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 16 June 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 124 95
Rank change year-on-year -5 -29 +32
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 998 679 1,014
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.99% 2.29% 2.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.15% 2.48% 2.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 659 414 623
10th Percentile £303 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £389 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.21% - +5.56%
75th Percentile £544 £567 £544
90th Percentile £600 £625 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £459 £450
% change year-on-year +0.82% +1.94% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 9 19
10th Percentile £38.13 £22.41 £20.29
25th Percentile £62.81 £32.50 £31.63
Median hourly rate £73.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.00% +25.00% -36.12%
75th Percentile £78.75 £61.25 £73.75
90th Percentile - £70.25 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £35.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year +108.57% -51.72% +16.94%

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 46,390 27,334 40,477
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.40% 92.27% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,221 17,578 25,945
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,091 1,160 2,956
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.85 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.79 £17.75 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.61 £27.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.85% -26.80% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.01
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -2.55%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 16 June 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 -16 824 £475 -3.75% 237
UK excluding London -21 586 £463 +0.82% 252
London -33 279 £500 - 59
Work from Home -19 236 £445 -6.32% 51
North of England -25 192 £475 -3.46% 61
South East -5 163 £466 -6.75% 47
North West -7 142 £474 -4.17% 36
Midlands +5 112 £438 +6.06% 32
West Midlands +9 106 £438 +59.09% 14
Scotland +14 58 £413 +3.13% 34
East of England -8 46 £438 +14.38% 22
South West -41 40 £542 +3.14% 29
Yorkshire -50 37 £450 -9.27% 18
Wales -11 24 £425 +21.43% 12
North East -22 13 £600 +108.70% 7
East Midlands -32 3 £488 +8.33% 18
Northern Ireland +2 2 £468 -18.70% 17

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

For the 6 months to 16 June 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.

1 520 (52.10%) Cisco
2 428 (42.89%) Firewall
3 280 (28.06%) Security Cleared
4 274 (27.45%) WAN
5 240 (24.05%) Cisco Certification
6 233 (23.35%) LAN
7 230 (23.05%) BGP
7 230 (23.05%) Palo Alto
8 223 (22.34%) Network Security
9 206 (20.64%) SC Cleared
10 201 (20.14%) VPN
11 190 (19.04%) CCNP
12 179 (17.94%) F5
13 173 (17.33%) DNS
14 153 (15.33%) OSPF
15 145 (14.53%) Wireless
16 143 (14.33%) Load Balancing
17 140 (14.03%) Fortinet
17 140 (14.03%) VLAN
18 121 (12.12%) Azure
19 112 (11.22%) Juniper
20 111 (11.12%) Migration
20 111 (11.12%) SD-WAN
21 109 (10.92%) Python
22 106 (10.62%) TCP/IP
23 96 (9.62%) High Availability
23 96 (9.62%) Wi-Fi
24 95 (9.52%) CCNA
25 92 (9.22%) Problem-Solving
26 89 (8.92%) VMware

