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 22 August 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 141 90
Rank change year-on-year +6 -51 +24
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,111 669 928
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.06% 2.04% 2.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.23% 2.23% 2.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 685 424 573
10th Percentile £313 £318 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +5.56%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £550
90th Percentile £625 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 13 15
10th Percentile £31.18 £22.12 £19.18
25th Percentile £65.94 £32.50 £21.57
Median hourly rate £77.50 £57.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +34.78% +9.52% -8.95%
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% -12.50%

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 49,757 29,939 36,107
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.45% 91.25% 92.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,837 18,916 23,063
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £729 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,525 1,560 1,966
10th Percentile £14.98 £13.65 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.29 £19.52
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.55%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +14.67%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +1 907 £480 -1.03% 272
UK excluding London -12 652 £475 - 261
London -20 320 £490 +3.16% 65
North of England +12 256 £500 +2.15% 63
Work from Home -17 232 £469 +1.41% 54
North West +19 180 £500 +5.26% 28
South East -41 126 £466 -6.75% 49
Midlands -15 105 £475 +18.75% 45
West Midlands -5 98 £475 +32.40% 24
Scotland +26 81 £400 -5.88% 19
Yorkshire -12 63 £475 -3.46% 25
South West -21 58 £550 -4.35% 41
East of England -7 43 £475 +21.41% 32
Wales +3 30 £425 -3.41% 16
North East -33 13 £600 - 10
East Midlands -23 5 £500 -9.09% 21
Northern Ireland +1 2 £488 -15.22% 4

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

For the 6 months to 22 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.

