Network Engineer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Network Engineer
England > South East

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the South East is £470, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 27 August 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 114 71 50
Rank change year-on-year -43 -21 +16
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 118 100 179
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.78% 2.82% 3.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.93% 3.13% 4.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 87 85 105
10th Percentile £282 £310 £350
25th Percentile £380 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% - +17.65%
75th Percentile £568 £575 £600
90th Percentile £613 £613 £638
England median daily rate £480 £485 £490
% change year-on-year -1.03% -1.02% +8.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 2 6
10th Percentile £59.94 £72.86 £18.06
25th Percentile £76.25 £75.66 £19.48
Median hourly rate £77.50 £83.32 £47.95
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +73.76% -22.67%
75th Percentile £78.75 £87.97 £75.24
90th Percentile - £88.97 £76.12
England median hourly rate £77.50 £57.50 £56.78
% change year-on-year +34.78% +1.27% -5.37%

All Contract IT Job Roles
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the South East with a recognized job title 6,099 3,194 4,415
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 90.20% 92.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,569 2,050 2,667
10th Percentile £303 £205 £250
25th Percentile £425 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% +3.00%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £630
90th Percentile £714 £675 £688
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 753 294 360
10th Percentile £15.50 £13.75 £16.00
25th Percentile £24.25 £15.50 £27.50
Median hourly rate £52.43 £25.15 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +108.45% -56.15% +14.70%
75th Percentile £70.25 £57.50 £74.90
90th Percentile £86.61 £74.63 £80.00
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.63%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Network Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the South East

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the South East

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer in the South East over the 6 months to 27 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Engineer in the South East

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the South East

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Engineer in the South East over the 6 months to 27 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Engineer in the South East

Network Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Network Engineer within the South East region over the 6 months to 27 August 2026. 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Thames Valley -3 78 £463 +2.78% 11
Berkshire -12 49 £400 -11.11% 6
Buckinghamshire -18 21 £525 +31.25% 1
Hampshire -61 21 £550 +10.00% 6
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
Oxfordshire -20 8 £480 +12.94% 5
Surrey -16 5 £450 -14.29% 4
Sussex - 3 £246 -
Network Engineer
England

Network Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 27 August 2026, Network Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the South East region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 64 (54.24%) Security Cleared
2 58 (49.15%) Cisco
3 52 (44.07%) Firewall
4 43 (36.44%) SC Cleared
5 41 (34.75%) WAN
6 39 (33.05%) LAN
7 37 (31.36%) VMware
8 31 (26.27%) Juniper
9 28 (23.73%) Network Security
9 28 (23.73%) Palo Alto
10 27 (22.88%) VMware Infrastructure
11 26 (22.03%) DNS
12 25 (21.19%) DV Cleared
13 23 (19.49%) BGP
14 22 (18.64%) DHCP
14 22 (18.64%) ITIL
15 21 (17.80%) Fortinet
16 20 (16.95%) Cisco Certification
16 20 (16.95%) VPN
17 19 (16.10%) Cisco ASA
17 19 (16.10%) Network Monitoring
17 19 (16.10%) OSPF
17 19 (16.10%) Wireless
18 18 (15.25%) SD-WAN
19 17 (14.41%) Cisco Firepower
20 16 (13.56%) Technical Leadership
20 16 (13.56%) VLAN
20 16 (13.56%) Windows
21 15 (12.71%) High Availability
21 15 (12.71%) IPsec

