Lan/wan engineer vs network consultant

The differences between lan/wan engineers and network consultants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both a lan/wan engineer and a network consultant. Additionally, a network consultant has an average salary of $89,303, which is higher than the $79,887 average annual salary of a lan/wan engineer.

The top three skills for a lan/wan engineer include lan wan, switches and windows server. The most important skills for a network consultant are appeals, firewall, and windows server.

Lan/wan engineer vs network consultant overview

	Lan/Wan Engineer	Network Consultant
Yearly salary	$79,887	$89,303
Hourly rate	$38.41	$42.93
Growth rate	5%	5%
Number of jobs	53,143	58,194
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 64%	Bachelor's Degree, 60%
Average age	43	43
Years of experience	2	2

Lan/wan engineer vs network consultant salary

Lan/wan engineers and network consultants have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Lan/Wan Engineer	Network Consultant
Average salary	$79,887	$89,303
Salary range	Between $62,000 And $102,000	Between $60,000 And $132,000
Highest paying City	-	Mountain View, CA
Highest paying state	-	California
Best paying company	-	Dell
Best paying industry	-	Manufacturing

Differences between lan/wan engineer and network consultant education

There are a few differences between a lan/wan engineer and a network consultant in terms of educational background:

	Lan/Wan Engineer	Network Consultant
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 64%	Bachelor's Degree, 60%
Most common major	Computer Science	Computer Science
Most common college	-	Stanford University

Lan/wan engineer vs network consultant demographics

Here are the differences between lan/wan engineers' and network consultants' demographics:

	Lan/Wan Engineer	Network Consultant
Average age	43	43
Gender ratio	Male, 90.6% Female, 9.4%	Male, 87.0% Female, 13.0%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 9.0% Unknown, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino, 12.7% Asian, 9.1% White, 63.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%	Black or African American, 9.0% Unknown, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino, 12.7% Asian, 11.3% White, 61.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%
LGBT Percentage	9%	9%

Differences between lan/wan engineer and network consultant duties and responsibilities

Lan/wan engineer example responsibilities.

Manage the VOIP issues with the users.
Write program codes in Unix and scripts in others to automate systems backup.
Manage blade server farm network, network monitoring servers, and wireless LAN network.
Monitor, manage and resolve all data network circuit outages while working independently using VMware.
Assign IP addresses, routers configuration, IOS upgrades, and manage circuit turn-up at the pops.
Manage user accounts on AIX 3.2/HPUX 10.20/Winows NT 4.0/2000 and Novell Netware 5 in a production environment.

Network consultant example responsibilities.

Support and manage Linux base firewalls for client.
Manage FTP servers, AD/DNS, wireless access points and load balancers.
Manage and configure VoIP devices which include gateway and gatekeeper.
Lead architecture and design sessions with customers; initiate technical meetings with customer engineers to further engage and identify additional opportunities.
Create an optimize network to separate voice and data with QOS, MPLS BGP OSPF.
Configure route redistribution to between OSPF and EIGRP.

Lan/wan engineer vs network consultant skills

Common lan/wan engineer skills

Lan Wan, 13%
Switches, 9%
Windows Server, 5%
VoIP, 4%
Firewall, 4%
Lan, 3%

Common network consultant skills

Appeals, 10%
Firewall, 5%
Windows Server, 5%
Switches, 4%
Network Infrastructure, 4%
Network Hardware, 4%