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 £461, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 April 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 75 50
Rank change year-on-year +10 -25 +24
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 90 33 99
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 3.10% 2.18% 3.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.39% 2.34% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 72 21 58
10th Percentile £300 £375 £335
25th Percentile £313 £418 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £461 £500 £506
Median % change year-on-year -7.75% -1.23% +9.46%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £519
90th Percentile £575 £575 £611
South East median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 6
10th Percentile - - £24.38
25th Percentile £70.67 £18.50 £35.88
Median hourly rate £71.33 £19.00 £71.75
Median % change year-on-year +275.42% -73.52% +8.71%
75th Percentile £72.00 £19.50 £75.24
90th Percentile - - £76.12
South East median hourly rate £77.50 £19.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +307.89% -72.86% +12.90%

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 2,651 1,413 2,549
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.23% 93.33% 93.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,738 866 1,456
10th Percentile £303 £300 £212
25th Percentile £403 £409 £368
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £606 £600
90th Percentile £653 £675 £675
South East median daily rate £514 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.80% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 208 58 192
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.20 £15.85
25th Percentile £23.10 £17.50 £19.81
Median hourly rate £79.20 £45.65 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.49% +1.44% -
75th Percentile £85.50 £65.62 £62.70
90th Percentile £95.00 £78.03 £83.94
South East median hourly rate £50.00 £37.55 £47.50
% change year-on-year +33.17% -20.96% -0.61%

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 22 April 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 22 April 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 +7 69 £421 -11.32% 14
Buckinghamshire -22 13 £525 +20.00% 3
Oxfordshire -14 8 £480 -12.73% 6
Network Engineer
South East

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

For the 6 months to 22 April 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 68 (75.56%) Security Cleared
2 53 (58.89%) Cisco
3 47 (52.22%) SC Cleared
4 40 (44.44%) Firewall
4 40 (44.44%) Juniper
5 32 (35.56%) LAN
6 29 (32.22%) BGP
6 29 (32.22%) WAN
7 27 (30.00%) OSPF
8 22 (24.44%) DV Cleared
9 21 (23.33%) DHCP
9 21 (23.33%) DNS
10 18 (20.00%) F5
10 18 (20.00%) Network Security
11 17 (18.89%) Cisco Certification
11 17 (18.89%) High Availability
12 15 (16.67%) ITIL
13 14 (15.56%) Cisco ISE
13 14 (15.56%) Problem-Solving
13 14 (15.56%) SolarWinds
13 14 (15.56%) Wireless
14 13 (14.44%) AWS
14 13 (14.44%) Azure
14 13 (14.44%) BIG-IP
14 13 (14.44%) Collaborative Working
14 13 (14.44%) Palo Alto
14 13 (14.44%) TCP/IP
15 12 (13.33%) Cisco Nexus
15 12 (13.33%) Fortinet
15 12 (13.33%) Junos

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 (14.44%) AWS
1 13 (14.44%) Azure
2 2 (2.22%) Azure Sentinel
2 2 (2.22%) IaaS
2 2 (2.22%) PaaS
2 2 (2.22%) SaaS
3 1 (1.11%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (1.11%) GCP
3 1 (1.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 40 (44.44%) Firewall
2 32 (35.56%) LAN
3 29 (32.22%) BGP
3 29 (32.22%) WAN
4 27 (30.00%) OSPF
5 21 (23.33%) DHCP
5 21 (23.33%) DNS
6 18 (20.00%) Network Security
7 14 (15.56%) Cisco ISE
7 14 (15.56%) Wireless
8 13 (14.44%) BIG-IP
8 13 (14.44%) TCP/IP
9 12 (13.33%) Cisco Nexus
9 12 (13.33%) Junos
9 12 (13.33%) VLAN
9 12 (13.33%) VXLAN
10 11 (12.22%) Ethernet VPN
10 11 (12.22%) WLAN
11 10 (11.11%) VPN
12 9 (10.00%) Wi-Fi
Development Applications
1 2 (2.22%) JIRA
2 1 (1.11%) Browser DevTools
2 1 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 15 (16.67%) Social Skills
2 9 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (8.89%) Telecoms
4 4 (4.44%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (3.33%) Finance
5 3 (3.33%) Public Sector
6 2 (2.22%) Manufacturing
6 2 (2.22%) Military
6 2 (2.22%) Retail
7 1 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (11.11%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 24 (26.67%) Data Centre
2 9 (10.00%) Clustering
3 7 (7.78%) PKI
4 4 (4.44%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (1.11%) Driving Licence
5 1 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.11%) Life Science
5 1 (1.11%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 12 (13.33%) Windows
2 3 (3.33%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (18.89%) High Availability
2 15 (16.67%) ITIL
3 14 (15.56%) Problem-Solving
4 13 (14.44%) Collaborative Working
5 12 (13.33%) Service Management
6 11 (12.22%) ITSM
6 11 (12.22%) Load Balancing
7 9 (10.00%) Network Monitoring
8 8 (8.89%) Identity Access Management
9 7 (7.78%) Observability
10 5 (5.56%) Incident Management
10 5 (5.56%) Migration
10 5 (5.56%) Network Design
10 5 (5.56%) Technical Leadership
11 4 (4.44%) Availability Management
11 4 (4.44%) Incident Response
11 4 (4.44%) Network Management
11 4 (4.44%) Network Virtualisation
11 4 (4.44%) Security Operations
11 4 (4.44%) Virtual Environments
Programming Languages
1 2 (2.22%) SQL
2 1 (1.11%) Python
Qualifications
1 68 (75.56%) Security Cleared
2 47 (52.22%) SC Cleared
3 22 (24.44%) DV Cleared
4 17 (18.89%) Cisco Certification
5 11 (12.22%) CCNP
6 8 (8.89%) JNCIA
6 8 (8.89%) JNCIP
6 8 (8.89%) JNCIS
7 6 (6.67%) Network+ Certification
8 2 (2.22%) CCNA
8 2 (2.22%) CCSE
8 2 (2.22%) CCSM
9 1 (1.11%) CCIP
9 1 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (1.11%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (2.22%) SLA
System Software
1 9 (10.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (2.22%) vCloud
2 2 (2.22%) VMware ESXi
2 2 (2.22%) VMware NSX
3 1 (1.11%) Active Directory
3 1 (1.11%) Firmware
3 1 (1.11%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 11 (12.22%) FortiGate
2 5 (5.56%) Nagios
3 1 (1.11%) Ansible
3 1 (1.11%) Avamar
Vendors
1 53 (58.89%) Cisco
2 40 (44.44%) Juniper
3 18 (20.00%) F5
4 14 (15.56%) SolarWinds
5 13 (14.44%) Palo Alto
6 12 (13.33%) Fortinet
7 10 (11.11%) VMware
8 8 (8.89%) Splunk
9 7 (7.78%) Extreme Networks
10 6 (6.67%) Aruba
11 5 (5.56%) CheckPoint
12 4 (4.44%) Infoblox
13 3 (3.33%) Meraki
14 2 (2.22%) Nokia
14 2 (2.22%) ServiceNow
15 1 (1.11%) BT
15 1 (1.11%) Ekahau
15 1 (1.11%) HP
15 1 (1.11%) Microsoft
15 1 (1.11%) NetScout