Software-Defined Networking Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Software-Defined Networking
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Software-Defined Networking skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 23 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 109 -
Rank change year-on-year -45 - -
Contract jobs citing Software-Defined Networking 3 3 0
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 0.093% 0.18% -
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.77% 1.20% -
Number of daily rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £510 £563 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £575 -
Median % change year-on-year -9.57% - -
75th Percentile £530 £588 -
90th Percentile - - -
South East median daily rate £650 £588 £700
% change year-on-year +10.64% -16.07% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £63.50 - -
Median hourly rate £67.00 - -
75th Percentile £70.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
South East median hourly rate £67.00 - -

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
Thames Valley

Software-Defined Networking falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 388 251 371
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 12.03% 15.05% 16.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 231 135 180
10th Percentile £325 £293 £281
25th Percentile £400 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.53% -6.13% +4.05%
75th Percentile £590 £546 £608
90th Percentile £638 £600 £650
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - +9.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 13 16
10th Percentile £16.01 - £39.42
25th Percentile £19.34 £14.20 £62.81
Median hourly rate £32.50 £21.90 £75.24
Median % change year-on-year +48.40% -70.89% +14.00%
75th Percentile £53.75 £89.63 £87.46
90th Percentile £70.50 - -
South East median hourly rate £50.00 £55.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year -9.09% -4.10% -2.64%

Software-Defined Networking
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software-Defined Networking relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Software-Defined Networking job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Software-Defined Networking
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Software-Defined Networking.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Software-Defined Networking

Software-Defined Networking
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Software-Defined Networking.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Software-Defined Networking

Software-Defined Networking
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 Software-Defined Networking within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 23 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 -30 2 - - 1
Buckinghamshire - 1 £520 -
Software-Defined Networking
South East

Software-Defined Networking
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 2 (66.67%) Azure
1 2 (66.67%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 3 (100.00%) DHCP
1 3 (100.00%) DNS
1 3 (100.00%) Firewall
1 3 (100.00%) VPN
2 2 (66.67%) TCP/IP
3 1 (33.33%) CATAPAN
3 1 (33.33%) Cisco ASA
3 1 (33.33%) Cisco Firepower
3 1 (33.33%) IPsec
3 1 (33.33%) LAN
3 1 (33.33%) Network Security
3 1 (33.33%) NGFW
3 1 (33.33%) SSL
3 1 (33.33%) WAN
General
1 2 (66.67%) Aerospace
1 2 (66.67%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 3 (100.00%) Senior
2 2 (66.67%) Senior Systems Engineer
2 2 (66.67%) Systems Engineer
3 1 (33.33%) Azure Engineer
3 1 (33.33%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
3 1 (33.33%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 1 (33.33%) Network Engineer
3 1 (33.33%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
3 1 (33.33%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (66.67%) ARM Templates
1 2 (66.67%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 2 (66.67%) Cloud Native
1 2 (66.67%) Hybrid Cloud
2 1 (33.33%) Distributed Architecture
2 1 (33.33%) Distributed Computing
2 1 (33.33%) Fibre Optics
2 1 (33.33%) Management Information System
2 1 (33.33%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 3 (100.00%) Linux
1 3 (100.00%) Windows
2 2 (66.67%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (100.00%) ITIL
2 2 (66.67%) Agile
2 2 (66.67%) Business Continuity
2 2 (66.67%) Cost Optimisation
2 2 (66.67%) DevOps
2 2 (66.67%) Disaster Recovery
2 2 (66.67%) FinOps
2 2 (66.67%) Infrastructure as Code
2 2 (66.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 2 (66.67%) Infrastructure Transformation
2 2 (66.67%) Load Balancing
2 2 (66.67%) Migration
2 2 (66.67%) Observability
2 2 (66.67%) Platform Engineering
2 2 (66.67%) Problem-Solving
2 2 (66.67%) Root Cause Analysis
2 2 (66.67%) Systems Engineering
2 2 (66.67%) Technical Leadership
2 2 (66.67%) Zero Trust
3 1 (33.33%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 2 (66.67%) Bash
1 2 (66.67%) Bicep
1 2 (66.67%) PowerShell
1 2 (66.67%) Python
Qualifications
1 3 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 2 (66.67%) Azure Certification
2 2 (66.67%) SC Cleared
2 2 (66.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
3 1 (33.33%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (33.33%) Degree
3 1 (33.33%) DV Cleared
3 1 (33.33%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (33.33%) NIST
System Software
1 3 (100.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (66.67%) Hyper-V
3 1 (33.33%) Active Directory
3 1 (33.33%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 2 (66.67%) Ansible
1 2 (66.67%) Istio
1 2 (66.67%) Kubernetes
2 1 (33.33%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 3 (100.00%) VMware
2 2 (66.67%) Microsoft
2 2 (66.67%) Red Hat
3 1 (33.33%) Becrypt
3 1 (33.33%) Cisco
3 1 (33.33%) Palo Alto
3 1 (33.33%) ServiceNow
3 1 (33.33%) SolarWinds