Network Engineer Contract Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the UK is £472, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 5 June 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 119 93
Rank change year-on-year -13 -26 +33
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 978 676 1,012
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.99% 2.34% 2.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.16% 2.53% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 640 414 622
10th Percentile £300 £313 £298
25th Percentile £400 £389 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% - +2.70%
75th Percentile £544 £567 £538
90th Percentile £600 £625 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £463 £450
% change year-on-year -0.54% +2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 9 20
10th Percentile £51.25 £22.41 £18.14
25th Percentile £63.55 £32.50 £24.19
Median hourly rate £77.50 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +55.00% +25.00% -36.12%
75th Percentile £78.75 £61.25 £73.75
90th Percentile - £70.25 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.50 £35.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year +121.43% -51.72% +16.94%

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 45,342 26,733 39,846
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.39% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,608 17,258 25,745
10th Percentile £325 £287 £280
25th Percentile £413 £404 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.40% -4.67% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,029 1,088 2,850
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.69 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +56.04% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.75 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -5.88%

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 5 June 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 5 June 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 5 June 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 -17 810 £475 -3.46% 329
UK excluding London -15 585 £460 -0.54% 322
London -36 265 £500 - 92
Work from Home -21 234 £445 -6.32% 70
North of England -29 179 £474 -3.66% 63
South East 0 177 £463 -7.50% 79
North West -9 135 £474 -5.20% 27
Midlands +14 110 £431 +4.55% 50
West Midlands +12 103 £425 +54.55% 26
Scotland +15 54 £413 +3.13% 33
East of England -7 45 £438 +15.51% 34
South West -40 43 £533 +1.52% 37
Yorkshire -52 32 £450 -8.54% 27
Wales -13 26 £425 +21.43% 18
North East -18 12 £600 +108.70% 9
East Midlands -34 3 £488 +8.33% 24
Northern Ireland +5 2 £468 -18.70% 11

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

For the 6 months to 5 June 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.

