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 26 August 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 144 96
Rank change year-on-year +12 -48 +14
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,107 666 915
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.06% 2.04% 2.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.23% 2.23% 2.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 685 425 564
10th Percentile £313 £314 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £485
Median % change year-on-year - -2.06% +7.78%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £550
90th Percentile £625 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -1.05% - +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 13 15
10th Percentile £32.63 £22.12 £19.18
25th Percentile £62.81 £32.50 £21.57
Median hourly rate £75.75 £57.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +31.74% +9.52% -12.50%
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% -12.50%

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 49,591 29,856 36,116
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.45% 91.25% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,677 18,858 22,961
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £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 3,535 1,578 1,930
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.68 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.51 £17.08 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -1.44%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.83 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.47 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% +7.50%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +1 900 £478 -1.55% 288
UK excluding London 0 650 £470 -1.05% 206
London -23 319 £495 +4.21% 117
North of England +10 253 £498 +1.63% 48
Work from Home -23 228 £463 +0.11% 74
North West +19 175 £500 +5.26% 25
South East -46 123 £463 -7.50% 35
Midlands -17 104 £475 +18.75% 39
West Midlands -20 97 £475 +31.03% 21
Scotland +26 81 £400 -5.88% 13
Yorkshire -10 65 £450 -8.54% 18
South West -22 57 £550 -7.95% 34
East of England -8 45 £465 +18.85% 25
Wales +10 34 £425 - 13
North East -31 13 £600 - 6
East Midlands -20 5 £500 -13.04% 18
Northern Ireland -1 2 £488 -7.14% 5

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

For the 6 months to 26 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.

1 604 (54.56%) Cisco
2 448 (40.47%) Firewall
3 313 (28.27%) WAN
4 272 (24.57%) BGP
5 258 (23.31%) Security Cleared
6 247 (22.31%) VPN
7 245 (22.13%) Network Security
8 243 (21.95%) LAN
9 242 (21.86%) Cisco Certification
10 219 (19.78%) Palo Alto
11 200 (18.07%) Wireless
12 184 (16.62%) CCNP
13 181 (16.35%) DNS
14 180 (16.26%) F5
15 173 (15.63%) OSPF
16 170 (15.36%) SC Cleared
17 159 (14.36%) Fortinet
18 153 (13.82%) VLAN
19 144 (13.01%) Load Balancing
20 142 (12.83%) Azure
21 137 (12.38%) Migration
22 128 (11.56%) Python
23 120 (10.84%) SD-WAN
24 117 (10.57%) Wi-Fi
25 109 (9.85%) TCP/IP
26 98 (8.85%) Juniper
26 98 (8.85%) VMware
27 97 (8.76%) Ansible
28 96 (8.67%) Problem-Solving
29 95 (8.58%) CCNA

