Network Engineer Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Network Engineer
North West > Manchester

The median Network Engineer daily rate in Manchester is £520, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 January 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 45 63
Rank change year-on-year -43 +18 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 7 44 38
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 0.59% 4.23% 2.48%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.65% 4.52% 2.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 24 23
10th Percentile - £396 £398
25th Percentile £300 £433 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £490 £450
Median % change year-on-year +6.12% +8.89% +12.50%
75th Percentile £623 £503 £523
90th Percentile £677 £686 £674
North West median daily rate £500 £490 £471
% change year-on-year +2.04% +4.03% +7.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £71.25
Median hourly rate - - £72.50
75th Percentile - - £73.75
90th Percentile - - -
North West median hourly rate £74.26 - £72.50

All Contract IT Job Roles
Manchester

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Manchester. 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 Manchester with a recognized job title 1,084 974 1,434
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 93.65% 93.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 717 587 1,052
10th Percentile £310 £313 £306
25th Percentile £381 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% -7.50% -
75th Percentile £550 £566 £575
90th Percentile £638 £675 £675
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 33 59
10th Percentile £17.78 £15.93 £12.59
25th Percentile £19.75 £21.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -8.45% -8.97%
75th Percentile £57.50 £33.75 £64.38
90th Percentile £63.50 £60.00 £77.75
North West median hourly rate £40.00 £29.00 £38.00
% change year-on-year +37.93% -23.68% +59.03%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

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 Manchester.

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in Manchester

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

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

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

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer in Manchester over the 6 months to 13 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Engineer in Manchester

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in Manchester

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

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

Network Engineer
Contract Job Locations in Manchester

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 Manchester region over the 6 months to 13 January 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
Bolton - 1 £623 - 1
Network Engineer
North West

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

For the 6 months to 13 January 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 Manchester region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 6 (85.71%) Firewall
2 5 (71.43%) Cisco
2 5 (71.43%) WAN
3 4 (57.14%) BGP
3 4 (57.14%) Palo Alto
3 4 (57.14%) VPN
4 3 (42.86%) 802.11
4 3 (42.86%) 802.1X
4 3 (42.86%) CCNP
4 3 (42.86%) Cisco Certification
4 3 (42.86%) OSPF
4 3 (42.86%) Python
4 3 (42.86%) Root Cause Analysis
4 3 (42.86%) SC Cleared
4 3 (42.86%) SD-WAN
4 3 (42.86%) Security Cleared
5 2 (28.57%) Ansible
5 2 (28.57%) CheckPoint
5 2 (28.57%) Cisco ASA
5 2 (28.57%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (28.57%) EIGRP
5 2 (28.57%) Ethernet VPN
5 2 (28.57%) F5
5 2 (28.57%) IPsec
5 2 (28.57%) LAN
5 2 (28.57%) Meraki
5 2 (28.57%) MPLS
5 2 (28.57%) Network Security
5 2 (28.57%) Performance Tuning
5 2 (28.57%) SLA

Network Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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 1 (14.29%) Amazon CloudWatch
1 1 (14.29%) Amazon EC2
1 1 (14.29%) Amazon ELB
1 1 (14.29%) Amazon S3
1 1 (14.29%) AWS
1 1 (14.29%) Azure
1 1 (14.29%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 6 (85.71%) Firewall
2 5 (71.43%) WAN
3 4 (57.14%) BGP
3 4 (57.14%) VPN
4 3 (42.86%) 802.11
4 3 (42.86%) OSPF
4 3 (42.86%) SD-WAN
5 2 (28.57%) Cisco ASA
5 2 (28.57%) Cisco IOS
5 2 (28.57%) EIGRP
5 2 (28.57%) Ethernet VPN
5 2 (28.57%) IPsec
5 2 (28.57%) LAN
5 2 (28.57%) MPLS
5 2 (28.57%) Network Security
5 2 (28.57%) SSL
5 2 (28.57%) TCP/IP
5 2 (28.57%) VLAN
5 2 (28.57%) VXLAN
5 2 (28.57%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 1 (14.29%) Git
1 1 (14.29%) GitLab
1 1 (14.29%) Jenkins
1 1 (14.29%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 1 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
1 1 (14.29%) Manufacturing
1 1 (14.29%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (42.86%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 2 (28.57%) Onboarding
2 1 (14.29%) Fibre Optics
2 1 (14.29%) PKI
2 1 (14.29%) Security Posture
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (42.86%) Root Cause Analysis
2 2 (28.57%) Performance Tuning
2 2 (28.57%) Technical Leadership
3 1 (14.29%) CI/CD
3 1 (14.29%) Computer Science
3 1 (14.29%) DevOps
3 1 (14.29%) DevSecOps
3 1 (14.29%) Disaster Recovery
3 1 (14.29%) High Availability
3 1 (14.29%) Incident Response
3 1 (14.29%) Infrastructure as Code
3 1 (14.29%) Infrastructure Automation
3 1 (14.29%) Instructional Design
3 1 (14.29%) Knowledge Transfer
3 1 (14.29%) Mentoring
3 1 (14.29%) Network Architecture
3 1 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
3 1 (14.29%) Project Delivery
3 1 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 1 (14.29%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 3 (42.86%) Python
2 1 (14.29%) Bash
2 1 (14.29%) Perl
Qualifications
1 3 (42.86%) CCNP
1 3 (42.86%) Cisco Certification
1 3 (42.86%) SC Cleared
1 3 (42.86%) Security Cleared
2 1 (14.29%) CCDP
2 1 (14.29%) CCIE
2 1 (14.29%) CCNA
2 1 (14.29%) Computer Science Degree
2 1 (14.29%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (28.57%) SLA
System Software
1 1 (14.29%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (28.57%) Ansible
2 1 (14.29%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (71.43%) Cisco
2 4 (57.14%) Palo Alto
3 2 (28.57%) CheckPoint
3 2 (28.57%) F5
3 2 (28.57%) Meraki
4 1 (14.29%) Aruba
4 1 (14.29%) Broadcom
4 1 (14.29%) Netskope
4 1 (14.29%) SolarWinds
4 1 (14.29%) Symantec