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 £463, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 5 July 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 63 78 59
Rank change year-on-year +15 -19 +16
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 99 36 80
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 3.14% 2.24% 3.00%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.43% 2.43% 3.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 27 39
10th Percentile £301 £280 £333
25th Percentile £343 £370 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £450 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% -12.20% +13.89%
75th Percentile £536 £538 £519
90th Percentile £575 £575 £572
South East median daily rate £466 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -6.75% - +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 4
10th Percentile - - £34.47
25th Percentile £70.67 - £58.44
Median hourly rate £71.33 - £73.50
75th Percentile £72.00 - £75.68
90th Percentile - - £76.47
South East median hourly rate £77.50 - £47.95
% change year-on-year - - -22.67%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 2,889 1,481 2,467
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.74% 92.33% 92.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,798 898 1,353
10th Percentile £310 £263 £213
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% - -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £695 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £513
% change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 92 197
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.20 £15.85
25th Percentile £24.73 £15.13 £19.25
Median hourly rate £60.00 £25.90 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +131.66% -45.47% -1.86%
75th Percentile £85.50 £64.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £103.75 £79.75 £87.46
South East median hourly rate £50.00 £28.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +78.57% -44.00% -

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 5 July 2026.

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
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 5 July 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
Berkshire +11 75 £410 -8.89% 5
Buckinghamshire -22 18 £520 +30.00% 8
Oxfordshire -22 6 £480 -12.73% 6
Network Engineer
South East

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

For the 6 months to 5 July 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 Thames Valley region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 64 (64.65%) Security Cleared
2 57 (57.58%) Cisco
3 43 (43.43%) Firewall
4 41 (41.41%) SC Cleared
5 39 (39.39%) Juniper
5 39 (39.39%) LAN
6 33 (33.33%) WAN
7 28 (28.28%) BGP
8 25 (25.25%) OSPF
9 24 (24.24%) DV Cleared
10 22 (22.22%) DHCP
10 22 (22.22%) DNS
10 22 (22.22%) ITIL
10 22 (22.22%) Network Security
11 19 (19.19%) Palo Alto
12 18 (18.18%) Cisco Certification
12 18 (18.18%) VMware
12 18 (18.18%) Windows
13 17 (17.17%) High Availability
14 16 (16.16%) F5
14 16 (16.16%) VMware Infrastructure
15 15 (15.15%) Cisco ASA
15 15 (15.15%) Cisco Nexus
15 15 (15.15%) Load Balancing
15 15 (15.15%) Problem-Solving
16 14 (14.14%) 802.1X
16 14 (14.14%) Cisco ISE
16 14 (14.14%) SolarWinds
17 13 (13.13%) AWS
17 13 (13.13%) Azure

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:

Cloud Services
1 13 (13.13%) AWS
1 13 (13.13%) Azure
2 5 (5.05%) Azure Sentinel
3 2 (2.02%) IaaS
3 2 (2.02%) PaaS
3 2 (2.02%) SaaS
4 1 (1.01%) AWS Direct Connect
4 1 (1.01%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (1.01%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 43 (43.43%) Firewall
2 39 (39.39%) LAN
3 33 (33.33%) WAN
4 28 (28.28%) BGP
5 25 (25.25%) OSPF
6 22 (22.22%) DHCP
6 22 (22.22%) DNS
6 22 (22.22%) Network Security
7 15 (15.15%) Cisco ASA
7 15 (15.15%) Cisco Nexus
8 14 (14.14%) Cisco ISE
9 13 (13.13%) BIG-IP
9 13 (13.13%) Cisco Firepower
9 13 (13.13%) Junos
9 13 (13.13%) Wireless
10 12 (12.12%) VXLAN
11 11 (11.11%) Ethernet VPN
11 11 (11.11%) VLAN
11 11 (11.11%) VPN
11 11 (11.11%) Wi-Fi
Development Applications
1 2 (2.02%) JIRA
2 1 (1.01%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (1.01%) Git
2 1 (1.01%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 10 (10.10%) Social Skills
2 7 (7.07%) Telecoms
3 6 (6.06%) Finance
3 6 (6.06%) Manufacturing
4 5 (5.05%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (5.05%) Retail
5 2 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (2.02%) Military
5 2 (2.02%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (14.14%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 29 (29.29%) Data Centre
2 11 (11.11%) PKI
3 9 (9.09%) Clustering
4 4 (4.04%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (3.03%) Security Posture
6 2 (2.02%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (1.01%) Fibre Optics
7 1 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.01%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 18 (18.18%) Windows
2 10 (10.10%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (22.22%) ITIL
2 17 (17.17%) High Availability
3 15 (15.15%) Load Balancing
3 15 (15.15%) Problem-Solving
4 13 (13.13%) ITSM
4 13 (13.13%) Network Monitoring
5 12 (12.12%) Service Management
6 11 (11.11%) Collaborative Working
7 10 (10.10%) Technical Leadership
8 8 (8.08%) Identity Access Management
8 8 (8.08%) Network Design
8 8 (8.08%) Observability
9 7 (7.07%) Migration
9 7 (7.07%) Network Virtualisation
9 7 (7.07%) Security Operations
10 6 (6.06%) Change Management
10 6 (6.06%) Virtual Environments
11 5 (5.05%) Presales
11 5 (5.05%) SIEM
12 4 (4.04%) Availability Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (2.02%) Python
1 2 (2.02%) SQL
Qualifications
1 64 (64.65%) Security Cleared
2 41 (41.41%) SC Cleared
3 24 (24.24%) DV Cleared
4 18 (18.18%) Cisco Certification
5 12 (12.12%) CCNP
6 8 (8.08%) JNCIA
6 8 (8.08%) JNCIP
6 8 (8.08%) JNCIS
7 5 (5.05%) CCSE
7 5 (5.05%) CCSM
8 2 (2.02%) CCIE
8 2 (2.02%) Network+ Certification
9 1 (1.01%) AWS Certification
9 1 (1.01%) CCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (5.05%) NIST
1 5 (5.05%) SLA
System Software
1 16 (16.16%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (6.06%) VMware NSX
3 5 (5.05%) Active Directory
3 5 (5.05%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (3.03%) Firmware
5 2 (2.02%) vCloud
6 1 (1.01%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 11 (11.11%) FortiGate
2 2 (2.02%) Ansible
2 2 (2.02%) Avamar
2 2 (2.02%) Nagios
3 1 (1.01%) CASB
3 1 (1.01%) Cisco CUCM
3 1 (1.01%) Grafana
3 1 (1.01%) Prometheus
3 1 (1.01%) Terraform
Vendors
1 57 (57.58%) Cisco
2 39 (39.39%) Juniper
3 19 (19.19%) Palo Alto
4 18 (18.18%) VMware
5 16 (16.16%) F5
6 14 (14.14%) SolarWinds
7 13 (13.13%) Fortinet
8 11 (11.11%) Extreme Networks
9 8 (8.08%) CheckPoint
9 8 (8.08%) ServiceNow
9 8 (8.08%) Splunk
10 4 (4.04%) Aruba
11 3 (3.03%) Becrypt
11 3 (3.03%) Infoblox
11 3 (3.03%) Nokia
12 1 (1.01%) Arista
12 1 (1.01%) Ekahau
12 1 (1.01%) HP
12 1 (1.01%) LogicMonitor
12 1 (1.01%) Microsoft