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 18 September 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 159 97
Rank change year-on-year +29 -62 +12
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,131 595 919
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.08% 1.81% 2.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.25% 1.98% 2.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 667 386 533
10th Percentile £306 £303 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £466 £495
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -5.96% +10.00%
75th Percentile £550 £567 £580
90th Percentile £625 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £455 £490
% change year-on-year +1.65% -7.14% +15.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 13 20
10th Percentile £28.60 £22.12 £19.85
25th Percentile £66.00 £32.50 £20.00
Median hourly rate £73.00 £41.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +75.90% -7.78% -26.23%
75th Percentile £91.00 £67.25 £67.50
90th Percentile £92.53 £80.15 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £38.25 £35.48
% change year-on-year +90.85% +7.81% -42.77%

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 50,223 30,015 35,830
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 91.09% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,737 18,953 22,040
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% -0.94%
75th Percentile £626 £623 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,829 1,585 1,681
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +2.86%

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 18 September 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 18 September 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 18 September 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 +21 923 £475 - 709
UK excluding London 0 644 £463 +1.65% 471
London +19 351 £500 +5.26% 290
North of England +25 249 £500 +3.09% 100
Work from Home -27 225 £475 +5.56% 223
North West +25 168 £500 +5.26% 51
Midlands -14 105 £475 +23.38% 69
South East -46 103 £463 -7.50% 103
West Midlands -17 91 £475 +25.83% 43
Scotland +14 80 £400 -5.88% 28
Yorkshire -3 68 £450 -8.07% 35
South West -8 58 £563 -5.86% 71
East of England -4 52 £435 +13.73% 79
Wales +21 35 £363 - 18
East Midlands -9 13 £500 -16.67% 26
North East -36 13 £600 - 14
Northern Ireland +1 3 £425 -10.53% 9
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 +36.36%

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

For the 6 months to 18 September 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.

