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 £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 March 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 66 71 44
Rank change year-on-year +5 -27 +36
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 166 89 239
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.18% 2.99% 4.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.49% 3.22% 4.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 132 67 132
10th Percentile £303 £325 £329
25th Percentile £400 £410 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £489
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.30% +2.89%
75th Percentile £526 £588 £532
90th Percentile £575 £625 £696
England median daily rate £481 £500 £460
% change year-on-year -3.75% +8.70% +2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 6
10th Percentile £29.34 - £22.25
25th Percentile £44.86 £18.50 £24.31
Median hourly rate £56.44 £19.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +197.05% -24.00% -25.37%
75th Percentile - £19.50 £57.00
90th Percentile £65.77 - £68.75
England median hourly rate £56.44 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +61.26% -22.22% -27.42%

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 4,753 2,763 5,216
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.04% 92.72% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,007 1,786 3,187
10th Percentile £280 £237 £207
25th Percentile £406 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £613 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 422 129 417
10th Percentile £15.00 £17.50 £12.80
25th Percentile £18.90 £24.18 £18.00
Median hourly rate £38.59 £45.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.24% +20.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £80.80 £63.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £72.38
England median hourly rate £36.86 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +5.30% +7.69% -23.53%

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 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 13 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 13 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 -1 80 £463 -5.13% 31
Berkshire +18 66 £440 -0.56% 18
Hampshire -11 54 £500 -7.41% 17
Kent +7 20 £438 +37.80% 4
Buckinghamshire -19 10 £550 +25.71% 8
West Sussex -13 7 £400 -11.11% 1
Oxfordshire -14 4 £438 -20.45% 5
East Sussex - 3 £400 - 1
Sussex -4 1 £418 -
Surrey -16 1 £500 +17.65% 1
Network Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 13 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.

1 120 (72.29%) Security Cleared
2 104 (62.65%) Cisco
3 77 (46.39%) Firewall
4 74 (44.58%) SC Cleared
5 64 (38.55%) Juniper
6 62 (37.35%) BGP
7 61 (36.75%) LAN
8 57 (34.34%) OSPF
8 57 (34.34%) WAN
9 48 (28.92%) DV Cleared
10 45 (27.11%) Cisco Certification
11 38 (22.89%) CCNP
12 36 (21.69%) Palo Alto
13 30 (18.07%) Junos
14 28 (16.87%) IPsec
14 28 (16.87%) VPN
15 26 (15.66%) Aruba
15 26 (15.66%) Cisco ISE
15 26 (15.66%) SolarWinds
16 24 (14.46%) High Availability
16 24 (14.46%) Network Security
17 22 (13.25%) ITSM
18 21 (12.65%) Service Management
19 20 (12.05%) CheckPoint
19 20 (12.05%) Windows
20 19 (11.45%) F5
21 18 (10.84%) Collaborative Working
21 18 (10.84%) VMware
22 17 (10.24%) AWS
22 17 (10.24%) DHCP

