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 £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 77 53 64
Rank change year-on-year -24 +11 +57
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 87 173 173
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 2.53% 3.79% 3.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.80% 4.10% 3.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 75 100 100
10th Percentile £300 £345 £250
25th Percentile £438 £422 £349
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £438
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +17.14% -1.80%
75th Percentile £563 £617 £528
90th Percentile £613 £638 £580
England median daily rate £475 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 6 11
10th Percentile £72.86 £18.06 £24.50
25th Percentile £75.66 £19.48 £60.50
Median hourly rate £83.32 £47.95 £62.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.76% -22.67% +195.24%
75th Percentile £87.97 £75.24 £68.95
90th Percentile £88.97 £76.12 £75.25
England median hourly rate £41.50 £33.70 £62.00
% change year-on-year +23.15% -45.65% +30.53%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 3,103 4,219 5,333
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.12% 92.38% 94.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,003 2,517 3,616
10th Percentile £204 £250 £210
25th Percentile £363 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £613
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
England median daily rate £506 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.62% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 276 318 252
10th Percentile £13.38 £16.00 £16.00
25th Percentile £15.47 £31.44 £21.05
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.43 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.20% +14.85% +108.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £75.00 £66.06
90th Percentile £71.50 £80.00 £75.67
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.25 £44.75
% change year-on-year -46.77% +5.58% +69.89%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings that featured Network Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Network Engineer 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 16 September 2025.

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
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 16 September 2025. 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 -15 41 £500 -11.11% 14
Thames Valley -5 39 £450 -5.26% 27
Berkshire -2 33 £450 -5.26% 23
Oxfordshire -8 5 £425 -10.53% 7
Surrey -26 2 £525 +5.00% 3
West Sussex - 2 £450 - 1
Buckinghamshire +4 1 - - 1
Kent -11 1 £450 +186.47% 3
Middlesex - 1 £500 - 5
East Sussex - 1 £285 - 2
Network Engineer
England

Network Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 16 September 2025, Network Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the South East region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 63 (72.41%) Cisco
2 58 (66.67%) Security Cleared
3 39 (44.83%) Juniper
4 35 (40.23%) Firewall
5 30 (34.48%) Cisco Certification
6 29 (33.33%) SC Cleared
7 26 (29.89%) DV Cleared
8 24 (27.59%) CCNP
9 20 (22.99%) WAN
9 20 (22.99%) Social Skills
10 19 (21.84%) Service Management
11 18 (20.69%) LAN
12 17 (19.54%) VPN
12 17 (19.54%) Problem-Solving
13 16 (18.39%) Cisco Firepower
13 16 (18.39%) Cisco IOS
14 15 (17.24%) Data Centre
15 14 (16.09%) SolarWinds
15 14 (16.09%) Junos
15 14 (16.09%) Cisco ISE
15 14 (16.09%) Telecoms
15 14 (16.09%) CCNA
16 12 (13.79%) Network Security
16 12 (13.79%) Windows
16 12 (13.79%) OSPF
16 12 (13.79%) BGP
16 12 (13.79%) vCenter Server
17 11 (12.64%) ITSM
18 10 (11.49%) Fortinet
18 10 (11.49%) Ansible

