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 17 August 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 134 95
Rank change year-on-year 0 -39 +19
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,091 687 912
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 2.08% 2.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.20% 2.27% 2.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 683 435 568
10th Percentile £313 £319 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +5.56%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £550
90th Percentile £620 £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 49,505 30,216 36,013
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 91.29% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,709 19,089 23,205
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% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £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 3,494 1,545 1,999
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.96 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +21.62%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -8 895 £475 -2.96% 353
UK excluding London -7 639 £475 - 296
London -23 315 £475 -5.00% 126
North of England +3 242 £500 +2.15% 68
Work from Home -33 228 £463 - 75
North West +20 171 £500 +5.26% 34
South East -32 135 £463 -7.50% 58
Midlands -9 106 £475 +18.75% 52
West Midlands -9 99 £475 +32.40% 22
Scotland +28 80 £400 -5.88% 25
Yorkshire -18 58 £475 -3.46% 24
South West -22 57 £550 -4.35% 40
East of England -8 42 £470 +17.50% 34
Wales +2 24 £425 -3.41% 18
North East -33 13 £600 +29.73% 11
East Midlands -22 5 £475 -13.64% 30
Northern Ireland +4 2 £488 -15.22% 7

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

For the 6 months to 17 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.

1 589 (53.99%) Cisco
2 454 (41.61%) Firewall
3 306 (28.05%) WAN
4 265 (24.29%) BGP
5 260 (23.83%) Security Cleared
6 248 (22.73%) VPN
7 242 (22.18%) LAN
8 241 (22.09%) Cisco Certification
9 236 (21.63%) Network Security
10 223 (20.44%) Palo Alto
11 196 (17.97%) Wireless
12 182 (16.68%) F5
13 180 (16.50%) CCNP
13 180 (16.50%) DNS
14 170 (15.58%) OSPF
14 170 (15.58%) SC Cleared
15 159 (14.57%) Fortinet
16 147 (13.47%) VLAN
17 145 (13.29%) Azure
18 143 (13.11%) Load Balancing
19 132 (12.10%) Migration
20 127 (11.64%) Python
21 120 (11.00%) SD-WAN
22 112 (10.27%) Juniper
23 111 (10.17%) Wi-Fi
24 109 (9.99%) TCP/IP
25 100 (9.17%) Problem-Solving
26 98 (8.98%) CCNA
27 97 (8.89%) Terraform
27 97 (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 6 (0.55%) SAS
1 6 (0.55%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.46%) Confluence
2 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.092%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.092%) CMS
3 1 (0.092%) FactoryTalk
3 1 (0.092%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.092%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (1.47%) MS Visio
2 13 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 145 (13.29%) Azure
2 89 (8.16%) AWS
3 53 (4.86%) GCP
4 44 (4.03%) GitHub
5 24 (2.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 15 (1.37%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 13 (1.19%) AWS Direct Connect
7 13 (1.19%) Microsoft 365
8 12 (1.10%) Entra ID
8 12 (1.10%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 11 (1.01%) AWS CloudFormation
10 10 (0.92%) IaaS
11 9 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (0.64%) Nutanix
13 6 (0.55%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (0.55%) Azure Sentinel
13 6 (0.55%) Cloudflare
13 6 (0.55%) OCI
14 5 (0.46%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (0.46%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 454 (41.61%) Firewall
2 306 (28.05%) WAN
3 265 (24.29%) BGP
4 248 (22.73%) VPN
5 242 (22.18%) LAN
6 236 (21.63%) Network Security
7 196 (17.97%) Wireless
8 180 (16.50%) DNS
9 170 (15.58%) OSPF
10 147 (13.47%) VLAN
11 120 (11.00%) SD-WAN
12 111 (10.17%) Wi-Fi
13 109 (9.99%) TCP/IP
14 75 (6.87%) Cisco ISE
15 74 (6.78%) Cisco Nexus
15 74 (6.78%) MPLS
15 74 (6.78%) Multicast
16 72 (6.60%) DHCP
17 70 (6.42%) Cisco ASA
18 67 (6.14%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.18%) GIS
3 1 (0.092%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.092%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.092%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 32 (2.93%) Git
1 32 (2.93%) Jenkins
2 24 (2.20%) JIRA
3 16 (1.47%) Fiddler
3 16 (1.47%) GitLab
4 6 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.18%) Browser DevTools
6 1 (0.092%) Robot Framework
General
1 143 (13.11%) Social Skills
2 78 (7.15%) Finance
3 63 (5.77%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (5.59%) Banking
5 57 (5.22%) Telecoms
6 56 (5.13%) Public Sector
7 35 (3.21%) Investment Banking
8 32 (2.93%) Documentation Skills
9 23 (2.11%) Legal
10 22 (2.02%) Retail
11 18 (1.65%) Manufacturing
12 10 (0.92%) Police
13 9 (0.82%) Aerospace
13 9 (0.82%) Financial Institution
14 6 (0.55%) Law
14 6 (0.55%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 4 (0.37%) Military