1 617 (54.55%) Cisco
2 444 (39.26%) Firewall
3 313 (27.67%) WAN
4 263 (23.25%) BGP
5 252 (22.28%) Security Cleared
6 248 (21.93%) Network Security
7 239 (21.13%) LAN
7 239 (21.13%) VPN
8 230 (20.34%) Cisco Certification
9 224 (19.81%) Palo Alto
10 215 (19.01%) Wireless
11 180 (15.92%) CCNP
12 171 (15.12%) DNS
13 169 (14.94%) SC Cleared
14 168 (14.85%) OSPF
15 160 (14.15%) Fortinet
16 158 (13.97%) F5
17 155 (13.70%) VLAN
18 153 (13.53%) Python
19 136 (12.02%) Migration
20 135 (11.94%) Azure
21 127 (11.23%) Load Balancing
22 119 (10.52%) Wi-Fi
23 116 (10.26%) SD-WAN
24 109 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
25 106 (9.37%) TCP/IP
26 105 (9.28%) Ansible
27 96 (8.49%) Project Delivery
27 96 (8.49%) Terraform
28 91 (8.05%) 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 9 (0.80%) Confluence
2 8 (0.71%) SAS
3 6 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.53%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.088%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.088%) CMS
4 1 (0.088%) FactoryTalk
4 1 (0.088%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.088%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 14 (1.24%) MS Visio
2 12 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.088%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.088%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 135 (11.94%) Azure
2 85 (7.52%) AWS
3 43 (3.80%) GCP
4 41 (3.63%) GitHub
5 26 (2.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (1.50%) Microsoft 365
7 15 (1.33%) AWS Direct Connect
8 12 (1.06%) Entra ID
8 12 (1.06%) IaaS
9 11 (0.97%) AWS CloudFormation
10 9 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (0.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 6 (0.53%) Azure DevOps
11 6 (0.53%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 6 (0.53%) Nutanix
11 6 (0.53%) OCI
12 5 (0.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 5 (0.44%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.44%) Datadog
12 5 (0.44%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 444 (39.26%) Firewall
2 313 (27.67%) WAN
3 263 (23.25%) BGP
4 248 (21.93%) Network Security
5 239 (21.13%) LAN
5 239 (21.13%) VPN
6 215 (19.01%) Wireless
7 171 (15.12%) DNS
8 168 (14.85%) OSPF
9 155 (13.70%) VLAN
10 119 (10.52%) Wi-Fi
11 116 (10.26%) SD-WAN
12 106 (9.37%) TCP/IP
13 82 (7.25%) MPLS
14 78 (6.90%) Multicast
15 76 (6.72%) DHCP
16 72 (6.37%) Cisco Nexus
17 70 (6.19%) Cisco ISE
18 68 (6.01%) Cisco ASA
19 59 (5.22%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.53%) GIS
2 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.088%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.088%) Metadata
3 1 (0.088%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.088%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 37 (3.27%) Git
2 27 (2.39%) JIRA
3 25 (2.21%) Jenkins
4 14 (1.24%) GitLab
5 13 (1.15%) Fiddler
6 7 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.088%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.088%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.088%) Postman
General
1 136 (12.02%) Social Skills
2 90 (7.96%) Finance
3 69 (6.10%) Analytical Skills
3 69 (6.10%) Telecoms
4 64 (5.66%) Banking
5 52 (4.60%) Public Sector
6 33 (2.92%) Investment Banking
7 28 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
8 23 (2.03%) Legal
9 20 (1.77%) Retail
10 18 (1.59%) Manufacturing
11 10 (0.88%) Aerospace
12 9 (0.80%) Financial Institution
13 8 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
14 7 (0.62%) Police
15 6 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 5 (0.44%) Organisational Skills
17 4 (0.35%) Automotive
17 4 (0.35%) Law
17 4 (0.35%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (8.49%) Terraform
2 44 (3.89%) 802.1X
3 21 (1.86%) REST
4 12 (1.06%) NETCONF
5 10 (0.88%) JSON
6 9 (0.80%) YAML
7 7 (0.62%) SAML
8 5 (0.44%) XML
9 3 (0.27%) Java RMI
9 3 (0.27%) YANG
10 2 (0.18%) eBPF
10 2 (0.18%) Jinja
10 2 (0.18%) LDAP
10 2 (0.18%) ModSecurity
10 2 (0.18%) RESTCONF
10 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
11 1 (0.088%) AWS CDK
11 1 (0.088%) IDoc
11 1 (0.088%) Middleware
11 1 (0.088%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 204 (18.04%) Data Centre
2 40 (3.54%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (2.39%) PKI
4 25 (2.21%) Driving Licence
5 24 (2.12%) Onboarding
6 23 (2.03%) Cloud Native
7 22 (1.95%) Operational Technology
8 19 (1.68%) Management Information System
9 15 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
10 13 (1.15%) IoT
11 12 (1.06%) Public Cloud
11 12 (1.06%) Security Posture
12 10 (0.88%) Linux Command Line
12 10 (0.88%) SCADA
13 9 (0.80%) Data Protection Act
13 9 (0.80%) Fibre Optics
14 8 (0.71%) Digital Signage
14 8 (0.71%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 7 (0.62%) CCTV
15 7 (0.62%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 71 (6.28%) Windows
2 57 (5.04%) Linux
3 17 (1.50%) Windows Server
4 8 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.53%) VMS
6 5 (0.44%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.44%) Unix
6 5 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
6 5 (0.44%) zOS
7 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.18%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.088%) Solaris
9 1 (0.088%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.088%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.088%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (12.02%) Migration
2 127 (11.23%) Load Balancing
3 109 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
4 96 (8.49%) Project Delivery
5 86 (7.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 77 (6.81%) Infrastructure as Code
6 77 (6.81%) Validation
7 76 (6.72%) High Availability
8 73 (6.45%) Network Design
9 70 (6.19%) ITIL
10 62 (5.48%) Change Management
11 57 (5.04%) Zero Trust
12 55 (4.86%) Network Monitoring
13 52 (4.60%) CI/CD
14 44 (3.89%) Technical Leadership
15 43 (3.80%) Stakeholder Management
16 42 (3.71%) Continuous Improvement
16 42 (3.71%) DevOps
17 40 (3.54%) Network Segmentation
18 38 (3.36%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 153 (13.53%) Python
2 31 (2.74%) Bash
3 23 (2.03%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.80%) ActionScript
5 7 (0.62%) SQL
6 6 (0.53%) C++
7 3 (0.27%) C
7 3 (0.27%) Java
7 3 (0.27%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) Bicep
8 2 (0.18%) Go
8 2 (0.18%) Groovy
8 2 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.088%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 252 (22.28%) Security Cleared
2 230 (20.34%) Cisco Certification
3 180 (15.92%) CCNP
4 169 (14.94%) SC Cleared
5 87 (7.69%) CCNA
6 74 (6.54%) DV Cleared
7 47 (4.16%) CCIE
8 34 (3.01%) Degree
9 14 (1.24%) CISSP
10 11 (0.97%) JNCIS
11 9 (0.80%) JNCIP
11 9 (0.80%) Network+ Certification
12 7 (0.62%) CCSE
12 7 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
13 6 (0.53%) CCIE Security
13 6 (0.53%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.44%) BPSS Clearance
14 5 (0.44%) CWNA
15 4 (0.35%) CCIE Wireless
15 4 (0.35%) CCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (2.03%) SLA
2 16 (1.41%) QA
3 13 (1.15%) NIST
4 9 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
6 5 (0.44%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.27%) Data Quality
8 2 (0.18%) GDPR
8 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.088%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.088%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.088%) GRC
9 1 (0.088%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.088%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 61 (5.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (2.92%) Active Directory
3 31 (2.74%) Firmware
4 29 (2.56%) VMware NSX
5 15 (1.33%) vSphere
6 9 (0.80%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.71%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.35%) Docker
9 4 (0.35%) FreeRADIUS
10 3 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.18%) Squid
12 1 (0.088%) iptables
12 1 (0.088%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 105 (9.28%) Ansible
2 70 (6.19%) FortiGate
3 29 (2.56%) Kubernetes
4 16 (1.41%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.80%) Istio
6 8 (0.71%) Nagios
7 7 (0.62%) Grafana
8 6 (0.53%) Cisco CUCM
8 6 (0.53%) Puppet
9 5 (0.44%) Cilium
9 5 (0.44%) Progress Chef
9 5 (0.44%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.35%) Packer
10 4 (0.35%) systemd
10 4 (0.35%) vRealize
11 3 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.27%) TrustSec
12 2 (0.18%) Avamar
12 2 (0.18%) SCCM
Vendors
1 617 (54.55%) Cisco
2 224 (19.81%) Palo Alto
3 160 (14.15%) Fortinet
4 158 (13.97%) F5
5 91 (8.05%) VMware
6 87 (7.69%) Juniper
7 80 (7.07%) Arista
7 80 (7.07%) CheckPoint
8 77 (6.81%) Meraki
9 60 (5.31%) Aruba
10 55 (4.86%) Microsoft
11 52 (4.60%) Zscaler
12 40 (3.54%) SolarWinds
13 27 (2.39%) Nokia
14 25 (2.21%) Infoblox
14 25 (2.21%) ServiceNow
15 24 (2.12%) Blue Coat
16 22 (1.95%) Google
17 18 (1.59%) NetApp
18 16 (1.41%) McAfee