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 £480, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 April 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 70 41
Rank change year-on-year +5 -29 +33
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 177 91 249
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.13% 3.04% 4.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.41% 3.29% 4.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 136 69 141
10th Percentile £303 £325 £331
25th Percentile £408 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £538
90th Percentile £575 £625 £700
England median daily rate £483 £485 £470
% change year-on-year -0.33% +3.19% +4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 1 6
10th Percentile £55.28 - £24.38
25th Percentile £60.00 £18.50 £33.00
Median hourly rate £77.50 £19.00 £66.50
Median % change year-on-year +307.89% -71.43% +0.76%
75th Percentile £78.75 £19.50 £73.93
90th Percentile £78.98 - £76.12
England median hourly rate £73.40 £57.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +27.65% +43.75% -38.09%

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 5,192 2,768 5,226
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.88% 92.51% 92.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,256 1,838 3,144
10th Percentile £300 £247 £213
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £663 £688
England median daily rate £508 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 476 150 482
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.40 £12.82
25th Percentile £20.71 £21.00 £18.35
Median hourly rate £48.28 £33.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +44.10% -29.47% -
75th Percentile £81.05 £64.32 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.67 £76.86
England median hourly rate £44.00 £32.50 £34.23
% change year-on-year +35.38% -5.05% -21.54%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 +2 88 £478 -2.05% 27
Berkshire +9 68 £450 - 15
Hampshire -17 53 £500 -2.91% 21
Kent +10 20 £438 +2.94% 2
Buckinghamshire -22 13 £525 +20.00% 9
Oxfordshire -12 7 £480 -12.73% 4
Isle of Wight - 6 - - 2
West Sussex -13 4 £400 -11.11% 1
East Sussex - 3 £400 - 1
Surrey -13 2 £488 +34.48% 5
Sussex -4 1 £418 - 2
Network Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 10 April 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.

1 127 (71.75%) Security Cleared
2 101 (57.06%) Cisco
3 84 (47.46%) SC Cleared
4 79 (44.63%) Firewall
5 66 (37.29%) LAN
6 65 (36.72%) BGP
6 65 (36.72%) WAN
7 63 (35.59%) Juniper
8 60 (33.90%) OSPF
9 49 (27.68%) Cisco Certification
10 47 (26.55%) DV Cleared
11 42 (23.73%) CCNP
12 37 (20.90%) Palo Alto
13 31 (17.51%) VPN
14 28 (15.82%) IPsec
15 26 (14.69%) Aruba
15 26 (14.69%) Junos
15 26 (14.69%) Network Security
16 24 (13.56%) High Availability
17 23 (12.99%) SolarWinds
18 22 (12.43%) CheckPoint
18 22 (12.43%) Cisco ISE
18 22 (12.43%) DHCP
18 22 (12.43%) DNS
18 22 (12.43%) F5
18 22 (12.43%) VMware
19 19 (10.73%) Collaborative Working
20 18 (10.17%) AWS
20 18 (10.17%) ITSM
20 18 (10.17%) VMware Infrastructure

