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 16 August 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 79 61
Rank change year-on-year +4 -18 +7
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 97 36 60
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 2.93% 2.14% 2.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.17% 2.32% 2.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 71 27 23
10th Percentile £200 £276 £218
25th Percentile £368 £345 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% -5.26% +8.57%
75th Percentile £534 £519 £538
90th Percentile £575 £560 £598
South East median daily rate £466 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -6.75% - +17.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 4
10th Percentile £50.23 £72.86 £34.47
25th Percentile £53.19 £75.66 £58.44
Median hourly rate £58.25 £83.32 £73.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.08% +13.36% +11.36%
75th Percentile £65.19 £87.97 £75.68
90th Percentile £69.27 £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 3,058 1,555 2,079
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.28% 91.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,903 943 1,194
10th Percentile £325 £273 £255
25th Percentile £425 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £619
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £516
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.10% +3.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 308 100 126
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.20 £16.16
25th Percentile £26.22 £15.12 £22.50
Median hourly rate £62.50 £25.15 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +148.51% -56.26% +18.80%
75th Percentile £85.00 £62.50 £70.34
90th Percentile £101.85 £87.28 £87.48
South East median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £57.35
% change year-on-year +108.75% -56.15% +16.18%

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 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
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 August 2026.

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 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 +9 68 £405 -10.00% 6
Buckinghamshire -17 21 £525 +31.25% 6
Oxfordshire -21 8 £480 - 5
Network Engineer
South East

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

For the 6 months to 16 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 56 (57.73%) Security Cleared
2 53 (54.64%) Cisco
3 45 (46.39%) Firewall
4 38 (39.18%) LAN
5 37 (38.14%) WAN
6 35 (36.08%) Juniper
7 31 (31.96%) SC Cleared
8 29 (29.90%) DNS
9 27 (27.84%) BGP
9 27 (27.84%) DHCP
10 26 (26.80%) ITIL
10 26 (26.80%) Network Security
10 26 (26.80%) OSPF
11 24 (24.74%) DV Cleared
12 23 (23.71%) Palo Alto
13 22 (22.68%) VMware
14 20 (20.62%) Cisco Certification
15 19 (19.59%) Cisco ASA
15 19 (19.59%) High Availability
15 19 (19.59%) SolarWinds
15 19 (19.59%) Windows
16 17 (17.53%) Cisco Firepower
16 17 (17.53%) F5
16 17 (17.53%) Network Monitoring
16 17 (17.53%) VMware Infrastructure
17 15 (15.46%) 802.1X
17 15 (15.46%) VPN
18 14 (14.43%) IPsec
18 14 (14.43%) Load Balancing
18 14 (14.43%) Problem-Solving

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 (13.40%) AWS
1 13 (13.40%) Azure
2 5 (5.15%) Azure Sentinel
3 1 (1.03%) AWS Direct Connect
3 1 (1.03%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (1.03%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 45 (46.39%) Firewall
2 38 (39.18%) LAN
3 37 (38.14%) WAN
4 29 (29.90%) DNS
5 27 (27.84%) BGP
5 27 (27.84%) DHCP
6 26 (26.80%) Network Security
6 26 (26.80%) OSPF
7 19 (19.59%) Cisco ASA
8 17 (17.53%) Cisco Firepower
9 15 (15.46%) VPN
10 14 (14.43%) IPsec
10 14 (14.43%) VLAN
10 14 (14.43%) Wireless
11 13 (13.40%) Junos
12 12 (12.37%) BIG-IP
12 12 (12.37%) Cisco ISE
13 11 (11.34%) SD-WAN
13 11 (11.34%) Wi-Fi
14 10 (10.31%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.03%) GIS
Development Applications
1 1 (1.03%) Browser DevTools
1 1 (1.03%) Git
1 1 (1.03%) JIRA
General
1 8 (8.25%) Telecoms
2 7 (7.22%) Manufacturing
3 6 (6.19%) Finance
3 6 (6.19%) Social Skills
4 5 (5.15%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (5.15%) Retail
5 2 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.03%) Military
6 1 (1.03%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (15.46%) 802.1X
2 1 (1.03%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 21 (21.65%) Data Centre
2 13 (13.40%) PKI
3 8 (8.25%) Clustering
4 4 (4.12%) Fibre Optics
5 3 (3.09%) Security Posture
6 2 (2.06%) CMDB
6 2 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (1.03%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.03%) Life Science
7 1 (1.03%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (1.03%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 19 (19.59%) Windows
2 10 (10.31%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (26.80%) ITIL
2 19 (19.59%) High Availability
3 17 (17.53%) Network Monitoring
4 14 (14.43%) Load Balancing
4 14 (14.43%) Problem-Solving
4 14 (14.43%) Technical Leadership
5 13 (13.40%) ITSM
6 12 (12.37%) Security Operations
6 12 (12.37%) Service Management
7 10 (10.31%) Change Management
7 10 (10.31%) Network Virtualisation
8 9 (9.28%) Virtual Environments
9 8 (8.25%) Migration
10 7 (7.22%) Identity Access Management
10 7 (7.22%) Network Design
10 7 (7.22%) Observability
11 6 (6.19%) Collaborative Working
11 6 (6.19%) Validation
12 5 (5.15%) Incident Management
12 5 (5.15%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 3 (3.09%) Python
1 3 (3.09%) SQL
Qualifications
1 56 (57.73%) Security Cleared
2 31 (31.96%) SC Cleared
3 24 (24.74%) DV Cleared
4 20 (20.62%) Cisco Certification
5 11 (11.34%) CCNP
6 8 (8.25%) JNCIA
6 8 (8.25%) JNCIP
6 8 (8.25%) JNCIS
7 5 (5.15%) CCSE
7 5 (5.15%) CCSM
8 3 (3.09%) CCNA
9 2 (2.06%) CCIE
9 2 (2.06%) Network+ Certification
10 1 (1.03%) AWS Certification
10 1 (1.03%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (6.19%) NIST
2 5 (5.15%) SLA
3 1 (1.03%) QA
System Software
1 17 (17.53%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (8.25%) VMware NSX
3 7 (7.22%) Active Directory
4 5 (5.15%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (2.06%) Firmware
6 1 (1.03%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 10 (10.31%) FortiGate
2 5 (5.15%) Nagios
3 4 (4.12%) Cisco CUCM
4 2 (2.06%) Ansible
4 2 (2.06%) Avamar
5 1 (1.03%) CASB
5 1 (1.03%) Grafana
5 1 (1.03%) Prometheus
5 1 (1.03%) Terraform
Vendors
1 53 (54.64%) Cisco
2 35 (36.08%) Juniper
3 23 (23.71%) Palo Alto
4 22 (22.68%) VMware
5 19 (19.59%) SolarWinds
6 17 (17.53%) F5
7 13 (13.40%) Fortinet
8 10 (10.31%) CheckPoint
8 10 (10.31%) Extreme Networks
8 10 (10.31%) ServiceNow
9 7 (7.22%) Splunk
10 4 (4.12%) Aruba
10 4 (4.12%) Becrypt
10 4 (4.12%) Infoblox
11 3 (3.09%) Meraki
11 3 (3.09%) NetScout
11 3 (3.09%) Nokia
11 3 (3.09%) SevOne
12 2 (2.06%) Blue Coat
12 2 (2.06%) Tufin