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 2 January 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 157 102 103
Rank change year-on-year -55 +1 +69
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 633 807 967
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.71% 2.46% 2.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.87% 2.65% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 434 469 564
10th Percentile £309 £318 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -
75th Percentile £538 £575 £550
90th Percentile £588 £638 £626
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £461 £440
% change year-on-year +3.09% +4.72% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 11 44
10th Percentile £23.20 - £24.65
25th Percentile £33.00 £20.00 £37.59
Median hourly rate £56.44 £20.38 £64.49
Median % change year-on-year +177.01% -68.41% +35.77%
75th Percentile £74.26 £47.50 £72.36
90th Percentile £81.25 £55.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £61.47 £20.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +207.35% -69.69% +160.89%

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 33,832 30,446 40,336
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.22% 92.70% 93.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,457 18,648 27,012
10th Percentile £300 £291 £281
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,952 945 1,577
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.51 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.22 £21.05 £19.06
Median hourly rate £26.11 £32.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.66% -27.78% +41.02%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £46.09
% change year-on-year -20.81% -31.09% +78.99%

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 2 January 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 2 January 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 2 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
England -64 534 £500 +2.04% 252
UK excluding London -53 394 £475 +3.09% 234
Work from Home -35 191 £443 -6.35% 87
London -46 180 £500 -4.76% 67
South East -6 138 £500 - 78
North of England -63 119 £500 +7.93% 50
North West -33 100 £500 +2.04% 22
Midlands -31 61 £390 -10.34% 39
West Midlands -16 56 £380 -15.56% 32
Scotland +20 47 £425 +6.25% 14
East of England -16 26 £475 +72.73% 17
South West -40 18 £475 +0.53% 19
Yorkshire -83 17 £435 +6.75% 20
Wales -11 8 £550 +57.14% 10
East Midlands -38 4 £650 +73.33% 7
North East -6 3 £625 +28.21% 11
Northern Ireland -6 3 £475 +6.74% 10

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

For the 6 months to 2 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 featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 361 (57.03%) Cisco
2 310 (48.97%) Firewall
3 232 (36.65%) Security Cleared
4 184 (29.07%) Cisco Certification
5 180 (28.44%) WAN
6 166 (26.22%) SC Cleared
7 159 (25.12%) Palo Alto
8 157 (24.80%) CCNP
9 141 (22.27%) BGP
10 131 (20.70%) LAN
11 123 (19.43%) Network Security
12 121 (19.12%) VPN
13 114 (18.01%) Juniper
14 103 (16.27%) OSPF
15 101 (15.96%) Python
16 96 (15.17%) F5
17 92 (14.53%) DNS
18 89 (14.06%) Ansible
18 89 (14.06%) TCP/IP
19 82 (12.95%) Load Balancing
20 79 (12.48%) CCNA
21 72 (11.37%) CheckPoint
22 71 (11.22%) Problem-Solving
22 71 (11.22%) VLAN
22 71 (11.22%) Wi-Fi
23 70 (11.06%) SD-WAN
24 68 (10.74%) AWS
24 68 (10.74%) Azure
24 68 (10.74%) Network Design
24 68 (10.74%) Wireless

