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 13 September 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 74 71
Rank change year-on-year -14 -3 -4
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 67 39 60
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 2.17% 2.38% 2.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.37% 2.60% 2.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 30 25
10th Percentile £250 £250 £207
25th Percentile £358 £335 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% -5.26% +10.14%
75th Percentile £534 £547 £538
90th Percentile £575 £575 £615
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 2,829 1,498 2,044
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.67% 91.29% 91.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,764 930 1,154
10th Percentile £336 £259 £263
25th Percentile £431 £391 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.28% +1.30%
75th Percentile £610 £598 £608
90th Percentile £709 £655 £688
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £513
% change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 90 105
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.20 £18.50
25th Percentile £20.25 £15.12 £30.41
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £61.06
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -58.81% +24.45%
75th Percentile £82.75 £60.63 £72.33
90th Percentile £103.50 £87.28 £90.00
South East median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £57.35
% change year-on-year +98.81% -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 13 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 13 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 -15 43 £400 -11.11% 9
Buckinghamshire -17 16 £523 - 6
Oxfordshire -19 8 £480 +12.94% 5
Network Engineer
South East

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

For the 6 months to 13 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 38 (56.72%) Cisco
2 31 (46.27%) Security Cleared
3 27 (40.30%) Firewall
4 23 (34.33%) LAN
5 22 (32.84%) WAN
6 20 (29.85%) Network Security
6 20 (29.85%) SC Cleared
7 19 (28.36%) DNS
8 18 (26.87%) Palo Alto
9 17 (25.37%) VMware
10 16 (23.88%) DHCP
11 15 (22.39%) Juniper
12 13 (19.40%) Cisco ASA
12 13 (19.40%) ITIL
13 12 (17.91%) Cisco Certification
13 12 (17.91%) Cisco Firepower
13 12 (17.91%) Network Monitoring
13 12 (17.91%) VMware Infrastructure
13 12 (17.91%) VPN
13 12 (17.91%) Wireless
14 11 (16.42%) BGP
14 11 (16.42%) DV Cleared
14 11 (16.42%) SSL
15 10 (14.93%) Change Management
15 10 (14.93%) Fortinet
15 10 (14.93%) IPsec
15 10 (14.93%) OSPF
15 10 (14.93%) SolarWinds
15 10 (14.93%) Technical Leadership
15 10 (14.93%) VLAN

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 (7.46%) AWS
2 4 (5.97%) Azure
2 4 (5.97%) Azure Sentinel
3 1 (1.49%) AWS Direct Connect
3 1 (1.49%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 27 (40.30%) Firewall
2 23 (34.33%) LAN
3 22 (32.84%) WAN
4 20 (29.85%) Network Security
5 19 (28.36%) DNS
6 16 (23.88%) DHCP
7 13 (19.40%) Cisco ASA
8 12 (17.91%) Cisco Firepower
8 12 (17.91%) VPN
8 12 (17.91%) Wireless
9 11 (16.42%) BGP
9 11 (16.42%) SSL
10 10 (14.93%) IPsec
10 10 (14.93%) OSPF
10 10 (14.93%) VLAN
11 9 (13.43%) Cisco Nexus
11 9 (13.43%) SD-WAN
11 9 (13.43%) Wi-Fi
12 6 (8.96%) WLAN
13 5 (7.46%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (4.48%) GIS
Development Applications
1 1 (1.49%) Git
General
1 7 (10.45%) Social Skills
2 6 (8.96%) Manufacturing
3 5 (7.46%) Telecoms
4 4 (5.97%) Finance
4 4 (5.97%) Retail
5 3 (4.48%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (11.94%) 802.1X
2 3 (4.48%) XML
3 1 (1.49%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 14 (20.90%) Data Centre
2 7 (10.45%) PKI
3 4 (5.97%) Fibre Optics
4 3 (4.48%) Onboarding
4 3 (4.48%) SCADA
4 3 (4.48%) Security Posture
4 3 (4.48%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (2.99%) CMDB
5 2 (2.99%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.49%) Life Science
6 1 (1.49%) Renewable Energy
6 1 (1.49%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 10 (14.93%) Windows
2 9 (13.43%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (19.40%) ITIL
2 12 (17.91%) Network Monitoring
3 10 (14.93%) Change Management
3 10 (14.93%) Technical Leadership
4 8 (11.94%) Security Operations
5 7 (10.45%) Network Management
6 6 (8.96%) High Availability
6 6 (8.96%) Load Balancing
6 6 (8.96%) Network Virtualisation
6 6 (8.96%) Problem-Solving
7 5 (7.46%) Migration
7 5 (7.46%) Network Design
7 5 (7.46%) Virtual Environments
8 4 (5.97%) Collaborative Working
8 4 (5.97%) Incident Management
8 4 (5.97%) Presales
8 4 (5.97%) SIEM
8 4 (5.97%) Validation
9 3 (4.48%) Energy Management
9 3 (4.48%) Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 4 (5.97%) Python
2 3 (4.48%) SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (46.27%) Security Cleared
2 20 (29.85%) SC Cleared
3 12 (17.91%) Cisco Certification
4 11 (16.42%) DV Cleared
5 9 (13.43%) CCNP
6 4 (5.97%) CCNA
6 4 (5.97%) CCSE
6 4 (5.97%) CCSM
7 3 (4.48%) Degree
8 2 (2.99%) CCIE
9 1 (1.49%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (8.96%) NIST
2 4 (5.97%) SLA
3 1 (1.49%) QA
System Software
1 12 (17.91%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (11.94%) Active Directory
2 8 (11.94%) VMware NSX
3 4 (5.97%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (2.99%) Firmware
4 2 (2.99%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 4 (5.97%) Cisco CUCM
2 3 (4.48%) FortiGate
2 3 (4.48%) Nagios
3 2 (2.99%) Avamar
4 1 (1.49%) Ansible
4 1 (1.49%) CASB
4 1 (1.49%) Grafana
4 1 (1.49%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 38 (56.72%) Cisco
2 18 (26.87%) Palo Alto
3 17 (25.37%) VMware
4 15 (22.39%) Juniper
5 10 (14.93%) Fortinet
5 10 (14.93%) SolarWinds
6 9 (13.43%) CheckPoint
6 9 (13.43%) ServiceNow
7 7 (10.45%) F5
8 4 (5.97%) Becrypt
8 4 (5.97%) Extreme Networks
8 4 (5.97%) Infoblox
9 3 (4.48%) Aruba
9 3 (4.48%) Blue Coat
9 3 (4.48%) Meraki
9 3 (4.48%) Nokia
9 3 (4.48%) SevOne
9 3 (4.48%) Zscaler
10 2 (2.99%) NetScout
10 2 (2.99%) Tufin