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 31 March 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 150 116 88
Rank change year-on-year -34 -28 +60
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 814 679 1,072
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.83% 2.34% 2.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.99% 2.52% 2.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 544 421 649
10th Percentile £300 £313 £300
25th Percentile £404 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £535
90th Percentile £588 £625 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +5.56% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 5 27
10th Percentile £37.11 £31.10 £22.25
25th Percentile £53.55 £50.00 £24.75
Median hourly rate £71.94 £57.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.10% +43.75% -36.74%
75th Percentile £74.26 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.30 £73.25 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.54 £45.75 £53.75
% change year-on-year +58.56% -14.88% -13.31%

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 40,988 26,987 41,095
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.05% 92.82% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,540 17,745 26,925
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,566 944 2,532
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.02 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.72 £20.92 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.20% -25.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.91 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.88 £32.90
% change year-on-year +25.47% -3.09% -21.32%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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 -39 679 £500 +2.04% 279
UK excluding London -24 519 £475 +5.56% 264
Work from Home -11 217 £445 -6.32% 69
London -62 202 £500 - 60
South East +1 172 £488 -2.50% 72
North of England -45 160 £479 -0.65% 53
North West -16 138 £481 -0.26% 31
Midlands -2 97 £438 +2.94% 53
West Midlands +15 91 £438 +59.09% 31
Scotland +13 42 £413 - 19
East of England -12 37 £450 -10.00% 25
South West -38 35 £513 +8.47% 31
Wales -7 25 £425 +9.68% 10
Yorkshire -57 22 £440 -4.86% 16
East Midlands -50 3 £500 +11.11% 22
North East -13 1 - - 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 31 March 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.

1 438 (53.81%) Cisco
2 380 (46.68%) Firewall
3 282 (34.64%) Security Cleared
4 226 (27.76%) WAN
5 211 (25.92%) BGP
5 211 (25.92%) Cisco Certification
6 198 (24.32%) Palo Alto
6 198 (24.32%) SC Cleared
7 197 (24.20%) LAN
8 186 (22.85%) VPN
9 177 (21.74%) CCNP
10 172 (21.13%) Network Security
11 155 (19.04%) F5
12 151 (18.55%) OSPF
13 146 (17.94%) DNS
14 131 (16.09%) Load Balancing
15 126 (15.48%) Juniper
16 114 (14.00%) VLAN
17 111 (13.64%) TCP/IP
18 93 (11.43%) Wireless
19 92 (11.30%) DV Cleared
19 92 (11.30%) Python
20 89 (10.93%) CCNA
21 88 (10.81%) Azure
22 86 (10.57%) VMware
23 83 (10.20%) Problem-Solving
24 82 (10.07%) AWS
25 81 (9.95%) Ansible
25 81 (9.95%) Aruba
26 78 (9.58%) Fortinet

