Network Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Network Engineer
UK > England

The median Network Engineer daily rate in England is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 December 2025.

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

6 months to
13 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 161 97 108
Rank change year-on-year -64 +11 +80
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 519 754 867
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.68% 2.49% 2.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.84% 2.68% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 357 438 513
10th Percentile £350 £312 £300
25th Percentile £409 £410 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% +8.89% -
75th Percentile £563 £588 £543
90th Percentile £616 £638 £600
UK median daily rate £475 £489 £450
% change year-on-year -2.81% +8.61% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 12 39
10th Percentile £21.98 £18.65 £24.90
25th Percentile £33.00 £20.00 £38.55
Median hourly rate £52.58 £20.19 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year +160.46% -67.96% +103.23%
75th Percentile £74.26 £48.60 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.13 £72.69 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £52.58 £30.20 £62.75
% change year-on-year +74.11% -51.87% +32.11%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. 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 England with a recognized job title 28,233 28,165 35,983
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.17% 92.89% 93.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,092 17,437 24,751
10th Percentile £285 £300 £294
25th Percentile £405 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% -1.69% -2.91%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,705 974 1,399
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.34 £15.32
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.05 £19.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.25 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.48% -17.22% +36.36%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £74.42 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £44.00
% change year-on-year -27.63% -21.02% +40.98%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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 England.

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in England

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in England

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer in England over the 6 months to 13 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Network Engineer in England

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in England

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Engineer in England over the 6 months to 13 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Engineer in England

Network Engineer
Contract Job Locations in England

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 England region over the 6 months to 13 December 2025. 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
London -54 184 £475 -6.86% 70
South East -20 119 £500 - 102
North of England -65 113 £500 +5.26% 43
North West -30 87 £515 +5.10% 24
Midlands -28 69 £400 -8.05% 26
West Midlands -3 64 £385 -23.00% 25
East of England -11 24 £475 +72.73% 19
Yorkshire -67 24 £450 +10.43% 15
South West -52 14 £500 +5.82% 12
East Midlands -36 5 £650 +73.33% 1
North East -2 3 £625 +28.21% 6
South Coast - 1 £575 -
Network Engineer
UK

Network Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 13 December 2025, 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 England region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 301 (58.00%) Cisco
2 260 (50.10%) Firewall
3 199 (38.34%) Security Cleared
4 151 (29.09%) Cisco Certification
5 141 (27.17%) WAN
6 129 (24.86%) SC Cleared
7 128 (24.66%) Juniper
8 126 (24.28%) CCNP
9 124 (23.89%) BGP
10 111 (21.39%) Palo Alto
11 108 (20.81%) Network Security
12 103 (19.85%) Python
13 98 (18.88%) F5
14 91 (17.53%) VPN
15 90 (17.34%) OSPF
16 85 (16.38%) LAN
17 84 (16.18%) Ansible
17 84 (16.18%) DNS
18 70 (13.49%) Load Balancing
19 69 (13.29%) Cisco ISE
20 66 (12.72%) DV Cleared
21 65 (12.52%) Network Design
21 65 (12.52%) TCP/IP
22 64 (12.33%) Fortinet
22 64 (12.33%) Wireless
23 63 (12.14%) SolarWinds
24 61 (11.75%) AWS
24 61 (11.75%) FortiGate
24 61 (11.75%) SD-WAN
25 58 (11.18%) CheckPoint

