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 12 August 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 131 96
Rank change year-on-year -4 -35 +22
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,077 703 916
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 2.13% 2.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.18% 2.33% 2.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 672 445 567
10th Percentile £313 £325 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +5.56%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £550
90th Percentile £612 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 12 14
10th Percentile £30.45 £22.08 £17.89
25th Percentile £64.38 £30.00 £21.16
Median hourly rate £77.50 £53.75 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year +44.19% - -11.89%
75th Percentile £91.00 £70.63 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £82.33 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.50 £38.25 £52.50
% change year-on-year +102.61% -27.14% -15.32%

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 49,398 30,125 36,175
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 91.38% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,694 19,103 23,309
10th Percentile £328 £282 £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 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,473 1,514 2,025
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.12 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.68 £25.08 £45.00
% change year-on-year +70.20% -44.28% +27.66%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -7 880 £480 -1.94% 442
UK excluding London -11 629 £475 - 330
London -30 308 £495 +0.76% 182
North of England 0 230 £500 +2.15% 83
Work from Home -35 227 £463 - 98
North West +9 165 £500 +5.26% 42
South East -32 141 £470 -6.00% 64
Midlands -11 105 £475 +18.75% 53
West Midlands -2 98 £475 +33.80% 24
Scotland +36 81 £400 -11.11% 26
South West -28 54 £550 - 48
Yorkshire -31 52 £450 -8.54% 30
East of England -4 42 £470 +17.50% 35
Wales +2 22 £425 -5.56% 20
North East -33 13 £600 +29.73% 12
East Midlands -14 5 £475 -15.56% 29
Northern Ireland +5 1 £550 -4.35% 7

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

For the 6 months to 12 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.

1 582 (54.04%) Cisco
2 465 (43.18%) Firewall
3 306 (28.41%) WAN
4 259 (24.05%) BGP
5 258 (23.96%) Security Cleared
6 245 (22.75%) LAN
6 245 (22.75%) VPN
7 244 (22.66%) Cisco Certification
8 242 (22.47%) Network Security
9 224 (20.80%) Palo Alto
10 194 (18.01%) Wireless
11 185 (17.18%) F5
12 184 (17.08%) DNS
13 183 (16.99%) CCNP
14 173 (16.06%) OSPF
15 164 (15.23%) SC Cleared
16 162 (15.04%) Fortinet
17 149 (13.83%) VLAN
18 147 (13.65%) Azure
19 145 (13.46%) Load Balancing
20 129 (11.98%) Migration
21 119 (11.05%) SD-WAN
22 118 (10.96%) Juniper
22 118 (10.96%) Python
23 110 (10.21%) TCP/IP
24 105 (9.75%) Wi-Fi
25 101 (9.38%) Problem-Solving
26 97 (9.01%) CCNA
26 97 (9.01%) High Availability
27 96 (8.91%) Terraform