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 7 (0.86%) Confluence
1 7 (0.86%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.61%) Apache
2 5 (0.61%) IIS
3 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 17 (2.09%) MS Visio
2 8 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 88 (10.81%) Azure
2 82 (10.07%) AWS
3 48 (5.90%) GCP
4 23 (2.83%) GitHub
5 16 (1.97%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 15 (1.84%) Entra ID
7 10 (1.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 10 (1.23%) Microsoft 365
8 9 (1.11%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 8 (0.98%) Nutanix
10 7 (0.86%) AWS Direct Connect
11 6 (0.74%) Mimecast
11 6 (0.74%) Route 53
12 5 (0.61%) Google Compute Engine
13 4 (0.49%) Azure DevOps
13 4 (0.49%) Azure Sentinel
13 4 (0.49%) IaaS
13 4 (0.49%) SaaS
14 3 (0.37%) Google Ads
14 3 (0.37%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 380 (46.68%) Firewall
2 226 (27.76%) WAN
3 211 (25.92%) BGP
4 197 (24.20%) LAN
5 186 (22.85%) VPN
6 172 (21.13%) Network Security
7 151 (18.55%) OSPF
8 146 (17.94%) DNS
9 114 (14.00%) VLAN
10 111 (13.64%) TCP/IP
11 93 (11.43%) Wireless
12 76 (9.34%) Wi-Fi
13 75 (9.21%) SD-WAN
14 71 (8.72%) MPLS
15 69 (8.48%) Cisco ISE
16 65 (7.99%) Cisco Nexus
17 58 (7.13%) BIG-IP
18 56 (6.88%) SSL
19 55 (6.76%) IPsec
20 52 (6.39%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.37%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.12%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.12%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 30 (3.69%) Fiddler
2 22 (2.70%) Git
3 18 (2.21%) JIRA
4 17 (2.09%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.98%) GitLab
7 1 (0.12%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.12%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.12%) Jaeger
General
1 136 (16.71%) Social Skills
2 54 (6.63%) Banking
3 51 (6.27%) Public Sector
4 45 (5.53%) Documentation Skills
4 45 (5.53%) Finance
5 41 (5.04%) Analytical Skills
6 40 (4.91%) Investment Banking
7 32 (3.93%) Telecoms
8 22 (2.70%) Legal
9 21 (2.58%) Manufacturing
10 9 (1.11%) Law
11 8 (0.98%) Retail
12 6 (0.74%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.61%) Local Government
13 5 (0.61%) Military
14 4 (0.49%) Police
14 4 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
15 3 (0.37%) Electronics
15 3 (0.37%) Marketing
15 3 (0.37%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (5.16%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.11%) LDAP
2 9 (1.11%) SAML
3 4 (0.49%) REST
3 4 (0.49%) VML
4 3 (0.37%) CSS
4 3 (0.37%) HTML
4 3 (0.37%) JSON
5 2 (0.25%) AWS CDK
5 2 (0.25%) Django
5 2 (0.25%) NETCONF
5 2 (0.25%) OpenTelemetry
5 2 (0.25%) RFC 2544
5 2 (0.25%) XML
5 2 (0.25%) YANG
6 1 (0.12%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.12%) Loki
6 1 (0.12%) OpenConfig
Miscellaneous
1 167 (20.52%) Data Centre
2 25 (3.07%) Management Information System
3 24 (2.95%) Data Protection Act
4 19 (2.33%) Operational Technology
5 18 (2.21%) Hybrid Cloud
6 17 (2.09%) PKI
7 15 (1.84%) Security Posture
8 13 (1.60%) NHS
9 12 (1.47%) Onboarding
10 10 (1.23%) Public Cloud
10 10 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
11 9 (1.11%) Clustering
12 7 (0.86%) Cloud Native
13 5 (0.61%) IoT
14 4 (0.49%) CMDB
14 4 (0.49%) Enterprise Cloud
14 4 (0.49%) Hedge funds
14 4 (0.49%) Mainframe
14 4 (0.49%) Virtual Team
15 3 (0.37%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 59 (7.25%) Windows
2 32 (3.93%) Linux
3 18 (2.21%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.61%) Unix
5 4 (0.49%) CatOS
5 4 (0.49%) zOS
6 1 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.12%) Solaris
6 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (16.09%) Load Balancing
2 83 (10.20%) Problem-Solving
3 70 (8.60%) Migration
4 69 (8.48%) High Availability
5 66 (8.11%) Network Design
6 57 (7.00%) Network Monitoring
7 50 (6.14%) Change Management
7 50 (6.14%) ITIL
8 42 (5.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 41 (5.04%) Project Delivery
10 37 (4.55%) DevOps
10 37 (4.55%) ITSM
11 36 (4.42%) Network Architecture
12 35 (4.30%) Infrastructure as Code
12 35 (4.30%) Validation
13 34 (4.18%) Network Management
13 34 (4.18%) Stakeholder Management
14 32 (3.93%) Collaborative Working
14 32 (3.93%) Data Protection
15 30 (3.69%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 92 (11.30%) Python
2 20 (2.46%) Bash
3 10 (1.23%) PowerShell
3 10 (1.23%) SQL
4 7 (0.86%) Perl
5 5 (0.61%) Lisp
6 3 (0.37%) Java
6 3 (0.37%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.25%) ActionScript
7 2 (0.25%) Bicep
7 2 (0.25%) Go
8 1 (0.12%) C
8 1 (0.12%) C++
8 1 (0.12%) Korn
8 1 (0.12%) PHP
8 1 (0.12%) Ruby
8 1 (0.12%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 282 (34.64%) Security Cleared
2 211 (25.92%) Cisco Certification
3 198 (24.32%) SC Cleared
4 177 (21.74%) CCNP
5 92 (11.30%) DV Cleared
6 89 (10.93%) CCNA
7 33 (4.05%) Degree
8 32 (3.93%) CCIE
9 30 (3.69%) JNCIS
10 23 (2.83%) JNCIA
11 20 (2.46%) JNCIP
12 11 (1.35%) Network+ Certification
13 10 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
14 5 (0.61%) AWS Certification
15 4 (0.49%) CCSE
15 4 (0.49%) CISSP
15 4 (0.49%) DBS Check
16 3 (0.37%) Azure Certification
16 3 (0.37%) CWNA
16 3 (0.37%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (1.23%) SLA
2 8 (0.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (0.98%) NIST
3 5 (0.61%) GDPR
3 5 (0.61%) PCI DSS
4 4 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
5 3 (0.37%) GRC
5 3 (0.37%) QA
6 2 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.25%) NCSC
6 2 (0.25%) PMO
7 1 (0.12%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.12%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.12%) JSP 440
System Software
1 59 (7.25%) VMware Infrastructure
2 47 (5.77%) VMware NSX
3 30 (3.69%) Firmware
4 28 (3.44%) Active Directory
5 7 (0.86%) Docker
5 7 (0.86%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (0.86%) vSphere
6 5 (0.61%) ProxySG
7 4 (0.49%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.25%) KVM
9 2 (0.25%) vCloud
9 2 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.12%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.12%) IAG
10 1 (0.12%) RHEV
10 1 (0.12%) Snort
10 1 (0.12%) Xen
Systems Management
1 81 (9.95%) Ansible
2 55 (6.76%) Terraform
3 53 (6.51%) FortiGate
4 13 (1.60%) Grafana
5 12 (1.47%) Prometheus
6 11 (1.35%) vCenter Server
7 8 (0.98%) Cisco Prime
7 8 (0.98%) Nagios
7 8 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.74%) Kubernetes
8 6 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (0.49%) Tivoli NetView
10 2 (0.25%) Salt
10 2 (0.25%) WSUS
11 1 (0.12%) CASB
11 1 (0.12%) Iperf
11 1 (0.12%) Proxmox
11 1 (0.12%) SCOM
11 1 (0.12%) Suricata
11 1 (0.12%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 438 (53.81%) Cisco
2 198 (24.32%) Palo Alto
3 155 (19.04%) F5
4 126 (15.48%) Juniper
5 86 (10.57%) VMware
6 81 (9.95%) Aruba
7 78 (9.58%) Fortinet
8 74 (9.09%) CheckPoint
9 54 (6.63%) SolarWinds
10 50 (6.14%) Meraki
11 43 (5.28%) Arista
11 43 (5.28%) Blue Coat
12 40 (4.91%) McAfee
13 36 (4.42%) Microsoft
14 24 (2.95%) Google
14 24 (2.95%) NetApp
14 24 (2.95%) ServiceNow
15 20 (2.46%) Ekahau
16 19 (2.33%) Infoblox
16 19 (2.33%) Splunk