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 20 March 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 106 89
Rank change year-on-year -49 -17 +61
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 777 718 1,072
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.79% 2.45% 2.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.94% 2.64% 2.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 521 446 643
10th Percentile £300 £325 £300
25th Percentile £400 £402 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -4.36%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £533
90th Percentile £588 £625 £626
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £443
% change year-on-year +2.04% +5.08% -1.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 4 32
10th Percentile £20.75 £27.95 £20.99
25th Percentile £40.56 £42.13 £24.88
Median hourly rate £56.44 £53.75 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +26.47% -32.79%
75th Percentile £72.54 £65.00 £70.94
90th Percentile £74.26 £71.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.89 £45.75 £63.00
% change year-on-year +39.64% -27.38% +1.61%

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 39,980 27,191 41,155
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 92.93% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,004 17,726 26,995
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £410 £406 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.03% -0.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,473 892 2,490
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% - -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.99
90th Percentile £76.25 £77.10 £71.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £32.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.50% -1.54% -19.92%

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 20 March 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 20 March 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 20 March 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 -43 650 £481 -3.75% 255
UK excluding London -29 498 £475 +2.04% 245
Work from Home -25 213 £438 -7.89% 48
London -68 197 £500 - 51
South East +1 171 £495 -1.00% 77
North of England -56 157 £481 -1.79% 45
North West -13 136 £481 -1.79% 25
Midlands -13 88 £438 +1.74% 48
West Midlands -2 82 £420 -1.18% 29
Scotland +17 42 £406 -1.52% 16
East of England -6 31 £413 -21.43% 23
South West -47 31 £511 +8.20% 28
Wales -9 23 £425 +9.68% 8
Yorkshire -63 21 £440 -4.86% 15
East Midlands -49 3 £500 +11.11% 19
North East -15 1 - - 5
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 - 4

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

For the 6 months to 20 March 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.

1 421 (54.18%) Cisco
2 366 (47.10%) Firewall
3 274 (35.26%) Security Cleared
4 212 (27.28%) WAN
5 209 (26.90%) Cisco Certification
6 193 (24.84%) Palo Alto
6 193 (24.84%) SC Cleared
7 192 (24.71%) BGP
8 186 (23.94%) LAN
9 175 (22.52%) CCNP
10 174 (22.39%) VPN
11 165 (21.24%) Network Security
12 145 (18.66%) F5
13 140 (18.02%) DNS
14 139 (17.89%) OSPF
15 126 (16.22%) Juniper
16 122 (15.70%) Load Balancing
17 109 (14.03%) TCP/IP
18 105 (13.51%) VLAN
19 91 (11.71%) CCNA
19 91 (11.71%) Wireless
20 90 (11.58%) Python
21 88 (11.33%) DV Cleared
22 87 (11.20%) Azure
22 87 (11.20%) Problem-Solving
23 86 (11.07%) VMware
24 80 (10.30%) AWS
25 78 (10.04%) Aruba
26 77 (9.91%) Ansible
27 76 (9.78%) Wi-Fi