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 (0.60%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 17 (10.24%) AWS
2 15 (9.04%) Azure
3 2 (1.20%) GCP
3 2 (1.20%) Google Ads
3 2 (1.20%) IaaS
3 2 (1.20%) PaaS
3 2 (1.20%) SaaS
4 1 (0.60%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (0.60%) Azure Sentinel
4 1 (0.60%) Nutanix
4 1 (0.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 77 (46.39%) Firewall
2 62 (37.35%) BGP
3 61 (36.75%) LAN
4 57 (34.34%) OSPF
4 57 (34.34%) WAN
5 30 (18.07%) Junos
6 28 (16.87%) IPsec
6 28 (16.87%) VPN
7 26 (15.66%) Cisco ISE
8 24 (14.46%) Network Security
9 17 (10.24%) DHCP
9 17 (10.24%) DNS
9 17 (10.24%) Structured Cabling
10 16 (9.64%) Cisco Firepower
10 16 (9.64%) Cisco IOS
10 16 (9.64%) Ethernet VPN
11 15 (9.04%) Wireless
12 13 (7.83%) MPLS
12 13 (7.83%) VLAN
13 12 (7.23%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.60%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (1.20%) JIRA
2 1 (0.60%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 34 (20.48%) Social Skills
2 25 (15.06%) Documentation Skills
3 15 (9.04%) Manufacturing
4 13 (7.83%) Public Sector
4 13 (7.83%) Telecoms
5 7 (4.22%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (3.61%) Finance
7 4 (2.41%) Military
8 3 (1.81%) Electronics
8 3 (1.81%) Legal
8 3 (1.81%) Marketing
9 2 (1.20%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.60%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (6.02%) 802.1X
2 2 (1.20%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 43 (25.90%) Data Centre
2 11 (6.63%) PKI
3 9 (5.42%) Clustering
4 5 (3.01%) NHS
5 4 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (1.81%) Linux Command Line
7 2 (1.20%) Fibre Optics
8 1 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (0.60%) BYOD
8 1 (0.60%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.60%) Driving Licence
8 1 (0.60%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.60%) Life Science
8 1 (0.60%) Management Information System
8 1 (0.60%) Operational Technology
8 1 (0.60%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 20 (12.05%) Windows
2 9 (5.42%) Windows Server
3 7 (4.22%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (14.46%) High Availability
2 22 (13.25%) ITSM
3 21 (12.65%) Service Management
4 18 (10.84%) Collaborative Working
5 15 (9.04%) ITIL
6 14 (8.43%) Problem-Solving
7 12 (7.23%) Load Balancing
7 12 (7.23%) Network Monitoring
8 10 (6.02%) Customer Requirements
8 10 (6.02%) Identity Access Management
8 10 (6.02%) Network Design
8 10 (6.02%) Network Virtualisation
9 7 (4.22%) Change Management
9 7 (4.22%) Observability
9 7 (4.22%) Project Delivery
10 6 (3.61%) Incident Management
10 6 (3.61%) Incident Response
10 6 (3.61%) Network Management
10 6 (3.61%) Validation
11 5 (3.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 4 (2.41%) Python
2 3 (1.81%) SQL
Qualifications
1 120 (72.29%) Security Cleared
2 74 (44.58%) SC Cleared
3 48 (28.92%) DV Cleared
4 45 (27.11%) Cisco Certification
5 38 (22.89%) CCNP
6 17 (10.24%) JNCIS
7 15 (9.04%) CCNA
8 13 (7.83%) JNCIA
9 12 (7.23%) JNCIP
10 9 (5.42%) Degree
11 6 (3.61%) Network+ Certification
12 1 (0.60%) BC Cleared
12 1 (0.60%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (0.60%) CCIP
12 1 (0.60%) CCSE
12 1 (0.60%) CCSM
12 1 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
12 1 (0.60%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.20%) SLA
2 1 (0.60%) JSP 440
2 1 (0.60%) QA
System Software
1 17 (10.24%) VMware NSX
2 15 (9.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (5.42%) Active Directory
4 5 (3.01%) Firmware
5 2 (1.20%) vCloud
6 1 (0.60%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.60%) KVM
6 1 (0.60%) RHEV
6 1 (0.60%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.60%) Xen
Systems Management
1 13 (7.83%) vCenter Server
2 12 (7.23%) FortiGate
3 8 (4.82%) Ansible
4 6 (3.61%) Nagios
5 4 (2.41%) Terraform
6 2 (1.20%) Dell DRAC
7 1 (0.60%) Amdocs OSS
7 1 (0.60%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.60%) Norton AntiVirus
7 1 (0.60%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.60%) SCOM
7 1 (0.60%) WhatsUp Gold
7 1 (0.60%) WSUS
Vendors
1 104 (62.65%) Cisco
2 64 (38.55%) Juniper
3 36 (21.69%) Palo Alto
4 26 (15.66%) Aruba
4 26 (15.66%) SolarWinds
5 20 (12.05%) CheckPoint
6 19 (11.45%) F5
7 18 (10.84%) VMware
8 10 (6.02%) Fortinet
9 8 (4.82%) Splunk
10 7 (4.22%) Extreme Networks
10 7 (4.22%) Meraki
11 5 (3.01%) Microsoft
11 5 (3.01%) Nokia
12 4 (2.41%) Broadcom
12 4 (2.41%) Mellanox
12 4 (2.41%) NVIDIA
13 3 (1.81%) McAfee
13 3 (1.81%) SAP
14 2 (1.20%) Pegasus