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 £450, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 November 2025.

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

6 months to
2 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 77 78 83
Rank change year-on-year +1 +5 -5
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 41 51 63
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 2.25% 2.38% 2.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.47% 2.59% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 33 25 33
10th Percentile £259 £175 £195
25th Percentile £325 £350 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £400
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +18.75% -10.11%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £525
90th Percentile £575 £556 £580
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £425
% change year-on-year - +17.65% -5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 5
10th Percentile £29.40 - £20.90
25th Percentile £45.00 - £24.50
Median hourly rate £77.00 - £25.00
75th Percentile £86.32 - £75.25
90th Percentile £88.30 - £76.29
South East median hourly rate £77.00 £20.08 £25.00
% change year-on-year +283.56% -19.70% +11.11%

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 1,662 1,969 2,483
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.07% 91.92% 94.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,074 1,125 1,639
10th Percentile £255 £278 £213
25th Percentile £400 £403 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £588 £613 £615
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £508 £503
% change year-on-year -1.48% +0.89% +0.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 81 105
10th Percentile £14.75 £18.50 £16.10
25th Percentile £16.08 £25.99 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.26% +15.00% +186.94%
75th Percentile £49.86 £63.43 £66.44
90th Percentile £81.80 £97.50 £75.67
South East median hourly rate £20.79 £57.52 £50.00
% change year-on-year -63.86% +15.04% +48.30%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 +6 34 £500 +16.28% 12
Oxfordshire -8 6 £425 -12.37% 5
Buckinghamshire -1 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 2 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 32 (78.05%) Cisco
2 28 (68.29%) Security Cleared
3 25 (60.98%) SC Cleared
4 17 (41.46%) Firewall
5 13 (31.71%) Juniper
6 11 (26.83%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (21.95%) CCNA
7 9 (21.95%) Collaborative Working
7 9 (21.95%) Service Management
8 8 (19.51%) Case Management
8 8 (19.51%) Defect Management
8 8 (19.51%) RFC 2544
8 8 (19.51%) Test Scripting
9 7 (17.07%) CCNP
10 6 (14.63%) Disaster Recovery
11 5 (12.20%) CheckPoint
11 5 (12.20%) DNS
11 5 (12.20%) Network Security
11 5 (12.20%) Problem-Solving
12 4 (9.76%) Fortinet
12 4 (9.76%) ITIL
12 4 (9.76%) SolarWinds
13 3 (7.32%) Azure
13 3 (7.32%) BGP
13 3 (7.32%) Continuous Improvement
13 3 (7.32%) Degree
13 3 (7.32%) DHCP
13 3 (7.32%) DV Cleared
13 3 (7.32%) Incident Management
13 3 (7.32%) Infrastructure Engineering

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 (2.44%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 3 (7.32%) Azure
2 1 (2.44%) AWS
2 1 (2.44%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 17 (41.46%) Firewall
2 5 (12.20%) DNS
2 5 (12.20%) Network Security
3 3 (7.32%) BGP
3 3 (7.32%) DHCP
3 3 (7.32%) Internet
3 3 (7.32%) LAN
3 3 (7.32%) OSPF
3 3 (7.32%) Spanning Tree
3 3 (7.32%) TACACS
3 3 (7.32%) VLAN
3 3 (7.32%) VPN
3 3 (7.32%) WAN
3 3 (7.32%) Wireless
4 2 (4.88%) Ethernet VPN
4 2 (4.88%) IPv6
4 2 (4.88%) MPLS
4 2 (4.88%) SAN
4 2 (4.88%) SDH
4 2 (4.88%) VSAN
Development Applications
1 2 (4.88%) JIRA
2 1 (2.44%) GitLab
2 1 (2.44%) Jenkins
General
1 15 (36.59%) Social Skills
2 10 (24.39%) Telecoms
3 5 (12.20%) Public Sector
4 4 (9.76%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (4.88%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (2.44%) Legal
6 1 (2.44%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (19.51%) RFC 2544
Miscellaneous
1 10 (24.39%) Data Centre
2 8 (19.51%) Fibre Optics
3 3 (7.32%) Onboarding
4 2 (4.88%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (4.88%) Management Information System
5 1 (2.44%) Clustering
5 1 (2.44%) Driving Licence
5 1 (2.44%) Life Science
5 1 (2.44%) SCADA
5 1 (2.44%) Security Operations Centre
5 1 (2.44%) Security Posture
5 1 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 3 (7.32%) Windows
2 2 (4.88%) Mac OS
3 1 (2.44%) Linux
3 1 (2.44%) Unix
3 1 (2.44%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (21.95%) Collaborative Working
1 9 (21.95%) Service Management
2 8 (19.51%) Case Management
2 8 (19.51%) Defect Management
2 8 (19.51%) Test Scripting
3 6 (14.63%) Disaster Recovery
4 5 (12.20%) Problem-Solving
5 4 (9.76%) ITIL
6 3 (7.32%) Continuous Improvement
6 3 (7.32%) Incident Management
6 3 (7.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 3 (7.32%) Migration
6 3 (7.32%) Network Management
7 2 (4.88%) Computer Science
7 2 (4.88%) Network Design
7 2 (4.88%) Network Segmentation
7 2 (4.88%) Project Delivery
7 2 (4.88%) Roadmaps
7 2 (4.88%) Runbook
7 2 (4.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 1 (2.44%) Bash
1 1 (2.44%) PowerShell
1 1 (2.44%) Python
1 1 (2.44%) SQL
Qualifications
1 28 (68.29%) Security Cleared
2 25 (60.98%) SC Cleared
3 11 (26.83%) Cisco Certification
4 9 (21.95%) CCNA
5 7 (17.07%) CCNP
6 3 (7.32%) Degree
6 3 (7.32%) DV Cleared
6 3 (7.32%) JNCIA
7 2 (4.88%) A+ Certification
7 2 (4.88%) CCDA
7 2 (4.88%) CCDP
7 2 (4.88%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (2.44%) BC Cleared
8 1 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (2.44%) CEH
8 1 (2.44%) CISSP
8 1 (2.44%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (2.44%) JNCIP
8 1 (2.44%) MCP
8 1 (2.44%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.88%) GDPR
1 2 (4.88%) QA
2 1 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (2.44%) NIST
2 1 (2.44%) SLA
System Software
1 2 (4.88%) Ceph
1 2 (4.88%) Hyper-V
1 2 (4.88%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (2.44%) Docker
2 1 (2.44%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (4.88%) vCenter Server
2 1 (2.44%) Amdocs OSS
2 1 (2.44%) Ansible
2 1 (2.44%) Failover Clustering
2 1 (2.44%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.44%) Terraform
Vendors
1 32 (78.05%) Cisco
2 13 (31.71%) Juniper
3 5 (12.20%) CheckPoint
4 4 (9.76%) Fortinet
4 4 (9.76%) SolarWinds
5 3 (7.32%) Microsoft
5 3 (7.32%) Nokia
5 3 (7.32%) Palo Alto
6 2 (4.88%) Aruba
6 2 (4.88%) Cramer
6 2 (4.88%) Dell
6 2 (4.88%) ServiceNow
6 2 (4.88%) VMware
7 1 (2.44%) Ciena
7 1 (2.44%) F5
7 1 (2.44%) FireEye
7 1 (2.44%) HP
7 1 (2.44%) Meraki
7 1 (2.44%) WatchGuard
7 1 (2.44%) Zscaler