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 £463, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 May 2026.

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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 60 71 36
Rank change year-on-year +11 -35 +33
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 185 83 256
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.11% 2.79% 4.69%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.38% 3.05% 5.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 138 65 145
10th Percentile £303 £325 £331
25th Percentile £376 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% - +11.11%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £556
90th Percentile £575 £625 £700
England median daily rate £475 £490 £475
% change year-on-year -3.06% +3.16% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 1 5
10th Percentile £56.44 - £20.90
25th Percentile £72.06 £18.50 £24.50
Median hourly rate £77.50 £19.00 £73.50
Median % change year-on-year +307.89% -74.15% +14.84%
75th Percentile £78.75 £19.50 £75.24
90th Percentile - - £76.29
England median hourly rate £77.50 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +55.00% +25.00% -36.12%

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 5,467 2,720 5,046
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.87% 91.43% 92.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,399 1,812 3,031
10th Percentile £300 £225 £213
25th Percentile £413 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £619
90th Percentile £700 £661 £688
England median daily rate £513 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -1.27% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 515 163 486
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.20 £12.80
25th Percentile £24.25 £18.50 £18.20
Median hourly rate £52.43 £32.05 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.57% -32.53% -2.46%
75th Percentile £80.15 £62.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.25
England median hourly rate £45.00 £29.23 £37.18
% change year-on-year +53.95% -21.38% -16.94%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 21 May 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 +20 103 £463 +2.78% 18
Berkshire +26 81 £419 -6.94% 10
Hampshire -20 45 £500 - 18
Kent +8 17 £440 +3.53% 3
Buckinghamshire -24 16 £525 +31.25% 7
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
Oxfordshire -16 6 £480 -12.73% 1
Surrey -21 3 £475 +11.76% 11
East Sussex - 3 £400 - 1
West Sussex -14 2 - - 1
Sussex -5 1 £418 -
Network Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 21 May 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.

1 126 (68.11%) Security Cleared
2 98 (52.97%) Cisco
3 93 (50.27%) SC Cleared
4 83 (44.86%) Firewall
5 77 (41.62%) LAN
6 74 (40.00%) WAN
7 60 (32.43%) BGP
8 57 (30.81%) Juniper
9 56 (30.27%) OSPF
10 54 (29.19%) Cisco Certification
11 46 (24.86%) CCNP
12 37 (20.00%) DV Cleared
12 37 (20.00%) Palo Alto
13 33 (17.84%) VMware
14 28 (15.14%) IPsec
14 28 (15.14%) Network Security
15 27 (14.59%) Aruba
15 27 (14.59%) VPN
16 26 (14.05%) DNS
17 25 (13.51%) CheckPoint
17 25 (13.51%) DHCP
17 25 (13.51%) VMware Infrastructure
18 23 (12.43%) F5
18 23 (12.43%) High Availability
19 21 (11.35%) ITIL
20 19 (10.27%) Problem-Solving
20 19 (10.27%) Windows
20 19 (10.27%) Wireless
21 18 (9.73%) Fortinet
21 18 (9.73%) Load Balancing

