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 2 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 188 191 148
Rank change year-on-year +3 -43 -24
Permanent jobs citing WAN 320 259 549
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 1.37% 1.58% 2.26%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 13.83% 13.72% 14.53%
Number of salaries quoted 195 185 368
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,000 £34,404
25th Percentile £40,125 £38,250 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £50,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -7.41% +8.00%
75th Percentile £76,476 £70,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £84,500 £90,000 £84,114
UK median annual salary £55,000 £42,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +29.41% -15.00% +4.17%

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 2,314 1,888 3,779
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 9.91% 11.52% 15.55%
Number of salaries quoted 1,340 1,121 1,826
10th Percentile £29,000 £25,087 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,625 £31,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -12.04% -6.09%
75th Percentile £72,500 £67,500 £68,750
90th Percentile £85,125 £86,776 £81,250
UK median annual salary £47,500 £40,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +18.75% -20.00% -2.91%

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 2 September 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 27 (8.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 23 (7.19%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.63%) Confluence
4 1 (0.31%) IIS
4 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
Applications
1 7 (2.19%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
Cloud Services
1 186 (58.13%) Azure
2 104 (32.50%) Microsoft 365
3 62 (19.38%) Cloud Computing
4 61 (19.06%) AWS
5 47 (14.69%) Entra ID
6 31 (9.69%) Power Platform
7 18 (5.63%) GCP
8 9 (2.81%) OneDrive
9 8 (2.50%) OCI
10 7 (2.19%) Azure Sentinel
11 6 (1.88%) IaaS
11 6 (1.88%) PaaS
11 6 (1.88%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 5 (1.56%) SaaS
13 4 (1.25%) AWS Direct Connect
13 4 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
13 4 (1.25%) Mimecast
14 2 (0.63%) Azure AKS
14 2 (0.63%) Azure Key Vault
14 2 (0.63%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 273 (85.31%) LAN
2 161 (50.31%) Firewall
3 86 (26.88%) SD-WAN
4 82 (25.63%) VPN
5 81 (25.31%) Network Security
6 66 (20.63%) DNS
7 61 (19.06%) DHCP
8 57 (17.81%) VLAN
9 50 (15.63%) Wireless
10 48 (15.00%) BGP
10 48 (15.00%) Wi-Fi
11 43 (13.44%) TCP/IP
12 39 (12.19%) MPLS
13 38 (11.88%) WLAN
14 32 (10.00%) OSPF
15 21 (6.56%) Cisco Nexus
16 20 (6.25%) Cisco ISE
17 19 (5.94%) Cisco ASA
18 16 (5.00%) Cisco Firepower
19 15 (4.69%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (2.81%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.31%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (0.31%) Electronic Patient Records
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 5 (1.56%) JIRA
2 4 (1.25%) Git
3 3 (0.94%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.63%) GitLab
5 1 (0.31%) Jenkins
General
1 155 (48.44%) Social Skills
2 78 (24.38%) Finance
3 66 (20.63%) Presentation Skills
4 48 (15.00%) Telecoms
5 40 (12.50%) Public Sector
6 31 (9.69%) Law
7 19 (5.94%) Banking
7 19 (5.94%) Retail
8 18 (5.63%) Marketing
9 13 (4.06%) Analytical Skills
10 8 (2.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.56%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.25%) Electronics
13 3 (0.94%) Legal
13 3 (0.94%) Military
14 2 (0.63%) French Language
14 2 (0.63%) German Language
14 2 (0.63%) Local Government
15 1 (0.31%) Italian Language
Job Titles
1 105 (32.81%) Architect
2 87 (27.19%) Network Engineer
3 58 (18.13%) Systems Architect
4 50 (15.63%) Senior
5 36 (11.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 32 (10.00%) Network Architect
7 25 (7.81%) Support Engineer
8 23 (7.19%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 22 (6.88%) IT Support
10 21 (6.56%) Senior Network Engineer
11 17 (5.31%) Analyst
11 17 (5.31%) IT Engineer
12 16 (5.00%) Lead
13 13 (4.06%) 2nd Line Engineer
13 13 (4.06%) 2nd Line Support
13 13 (4.06%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
13 13 (4.06%) IT Support Engineer
14 12 (3.75%) Network Manager
14 12 (3.75%) Solutions Architect
15 11 (3.44%) Network Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (6.88%) Terraform
2 10 (3.13%) OAuth
2 10 (3.13%) SAML
3 8 (2.50%) XMPP
4 7 (2.19%) 802.1X
5 4 (1.25%) LDAP
6 3 (0.94%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.63%) YAML
8 1 (0.31%) Jinja
