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 9 June 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 122 93
Rank change year-on-year -9 -29 +34
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 982 675 1,014
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.98% 2.31% 2.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.14% 2.50% 2.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 645 412 622
10th Percentile £300 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £390 £366
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% - +2.70%
75th Percentile £550 £569 £538
90th Percentile £600 £625 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £464 £450
% change year-on-year -0.86% +3.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 9 20
10th Percentile £49.38 £22.41 £18.14
25th Percentile £70.87 £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 45,859 27,036 40,213
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.35% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,926 17,399 25,887
10th Percentile £325 £287 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -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 3,063 1,119 2,897
10th Percentile £15.15 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.84 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.61 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.73% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.47 £61.75
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 9 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 9 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 9 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% 220
UK excluding London -13 583 £460 -0.86% 216
London -31 268 £500 - 63
Work from Home -21 238 £445 -6.32% 58
North of England -28 182 £474 -3.66% 42
South East -1 173 £463 -7.50% 56
North West -8 137 £474 -5.20% 19
Midlands +4 113 £438 +6.06% 28
West Midlands +9 106 £431 +56.82% 16
Scotland +13 55 £415 +3.75% 20
East of England -9 45 £438 +14.38% 22
South West -42 40 £533 +1.52% 26
Yorkshire -59 32 £450 -8.54% 17
Wales -7 26 £425 +21.43% 14
North East -14 13 £600 +108.70% 6
East Midlands -38 3 £488 +8.33% 12
Northern Ireland +3 2 £468 -18.70% 10

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

For the 6 months to 9 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.

