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 16 October 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 169 92
Rank change year-on-year +24 -77 +20
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,100 582 960
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.99% 1.75% 2.55%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.16% 1.92% 2.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 628 385 549
10th Percentile £304 £314 £318
25th Percentile £400 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year - -3.06% +8.89%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £588
90th Percentile £620 £638 £649
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -2.53% - +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 13 18
10th Percentile £8.00 £21.01 £19.55
25th Percentile £49.00 £22.50 £20.00
Median hourly rate £68.75 £34.00 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +102.21% -18.07% -32.24%
75th Percentile £78.75 £58.75 £54.69
90th Percentile £92.53 £79.85 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.75 £35.00 £21.39
% change year-on-year +96.43% +63.65% -67.58%

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 50,844 30,247 34,978
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.93% 90.91% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,853 19,090 21,121
10th Percentile £325 £277 £300
25th Percentile £425 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,177 1,669 1,428
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.80 £15.05
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £41.08
Median % change year-on-year +63.24% -38.77% -8.72%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.32 £25.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +61.28% -39.76% -6.74%

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 16 October 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 16 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Engineer in the UK

Network Engineer
Top 18 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 16 October 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 +15 896 £475 -2.06% 191
UK excluding London -1 638 £463 -2.53% 177
London +16 340 £500 +5.26% 39
North of England +25 246 £500 +2.15% 37
Work from Home -42 219 £463 +1.42% 50
North West +27 169 £500 +2.30% 11
Midlands -14 105 £475 +18.75% 36
West Midlands -23 83 £475 +23.38% 18
South East -69 83 £463 -7.50% 39
Scotland +7 81 £390 -8.24% 9
Yorkshire -4 64 £463 -5.52% 20
East of England +6 60 £420 +9.80% 15
South West -6 59 £535 -13.71% 29
Wales +22 37 £363 - 12
East Midlands +10 22 £475 -26.92% 18
North East -27 13 £600 -4.00% 6
Northern Ireland +1 2 £425 -10.53% 2
Channel Islands -3 2 £600 +36.36%

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

For the 6 months to 16 October 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.

1 584 (53.09%) Cisco
2 429 (39.00%) Firewall
3 290 (26.36%) WAN
4 244 (22.18%) BGP
5 239 (21.73%) Security Cleared
6 238 (21.64%) Network Security
7 224 (20.36%) LAN
7 224 (20.36%) VPN
8 223 (20.27%) Cisco Certification
9 212 (19.27%) Palo Alto
10 210 (19.09%) Wireless
11 175 (15.91%) CCNP
12 160 (14.55%) OSPF
13 157 (14.27%) DNS
14 154 (14.00%) Fortinet
15 152 (13.82%) SC Cleared
16 146 (13.27%) Python
16 146 (13.27%) VLAN
17 132 (12.00%) Azure
17 132 (12.00%) F5
17 132 (12.00%) Migration
18 118 (10.73%) Load Balancing
19 116 (10.55%) Problem-Solving
20 115 (10.45%) TCP/IP
21 109 (9.91%) SD-WAN
22 106 (9.64%) Wi-Fi
23 100 (9.09%) Project Delivery
24 99 (9.00%) Ansible
25 91 (8.27%) CCNA
25 91 (8.27%) MPLS

