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 £556, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 June 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 92 91
Rank change year-on-year +4 -1 +45
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 48 25 36
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 1.98% 1.43% 1.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.11% 1.52% 1.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 15 18
10th Percentile £400 £413 £406
25th Percentile £450 £473 £464
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £556 £586 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.08% +11.62% +7.69%
75th Percentile £660 £662 £600
90th Percentile £688 £690 £641
Central London median daily rate £563 £575 £510
% change year-on-year -2.17% +12.75% +11.78%
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 2,278 1,643 2,047
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 94.05% 93.78% 95.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,520 1,042 1,411
10th Percentile £356 £350 £350
25th Percentile £453 £453 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £551 £568
Median % change year-on-year -0.18% -2.91% -5.42%
75th Percentile £669 £688 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £792
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 20 16
10th Percentile £17.56 £17.02 £16.33
25th Percentile £18.75 £24.43 £20.22
Median hourly rate £21.33 £32.83 £22.75
Median % change year-on-year -35.02% +44.29% -35.00%
75th Percentile £42.91 £63.75 £32.03
90th Percentile £60.25 £89.88 £45.13
Central London median hourly rate £27.00 £30.04 £26.78
% change year-on-year -10.10% +12.15% -23.49%

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 26 June 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 26 June 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 22 (45.83%) Cisco
2 17 (35.42%) Firewall
3 15 (31.25%) Azure
4 14 (29.17%) WAN
5 12 (25.00%) LAN
6 11 (22.92%) VPN
7 10 (20.83%) Network Security
8 9 (18.75%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (18.75%) SD-WAN
9 8 (16.67%) CCNP
9 8 (16.67%) Palo Alto
10 7 (14.58%) Internet
11 6 (12.50%) Python
11 6 (12.50%) Wireless
12 5 (10.42%) BGP
12 5 (10.42%) Cisco Nexus
12 5 (10.42%) F5
12 5 (10.42%) Security Cleared
12 5 (10.42%) VMS
12 5 (10.42%) Wi-Fi
13 4 (8.33%) CCIE
13 4 (8.33%) Cloud Security
13 4 (8.33%) DNS
13 4 (8.33%) Juniper
13 4 (8.33%) SC Cleared
13 4 (8.33%) VMware
13 4 (8.33%) Zscaler
14 3 (6.25%) Active Directory
14 3 (6.25%) Ansible
14 3 (6.25%) Azure ExpressRoute

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 1 (2.08%) ArcGIS
1 1 (2.08%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (2.08%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (2.08%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 15 (31.25%) Azure
2 3 (6.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
3 1 (2.08%) Amazon EC2
3 1 (2.08%) AWS
3 1 (2.08%) Cloudflare
3 1 (2.08%) Datadog
3 1 (2.08%) GCP
3 1 (2.08%) Google Kubernetes Engine
3 1 (2.08%) Mimecast
3 1 (2.08%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 17 (35.42%) Firewall
2 14 (29.17%) WAN
3 12 (25.00%) LAN
4 11 (22.92%) VPN
5 10 (20.83%) Network Security
6 9 (18.75%) SD-WAN
7 7 (14.58%) Internet
8 6 (12.50%) Wireless
9 5 (10.42%) BGP
9 5 (10.42%) Cisco Nexus
9 5 (10.42%) Wi-Fi
10 4 (8.33%) DNS
11 2 (4.17%) Cisco ISE
11 2 (4.17%) DHCP
11 2 (4.17%) Multicast
11 2 (4.17%) OSPF
11 2 (4.17%) Structured Cabling
11 2 (4.17%) VLAN
11 2 (4.17%) WLAN
12 1 (2.08%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.08%) ClickHouse
1 1 (2.08%) GIS
1 1 (2.08%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 2 (4.17%) JIRA
2 1 (2.08%) GitLab
General
1 8 (16.67%) Social Skills
2 7 (14.58%) Finance
3 3 (6.25%) Financial Institution
4 2 (4.17%) Banking
4 2 (4.17%) Law
4 2 (4.17%) Legal
4 2 (4.17%) Telecoms
5 1 (2.08%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (4.17%) 802.1X
1 2 (4.17%) REST
2 1 (2.08%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 5 (10.42%) CCTV
1 5 (10.42%) Data Centre
2 3 (6.25%) Hybrid Cloud
3 2 (4.17%) Cloud Security Posture
3 2 (4.17%) Security Posture
4 1 (2.08%) Digital Signage
4 1 (2.08%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 5 (10.42%) VMS
2 3 (6.25%) Windows
3 1 (2.08%) Windows Server
3 1 (2.08%) Windows Server 2012
3 1 (2.08%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (2.08%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (8.33%) Cloud Security
2 3 (6.25%) High Availability
2 3 (6.25%) ITIL
2 3 (6.25%) Low Latency
2 3 (6.25%) Migration
2 3 (6.25%) Observability
2 3 (6.25%) Problem-Solving
2 3 (6.25%) Project Delivery
2 3 (6.25%) Stakeholder Management
2 3 (6.25%) Validation
3 2 (4.17%) Infrastructure as Code
3 2 (4.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 2 (4.17%) Load Balancing
3 2 (4.17%) Network Optimisation
3 2 (4.17%) Network Virtualisation
3 2 (4.17%) Performance Tuning
3 2 (4.17%) Project Management
3 2 (4.17%) Runbook
3 2 (4.17%) Technical Leadership
3 2 (4.17%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 6 (12.50%) Python
2 1 (2.08%) Bash
2 1 (2.08%) Go
2 1 (2.08%) Java
2 1 (2.08%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 9 (18.75%) Cisco Certification
2 8 (16.67%) CCNP
3 5 (10.42%) Security Cleared
4 4 (8.33%) CCIE
4 4 (8.33%) SC Cleared
5 2 (4.17%) CCNA
5 2 (4.17%) Degree
6 1 (2.08%) Azure Certification
6 1 (2.08%) CCSE
6 1 (2.08%) CWNA
6 1 (2.08%) DV Cleared
6 1 (2.08%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials
1 1 (2.08%) QA
1 1 (2.08%) SLA
System Software
1 3 (6.25%) Active Directory
1 3 (6.25%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (4.17%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (2.08%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (2.08%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 3 (6.25%) Ansible
1 3 (6.25%) Terraform
2 2 (4.17%) FortiGate
2 2 (4.17%) Grafana
3 1 (2.08%) Cisco Prime
3 1 (2.08%) Istio
3 1 (2.08%) Kubernetes
3 1 (2.08%) Nessus
3 1 (2.08%) Prometheus
3 1 (2.08%) SCCM
3 1 (2.08%) TrustSec
3 1 (2.08%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 22 (45.83%) Cisco
2 8 (16.67%) Palo Alto
3 5 (10.42%) F5
4 4 (8.33%) Juniper
4 4 (8.33%) VMware
4 4 (8.33%) Zscaler
5 3 (6.25%) Citrix
5 3 (6.25%) Fortinet
5 3 (6.25%) Microsoft
6 2 (4.17%) Arista
6 2 (4.17%) Aruba
6 2 (4.17%) Forcepoint
6 2 (4.17%) Meraki
6 2 (4.17%) Tenable
7 1 (2.08%) Alias
7 1 (2.08%) CheckPoint
7 1 (2.08%) Extreme Networks
7 1 (2.08%) ForeScout
7 1 (2.08%) HP
7 1 (2.08%) LogicMonitor