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 30 August 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 77 65
Rank change year-on-year -3 -12 +6
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 77 40 60
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 2.44% 2.39% 2.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.66% 2.61% 2.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 59 30 26
10th Percentile £292 £288 £188
25th Percentile £390 £335 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% -5.26% +11.76%
75th Percentile £544 £500 £538
90th Percentile £588 £553 £613
South East median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +17.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 4
10th Percentile £49.24 £72.86 £34.47
25th Percentile £50.72 £75.66 £58.44
Median hourly rate £54.88 £83.32 £73.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.14% +13.36% +11.36%
75th Percentile £57.47 £87.97 £75.68
90th Percentile £58.01 £88.97 £76.47
South East median hourly rate £77.50 £83.32 £47.95
% change year-on-year -6.98% +73.76% -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 2,891 1,534 2,060
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.69% 91.53% 91.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,805 935 1,184
10th Percentile £333 £268 £263
25th Percentile £425 £400 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £613
90th Percentile £713 £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 280 97 111
10th Percentile £15.36 £14.20 £16.32
25th Percentile £21.25 £15.12 £26.25
Median hourly rate £54.50 £25.15 £60.46
Median % change year-on-year +116.70% -58.40% +23.21%
75th Percentile £84.25 £55.00 £72.04
90th Percentile £102.10 £84.70 £90.00
South East median hourly rate £52.43 £25.15 £57.35
% change year-on-year +108.45% -56.15% +14.70%

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 30 August 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 30 August 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 -2 48 £405 -10.00% 6
Buckinghamshire -20 21 £525 +31.25% 6
Oxfordshire -20 8 £480 +12.94% 4
Network Engineer
South East

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

For the 6 months to 30 August 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 45 (58.44%) Cisco
2 41 (53.25%) Security Cleared
3 35 (45.45%) Firewall
4 29 (37.66%) LAN
4 29 (37.66%) WAN
5 27 (35.06%) SC Cleared
6 26 (33.77%) Network Security
7 23 (29.87%) Palo Alto
8 22 (28.57%) DNS
8 22 (28.57%) VMware
9 21 (27.27%) Juniper
10 19 (24.68%) DHCP
11 18 (23.38%) Cisco ASA
11 18 (23.38%) ITIL
12 17 (22.08%) BGP
12 17 (22.08%) Cisco Firepower
12 17 (22.08%) VMware Infrastructure
13 16 (20.78%) Network Monitoring
13 16 (20.78%) OSPF
14 15 (19.48%) DV Cleared
14 15 (19.48%) Wireless
15 14 (18.18%) IPsec
15 14 (18.18%) Technical Leadership
15 14 (18.18%) VPN
16 13 (16.88%) Cisco Certification
16 13 (16.88%) Windows
17 12 (15.58%) Fortinet
17 12 (15.58%) Security Operations
17 12 (15.58%) VLAN
18 11 (14.29%) AWS

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 11 (14.29%) AWS
1 11 (14.29%) Azure
2 5 (6.49%) Azure Sentinel
3 1 (1.30%) AWS Direct Connect
3 1 (1.30%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (1.30%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 35 (45.45%) Firewall
2 29 (37.66%) LAN
2 29 (37.66%) WAN
3 26 (33.77%) Network Security
4 22 (28.57%) DNS
5 19 (24.68%) DHCP
6 18 (23.38%) Cisco ASA
7 17 (22.08%) BGP
7 17 (22.08%) Cisco Firepower
8 16 (20.78%) OSPF
9 15 (19.48%) Wireless
10 14 (18.18%) IPsec
10 14 (18.18%) VPN
11 12 (15.58%) VLAN
12 11 (14.29%) SD-WAN
12 11 (14.29%) SSL
12 11 (14.29%) Wi-Fi
13 9 (11.69%) Cisco Nexus
13 9 (11.69%) NGFW
14 8 (10.39%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.30%) GIS
Development Applications
1 1 (1.30%) Browser DevTools
1 1 (1.30%) Git
1 1 (1.30%) JIRA
General
1 7 (9.09%) Manufacturing
2 6 (7.79%) Finance
2 6 (7.79%) Social Skills
2 6 (7.79%) Telecoms
3 5 (6.49%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (6.49%) Retail
4 1 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (1.30%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (12.99%) 802.1X
2 1 (1.30%) Terraform
2 1 (1.30%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (18.18%) Data Centre
2 8 (10.39%) PKI
3 4 (5.19%) Fibre Optics
4 3 (3.90%) Security Posture
5 2 (2.60%) CMDB
5 2 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (2.60%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.30%) Clustering
6 1 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (1.30%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.30%) Life Science
6 1 (1.30%) Renewable Energy
6 1 (1.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 13 (16.88%) Windows
2 10 (12.99%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (23.38%) ITIL
2 16 (20.78%) Network Monitoring
3 14 (18.18%) Technical Leadership
4 12 (15.58%) Security Operations
5 11 (14.29%) Change Management
5 11 (14.29%) High Availability
6 10 (12.99%) Network Virtualisation
7 9 (11.69%) Virtual Environments
8 8 (10.39%) Load Balancing
8 8 (10.39%) Migration
9 7 (9.09%) Problem-Solving
10 6 (7.79%) Collaborative Working
10 6 (7.79%) ITSM
10 6 (7.79%) Validation
11 5 (6.49%) Incident Management
11 5 (6.49%) Network Design
11 5 (6.49%) Presales
11 5 (6.49%) SIEM
12 4 (5.19%) Network Management
12 4 (5.19%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 3 (3.90%) Python
1 3 (3.90%) SQL
Qualifications
1 41 (53.25%) Security Cleared
2 27 (35.06%) SC Cleared
3 15 (19.48%) DV Cleared
4 13 (16.88%) Cisco Certification
5 9 (11.69%) CCNP
6 5 (6.49%) CCSE
6 5 (6.49%) CCSM
7 3 (3.90%) CCNA
8 2 (2.60%) CCIE
9 1 (1.30%) AWS Certification
9 1 (1.30%) Degree
9 1 (1.30%) JNCIA
9 1 (1.30%) JNCIP
9 1 (1.30%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (7.79%) NIST
2 5 (6.49%) SLA
3 1 (1.30%) QA
System Software
1 17 (22.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (10.39%) VMware NSX
3 7 (9.09%) Active Directory
4 5 (6.49%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (2.60%) Firmware
6 1 (1.30%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 4 (5.19%) Cisco CUCM
1 4 (5.19%) FortiGate
2 3 (3.90%) Nagios
3 2 (2.60%) Ansible
3 2 (2.60%) Avamar
4 1 (1.30%) CASB
4 1 (1.30%) Grafana
4 1 (1.30%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 45 (58.44%) Cisco
2 23 (29.87%) Palo Alto
3 22 (28.57%) VMware
4 21 (27.27%) Juniper
5 12 (15.58%) Fortinet
6 11 (14.29%) F5
6 11 (14.29%) SolarWinds
7 10 (12.99%) CheckPoint
7 10 (12.99%) ServiceNow
8 5 (6.49%) Extreme Networks
9 4 (5.19%) Aruba
9 4 (5.19%) Becrypt
9 4 (5.19%) Infoblox
10 3 (3.90%) Blue Coat
10 3 (3.90%) Meraki
10 3 (3.90%) Nokia
10 3 (3.90%) SevOne
10 3 (3.90%) Zscaler
11 2 (2.60%) NetScout
11 2 (2.60%) Tufin