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 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.54%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 16 (8.65%) AWS
2 15 (8.11%) Azure
3 4 (2.16%) Azure Sentinel
4 2 (1.08%) Google Ads
4 2 (1.08%) IaaS
4 2 (1.08%) PaaS
4 2 (1.08%) SaaS
5 1 (0.54%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (0.54%) GCP
5 1 (0.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 83 (44.86%) Firewall
2 77 (41.62%) LAN
3 74 (40.00%) WAN
4 60 (32.43%) BGP
5 56 (30.27%) OSPF
6 28 (15.14%) IPsec
6 28 (15.14%) Network Security
7 27 (14.59%) VPN
8 26 (14.05%) DNS
9 25 (13.51%) DHCP
10 19 (10.27%) Wireless
11 18 (9.73%) VLAN
12 17 (9.19%) Cisco ISE
12 17 (9.19%) Ethernet VPN
12 17 (9.19%) Junos
12 17 (9.19%) Structured Cabling
13 16 (8.65%) Cisco Nexus
14 15 (8.11%) SD-WAN
14 15 (8.11%) TCP/IP
14 15 (8.11%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.54%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (1.08%) JIRA
2 1 (0.54%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 26 (14.05%) Manufacturing
1 26 (14.05%) Social Skills
2 23 (12.43%) Documentation Skills
3 11 (5.95%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (5.41%) Telecoms
5 9 (4.86%) Aerospace
6 7 (3.78%) Public Sector
7 6 (3.24%) Finance
8 4 (2.16%) Military
8 4 (2.16%) Retail
9 3 (1.62%) Legal
10 1 (0.54%) Electronics
10 1 (0.54%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.54%) Marketing
10 1 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (7.03%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 53 (28.65%) Data Centre
2 9 (4.86%) Clustering
2 9 (4.86%) PKI
3 5 (2.70%) Self-Motivation
4 3 (1.62%) Linux Command Line
4 3 (1.62%) Security Posture
5 2 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.08%) NHS
6 1 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.54%) BYOD
6 1 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (0.54%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (0.54%) Life Science
6 1 (0.54%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 19 (10.27%) Windows
2 11 (5.95%) Linux
3 2 (1.08%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.54%) Windows 10
4 1 (0.54%) Windows 7
4 1 (0.54%) Windows Server 2008
4 1 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
4 1 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (12.43%) High Availability
2 21 (11.35%) ITIL
3 19 (10.27%) Problem-Solving
4 18 (9.73%) Load Balancing
5 17 (9.19%) Network Monitoring
6 15 (8.11%) ITSM
7 13 (7.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 12 (6.49%) Collaborative Working
8 12 (6.49%) Identity Access Management
8 12 (6.49%) Service Management
9 11 (5.95%) Customer Requirements
9 11 (5.95%) Network Virtualisation
10 10 (5.41%) Network Design
11 9 (4.86%) Technical Leadership
12 8 (4.32%) Observability
13 7 (3.78%) Migration
13 7 (3.78%) Project Delivery
14 6 (3.24%) Capacity Planning
14 6 (3.24%) Infrastructure Automation
14 6 (3.24%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 3 (1.62%) SQL
2 1 (0.54%) Python
Qualifications
1 126 (68.11%) Security Cleared
2 93 (50.27%) SC Cleared
3 54 (29.19%) Cisco Certification
4 46 (24.86%) CCNP
5 37 (20.00%) DV Cleared
6 14 (7.57%) JNCIS
7 13 (7.03%) CCNA
8 12 (6.49%) Degree
9 11 (5.95%) JNCIA
10 10 (5.41%) JNCIP
11 6 (3.24%) Network+ Certification
12 4 (2.16%) CCSE
12 4 (2.16%) CCSM
13 2 (1.08%) CCIE
13 2 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
14 1 (0.54%) CCIP
14 1 (0.54%) DBS Check
14 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (3.24%) SLA
2 2 (1.08%) NIST
3 1 (0.54%) JSP 440
System Software
1 25 (13.51%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (6.49%) VMware NSX
3 5 (2.70%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (2.16%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.16%) Firmware
5 3 (1.62%) vSphere
6 2 (1.08%) vCloud
6 2 (1.08%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.54%) KVM
7 1 (0.54%) RHEV
7 1 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.54%) Xen
Systems Management
1 13 (7.03%) FortiGate
2 6 (3.24%) Ansible
2 6 (3.24%) Nagios
3 5 (2.70%) Terraform
4 2 (1.08%) Avamar
4 2 (1.08%) SCOM
5 1 (0.54%) Backup Exec
5 1 (0.54%) CASB
5 1 (0.54%) Norton AntiVirus
5 1 (0.54%) Proxmox
5 1 (0.54%) vCenter Server
5 1 (0.54%) WhatsUp Gold
5 1 (0.54%) WSUS
Vendors
1 98 (52.97%) Cisco
2 57 (30.81%) Juniper
3 37 (20.00%) Palo Alto
4 33 (17.84%) VMware
5 27 (14.59%) Aruba
6 25 (13.51%) CheckPoint
7 23 (12.43%) F5
8 18 (9.73%) Fortinet
8 18 (9.73%) SolarWinds
9 11 (5.95%) Extreme Networks
10 8 (4.32%) Splunk
11 7 (3.78%) Meraki
12 6 (3.24%) ServiceNow
13 5 (2.70%) Microsoft
14 4 (2.16%) Mellanox
14 4 (2.16%) NVIDIA
15 3 (1.62%) BT
15 3 (1.62%) Infoblox
15 3 (1.62%) Nokia
16 2 (1.08%) Veeam