Network Engineer Contract Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the UK is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 July 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 132 100
Rank change year-on-year -7 -32 +18
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,073 714 934
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 2.18% 2.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.18% 2.38% 2.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 674 451 582
10th Percentile £313 £325 £298
25th Percentile £413 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +5.56%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £550
90th Percentile £620 £638 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 12 14
10th Percentile £29.73 £22.08 £17.89
25th Percentile £62.81 £30.00 £21.16
Median hourly rate £73.50 £53.75 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year +36.74% - -13.31%
75th Percentile £80.48 £70.63 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £82.33 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.75 £38.25 £52.50
% change year-on-year +98.04% -27.14% -15.32%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 UK with a recognized job title 49,168 30,000 36,945
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.60% 91.47% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,645 19,092 23,906
10th Percentile £331 £284 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,387 1,467 2,179
10th Percentile £15.37 £13.72 £14.05
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £19.05
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £67.86 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +8.72%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Network Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer over the 6 months to 31 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Engineer in the UK

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Engineer over the 6 months to 31 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Engineer in the UK

Network Engineer
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

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 UK over the 6 months to 31 July 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
England -12 882 £475 -3.06% 183
UK excluding London -8 629 £475 - 144
London -29 304 £500 +5.26% 65
Work from Home -32 232 £463 - 56
North of England -3 228 £500 +1.88% 39
North West +5 167 £500 +5.26% 21
South East -27 149 £466 -6.75% 33
Midlands -7 106 £475 +11.11% 25
West Midlands -11 100 £475 +33.80% 11
Scotland +28 76 £400 -8.57% 10
South West -36 54 £550 - 21
Yorkshire -45 48 £450 -8.54% 14
East of England -4 43 £485 +21.25% 11
Wales -5 21 £425 -5.56% 5
North East -33 13 £600 +84.62% 4
East Midlands -21 3 £475 -13.64% 14
Northern Ireland -1 1 £550 -4.35% 2

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

For the 6 months to 31 July 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 featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 580 (54.05%) Cisco
2 470 (43.80%) Firewall
3 297 (27.68%) WAN
4 265 (24.70%) Security Cleared
5 261 (24.32%) BGP
6 247 (23.02%) Cisco Certification
7 246 (22.93%) VPN
8 245 (22.83%) LAN
9 244 (22.74%) Network Security
10 225 (20.97%) Palo Alto
11 192 (17.89%) DNS
11 192 (17.89%) Wireless
12 188 (17.52%) CCNP
12 188 (17.52%) F5
13 178 (16.59%) OSPF
14 172 (16.03%) SC Cleared
15 161 (15.00%) Fortinet
16 151 (14.07%) VLAN
17 148 (13.79%) Load Balancing
18 146 (13.61%) Azure
19 131 (12.21%) Migration
20 121 (11.28%) Juniper
21 120 (11.18%) Python
22 115 (10.72%) TCP/IP
23 114 (10.62%) SD-WAN
24 106 (9.88%) Wi-Fi
25 101 (9.41%) CCNA
26 100 (9.32%) Problem-Solving
27 99 (9.23%) VMware
28 97 (9.04%) High Availability

