Network Engineer Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Network Engineer
Central London > City of London

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the City of London is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 September 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 92 95
Rank change year-on-year +8 +3 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 55 23 30
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 2.42% 1.30% 1.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.57% 1.39% 1.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 44 18 16
10th Percentile £390 £411 £416
25th Percentile £418 £456 £465
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £613 £550
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +11.36% +11.11%
75th Percentile £660 £672 £638
90th Percentile £691 £775 -
Central London median daily rate £525 £578 £510
% change year-on-year -9.09% +13.24% +10.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £29.00 - -
Median hourly rate £30.00 - -
75th Percentile £31.00 - -
90th Percentile - - -
Central London median hourly rate £30.00 - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
City of London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the City of London. 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 City of London with a recognized job title 2,143 1,652 1,944
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 94.32% 93.65% 94.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,450 1,101 1,256
10th Percentile £363 £325 £363
25th Percentile £456 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £783
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £575
% change year-on-year - -4.35% -0.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 22 14
10th Percentile - £17.35 £15.87
25th Percentile £17.60 £23.98 £20.88
Median hourly rate £20.25 £28.33 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.51% +4.91% -25.00%
75th Percentile £31.52 £53.50 £89.06
90th Percentile £49.64 £65.39 £137.50
Central London median hourly rate £24.00 £28.33 £27.00
% change year-on-year -15.27% +4.91% -22.86%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

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 City of London.

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the City of London

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer in the City of London over the 6 months to 4 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Engineer in the City of London

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

Network Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London

For the 6 months to 4 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 City of London region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 29 (52.73%) Cisco
2 26 (47.27%) Firewall
3 16 (29.09%) Azure
4 15 (27.27%) VPN
5 14 (25.45%) BGP
6 13 (23.64%) WAN
7 12 (21.82%) F5
7 12 (21.82%) Multicast
7 12 (21.82%) Palo Alto
7 12 (21.82%) Wireless
8 11 (20.00%) LAN
9 10 (18.18%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (18.18%) Load Balancing
9 10 (18.18%) VLAN
9 10 (18.18%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (16.36%) Network Security
10 9 (16.36%) Project Delivery
11 8 (14.55%) Arista
11 8 (14.55%) CCNP
11 8 (14.55%) DNS
11 8 (14.55%) SD-WAN
12 7 (12.73%) Cisco Prime
12 7 (12.73%) Cisco Wireless
12 7 (12.73%) Use Case
13 6 (10.91%) CCIE
13 6 (10.91%) Fortinet
13 6 (10.91%) Internet
13 6 (10.91%) Python
14 5 (9.09%) Low Latency
14 5 (9.09%) Observability

Network Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London 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:

Application Platforms
1 3 (5.45%) Confluence
2 1 (1.82%) ArcGIS
Cloud Services
1 16 (29.09%) Azure
2 4 (7.27%) AWS
2 4 (7.27%) GCP
3 3 (5.45%) Azure ExpressRoute
3 3 (5.45%) Google Kubernetes Engine
4 1 (1.82%) Amazon EC2
4 1 (1.82%) Datadog
4 1 (1.82%) Mimecast
4 1 (1.82%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 26 (47.27%) Firewall
2 15 (27.27%) VPN
3 14 (25.45%) BGP
4 13 (23.64%) WAN
5 12 (21.82%) Multicast
5 12 (21.82%) Wireless
6 11 (20.00%) LAN
7 10 (18.18%) VLAN
7 10 (18.18%) Wi-Fi
8 9 (16.36%) Network Security
9 8 (14.55%) DNS
9 8 (14.55%) SD-WAN
10 7 (12.73%) Cisco Wireless
11 6 (10.91%) Internet
12 5 (9.09%) OSPF
13 4 (7.27%) Cisco Nexus
13 4 (7.27%) DHCP
14 3 (5.45%) MPLS
15 2 (3.64%) Extranet
15 2 (3.64%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.82%) ClickHouse
1 1 (1.82%) GIS
1 1 (1.82%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 4 (7.27%) JIRA
2 3 (5.45%) GitLab
General
1 15 (27.27%) Finance
2 7 (12.73%) Social Skills
3 4 (7.27%) Banking
4 2 (3.64%) Financial Institution
4 2 (3.64%) Public Sector
4 2 (3.64%) Telecoms
5 1 (1.82%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (1.82%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (3.64%) 802.1X
1 2 (3.64%) REST
1 2 (3.64%) Terraform
2 1 (1.82%) eBPF
Miscellaneous
1 9 (16.36%) Data Centre
2 7 (12.73%) Digital Signage
3 5 (9.09%) CCTV
4 2 (3.64%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (3.64%) IoT
4 2 (3.64%) Onboarding
5 1 (1.82%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.82%) Cloud Security Posture
5 1 (1.82%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 1 (1.82%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 5 (9.09%) VMS
2 3 (5.45%) Windows
3 1 (1.82%) Windows Server
3 1 (1.82%) Windows Server 2012
3 1 (1.82%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (1.82%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (18.18%) Load Balancing
2 9 (16.36%) Project Delivery
3 7 (12.73%) Use Case
4 5 (9.09%) Low Latency
4 5 (9.09%) Observability
5 4 (7.27%) Cloud Security
5 4 (7.27%) Migration
6 3 (5.45%) Change Control
6 3 (5.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 3 (5.45%) Network Virtualisation
6 3 (5.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 3 (5.45%) Stakeholder Management
6 3 (5.45%) Validation
7 2 (3.64%) High Availability
7 2 (3.64%) Incident Response
7 2 (3.64%) Network Optimisation
7 2 (3.64%) Network Segmentation
7 2 (3.64%) Problem-Solving
7 2 (3.64%) Technical Leadership
7 2 (3.64%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 6 (10.91%) Python
2 1 (1.82%) Bash
2 1 (1.82%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 10 (18.18%) Cisco Certification
2 8 (14.55%) CCNP
3 6 (10.91%) CCIE
4 4 (7.27%) Security Cleared
5 3 (5.45%) SC Cleared
6 2 (3.64%) CCNA
7 1 (1.82%) Azure Certification
7 1 (1.82%) CWNA
7 1 (1.82%) Degree
7 1 (1.82%) DV Cleared
7 1 (1.82%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.82%) Cyber Essentials
1 1 (1.82%) QA
System Software
1 3 (5.45%) Active Directory
1 3 (5.45%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (3.64%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (1.82%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (1.82%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 7 (12.73%) Cisco Prime
2 4 (7.27%) Kubernetes
3 3 (5.45%) Ansible
3 3 (5.45%) Istio
4 2 (3.64%) FortiGate
5 1 (1.82%) Grafana
5 1 (1.82%) Nessus
5 1 (1.82%) SCCM
5 1 (1.82%) TrustSec
5 1 (1.82%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 29 (52.73%) Cisco
2 12 (21.82%) F5
2 12 (21.82%) Palo Alto
3 8 (14.55%) Arista
4 6 (10.91%) Fortinet
5 4 (7.27%) VMware
6 3 (5.45%) Citrix
6 3 (5.45%) Juniper
6 3 (5.45%) Meraki
6 3 (5.45%) Zscaler
7 2 (3.64%) Google
7 2 (3.64%) Microsoft
7 2 (3.64%) Tenable
8 1 (1.82%) Alias
8 1 (1.82%) Aruba
8 1 (1.82%) CheckPoint
8 1 (1.82%) Forcepoint
8 1 (1.82%) ForeScout
8 1 (1.82%) ServiceNow
8 1 (1.82%) SevOne