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 19 September 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 122 77 52
Rank change year-on-year -45 -25 +15
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 103 89 173
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.55% 2.55% 3.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.69% 2.83% 4.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 70 77 100
10th Percentile £249 £293 £345
25th Percentile £342 £413 £422
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% -2.44% +17.14%
75th Percentile £547 £550 £617
90th Percentile £633 £613 £638
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +11.11%
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 £73.00 £41.50 £33.70
% change year-on-year +75.90% +23.15% -45.65%

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 6,097 3,146 4,253
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.46% 90.14% 92.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,518 2,032 2,533
10th Percentile £303 £204 £245
25th Percentile £431 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% +2.00%
75th Percentile £625 £598 £625
90th Percentile £722 £650 £688
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.35% -3.24% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 787 278 312
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.43 £16.03
25th Percentile £21.28 £15.50 £30.41
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £57.43
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -56.20% +13.24%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £75.00
90th Percentile £86.24 £71.95 £80.00
England median hourly rate £44.46 £25.15 £46.71
% change year-on-year +76.76% -46.16% +3.81%

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 19 September 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 19 September 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 19 September 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 -28 65 £463 +2.78% 33
Berkshire -18 42 £400 -11.11% 18
Hampshire -56 16 £550 +10.00% 18
Buckinghamshire -16 14 £543 - 8
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
Oxfordshire -26 9 £480 +12.94% 8
Surrey -14 7 £450 -14.29% 11
East Sussex 0 2 - - 3
Sussex - 2 £236 - 1
Network Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 19 September 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 51 (49.51%) Security Cleared
2 46 (44.66%) Cisco
3 43 (41.75%) Firewall
4 35 (33.98%) SC Cleared
5 34 (33.01%) LAN
6 32 (31.07%) WAN
7 27 (26.21%) VMware
8 25 (24.27%) Palo Alto
9 23 (22.33%) DNS
10 22 (21.36%) Network Security
11 21 (20.39%) Juniper
12 19 (18.45%) DHCP
13 18 (17.48%) VMware Infrastructure
14 17 (16.50%) BGP
14 17 (16.50%) Cisco Certification
14 17 (16.50%) DV Cleared
14 17 (16.50%) Fortinet
14 17 (16.50%) VPN
15 16 (15.53%) ITIL
16 15 (14.56%) Wireless
17 14 (13.59%) SD-WAN
17 14 (13.59%) VLAN
18 13 (12.62%) CCNP
18 13 (12.62%) Network Monitoring
19 12 (11.65%) CheckPoint
19 12 (11.65%) Cisco ASA
19 12 (11.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 12 (11.65%) OSPF
19 12 (11.65%) SolarWinds
19 12 (11.65%) SSL

