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 £470, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 June 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 72 40
Rank change year-on-year -5 -32 +27
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 164 85 246
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.70% 2.81% 4.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.95% 3.09% 4.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 125 70 142
10th Percentile £303 £323 £331
25th Percentile £368 £416 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £506
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% -1.23% +12.50%
75th Percentile £550 £572 £555
90th Percentile £575 £625 £700
England median daily rate £475 £495 £475
% change year-on-year -4.04% +4.21% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 0 5
10th Percentile - - £20.90
25th Percentile £76.25 - £24.50
Median hourly rate £77.50 - £73.50
75th Percentile £78.75 - £75.24
90th Percentile - - £76.29
England median hourly rate £75.25 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +50.50% +25.00% -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 5,557 2,748 5,301
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.55% 90.99% 92.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,379 1,812 3,132
10th Percentile £303 £220 £243
25th Percentile £417 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £656 £688
England median daily rate £520 £514 £525
% change year-on-year +1.17% -2.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 570 187 552
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.20 £12.88
25th Percentile £24.25 £16.95 £18.82
Median hourly rate £50.00 £32.31 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +54.75% -35.38% -4.76%
75th Percentile £79.69 £62.50 £66.74
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £79.88
England median hourly rate £45.00 £29.04 £39.50
% change year-on-year +54.99% -26.49% -12.22%

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 13 June 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
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 13 June 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 +16 104 £463 +2.78% 10
Berkshire +15 78 £400 -11.11% 2
Hampshire -30 33 £506 -0.25% 6
Buckinghamshire -17 21 £523 +30.63% 4
Isle of Wight - 10 - -
Kent +8 9 £443 +4.12% 6
Oxfordshire -25 5 £480 -12.73% 4
Surrey -26 3 £475 +11.76% 7
East Sussex - 2 £409 - 3
West Sussex -20 1 - - 1
Sussex - 1 £418 - 1
Network Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 13 June 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.

1 113 (68.90%) Security Cleared
2 85 (51.83%) Cisco
3 81 (49.39%) SC Cleared
4 71 (43.29%) Firewall
5 64 (39.02%) LAN
6 62 (37.80%) WAN
7 48 (29.27%) Juniper
8 46 (28.05%) BGP
9 44 (26.83%) OSPF
10 39 (23.78%) Cisco Certification
11 37 (22.56%) DV Cleared
12 35 (21.34%) VMware
13 32 (19.51%) Palo Alto
14 31 (18.90%) CCNP
15 27 (16.46%) VMware Infrastructure
16 26 (15.85%) Network Security
17 25 (15.24%) DNS
18 24 (14.63%) DHCP
18 24 (14.63%) ITIL
19 22 (13.41%) High Availability
20 21 (12.80%) F5
20 21 (12.80%) IPsec
20 21 (12.80%) VPN
20 21 (12.80%) Windows
21 20 (12.20%) CheckPoint
22 19 (11.59%) Aruba
22 19 (11.59%) Fortinet
22 19 (11.59%) Load Balancing
23 17 (10.37%) Cisco Nexus
23 17 (10.37%) Problem-Solving

