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 11 October 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 72 70
Rank change year-on-year -24 -2 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 57 44 58
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 1.89% 2.59% 2.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.06% 2.86% 2.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 36 25
10th Percentile £250 £271 £175
25th Percentile £380 £336 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% -5.26% +18.75%
75th Percentile £530 £550 £538
90th Percentile £638 £575 £595
South East median daily rate £463 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -7.50% - +17.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 2
10th Percentile £49.24 £29.40 £23.82
25th Percentile £50.72 £45.00 £31.81
Median hourly rate £54.88 £77.00 £46.25
Median % change year-on-year -28.73% +66.50% +84.99%
75th Percentile £57.47 £86.32 £61.31
90th Percentile £58.01 £88.30 £69.67
South East median hourly rate £77.50 £77.00 £20.70
% change year-on-year +0.65% +271.98% -17.20%

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 2,771 1,540 1,984
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.85% 90.59% 91.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,648 980 1,118
10th Percentile £331 £250 £263
25th Percentile £435 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% - -
75th Percentile £610 £588 £608
90th Percentile £713 £663 £675
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £505
% change year-on-year +5.00% -0.99% -0.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 327 92 89
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.75 £18.50
25th Percentile £20.38 £15.91 £26.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -56.86% +16.60%
75th Percentile £83.68 £56.88 £64.73
90th Percentile £100.34 £86.83 £94.50
South East median hourly rate £48.59 £24.00 £59.25
% change year-on-year +102.45% -59.49% +13.93%

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 11 October 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 11 October 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 37 £400 -11.11% 17
Buckinghamshire -20 13 £560 - 12
Oxfordshire -22 7 £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 11 October 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 33 (57.89%) Cisco
2 25 (43.86%) Firewall
3 22 (38.60%) LAN
3 22 (38.60%) Security Cleared
4 20 (35.09%) Network Security
5 19 (33.33%) Palo Alto
5 19 (33.33%) WAN
6 18 (31.58%) DNS
7 16 (28.07%) VMware
8 15 (26.32%) DHCP
9 13 (22.81%) VPN
10 12 (21.05%) Cisco ASA
10 12 (21.05%) ITIL
10 12 (21.05%) Network Monitoring
10 12 (21.05%) SC Cleared
11 11 (19.30%) Cisco Firepower
11 11 (19.30%) Technical Leadership
11 11 (19.30%) VMware Infrastructure
11 11 (19.30%) Windows
12 10 (17.54%) BGP
12 10 (17.54%) Cisco Certification
12 10 (17.54%) DV Cleared
12 10 (17.54%) IPsec
12 10 (17.54%) Juniper
12 10 (17.54%) Linux
12 10 (17.54%) SolarWinds
12 10 (17.54%) SSL
13 9 (15.79%) 802.1X
13 9 (15.79%) Change Management
13 9 (15.79%) Network Management

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 6 (10.53%) AWS
2 3 (5.26%) AWS Direct Connect
2 3 (5.26%) Azure
2 3 (5.26%) Azure Sentinel
2 3 (5.26%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 25 (43.86%) Firewall
2 22 (38.60%) LAN
3 20 (35.09%) Network Security
4 19 (33.33%) WAN
5 18 (31.58%) DNS
6 15 (26.32%) DHCP
7 13 (22.81%) VPN
8 12 (21.05%) Cisco ASA
9 11 (19.30%) Cisco Firepower
10 10 (17.54%) BGP
10 10 (17.54%) IPsec
10 10 (17.54%) SSL
11 9 (15.79%) VLAN
11 9 (15.79%) Wireless
12 8 (14.04%) SD-WAN
13 7 (12.28%) Cisco Nexus
13 7 (12.28%) OSPF
13 7 (12.28%) WLAN
14 5 (8.77%) NGFW
15 4 (7.02%) CATAPAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.26%) GIS
Development Applications
1 1 (1.75%) Git
General
1 6 (10.53%) Social Skills
2 5 (8.77%) Manufacturing
3 4 (7.02%) Telecoms
4 3 (5.26%) Finance
4 3 (5.26%) Retail
5 1 (1.75%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (1.75%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (15.79%) 802.1X
2 3 (5.26%) Terraform
2 3 (5.26%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (24.56%) Data Centre
2 7 (12.28%) PKI
3 5 (8.77%) Onboarding
4 4 (7.02%) Fibre Optics
5 3 (5.26%) SCADA
5 3 (5.26%) Security Posture
5 3 (5.26%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (3.51%) CMDB
6 2 (3.51%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.75%) Life Science
7 1 (1.75%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (1.75%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 11 (19.30%) Windows
2 10 (17.54%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (21.05%) ITIL
1 12 (21.05%) Network Monitoring
2 11 (19.30%) Technical Leadership
3 9 (15.79%) Change Management
3 9 (15.79%) Network Management
4 8 (14.04%) Security Operations
5 7 (12.28%) Network Design
6 6 (10.53%) High Availability
6 6 (10.53%) Network Virtualisation
7 5 (8.77%) Load Balancing
7 5 (8.77%) Problem-Solving
7 5 (8.77%) Virtual Environments
8 4 (7.02%) Incident Management
8 4 (7.02%) Migration
9 3 (5.26%) Asset Management
9 3 (5.26%) Energy Management
9 3 (5.26%) Presales
9 3 (5.26%) Root Cause Analysis
9 3 (5.26%) SIEM
9 3 (5.26%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 4 (7.02%) Python
2 3 (5.26%) SQL
Qualifications
1 22 (38.60%) Security Cleared
2 12 (21.05%) SC Cleared
3 10 (17.54%) Cisco Certification
3 10 (17.54%) DV Cleared
4 7 (12.28%) CCNP
5 4 (7.02%) CCNA
6 3 (5.26%) CCSE
6 3 (5.26%) CCSM
6 3 (5.26%) Degree
7 2 (3.51%) CCIE
8 1 (1.75%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (10.53%) NIST
2 3 (5.26%) SLA
3 1 (1.75%) QA
System Software
1 11 (19.30%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (14.04%) Active Directory
2 8 (14.04%) VMware NSX
3 3 (5.26%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (3.51%) Firmware
5 1 (1.75%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 4 (7.02%) Cisco CUCM
2 3 (5.26%) Ansible
2 3 (5.26%) Grafana
2 3 (5.26%) Nagios
2 3 (5.26%) Prometheus
3 2 (3.51%) Avamar
3 2 (3.51%) FortiGate
4 1 (1.75%) CASB
Vendors
1 33 (57.89%) Cisco
2 19 (33.33%) Palo Alto
3 16 (28.07%) VMware
4 10 (17.54%) Juniper
4 10 (17.54%) SolarWinds
5 9 (15.79%) ServiceNow
6 8 (14.04%) CheckPoint
7 7 (12.28%) Fortinet
8 6 (10.53%) F5
9 5 (8.77%) Extreme Networks
10 4 (7.02%) Becrypt
11 3 (5.26%) Arista
11 3 (5.26%) Blue Coat
11 3 (5.26%) Infoblox
11 3 (5.26%) LogicMonitor
11 3 (5.26%) Meraki
11 3 (5.26%) Nokia
11 3 (5.26%) SevOne
11 3 (5.26%) Zscaler
12 2 (3.51%) NetScout