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 £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 March 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 60 80 45
Rank change year-on-year +20 -35 +37
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 155 79 241
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.13% 2.60% 4.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.44% 2.81% 4.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 125 55 134
10th Percentile £303 £325 £329
25th Percentile £400 £421 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £513 £581 £532
90th Percentile £575 £625 £689
England median daily rate £475 £490 £465
% change year-on-year -3.06% +5.38% +3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 7
10th Percentile £29.34 - £22.65
25th Percentile £44.86 £18.50 £24.38
Median hourly rate £56.44 £19.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +197.05% -24.00% -25.37%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £68.75
90th Percentile £65.77 - £70.76
England median hourly rate £52.58 £20.00 £53.75
% change year-on-year +162.90% -62.79% -13.31%

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 4,509 2,809 5,171
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.98% 92.52% 92.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,880 1,788 3,179
10th Percentile £273 £238 £205
25th Percentile £406 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £607 £601
90th Percentile £690 £670 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 389 118 413
10th Percentile £13.99 £18.50 £12.83
25th Percentile £18.50 £24.18 £18.00
Median hourly rate £36.00 £46.30 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.25% +8.94% -5.56%
75th Percentile £75.00 £62.64 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £34.00
% change year-on-year - +2.94% -17.10%

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 3 March 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 3 March 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 3 March 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 -9 67 £458 -8.40% 35
Berkshire +12 58 £453 +2.37% 27
Hampshire -6 56 £500 -7.41% 22
Kent - 20 £438 - 5
West Sussex -12 7 £400 -11.11% 2
Buckinghamshire -20 5 £560 +14.87% 6
Oxfordshire -14 4 £438 -20.45% 2
East Sussex - 3 £400 - 2
Sussex -4 1 £418 -
Surrey -12 1 £500 +17.65% 4
Network Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 3 March 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.

1 114 (73.55%) Security Cleared
2 100 (64.52%) Cisco
3 70 (45.16%) Firewall
4 68 (43.87%) SC Cleared
5 62 (40.00%) Juniper
6 54 (34.84%) BGP
7 53 (34.19%) LAN
8 49 (31.61%) OSPF
9 48 (30.97%) WAN
10 46 (29.68%) DV Cleared
11 44 (28.39%) Cisco Certification
12 39 (25.16%) CCNP
13 31 (20.00%) Junos
13 31 (20.00%) Palo Alto
14 29 (18.71%) SolarWinds
15 26 (16.77%) VPN
16 25 (16.13%) Aruba
16 25 (16.13%) Cisco ISE
17 24 (15.48%) IPsec
18 22 (14.19%) ITSM
19 21 (13.55%) Service Management
19 21 (13.55%) Windows
20 20 (12.90%) Cisco IOS
20 20 (12.90%) VMware NSX
21 19 (12.26%) CheckPoint
22 18 (11.61%) Network Security
23 17 (10.97%) Collaborative Working
23 17 (10.97%) High Availability
23 17 (10.97%) Structured Cabling
23 17 (10.97%) vCenter Server

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:

Applications
1 1 (0.65%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 12 (7.74%) AWS
2 9 (5.81%) Azure
3 2 (1.29%) GCP
3 2 (1.29%) Google Ads
3 2 (1.29%) IaaS
3 2 (1.29%) PaaS
3 2 (1.29%) SaaS
4 1 (0.65%) Nutanix
4 1 (0.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 70 (45.16%) Firewall
2 54 (34.84%) BGP
3 53 (34.19%) LAN
4 49 (31.61%) OSPF
5 48 (30.97%) WAN
6 31 (20.00%) Junos
7 26 (16.77%) VPN
8 25 (16.13%) Cisco ISE
9 24 (15.48%) IPsec
10 20 (12.90%) Cisco IOS
11 18 (11.61%) Network Security
12 17 (10.97%) Structured Cabling
13 15 (9.68%) Cisco Firepower
13 15 (9.68%) Ethernet VPN
14 14 (9.03%) DHCP
14 14 (9.03%) DNS
15 11 (7.10%) MPLS
15 11 (7.10%) Wireless
16 10 (6.45%) VLAN
16 10 (6.45%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.65%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (0.65%) GitLab
1 1 (0.65%) Jenkins
1 1 (0.65%) JIRA
1 1 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 33 (21.29%) Social Skills
2 25 (16.13%) Documentation Skills
3 14 (9.03%) Manufacturing
4 13 (8.39%) Telecoms
5 12 (7.74%) Public Sector
6 5 (3.23%) Analytical Skills
7 4 (2.58%) Finance
7 4 (2.58%) Military
8 3 (1.94%) Electronics
8 3 (1.94%) Marketing
9 2 (1.29%) Legal
9 2 (1.29%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (5.16%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.94%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 42 (27.10%) Data Centre
2 10 (6.45%) PKI
3 8 (5.16%) Clustering
4 5 (3.23%) NHS
5 4 (2.58%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (1.94%) Fibre Optics
6 3 (1.94%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (0.65%) BYOD
7 1 (0.65%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.65%) Driving Licence
7 1 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.65%) Life Science
7 1 (0.65%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.65%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.65%) Operational Technology
7 1 (0.65%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 21 (13.55%) Windows
2 13 (8.39%) Windows Server
3 6 (3.87%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (14.19%) ITSM
2 21 (13.55%) Service Management
3 17 (10.97%) Collaborative Working
3 17 (10.97%) High Availability
4 13 (8.39%) Problem-Solving
5 10 (6.45%) Customer Requirements
5 10 (6.45%) Network Design
6 9 (5.81%) ITIL
6 9 (5.81%) Load Balancing
7 8 (5.16%) Identity Access Management
7 8 (5.16%) Network Monitoring
8 7 (4.52%) Project Delivery
9 6 (3.87%) Change Management
9 6 (3.87%) Incident Response
9 6 (3.87%) Network Management
9 6 (3.87%) Observability
10 5 (3.23%) Incident Management
10 5 (3.23%) Knowledge Transfer
10 5 (3.23%) Network Virtualisation
10 5 (3.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 4 (2.58%) Python
2 1 (0.65%) Bash
2 1 (0.65%) PowerShell
2 1 (0.65%) SQL
Qualifications
1 114 (73.55%) Security Cleared
2 68 (43.87%) SC Cleared
3 46 (29.68%) DV Cleared
4 44 (28.39%) Cisco Certification
5 39 (25.16%) CCNP
6 16 (10.32%) CCNA
6 16 (10.32%) JNCIS
7 12 (7.74%) JNCIA
7 12 (7.74%) JNCIP
8 9 (5.81%) Degree
9 7 (4.52%) Network+ Certification
10 1 (0.65%) BC Cleared
10 1 (0.65%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.65%) CCIP
10 1 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.65%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.29%) QA
2 1 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (0.65%) JSP 440
2 1 (0.65%) NIST
2 1 (0.65%) SLA
System Software
1 20 (12.90%) VMware NSX
2 13 (8.39%) Active Directory
3 9 (5.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (3.23%) Firmware
5 2 (1.29%) vCloud
6 1 (0.65%) Docker
6 1 (0.65%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.65%) KVM
6 1 (0.65%) RHEV
6 1 (0.65%) Xen
Systems Management
1 17 (10.97%) vCenter Server
2 10 (6.45%) FortiGate
3 8 (5.16%) Ansible
4 6 (3.87%) Nagios
5 5 (3.23%) Terraform
6 2 (1.29%) Dell DRAC
7 1 (0.65%) Amdocs OSS
7 1 (0.65%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.65%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.65%) Norton AntiVirus
7 1 (0.65%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.65%) SCOM
7 1 (0.65%) WhatsUp Gold
7 1 (0.65%) WSUS
Vendors
1 100 (64.52%) Cisco
2 62 (40.00%) Juniper
3 31 (20.00%) Palo Alto
4 29 (18.71%) SolarWinds
5 25 (16.13%) Aruba
6 19 (12.26%) CheckPoint
7 14 (9.03%) F5
8 12 (7.74%) VMware
9 7 (4.52%) Fortinet
9 7 (4.52%) Meraki
9 7 (4.52%) Splunk
10 6 (3.87%) Extreme Networks
11 5 (3.23%) Nokia
12 4 (2.58%) Broadcom
12 4 (2.58%) Mellanox
12 4 (2.58%) Microsoft
12 4 (2.58%) NVIDIA
13 3 (1.94%) SAP
14 2 (1.29%) Dell
14 2 (1.29%) Pegasus