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 £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 May 2026.

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

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 90 94 100
Rank change year-on-year +4 +6 +27
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 40 20 26
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 1.72% 1.19% 1.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.82% 1.28% 1.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 34 10 14
10th Percentile £400 £488 £406
25th Percentile £466 £531 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £581 £513
Median % change year-on-year -5.25% +13.27% +2.50%
75th Percentile £660 £640 £619
90th Percentile £684 £661 £659
Central London median daily rate £563 £550 £500
% change year-on-year +2.27% +10.00% +3.90%

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 2,200 1,562 2,051
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 94.46% 93.14% 94.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,484 976 1,441
10th Percentile £355 £350 £350
25th Percentile £450 £456 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £551 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.18% +0.18% -8.33%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 13 15
10th Percentile £17.84 £22.35 £15.62
25th Percentile £18.75 £24.66 £20.22
Median hourly rate £27.50 £31.00 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.29% +34.78% -34.29%
75th Percentile £52.49 £48.75 £28.44
90th Percentile £62.89 £92.75 £40.00
Central London median hourly rate £26.11 £28.15 £26.41
% change year-on-year -7.25% +6.61% -24.56%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 15 (37.50%) Cisco
2 11 (27.50%) Azure
2 11 (27.50%) Firewall
3 10 (25.00%) WAN
4 9 (22.50%) Network Security
5 8 (20.00%) LAN
5 8 (20.00%) VPN
6 7 (17.50%) Cisco Certification
6 7 (17.50%) Security Cleared
7 6 (15.00%) CCNP
7 6 (15.00%) Internet
7 6 (15.00%) Palo Alto
7 6 (15.00%) Python
7 6 (15.00%) SC Cleared
7 6 (15.00%) SD-WAN
8 5 (12.50%) VMS
9 4 (10.00%) CCIE
9 4 (10.00%) Cloud Security
9 4 (10.00%) F5
9 4 (10.00%) High Availability
9 4 (10.00%) Observability
9 4 (10.00%) Terraform
9 4 (10.00%) Wireless
10 3 (7.50%) Ansible
10 3 (7.50%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 3 (7.50%) BGP
10 3 (7.50%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (7.50%) DV Cleared
10 3 (7.50%) Fortinet
10 3 (7.50%) Grafana

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 (2.50%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (2.50%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (2.50%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 11 (27.50%) Azure
2 3 (7.50%) Azure ExpressRoute
3 1 (2.50%) AWS
3 1 (2.50%) Cloudflare
3 1 (2.50%) Datadog
3 1 (2.50%) GCP
3 1 (2.50%) Google Kubernetes Engine
3 1 (2.50%) Mimecast
3 1 (2.50%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 11 (27.50%) Firewall
2 10 (25.00%) WAN
3 9 (22.50%) Network Security
4 8 (20.00%) LAN
4 8 (20.00%) VPN
5 6 (15.00%) Internet
5 6 (15.00%) SD-WAN
6 4 (10.00%) Wireless
7 3 (7.50%) BGP
7 3 (7.50%) Cisco Nexus
7 3 (7.50%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (5.00%) VLAN
9 1 (2.50%) DNS
9 1 (2.50%) EIGRP
9 1 (2.50%) IPsec
9 1 (2.50%) OSPF
9 1 (2.50%) SNMP
9 1 (2.50%) SSL
9 1 (2.50%) TACACS
9 1 (2.50%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.50%) ClickHouse
Development Applications
1 2 (5.00%) JIRA
2 1 (2.50%) GitLab
2 1 (2.50%) Jaeger
General
1 5 (12.50%) Finance
2 4 (10.00%) Social Skills
3 3 (7.50%) Banking
3 3 (7.50%) Financial Institution
4 2 (5.00%) Law
4 2 (5.00%) Legal
5 1 (2.50%) Games
5 1 (2.50%) Investment Banking
5 1 (2.50%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (5.00%) OpenTelemetry
1 2 (5.00%) REST
2 1 (2.50%) 802.1X
2 1 (2.50%) Loki
Miscellaneous
1 5 (12.50%) CCTV
2 4 (10.00%) Data Centre
3 3 (7.50%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (5.00%) Cloud Security Posture
4 2 (5.00%) Security Posture
5 1 (2.50%) Cloud Native
5 1 (2.50%) Digital Signage
5 1 (2.50%) Management Information System
5 1 (2.50%) Media Streaming
5 1 (2.50%) Online Games
Operating Systems
1 5 (12.50%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (10.00%) Cloud Security
1 4 (10.00%) High Availability
1 4 (10.00%) Observability
2 3 (7.50%) Infrastructure as Code
2 3 (7.50%) Problem-Solving
3 2 (5.00%) Actionable Insight
3 2 (5.00%) Load Balancing
3 2 (5.00%) Low Latency
3 2 (5.00%) Performance Tuning
3 2 (5.00%) Project Management
3 2 (5.00%) Runbook
3 2 (5.00%) Technical Leadership
3 2 (5.00%) Validation
3 2 (5.00%) Zero Trust
4 1 (2.50%) Business Analysis
4 1 (2.50%) Migration
4 1 (2.50%) Network Design
4 1 (2.50%) Software Engineering
4 1 (2.50%) Stakeholder Management
4 1 (2.50%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 6 (15.00%) Python
2 2 (5.00%) Go
2 2 (5.00%) Java
3 1 (2.50%) Bash
3 1 (2.50%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 7 (17.50%) Cisco Certification
1 7 (17.50%) Security Cleared
2 6 (15.00%) CCNP
2 6 (15.00%) SC Cleared
3 4 (10.00%) CCIE
4 3 (7.50%) DV Cleared
5 1 (2.50%) Azure Certification
5 1 (2.50%) CCSE
5 1 (2.50%) CWNA
5 1 (2.50%) Degree
5 1 (2.50%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (2.50%) QA
1 1 (2.50%) SLA
System Software
1 1 (2.50%) Active Directory
1 1 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 4 (10.00%) Terraform
2 3 (7.50%) Ansible
2 3 (7.50%) Grafana
3 2 (5.00%) Kubernetes
3 2 (5.00%) Prometheus
4 1 (2.50%) Cisco Prime
4 1 (2.50%) Istio
4 1 (2.50%) TrustSec
Vendors
1 15 (37.50%) Cisco
2 6 (15.00%) Palo Alto
3 4 (10.00%) F5
4 3 (7.50%) Fortinet
4 3 (7.50%) Juniper
4 3 (7.50%) Zscaler
5 2 (5.00%) Aruba
5 2 (5.00%) Microsoft
5 2 (5.00%) Splunk
6 1 (2.50%) 3PAR
6 1 (2.50%) Alias
6 1 (2.50%) CheckPoint
6 1 (2.50%) Extreme Networks
6 1 (2.50%) Forcepoint
6 1 (2.50%) HP
6 1 (2.50%) SevOne
6 1 (2.50%) Tenable
6 1 (2.50%) Trend Micro