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 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (0.46%) Confluence
3 4 (0.37%) SAS
3 4 (0.37%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.093%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.093%) CMS
4 1 (0.093%) FactoryTalk
4 1 (0.093%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.093%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (1.49%) MS Visio
2 12 (1.11%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 147 (13.65%) Azure
2 86 (7.99%) AWS
3 52 (4.83%) GCP
4 41 (3.81%) GitHub
5 23 (2.14%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 15 (1.39%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 14 (1.30%) Microsoft 365
8 13 (1.21%) Entra ID
9 12 (1.11%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 11 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
10 11 (1.02%) AWS Direct Connect
11 10 (0.93%) IaaS
12 9 (0.84%) GitHub Actions
13 7 (0.65%) Nutanix
14 6 (0.56%) Azure DevOps
14 6 (0.56%) Azure Sentinel
14 6 (0.56%) Cloudflare
14 6 (0.56%) Google Compute Engine
14 6 (0.56%) OCI
15 5 (0.46%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 465 (43.18%) Firewall
2 306 (28.41%) WAN
3 259 (24.05%) BGP
4 245 (22.75%) LAN
4 245 (22.75%) VPN
5 242 (22.47%) Network Security
6 194 (18.01%) Wireless
7 184 (17.08%) DNS
8 173 (16.06%) OSPF
9 149 (13.83%) VLAN
10 119 (11.05%) SD-WAN
11 110 (10.21%) TCP/IP
12 105 (9.75%) Wi-Fi
13 79 (7.34%) Cisco ISE
14 78 (7.24%) DHCP
15 75 (6.96%) Multicast
16 74 (6.87%) Cisco Nexus
16 74 (6.87%) MPLS
17 65 (6.04%) Cisco ASA
18 63 (5.85%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.28%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.093%) ClickHouse
2 1 (0.093%) GIS
2 1 (0.093%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (0.093%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 33 (3.06%) Jenkins
2 28 (2.60%) Git
3 24 (2.23%) JIRA
4 15 (1.39%) Fiddler
5 13 (1.21%) GitLab
6 7 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.19%) Browser DevTools
General
1 140 (13.00%) Social Skills
2 76 (7.06%) Finance
3 60 (5.57%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (5.29%) Banking
5 52 (4.83%) Public Sector
6 51 (4.74%) Telecoms
7 33 (3.06%) Investment Banking
8 30 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
9 23 (2.14%) Legal
10 22 (2.04%) Retail
11 18 (1.67%) Manufacturing
12 9 (0.84%) Aerospace
12 9 (0.84%) Financial Institution
12 9 (0.84%) Police
13 7 (0.65%) Law
13 7 (0.65%) Pharmaceutical
14 6 (0.56%) Military
15 5 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 4 (0.37%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (4.92%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.02%) REST
3 10 (0.93%) SAML
4 8 (0.74%) NETCONF
5 4 (0.37%) LDAP
6 3 (0.28%) Java RMI
7 2 (0.19%) eBPF
7 2 (0.19%) Jinja
7 2 (0.19%) JSON
7 2 (0.19%) YAML
8 1 (0.093%) AWS CDK
8 1 (0.093%) CSS
8 1 (0.093%) HTML
8 1 (0.093%) ModSecurity
8 1 (0.093%) OpenTelemetry
8 1 (0.093%) RESTCONF
8 1 (0.093%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.093%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 185 (17.18%) Data Centre
2 38 (3.53%) Hybrid Cloud
3 31 (2.88%) PKI
4 23 (2.14%) Cloud Native
5 20 (1.86%) Management Information System
6 18 (1.67%) Driving Licence
7 17 (1.58%) Onboarding
7 17 (1.58%) Operational Technology
7 17 (1.58%) Security Posture
8 14 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
9 10 (0.93%) Linux Command Line
10 9 (0.84%) Clustering
10 9 (0.84%) IoT
10 9 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
11 8 (0.74%) CCTV
12 7 (0.65%) Distributed Systems
12 7 (0.65%) Enterprise Cloud
12 7 (0.65%) NHS
13 6 (0.56%) Public Cloud
14 5 (0.46%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 72 (6.69%) Windows
2 48 (4.46%) Linux
3 13 (1.21%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.56%) Unix
4 6 (0.56%) VMS
5 5 (0.46%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.093%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.093%) Solaris
9 1 (0.093%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.093%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.093%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (13.46%) Load Balancing
2 129 (11.98%) Migration
3 101 (9.38%) Problem-Solving
4 97 (9.01%) High Availability
5 89 (8.26%) Project Delivery
6 81 (7.52%) ITIL
7 72 (6.69%) Network Design
8 70 (6.50%) Change Management
8 70 (6.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 65 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
9 65 (6.04%) Validation
10 62 (5.76%) Network Monitoring
11 46 (4.27%) Technical Leadership
11 46 (4.27%) Zero Trust
12 45 (4.18%) Continuous Improvement
13 43 (3.99%) CI/CD
13 43 (3.99%) DevOps
14 37 (3.44%) ITSM
14 37 (3.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 36 (3.34%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 118 (10.96%) Python
2 22 (2.04%) Bash
3 13 (1.21%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.84%) ActionScript
5 8 (0.74%) SQL
6 5 (0.46%) C++
7 3 (0.28%) C
7 3 (0.28%) Java
8 2 (0.19%) Bicep
8 2 (0.19%) Groovy
8 2 (0.19%) Perl
9 1 (0.093%) Go
9 1 (0.093%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.093%) Lisp
9 1 (0.093%) Search Processing Language
9 1 (0.093%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 258 (23.96%) Security Cleared
2 244 (22.66%) Cisco Certification
3 183 (16.99%) CCNP
4 164 (15.23%) SC Cleared
5 97 (9.01%) CCNA
6 90 (8.36%) DV Cleared
7 45 (4.18%) CCIE
8 36 (3.34%) Degree
9 19 (1.76%) JNCIS
10 16 (1.49%) JNCIP
11 13 (1.21%) Network+ Certification
12 11 (1.02%) JNCIA
13 10 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
14 9 (0.84%) CISSP
15 8 (0.74%) CCSE
16 6 (0.56%) Azure Certification
16 6 (0.56%) DBS Check
17 5 (0.46%) CCIE Wireless
17 5 (0.46%) CCSM
17 5 (0.46%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (2.23%) SLA
2 10 (0.93%) NIST
2 10 (0.93%) QA
3 8 (0.74%) Disclosure Scotland
4 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.19%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.19%) GDPR
5 2 (0.19%) JSP 440
5 2 (0.19%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.093%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.093%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.093%) GRC
6 1 (0.093%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.093%) NCSC
6 1 (0.093%) NIST 800
System Software
1 74 (6.87%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (2.88%) Active Directory
3 30 (2.79%) Firmware
4 29 (2.69%) VMware NSX
5 15 (1.39%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (1.21%) vSphere
7 7 (0.65%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.37%) Docker
9 4 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.28%) FreeRADIUS
11 2 (0.19%) Squid
12 1 (0.093%) Citrix Presentation Server
12 1 (0.093%) IAG
12 1 (0.093%) iptables
12 1 (0.093%) Snort
12 1 (0.093%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 96 (8.91%) Terraform
2 87 (8.08%) Ansible
3 82 (7.61%) FortiGate
4 17 (1.58%) Kubernetes
5 14 (1.30%) Cisco Prime
6 8 (0.74%) Grafana
7 6 (0.56%) Cisco CUCM
7 6 (0.56%) Nagios
7 6 (0.56%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.46%) Istio
8 5 (0.46%) Puppet
8 5 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (0.37%) Packer
9 4 (0.37%) systemd
10 3 (0.28%) TrustSec
11 2 (0.19%) Avamar
11 2 (0.19%) CASB
11 2 (0.19%) Nessus
11 2 (0.19%) WSUS
Vendors
1 582 (54.04%) Cisco
2 224 (20.80%) Palo Alto
3 185 (17.18%) F5
4 162 (15.04%) Fortinet
5 118 (10.96%) Juniper
6 96 (8.91%) VMware
7 77 (7.15%) CheckPoint
8 69 (6.41%) Arista
9 66 (6.13%) Aruba
10 57 (5.29%) Microsoft
11 53 (4.92%) Meraki
12 46 (4.27%) Zscaler
13 43 (3.99%) SolarWinds
14 35 (3.25%) Google
15 31 (2.88%) Infoblox
16 26 (2.41%) Blue Coat
17 25 (2.32%) ServiceNow
18 20 (1.86%) Nokia
19 19 (1.76%) McAfee
19 19 (1.76%) NetApp