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 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 6 (5.83%) AWS
2 4 (3.88%) Azure
3 3 (2.91%) Azure Sentinel
4 2 (1.94%) AWS Direct Connect
4 2 (1.94%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 43 (41.75%) Firewall
2 34 (33.01%) LAN
3 32 (31.07%) WAN
4 23 (22.33%) DNS
5 22 (21.36%) Network Security
6 19 (18.45%) DHCP
7 17 (16.50%) BGP
7 17 (16.50%) VPN
8 15 (14.56%) Wireless
9 14 (13.59%) SD-WAN
9 14 (13.59%) VLAN
10 12 (11.65%) Cisco ASA
10 12 (11.65%) OSPF
10 12 (11.65%) SSL
11 11 (10.68%) Cisco Firepower
11 11 (10.68%) IPsec
11 11 (10.68%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (8.74%) Cisco Nexus
13 8 (7.77%) WLAN
14 7 (6.80%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (4.85%) GIS
Development Applications
1 1 (0.97%) Git
General
1 14 (13.59%) Manufacturing
1 14 (13.59%) Social Skills
2 9 (8.74%) Aerospace
3 6 (5.83%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (4.85%) Telecoms
5 3 (2.91%) Finance
5 3 (2.91%) Retail
6 2 (1.94%) Public Sector
7 1 (0.97%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.97%) Legal
7 1 (0.97%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (9.71%) 802.1X
2 5 (4.85%) XML
3 2 (1.94%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 17 (16.50%) Data Centre
2 7 (6.80%) PKI
3 5 (4.85%) SCADA
4 4 (3.88%) Fibre Optics
5 3 (2.91%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (2.91%) Onboarding
5 3 (2.91%) Security Posture
5 3 (2.91%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.94%) CMDB
6 2 (1.94%) Driving Licence
6 2 (1.94%) IoT
6 2 (1.94%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.94%) NHS
6 2 (1.94%) Operational Technology
7 1 (0.97%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.97%) Life Science
7 1 (0.97%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (0.97%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 12 (11.65%) Windows
2 10 (9.71%) Linux
3 1 (0.97%) Windows 10
3 1 (0.97%) Windows 7
3 1 (0.97%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.97%) Windows Server 2008
3 1 (0.97%) Windows Server 2012
3 1 (0.97%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (15.53%) ITIL
2 13 (12.62%) Network Monitoring
3 12 (11.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 12 (11.65%) Technical Leadership
4 11 (10.68%) Problem-Solving
5 10 (9.71%) Security Operations
6 9 (8.74%) Change Management
7 8 (7.77%) High Availability
7 8 (7.77%) Network Virtualisation
8 7 (6.80%) Migration
8 7 (6.80%) Network Design
8 7 (6.80%) Network Management
9 6 (5.83%) Load Balancing
10 5 (4.85%) Asset Management
10 5 (4.85%) Systems Engineering
10 5 (4.85%) Validation
10 5 (4.85%) Virtual Environments
11 4 (3.88%) Change Control
11 4 (3.88%) Incident Management
11 4 (3.88%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 6 (5.83%) Python
2 5 (4.85%) SQL
Qualifications
1 51 (49.51%) Security Cleared
2 35 (33.98%) SC Cleared
3 17 (16.50%) Cisco Certification
3 17 (16.50%) DV Cleared
4 13 (12.62%) CCNP
5 8 (7.77%) Degree
6 5 (4.85%) CCNA
7 3 (2.91%) CCSE
7 3 (2.91%) CCSM
7 3 (2.91%) JNCIS
8 2 (1.94%) CCIE
8 2 (1.94%) JNCIP
8 2 (1.94%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.97%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.97%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (5.83%) NIST
2 5 (4.85%) SLA
3 3 (2.91%) QA
4 2 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 18 (17.48%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (11.65%) VMware NSX
3 9 (8.74%) Active Directory
4 4 (3.88%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (2.91%) vSphere
6 2 (1.94%) Firmware
6 2 (1.94%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (1.94%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 5 (4.85%) FortiGate
2 4 (3.88%) Cisco CUCM
3 3 (2.91%) Nagios
4 2 (1.94%) Ansible
4 2 (1.94%) Avamar
4 2 (1.94%) Grafana
4 2 (1.94%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.97%) CASB
5 1 (0.97%) SCOM
Vendors
1 46 (44.66%) Cisco
2 27 (26.21%) VMware
3 25 (24.27%) Palo Alto
4 21 (20.39%) Juniper
5 17 (16.50%) Fortinet
6 12 (11.65%) CheckPoint
6 12 (11.65%) SolarWinds
7 10 (9.71%) ServiceNow
8 8 (7.77%) F5
9 6 (5.83%) Meraki
10 4 (3.88%) Becrypt
10 4 (3.88%) Extreme Networks
10 4 (3.88%) Infoblox
11 3 (2.91%) Aruba
11 3 (2.91%) Blue Coat
11 3 (2.91%) Microsoft
11 3 (2.91%) Nokia
11 3 (2.91%) SevOne
11 3 (2.91%) Zscaler
12 2 (1.94%) NetScout