Network Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 1 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 12 (10.17%) AWS
1 12 (10.17%) Azure
2 5 (4.24%) Azure Sentinel
3 1 (0.85%) AWS Direct Connect
3 1 (0.85%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (0.85%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 52 (44.07%) Firewall
2 41 (34.75%) WAN
3 39 (33.05%) LAN
4 28 (23.73%) Network Security
5 26 (22.03%) DNS
6 23 (19.49%) BGP
7 22 (18.64%) DHCP
8 20 (16.95%) VPN
9 19 (16.10%) Cisco ASA
9 19 (16.10%) OSPF
9 19 (16.10%) Wireless
10 18 (15.25%) SD-WAN
11 17 (14.41%) Cisco Firepower
12 16 (13.56%) VLAN
13 15 (12.71%) IPsec
14 14 (11.86%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (10.17%) SSL
16 11 (9.32%) NGFW
17 10 (8.47%) Cisco Nexus
18 9 (7.63%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.85%) GIS
Development Applications
1 1 (0.85%) Browser DevTools
1 1 (0.85%) Git
1 1 (0.85%) JIRA
General
1 16 (13.56%) Manufacturing
2 14 (11.86%) Social Skills
3 9 (7.63%) Aerospace
4 8 (6.78%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (5.08%) Finance
5 6 (5.08%) Telecoms
6 5 (4.24%) Retail
7 4 (3.39%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.69%) Legal
9 1 (0.85%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.32%) 802.1X
2 2 (1.69%) Terraform
3 1 (0.85%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (14.41%) Data Centre
2 8 (6.78%) PKI
3 4 (3.39%) Fibre Optics
4 3 (2.54%) Hybrid Cloud
4 3 (2.54%) Security Posture
5 2 (1.69%) CMDB
5 2 (1.69%) Driving Licence
5 2 (1.69%) IoT
5 2 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.69%) NHS
5 2 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.85%) Cloud Native
6 1 (0.85%) Clustering
6 1 (0.85%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (0.85%) Life Science
6 1 (0.85%) Renewable Energy
6 1 (0.85%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 16 (13.56%) Windows
2 11 (9.32%) Linux
3 1 (0.85%) Windows 10
3 1 (0.85%) Windows 7
3 1 (0.85%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.85%) Windows Server 2008
3 1 (0.85%) Windows Server 2012
3 1 (0.85%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (18.64%) ITIL
2 19 (16.10%) Network Monitoring
3 16 (13.56%) Technical Leadership
4 15 (12.71%) High Availability
5 14 (11.86%) Network Virtualisation
6 12 (10.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 12 (10.17%) Problem-Solving
6 12 (10.17%) Security Operations
7 11 (9.32%) Change Management
7 11 (9.32%) Load Balancing
8 10 (8.47%) Migration
9 9 (7.63%) Virtual Environments
10 7 (5.93%) ITSM
10 7 (5.93%) Validation
11 6 (5.08%) Collaborative Working
11 6 (5.08%) Network Design
12 5 (4.24%) Capacity Planning
12 5 (4.24%) Presales
12 5 (4.24%) Root Cause Analysis
12 5 (4.24%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 3 (2.54%) Python
1 3 (2.54%) SQL
Qualifications
1 64 (54.24%) Security Cleared
2 43 (36.44%) SC Cleared
3 25 (21.19%) DV Cleared
4 20 (16.95%) Cisco Certification
5 14 (11.86%) CCNP
6 5 (4.24%) CCNA
6 5 (4.24%) CCSE
6 5 (4.24%) CCSM
7 4 (3.39%) Degree
7 4 (3.39%) JNCIS
8 3 (2.54%) JNCIP
9 2 (1.69%) CCIE
10 1 (0.85%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.85%) JNCIA
10 1 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (5.93%) SLA
2 6 (5.08%) NIST
3 2 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.85%) QA
System Software
1 27 (22.88%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (11.86%) VMware NSX
3 8 (6.78%) Active Directory
4 6 (5.08%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (2.54%) vSphere
6 2 (1.69%) Firmware
6 2 (1.69%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.85%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 7 (5.93%) FortiGate
2 4 (3.39%) Cisco CUCM
3 3 (2.54%) Ansible
3 3 (2.54%) Nagios
4 2 (1.69%) Avamar
5 1 (0.85%) CASB
5 1 (0.85%) Grafana
5 1 (0.85%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.85%) SCOM
Vendors
1 58 (49.15%) Cisco
2 37 (31.36%) VMware
3 31 (26.27%) Juniper
4 28 (23.73%) Palo Alto
5 21 (17.80%) Fortinet
6 14 (11.86%) CheckPoint
7 13 (11.02%) F5
7 13 (11.02%) SolarWinds
8 11 (9.32%) ServiceNow
9 6 (5.08%) Meraki
10 5 (4.24%) Aruba
10 5 (4.24%) Extreme Networks
11 4 (3.39%) Becrypt
11 4 (3.39%) Infoblox
11 4 (3.39%) Microsoft
12 3 (2.54%) Blue Coat
12 3 (2.54%) Nokia
12 3 (2.54%) SevOne
12 3 (2.54%) Zscaler
13 2 (1.69%) Xerox