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 10 (0.91%) Confluence
2 8 (0.73%) SAS
3 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (0.45%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.18%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.091%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.091%) CMS
5 1 (0.091%) FactoryTalk
5 1 (0.091%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 12 (1.09%) MS Visio
2 11 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.091%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.091%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 132 (12.00%) Azure
2 84 (7.64%) AWS
3 44 (4.00%) GCP
4 34 (3.09%) GitHub
5 26 (2.36%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 19 (1.73%) AWS Direct Connect
7 17 (1.55%) Microsoft 365
8 14 (1.27%) Entra ID
9 13 (1.18%) AWS CloudFormation
10 12 (1.09%) IaaS
11 9 (0.82%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 7 (0.64%) GitHub Actions
13 6 (0.55%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 6 (0.55%) Nutanix
13 6 (0.55%) OCI
14 5 (0.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 5 (0.45%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (0.45%) Azure DevOps
14 5 (0.45%) Datadog
14 5 (0.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 429 (39.00%) Firewall
2 290 (26.36%) WAN
3 244 (22.18%) BGP
4 238 (21.64%) Network Security
5 224 (20.36%) LAN
5 224 (20.36%) VPN
6 210 (19.09%) Wireless
7 160 (14.55%) OSPF
8 157 (14.27%) DNS
9 146 (13.27%) VLAN
10 115 (10.45%) TCP/IP
11 109 (9.91%) SD-WAN
12 106 (9.64%) Wi-Fi
13 91 (8.27%) MPLS
14 70 (6.36%) Cisco ISE
14 70 (6.36%) Multicast
15 69 (6.27%) DHCP
16 66 (6.00%) Cisco ASA
17 64 (5.82%) Cisco Nexus
18 52 (4.73%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.55%) GIS
2 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.091%) BigQuery
3 1 (0.091%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.091%) Metadata
3 1 (0.091%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 41 (3.73%) Git
2 26 (2.36%) Jenkins
2 26 (2.36%) JIRA
3 11 (1.00%) Fiddler
3 11 (1.00%) GitLab
4 7 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.18%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.091%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.091%) Postman
General
1 132 (12.00%) Social Skills
2 106 (9.64%) Finance
3 75 (6.82%) Analytical Skills
4 71 (6.45%) Banking
5 67 (6.09%) Telecoms
6 51 (4.64%) Public Sector
7 31 (2.82%) Investment Banking
8 24 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
9 23 (2.09%) Legal
10 15 (1.36%) Retail
11 13 (1.18%) Manufacturing
12 9 (0.82%) Financial Institution
13 8 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
14 6 (0.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.55%) Police
15 5 (0.45%) Military
15 5 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.36%) Aerospace
16 4 (0.36%) Automotive
16 4 (0.36%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (8.18%) Terraform
2 41 (3.73%) 802.1X
3 23 (2.09%) REST
4 14 (1.27%) NETCONF
5 13 (1.18%) JSON
6 10 (0.91%) YAML
7 6 (0.55%) YANG
8 5 (0.45%) SAML
8 5 (0.45%) XML
9 3 (0.27%) Java RMI
10 2 (0.18%) eBPF
10 2 (0.18%) ModSecurity
10 2 (0.18%) pytest
10 2 (0.18%) RESTCONF
10 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
11 1 (0.091%) IDoc
11 1 (0.091%) OAuth
11 1 (0.091%) OpenAPI
11 1 (0.091%) Regular Expression
11 1 (0.091%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 184 (16.73%) Data Centre
2 37 (3.36%) Hybrid Cloud
3 26 (2.36%) Onboarding
3 26 (2.36%) PKI
4 25 (2.27%) Driving Licence
5 23 (2.09%) Cloud Native
5 23 (2.09%) Operational Technology
6 21 (1.91%) Management Information System
7 17 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
8 16 (1.45%) IoT
9 14 (1.27%) Public Cloud
9 14 (1.27%) Security Posture
10 10 (0.91%) Linux Command Line
10 10 (0.91%) SCADA
11 9 (0.82%) Data Protection Act
11 9 (0.82%) Fibre Optics
12 8 (0.73%) CMDB
12 8 (0.73%) Digital Signage
