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 £495, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 February 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 73 40
Rank change year-on-year +10 -33 +40
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 152 87 234
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.14% 2.81% 4.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.47% 3.03% 4.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 123 58 131
10th Percentile £303 £318 £329
25th Percentile £407 £419 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £513 £584 £529
90th Percentile £575 £625 £700
England median daily rate £475 £500 £463
% change year-on-year -5.00% +8.11% +2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 7
10th Percentile £29.34 - £22.65
25th Percentile £44.86 £18.50 £24.38
Median hourly rate £56.44 £19.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +197.05% -24.00% -55.36%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £68.75
90th Percentile £65.77 - £70.76
England median hourly rate £52.58 £20.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +162.90% -68.00% +0.81%

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 4,383 2,876 5,127
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.60% 92.80% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,813 1,804 3,157
10th Percentile £270 £241 £205
25th Percentile £405 £400 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £603 £608
90th Percentile £688 £663 £688
England median daily rate £503 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 380 106 403
10th Percentile £13.95 £18.50 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.32 £24.18 £18.20
Median hourly rate £29.81 £42.69 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.18% -2.98% -2.22%
75th Percentile £69.65 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.50 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £33.34 £36.25 £35.00
% change year-on-year -8.04% +3.57% -12.50%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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
Thames Valley -3 65 £460 -8.00% 32
Hampshire -8 58 £500 -7.41% 17
Berkshire +7 53 £460 -0.54% 23
Kent +11 20 £438 -2.78% 7
West Sussex -10 7 £400 -11.11% 1
Oxfordshire -11 7 £425 -22.73% 2
Buckinghamshire -16 5 £560 +14.87% 7
Surrey -16 1 £500 +66.67% 4
East Sussex - 1 £275 - 4
Network Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 24 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.

1 112 (73.68%) Security Cleared
2 104 (68.42%) Cisco
3 69 (45.39%) Firewall
4 68 (44.74%) SC Cleared
5 57 (37.50%) Juniper
6 52 (34.21%) BGP
6 52 (34.21%) LAN
7 47 (30.92%) OSPF
8 46 (30.26%) WAN
9 45 (29.61%) DV Cleared
10 43 (28.29%) Cisco Certification
11 39 (25.66%) CCNP
12 33 (21.71%) SolarWinds
13 31 (20.39%) Palo Alto
14 30 (19.74%) Junos
15 25 (16.45%) Aruba
15 25 (16.45%) Cisco ISE
15 25 (16.45%) VPN
16 24 (15.79%) IPsec
17 23 (15.13%) CheckPoint
18 22 (14.47%) ITSM
18 22 (14.47%) Network Security
19 21 (13.82%) Cisco IOS
19 21 (13.82%) Service Management
19 21 (13.82%) Windows
20 20 (13.16%) VMware NSX
21 18 (11.84%) vCenter Server
22 17 (11.18%) Collaborative Working
22 17 (11.18%) Structured Cabling
23 16 (10.53%) CCNA