Network Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 6 (0.56%) Confluence
1 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (0.37%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.28%) SAS
4 1 (0.093%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.093%) CMS
4 1 (0.093%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.093%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 15 (1.40%) MS Visio
2 13 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 146 (13.61%) Azure
2 87 (8.11%) AWS
3 56 (5.22%) GCP
4 42 (3.91%) GitHub
5 21 (1.96%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 16 (1.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 14 (1.30%) Microsoft 365
8 13 (1.21%) Entra ID
8 13 (1.21%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 11 (1.03%) AWS CloudFormation
9 11 (1.03%) AWS Direct Connect
10 10 (0.93%) IaaS
11 9 (0.84%) Nutanix
12 8 (0.75%) GitHub Actions
13 6 (0.56%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (0.56%) Azure Sentinel
13 6 (0.56%) Cloudflare
13 6 (0.56%) Google Compute Engine
13 6 (0.56%) OCI
14 5 (0.47%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 470 (43.80%) Firewall
2 297 (27.68%) WAN
3 261 (24.32%) BGP
4 246 (22.93%) VPN
5 245 (22.83%) LAN
6 244 (22.74%) Network Security
7 192 (17.89%) DNS
7 192 (17.89%) Wireless
8 178 (16.59%) OSPF
9 151 (14.07%) VLAN
10 115 (10.72%) TCP/IP
11 114 (10.62%) SD-WAN
12 106 (9.88%) Wi-Fi
13 80 (7.46%) Cisco ISE
14 79 (7.36%) DHCP
15 77 (7.18%) Multicast
16 73 (6.80%) Cisco Nexus
17 71 (6.62%) MPLS
18 63 (5.87%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
19 61 (5.68%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.28%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.093%) ClickHouse
2 1 (0.093%) GIS
2 1 (0.093%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (0.093%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 32 (2.98%) Jenkins
2 28 (2.61%) JIRA
3 27 (2.52%) Git
4 18 (1.68%) Fiddler
5 12 (1.12%) GitLab
6 7 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.19%) Browser DevTools
General
1 142 (13.23%) Social Skills
2 74 (6.90%) Finance
3 63 (5.87%) Banking
4 58 (5.41%) Analytical Skills
5 48 (4.47%) Public Sector
5 48 (4.47%) Telecoms
6 36 (3.36%) Investment Banking
7 31 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (2.05%) Retail
9 20 (1.86%) Legal
10 18 (1.68%) Manufacturing
11 9 (0.84%) Aerospace
11 9 (0.84%) Police
12 7 (0.65%) Financial Institution
12 7 (0.65%) Law
12 7 (0.65%) Military
13 6 (0.56%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (0.47%) Local Government
14 5 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
15 4 (0.37%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.94%) 802.1X
2 10 (0.93%) REST
2 10 (0.93%) SAML
3 7 (0.65%) NETCONF
4 5 (0.47%) LDAP
5 3 (0.28%) Java RMI
6 2 (0.19%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.19%) eBPF
6 2 (0.19%) Jinja
6 2 (0.19%) JSON
6 2 (0.19%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.093%) CSS
7 1 (0.093%) HTML
7 1 (0.093%) ModSecurity
7 1 (0.093%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.093%) XMPP
7 1 (0.093%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 187 (17.43%) Data Centre
2 36 (3.36%) Hybrid Cloud
3 33 (3.08%) PKI
4 22 (2.05%) Management Information System
5 21 (1.96%) Cloud Native
6 17 (1.58%) Onboarding
6 17 (1.58%) Security Posture
7 16 (1.49%) Driving Licence
8 15 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
8 15 (1.40%) Operational Technology
9 11 (1.03%) Linux Command Line
10 10 (0.93%) IoT
10 10 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
11 9 (0.84%) Clustering
12 8 (0.75%) CCTV
12 8 (0.75%) Public Cloud
13 7 (0.65%) Distributed Systems
13 7 (0.65%) Enterprise Cloud
13 7 (0.65%) NHS
14 6 (0.56%) Fibre Optics
Operating Systems
1 74 (6.90%) Windows
2 50 (4.66%) Linux
3 13 (1.21%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.65%) Unix
5 6 (0.56%) Ubuntu
5 6 (0.56%) VMS
6 5 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
