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 £498, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 27 March 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 66 43
Rank change year-on-year +4 -23 +33
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 176 93 246
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.25% 3.16% 4.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.55% 3.40% 4.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 140 69 141
10th Percentile £303 £325 £329
25th Percentile £408 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% - +9.17%
75th Percentile £538 £588 £538
90th Percentile £575 £625 £700
England median daily rate £490 £490 £463
% change year-on-year - +5.95% +2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 5
10th Percentile £31.93 - £24.35
25th Percentile £47.76 £18.50 £24.50
Median hourly rate £56.44 £19.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +197.05% -24.00% -25.37%
75th Percentile £68.11 £19.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.52 - £69.00
England median hourly rate £63.89 £57.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +11.10% +43.75% -35.48%

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 4,958 2,732 5,206
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.44% 92.89% 92.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,130 1,813 3,153
10th Percentile £300 £244 £213
25th Percentile £413 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £613
90th Percentile £700 £674 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 448 148 446
10th Percentile £15.25 £16.44 £12.84
25th Percentile £19.34 £22.98 £18.32
Median hourly rate £45.68 £42.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.49% -5.56% -
75th Percentile £81.01 £63.75 £62.47
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £40.54 £34.11 £32.50
% change year-on-year +18.85% +4.95% -24.42%

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 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 27 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 27 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 +8 85 £475 -5.00% 27
Berkshire +15 67 £453 -9.40% 15
Hampshire -16 58 £500 -4.76% 21
Kent +6 20 £438 +2.94% 2
Buckinghamshire -19 13 £525 +20.00% 9
West Sussex -10 7 £400 -11.11% 1
Oxfordshire -8 5 £475 -13.64% 4
East Sussex - 3 £400 - 1
Sussex -3 1 £418 - 2
Surrey -17 1 £500 +17.65% 5
Isle of Wight - 1 - - 2
Network Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 27 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.

1 130 (73.86%) Security Cleared
2 104 (59.09%) Cisco
3 83 (47.16%) SC Cleared
4 79 (44.89%) Firewall
5 67 (38.07%) Juniper
6 64 (36.36%) BGP
6 64 (36.36%) LAN
7 63 (35.80%) WAN
8 59 (33.52%) OSPF
9 51 (28.98%) DV Cleared
10 47 (26.70%) Cisco Certification
11 40 (22.73%) CCNP
12 36 (20.45%) Palo Alto
13 30 (17.05%) Junos
13 30 (17.05%) VPN
14 28 (15.91%) Aruba
14 28 (15.91%) IPsec
15 27 (15.34%) Network Security
16 26 (14.77%) Cisco ISE
16 26 (14.77%) High Availability
16 26 (14.77%) SolarWinds
17 23 (13.07%) VMware
18 22 (12.50%) ITSM
18 22 (12.50%) Windows
19 21 (11.93%) CheckPoint
19 21 (11.93%) DHCP
19 21 (11.93%) DNS
20 20 (11.36%) F5
20 20 (11.36%) VMware NSX
21 19 (10.80%) Collaborative Working

