAN
13 33 (13.04%) Cisco Firepower
14 32 (12.65%) Cisco ISE
14 32 (12.65%) Wireless
15 29 (11.46%) OSPF
16 26 (10.28%) Cisco ASA
17 22 (8.70%) IPsec
17 22 (8.70%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.79%) Power BI
1 2 (0.79%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.40%) InfluxDB
2 1 (0.40%) MariaDB
2 1 (0.40%) MySQL
2 1 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.40%) RDBMS
2 1 (0.40%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 3 (1.19%) JIRA
2 1 (0.40%) GitLab
2 1 (0.40%) Jenkins
General
1 82 (32.41%) Social Skills
2 38 (15.02%) Public Sector
3 36 (14.23%) Finance
4 24 (9.49%) Telecoms
5 16 (6.32%) Retail
6 15 (5.93%) Banking
6 15 (5.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (4.35%) Marketing
8 10 (3.95%) Organisational Skills
9 7 (2.77%) Analytical Skills
10 6 (2.37%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (1.58%) Electronics
11 4 (1.58%) Legal
12 3 (1.19%) Law
13 2 (0.79%) Local Government
13 2 (0.79%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.79%) Military
13 2 (0.79%) Police
13 2 (0.79%) Retail Banking
14 1 (0.40%) Fire and Rescue
Job Titles
1 68 (26.88%) Network Engineer
2 53 (20.95%) Architect
3 52 (20.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 44 (17.39%) Senior
5 41 (16.21%) IT Engineer
6 32 (12.65%) Support Engineer
7 31 (12.25%) Network Architect
8 27 (10.67%) IT Support
9 23 (9.09%) IT Support Engineer
9 23 (9.09%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 20 (7.91%) 2nd Line Support
11 19 (7.51%) 2nd Line Engineer
11 19 (7.51%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
12 17 (6.72%) Solutions Architect
13 16 (6.32%) Infrastructure Operations Engineer
13 16 (6.32%) Operations Engineer
14 15 (5.93%) Network Manager
15 14 (5.53%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
16 13 (5.14%) Senior Network Engineer
17 10 (3.95%) Network Operations Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (3.56%) XMPP
2 6 (2.37%) OAuth
2 6 (2.37%) SAML
3 4 (1.58%) 802.1X
4 3 (1.19%) LDAP
5 2 (0.79%) ARM Templates
5 2 (0.79%) Web Services
6 1 (0.40%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 44 (17.39%) Data Centre
2 22 (8.70%) Hybrid Cloud
3 13 (5.14%) Driving Licence
4 11 (4.35%) PKI
5 10 (3.95%) Onboarding
6 9 (3.56%) Cloud Native
6 9 (3.56%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 9 (3.56%) FlexPod
6 9 (3.56%) Replication
6 9 (3.56%) Security Posture
6 9 (3.56%) Video Conferencing
7 8 (3.16%) Management Information System
8 6 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
10 4 (1.58%) Product Ownership
10 4 (1.58%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.58%) Virtual Team
11 3 (1.19%) Cyber Defence
11 3 (1.19%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (1.19%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
Operating Systems
1 67 (26.48%) Windows
2 57 (22.53%) Windows Server
3 23 (9.09%) Linux
4 22 (8.70%) Mac OS
4 22 (8.70%) Windows 10
5 13 (5.14%) Windows Server 2016
6 12 (4.74%) Windows Server 2012
6 12 (4.74%) Windows Server 2019
7 8 (3.16%) Apple iOS
8 4 (1.58%) Unix
9 2 (0.79%) CentOS
9 2 (0.79%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.40%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.40%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (28.85%) Problem-Solving
2 60 (23.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 43 (17.00%) Disaster Recovery
4 38 (15.02%) Continuous Improvement
5 36 (14.23%) Stakeholder Management
6 33 (13.04%) Cybersecurity
6 33 (13.04%) Mentoring
7 31 (12.25%) ITIL
8 29 (11.46%) Presales
8 29 (11.46%) Service Delivery
8 29 (11.46%) Zero Trust
9 23 (9.09%) Migration
9 23 (9.09%) Technical Leadership
10 22 (8.70%) Service Management
11 21 (8.30%) Cloud Security
11 21 (8.30%) Collaborative Culture
11 21 (8.30%) Network Architecture
12 20 (7.91%) Network Segmentation
13 18 (7.11%) Incident Response
13 18 (7.11%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 23 (9.09%) Python
2 14 (5.53%) PowerShell
3 3 (1.19%) SQL
4 2 (0.79%) Bash
5 1 (0.40%) PL/SQL
5 1 (0.40%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 46 (18.18%) Cisco Certification
2 35 (13.83%) CCNP
3 31 (12.25%) Security Cleared
4 25 (9.88%) SC Cleared
5 24 (9.49%) CCNA
6 19 (7.51%) Degree
7 17 (6.72%) CCIE
8 13 (5.14%) DV Cleared
8 13 (5.14%) Microsoft Certification
9 11 (4.35%) Azure Certification
10 9 (3.56%) BPSS Clearance
10 9 (3.56%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.98%) CCSA
11 5 (1.98%) CCSE
12 4 (1.58%) JNCIE
13 3 (1.19%) AWS Certification
13 3 (1.19%) CCIE Security
13 3 (1.19%) JNCIP
13 3 (1.19%) PMP
13 3 (1.19%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (9.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 13 (5.14%) SLA
3 12 (4.74%) Cyber Essentials
4 10 (3.95%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 8 (3.16%) NIST
6 4 (1.58%) QA
7 3 (1.19%) GDPR
7 3 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 3 (1.19%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.40%) ISO 14001
8 1 (0.40%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.40%) NCSC
System Software
1 65 (25.69%) Active Directory
2 34 (13.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (10.28%) Hyper-V
4 13 (5.14%) vSphere
5 7 (2.77%) Virtual Servers
6 6 (2.37%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 5 (1.98%) VMware NSX
8 4 (1.58%) Firmware
8 4 (1.58%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.40%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.40%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 1 (0.40%) Docker
9 1 (0.40%) KVM
9 1 (0.40%) QEMU
9 1 (0.40%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.40%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.40%) Xen
Systems Management
1 23 (9.09%) Ansible
1 23 (9.09%) FortiGate
2 22 (8.70%) Microsoft Intune
3 17 (6.72%) Terraform
4 13 (5.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 9 (3.56%) Cisco CUCM
5 9 (3.56%) Grafana
6 6 (2.37%) CASB
7 5 (1.98%) Endace
7 5 (1.98%) vCenter Server
8 4 (1.58%) Kubernetes
9 3 (1.19%) QRadar
10 2 (0.79%) Autotask
10 2 (0.79%) OpenView
10 2 (0.79%) SCCM
10 2 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.79%) Tivoli
10 2 (0.79%) WhatsUp Gold
11 1 (0.40%) Cisco Prime
11 1 (0.40%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 129 (50.99%) Cisco
2 102 (40.32%) Microsoft
3 57 (22.53%) Fortinet
4 50 (19.76%) Palo Alto
5 45 (17.79%) VMware
6 42 (16.60%) Meraki
7 23 (9.09%) Juniper
7 23 (9.09%) SolarWinds
8 20 (7.91%) CheckPoint
9 16 (6.32%) Splunk
10 14 (5.53%) Dynatrace
11 13 (5.14%) Google
12 10 (3.95%) Aruba
13 9 (3.56%) ServiceNow
14 8 (3.16%) F5
15 7 (2.77%) Zscaler
16 6 (2.37%) NetApp
17 5 (1.98%) ArcSight
18 4 (1.58%) EMC
18 4 (1.58%) Huawei