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 27 September 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 79 68
Rank change year-on-year -18 -11 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 59 42 63
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 1.93% 2.48% 2.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.11% 2.73% 3.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 44 34 27
10th Percentile £265 £263 £177
25th Percentile £380 £329 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% -5.26% +11.76%
75th Percentile £538 £528 £538
90th Percentile £619 £575 £610
South East median daily rate £463 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -7.50% - +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 2,799 1,539 2,019
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.65% 90.85% 91.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,698 973 1,135
10th Percentile £346 £250 £271
25th Percentile £432 £380 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £495 £501
Median % change year-on-year +7.18% -1.20% +0.20%
75th Percentile £610 £588 £608
90th Percentile £700 £650 £687
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £505
% change year-on-year +5.00% -0.99% +1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 297 87 96
10th Percentile £15.03 £14.44 £17.41
25th Percentile £20.50 £15.13 £26.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £58.49
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -57.00% +17.62%
75th Percentile £83.00 £55.00 £70.23
90th Percentile £102.90 £87.50 £91.88
South East median hourly rate £49.00 £25.15 £58.34
% change year-on-year +94.83% -56.89% +16.68%

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 27 September 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 27 September 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 -20 39 £400 -11.11% 18
Buckinghamshire -16 13 £560 - 15
Oxfordshire -28 7 £480 +12.94% 10
Network Engineer
South East

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

For the 6 months to 27 September 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 36 (61.02%) Cisco
2 25 (42.37%) Firewall
2 25 (42.37%) Security Cleared
3 21 (35.59%) LAN
4 19 (32.20%) WAN
5 18 (30.51%) Network Security
5 18 (30.51%) Palo Alto
6 16 (27.12%) DNS
6 16 (27.12%) VMware
7 15 (25.42%) SC Cleared
8 13 (22.03%) DHCP
8 13 (22.03%) Juniper
8 13 (22.03%) VPN
9 12 (20.34%) Cisco ASA
9 12 (20.34%) ITIL
10 11 (18.64%) Cisco Certification
10 11 (18.64%) Cisco Firepower
10 11 (18.64%) Network Monitoring
10 11 (18.64%) SSL
10 11 (18.64%) VMware Infrastructure
11 10 (16.95%) BGP
11 10 (16.95%) DV Cleared
11 10 (16.95%) IPsec
11 10 (16.95%) SolarWinds
11 10 (16.95%) Technical Leadership
11 10 (16.95%) Windows
12 9 (15.25%) 802.1X
12 9 (15.25%) Change Management
12 9 (15.25%) Linux
12 9 (15.25%) SD-WAN

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 5 (8.47%) AWS
2 3 (5.08%) Azure
2 3 (5.08%) Azure Sentinel
3 2 (3.39%) AWS Direct Connect
3 2 (3.39%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 25 (42.37%) Firewall
2 21 (35.59%) LAN
3 19 (32.20%) WAN
4 18 (30.51%) Network Security
5 16 (27.12%) DNS
6 13 (22.03%) DHCP
6 13 (22.03%) VPN
7 12 (20.34%) Cisco ASA
8 11 (18.64%) Cisco Firepower
8 11 (18.64%) SSL
9 10 (16.95%) BGP
9 10 (16.95%) IPsec
10 9 (15.25%) SD-WAN
10 9 (15.25%) VLAN
11 8 (13.56%) Cisco Nexus
11 8 (13.56%) OSPF
11 8 (13.56%) Wireless
12 7 (11.86%) WLAN
13 5 (8.47%) NGFW
14 4 (6.78%) CATAPAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.08%) GIS
Development Applications
1 1 (1.69%) Git
General
1 6 (10.17%) Social Skills
2 5 (8.47%) Manufacturing
2 5 (8.47%) Telecoms
3 3 (5.08%) Finance
3 3 (5.08%) Retail
4 1 (1.69%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (15.25%) 802.1X
2 3 (5.08%) XML
3 2 (3.39%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 14 (23.73%) Data Centre
2 7 (11.86%) PKI
3 4 (6.78%) Fibre Optics
4 3 (5.08%) Onboarding
4 3 (5.08%) SCADA
4 3 (5.08%) Security Posture
4 3 (5.08%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (3.39%) CMDB
5 2 (3.39%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (1.69%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.69%) Life Science
6 1 (1.69%) Renewable Energy
6 1 (1.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 10 (16.95%) Windows
2 9 (15.25%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (20.34%) ITIL
2 11 (18.64%) Network Monitoring
3 10 (16.95%) Technical Leadership
4 9 (15.25%) Change Management
5 8 (13.56%) Security Operations
6 7 (11.86%) Network Management
7 6 (10.17%) High Availability
7 6 (10.17%) Network Design
7 6 (10.17%) Network Virtualisation
8 5 (8.47%) Load Balancing
8 5 (8.47%) Migration
8 5 (8.47%) Virtual Environments
9 4 (6.78%) Incident Management
9 4 (6.78%) Problem-Solving
9 4 (6.78%) Validation
10 3 (5.08%) Asset Management
10 3 (5.08%) Collaborative Working
10 3 (5.08%) Presales
10 3 (5.08%) SIEM
10 3 (5.08%) Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 4 (6.78%) Python
2 3 (5.08%) SQL
Qualifications
1 25 (42.37%) Security Cleared
2 15 (25.42%) SC Cleared
3 11 (18.64%) Cisco Certification
4 10 (16.95%) DV Cleared
5 8 (13.56%) CCNP
6 4 (6.78%) CCNA
7 3 (5.08%) CCSE
7 3 (5.08%) CCSM
7 3 (5.08%) Degree
8 2 (3.39%) CCIE
9 1 (1.69%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (10.17%) NIST
2 3 (5.08%) SLA
3 1 (1.69%) QA
System Software
1 11 (18.64%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (13.56%) Active Directory
2 8 (13.56%) VMware NSX
3 3 (5.08%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (3.39%) Firmware
4 2 (3.39%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 4 (6.78%) Cisco CUCM
2 3 (5.08%) FortiGate
2 3 (5.08%) Nagios
3 2 (3.39%) Ansible
3 2 (3.39%) Avamar
3 2 (3.39%) Grafana
3 2 (3.39%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.69%) CASB
Vendors
1 36 (61.02%) Cisco
2 18 (30.51%) Palo Alto
3 16 (27.12%) VMware
4 13 (22.03%) Juniper
5 10 (16.95%) SolarWinds
6 9 (15.25%) ServiceNow
7 8 (13.56%) CheckPoint
8 7 (11.86%) F5
8 7 (11.86%) Fortinet
9 4 (6.78%) Becrypt
9 4 (6.78%) Extreme Networks
10 3 (5.08%) Blue Coat
10 3 (5.08%) Meraki
10 3 (5.08%) Nokia
10 3 (5.08%) SevOne
10 3 (5.08%) Zscaler
11 2 (3.39%) Infoblox
11 2 (3.39%) LogicMonitor
11 2 (3.39%) NetScout
11 2 (3.39%) Tufin