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 19 August 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 137 97
Rank change year-on-year +4 -40 +19
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,102 675 924
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.06% 2.06% 2.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.22% 2.25% 2.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 680 428 570
10th Percentile £313 £325 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +5.56%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £550
90th Percentile £621 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 13 15
10th Percentile £30.45 £22.12 £17.98
25th Percentile £64.38 £32.50 £21.57
Median hourly rate £77.50 £57.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +34.78% +9.52% -5.10%
75th Percentile £91.00 £68.75 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £81.65 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.50 £41.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +86.75% -20.95% -8.95%

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 49,538 29,942 36,126
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.48% 91.24% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,723 18,896 23,187
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,497 1,549 1,984
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.59 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.60 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.19% -42.78% +17.20%

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 19 August 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 19 August 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 19 August 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 0 901 £480 -1.03% 370
UK excluding London -5 647 £475 - 315
London -22 317 £475 - 129
North of England +5 248 £500 +2.15% 66
Work from Home -30 228 £463 +1.37% 71
North West +16 175 £500 +5.26% 32
South East -43 131 £473 -5.50% 61
Midlands -6 105 £475 +18.75% 52
West Midlands -12 98 £475 +32.40% 24
Scotland +26 81 £400 -5.88% 28
Yorkshire -19 60 £475 -3.46% 25
South West -23 58 £550 -4.35% 46
East of England -15 42 £470 +17.50% 41
Wales +4 27 £425 -3.41% 20
North East -28 13 £600 - 10
East Midlands -21 5 £500 -9.09% 28
Northern Ireland +6 2 £488 -15.22% 8

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

For the 6 months to 19 August 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.