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 (0.57%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 18 (10.23%) AWS
2 14 (7.95%) Azure
3 2 (1.14%) Azure Sentinel
3 2 (1.14%) GCP
3 2 (1.14%) Google Ads
3 2 (1.14%) IaaS
3 2 (1.14%) PaaS
3 2 (1.14%) SaaS
4 1 (0.57%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (0.57%) Nutanix
4 1 (0.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 79 (44.89%) Firewall
2 64 (36.36%) BGP
2 64 (36.36%) LAN
3 63 (35.80%) WAN
4 59 (33.52%) OSPF
5 30 (17.05%) Junos
5 30 (17.05%) VPN
6 28 (15.91%) IPsec
7 27 (15.34%) Network Security
8 26 (14.77%) Cisco ISE
9 21 (11.93%) DHCP
9 21 (11.93%) DNS
10 18 (10.23%) Wireless
11 17 (9.66%) Cisco Firepower
11 17 (9.66%) Structured Cabling
12 16 (9.09%) Cisco IOS
12 16 (9.09%) Ethernet VPN
13 15 (8.52%) TCP/IP
13 15 (8.52%) VLAN
14 13 (7.39%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.57%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (1.14%) JIRA
2 1 (0.57%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 35 (19.89%) Social Skills
2 25 (14.20%) Documentation Skills
3 16 (9.09%) Manufacturing
4 12 (6.82%) Public Sector
4 12 (6.82%) Telecoms
5 9 (5.11%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (3.98%) Finance
7 4 (2.27%) Military
8 3 (1.70%) Electronics
8 3 (1.70%) Legal
8 3 (1.70%) Marketing
9 2 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (1.14%) Retail
10 1 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.68%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 41 (23.30%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.25%) PKI
3 9 (5.11%) Clustering
4 5 (2.84%) NHS
5 3 (1.70%) Linux Command Line
5 3 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.57%) BYOD
6 1 (0.57%) Driving Licence
6 1 (0.57%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.57%) Life Science
6 1 (0.57%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.57%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 22 (12.50%) Windows
2 8 (4.55%) Linux
2 8 (4.55%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (14.77%) High Availability
2 22 (12.50%) ITSM
3 19 (10.80%) Collaborative Working
3 19 (10.80%) Service Management
4 17 (9.66%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (9.09%) ITIL
6 15 (8.52%) Load Balancing
7 14 (7.95%) Network Monitoring
8 13 (7.39%) Network Virtualisation
9 12 (6.82%) Identity Access Management
10 11 (6.25%) Network Design
11 10 (5.68%) Customer Requirements
12 8 (4.55%) Observability
13 7 (3.98%) Change Management
13 7 (3.98%) Project Delivery
14 6 (3.41%) Capacity Planning
14 6 (3.41%) Infrastructure Automation
14 6 (3.41%) Knowledge Transfer
14 6 (3.41%) Validation
15 5 (2.84%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 4 (2.27%) Python
2 3 (1.70%) SQL
Qualifications
1 130 (73.86%) Security Cleared
2 83 (47.16%) SC Cleared
3 51 (28.98%) DV Cleared
4 47 (26.70%) Cisco Certification
5 40 (22.73%) CCNP
6 18 (10.23%) JNCIS
7 15 (8.52%) CCNA
8 13 (7.39%) JNCIA
9 12 (6.82%) JNCIP
10 9 (5.11%) Degree
11 6 (3.41%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (1.14%) CCSE
12 2 (1.14%) CCSM
13 1 (0.57%) BC Cleared
13 1 (0.57%) BPSS Clearance
13 1 (0.57%) CCIP
13 1 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
13 1 (0.57%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (1.70%) SLA
2 1 (0.57%) JSP 440
System Software
1 20 (11.36%) VMware NSX
2 18 (10.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (5.11%) Active Directory
4 5 (2.84%) Firmware
5 2 (1.14%) vCloud
5 2 (1.14%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.57%) KVM
6 1 (0.57%) RHEV
6 1 (0.57%) vSphere
6 1 (0.57%) Xen
Systems Management
1 13 (7.39%) vCenter Server
2 12 (6.82%) FortiGate
3 9 (5.11%) Ansible
4 6 (3.41%) Nagios
5 5 (2.84%) Terraform
6 2 (1.14%) Dell DRAC
7 1 (0.57%) Amdocs OSS
7 1 (0.57%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.57%) Norton AntiVirus
7 1 (0.57%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.57%) SCOM
7 1 (0.57%) WhatsUp Gold
7 1 (0.57%) WSUS
Vendors
1 104 (59.09%) Cisco
2 67 (38.07%) Juniper
3 36 (20.45%) Palo Alto
4 28 (15.91%) Aruba
5 26 (14.77%) SolarWinds
6 23 (13.07%) VMware
7 21 (11.93%) CheckPoint
8 20 (11.36%) F5
9 13 (7.39%) Fortinet
10 8 (4.55%) Splunk
11 7 (3.98%) Extreme Networks
11 7 (3.98%) Meraki
12 5 (2.84%) Nokia
13 4 (2.27%) Broadcom
13 4 (2.27%) Mellanox
13 4 (2.27%) Microsoft
13 4 (2.27%) NVIDIA
14 3 (1.70%) Infoblox
14 3 (1.70%) McAfee
14 3 (1.70%) SAP