12 8 (0.73%) NHS
13 7 (0.64%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 68 (6.18%) Windows
2 55 (5.00%) Linux
3 19 (1.73%) Windows Server
4 12 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.45%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.45%) VMS
5 5 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
5 5 (0.45%) zOS
6 3 (0.27%) Unix
7 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.091%) macOS
8 1 (0.091%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.091%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.091%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.091%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (12.00%) Migration
2 118 (10.73%) Load Balancing
3 116 (10.55%) Problem-Solving
4 100 (9.09%) Project Delivery
5 84 (7.64%) Network Design
6 80 (7.27%) Validation
7 79 (7.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 75 (6.82%) Infrastructure as Code
9 72 (6.55%) ITIL
10 66 (6.00%) High Availability
11 64 (5.82%) Change Management
12 61 (5.55%) Stakeholder Management
12 61 (5.55%) Zero Trust
13 57 (5.18%) CI/CD
14 55 (5.00%) Network Monitoring
15 47 (4.27%) Network Segmentation
16 45 (4.09%) DevOps
17 42 (3.82%) Continuous Improvement
18 38 (3.45%) Cybersecurity
18 38 (3.45%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 146 (13.27%) Python
2 34 (3.09%) Bash
3 27 (2.45%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.82%) ActionScript
5 8 (0.73%) SQL
6 4 (0.36%) C++
6 4 (0.36%) Go
7 3 (0.27%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) Groovy
8 2 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.091%) Bicep
9 1 (0.091%) C
9 1 (0.091%) Java
Qualifications
1 239 (21.73%) Security Cleared
2 223 (20.27%) Cisco Certification
3 175 (15.91%) CCNP
4 152 (13.82%) SC Cleared
5 91 (8.27%) CCNA
6 76 (6.91%) DV Cleared
7 44 (4.00%) CCIE
8 29 (2.64%) Degree
9 15 (1.36%) CISSP
10 10 (0.91%) JNCIS
11 9 (0.82%) JNCIP
11 9 (0.82%) Network+ Certification
12 8 (0.73%) CCSE
13 6 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
13 6 (0.55%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.45%) CCIE Security
14 5 (0.45%) CCSA
14 5 (0.45%) Computer Science Degree
15 4 (0.36%) CWNA
15 4 (0.36%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (2.27%) SLA
2 16 (1.45%) NIST
3 14 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 13 (1.18%) QA
5 8 (0.73%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.27%) Data Quality
8 2 (0.18%) GDPR
8 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.091%) GRC
System Software
1 54 (4.91%) VMware Infrastructure
2 34 (3.09%) Active Directory
2 34 (3.09%) Firmware
3 22 (2.00%) VMware NSX
4 18 (1.64%) vSphere
5 10 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (0.73%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.45%) FreeRADIUS
8 4 (0.36%) Docker
8 4 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
10 1 (0.091%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 99 (9.00%) Ansible
2 61 (5.55%) FortiGate
3 30 (2.73%) Kubernetes
4 18 (1.64%) Cisco Prime
5 12 (1.09%) Nagios
6 9 (0.82%) Istio
7 7 (0.64%) Grafana
7 7 (0.64%) Progress Chef
8 6 (0.55%) Cisco CUCM
8 6 (0.55%) Puppet
9 5 (0.45%) Cilium
9 5 (0.45%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.36%) Packer
10 4 (0.36%) systemd
10 4 (0.36%) vRealize
11 3 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (0.27%) TrustSec
12 2 (0.18%) SolarWinds Orion
13 1 (0.091%) Single Sign-On
13 1 (0.091%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 584 (53.09%) Cisco
2 212 (19.27%) Palo Alto
3 154 (14.00%) Fortinet
4 132 (12.00%) F5
5 84 (7.64%) VMware
6 82 (7.45%) Juniper
7 79 (7.18%) Arista
8 78 (7.09%) Meraki
9 72 (6.55%) CheckPoint
10 57 (5.18%) Aruba
10 57 (5.18%) Microsoft
11 50 (4.55%) Zscaler
12 41 (3.73%) SolarWinds
13 26 (2.36%) Nokia
13 26 (2.36%) ServiceNow
14 24 (2.18%) Google
15 20 (1.82%) Blue Coat
15 20 (1.82%) Infoblox
16 16 (1.45%) Splunk
17 15 (1.36%) NetApp