Network Engineer Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Network Engineer
South East > Thames Valley

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the Thames Valley is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 November 2025.

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

6 months to
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 82 80 89
Rank change year-on-year -2 +9 -21
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 45 51 61
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 2.39% 2.37% 2.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.63% 2.57% 2.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 37 27 32
10th Percentile £276 £177 £195
25th Percentile £340 £375 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £400
Median % change year-on-year - +18.75% -9.09%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £508
90th Percentile £575 £571 £580
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £425
% change year-on-year - +17.65% -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 6
10th Percentile £29.40 - £21.50
25th Percentile £45.00 - £24.63
Median hourly rate £77.00 - £47.50
75th Percentile £86.32 - £73.94
90th Percentile £88.30 - £76.12
South East median hourly rate £77.00 £20.08 £63.00
% change year-on-year +283.56% -68.13% +168.09%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
Thames Valley

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the Thames Valley. 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 Thames Valley with a recognized job title 1,714 1,984 2,510
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.93% 92.32% 94.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,108 1,135 1,644
10th Percentile £256 £292 £213
25th Percentile £400 £406 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £620 £615
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £510 £510
% change year-on-year -1.96% - +2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 115 81 108
10th Percentile £14.75 £18.50 £16.28
25th Percentile £15.91 £23.50 £24.46
Median hourly rate £24.00 £56.75 £50.53
Median % change year-on-year -57.71% +12.31% +162.48%
75th Percentile £40.65 £63.43 £67.38
90th Percentile £81.00 £97.50 £75.67
South East median hourly rate £20.79 £57.50 £52.10
% change year-on-year -63.84% +10.36% +39.62%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley.

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 16 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Network Engineer in the Thames Valley

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Engineer in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 16 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Engineer in the Thames Valley

Network Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 16 November 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
Berkshire +2 36 £500 +16.28% 6
Oxfordshire -6 8 £425 -15.84% 3
Buckinghamshire -2 1 - - 4
Network Engineer
South East

Network Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley

For the 6 months to 16 November 2025, 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 Thames Valley region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 35 (77.78%) Cisco
2 32 (71.11%) Security Cleared
3 29 (64.44%) SC Cleared
4 18 (40.00%) Firewall
5 15 (33.33%) Juniper
6 12 (26.67%) Cisco Certification
7 11 (24.44%) Collaborative Working
8 10 (22.22%) CCNA
9 9 (20.00%) Service Management
10 8 (17.78%) Case Management
10 8 (17.78%) CCNP
10 8 (17.78%) Defect Management
10 8 (17.78%) RFC 2544
10 8 (17.78%) Test Scripting
11 6 (13.33%) CheckPoint
11 6 (13.33%) Disaster Recovery
11 6 (13.33%) DNS
11 6 (13.33%) Fortinet
11 6 (13.33%) Problem-Solving
12 5 (11.11%) Network Security
12 5 (11.11%) SolarWinds
12 5 (11.11%) WAN
13 4 (8.89%) BGP
13 4 (8.89%) DHCP
13 4 (8.89%) ITIL
13 4 (8.89%) LAN
13 4 (8.89%) OSPF
14 3 (6.67%) Azure
14 3 (6.67%) Change Management
14 3 (6.67%) Continuous Improvement