Network Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (1.15%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (1.15%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 9 (10.34%) AWS
1 9 (10.34%) Azure
2 1 (1.15%) Cloud Computing
2 1 (1.15%) GitHub
2 1 (1.15%) Lucidchart
2 1 (1.15%) Microsoft 365
2 1 (1.15%) OneDrive
2 1 (1.15%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 35 (40.23%) Firewall
2 20 (22.99%) WAN
3 18 (20.69%) LAN
4 17 (19.54%) VPN
5 16 (18.39%) Cisco Firepower
5 16 (18.39%) Cisco IOS
6 14 (16.09%) Cisco ISE
6 14 (16.09%) Junos
7 12 (13.79%) BGP
7 12 (13.79%) Network Security
7 12 (13.79%) OSPF
8 8 (9.20%) MPLS
8 8 (9.20%) SAN
8 8 (9.20%) Wireless
9 7 (8.05%) DNS
9 7 (8.05%) VLAN
10 6 (6.90%) Ethernet
10 6 (6.90%) Ethernet VPN
10 6 (6.90%) SDH
11 5 (5.75%) LTE
Development Applications
1 2 (2.30%) GitLab
1 2 (2.30%) JIRA
2 1 (1.15%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.15%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 20 (22.99%) Social Skills
2 14 (16.09%) Telecoms
3 9 (10.34%) Public Sector
4 5 (5.75%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (2.30%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (1.15%) Finance
6 1 (1.15%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.15%) Military
6 1 (1.15%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (9.20%) RFC 2544
2 1 (1.15%) 802.1X
2 1 (1.15%) CSS
2 1 (1.15%) HTML
2 1 (1.15%) REST
2 1 (1.15%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (17.24%) Data Centre
2 8 (9.20%) Fibre Optics
3 5 (5.75%) Onboarding
3 5 (5.75%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (4.60%) Driving Licence
4 4 (4.60%) Management Information System
5 3 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.15%) Clustering
7 1 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.15%) Life Science
7 1 (1.15%) NHS
7 1 (1.15%) SCADA
7 1 (1.15%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 12 (13.79%) Windows
2 9 (10.34%) Linux
2 9 (10.34%) Windows Server
3 6 (6.90%) Unix
4 2 (2.30%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (21.84%) Service Management
2 17 (19.54%) Problem-Solving
3 11 (12.64%) ITSM
4 9 (10.34%) Network Design
5 8 (9.20%) Case Management
5 8 (9.20%) Defect Management
5 8 (9.20%) Disaster Recovery
5 8 (9.20%) Project Management
5 8 (9.20%) Test Scripting
6 7 (8.05%) Agile
6 7 (8.05%) Load Balancing
7 6 (6.90%) Test Strategy
8 5 (5.75%) Computer Science
8 5 (5.75%) Fault Management
8 5 (5.75%) Network Architecture
8 5 (5.75%) Regression Testing
9 4 (4.60%) ITIL
9 4 (4.60%) Migration
9 4 (4.60%) Network Segmentation
9 4 (4.60%) Network Virtualisation
Programming Languages
1 8 (9.20%) Python
2 6 (6.90%) Java
3 5 (5.75%) VB
4 1 (1.15%) Bash
4 1 (1.15%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.15%) Kotlin
4 1 (1.15%) PowerShell
4 1 (1.15%) SQL
Qualifications
1 58 (66.67%) Security Cleared
2 30 (34.48%) Cisco Certification
3 29 (33.33%) SC Cleared
4 26 (29.89%) DV Cleared
5 24 (27.59%) CCNP
6 14 (16.09%) CCNA
7 6 (6.90%) Degree
8 5 (5.75%) ISEB
8 5 (5.75%) ISTQB
8 5 (5.75%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (3.45%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (3.45%) JNCIA
10 2 (2.30%) A+ Certification
10 2 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (2.30%) CCDA
10 2 (2.30%) CCDP
10 2 (2.30%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (2.30%) Network+ Certification
11 1 (1.15%) CEH
11 1 (1.15%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (4.60%) SLA
2 2 (2.30%) GDPR
3 1 (1.15%) Cyber Essentials
3 1 (1.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 1 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.15%) NIST
3 1 (1.15%) QA
System Software
1 10 (11.49%) VMware NSX
2 9 (10.34%) Active Directory
3 3 (3.45%) Ceph
4 2 (2.30%) Firmware
4 2 (2.30%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (1.15%) Docker
5 1 (1.15%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 12 (13.79%) vCenter Server
2 10 (11.49%) Ansible
2 10 (11.49%) FortiGate
2 10 (11.49%) Terraform
3 1 (1.15%) Argo
3 1 (1.15%) Failover Clustering
3 1 (1.15%) Grafana
3 1 (1.15%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.15%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 63 (72.41%) Cisco
2 39 (44.83%) Juniper
3 14 (16.09%) SolarWinds
4 10 (11.49%) Fortinet
5 9 (10.34%) Microsoft
6 8 (9.20%) CheckPoint
6 8 (9.20%) F5
6 8 (9.20%) Palo Alto
7 5 (5.75%) Aruba
7 5 (5.75%) Citrix
8 3 (3.45%) Dell
8 3 (3.45%) Mellanox
8 3 (3.45%) Meraki
8 3 (3.45%) NVIDIA
8 3 (3.45%) ServiceNow
8 3 (3.45%) VMware
9 2 (2.30%) Nokia
9 2 (2.30%) Zscaler
10 1 (1.15%) HP
10 1 (1.15%) Red Hat