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 £485, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 February 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 67 68 45
Rank change year-on-year +1 -23 +36
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 137 94 221
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.92% 3.01% 4.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.25% 3.25% 4.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 57 125
10th Percentile £306 £300 £329
25th Percentile £413 £413 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £500 £575 £525
90th Percentile £575 £625 £700
England median daily rate £475 £495 £464
% change year-on-year -4.04% +6.74% +3.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 7
10th Percentile £26.76 - £22.65
25th Percentile £38.40 £18.50 £24.38
Median hourly rate £52.58 £19.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +176.74% -24.00% -25.37%
75th Percentile £56.44 £19.50 £68.75
90th Percentile - - £70.76
England median hourly rate £52.58 £20.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +162.90% -68.00% +3.31%

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 4,218 2,895 5,137
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.97% 92.70% 93.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,726 1,781 3,188
10th Percentile £256 £245 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £603 £606
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 365 100 403
10th Percentile £13.95 £18.50 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £24.18 £18.26
Median hourly rate £27.50 £42.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -35.29% -5.56% -
75th Percentile £60.25 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.40 £74.88 £76.26
England median hourly rate £31.18 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -10.93% - -6.67%

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 10 February 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 10 February 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 10 February 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
Hampshire -1 61 £500 -4.76% 17
Thames Valley -11 47 £456 -8.80% 26
Berkshire -9 35 £456 -1.41% 19
Kent +8 20 £438 -2.78% 10
West Sussex -13 7 £400 -11.11% 1
Oxfordshire -14 7 £425 -22.73%
Buckinghamshire -13 5 £560 +14.87% 7
Surrey -20 1 £500 +37.93% 4
East Sussex - 1 £275 - 2
Network Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 10 February 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.

1 101 (73.72%) Security Cleared
2 97 (70.80%) Cisco
3 66 (48.18%) SC Cleared
4 58 (42.34%) Firewall
5 46 (33.58%) Juniper
6 44 (32.12%) LAN
7 43 (31.39%) BGP
8 39 (28.47%) Cisco Certification
9 38 (27.74%) CCNP
9 38 (27.74%) OSPF
9 38 (27.74%) WAN
10 37 (27.01%) DV Cleared
11 30 (21.90%) Palo Alto
12 28 (20.44%) SolarWinds
13 25 (18.25%) Junos
14 24 (17.52%) Aruba
15 23 (16.79%) Cisco IOS
15 23 (16.79%) IPsec
15 23 (16.79%) VMware NSX
15 23 (16.79%) VPN
16 22 (16.06%) CheckPoint
17 21 (15.33%) Network Security
18 20 (14.60%) vCenter Server
19 19 (13.87%) Cisco Firepower
19 19 (13.87%) Cisco ISE
20 18 (13.14%) ITSM
21 17 (12.41%) CCNA
21 17 (12.41%) Structured Cabling
22 16 (11.68%) Collaborative Working
22 16 (11.68%) Service Management