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 (0.61%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 13 (7.93%) Azure
2 12 (7.32%) AWS
3 5 (3.05%) Azure Sentinel
4 2 (1.22%) IaaS
4 2 (1.22%) PaaS
4 2 (1.22%) SaaS
5 1 (0.61%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 71 (43.29%) Firewall
2 64 (39.02%) LAN
3 62 (37.80%) WAN
4 46 (28.05%) BGP
5 44 (26.83%) OSPF
6 26 (15.85%) Network Security
7 25 (15.24%) DNS
8 24 (14.63%) DHCP
9 21 (12.80%) IPsec
9 21 (12.80%) VPN
10 17 (10.37%) Cisco Nexus
10 17 (10.37%) Wireless
11 16 (9.76%) Cisco ISE
11 16 (9.76%) Ethernet VPN
12 15 (9.15%) Cisco ASA
12 15 (9.15%) SD-WAN
13 14 (8.54%) VLAN
13 14 (8.54%) Wi-Fi
14 13 (7.93%) Junos
14 13 (7.93%) VXLAN
Development Applications
1 2 (1.22%) JIRA
2 1 (0.61%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 21 (12.80%) Manufacturing
2 19 (11.59%) Social Skills
3 12 (7.32%) Documentation Skills
4 9 (5.49%) Aerospace
5 7 (4.27%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (4.27%) Telecoms
6 6 (3.66%) Finance
7 5 (3.05%) Retail
8 4 (2.44%) Public Sector
9 3 (1.83%) Legal
9 3 (1.83%) Military
10 1 (0.61%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (9.15%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 47 (28.66%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.71%) PKI
3 9 (5.49%) Clustering
4 5 (3.05%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (1.83%) Linux Command Line
5 3 (1.83%) Security Posture
6 2 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.61%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.61%) BYOD
7 1 (0.61%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.61%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.61%) Fibre Optics
7 1 (0.61%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.61%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.61%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 21 (12.80%) Windows
2 15 (9.15%) Linux
3 1 (0.61%) Windows 10
3 1 (0.61%) Windows 7
3 1 (0.61%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2008
3 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
3 1 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (14.63%) ITIL
2 22 (13.41%) High Availability
3 19 (11.59%) Load Balancing
4 17 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (9.76%) Network Monitoring
6 14 (8.54%) ITSM
7 12 (7.32%) Collaborative Working
7 12 (7.32%) Identity Access Management
7 12 (7.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 12 (7.32%) Network Virtualisation
7 12 (7.32%) Service Management
7 12 (7.32%) Technical Leadership
8 9 (5.49%) Migration
9 8 (4.88%) Network Design
9 8 (4.88%) Observability
10 7 (4.27%) Customer Requirements
10 7 (4.27%) Project Delivery
11 6 (3.66%) Infrastructure Automation
11 6 (3.66%) Security Operations
11 6 (3.66%) Virtual Environments
Programming Languages
1 2 (1.22%) Python
1 2 (1.22%) SQL
Qualifications
1 113 (68.90%) Security Cleared
2 81 (49.39%) SC Cleared
3 39 (23.78%) Cisco Certification
4 37 (22.56%) DV Cleared
5 31 (18.90%) CCNP
6 10 (6.10%) JNCIS
7 9 (5.49%) JNCIA
7 9 (5.49%) JNCIP
8 7 (4.27%) Degree
9 6 (3.66%) CCNA
10 5 (3.05%) CCSE
10 5 (3.05%) CCSM
11 2 (1.22%) CCIE
11 2 (1.22%) Network+ Certification
12 1 (0.61%) CCIP
12 1 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
12 1 (0.61%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.27%) SLA
2 5 (3.05%) NIST
System Software
1 27 (16.46%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (8.54%) VMware NSX
3 6 (3.66%) Active Directory
3 6 (3.66%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (1.83%) Firmware
4 3 (1.83%) vSphere
5 2 (1.22%) vCloud
5 2 (1.22%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.61%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 12 (7.32%) FortiGate
2 6 (3.66%) Ansible
3 5 (3.05%) Terraform
4 2 (1.22%) Avamar
4 2 (1.22%) Nagios
5 1 (0.61%) CASB
5 1 (0.61%) Cisco CUCM
5 1 (0.61%) SCOM
Vendors
1 85 (51.83%) Cisco
2 48 (29.27%) Juniper
3 35 (21.34%) VMware
4 32 (19.51%) Palo Alto
5 21 (12.80%) F5
6 20 (12.20%) CheckPoint
7 19 (11.59%) Aruba
7 19 (11.59%) Fortinet
8 16 (9.76%) SolarWinds
9 11 (6.71%) Extreme Networks
10 9 (5.49%) ServiceNow
11 8 (4.88%) Splunk
12 6 (3.66%) Meraki
13 4 (2.44%) Mellanox
13 4 (2.44%) Microsoft
13 4 (2.44%) NVIDIA
14 3 (1.83%) Becrypt
14 3 (1.83%) BT
14 3 (1.83%) Infoblox
14 3 (1.83%) Nokia