8 1 (0.31%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 48 (15.00%) Data Centre
2 27 (8.44%) Hybrid Cloud
3 17 (5.31%) Onboarding
4 16 (5.00%) Security Posture
5 14 (4.38%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 11 (3.44%) Self-Motivation
7 9 (2.81%) Video Conferencing
8 8 (2.50%) FlexPod
8 8 (2.50%) Replication
9 7 (2.19%) Cloud Native
9 7 (2.19%) PKI
10 6 (1.88%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 5 (1.56%) Driving Licence
11 5 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
12 4 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (1.25%) Clustering
12 4 (1.25%) Cyber Defence
12 4 (1.25%) Cyber Threat
13 3 (0.94%) Enterprise Storage
14 2 (0.63%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 59 (18.44%) Windows
2 49 (15.31%) Windows Server
3 16 (5.00%) Linux
4 9 (2.81%) Mac OS
5 7 (2.19%) Windows Server 2016
5 7 (2.19%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (1.25%) Unix
7 2 (0.63%) CentOS
7 2 (0.63%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.63%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (28.44%) Project Delivery
2 76 (23.75%) Infrastructure as Code
3 75 (23.44%) Network Architecture
3 75 (23.44%) Roadmaps
4 71 (22.19%) Network Design
5 69 (21.56%) Problem-Solving
6 64 (20.00%) Logistics
6 64 (20.00%) Technical Architecture
7 63 (19.69%) Information Security
8 60 (18.75%) Cybersecurity
9 59 (18.44%) Containerisation
10 58 (18.13%) Business Case
10 58 (18.13%) Business Strategy
10 58 (18.13%) Risk Management
11 50 (15.63%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 48 (15.00%) Continuous Improvement
13 38 (11.88%) Stakeholder Management
14 34 (10.63%) ITIL
14 34 (10.63%) Mentoring
15 33 (10.31%) Technology Strategy
Programming Languages
1 33 (10.31%) Python
2 23 (7.19%) PowerShell
3 2 (0.63%) Bash
3 2 (0.63%) SQL
4 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
4 1 (0.31%) Ruby
4 1 (0.31%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 69 (21.56%) Cisco Certification
2 53 (16.56%) CCNP
3 35 (10.94%) CCNA
4 23 (7.19%) Security Cleared
5 21 (6.56%) Azure Certification
6 20 (6.25%) Degree
7 16 (5.00%) CCIE
8 13 (4.06%) DV Cleared
8 13 (4.06%) SC Cleared
9 9 (2.81%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (2.19%) PMP
11 6 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (1.25%) AWS Certification
12 4 (1.25%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (1.25%) DBS Check
12 4 (1.25%) JNCIE
13 3 (0.94%) CCIE Security
13 3 (0.94%) CCSA
13 3 (0.94%) CCSE
13 3 (0.94%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (19.38%) GRC
2 23 (7.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 16 (5.00%) SLA
4 15 (4.69%) NIST
5 11 (3.44%) GDPR
6 7 (2.19%) Cyber Essentials
7 4 (1.25%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.94%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 2 (0.63%) QA
10 1 (0.31%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.31%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 60 (18.75%) Active Directory
2 40 (12.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 39 (12.19%) Hyper-V
4 15 (4.69%) vSphere
5 10 (3.13%) VMware NSX
6 7 (2.19%) Firmware
7 6 (1.88%) Virtual Servers
7 6 (1.88%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (1.56%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 2 (0.63%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.31%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 1 (0.31%) Docker
10 1 (0.31%) KVM
10 1 (0.31%) QEMU
10 1 (0.31%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.31%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.31%) Xen
Systems Management
1 28 (8.75%) Ansible
2 27 (8.44%) FortiGate
3 24 (7.50%) Microsoft Intune
4 14 (4.38%) CASB
5 8 (2.50%) Cisco CUCM
5 8 (2.50%) Grafana
6 5 (1.56%) Kubernetes
6 5 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.56%) vCenter Server
7 4 (1.25%) QRadar
7 4 (1.25%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
8 3 (0.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.94%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (0.63%) SCCM
9 2 (0.63%) WhatsUp Gold
10 1 (0.31%) Cisco Prime
10 1 (0.31%) OpenView
10 1 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
10 1 (0.31%) Puppet
10 1 (0.31%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 163 (50.94%) Microsoft
2 137 (42.81%) Cisco
3 67 (20.94%) Palo Alto
4 55 (17.19%) VMware
5 39 (12.19%) Fortinet
6 23 (7.19%) Aruba
6 23 (7.19%) Meraki
7 20 (6.25%) Juniper
8 16 (5.00%) CheckPoint
8 16 (5.00%) Splunk
8 16 (5.00%) Zscaler
9 13 (4.06%) SolarWinds
10 6 (1.88%) F5
10 6 (1.88%) Netskope
11 5 (1.56%) ArcSight
11 5 (1.56%) Citrix
11 5 (1.56%) Dell
11 5 (1.56%) NetApp
12 4 (1.25%) Dynatrace
12 4 (1.25%) HP