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 July 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 127 95
Rank change year-on-year -6 -32 +25
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,059 719 965
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.01% 2.20% 2.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.17% 2.40% 2.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 678 453 601
10th Percentile £313 £325 £285
25th Percentile £413 £400 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +5.56%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £550
90th Percentile £620 £629 £634
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -0.63% - +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 12 15
10th Percentile £29.00 £22.08 £17.98
25th Percentile £64.38 £30.00 £21.57
Median hourly rate £74.00 £53.75 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +37.67% +10.69% -26.40%
75th Percentile £78.75 £70.63 £70.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £82.33 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.50 £38.25 £50.53
% change year-on-year +102.61% -24.30% -18.50%

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 48,829 29,898 38,441
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 91.63% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,477 19,026 24,867
10th Percentile £325 £283 £295
25th Percentile £420 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £730 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,287 1,429 2,436
10th Percentile £15.75 £13.75 £13.49
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £18.00
Median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.72% -37.13% -8.57%
75th Percentile £67.84 £55.00 £64.25
90th Percentile £80.52 £73.75 £74.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £41.81
% change year-on-year +78.93% -39.85% +4.53%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 -14 869 £475 -3.06% 277
UK excluding London -15 611 £472 -0.63% 237
London -31 306 £495 +4.21% 91
Work from Home -32 231 £463 -2.63% 53
North of England -15 216 £490 -0.41% 57
North West -5 156 £498 -0.50% 29
South East -19 150 £475 -5.00% 57
Midlands -7 107 £475 +9.51% 34
West Midlands -4 100 £463 +32.14% 18
Scotland +19 73 £406 -7.14% 22
South West -37 51 £550 +3.77% 32
Yorkshire -43 47 £450 -8.54% 20
East of England -8 41 £470 +17.50% 24
Wales -7 21 £425 -5.56% 10
North East -26 13 £600 +84.62% 8
East Midlands -21 4 £475 -13.64% 16
Northern Ireland +3 1 £550 -4.35% 3

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

For the 6 months to 22 July 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.