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 (0.73%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 10 (7.30%) AWS
2 7 (5.11%) Azure
3 2 (1.46%) GCP
3 2 (1.46%) Google Ads
3 2 (1.46%) IaaS
3 2 (1.46%) PaaS
3 2 (1.46%) SaaS
4 1 (0.73%) Nutanix
4 1 (0.73%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 58 (42.34%) Firewall
2 44 (32.12%) LAN
3 43 (31.39%) BGP
4 38 (27.74%) OSPF
4 38 (27.74%) WAN
5 25 (18.25%) Junos
6 23 (16.79%) Cisco IOS
6 23 (16.79%) IPsec
6 23 (16.79%) VPN
7 21 (15.33%) Network Security
8 19 (13.87%) Cisco Firepower
8 19 (13.87%) Cisco ISE
9 17 (12.41%) Structured Cabling
10 10 (7.30%) MPLS
10 10 (7.30%) Wireless
11 9 (6.57%) VLAN
12 8 (5.84%) Ethernet VPN
13 7 (5.11%) Cisco Nexus
13 7 (5.11%) WLAN
14 6 (4.38%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.73%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (0.73%) GitLab
1 1 (0.73%) Jenkins
1 1 (0.73%) JIRA
1 1 (0.73%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 35 (25.55%) Social Skills
2 24 (17.52%) Documentation Skills
3 14 (10.22%) Manufacturing
3 14 (10.22%) Public Sector
4 10 (7.30%) Telecoms
5 6 (4.38%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.92%) Finance
7 3 (2.19%) Electronics
7 3 (2.19%) Marketing
7 3 (2.19%) Military
8 2 (1.46%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.73%) Legal
9 1 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.73%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (2.19%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 34 (24.82%) Data Centre
2 5 (3.65%) NHS
3 4 (2.92%) PKI
3 4 (2.92%) Self-Motivation
4 3 (2.19%) Driving Licence
4 3 (2.19%) Fibre Optics
4 3 (2.19%) Linux Command Line
5 2 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.73%) Clustering
6 1 (0.73%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (0.73%) Life Science
6 1 (0.73%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.73%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.73%) Operational Technology
6 1 (0.73%) Security Operations Centre
6 1 (0.73%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 16 (11.68%) Windows
1 16 (11.68%) Windows Server
2 6 (4.38%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (13.14%) ITSM
2 16 (11.68%) Collaborative Working
2 16 (11.68%) Service Management
3 10 (7.30%) Customer Requirements
4 9 (6.57%) Network Design
5 7 (5.11%) Network Management
5 7 (5.11%) Network Monitoring
5 7 (5.11%) Problem-Solving
5 7 (5.11%) Project Delivery
6 6 (4.38%) Change Management
6 6 (4.38%) High Availability
7 5 (3.65%) Incident Management
7 5 (3.65%) Incident Response
7 5 (3.65%) Knowledge Transfer
7 5 (3.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 4 (2.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 4 (2.92%) Network Segmentation
8 4 (2.92%) Network Virtualisation
8 4 (2.92%) Validation
9 3 (2.19%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 4 (2.92%) Python
2 2 (1.46%) SQL
3 1 (0.73%) Bash
3 1 (0.73%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 101 (73.72%) Security Cleared
2 66 (48.18%) SC Cleared
3 39 (28.47%) Cisco Certification
4 38 (27.74%) CCNP
5 37 (27.01%) DV Cleared
6 17 (12.41%) CCNA
7 9 (6.57%) Degree
7 9 (6.57%) JNCIS
8 5 (3.65%) JNCIA
8 5 (3.65%) JNCIP
8 5 (3.65%) Network+ Certification
9 1 (0.73%) BC Cleared
9 1 (0.73%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.73%) CCIP
9 1 (0.73%) CEH
9 1 (0.73%) CISSP
9 1 (0.73%) CompTIA Security+
9 1 (0.73%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.73%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.46%) QA
2 1 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (0.73%) JSP 440
2 1 (0.73%) NIST
2 1 (0.73%) SLA
System Software
1 23 (16.79%) VMware NSX
2 15 (10.95%) Active Directory
3 7 (5.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (3.65%) Firmware
5 2 (1.46%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.46%) vCloud
6 1 (0.73%) Docker
6 1 (0.73%) KVM
6 1 (0.73%) RHEV
6 1 (0.73%) Xen
Systems Management
1 20 (14.60%) vCenter Server
2 8 (5.84%) Ansible
3 5 (3.65%) Terraform
4 4 (2.92%) Nagios
5 3 (2.19%) FortiGate
6 2 (1.46%) Dell DRAC
7 1 (0.73%) Amdocs OSS
7 1 (0.73%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.73%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.73%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.73%) Norton AntiVirus
7 1 (0.73%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.73%) SCOM
7 1 (0.73%) WhatsUp Gold
7 1 (0.73%) WSUS
Vendors
1 97 (70.80%) Cisco
2 46 (33.58%) Juniper
3 30 (21.90%) Palo Alto
4 28 (20.44%) SolarWinds
5 24 (17.52%) Aruba
6 22 (16.06%) CheckPoint
7 11 (8.03%) Fortinet
7 11 (8.03%) VMware
8 7 (5.11%) Meraki
9 6 (4.38%) F5
10 5 (3.65%) Nokia
11 4 (2.92%) Broadcom
11 4 (2.92%) Mellanox
11 4 (2.92%) Microsoft
11 4 (2.92%) NVIDIA
12 3 (2.19%) SAP
13 2 (1.46%) Dell
13 2 (1.46%) McAfee
13 2 (1.46%) Pegasus
14 1 (0.73%) BT