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 11 (1.74%) SharePoint
2 6 (0.95%) Confluence
3 5 (0.79%) Apache
3 5 (0.79%) IIS
3 5 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 16 (2.53%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.47%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 68 (10.74%) AWS
1 68 (10.74%) Azure
2 19 (3.00%) GCP
3 14 (2.21%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 12 (1.90%) Entra ID
5 10 (1.58%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (0.95%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 6 (0.95%) Nutanix
7 5 (0.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 5 (0.79%) Amazon EC2
7 5 (0.79%) Amazon ELB
7 5 (0.79%) Amazon S3
7 5 (0.79%) AWS Direct Connect
7 5 (0.79%) GitHub
8 4 (0.63%) Akamai
8 4 (0.63%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (0.63%) Cohesity
8 4 (0.63%) Mimecast
8 4 (0.63%) OCI
9 3 (0.47%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 310 (48.97%) Firewall
2 180 (28.44%) WAN
3 141 (22.27%) BGP
4 131 (20.70%) LAN
5 123 (19.43%) Network Security
6 121 (19.12%) VPN
7 103 (16.27%) OSPF
8 92 (14.53%) DNS
9 89 (14.06%) TCP/IP
10 71 (11.22%) VLAN
10 71 (11.22%) Wi-Fi
11 70 (11.06%) SD-WAN
12 68 (10.74%) Wireless
13 64 (10.11%) MPLS
14 60 (9.48%) Cisco ISE
15 56 (8.85%) SSL
16 51 (8.06%) IPsec
17 49 (7.74%) Cisco IOS
18 47 (7.42%) Cisco Nexus
19 41 (6.48%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.47%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 22 (3.48%) Fiddler
2 20 (3.16%) Git
3 11 (1.74%) GitLab
4 10 (1.58%) Jenkins
4 10 (1.58%) JIRA
5 7 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.47%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.16%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.16%) Jaeger
General
1 140 (22.12%) Social Skills
2 66 (10.43%) Public Sector
3 45 (7.11%) Finance
4 39 (6.16%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (6.00%) Documentation Skills
6 31 (4.90%) Banking
7 27 (4.27%) Investment Banking
7 27 (4.27%) Telecoms
8 24 (3.79%) Manufacturing
9 13 (2.05%) Legal
10 7 (1.11%) Local Government
11 5 (0.79%) Financial Institution
11 5 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (0.79%) Military
11 5 (0.79%) Retail
12 4 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.47%) Electronics
13 3 (0.47%) Marketing
13 3 (0.47%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (5.06%) 802.1X
2 6 (0.95%) RFC 2544
2 6 (0.95%) SAML
3 5 (0.79%) Jinja
4 4 (0.63%) JSON
4 4 (0.63%) Middleware
4 4 (0.63%) VML
5 3 (0.47%) LDAP
5 3 (0.47%) YANG
6 2 (0.32%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.32%) XML
7 1 (0.16%) ADO
7 1 (0.16%) CSS
7 1 (0.16%) FIX Protocol
7 1 (0.16%) gRPC
7 1 (0.16%) HTML
7 1 (0.16%) Loki
7 1 (0.16%) Node.js
7 1 (0.16%) REST
7 1 (0.16%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 125 (19.75%) Data Centre
2 22 (3.48%) Onboarding
3 21 (3.32%) Management Information System
4 18 (2.84%) Data Protection Act
4 18 (2.84%) Operational Technology
5 17 (2.69%) PKI
6 13 (2.05%) Hedge funds
7 10 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
7 10 (1.58%) Security Posture
7 10 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (1.42%) Fibre Optics
9 8 (1.26%) SCADA
10 5 (0.79%) Driving Licence
10 5 (0.79%) NHS
10 5 (0.79%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.63%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 4 (0.63%) IoT
11 4 (0.63%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (0.63%) Life Science
11 4 (0.63%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 50 (7.90%) Windows
2 31 (4.90%) Linux
3 28 (4.42%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.79%) Unix
5 3 (0.47%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.32%) CatOS
6 2 (0.32%) zOS
7 1 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (12.95%) Load Balancing
2 71 (11.22%) Problem-Solving
3 68 (10.74%) Network Design
4 52 (8.21%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 51 (8.06%) Network Monitoring
6 50 (7.90%) Migration
7 45 (7.11%) High Availability
8 40 (6.32%) Network Architecture
9 37 (5.85%) DevOps
10 36 (5.69%) Project Delivery
11 34 (5.37%) Network Management
12 33 (5.21%) Cybersecurity
13 31 (4.90%) ITSM
14 29 (4.58%) Service Management
15 28 (4.42%) Incident Response
16 26 (4.11%) Infrastructure as Code
16 26 (4.11%) Network Segmentation
17 25 (3.95%) Agile
18 24 (3.79%) Change Management
18 24 (3.79%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 101 (15.96%) Python
2 31 (4.90%) Bash
3 19 (3.00%) Perl
4 14 (2.21%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.26%) Lisp
6 6 (0.95%) C++
7 4 (0.63%) SQL
8 2 (0.32%) Go
8 2 (0.32%) Java
9 1 (0.16%) C
9 1 (0.16%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.16%) Ruby
9 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 232 (36.65%) Security Cleared
2 184 (29.07%) Cisco Certification
3 166 (26.22%) SC Cleared
4 157 (24.80%) CCNP
5 79 (12.48%) CCNA
6 62 (9.79%) DV Cleared
7 27 (4.27%) CCIE
8 24 (3.79%) Degree
9 20 (3.16%) JNCIS
10 17 (2.69%) JNCIA
11 13 (2.05%) JNCIP
12 10 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (1.58%) Network+ Certification
13 8 (1.26%) CCDP
14 5 (0.79%) Computer Science Degree
15 4 (0.63%) CISSP
15 4 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
16 3 (0.47%) CompTIA Security+
16 3 (0.47%) DBS Check
17 2 (0.32%) CCIE Data Center
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 8 (1.26%) SLA
2 5 (0.79%) GDPR
2 5 (0.79%) NIST
3 4 (0.63%) PCI DSS
4 3 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.32%) GRC
5 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (0.32%) QA
6 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.16%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.16%) PMO
6 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 39 (6.16%) VMware NSX
2 36 (5.69%) Active Directory
3 30 (4.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (4.27%) Firmware
5 14 (2.21%) Docker
6 10 (1.58%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.79%) ProxySG
7 5 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.47%) KVM
9 2 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.16%) RACF
10 1 (0.16%) RHEV
10 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.16%) vSphere
10 1 (0.16%) Xen
Systems Management
1 89 (14.06%) Ansible
2 53 (8.37%) FortiGate
3 37 (5.85%) Terraform
4 25 (3.95%) vCenter Server
5 8 (1.26%) Kubernetes
6 7 (1.11%) Grafana
6 7 (1.11%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.95%) Nagios
7 6 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.63%) Cisco Prime
8 4 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.63%) SCCM
9 3 (0.47%) CASB
9 3 (0.47%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.47%) SCOrch
9 3 (0.47%) Tivoli NetView
9 3 (0.47%) WhatsUp Gold
10 2 (0.32%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.16%) SCOM
11 1 (0.16%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 361 (57.03%) Cisco
2 159 (25.12%) Palo Alto
3 114 (18.01%) Juniper
4 96 (15.17%) F5
5 72 (11.37%) CheckPoint
6 62 (9.79%) Fortinet
6 62 (9.79%) SolarWinds
7 58 (9.16%) Meraki
8 55 (8.69%) Aruba
9 53 (8.37%) VMware
10 42 (6.64%) Blue Coat
11 40 (6.32%) Microsoft
12 36 (5.69%) Arista
13 34 (5.37%) McAfee
14 19 (3.00%) NetApp
14 19 (3.00%) Nokia
14 19 (3.00%) Zscaler
15 16 (2.53%) ServiceNow
16 11 (1.74%) Remedy
17 10 (1.58%) Splunk