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 8 May 2026.

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

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 132 92
Rank change year-on-year -5 -40 +44
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 926 630 1,025
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.95% 2.16% 2.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.12% 2.34% 2.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 605 382 625
10th Percentile £303 £314 £299
25th Percentile £400 £389 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £460
Median % change year-on-year - +3.26% -2.65%
75th Percentile £544 £563 £538
90th Percentile £600 £613 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +2.78% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 5 22
10th Percentile £44.00 £31.10 £18.72
25th Percentile £56.08 £50.00 £24.25
Median hourly rate £75.02 £57.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.47% +43.75% -36.74%
75th Percentile £78.75 £68.75 £73.75
90th Percentile - £73.25 £75.09
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.50 £45.75 £72.50
% change year-on-year +69.40% -36.90% +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 43,778 26,928 40,006
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 92.53% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,907 17,551 26,037
10th Percentile £319 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,831 1,044 2,664
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £28.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.04% -21.23% -18.89%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.59 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.76% -31.25% -5.35%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 -3 772 £475 -3.06% 258
UK excluding London -1 570 £463 +2.78% 236
London -35 238 £500 - 77
Work from Home -4 227 £440 -7.37% 89
South East +5 188 £475 -5.00% 74
North of England -41 162 £472 -0.63% 60
North West -16 130 £474 -1.76% 37
Midlands +3 109 £431 +1.47% 33
West Midlands +19 102 £423 +53.64% 30
Scotland +10 46 £413 +3.13% 18
East of England 0 46 £453 -4.74% 16
South West -35 43 £533 +10.18% 23
Wales -6 26 £425 +13.33% 15
Yorkshire -47 24 £450 -10.00% 15
North East -10 8 £600 +108.70% 8
East Midlands -39 3 £500 +11.11% 3
Northern Ireland - 2 £468 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 8 May 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.

1 500 (54.00%) Cisco
2 408 (44.06%) Firewall
3 298 (32.18%) Security Cleared
4 247 (26.67%) WAN
5 235 (25.38%) Palo Alto
6 231 (24.95%) BGP
7 229 (24.73%) Cisco Certification
8 221 (23.87%) LAN
9 213 (23.00%) SC Cleared
10 202 (21.81%) Network Security
11 197 (21.27%) VPN
12 186 (20.09%) CCNP
13 182 (19.65%) F5
14 164 (17.71%) OSPF
15 162 (17.49%) DNS
16 136 (14.69%) Load Balancing
17 128 (13.82%) VLAN
18 122 (13.17%) Juniper
19 115 (12.42%) Wireless
20 112 (12.10%) Fortinet
21 103 (11.12%) TCP/IP
22 102 (11.02%) Azure
23 95 (10.26%) DV Cleared
23 95 (10.26%) Problem-Solving
24 94 (10.15%) CCNA
24 94 (10.15%) Python
25 93 (10.04%) SD-WAN
26 90 (9.72%) Migration
27 88 (9.50%) VMware
28 87 (9.40%) Aruba

