Network Engineer Contract Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the UK is £474, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 October 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 168 92
Rank change year-on-year +31 -76 +21
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,120 585 941
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 1.77% 2.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.21% 1.95% 2.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 648 388 538
10th Percentile £304 £307 £307
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.17% -5.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £588
90th Percentile £622 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £490
% change year-on-year -2.63% -3.06% +15.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 13 18
10th Percentile £8.00 £21.01 £19.55
25th Percentile £55.00 £22.50 £20.00
Median hourly rate £68.75 £34.00 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +102.21% -18.07% -33.06%
75th Percentile £78.75 £58.75 £54.69
90th Percentile £92.53 £79.85 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £35.00 £21.39
% change year-on-year +108.57% +63.65% -65.50%

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 50,571 29,988 35,006
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.10% 90.83% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,735 18,924 21,160
10th Percentile £325 £277 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £621 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,035 1,621 1,511
10th Percentile £14.42 £13.75 £14.99
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.30 £20.75
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £74.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.34% -41.69% -2.05%

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 7 October 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 7 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Engineer in the UK

Network Engineer
Top 18 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 7 October 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 +10 910 £475 -0.63% 849
UK excluding London +3 649 £463 -2.63% 589
London +16 344 £483 +0.94% 313
North of England +24 248 £498 +1.63% 122
Work from Home -32 220 £463 +2.89% 238
North West +27 168 £500 +2.30% 58
Midlands -8 108 £475 +18.75% 96
South East -66 92 £463 -7.50% 140
West Midlands -20 88 £475 +23.38% 54
Scotland +17 83 £400 -8.57% 36
Yorkshire -5 67 £450 -7.64% 45
East of England +7 60 £400 +4.58% 82
South West -15 56 £535 -14.06% 74
Wales +23 37 £363 - 28
East Midlands -3 20 £500 -23.08% 42
North East -29 13 £600 - 19
Northern Ireland +3 2 £425 -10.53% 15
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 +36.36%

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

For the 6 months to 7 October 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.

1 598 (53.39%) Cisco
2 436 (38.93%) Firewall
3 298 (26.61%) WAN
4 247 (22.05%) BGP
5 245 (21.88%) Network Security
6 243 (21.70%) Security Cleared
7 235 (20.98%) LAN
8 229 (20.45%) VPN
9 228 (20.36%) Cisco Certification
10 220 (19.64%) Palo Alto
11 217 (19.38%) Wireless
12 180 (16.07%) CCNP
13 163 (14.55%) DNS
14 160 (14.29%) OSPF
15 156 (13.93%) Fortinet
16 154 (13.75%) SC Cleared
17 149 (13.30%) Python
17 149 (13.30%) VLAN
18 143 (12.77%) F5
19 135 (12.05%) Migration
20 132 (11.79%) Azure
21 123 (10.98%) Load Balancing
22 115 (10.27%) Problem-Solving
22 115 (10.27%) TCP/IP
23 114 (10.18%) SD-WAN
24 111 (9.91%) Wi-Fi
25 101 (9.02%) Ansible
26 99 (8.84%) Project Delivery
27 92 (8.21%) Terraform
28 90 (8.04%) CCNA

