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 19 February 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 165 113 91
Rank change year-on-year -52 -22 +66
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 681 741 1,042
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.67% 2.41% 2.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.82% 2.59% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 455 437 610
10th Percentile £293 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £406 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £478 £460
Median % change year-on-year -0.52% +3.80% -1.08%
75th Percentile £525 £575 £541
90th Percentile £588 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £465 £450
% change year-on-year - +3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 8 42
10th Percentile £21.98 £19.55 £24.28
25th Percentile £33.00 - £38.22
Median hourly rate £52.58 £20.00 £64.49
Median % change year-on-year +162.90% -68.99% +4.02%
75th Percentile £72.13 £24.92 £73.75
90th Percentile £74.09 £40.85 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.44 £20.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +182.20% -69.69% +6.42%

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 37,333 28,630 41,042
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.70% 92.94% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,462 17,805 26,973
10th Percentile £305 £288 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +0.63% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,275 814 2,320
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.50
Median hourly rate £31.18 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.31% -2.86% -9.09%
75th Percentile £63.32 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.25
% change year-on-year -7.69% -7.80% -0.48%

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 19 February 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 19 February 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 19 February 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 -55 568 £475 -5.00% 306
UK excluding London -48 425 £465 - 302
Work from Home -21 210 £430 -10.42% 83
London -69 184 £500 -0.99% 82
South East +8 146 £475 -5.00% 89
North of England -70 134 £481 +1.32% 56
North West -33 113 £481 -1.79% 34
Midlands -25 76 £438 -2.78% 41
West Midlands -7 70 £400 -9.35% 21
Scotland +9 42 £418 +0.60% 35
East of England -21 27 £363 +31.82% 28
South West -60 21 £500 +5.82% 43
Yorkshire -73 21 £470 +17.50% 15
Wales -8 15 £550 +62.96% 11
East Midlands -37 4 £500 +11.11% 20
Northern Ireland - 3 £475 - 5
North East -16 1 - - 7

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

For the 6 months to 19 February 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.

1 389 (57.12%) Cisco
2 331 (48.60%) Firewall
3 239 (35.10%) Security Cleared
4 189 (27.75%) WAN
5 186 (27.31%) Cisco Certification
6 173 (25.40%) Palo Alto
6 173 (25.40%) SC Cleared
7 168 (24.67%) LAN
8 161 (23.64%) CCNP
9 160 (23.49%) BGP
10 150 (22.03%) Network Security
11 149 (21.88%) VPN
12 122 (17.91%) DNS
13 118 (17.33%) F5
14 112 (16.45%) OSPF
15 107 (15.71%) Juniper
16 102 (14.98%) TCP/IP
17 98 (14.39%) Load Balancing
18 94 (13.80%) Python
19 91 (13.36%) VLAN
20 83 (12.19%) Problem-Solving
21 82 (12.04%) Ansible
22 81 (11.89%) CCNA
23 74 (10.87%) CheckPoint
23 74 (10.87%) Wireless
24 73 (10.72%) VMware
25 71 (10.43%) MPLS
26 70 (10.28%) Azure
27 69 (10.13%) DV Cleared
27 69 (10.13%) Wi-Fi