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 (0.86%) Confluence
2 5 (0.54%) Apache
2 5 (0.54%) IIS
3 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.32%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.11%) CMS
5 1 (0.11%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (1.73%) MS Visio
2 7 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 102 (11.02%) Azure
2 76 (8.21%) AWS
3 52 (5.62%) GCP
4 24 (2.59%) GitHub
5 16 (1.73%) Entra ID
6 14 (1.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 11 (1.19%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 9 (0.97%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 9 (0.97%) Microsoft 365
8 9 (0.97%) Nutanix
9 6 (0.65%) AWS Direct Connect
9 6 (0.65%) Azure Sentinel
9 6 (0.65%) Google Compute Engine
9 6 (0.65%) Mimecast
9 6 (0.65%) Route 53
10 5 (0.54%) OCI
11 4 (0.43%) SaaS
12 3 (0.32%) Catchpoint
12 3 (0.32%) GitHub Actions
12 3 (0.32%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 408 (44.06%) Firewall
2 247 (26.67%) WAN
3 231 (24.95%) BGP
4 221 (23.87%) LAN
5 202 (21.81%) Network Security
6 197 (21.27%) VPN
7 164 (17.71%) OSPF
8 162 (17.49%) DNS
9 128 (13.82%) VLAN
10 115 (12.42%) Wireless
11 103 (11.12%) TCP/IP
12 93 (10.04%) SD-WAN
13 81 (8.75%) Cisco Nexus
14 80 (8.64%) Wi-Fi
15 71 (7.67%) MPLS
16 68 (7.34%) BIG-IP
17 65 (7.02%) Cisco ISE
17 65 (7.02%) IPsec
18 64 (6.91%) Multicast
19 57 (6.16%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.32%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.11%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 28 (3.02%) Fiddler
2 20 (2.16%) Git
3 18 (1.94%) JIRA
4 17 (1.84%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.08%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.86%) GitLab
7 2 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.11%) Jaeger
General
1 130 (14.04%) Social Skills
2 56 (6.05%) Banking
3 45 (4.86%) Finance
4 43 (4.64%) Documentation Skills
5 42 (4.54%) Analytical Skills
5 42 (4.54%) Public Sector
6 40 (4.32%) Investment Banking
7 38 (4.10%) Telecoms
8 28 (3.02%) Manufacturing
9 22 (2.38%) Legal
10 17 (1.84%) Retail
11 10 (1.08%) Aerospace
11 10 (1.08%) Law
12 6 (0.65%) Military
12 6 (0.65%) Police
12 6 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.54%) Financial Institution
14 4 (0.43%) Local Government
15 3 (0.32%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.32%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (4.75%) 802.1X
2 12 (1.30%) SAML
3 11 (1.19%) LDAP
4 7 (0.76%) REST
5 4 (0.43%) VML
6 3 (0.32%) CSS
6 3 (0.32%) HTML
6 3 (0.32%) JSON
7 2 (0.22%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.22%) Django
7 2 (0.22%) Jinja
7 2 (0.22%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.22%) OpenTelemetry
7 2 (0.22%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.11%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.11%) Loki
8 1 (0.11%) XML
8 1 (0.11%) XMPP
8 1 (0.11%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 195 (21.06%) Data Centre
2 27 (2.92%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (2.59%) Hybrid Cloud
3 24 (2.59%) Management Information System
4 23 (2.48%) PKI
5 14 (1.51%) Operational Technology
5 14 (1.51%) Security Posture
6 12 (1.30%) NHS
6 12 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
7 11 (1.19%) Onboarding
8 9 (0.97%) Cloud Native
8 9 (0.97%) Clustering
9 8 (0.86%) Public Cloud
10 5 (0.54%) CCTV
10 5 (0.54%) CMDB
10 5 (0.54%) IoT
10 5 (0.54%) Virtual Team
11 4 (0.43%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 4 (0.43%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (0.43%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 61 (6.59%) Windows
2 37 (4.00%) Linux
3 14 (1.51%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.76%) Unix
5 4 (0.43%) CatOS
5 4 (0.43%) VMS
5 4 (0.43%) zOS
6 1 (0.11%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.11%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.11%) Solaris
6 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (14.69%) Load Balancing
2 95 (10.26%) Problem-Solving
3 90 (9.72%) Migration
4 85 (9.18%) High Availability
5 66 (7.13%) Network Monitoring
6 62 (6.70%) Network Design
7 54 (5.83%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 53 (5.72%) ITIL
8 53 (5.72%) Project Delivery
9 50 (5.40%) Change Management
10 46 (4.97%) Validation
11 43 (4.64%) Infrastructure as Code
12 40 (4.32%) Network Management
13 39 (4.21%) Data Protection
14 36 (3.89%) ITSM
15 35 (3.78%) Technical Leadership
16 34 (3.67%) DevOps
17 32 (3.46%) Zero Trust
18 31 (3.35%) Cloud Security
18 31 (3.35%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 94 (10.15%) Python
2 14 (1.51%) Bash
3 9 (0.97%) SQL
4 6 (0.65%) PowerShell
5 4 (0.43%) Java
6 3 (0.32%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.22%) ActionScript
7 2 (0.22%) Bicep
7 2 (0.22%) C
7 2 (0.22%) C++
7 2 (0.22%) Go
8 1 (0.11%) Korn
8 1 (0.11%) Lisp
8 1 (0.11%) Perl
8 1 (0.11%) PHP
8 1 (0.11%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 298 (32.18%) Security Cleared
2 229 (24.73%) Cisco Certification
3 213 (23.00%) SC Cleared
4 186 (20.09%) CCNP
5 95 (10.26%) DV Cleared
6 94 (10.15%) CCNA
7 38 (4.10%) Degree
8 30 (3.24%) CCIE
9 26 (2.81%) JNCIS
10 22 (2.38%) JNCIA
11 16 (1.73%) JNCIP
12 15 (1.62%) Network+ Certification
13 11 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
14 6 (0.65%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.65%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.54%) CCSE
16 4 (0.43%) AWS Certification
16 4 (0.43%) CWNA
16 4 (0.43%) DBS Check
17 3 (0.32%) CCIE Wireless
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (1.40%) SLA
2 8 (0.86%) NIST
2 8 (0.86%) QA
3 7 (0.76%) Disclosure Scotland
4 6 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (0.54%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.32%) GDPR
7 3 (0.32%) GRC
7 3 (0.32%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.22%) NCSC
8 2 (0.22%) PMO
9 1 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.11%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 63 (6.80%) VMware Infrastructure
2 43 (4.64%) VMware NSX
3 33 (3.56%) Firmware
4 26 (2.81%) Active Directory
5 9 (0.97%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.76%) vSphere
7 5 (0.54%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.22%) KVM
9 2 (0.22%) ProxySG
9 2 (0.22%) vCloud
10 1 (0.11%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.11%) Docker
10 1 (0.11%) IAG
10 1 (0.11%) iptables
10 1 (0.11%) RHEV
10 1 (0.11%) Snort
10 1 (0.11%) Xen
Systems Management
1 85 (9.18%) Ansible
2 66 (7.13%) Terraform
3 63 (6.80%) FortiGate
4 11 (1.19%) Grafana
4 11 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
5 9 (0.97%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.97%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.65%) Kubernetes
6 6 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (0.65%) Nagios
7 5 (0.54%) vCenter Server
8 4 (0.43%) Tivoli NetView
9 3 (0.32%) WSUS
10 2 (0.22%) Salt
10 2 (0.22%) SCOM
11 1 (0.11%) Cacti
11 1 (0.11%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.11%) SolarWinds Orion
11 1 (0.11%) WhatsUp Gold
11 1 (0.11%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 500 (54.00%) Cisco
2 235 (25.38%) Palo Alto
3 182 (19.65%) F5
4 122 (13.17%) Juniper
5 112 (12.10%) Fortinet
6 88 (9.50%) VMware
7 87 (9.40%) Aruba
8 86 (9.29%) CheckPoint
9 56 (6.05%) Arista
10 50 (5.40%) Meraki
11 47 (5.08%) SolarWinds
12 41 (4.43%) Microsoft
13 36 (3.89%) Blue Coat
14 31 (3.35%) McAfee
15 28 (3.02%) Google
15 28 (3.02%) Infoblox
16 25 (2.70%) Zscaler
17 23 (2.48%) NetApp
17 23 (2.48%) ServiceNow
18 20 (2.16%) Extreme Networks