Network Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 (2.22%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 3 (6.67%) Azure
2 1 (2.22%) AWS
2 1 (2.22%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 18 (40.00%) Firewall
2 6 (13.33%) DNS
3 5 (11.11%) Network Security
3 5 (11.11%) WAN
4 4 (8.89%) BGP
4 4 (8.89%) DHCP
4 4 (8.89%) LAN
4 4 (8.89%) OSPF
5 3 (6.67%) Internet
5 3 (6.67%) IPv6
5 3 (6.67%) Spanning Tree
5 3 (6.67%) TACACS
5 3 (6.67%) VLAN
5 3 (6.67%) VPN
5 3 (6.67%) Wireless
6 2 (4.44%) Ethernet VPN
6 2 (4.44%) Fibre Channel
6 2 (4.44%) SAN
6 2 (4.44%) SD-WAN
6 2 (4.44%) VSAN
Development Applications
1 2 (4.44%) JIRA
2 1 (2.22%) GitLab
2 1 (2.22%) Jenkins
General
1 17 (37.78%) Social Skills
2 10 (22.22%) Telecoms
3 6 (13.33%) Public Sector
4 5 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (4.44%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (2.22%) Legal
6 1 (2.22%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (17.78%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 10 (22.22%) Data Centre
2 8 (17.78%) Fibre Optics
3 3 (6.67%) Onboarding
4 2 (4.44%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (4.44%) Driving Licence
4 2 (4.44%) Management Information System
5 1 (2.22%) Clustering
5 1 (2.22%) Life Science
5 1 (2.22%) SCADA
5 1 (2.22%) Security Operations Centre
5 1 (2.22%) Security Posture
5 1 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 3 (6.67%) Windows
2 2 (4.44%) Mac OS
3 1 (2.22%) Linux
3 1 (2.22%) Unix
3 1 (2.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (24.44%) Collaborative Working
2 9 (20.00%) Service Management
3 8 (17.78%) Case Management
3 8 (17.78%) Defect Management
3 8 (17.78%) Test Scripting
4 6 (13.33%) Disaster Recovery
4 6 (13.33%) Problem-Solving
5 4 (8.89%) ITIL
6 3 (6.67%) Change Management
6 3 (6.67%) Continuous Improvement
6 3 (6.67%) Incident Management
6 3 (6.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 3 (6.67%) Migration
6 3 (6.67%) Network Management
6 3 (6.67%) Project Delivery
7 2 (4.44%) Computer Science
7 2 (4.44%) Network Segmentation
7 2 (4.44%) Roadmaps
7 2 (4.44%) Runbook
7 2 (4.44%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 1 (2.22%) Bash
1 1 (2.22%) PowerShell
1 1 (2.22%) Python
1 1 (2.22%) SQL
Qualifications
1 32 (71.11%) Security Cleared
2 29 (64.44%) SC Cleared
3 12 (26.67%) Cisco Certification
4 10 (22.22%) CCNA
5 8 (17.78%) CCNP
6 3 (6.67%) Degree
6 3 (6.67%) DV Cleared
6 3 (6.67%) JNCIA
7 2 (4.44%) A+ Certification
7 2 (4.44%) CCDA
7 2 (4.44%) CCDP
7 2 (4.44%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (2.22%) BC Cleared
8 1 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (2.22%) CEH
8 1 (2.22%) CISSP
8 1 (2.22%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (2.22%) JNCIP
8 1 (2.22%) MCP
8 1 (2.22%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.44%) GDPR
1 2 (4.44%) QA
2 1 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (2.22%) NIST
2 1 (2.22%) SLA
System Software
1 2 (4.44%) Ceph
1 2 (4.44%) Hyper-V
1 2 (4.44%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (2.22%) Docker
2 1 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (4.44%) vCenter Server
2 1 (2.22%) Amdocs OSS
2 1 (2.22%) Ansible
2 1 (2.22%) Failover Clustering
2 1 (2.22%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.22%) Terraform
Vendors
1 35 (77.78%) Cisco
2 15 (33.33%) Juniper
3 6 (13.33%) CheckPoint
3 6 (13.33%) Fortinet
4 5 (11.11%) SolarWinds
5 3 (6.67%) Microsoft
5 3 (6.67%) Nokia
5 3 (6.67%) Palo Alto
6 2 (4.44%) Aruba
6 2 (4.44%) Cramer
6 2 (4.44%) Dell
6 2 (4.44%) ServiceNow
6 2 (4.44%) VMware
7 1 (2.22%) Ciena
7 1 (2.22%) F5
7 1 (2.22%) FireEye
7 1 (2.22%) HP
7 1 (2.22%) Infoblox
7 1 (2.22%) Meraki
7 1 (2.22%) WatchGuard