7 4 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.093%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.093%) Solaris
10 1 (0.093%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.093%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.093%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (13.79%) Load Balancing
2 131 (12.21%) Migration
3 100 (9.32%) Problem-Solving
4 97 (9.04%) High Availability
5 90 (8.39%) Project Delivery
6 79 (7.36%) ITIL
7 72 (6.71%) Change Management
8 70 (6.52%) Network Design
9 67 (6.24%) Infrastructure as Code
10 66 (6.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 66 (6.15%) Validation
11 62 (5.78%) Network Monitoring
12 47 (4.38%) Zero Trust
13 46 (4.29%) DevOps
14 44 (4.10%) Continuous Improvement
14 44 (4.10%) Technical Leadership
15 43 (4.01%) CI/CD
16 38 (3.54%) Network Management
17 37 (3.45%) ITSM
17 37 (3.45%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 120 (11.18%) Python
2 21 (1.96%) Bash
3 13 (1.21%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.84%) ActionScript
5 8 (0.75%) SQL
6 5 (0.47%) C++
7 3 (0.28%) Bicep
7 3 (0.28%) C
7 3 (0.28%) Java
8 2 (0.19%) Groovy
8 2 (0.19%) Perl
9 1 (0.093%) Go
9 1 (0.093%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.093%) Lisp
9 1 (0.093%) PHP
9 1 (0.093%) Search Processing Language
9 1 (0.093%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 265 (24.70%) Security Cleared
2 247 (23.02%) Cisco Certification
3 188 (17.52%) CCNP
4 172 (16.03%) SC Cleared
5 101 (9.41%) CCNA
6 93 (8.67%) DV Cleared
7 42 (3.91%) CCIE
8 37 (3.45%) Degree
9 19 (1.77%) JNCIS
10 16 (1.49%) JNCIP
11 13 (1.21%) Network+ Certification
12 11 (1.03%) JNCIA
13 10 (0.93%) CISSP
13 10 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
14 8 (0.75%) CCSE
15 6 (0.56%) Azure Certification
15 6 (0.56%) CompTIA Security+
16 5 (0.47%) AWS Certification
16 5 (0.47%) CCIE Wireless
16 5 (0.47%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (2.05%) SLA
2 10 (0.93%) NIST
2 10 (0.93%) QA
3 8 (0.75%) Disclosure Scotland
4 7 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.19%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.19%) GDPR
5 2 (0.19%) JSP 440
5 2 (0.19%) NCSC
5 2 (0.19%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.093%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.093%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.093%) GRC
6 1 (0.093%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.093%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 74 (6.90%) VMware Infrastructure
2 32 (2.98%) Active Directory
2 32 (2.98%) Firmware
3 31 (2.89%) VMware NSX
4 16 (1.49%) VMware ESXi
5 13 (1.21%) vSphere
6 8 (0.75%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.37%) Docker
8 4 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.19%) FreeRADIUS
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 1 (0.093%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.093%) IAG
10 1 (0.093%) iptables
10 1 (0.093%) KVM
10 1 (0.093%) Snort
10 1 (0.093%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 97 (9.04%) Terraform
2 89 (8.29%) Ansible
3 78 (7.27%) FortiGate
4 16 (1.49%) Kubernetes
5 13 (1.21%) Cisco Prime
6 9 (0.84%) Grafana
7 7 (0.65%) Prometheus
8 6 (0.56%) Cisco CUCM
8 6 (0.56%) Nagios
9 5 (0.47%) Puppet
9 5 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.37%) Istio
10 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.37%) Packer
10 4 (0.37%) systemd
11 2 (0.19%) Nessus
11 2 (0.19%) SCCM
11 2 (0.19%) SCOM
11 2 (0.19%) TrustSec
11 2 (0.19%) WSUS
Vendors
1 580 (54.05%) Cisco
2 225 (20.97%) Palo Alto
3 188 (17.52%) F5
4 161 (15.00%) Fortinet
5 121 (11.28%) Juniper
6 99 (9.23%) VMware
7 75 (6.99%) CheckPoint
8 69 (6.43%) Arista
9 68 (6.34%) Aruba
10 54 (5.03%) Microsoft
11 53 (4.94%) Meraki
12 47 (4.38%) Zscaler
13 41 (3.82%) SolarWinds
14 36 (3.36%) Google
15 32 (2.98%) Infoblox
16 29 (2.70%) Blue Coat
17 28 (2.61%) ServiceNow
18 22 (2.05%) McAfee
19 19 (1.77%) Extreme Networks
19 19 (1.77%) NetApp