16 4 (0.37%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.58%) 802.1X
2 15 (1.37%) REST
3 10 (0.92%) SAML
4 8 (0.73%) NETCONF
5 5 (0.46%) JSON
5 5 (0.46%) 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 (0.092%) AWS CDK
8 1 (0.092%) ModSecurity
8 1 (0.092%) OpenTelemetry
8 1 (0.092%) RESTCONF
8 1 (0.092%) XML
8 1 (0.092%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 187 (17.14%) Data Centre
2 41 (3.76%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (2.57%) PKI
4 25 (2.29%) Cloud Native
5 21 (1.92%) Management Information System
6 20 (1.83%) Driving Licence
7 19 (1.74%) Onboarding
8 15 (1.37%) Operational Technology
8 15 (1.37%) Security Posture
9 13 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (1.01%) IoT
11 10 (0.92%) Linux Command Line
11 10 (0.92%) Public Cloud
11 10 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (0.64%) CCTV
12 7 (0.64%) Distributed Systems
12 7 (0.64%) Enterprise Cloud
12 7 (0.64%) NHS
13 6 (0.55%) Fibre Optics
13 6 (0.55%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 68 (6.23%) Windows
2 51 (4.67%) Linux
3 12 (1.10%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.55%) VMS
5 5 (0.46%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.46%) Unix
5 5 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (0.37%) 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 (0.092%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.092%) Solaris
9 1 (0.092%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (13.11%) Load Balancing
2 132 (12.10%) Migration
3 100 (9.17%) Problem-Solving
4 92 (8.43%) High Availability
5 91 (8.34%) Project Delivery
6 77 (7.06%) ITIL
7 73 (6.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 73 (6.69%) Network Design
8 72 (6.60%) Infrastructure as Code
9 68 (6.23%) Change Management
10 67 (6.14%) Validation
11 62 (5.68%) Network Monitoring
12 47 (4.31%) CI/CD
12 47 (4.31%) Technical Leadership
13 45 (4.12%) Continuous Improvement
13 45 (4.12%) Zero Trust
14 43 (3.94%) DevOps
15 37 (3.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 36 (3.30%) Cloud Security
16 36 (3.30%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 127 (11.64%) Python
2 24 (2.20%) Bash
3 14 (1.28%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.73%) ActionScript
4 8 (0.73%) SQL
5 5 (0.46%) C++
6 3 (0.27%) C
6 3 (0.27%) Java
7 2 (0.18%) Bicep
7 2 (0.18%) Go
7 2 (0.18%) Groovy
7 2 (0.18%) Perl
7 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.092%) Lisp
8 1 (0.092%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 260 (23.83%) Security Cleared
2 241 (22.09%) Cisco Certification
3 180 (16.50%) CCNP
4 170 (15.58%) SC Cleared
5 98 (8.98%) CCNA
6 86 (7.88%) DV Cleared
7 46 (4.22%) CCIE
8 37 (3.39%) Degree
9 15 (1.37%) JNCIS
10 13 (1.19%) Network+ Certification
11 12 (1.10%) JNCIP
12 10 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
13 9 (0.82%) CCSE
13 9 (0.82%) CISSP
13 9 (0.82%) JNCIA
14 6 (0.55%) AWS Certification
14 6 (0.55%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.55%) DBS Check
15 5 (0.46%) CCIE Security
15 5 (0.46%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (2.29%) SLA
2 11 (1.01%) QA
3 9 (0.82%) NIST
4 8 (0.73%) Disclosure Scotland
5 6 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.18%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.18%) GDPR
6 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.18%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.092%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.092%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.092%) GRC
7 1 (0.092%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.092%) NIST 800
System Software
1 74 (6.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 32 (2.93%) Firmware
3 31 (2.84%) VMware NSX
4 29 (2.66%) Active Directory
5 13 (1.19%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (1.10%) vSphere
7 7 (0.64%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.37%) Docker
10 3 (0.27%) FreeRADIUS
10 3 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.18%) Squid
12 1 (0.092%) IAG
12 1 (0.092%) iptables
12 1 (0.092%) Snort
12 1 (0.092%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 97 (8.89%) Terraform
2 92 (8.43%) Ansible
3 77 (7.06%) FortiGate
4 23 (2.11%) Kubernetes
5 14 (1.28%) Cisco Prime
6 7 (0.64%) Grafana
6 7 (0.64%) Istio
6 7 (0.64%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.55%) Cisco CUCM
7 6 (0.55%) Nagios
8 5 (0.46%) Puppet
9 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (0.37%) Packer
9 4 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.37%) systemd
10 3 (0.27%) Cilium
10 3 (0.27%) TrustSec
11 2 (0.18%) Avamar
11 2 (0.18%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.18%) SCCM
Vendors
1 589 (53.99%) Cisco
2 223 (20.44%) Palo Alto
3 182 (16.68%) F5
4 159 (14.57%) Fortinet
5 112 (10.27%) Juniper
6 97 (8.89%) VMware
7 81 (7.42%) CheckPoint
8 70 (6.42%) Arista
9 65 (5.96%) Aruba
10 57 (5.22%) Microsoft
11 52 (4.77%) Meraki
12 44 (4.03%) Zscaler
13 38 (3.48%) Google
13 38 (3.48%) SolarWinds
14 30 (2.75%) Infoblox
15 28 (2.57%) ServiceNow
16 25 (2.29%) Blue Coat
17 20 (1.83%) McAfee
17 20 (1.83%) NetApp
17 20 (1.83%) Nokia