Network Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 9 (1.73%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.58%) Confluence
4 2 (0.39%) Apache
4 2 (0.39%) IIS
Applications
1 12 (2.31%) MS Visio
2 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (0.58%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 61 (11.75%) AWS
2 50 (9.63%) Azure
3 16 (3.08%) GCP
4 10 (1.93%) Akamai
5 8 (1.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 5 (0.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 5 (0.96%) Amazon EC2
6 5 (0.96%) Amazon ELB
6 5 (0.96%) Amazon S3
6 5 (0.96%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (0.96%) Nutanix
7 4 (0.77%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (0.77%) GitHub
7 4 (0.77%) OCI
8 3 (0.58%) AWS Direct Connect
8 3 (0.58%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 3 (0.58%) Entra ID
8 3 (0.58%) Mimecast
9 2 (0.39%) Cloudflare
9 2 (0.39%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 260 (50.10%) Firewall
2 141 (27.17%) WAN
3 124 (23.89%) BGP
4 108 (20.81%) Network Security
5 91 (17.53%) VPN
6 90 (17.34%) OSPF
7 85 (16.38%) LAN
8 84 (16.18%) DNS
9 69 (13.29%) Cisco ISE
10 65 (12.52%) TCP/IP
11 64 (12.33%) Wireless
12 61 (11.75%) SD-WAN
13 58 (11.18%) Wi-Fi
14 53 (10.21%) MPLS
15 50 (9.63%) Cisco IOS
16 49 (9.44%) VLAN
17 48 (9.25%) SSL
18 45 (8.67%) Cisco Nexus
19 42 (8.09%) IPsec
20 41 (7.90%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.19%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 21 (4.05%) Git
2 16 (3.08%) Fiddler
3 11 (2.12%) GitLab
4 10 (1.93%) Jenkins
5 7 (1.35%) JIRA
6 6 (1.16%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.58%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.19%) Jaeger
8 1 (0.19%) Mercurial
8 1 (0.19%) Subversion
General
1 113 (21.77%) Social Skills
2 57 (10.98%) Public Sector
3 50 (9.63%) Finance
4 33 (6.36%) Telecoms
5 28 (5.39%) Analytical Skills
6 26 (5.01%) Banking
7 23 (4.43%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (4.05%) Investment Banking
9 15 (2.89%) Manufacturing
10 9 (1.73%) Legal
11 7 (1.35%) Local Government
12 6 (1.16%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.96%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (0.96%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 4 (0.77%) Military
14 4 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
14 4 (0.77%) Retail
15 3 (0.58%) Electronics
15 3 (0.58%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (5.39%) 802.1X
2 6 (1.16%) SAML
3 5 (0.96%) Jinja
4 4 (0.77%) Middleware
4 4 (0.77%) RFC 2544
5 3 (0.58%) JSON
5 3 (0.58%) LDAP
5 3 (0.58%) VML
5 3 (0.58%) YANG
6 2 (0.39%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.39%) Node.js
6 2 (0.39%) XML
7 1 (0.19%) ADO
7 1 (0.19%) CSS
7 1 (0.19%) FIX Protocol
7 1 (0.19%) gRPC
7 1 (0.19%) HTML
7 1 (0.19%) Loki
7 1 (0.19%) REST
7 1 (0.19%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 105 (20.23%) Data Centre
2 19 (3.66%) Management Information System
3 17 (3.28%) PKI
4 15 (2.89%) Hedge funds
4 15 (2.89%) Onboarding
5 14 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
6 9 (1.73%) Hybrid Cloud
7 8 (1.54%) Security Posture
8 7 (1.35%) Driving Licence
8 7 (1.35%) Fibre Optics
9 6 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (0.96%) NHS
10 5 (0.96%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.77%) Cloud Native
11 4 (0.77%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 4 (0.77%) SCADA
12 3 (0.58%) Distributed Architecture
12 3 (0.58%) Legacy Systems
12 3 (0.58%) Operational Technology
12 3 (0.58%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 43 (8.29%) Windows
2 27 (5.20%) Windows Server
3 25 (4.82%) Linux