1 603 (54.28%) Cisco
2 454 (40.86%) Firewall
3 314 (28.26%) WAN
4 271 (24.39%) BGP
5 264 (23.76%) Security Cleared
6 250 (22.50%) Cisco Certification
7 249 (22.41%) VPN
8 246 (22.14%) LAN
9 244 (21.96%) Network Security
10 225 (20.25%) Palo Alto
11 204 (18.36%) Wireless
12 191 (17.19%) CCNP
13 184 (16.56%) DNS
14 180 (16.20%) F5
15 176 (15.84%) SC Cleared
16 174 (15.66%) OSPF
17 159 (14.31%) Fortinet
18 157 (14.13%) VLAN
19 145 (13.05%) Azure
19 145 (13.05%) Load Balancing
20 137 (12.33%) Migration
21 130 (11.70%) Python
22 120 (10.80%) SD-WAN
23 119 (10.71%) Wi-Fi
24 113 (10.17%) TCP/IP
25 100 (9.00%) Juniper
25 100 (9.00%) Problem-Solving
26 99 (8.91%) CCNA
26 99 (8.91%) VMware
27 97 (8.73%) 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 8 (0.72%) SAS
2 6 (0.54%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.45%) Confluence
3 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.090%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.090%) CMS
4 1 (0.090%) FactoryTalk
4 1 (0.090%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.090%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (1.44%) MS Visio
2 13 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 145 (13.05%) Azure
2 88 (7.92%) AWS
3 53 (4.77%) GCP
4 43 (3.87%) GitHub
5 25 (2.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 16 (1.44%) Microsoft 365
7 15 (1.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 14 (1.26%) AWS Direct Connect
9 11 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
9 11 (0.99%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 10 (0.90%) Entra ID
10 10 (0.90%) IaaS
11 9 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (0.63%) Nutanix
13 6 (0.54%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (0.54%) Azure Sentinel
13 6 (0.54%) OCI
14 5 (0.45%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (0.45%) Cloudflare
14 5 (0.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 454 (40.86%) Firewall
2 314 (28.26%) WAN
3 271 (24.39%) BGP
4 249 (22.41%) VPN
5 246 (22.14%) LAN
6 244 (21.96%) Network Security
7 204 (18.36%) Wireless
8 184 (16.56%) DNS
9 174 (15.66%) OSPF
10 157 (14.13%) VLAN
11 120 (10.80%) SD-WAN
12 119 (10.71%) Wi-Fi
13 113 (10.17%) TCP/IP
14 77 (6.93%) DHCP
14 77 (6.93%) Multicast
15 75 (6.75%) Cisco ASA
15 75 (6.75%) Cisco ISE
15 75 (6.75%) Cisco Nexus
16 72 (6.48%) MPLS
17 65 (5.85%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.18%) GIS
3 1 (0.090%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.090%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.090%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 33 (2.97%) Git
2 31 (2.79%) Jenkins
3 24 (2.16%) JIRA
4 16 (1.44%) Fiddler
4 16 (1.44%) GitLab
5 6 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.18%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
General
1 142 (12.78%) Social Skills
2 83 (7.47%) Finance
3 65 (5.85%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (5.67%) Banking
5 61 (5.49%) Telecoms
6 57 (5.13%) Public Sector
7 35 (3.15%) Investment Banking
8 31 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
9 22 (1.98%) Legal
9 22 (1.98%) Retail
10 19 (1.71%) Manufacturing
11 10 (0.90%) Police
12 9 (0.81%) Aerospace
13 7 (0.63%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.36%) Automotive
16 4 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 4 (0.36%) Law
16 4 (0.36%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (8.73%) Terraform
2 48 (4.32%) 802.1X
3 16 (1.44%) REST
4 8 (0.72%) NETCONF
4 8 (0.72%) SAML
5 5 (0.45%) JSON
5 5 (0.45%) YAML
6 3 (0.27%) Java RMI
6 3 (0.27%) LDAP
7 2 (0.18%) eBPF
7 2 (0.18%) Jinja
7 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.090%) AWS CDK
8 1 (0.090%) ModSecurity
8 1 (0.090%) RESTCONF
8 1 (0.090%) XML
8 1 (0.090%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 197 (17.73%) Data Centre
2 41 (3.69%) Hybrid Cloud
3 29 (2.61%) PKI
4 25 (2.25%) Cloud Native
5 21 (1.89%) Driving Licence
5 21 (1.89%) Management Information System
6 20 (1.80%) Onboarding
7 16 (1.44%) Operational Technology
8 13 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (1.17%) Security Posture
9 11 (0.99%) IoT
9 11 (0.99%) Public Cloud
10 10 (0.90%) Linux Command Line
10 10 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (0.63%) CCTV
11 7 (0.63%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 7 (0.63%) Distributed Systems
11 7 (0.63%) Enterprise Cloud
11 7 (0.63%) NHS
12 6 (0.54%) Fibre Optics
Operating Systems
1 71 (6.39%) Windows
2 53 (4.77%) Linux
3 12 (1.08%) 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 (0.090%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.090%) Solaris
9 1 (0.090%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (13.05%) Load Balancing
2 137 (12.33%) Migration
3 100 (9.00%) Problem-Solving
4 95 (8.55%) Project Delivery
5 92 (8.28%) High Availability
6 78 (7.02%) ITIL
7 76 (6.84%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 75 (6.75%) Validation
9 74 (6.66%) Infrastructure as Code
9 74 (6.66%) Network Design
10 64 (5.76%) Change Management
11 62 (5.58%) Network Monitoring
12 48 (4.32%) CI/CD
12 48 (4.32%) Technical Leadership
12 48 (4.32%) Zero Trust
13 44 (3.96%) Continuous Improvement
13 44 (3.96%) DevOps
14 38 (3.42%) Network Segmentation
15 37 (3.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 35 (3.15%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 130 (11.70%) Python
2 26 (2.34%) Bash
3 16 (1.44%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.72%) ActionScript
5 7 (0.63%) SQL
6 5 (0.45%) C++
7 3 (0.27%) C
8 2 (0.18%) Bicep
8 2 (0.18%) Groovy
8 2 (0.18%) Java
8 2 (0.18%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.090%) Go
9 1 (0.090%) Lisp
9 1 (0.090%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 264 (23.76%) Security Cleared
2 250 (22.50%) Cisco Certification
3 191 (17.19%) CCNP
4 176 (15.84%) SC Cleared
5 99 (8.91%) CCNA
6 84 (7.56%) DV Cleared
7 47 (4.23%) CCIE
8 36 (3.24%) Degree
9 14 (1.26%) JNCIS
10 13 (1.17%) CISSP
11 12 (1.08%) Network+ Certification
12 11 (0.99%) JNCIP
13 10 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
14 9 (0.81%) CCSE
15 8 (0.72%) JNCIA
16 6 (0.54%) AWS Certification
16 6 (0.54%) Azure Certification
16 6 (0.54%) CCIE Security
16 6 (0.54%) CWNA
16 6 (0.54%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (2.25%) SLA
2 12 (1.08%) QA
3 10 (0.90%) NIST
4 8 (0.72%) Disclosure Scotland
5 7 (0.63%) 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 (0.090%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.090%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.090%) GRC
8 1 (0.090%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.090%) NIST 800
System Software
1 73 (6.57%) VMware Infrastructure
2 32 (2.88%) Firmware
3 31 (2.79%) VMware NSX
4 28 (2.52%) Active Directory
5 12 (1.08%) VMware ESXi
5 12 (1.08%) vSphere
6 7 (0.63%) 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 (0.090%) IAG
11 1 (0.090%) iptables
11 1 (0.090%) Snort
11 1 (0.090%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 96 (8.64%) Ansible
2 75 (6.75%) FortiGate
3 26 (2.34%) Kubernetes
4 14 (1.26%) Cisco Prime
5 8 (0.72%) Istio
6 6 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
6 6 (0.54%) Grafana
6 6 (0.54%) Prometheus
7 5 (0.45%) Nagios
7 5 (0.45%) Puppet
8 4 (0.36%) Cilium
8 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.36%) Packer
8 4 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.36%) systemd
8 4 (0.36%) vRealize
9 3 (0.27%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.27%) TrustSec
10 2 (0.18%) SCCM
10 2 (0.18%) SCOM
Vendors
1 603 (54.28%) Cisco
2 225 (20.25%) Palo Alto
3 180 (16.20%) F5
4 159 (14.31%) Fortinet
5 100 (9.00%) Juniper
6 99 (8.91%) VMware
7 83 (7.47%) CheckPoint
8 72 (6.48%) Arista
9 66 (5.94%) Aruba
10 60 (5.40%) Meraki
11 58 (5.22%) Microsoft
12 42 (3.78%) Zscaler
13 37 (3.33%) Google
13 37 (3.33%) SolarWinds
14 29 (2.61%) Infoblox
15 28 (2.52%) ServiceNow
16 24 (2.16%) Blue Coat
17 22 (1.98%) Nokia
18 20 (1.80%) McAfee
18 20 (1.80%) NetApp