1 572 (54.01%) Cisco
2 476 (44.95%) Firewall
3 295 (27.86%) WAN
4 264 (24.93%) Security Cleared
5 258 (24.36%) BGP
6 250 (23.61%) Network Security
7 247 (23.32%) Cisco Certification
8 245 (23.14%) LAN
9 243 (22.95%) VPN
10 227 (21.44%) Palo Alto
11 190 (17.94%) CCNP
12 189 (17.85%) F5
13 188 (17.75%) DNS
13 188 (17.75%) Wireless
14 177 (16.71%) OSPF
15 174 (16.43%) SC Cleared
16 160 (15.11%) Fortinet
17 148 (13.98%) Load Balancing
18 147 (13.88%) VLAN
19 143 (13.50%) Azure
20 127 (11.99%) Juniper
20 127 (11.99%) Migration
21 124 (11.71%) Python
22 115 (10.86%) TCP/IP
23 111 (10.48%) SD-WAN
24 104 (9.82%) Wi-Fi
25 98 (9.25%) CCNA
25 98 (9.25%) High Availability
26 97 (9.16%) Problem-Solving
27 94 (8.88%) 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 6 (0.57%) Confluence
2 5 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.28%) SAS
3 3 (0.28%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.094%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.094%) CMS
4 1 (0.094%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.094%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 15 (1.42%) MS Visio
2 12 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 143 (13.50%) Azure
2 89 (8.40%) AWS
3 56 (5.29%) GCP
4 42 (3.97%) GitHub
5 19 (1.79%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 16 (1.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 13 (1.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 13 (1.23%) Microsoft 365
8 12 (1.13%) Entra ID
9 11 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
9 11 (1.04%) AWS Direct Connect
10 10 (0.94%) IaaS
11 8 (0.76%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (0.66%) Nutanix
13 6 (0.57%) Azure Sentinel
13 6 (0.57%) Google Compute Engine
13 6 (0.57%) OCI
14 5 (0.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 5 (0.47%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (0.47%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 476 (44.95%) Firewall
2 295 (27.86%) WAN
3 258 (24.36%) BGP
4 250 (23.61%) Network Security
5 245 (23.14%) LAN
6 243 (22.95%) VPN
7 188 (17.75%) DNS
7 188 (17.75%) Wireless
8 177 (16.71%) OSPF
9 147 (13.88%) VLAN
10 115 (10.86%) TCP/IP
11 111 (10.48%) SD-WAN
12 104 (9.82%) Wi-Fi
13 79 (7.46%) Cisco ISE
14 77 (7.27%) Multicast
15 74 (6.99%) Cisco Nexus
15 74 (6.99%) DHCP
16 71 (6.70%) MPLS
17 64 (6.04%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 61 (5.76%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.19%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.094%) ClickHouse
2 1 (0.094%) GIS
2 1 (0.094%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (0.094%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 30 (2.83%) Jenkins
2 28 (2.64%) JIRA
3 24 (2.27%) Git
4 18 (1.70%) Fiddler
5 12 (1.13%) GitLab
6 8 (0.76%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.19%) Browser DevTools
General
1 142 (13.41%) Social Skills
2 71 (6.70%) Finance
3 62 (5.85%) Banking
4 54 (5.10%) Analytical Skills
5 44 (4.15%) Public Sector
5 44 (4.15%) Telecoms
6 36 (3.40%) Investment Banking
7 34 (3.21%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (2.08%) Retail
9 19 (1.79%) Legal
9 19 (1.79%) Manufacturing
10 9 (0.85%) Aerospace
10 9 (0.85%) Police
11 7 (0.66%) Financial Institution
11 7 (0.66%) Law
12 6 (0.57%) Military
12 6 (0.57%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (0.47%) Local Government
13 5 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (0.47%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (4.82%) 802.1X
2 12 (1.13%) REST
3 10 (0.94%) SAML
4 5 (0.47%) LDAP
4 5 (0.47%) NETCONF
5 3 (0.28%) Java RMI
6 2 (0.19%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.19%) eBPF
6 2 (0.19%) Jinja
6 2 (0.19%) JSON
6 2 (0.19%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.094%) CSS
7 1 (0.094%) HTML
7 1 (0.094%) ModSecurity
7 1 (0.094%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.094%) XMPP
7 1 (0.094%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 194 (18.32%) Data Centre
2 34 (3.21%) Hybrid Cloud
3 32 (3.02%) PKI
4 22 (2.08%) Management Information System
5 19 (1.79%) Cloud Native
5 19 (1.79%) Security Posture
6 17 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
7 16 (1.51%) Operational Technology
8 15 (1.42%) Onboarding
9 14 (1.32%) Driving Licence
10 10 (0.94%) Linux Command Line
10 10 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
11 9 (0.85%) Clustering
11 9 (0.85%) IoT
12 8 (0.76%) CCTV
13 7 (0.66%) NHS
13 7 (0.66%) Public Cloud
14 6 (0.57%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 6 (0.57%) Enterprise Cloud
14 6 (0.57%) Fibre Optics
Operating Systems
1 73 (6.89%) Windows
2 47 (4.44%) Linux
3 12 (1.13%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.66%) Unix
5 6 (0.57%) VMS
6 5 (0.47%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
7 4 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.094%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.094%) Solaris
10 1 (0.094%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.094%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.094%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.094%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (13.98%) Load Balancing
2 127 (11.99%) Migration
3 98 (9.25%) High Availability
4 97 (9.16%) Problem-Solving
5 88 (8.31%) Project Delivery
6 75 (7.08%) ITIL
7 72 (6.80%) Change Management
8 67 (6.33%) Network Design
9 64 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
9 64 (6.04%) Validation
10 63 (5.95%) Network Monitoring
11 61 (5.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 47 (4.44%) Zero Trust
13 45 (4.25%) Technical Leadership
14 44 (4.15%) Continuous Improvement
15 42 (3.97%) DevOps
16 40 (3.78%) CI/CD
17 38 (3.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 37 (3.49%) ITSM
19 35 (3.31%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 124 (11.71%) Python
2 21 (1.98%) Bash
3 13 (1.23%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.85%) ActionScript
5 8 (0.76%) SQL
6 3 (0.28%) Bicep
6 3 (0.28%) C
6 3 (0.28%) C++
6 3 (0.28%) Java
7 2 (0.19%) Groovy
7 2 (0.19%) Perl
8 1 (0.094%) Go
8 1 (0.094%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.094%) Lisp
8 1 (0.094%) PHP
8 1 (0.094%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 264 (24.93%) Security Cleared
2 247 (23.32%) Cisco Certification
3 190 (17.94%) CCNP
4 174 (16.43%) SC Cleared
5 98 (9.25%) CCNA
6 91 (8.59%) DV Cleared
7 43 (4.06%) CCIE
8 39 (3.68%) Degree
9 20 (1.89%) JNCIS
10 17 (1.61%) JNCIP
11 13 (1.23%) JNCIA
11 13 (1.23%) Network+ Certification
12 10 (0.94%) CISSP
13 9 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
14 8 (0.76%) CCSE
15 6 (0.57%) Azure Certification
15 6 (0.57%) CompTIA Security+
16 5 (0.47%) AWS Certification
16 5 (0.47%) CCIE Wireless
16 5 (0.47%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (1.89%) SLA
2 12 (1.13%) NIST
3 10 (0.94%) QA
4 9 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (0.76%) Disclosure Scotland
6 4 (0.38%) GDPR
6 4 (0.38%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.28%) GRC
8 2 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.19%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.19%) NCSC
9 1 (0.094%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.094%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.094%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.094%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 71 (6.70%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (3.12%) Firmware
3 32 (3.02%) VMware NSX
4 30 (2.83%) Active Directory
5 16 (1.51%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (1.32%) vSphere
7 6 (0.57%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.38%) Docker
9 4 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
11 1 (0.094%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.094%) FreeRADIUS
11 1 (0.094%) IAG
11 1 (0.094%) iptables
11 1 (0.094%) KVM
11 1 (0.094%) Snort
11 1 (0.094%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 93 (8.78%) Ansible
1 93 (8.78%) Terraform
2 78 (7.37%) FortiGate
3 15 (1.42%) Kubernetes
4 12 (1.13%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.85%) Grafana
6 7 (0.66%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.57%) Cisco CUCM
8 5 (0.47%) Puppet
8 5 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.38%) Istio
9 4 (0.38%) Packer
10 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
10 3 (0.28%) Nagios
10 3 (0.28%) systemd
11 2 (0.19%) Nessus
11 2 (0.19%) SCCM
11 2 (0.19%) SCOM
11 2 (0.19%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.19%) WSUS
Vendors
1 572 (54.01%) Cisco
2 227 (21.44%) Palo Alto
3 189 (17.85%) F5
4 160 (15.11%) Fortinet
5 127 (11.99%) Juniper
6 94 (8.88%) VMware
7 78 (7.37%) CheckPoint
8 70 (6.61%) Arista
9 67 (6.33%) Aruba
10 52 (4.91%) Microsoft
11 51 (4.82%) Meraki
12 46 (4.34%) Zscaler
13 37 (3.49%) SolarWinds
14 36 (3.40%) Google
15 33 (3.12%) Infoblox
16 29 (2.74%) Blue Coat
17 26 (2.46%) ServiceNow
18 22 (2.08%) McAfee
19 20 (1.89%) Extreme Networks
20 19 (1.79%) NetApp