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 (0.66%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 12 (7.89%) AWS
2 9 (5.92%) Azure
3 2 (1.32%) GCP
3 2 (1.32%) Google Ads
3 2 (1.32%) IaaS
3 2 (1.32%) PaaS
3 2 (1.32%) SaaS
4 1 (0.66%) Nutanix
4 1 (0.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 69 (45.39%) Firewall
2 52 (34.21%) BGP
2 52 (34.21%) LAN
3 47 (30.92%) OSPF
4 46 (30.26%) WAN
5 30 (19.74%) Junos
6 25 (16.45%) Cisco ISE
6 25 (16.45%) VPN
7 24 (15.79%) IPsec
8 22 (14.47%) Network Security
9 21 (13.82%) Cisco IOS
10 17 (11.18%) Structured Cabling
11 16 (10.53%) Cisco Firepower
12 14 (9.21%) Ethernet VPN
13 13 (8.55%) DHCP
13 13 (8.55%) DNS
14 11 (7.24%) MPLS
14 11 (7.24%) Wireless
15 10 (6.58%) VLAN
16 9 (5.92%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.66%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (0.66%) GitLab
1 1 (0.66%) Jenkins
1 1 (0.66%) JIRA
1 1 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 35 (23.03%) Social Skills
2 25 (16.45%) Documentation Skills
3 15 (9.87%) Public Sector
4 14 (9.21%) Manufacturing
5 12 (7.89%) Telecoms
6 5 (3.29%) Analytical Skills
7 4 (2.63%) Finance
7 4 (2.63%) Military
8 3 (1.97%) Electronics
8 3 (1.97%) Marketing
9 2 (1.32%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.66%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.66%) Legal
10 1 (0.66%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.66%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (4.61%) 802.1X
2 3 (1.97%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 41 (26.97%) Data Centre
2 9 (5.92%) PKI
3 7 (4.61%) Clustering
4 5 (3.29%) NHS
5 4 (2.63%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (1.97%) Driving Licence
6 3 (1.97%) Fibre Optics
6 3 (1.97%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (0.66%) BYOD
7 1 (0.66%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.66%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.66%) Life Science
7 1 (0.66%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.66%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.66%) Operational Technology
7 1 (0.66%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 21 (13.82%) Windows
2 14 (9.21%) Windows Server
3 6 (3.95%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (14.47%) ITSM
2 21 (13.82%) Service Management
3 17 (11.18%) Collaborative Working
4 15 (9.87%) High Availability
5 13 (8.55%) Problem-Solving
6 10 (6.58%) Customer Requirements
6 10 (6.58%) Network Design
7 8 (5.26%) ITIL
7 8 (5.26%) Network Monitoring
8 7 (4.61%) Load Balancing
8 7 (4.61%) Network Management
8 7 (4.61%) Project Delivery
9 6 (3.95%) Change Management
9 6 (3.95%) Identity Access Management
9 6 (3.95%) Incident Response
10 5 (3.29%) Incident Management
10 5 (3.29%) Knowledge Transfer
10 5 (3.29%) Observability
10 5 (3.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 4 (2.63%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 4 (2.63%) Python
2 1 (0.66%) Bash
2 1 (0.66%) PowerShell
2 1 (0.66%) SQL
Qualifications
1 112 (73.68%) Security Cleared
2 68 (44.74%) SC Cleared
3 45 (29.61%) DV Cleared
4 43 (28.29%) Cisco Certification
5 39 (25.66%) CCNP
6 16 (10.53%) CCNA
7 15 (9.87%) JNCIS
8 11 (7.24%) JNCIA
8 11 (7.24%) JNCIP
9 9 (5.92%) Degree
10 7 (4.61%) Network+ Certification
11 1 (0.66%) BC Cleared
11 1 (0.66%) BPSS Clearance
11 1 (0.66%) CCIP
11 1 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
11 1 (0.66%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.32%) QA
2 1 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (0.66%) JSP 440
2 1 (0.66%) NIST
2 1 (0.66%) SLA
System Software
1 20 (13.16%) VMware NSX
2 14 (9.21%) Active Directory
3 8 (5.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (3.29%) Firmware
5 2 (1.32%) vCloud
6 1 (0.66%) Docker
6 1 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.66%) KVM
6 1 (0.66%) RHEV
6 1 (0.66%) Xen
Systems Management
1 18 (11.84%) vCenter Server
2 9 (5.92%) FortiGate
3 8 (5.26%) Ansible
4 6 (3.95%) Nagios
5 5 (3.29%) Terraform
6 2 (1.32%) Dell DRAC
7 1 (0.66%) Amdocs OSS
7 1 (0.66%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.66%) Kubernetes
7 1 (0.66%) Norton AntiVirus
7 1 (0.66%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.66%) SCOM
7 1 (0.66%) WhatsUp Gold
7 1 (0.66%) WSUS
Vendors
1 104 (68.42%) Cisco
2 57 (37.50%) Juniper
3 33 (21.71%) SolarWinds
4 31 (20.39%) Palo Alto
5 25 (16.45%) Aruba
6 23 (15.13%) CheckPoint
7 13 (8.55%) F5
8 11 (7.24%) Fortinet
8 11 (7.24%) VMware
9 7 (4.61%) Meraki
10 6 (3.95%) Splunk
11 5 (3.29%) Extreme Networks
11 5 (3.29%) Nokia
12 4 (2.63%) Broadcom
12 4 (2.63%) Mellanox
12 4 (2.63%) Microsoft
12 4 (2.63%) NVIDIA
13 3 (1.97%) SAP
14 2 (1.32%) Dell
14 2 (1.32%) Pegasus