1 597 (54.17%) Cisco
2 454 (41.20%) Firewall
3 310 (28.13%) WAN
4 270 (24.50%) BGP
5 261 (23.68%) Security Cleared
6 249 (22.60%) Cisco Certification
7 248 (22.50%) VPN
8 244 (22.14%) LAN
9 241 (21.87%) Network Security
10 222 (20.15%) Palo Alto
11 199 (18.06%) Wireless
12 189 (17.15%) CCNP
13 184 (16.70%) DNS
14 180 (16.33%) F5
15 175 (15.88%) OSPF
16 172 (15.61%) SC Cleared
17 157 (14.25%) Fortinet
18 153 (13.88%) VLAN
19 145 (13.16%) Azure
20 141 (12.79%) Load Balancing
21 135 (12.25%) Migration
22 130 (11.80%) Python
23 119 (10.80%) SD-WAN
24 115 (10.44%) Wi-Fi
25 111 (10.07%) TCP/IP
26 107 (9.71%) Juniper
27 101 (9.17%) CCNA
28 99 (8.98%) Problem-Solving
29 98 (8.89%) Terraform
29 98 (8.89%) 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 (0.64%) SAS
2 6 (0.54%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.45%) Confluence
3 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.091%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.091%) CMS
4 1 (0.091%) FactoryTalk
4 1 (0.091%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.091%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (1.45%) MS Visio
2 13 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 145 (13.16%) Azure
2 86 (7.80%) AWS
3 53 (4.81%) GCP
4 44 (3.99%) GitHub
5 24 (2.18%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 16 (1.45%) Microsoft 365
7 15 (1.36%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 13 (1.18%) AWS Direct Connect
9 12 (1.09%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 11 (1.00%) AWS CloudFormation
10 11 (1.00%) Entra ID
11 10 (0.91%) IaaS
12 9 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
13 7 (0.64%) Nutanix
14 6 (0.54%) Azure DevOps
14 6 (0.54%) Azure Sentinel
14 6 (0.54%) OCI
15 5 (0.45%) AWS Lambda
15 5 (0.45%) Cloudflare
15 5 (0.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 454 (41.20%) Firewall
2 310 (28.13%) WAN
3 270 (24.50%) BGP
4 248 (22.50%) VPN
5 244 (22.14%) LAN
6 241 (21.87%) Network Security
7 199 (18.06%) Wireless
8 184 (16.70%) DNS
9 175 (15.88%) OSPF
10 153 (13.88%) VLAN
11 119 (10.80%) SD-WAN
12 115 (10.44%) Wi-Fi
13 111 (10.07%) TCP/IP
14 78 (7.08%) Cisco Nexus
15 77 (6.99%) DHCP
16 74 (6.72%) Cisco ASA
16 74 (6.72%) Cisco ISE
16 74 (6.72%) MPLS
16 74 (6.72%) Multicast
17 66 (5.99%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.18%) GIS
3 1 (0.091%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.091%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.091%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 34 (3.09%) Git
2 32 (2.90%) Jenkins
3 24 (2.18%) JIRA
4 16 (1.45%) GitLab
5 15 (1.36%) Fiddler
6 6 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.18%) Browser DevTools
7 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
General
1 140 (12.70%) Social Skills
2 81 (7.35%) Finance
3 64 (5.81%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (5.44%) Telecoms
5 59 (5.35%) Banking
6 57 (5.17%) Public Sector
7 33 (2.99%) Investment Banking
8 31 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
9 22 (2.00%) Retail
10 21 (1.91%) Legal
11 19 (1.72%) Manufacturing
12 10 (0.91%) Police
13 9 (0.82%) Aerospace
14 8 (0.73%) Financial Institution
15 6 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
16 5 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
17 4 (0.36%) Automotive
17 4 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 4 (0.36%) Local Government
17 4 (0.36%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.54%) 802.1X
2 16 (1.45%) REST
3 8 (0.73%) NETCONF
3 8 (0.73%) SAML
4 5 (0.45%) JSON
4 5 (0.45%) YAML
5 3 (0.27%) Java RMI
5 3 (0.27%) LDAP
6 2 (0.18%) eBPF
6 2 (0.18%) Jinja
6 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.091%) AWS CDK
7 1 (0.091%) ModSecurity
7 1 (0.091%) RESTCONF
7 1 (0.091%) XML
7 1 (0.091%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 192 (17.42%) Data Centre
2 40 (3.63%) Hybrid Cloud
3 30 (2.72%) PKI
4 26 (2.36%) Cloud Native
5 20 (1.81%) Driving Licence
5 20 (1.81%) Management Information System
6 19 (1.72%) Onboarding
7 17 (1.54%) Operational Technology
8 13 (1.18%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (1.18%) Security Posture
9 11 (1.00%) IoT
10 10 (0.91%) Linux Command Line
10 10 (0.91%) Public Cloud
10 10 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (0.64%) CCTV
11 7 (0.64%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 7 (0.64%) Distributed Systems
11 7 (0.64%) Enterprise Cloud
11 7 (0.64%) NHS
12 6 (0.54%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 72 (6.53%) Windows
2 53 (4.81%) Linux
3 12 (1.09%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.54%) VMS
5 5 (0.45%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.45%) Unix
5 5 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.18%) zOS
9 1 (0.091%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.091%) Solaris
9 1 (0.091%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.091%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.091%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (12.79%) Load Balancing
2 135 (12.25%) Migration
3 99 (8.98%) Problem-Solving
4 93 (8.44%) Project Delivery
5 91 (8.26%) High Availability
6 80 (7.26%) ITIL
7 76 (6.90%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 75 (6.81%) Infrastructure as Code
9 74 (6.72%) Network Design
9 74 (6.72%) Validation
10 67 (6.08%) Change Management
11 60 (5.44%) Network Monitoring
12 49 (4.45%) CI/CD
13 47 (4.26%) Technical Leadership
13 47 (4.26%) Zero Trust
14 45 (4.08%) DevOps
15 44 (3.99%) Continuous Improvement
16 38 (3.45%) Network Segmentation
17 37 (3.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 35 (3.18%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 130 (11.80%) Python
2 27 (2.45%) Bash
3 16 (1.45%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.73%) ActionScript
4 8 (0.73%) SQL
5 5 (0.45%) C++
6 3 (0.27%) C
7 2 (0.18%) Bicep
7 2 (0.18%) Groovy
7 2 (0.18%) Java
7 2 (0.18%) Perl
7 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.091%) Go
8 1 (0.091%) Lisp
8 1 (0.091%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 261 (23.68%) Security Cleared
2 249 (22.60%) Cisco Certification
3 189 (17.15%) CCNP
4 172 (15.61%) SC Cleared
5 101 (9.17%) CCNA
6 85 (7.71%) DV Cleared
7 47 (4.26%) CCIE
8 37 (3.36%) Degree
9 15 (1.36%) JNCIS
10 13 (1.18%) CISSP
11 12 (1.09%) JNCIP
11 12 (1.09%) Network+ Certification
12 10 (0.91%) Computer Science Degree
13 9 (0.82%) CCSE
13 9 (0.82%) JNCIA
14 6 (0.54%) AWS Certification
14 6 (0.54%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.54%) CCIE Security
14 6 (0.54%) DBS Check
15 5 (0.45%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (2.36%) SLA
2 12 (1.09%) QA
3 10 (0.91%) NIST
4 8 (0.73%) Disclosure Scotland
5 7 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.27%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.18%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.18%) GDPR
7 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.091%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.091%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.091%) GRC
8 1 (0.091%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.091%) NIST 800
System Software
1 73 (6.62%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (2.81%) Firmware
2 31 (2.81%) VMware NSX
3 29 (2.63%) Active Directory
4 13 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
5 12 (1.09%) vSphere
6 7 (0.64%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.36%) Docker
9 3 (0.27%) FreeRADIUS
9 3 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.18%) Squid
11 1 (0.091%) IAG
11 1 (0.091%) iptables
11 1 (0.091%) Snort
11 1 (0.091%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 98 (8.89%) Terraform
2 95 (8.62%) Ansible
3 77 (6.99%) FortiGate
4 25 (2.27%) Kubernetes
5 13 (1.18%) Cisco Prime
6 8 (0.73%) Istio
7 6 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
7 6 (0.54%) Grafana
7 6 (0.54%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.45%) Nagios
8 5 (0.45%) Puppet
9 4 (0.36%) Cilium
9 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (0.36%) Packer
9 4 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.36%) systemd
10 3 (0.27%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.27%) TrustSec
10 3 (0.27%) vRealize
11 2 (0.18%) SCCM
Vendors
1 597 (54.17%) Cisco
2 222 (20.15%) Palo Alto
3 180 (16.33%) F5
4 157 (14.25%) Fortinet
5 107 (9.71%) Juniper
6 98 (8.89%) VMware
7 85 (7.71%) CheckPoint
8 71 (6.44%) Arista
9 66 (5.99%) Aruba
10 59 (5.35%) Microsoft
11 54 (4.90%) Meraki
12 42 (3.81%) Zscaler
13 38 (3.45%) Google
14 36 (3.27%) SolarWinds
15 30 (2.72%) Infoblox
16 28 (2.54%) ServiceNow
17 24 (2.18%) Blue Coat
18 22 (2.00%) Nokia
19 19 (1.72%) McAfee
19 19 (1.72%) NetApp