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 7 (0.70%) Confluence
2 5 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.30%) Apache
3 3 (0.30%) IIS
3 3 (0.30%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.10%) CMS
4 1 (0.10%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.10%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (1.60%) MS Visio
2 9 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 121 (12.12%) Azure
2 83 (8.32%) AWS
3 53 (5.31%) GCP
4 35 (3.51%) GitHub
5 17 (1.70%) Entra ID
6 16 (1.60%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 13 (1.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 13 (1.30%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 11 (1.10%) Microsoft 365
9 9 (0.90%) AWS CloudFormation
10 8 (0.80%) AWS Direct Connect
10 8 (0.80%) Azure Sentinel
10 8 (0.80%) IaaS
11 7 (0.70%) Nutanix
12 6 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (0.60%) Google Compute Engine
12 6 (0.60%) Route 53
13 5 (0.50%) Mimecast
13 5 (0.50%) SaaS
14 4 (0.40%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 428 (42.89%) Firewall
2 274 (27.45%) WAN
3 233 (23.35%) LAN
4 230 (23.05%) BGP
5 223 (22.34%) Network Security
6 201 (20.14%) VPN
7 173 (17.33%) DNS
8 153 (15.33%) OSPF
9 145 (14.53%) Wireless
10 140 (14.03%) VLAN
11 111 (11.12%) SD-WAN
12 106 (10.62%) TCP/IP
13 96 (9.62%) Wi-Fi
14 74 (7.41%) Cisco Nexus
15 70 (7.01%) MPLS
16 68 (6.81%) BIG-IP
17 67 (6.71%) Multicast
18 63 (6.31%) Cisco ISE
19 61 (6.11%) DHCP
20 59 (5.91%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.20%) SQL Server
1 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 1 (0.10%) ClickHouse
2 1 (0.10%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 28 (2.81%) JIRA
2 27 (2.71%) Jenkins
3 24 (2.40%) Fiddler
4 17 (1.70%) Git
5 9 (0.90%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.80%) GitLab
7 2 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
General
1 132 (13.23%) Social Skills
2 57 (5.71%) Finance
3 56 (5.61%) Banking
4 43 (4.31%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (3.81%) Investment Banking
6 37 (3.71%) Telecoms
7 34 (3.41%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (3.31%) Public Sector
9 25 (2.51%) Legal
10 23 (2.30%) Manufacturing
11 19 (1.90%) Retail
12 10 (1.00%) Law
13 9 (0.90%) Aerospace
14 7 (0.70%) Financial Institution
15 6 (0.60%) Military
15 6 (0.60%) Pharmaceutical
16 5 (0.50%) Police
17 4 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
18 3 (0.30%) Influencing Skills
18 3 (0.30%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (5.01%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.10%) REST
3 9 (0.90%) SAML
4 8 (0.80%) LDAP
5 2 (0.20%) AWS CDK
5 2 (0.20%) CSS
5 2 (0.20%) Django
5 2 (0.20%) HTML
5 2 (0.20%) Jinja
5 2 (0.20%) JSON
5 2 (0.20%) RFC 2544
6 1 (0.10%) Java RMI
6 1 (0.10%) NETCONF
6 1 (0.10%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.10%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 204 (20.44%) Data Centre
2 26 (2.61%) Hybrid Cloud
3 25 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
4 22 (2.20%) Management Information System
4 22 (2.20%) PKI
4 22 (2.20%) Security Posture
5 18 (1.80%) Onboarding
6 14 (1.40%) Operational Technology
7 13 (1.30%) Cloud Native
8 9 (0.90%) Clustering
8 9 (0.90%) NHS
8 9 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (0.70%) CCTV
10 6 (0.60%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 6 (0.60%) Enterprise Cloud
10 6 (0.60%) Linux Command Line
11 5 (0.50%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.40%) Distributed Systems
12 4 (0.40%) IoT
12 4 (0.40%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 72 (7.21%) Windows
2 43 (4.31%) Linux
3 13 (1.30%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.70%) Unix
5 6 (0.60%) VMS
6 3 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.20%) CatOS
7 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (0.20%) zOS
8 1 (0.10%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.10%) Solaris
8 1 (0.10%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.10%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.10%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (14.33%) Load Balancing
2 111 (11.12%) Migration
3 96 (9.62%) High Availability
4 92 (9.22%) Problem-Solving
5 75 (7.52%) Project Delivery
6 71 (7.11%) Network Monitoring
7 64 (6.41%) Network Design
8 60 (6.01%) ITIL
9 59 (5.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 54 (5.41%) Infrastructure as Code
11 53 (5.31%) Validation
12 51 (5.11%) Change Management
13 43 (4.31%) Technical Leadership
14 42 (4.21%) Data Protection
15 40 (4.01%) ITSM
15 40 (4.01%) Zero Trust
16 39 (3.91%) DevOps
17 38 (3.81%) CI/CD
18 37 (3.71%) Network Management
19 35 (3.51%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 109 (10.92%) Python
2 14 (1.40%) Bash
3 11 (1.10%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.80%) ActionScript
4 8 (0.80%) SQL
5 3 (0.30%) Bicep
5 3 (0.30%) C
5 3 (0.30%) Java
6 2 (0.20%) C++
6 2 (0.20%) Groovy
6 2 (0.20%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.10%) Go
7 1 (0.10%) Korn
7 1 (0.10%) Lisp
7 1 (0.10%) Perl
7 1 (0.10%) PHP
Qualifications
1 280 (28.06%) Security Cleared
2 240 (24.05%) Cisco Certification
3 206 (20.64%) SC Cleared
4 190 (19.04%) CCNP
5 95 (9.52%) CCNA
6 83 (8.32%) DV Cleared
7 38 (3.81%) CCIE
8 37 (3.71%) Degree
9 16 (1.60%) JNCIA
9 16 (1.60%) JNCIS
10 13 (1.30%) Network+ Certification
11 11 (1.10%) JNCIP
12 9 (0.90%) CCSE
12 9 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (0.70%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.60%) CISSP
14 6 (0.60%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.50%) AWS Certification
15 5 (0.50%) CWNA
15 5 (0.50%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (1.50%) SLA
2 12 (1.20%) NIST
3 11 (1.10%) QA
4 8 (0.80%) Disclosure Scotland
5 5 (0.50%) GDPR
5 5 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (0.50%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.40%) GRC
7 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 2 (0.20%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.20%) NCSC
8 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.10%) PMO
System Software
1 64 (6.41%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (3.61%) VMware NSX
3 33 (3.31%) Firmware
4 30 (3.01%) Active Directory
5 12 (1.20%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.90%) vSphere
7 6 (0.60%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.50%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.20%) Squid
11 2 (0.20%) vCloud
12 1 (0.10%) Citrix Presentation Server
12 1 (0.10%) Docker
12 1 (0.10%) FreeRADIUS
12 1 (0.10%) IAG
12 1 (0.10%) iptables
12 1 (0.10%) KVM
12 1 (0.10%) Snort
Systems Management
1 88 (8.82%) Ansible
2 77 (7.72%) Terraform
3 71 (7.11%) FortiGate
4 10 (1.00%) Grafana
5 9 (0.90%) Cisco Prime
6 8 (0.80%) Kubernetes
6 8 (0.80%) Prometheus
6 8 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (0.30%) Packer
8 3 (0.30%) Puppet
9 2 (0.20%) Avamar
9 2 (0.20%) CASB
9 2 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (0.20%) Istio
9 2 (0.20%) Nagios
9 2 (0.20%) Salt
9 2 (0.20%) SCOM
9 2 (0.20%) Tivoli NetView
9 2 (0.20%) WSUS
Vendors
1 520 (52.10%) Cisco
2 230 (23.05%) Palo Alto
3 179 (17.94%) F5
4 140 (14.03%) Fortinet
5 112 (11.22%) Juniper
6 89 (8.92%) VMware
7 79 (7.92%) Aruba
8 70 (7.01%) CheckPoint
9 65 (6.51%) Arista
10 48 (4.81%) Microsoft
11 47 (4.71%) Meraki
12 41 (4.11%) SolarWinds
13 34 (3.41%) Zscaler
14 33 (3.31%) Blue Coat
14 33 (3.31%) Google
15 30 (3.01%) Infoblox
16 27 (2.71%) ServiceNow
17 26 (2.61%) McAfee
18 21 (2.10%) Extreme Networks
19 20 (2.00%) NetApp