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 9 (0.80%) Confluence
2 8 (0.71%) SAS
3 6 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.54%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.18%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.089%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.089%) CMS
5 1 (0.089%) FactoryTalk
5 1 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 14 (1.25%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.089%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.089%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 132 (11.79%) Azure
2 85 (7.59%) AWS
3 43 (3.84%) GCP
4 35 (3.13%) GitHub
5 26 (2.32%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 18 (1.61%) AWS Direct Connect
7 16 (1.43%) Microsoft 365
8 15 (1.34%) Entra ID
9 12 (1.07%) AWS CloudFormation
9 12 (1.07%) IaaS
10 8 (0.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 7 (0.63%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (0.54%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 6 (0.54%) Nutanix
12 6 (0.54%) OCI
13 5 (0.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 5 (0.45%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.45%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (0.45%) Datadog
13 5 (0.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 436 (38.93%) Firewall
2 298 (26.61%) WAN
3 247 (22.05%) BGP
4 245 (21.88%) Network Security
5 235 (20.98%) LAN
6 229 (20.45%) VPN
7 217 (19.38%) Wireless
8 163 (14.55%) DNS
9 160 (14.29%) OSPF
10 149 (13.30%) VLAN
11 115 (10.27%) TCP/IP
12 114 (10.18%) SD-WAN
13 111 (9.91%) Wi-Fi
14 84 (7.50%) MPLS
15 73 (6.52%) DHCP
16 71 (6.34%) Cisco ISE
16 71 (6.34%) Multicast
17 70 (6.25%) Cisco Nexus
18 67 (5.98%) Cisco ASA
19 56 (5.00%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.54%) GIS
2 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.089%) BigQuery
3 1 (0.089%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.089%) Metadata
3 1 (0.089%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 36 (3.21%) Git
2 25 (2.23%) Jenkins
3 24 (2.14%) JIRA
4 12 (1.07%) Fiddler
4 12 (1.07%) GitLab
5 7 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.089%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.089%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.089%) Postman
General
1 139 (12.41%) Social Skills
2 100 (8.93%) Finance
3 69 (6.16%) Analytical Skills
3 69 (6.16%) Telecoms
4 67 (5.98%) Banking
5 52 (4.64%) Public Sector
6 32 (2.86%) Investment Banking
7 26 (2.32%) Documentation Skills
8 23 (2.05%) Legal
9 17 (1.52%) Retail
10 15 (1.34%) Manufacturing
11 9 (0.80%) Financial Institution
12 8 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
13 7 (0.63%) Aerospace
14 6 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.54%) Police
15 5 (0.45%) Military
15 5 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.36%) Automotive
16 4 (0.36%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (8.21%) Terraform
2 45 (4.02%) 802.1X
3 22 (1.96%) REST
4 12 (1.07%) NETCONF
5 11 (0.98%) JSON
6 10 (0.89%) YAML
7 6 (0.54%) SAML
8 5 (0.45%) XML
9 4 (0.36%) YANG
10 3 (0.27%) Java RMI
11 2 (0.18%) eBPF
11 2 (0.18%) LDAP
11 2 (0.18%) ModSecurity
11 2 (0.18%) RESTCONF
11 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
12 1 (0.089%) Django
12 1 (0.089%) IDoc
12 1 (0.089%) OAuth
12 1 (0.089%) OpenAPI
12 1 (0.089%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 191 (17.05%) Data Centre
2 37 (3.30%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (2.41%) PKI
4 26 (2.32%) Onboarding
5 25 (2.23%) Driving Licence
6 23 (2.05%) Cloud Native
7 22 (1.96%) Operational Technology
8 21 (1.88%) Management Information System
9 18 (1.61%) IoT
9 18 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
10 14 (1.25%) Security Posture
11 13 (1.16%) Public Cloud
12 10 (0.89%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (0.89%) Linux Command Line
12 10 (0.89%) SCADA
13 9 (0.80%) Fibre Optics
14 8 (0.71%) Digital Signage
15 7 (0.63%) Cyber Threat
15 7 (0.63%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 7 (0.63%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 73 (6.52%) Windows
2 59 (5.27%) Linux
3 20 (1.79%) Windows Server
4 12 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.45%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.45%) VMS
5 5 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
5 5 (0.45%) zOS
6 4 (0.36%) Unix
7 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.089%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.089%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.089%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.089%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (12.05%) Migration
2 123 (10.98%) Load Balancing
3 115 (10.27%) Problem-Solving
4 99 (8.84%) Project Delivery
5 84 (7.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 81 (7.23%) Network Design
7 78 (6.96%) Validation
8 77 (6.88%) Infrastructure as Code
9 71 (6.34%) High Availability
10 70 (6.25%) ITIL
11 62 (5.54%) Zero Trust
12 58 (5.18%) Change Management
13 56 (5.00%) Network Monitoring
14 55 (4.91%) Stakeholder Management
15 53 (4.73%) CI/CD
16 46 (4.11%) Network Segmentation
17 45 (4.02%) Continuous Improvement
18 44 (3.93%) DevOps
19 42 (3.75%) Technical Leadership
20 38 (3.39%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 149 (13.30%) Python
2 33 (2.95%) Bash
3 27 (2.41%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.80%) ActionScript
5 8 (0.71%) SQL
6 6 (0.54%) C++
7 3 (0.27%) C
7 3 (0.27%) Go
7 3 (0.27%) Java
7 3 (0.27%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) Groovy
8 2 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.089%) Bicep
9 1 (0.089%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 243 (21.70%) Security Cleared
2 228 (20.36%) Cisco Certification
3 180 (16.07%) CCNP
4 154 (13.75%) SC Cleared
5 90 (8.04%) CCNA
6 78 (6.96%) DV Cleared
7 47 (4.20%) CCIE
8 31 (2.77%) Degree
9 15 (1.34%) CISSP
10 10 (0.89%) JNCIS
11 9 (0.80%) JNCIP
11 9 (0.80%) Network+ Certification
12 8 (0.71%) CCSE
13 6 (0.54%) BPSS Clearance
13 6 (0.54%) CCIE Security
13 6 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
13 6 (0.54%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.45%) CCSA
14 5 (0.45%) CWNA
15 4 (0.36%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (2.23%) SLA
2 16 (1.43%) NIST
3 15 (1.34%) QA
4 13 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (0.71%) PCI DSS
6 5 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.27%) Data Quality
8 2 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.18%) GDPR
8 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.089%) GRC
9 1 (0.089%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 58 (5.18%) VMware Infrastructure
2 37 (3.30%) Active Directory
3 33 (2.95%) Firmware
4 24 (2.14%) VMware NSX
5 18 (1.61%) vSphere
6 9 (0.80%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.71%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.45%) FreeRADIUS
8 5 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.36%) Docker
10 3 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.18%) Squid
12 1 (0.089%) iptables
Systems Management
1 101 (9.02%) Ansible
2 65 (5.80%) FortiGate
3 29 (2.59%) Kubernetes
4 15 (1.34%) Cisco Prime
5 12 (1.07%) Nagios
6 9 (0.80%) Istio
7 7 (0.63%) Grafana
7 7 (0.63%) Progress Chef
8 6 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
8 6 (0.54%) Puppet
9 5 (0.45%) Cilium
9 5 (0.45%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.36%) Packer
10 4 (0.36%) systemd
10 4 (0.36%) vRealize
11 3 (0.27%) TrustSec
12 2 (0.18%) SCCM
12 2 (0.18%) SCOM
12 2 (0.18%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 598 (53.39%) Cisco
2 220 (19.64%) Palo Alto
3 156 (13.93%) Fortinet
4 143 (12.77%) F5
5 88 (7.86%) VMware
6 82 (7.32%) Meraki
7 79 (7.05%) Juniper
8 78 (6.96%) CheckPoint
9 74 (6.61%) Arista
10 59 (5.27%) Microsoft
11 57 (5.09%) Aruba
12 51 (4.55%) Zscaler
13 44 (3.93%) SolarWinds
14 27 (2.41%) Nokia
15 23 (2.05%) Blue Coat
15 23 (2.05%) ServiceNow
16 21 (1.88%) Google
17 19 (1.70%) Infoblox
18 17 (1.52%) NetApp
19 15 (1.34%) McAfee