1 514 (52.56%) Cisco
2 424 (43.35%) Firewall
3 287 (29.35%) Security Cleared
4 268 (27.40%) WAN
5 244 (24.95%) Cisco Certification
6 234 (23.93%) LAN
7 233 (23.82%) BGP
8 227 (23.21%) Palo Alto
9 220 (22.49%) Network Security
10 211 (21.57%) SC Cleared
11 205 (20.96%) VPN
12 195 (19.94%) CCNP
13 179 (18.30%) F5
14 171 (17.48%) DNS
15 160 (16.36%) OSPF
16 142 (14.52%) Load Balancing
17 139 (14.21%) VLAN
18 133 (13.60%) Wireless
19 132 (13.50%) Fortinet
20 120 (12.27%) Azure
21 112 (11.45%) Juniper
22 106 (10.84%) TCP/IP
23 105 (10.74%) Migration
24 104 (10.63%) Python
25 103 (10.53%) SD-WAN
26 95 (9.71%) CCNA
26 95 (9.71%) High Availability
27 94 (9.61%) Problem-Solving
27 94 (9.61%) Wi-Fi
28 91 (9.30%) 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 8 (0.82%) Confluence
2 5 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.31%) Apache
3 3 (0.31%) IIS
3 3 (0.31%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.10%) CMS
4 1 (0.10%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.10%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 17 (1.74%) MS Visio
2 10 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 120 (12.27%) Azure
2 85 (8.69%) AWS
3 54 (5.52%) GCP
4 33 (3.37%) GitHub
5 16 (1.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (1.43%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 14 (1.43%) Entra ID
7 13 (1.33%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 11 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
9 9 (0.92%) AWS CloudFormation
9 9 (0.92%) AWS Direct Connect
10 8 (0.82%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (0.72%) IaaS
11 7 (0.72%) Nutanix
12 6 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (0.61%) Google Compute Engine
12 6 (0.61%) Route 53
13 5 (0.51%) Mimecast
13 5 (0.51%) SaaS
14 3 (0.31%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 424 (43.35%) Firewall
2 268 (27.40%) WAN
3 234 (23.93%) LAN
4 233 (23.82%) BGP
5 220 (22.49%) Network Security
6 205 (20.96%) VPN
7 171 (17.48%) DNS
8 160 (16.36%) OSPF
9 139 (14.21%) VLAN
10 133 (13.60%) Wireless
11 106 (10.84%) TCP/IP
12 103 (10.53%) SD-WAN
13 94 (9.61%) Wi-Fi
14 76 (7.77%) Cisco Nexus
15 67 (6.85%) BIG-IP
15 67 (6.85%) MPLS
15 67 (6.85%) Multicast
16 61 (6.24%) SSL
17 60 (6.13%) Cisco ISE
17 60 (6.13%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.20%) SQL Server
1 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 1 (0.10%) ClickHouse
2 1 (0.10%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 27 (2.76%) JIRA
2 25 (2.56%) Jenkins
3 24 (2.45%) Fiddler
4 17 (1.74%) Git
5 10 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.82%) GitLab
7 2 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
General
1 128 (13.09%) Social Skills
2 56 (5.73%) Finance
3 55 (5.62%) Banking
4 45 (4.60%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (3.89%) Investment Banking
5 38 (3.89%) Telecoms
6 37 (3.78%) Documentation Skills
7 33 (3.37%) Public Sector
8 25 (2.56%) Manufacturing
9 22 (2.25%) Legal
10 17 (1.74%) Retail
11 10 (1.02%) Law
12 9 (0.92%) Aerospace
13 7 (0.72%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.61%) Military
14 6 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (0.51%) Police
16 4 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
17 3 (0.31%) Influencing Skills
18 2 (0.20%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (4.70%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.12%) REST
3 9 (0.92%) SAML
4 8 (0.82%) LDAP
5 3 (0.31%) CSS
5 3 (0.31%) HTML
6 2 (0.20%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.20%) Django
6 2 (0.20%) Jinja
6 2 (0.20%) JSON
6 2 (0.20%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.10%) Java RMI
7 1 (0.10%) NETCONF
7 1 (0.10%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.10%) VML
7 1 (0.10%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 207 (21.17%) Data Centre
2 27 (2.76%) Data Protection Act
3 25 (2.56%) Hybrid Cloud
4 24 (2.45%) PKI
5 22 (2.25%) Management Information System
6 20 (2.04%) Security Posture
7 14 (1.43%) Onboarding
7 14 (1.43%) Operational Technology
8 12 (1.23%) Cloud Native
9 9 (0.92%) Clustering
9 9 (0.92%) NHS
9 9 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (0.72%) CCTV
11 6 (0.61%) Enterprise Cloud
11 6 (0.61%) Linux Command Line
12 5 (0.51%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 5 (0.51%) Public Cloud
13 4 (0.41%) Fibre Optics
13 4 (0.41%) IoT
13 4 (0.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 68 (6.95%) Windows
2 43 (4.40%) Linux
3 13 (1.33%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.72%) Unix
5 6 (0.61%) VMS
6 2 (0.20%) CatOS
6 2 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.20%) zOS
7 1 (0.10%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.10%) Solaris
7 1 (0.10%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.10%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.10%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
7 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (14.52%) Load Balancing
2 105 (10.74%) Migration
3 95 (9.71%) High Availability
4 94 (9.61%) Problem-Solving
5 72 (7.36%) Network Monitoring
5 72 (7.36%) Project Delivery
6 62 (6.34%) Network Design
7 59 (6.03%) ITIL
8 58 (5.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 52 (5.32%) Infrastructure as Code
10 49 (5.01%) Change Management
11 46 (4.70%) Validation
12 42 (4.29%) Data Protection
13 41 (4.19%) Technical Leadership
14 39 (3.99%) Network Management
15 38 (3.89%) DevOps
15 38 (3.89%) ITSM
16 36 (3.68%) CI/CD
17 35 (3.58%) Zero Trust
18 33 (3.37%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 104 (10.63%) Python
2 14 (1.43%) Bash
3 9 (0.92%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.82%) SQL
5 7 (0.72%) ActionScript
6 3 (0.31%) Bicep
6 3 (0.31%) C
6 3 (0.31%) Java
6 3 (0.31%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.20%) C++
7 2 (0.20%) Groovy
8 1 (0.10%) Go
8 1 (0.10%) Korn
8 1 (0.10%) Lisp
8 1 (0.10%) Perl
8 1 (0.10%) PHP
Qualifications
1 287 (29.35%) Security Cleared
2 244 (24.95%) Cisco Certification
3 211 (21.57%) SC Cleared
4 195 (19.94%) CCNP
5 95 (9.71%) CCNA
6 85 (8.69%) DV Cleared
7 42 (4.29%) Degree
8 36 (3.68%) CCIE
9 19 (1.94%) JNCIA
10 18 (1.84%) JNCIS
11 17 (1.74%) Network+ Certification
12 12 (1.23%) JNCIP
13 11 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
14 8 (0.82%) CCSE
15 7 (0.72%) Azure Certification
16 6 (0.61%) CompTIA Security+
17 5 (0.51%) CCSM
17 5 (0.51%) CISSP
17 5 (0.51%) CWNA
17 5 (0.51%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (1.53%) SLA
2 13 (1.33%) NIST
3 11 (1.12%) QA
4 8 (0.82%) Disclosure Scotland
5 6 (0.61%) PCI DSS
6 5 (0.51%) GDPR
6 5 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.41%) GRC
8 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.20%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.20%) NCSC
8 2 (0.20%) PMO
9 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 66 (6.75%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (3.68%) VMware NSX
3 32 (3.27%) Firmware
4 27 (2.76%) Active Directory
5 12 (1.23%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.92%) vSphere
7 6 (0.61%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.20%) KVM
11 2 (0.20%) Squid
11 2 (0.20%) vCloud
12 1 (0.10%) Citrix Presentation Server
12 1 (0.10%) Docker
12 1 (0.10%) IAG
12 1 (0.10%) iptables
12 1 (0.10%) RHEV
12 1 (0.10%) Snort
12 1 (0.10%) Xen
Systems Management
1 90 (9.20%) Ansible
2 76 (7.77%) Terraform
3 66 (6.75%) FortiGate
4 9 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
4 9 (0.92%) Grafana
5 8 (0.82%) Kubernetes
5 8 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (0.72%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (0.61%) Nagios
8 2 (0.20%) Avamar
8 2 (0.20%) CASB
8 2 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
8 2 (0.20%) Istio
8 2 (0.20%) Packer
8 2 (0.20%) Puppet
8 2 (0.20%) Salt
8 2 (0.20%) SCOM
8 2 (0.20%) Tivoli NetView
8 2 (0.20%) WSUS
Vendors
1 514 (52.56%) Cisco
2 227 (23.21%) Palo Alto
3 179 (18.30%) F5
4 132 (13.50%) Fortinet
5 112 (11.45%) Juniper
6 91 (9.30%) VMware
7 82 (8.38%) Aruba
8 74 (7.57%) CheckPoint
9 63 (6.44%) Arista
10 46 (4.70%) Microsoft
11 43 (4.40%) Meraki
11 43 (4.40%) SolarWinds
12 32 (3.27%) Blue Coat
12 32 (3.27%) Google
13 31 (3.17%) Zscaler
14 28 (2.86%) Infoblox
14 28 (2.86%) ServiceNow
15 26 (2.66%) McAfee
16 21 (2.15%) Extreme Networks
17 20 (2.04%) NetApp