4 4 (0.77%) Unix
5 3 (0.58%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.39%) CatOS
6 2 (0.39%) zOS
7 1 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.19%) VMS
7 1 (0.19%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.19%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.19%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (13.49%) Load Balancing
2 65 (12.52%) Network Design
3 49 (9.44%) Problem-Solving
4 38 (7.32%) High Availability
5 37 (7.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 37 (7.13%) Migration
6 33 (6.36%) Network Architecture
6 33 (6.36%) Network Monitoring
7 32 (6.17%) ITSM
8 30 (5.78%) DevOps
9 28 (5.39%) Incident Response
10 27 (5.20%) Network Segmentation
10 27 (5.20%) Service Management
11 26 (5.01%) Network Management
12 25 (4.82%) Change Management
13 24 (4.62%) Collaborative Working
14 23 (4.43%) Infrastructure as Code
15 19 (3.66%) Agile
16 18 (3.47%) Cybersecurity
17 17 (3.28%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 103 (19.85%) Python
2 32 (6.17%) Bash
3 19 (3.66%) Perl
4 12 (2.31%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.54%) Lisp
6 7 (1.35%) C++
7 3 (0.58%) Go
7 3 (0.58%) Java
7 3 (0.58%) SQL
8 2 (0.39%) VB
9 1 (0.19%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.19%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.19%) PHP
Qualifications
1 199 (38.34%) Security Cleared
2 151 (29.09%) Cisco Certification
3 129 (24.86%) SC Cleared
4 126 (24.28%) CCNP
5 66 (12.72%) DV Cleared
6 57 (10.98%) CCNA
7 20 (3.85%) CCIE
7 20 (3.85%) Degree
7 20 (3.85%) JNCIS
8 15 (2.89%) JNCIA
9 12 (2.31%) JNCIP
10 9 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (1.16%) CCDP
11 6 (1.16%) CCSA
11 6 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
12 5 (0.96%) CISSP
13 4 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
13 4 (0.77%) Network+ Certification
14 3 (0.58%) CEH
14 3 (0.58%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (1.16%) GDPR
2 6 (1.16%) SLA
3 5 (0.96%) NIST
4 4 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (0.77%) PCI DSS
5 2 (0.39%) GRC
5 2 (0.39%) QA
5 2 (0.39%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.19%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 1 (0.19%) JSP 440
System Software
1 34 (6.55%) VMware NSX
2 33 (6.36%) Active Directory
3 27 (5.20%) Firmware
4 26 (5.01%) VMware Infrastructure
5 11 (2.12%) Docker
6 9 (1.73%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.96%) ProxySG
7 5 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.77%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.39%) KVM
10 1 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.19%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 84 (16.18%) Ansible
2 61 (11.75%) FortiGate
3 33 (6.36%) Terraform
4 26 (5.01%) vCenter Server
5 7 (1.35%) Grafana
6 6 (1.16%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (0.96%) Kubernetes
7 5 (0.96%) SCCM
8 4 (0.77%) CASB
8 4 (0.77%) Cisco CUCM
8 4 (0.77%) SCOrch
9 3 (0.58%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.58%) WhatsUp Gold
10 2 (0.39%) CA Spectrum
10 2 (0.39%) Cisco Prime
10 2 (0.39%) HP ALM
10 2 (0.39%) Tivoli NetView
11 1 (0.19%) Amdocs OSS
11 1 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 301 (58.00%) Cisco
2 128 (24.66%) Juniper
3 111 (21.39%) Palo Alto
4 98 (18.88%) F5
5 64 (12.33%) Fortinet
6 63 (12.14%) SolarWinds
7 58 (11.18%) CheckPoint
8 49 (9.44%) Meraki
9 46 (8.86%) VMware
10 42 (8.09%) Microsoft
11 37 (7.13%) Arista
12 34 (6.55%) Blue Coat
13 29 (5.59%) Aruba
14 28 (5.39%) McAfee
15 23 (4.43%) Zscaler
16 18 (3.47%) Nokia
17 17 (3.28%) ServiceNow
18 15 (2.89%) NetApp
19 13 (2.50%) LogicMonitor
20 11 (2.12%) Remedy