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 (0.72%) SAS
2 6 (0.54%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.45%) Confluence
3 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.090%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.090%) CMS
4 1 (0.090%) FactoryTalk
4 1 (0.090%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.090%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 15 (1.36%) MS Visio
2 12 (1.08%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 142 (12.83%) Azure
2 88 (7.95%) AWS
3 51 (4.61%) GCP
4 39 (3.52%) GitHub
5 25 (2.26%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 16 (1.45%) Microsoft 365
7 14 (1.26%) AWS Direct Connect
7 14 (1.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 11 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
9 10 (0.90%) Entra ID
9 10 (0.90%) IaaS
10 9 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (0.81%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 7 (0.63%) Nutanix
12 6 (0.54%) Azure DevOps
12 6 (0.54%) Azure Sentinel
12 6 (0.54%) OCI
13 5 (0.45%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.45%) Datadog
13 5 (0.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 448 (40.47%) Firewall
2 313 (28.27%) WAN
3 272 (24.57%) BGP
4 247 (22.31%) VPN
5 245 (22.13%) Network Security
6 243 (21.95%) LAN
7 200 (18.07%) Wireless
8 181 (16.35%) DNS
9 173 (15.63%) OSPF
10 153 (13.82%) VLAN
11 120 (10.84%) SD-WAN
12 117 (10.57%) Wi-Fi
13 109 (9.85%) TCP/IP
14 78 (7.05%) Multicast
15 76 (6.87%) Cisco ASA
16 75 (6.78%) DHCP
17 74 (6.68%) Cisco ISE
17 74 (6.68%) Cisco Nexus
18 73 (6.59%) MPLS
19 65 (5.87%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.18%) GIS
3 1 (0.090%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.090%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.090%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 31 (2.80%) Git
2 28 (2.53%) Jenkins
3 23 (2.08%) JIRA
4 16 (1.45%) Fiddler
4 16 (1.45%) GitLab
5 6 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.18%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
General
1 135 (12.20%) Social Skills
2 84 (7.59%) Finance
3 67 (6.05%) Analytical Skills
4 65 (5.87%) Banking
5 63 (5.69%) Telecoms
6 56 (5.06%) Public Sector
7 36 (3.25%) Investment Banking
8 31 (2.80%) Documentation Skills
9 22 (1.99%) Legal
9 22 (1.99%) Retail
10 19 (1.72%) Manufacturing
11 9 (0.81%) Aerospace
11 9 (0.81%) Police
12 7 (0.63%) Financial Institution
13 6 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
15 4 (0.36%) Automotive
15 4 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (0.36%) Law
15 4 (0.36%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (8.58%) Terraform
2 46 (4.16%) 802.1X
3 15 (1.36%) REST
4 8 (0.72%) NETCONF
4 8 (0.72%) SAML
5 5 (0.45%) JSON
5 5 (0.45%) 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 (0.090%) AWS CDK
8 1 (0.090%) Django
8 1 (0.090%) ModSecurity
8 1 (0.090%) RESTCONF
8 1 (0.090%) XML
8 1 (0.090%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 194 (17.52%) Data Centre
2 40 (3.61%) Hybrid Cloud
3 29 (2.62%) PKI
4 25 (2.26%) Cloud Native
5 21 (1.90%) Driving Licence
6 20 (1.81%) Management Information System
7 19 (1.72%) Onboarding
8 16 (1.45%) Operational Technology
9 12 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (0.99%) IoT
10 11 (0.99%) Public Cloud
10 11 (0.99%) Security Posture
11 10 (0.90%) Linux Command Line
11 10 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (0.63%) CCTV
12 7 (0.63%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 7 (0.63%) Distributed Systems
12 7 (0.63%) NHS
13 6 (0.54%) Fibre Optics
13 6 (0.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 72 (6.50%) Windows
2 55 (4.97%) Linux
3 12 (1.08%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.54%) VMS
5 5 (0.45%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.45%) Unix
5 5 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
7 3 (0.27%) zOS
8 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.090%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.090%) Solaris
9 1 (0.090%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (13.01%) Load Balancing
2 137 (12.38%) Migration
3 96 (8.67%) Problem-Solving
4 95 (8.58%) Project Delivery
5 92 (8.31%) High Availability
6 78 (7.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 77 (6.96%) Validation
8 76 (6.87%) ITIL
9 71 (6.41%) Infrastructure as Code
9 71 (6.41%) Network Design
10 65 (5.87%) Change Management
11 59 (5.33%) Network Monitoring
12 48 (4.34%) Zero Trust
13 46 (4.16%) Technical Leadership
14 44 (3.97%) CI/CD
15 42 (3.79%) DevOps
16 41 (3.70%) Continuous Improvement
17 37 (3.34%) Network Segmentation
17 37 (3.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 36 (3.25%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 128 (11.56%) Python
2 26 (2.35%) Bash
3 17 (1.54%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.72%) ActionScript
5 6 (0.54%) C++
5 6 (0.54%) SQL
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 (0.090%) Lisp
8 1 (0.090%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 258 (23.31%) Security Cleared
2 242 (21.86%) Cisco Certification
3 184 (16.62%) CCNP
4 170 (15.36%) SC Cleared
5 95 (8.58%) CCNA
6 84 (7.59%) DV Cleared
7 47 (4.25%) CCIE
8 32 (2.89%) Degree
9 13 (1.17%) CISSP
9 13 (1.17%) JNCIS
10 10 (0.90%) JNCIP
11 9 (0.81%) Network+ Certification
12 8 (0.72%) CCSE
12 8 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (0.63%) JNCIA
14 6 (0.54%) AWS Certification
14 6 (0.54%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.54%) CCIE Security
14 6 (0.54%) CWNA
14 6 (0.54%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (2.17%) SLA
2 12 (1.08%) QA
3 10 (0.90%) NIST
4 8 (0.72%) Disclosure Scotland
5 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.27%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.18%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.18%) GDPR
7 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.090%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.090%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.090%) GRC
8 1 (0.090%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.090%) NIST 800
System Software
1 73 (6.59%) VMware Infrastructure
2 32 (2.89%) Firmware
3 31 (2.80%) VMware NSX
4 28 (2.53%) Active Directory
5 12 (1.08%) vSphere
6 11 (0.99%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.63%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.36%) Docker
10 3 (0.27%) FreeRADIUS
10 3 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.18%) Squid
12 1 (0.090%) iptables
12 1 (0.090%) Snort
12 1 (0.090%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 97 (8.76%) Ansible
2 75 (6.78%) FortiGate
3 29 (2.62%) Kubernetes
4 14 (1.26%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.81%) Istio
6 6 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
6 6 (0.54%) Grafana
6 6 (0.54%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.54%) Puppet
7 5 (0.45%) Cilium
8 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.36%) Nagios
8 4 (0.36%) Packer
8 4 (0.36%) Progress Chef
8 4 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.36%) systemd
8 4 (0.36%) vRealize
9 3 (0.27%) TrustSec
10 2 (0.18%) Avamar
10 2 (0.18%) SCCM
Vendors
1 604 (54.56%) Cisco
2 219 (19.78%) Palo Alto
3 180 (16.26%) F5
4 159 (14.36%) Fortinet
5 98 (8.85%) Juniper
5 98 (8.85%) VMware
6 80 (7.23%) CheckPoint
7 73 (6.59%) Arista
8 64 (5.78%) Aruba
9 63 (5.69%) Meraki
10 57 (5.15%) Microsoft
11 43 (3.88%) Zscaler
12 36 (3.25%) SolarWinds
13 33 (2.98%) Google
14 28 (2.53%) Infoblox
15 25 (2.26%) Blue Coat
16 24 (2.17%) ServiceNow
17 23 (2.08%) Nokia
18 20 (1.81%) McAfee
18 20 (1.81%) NetApp