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 (1.16%) SharePoint
2 7 (0.90%) Confluence
3 5 (0.64%) Apache
3 5 (0.64%) IIS
3 5 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 19 (2.45%) MS Visio
2 7 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 87 (11.20%) Azure
2 80 (10.30%) AWS
3 45 (5.79%) GCP
4 19 (2.45%) GitHub
5 15 (1.93%) Entra ID
5 15 (1.93%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 10 (1.29%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 10 (1.29%) Microsoft 365
7 9 (1.16%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 8 (1.03%) Nutanix
9 6 (0.77%) AWS Direct Connect
9 6 (0.77%) Mimecast
10 5 (0.64%) Google Compute Engine
10 5 (0.64%) IaaS
10 5 (0.64%) Route 53
10 5 (0.64%) SaaS
11 4 (0.51%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (0.51%) Azure Sentinel
11 4 (0.51%) PaaS
12 3 (0.39%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 366 (47.10%) Firewall
2 212 (27.28%) WAN
3 192 (24.71%) BGP
4 186 (23.94%) LAN
5 174 (22.39%) VPN
6 165 (21.24%) Network Security
7 140 (18.02%) DNS
8 139 (17.89%) OSPF
9 109 (14.03%) TCP/IP
10 105 (13.51%) VLAN
11 91 (11.71%) Wireless
12 76 (9.78%) Wi-Fi
13 72 (9.27%) Cisco ISE
13 72 (9.27%) MPLS
14 70 (9.01%) SD-WAN
15 61 (7.85%) Cisco Nexus
16 57 (7.34%) BIG-IP
17 56 (7.21%) SSL
18 53 (6.82%) IPsec
18 53 (6.82%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.39%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 30 (3.86%) Fiddler
2 21 (2.70%) Git
3 17 (2.19%) JIRA
4 16 (2.06%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.29%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (1.03%) GitLab
7 1 (0.13%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.13%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.13%) Jaeger
General
1 136 (17.50%) Social Skills
2 51 (6.56%) Banking
2 51 (6.56%) Public Sector
3 46 (5.92%) Documentation Skills
4 44 (5.66%) Finance
5 39 (5.02%) Analytical Skills
6 38 (4.89%) Investment Banking
7 35 (4.50%) Telecoms
8 21 (2.70%) Manufacturing
9 20 (2.57%) Legal
10 8 (1.03%) Law
11 7 (0.90%) Retail
12 6 (0.77%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.64%) Local Government
13 5 (0.64%) Military
14 4 (0.51%) Police
15 3 (0.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 3 (0.39%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.39%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (5.41%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.16%) LDAP
2 9 (1.16%) SAML
3 4 (0.51%) REST
3 4 (0.51%) VML
4 3 (0.39%) CSS
4 3 (0.39%) HTML
4 3 (0.39%) JSON
5 2 (0.26%) Django
5 2 (0.26%) NETCONF
5 2 (0.26%) OpenTelemetry
5 2 (0.26%) RFC 2544
5 2 (0.26%) XML
5 2 (0.26%) YANG
6 1 (0.13%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.13%) AWS CDK
6 1 (0.13%) FIX Protocol
6 1 (0.13%) Loki
6 1 (0.13%) OpenConfig
6 1 (0.13%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 158 (20.33%) Data Centre
2 27 (3.47%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (3.09%) Management Information System
4 18 (2.32%) Operational Technology
5 17 (2.19%) PKI
6 16 (2.06%) Security Posture
7 15 (1.93%) Hybrid Cloud
8 13 (1.67%) NHS
8 13 (1.67%) Onboarding
9 10 (1.29%) Public Cloud
9 10 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (1.16%) Clustering
11 7 (0.90%) Cloud Native
12 5 (0.64%) Hedge funds
12 5 (0.64%) IoT
13 4 (0.51%) CMDB
13 4 (0.51%) Fibre Optics
13 4 (0.51%) Mainframe
14 3 (0.39%) Distributed Architecture
14 3 (0.39%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 58 (7.46%) Windows
2 31 (3.99%) Linux
3 21 (2.70%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.51%) CatOS
4 4 (0.51%) Unix
4 4 (0.51%) zOS
5 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
5 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (15.70%) Load Balancing
2 87 (11.20%) Problem-Solving
3 65 (8.37%) High Availability
3 65 (8.37%) Network Design
4 62 (7.98%) Migration
5 56 (7.21%) Network Monitoring
6 46 (5.92%) ITIL
7 45 (5.79%) Change Management
8 40 (5.15%) Project Delivery
9 39 (5.02%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 36 (4.63%) DevOps
10 36 (4.63%) ITSM
11 35 (4.50%) Network Architecture
11 35 (4.50%) Stakeholder Management
12 33 (4.25%) Data Protection
12 33 (4.25%) Network Management
13 32 (4.12%) Collaborative Working
13 32 (4.12%) Root Cause Analysis
14 30 (3.86%) Data Loss Prevention
14 30 (3.86%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 90 (11.58%) Python
2 20 (2.57%) Bash
3 12 (1.54%) PowerShell
4 10 (1.29%) SQL
5 8 (1.03%) Perl
6 7 (0.90%) Lisp
7 3 (0.39%) Java
7 3 (0.39%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.26%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.26%) Go
9 1 (0.13%) Bicep
9 1 (0.13%) C
9 1 (0.13%) C++
9 1 (0.13%) Korn
9 1 (0.13%) PHP
9 1 (0.13%) Ruby
9 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 274 (35.26%) Security Cleared
2 209 (26.90%) Cisco Certification
3 193 (24.84%) SC Cleared
4 175 (22.52%) CCNP
5 91 (11.71%) CCNA
6 88 (11.33%) DV Cleared
7 33 (4.25%) CCIE
7 33 (4.25%) Degree
8 29 (3.73%) JNCIS
9 23 (2.96%) JNCIA
10 20 (2.57%) JNCIP
11 13 (1.67%) Network+ Certification
12 11 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
13 5 (0.64%) AWS Certification
14 4 (0.51%) CCSE
14 4 (0.51%) CISSP
14 4 (0.51%) DBS Check
15 3 (0.39%) CCDP
15 3 (0.39%) GIAC
15 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (1.42%) SLA
2 8 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (1.03%) NIST
3 5 (0.64%) GDPR
3 5 (0.64%) PCI DSS
4 3 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
4 3 (0.39%) GRC
5 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.26%) NCSC
5 2 (0.26%) PMO
5 2 (0.26%) QA
6 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
System Software
1 57 (7.34%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (5.92%) VMware NSX
3 32 (4.12%) Active Directory
4 30 (3.86%) Firmware
5 7 (0.90%) Docker
5 7 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.77%) vSphere
7 5 (0.64%) ProxySG
8 4 (0.51%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.26%) KVM
10 2 (0.26%) vCloud
10 2 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
11 1 (0.13%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.13%) IAG
11 1 (0.13%) RHEV
11 1 (0.13%) Snort
11 1 (0.13%) Xen
Systems Management
1 77 (9.91%) Ansible
2 53 (6.82%) FortiGate
3 47 (6.05%) Terraform
4 15 (1.93%) vCenter Server
5 13 (1.67%) Grafana
6 12 (1.54%) Prometheus
7 8 (1.03%) Nagios
7 8 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.90%) Cisco Prime
9 6 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.64%) Kubernetes
11 4 (0.51%) Tivoli NetView
12 3 (0.39%) CASB
13 2 (0.26%) Dell DRAC
13 2 (0.26%) Salt
13 2 (0.26%) SCCM
13 2 (0.26%) SCOrch
13 2 (0.26%) WSUS
14 1 (0.13%) SCOM
14 1 (0.13%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 421 (54.18%) Cisco
2 193 (24.84%) Palo Alto
3 145 (18.66%) F5
4 126 (16.22%) Juniper
5 86 (11.07%) VMware
6 78 (10.04%) Aruba
7 73 (9.40%) CheckPoint
7 73 (9.40%) Fortinet
8 56 (7.21%) SolarWinds
9 52 (6.69%) Meraki
10 45 (5.79%) Blue Coat
11 42 (5.41%) McAfee
12 41 (5.28%) Microsoft
13 36 (4.63%) Arista
14 24 (3.09%) ServiceNow
15 23 (2.96%) NetApp
16 22 (2.83%) Google
17 21 (2.70%) Ekahau
18 18 (2.32%) Infoblox
18 18 (2.32%) Nokia