1 515 (52.44%) Cisco
2 425 (43.28%) Firewall
3 282 (28.72%) Security Cleared
4 269 (27.39%) WAN
5 242 (24.64%) Cisco Certification
6 233 (23.73%) BGP
6 233 (23.73%) LAN
7 227 (23.12%) Palo Alto
8 221 (22.51%) Network Security
9 209 (21.28%) SC Cleared
10 205 (20.88%) VPN
11 193 (19.65%) CCNP
12 180 (18.33%) F5
13 173 (17.62%) DNS
14 159 (16.19%) OSPF
15 144 (14.66%) Load Balancing
16 139 (14.15%) VLAN
17 136 (13.85%) Wireless
18 133 (13.54%) Fortinet
19 123 (12.53%) Azure
20 110 (11.20%) Juniper
21 106 (10.79%) TCP/IP
22 105 (10.69%) Migration
22 105 (10.69%) SD-WAN
23 104 (10.59%) Python
24 95 (9.67%) High Availability
24 95 (9.67%) Wi-Fi
25 93 (9.47%) CCNA
26 92 (9.37%) Problem-Solving
27 90 (9.16%) 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 (0.81%) 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 16 (1.63%) MS Visio
2 9 (0.92%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 123 (12.53%) Azure
2 86 (8.76%) AWS
3 55 (5.60%) GCP
4 33 (3.36%) GitHub
5 16 (1.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (1.43%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 14 (1.43%) Entra ID
7 13 (1.32%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 11 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
9 10 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
10 9 (0.92%) AWS Direct Connect
11 8 (0.81%) Azure Sentinel
12 7 (0.71%) IaaS
12 7 (0.71%) Nutanix
13 6 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
13 6 (0.61%) Google Compute Engine
13 6 (0.61%) Route 53
14 5 (0.51%) Mimecast
14 5 (0.51%) SaaS
15 3 (0.31%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 425 (43.28%) Firewall
2 269 (27.39%) WAN
3 233 (23.73%) BGP
3 233 (23.73%) LAN
4 221 (22.51%) Network Security
5 205 (20.88%) VPN
6 173 (17.62%) DNS
7 159 (16.19%) OSPF
8 139 (14.15%) VLAN
9 136 (13.85%) Wireless
10 106 (10.79%) TCP/IP
11 105 (10.69%) SD-WAN
12 95 (9.67%) Wi-Fi
13 75 (7.64%) Cisco Nexus
14 68 (6.92%) BIG-IP
14 68 (6.92%) Multicast
15 67 (6.82%) MPLS
16 62 (6.31%) SSL
17 61 (6.21%) Cisco ISE
18 60 (6.11%) 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 (2.75%) JIRA
2 25 (2.55%) Fiddler
2 25 (2.55%) Jenkins
3 17 (1.73%) Git
4 10 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
5 8 (0.81%) GitLab
6 2 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
General
1 128 (13.03%) Social Skills
2 57 (5.80%) Banking
3 56 (5.70%) Finance
4 43 (4.38%) Analytical Skills
5 40 (4.07%) Investment Banking
6 38 (3.87%) Telecoms
7 37 (3.77%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (3.26%) Public Sector
9 25 (2.55%) Manufacturing
10 23 (2.34%) Legal
11 17 (1.73%) Retail
12 10 (1.02%) Law
13 9 (0.92%) Aerospace
14 7 (0.71%) Financial Institution
15 6 (0.61%) Military
15 6 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
16 5 (0.51%) Police
17 4 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
18 3 (0.31%) Influencing Skills
19 2 (0.20%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (4.68%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.12%) REST
3 9 (0.92%) SAML
4 8 (0.81%) 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
1 206 (20.98%) Data Centre
2 27 (2.75%) Data Protection Act
3 25 (2.55%) Hybrid Cloud
4 24 (2.44%) PKI
5 23 (2.34%) Management Information System
6 20 (2.04%) Security Posture
7 14 (1.43%) Onboarding
7 14 (1.43%) Operational Technology
8 12 (1.22%) Cloud Native
9 9 (0.92%) Clustering
9 9 (0.92%) NHS
9 9 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (0.71%) CCTV
11 6 (0.61%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 6 (0.61%) Enterprise Cloud
11 6 (0.61%) Linux Command Line
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 (6.92%) Windows
2 43 (4.38%) Linux
3 13 (1.32%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.71%) 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
1 144 (14.66%) Load Balancing
2 105 (10.69%) Migration
3 95 (9.67%) High Availability
4 92 (9.37%) Problem-Solving
5 72 (7.33%) Network Monitoring
5 72 (7.33%) Project Delivery
6 61 (6.21%) Network Design
7 59 (6.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 59 (6.01%) ITIL
8 53 (5.40%) Infrastructure as Code
9 49 (4.99%) Change Management
10 47 (4.79%) Validation
11 43 (4.38%) Data Protection
12 41 (4.18%) Technical Leadership
13 39 (3.97%) ITSM
14 38 (3.87%) Network Management
15 37 (3.77%) DevOps
16 36 (3.67%) CI/CD
16 36 (3.67%) Zero Trust
17 33 (3.36%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 104 (10.59%) Python
2 14 (1.43%) Bash
3 9 (0.92%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.81%) SQL
5 7 (0.71%) 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
1 282 (28.72%) Security Cleared
2 242 (24.64%) Cisco Certification
3 209 (21.28%) SC Cleared
4 193 (19.65%) CCNP
5 93 (9.47%) CCNA
6 83 (8.45%) DV Cleared
7 41 (4.18%) Degree
8 36 (3.67%) CCIE
9 17 (1.73%) JNCIA
9 17 (1.73%) JNCIS
9 17 (1.73%) Network+ Certification
10 12 (1.22%) JNCIP
11 11 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
12 9 (0.92%) CCSE
13 7 (0.71%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.61%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.51%) CCSM
15 5 (0.51%) CISSP
15 5 (0.51%) CWNA
15 5 (0.51%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (1.53%) SLA
2 13 (1.32%) NIST
3 11 (1.12%) QA
4 8 (0.81%) 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 65 (6.62%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (3.67%) VMware NSX
3 33 (3.36%) Firmware
4 27 (2.75%) Active Directory
5 12 (1.22%) 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%) Squid
11 2 (0.20%) vCloud
12 1 (0.10%) Citrix Presentation Server
12 1 (0.10%) Docker
12 1 (0.10%) FreeRADIUS
12 1 (0.10%) IAG
12 1 (0.10%) iptables
12 1 (0.10%) KVM
12 1 (0.10%) Snort
Systems Management
1 89 (9.06%) Ansible
2 76 (7.74%) Terraform
3 67 (6.82%) FortiGate
4 9 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
4 9 (0.92%) Grafana
5 8 (0.81%) Kubernetes
5 8 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (0.71%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (0.51%) Nagios
9 2 (0.20%) Avamar
9 2 (0.20%) CASB
9 2 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (0.20%) Istio
9 2 (0.20%) Packer
9 2 (0.20%) Puppet
9 2 (0.20%) Salt
9 2 (0.20%) SCOM
9 2 (0.20%) Tivoli NetView
9 2 (0.20%) WSUS
Vendors
1 515 (52.44%) Cisco
2 227 (23.12%) Palo Alto
3 180 (18.33%) F5
4 133 (13.54%) Fortinet
5 110 (11.20%) Juniper
6 90 (9.16%) VMware
7 83 (8.45%) Aruba
8 75 (7.64%) CheckPoint
9 63 (6.42%) Arista
10 46 (4.68%) Microsoft
11 45 (4.58%) Meraki
12 42 (4.28%) SolarWinds
13 34 (3.46%) Blue Coat
14 32 (3.26%) Google
14 32 (3.26%) Zscaler
15 28 (2.85%) Infoblox
15 28 (2.85%) ServiceNow
16 27 (2.75%) McAfee
17 21 (2.14%) Extreme Networks
17 21 (2.14%) NetApp