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 (0.56%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 18 (10.17%) AWS
2 14 (7.91%) Azure
3 2 (1.13%) Azure Sentinel
3 2 (1.13%) GCP
3 2 (1.13%) Google Ads
3 2 (1.13%) IaaS
3 2 (1.13%) PaaS
3 2 (1.13%) SaaS
4 1 (0.56%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (0.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 79 (44.63%) Firewall
2 66 (37.29%) LAN
3 65 (36.72%) BGP
3 65 (36.72%) WAN
4 60 (33.90%) OSPF
5 31 (17.51%) VPN
6 28 (15.82%) IPsec
7 26 (14.69%) Junos
7 26 (14.69%) Network Security
8 22 (12.43%) Cisco ISE
8 22 (12.43%) DHCP
8 22 (12.43%) DNS
9 18 (10.17%) Wireless
10 17 (9.60%) Ethernet VPN
10 17 (9.60%) Structured Cabling
11 15 (8.47%) TCP/IP
12 14 (7.91%) VLAN
13 13 (7.34%) BIG-IP
13 13 (7.34%) Cisco Firepower
13 13 (7.34%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (1.13%) JIRA
2 1 (0.56%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 34 (19.21%) Social Skills
2 24 (13.56%) Documentation Skills
3 20 (11.30%) Manufacturing
4 11 (6.21%) Public Sector
4 11 (6.21%) Telecoms
5 9 (5.08%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (3.39%) Finance
7 5 (2.82%) Aerospace
8 4 (2.26%) Military
9 3 (1.69%) Legal
10 2 (1.13%) Electronics
10 2 (1.13%) Marketing
10 2 (1.13%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (1.13%) Retail
11 1 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.56%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.56%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.78%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 44 (24.86%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.21%) PKI
3 9 (5.08%) Clustering
4 4 (2.26%) NHS
5 3 (1.69%) Linux Command Line
5 3 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.56%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.56%) BYOD
6 1 (0.56%) Driving Licence
6 1 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (0.56%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.56%) Life Science
6 1 (0.56%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 18 (10.17%) Windows
2 8 (4.52%) Linux
3 4 (2.26%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (13.56%) High Availability
2 19 (10.73%) Collaborative Working
3 18 (10.17%) ITSM
4 16 (9.04%) ITIL
4 16 (9.04%) Problem-Solving
5 15 (8.47%) Load Balancing
5 15 (8.47%) Service Management
6 13 (7.34%) Network Monitoring
6 13 (7.34%) Network Virtualisation
7 12 (6.78%) Identity Access Management
8 11 (6.21%) Network Design
9 10 (5.65%) Customer Requirements
10 8 (4.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 8 (4.52%) Observability
11 7 (3.95%) Change Management
11 7 (3.95%) Project Delivery
11 7 (3.95%) Validation
12 6 (3.39%) Infrastructure Automation
12 6 (3.39%) Migration
12 6 (3.39%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 4 (2.26%) Python
2 3 (1.69%) SQL
Qualifications
1 127 (71.75%) Security Cleared
2 84 (47.46%) SC Cleared
3 49 (27.68%) Cisco Certification
4 47 (26.55%) DV Cleared
5 42 (23.73%) CCNP
6 17 (9.60%) JNCIS
7 15 (8.47%) CCNA
8 12 (6.78%) JNCIA
9 11 (6.21%) JNCIP
10 10 (5.65%) Degree
11 6 (3.39%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (1.13%) CCSE
12 2 (1.13%) CCSM
12 2 (1.13%) Computer Science Degree
13 1 (0.56%) CCIP
13 1 (0.56%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.13%) SLA
2 1 (0.56%) JSP 440
System Software
1 18 (10.17%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (9.04%) VMware NSX
3 5 (2.82%) Active Directory
3 5 (2.82%) Firmware
4 2 (1.13%) vCloud
4 2 (1.13%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (1.13%) vSphere
5 1 (0.56%) KVM
5 1 (0.56%) RHEV
5 1 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (0.56%) Xen
Systems Management
1 11 (6.21%) FortiGate
2 9 (5.08%) Ansible
3 7 (3.95%) vCenter Server
4 6 (3.39%) Nagios
5 5 (2.82%) Terraform
6 1 (0.56%) Backup Exec
6 1 (0.56%) Norton AntiVirus
6 1 (0.56%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.56%) SCOM
6 1 (0.56%) WhatsUp Gold
6 1 (0.56%) WSUS
Vendors
1 101 (57.06%) Cisco
2 63 (35.59%) Juniper
3 37 (20.90%) Palo Alto
4 26 (14.69%) Aruba
5 23 (12.99%) SolarWinds
6 22 (12.43%) CheckPoint
6 22 (12.43%) F5
6 22 (12.43%) VMware
7 12 (6.78%) Fortinet
8 9 (5.08%) Meraki
9 8 (4.52%) Splunk
10 7 (3.95%) Extreme Networks
11 5 (2.82%) Microsoft
12 4 (2.26%) Broadcom
12 4 (2.26%) Mellanox
12 4 (2.26%) Nokia
12 4 (2.26%) NVIDIA
13 3 (1.69%) Infoblox
13 3 (1.69%) McAfee
14 2 (1.13%) BT