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 (1.47%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.17%) Confluence
3 6 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.73%) Apache
4 5 (0.73%) IIS
Applications
1 20 (2.94%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 70 (10.28%) Azure
2 68 (9.99%) AWS
3 29 (4.26%) GCP
4 15 (2.20%) Entra ID
5 13 (1.91%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 10 (1.47%) Microsoft 365
7 8 (1.17%) GitHub
8 7 (1.03%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 7 (1.03%) Nutanix
9 5 (0.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 5 (0.73%) Amazon EC2
9 5 (0.73%) Amazon ELB
9 5 (0.73%) Amazon S3
9 5 (0.73%) IaaS
9 5 (0.73%) Mimecast
9 5 (0.73%) SaaS
10 4 (0.59%) AWS Direct Connect
10 4 (0.59%) Cohesity
10 4 (0.59%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 4 (0.59%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 331 (48.60%) Firewall
2 189 (27.75%) WAN
3 168 (24.67%) LAN
4 160 (23.49%) BGP
5 150 (22.03%) Network Security
6 149 (21.88%) VPN
7 122 (17.91%) DNS
8 112 (16.45%) OSPF
9 102 (14.98%) TCP/IP
10 91 (13.36%) VLAN
11 74 (10.87%) Wireless
12 71 (10.43%) MPLS
13 69 (10.13%) Wi-Fi
14 63 (9.25%) Cisco ISE
15 62 (9.10%) SSL
16 61 (8.96%) SD-WAN
17 59 (8.66%) Cisco Nexus
18 49 (7.20%) IPsec
19 47 (6.90%) Wireshark
20 46 (6.75%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.44%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.15%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 30 (4.41%) Fiddler
2 18 (2.64%) Git
3 14 (2.06%) JIRA
4 12 (1.76%) Sonatype Nexus
5 11 (1.62%) Jenkins
6 10 (1.47%) GitLab
7 1 (0.15%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.15%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.15%) Robot Framework
General
1 135 (19.82%) Social Skills
2 54 (7.93%) Public Sector
3 43 (6.31%) Banking
4 42 (6.17%) Finance
5 41 (6.02%) Documentation Skills
6 37 (5.43%) Telecoms
7 36 (5.29%) Investment Banking
8 34 (4.99%) Analytical Skills
9 22 (3.23%) Manufacturing
10 19 (2.79%) Legal
11 8 (1.17%) Law
11 8 (1.17%) Local Government
12 6 (0.88%) Military
13 5 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.73%) Retail
14 4 (0.59%) Financial Institution
14 4 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 3 (0.44%) Electronics
15 3 (0.44%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.44%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.55%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.62%) SAML
3 8 (1.17%) LDAP
4 5 (0.73%) RFC 2544
5 4 (0.59%) JSON
5 4 (0.59%) Middleware
5 4 (0.59%) VML
6 3 (0.44%) CSS
6 3 (0.44%) HTML
6 3 (0.44%) YANG
7 2 (0.29%) Django
7 2 (0.29%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.29%) OpenTelemetry
7 2 (0.29%) REST
7 2 (0.29%) XML
8 1 (0.15%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.15%) AWS CDK
8 1 (0.15%) gRPC
8 1 (0.15%) Jinja
8 1 (0.15%) Loki
Miscellaneous
1 152 (22.32%) Data Centre
2 24 (3.52%) Management Information System
3 23 (3.38%) Data Protection Act
4 19 (2.79%) Onboarding
4 19 (2.79%) Operational Technology
5 18 (2.64%) PKI
6 16 (2.35%) Security Posture
7 12 (1.76%) Hybrid Cloud
7 12 (1.76%) NHS
8 11 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.17%) Hedge funds
9 8 (1.17%) Public Cloud
10 7 (1.03%) Clustering
10 7 (1.03%) Fibre Optics
11 5 (0.73%) Driving Licence
11 5 (0.73%) IoT
11 5 (0.73%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.59%) CMDB
12 4 (0.59%) Mainframe
13 3 (0.44%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 54 (7.93%) Windows
2 32 (4.70%) Linux
3 28 (4.11%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.59%) CatOS
4 4 (0.59%) Unix
5 3 (0.44%) zOS
6 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (14.39%) Load Balancing
2 83 (12.19%) Problem-Solving
3 61 (8.96%) Network Design
4 56 (8.22%) Migration
5 53 (7.78%) Network Monitoring
6 52 (7.64%) High Availability
7 43 (6.31%) Project Delivery
8 42 (6.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 38 (5.58%) Network Architecture
10 35 (5.14%) Change Management
10 35 (5.14%) Network Management
11 32 (4.70%) ITSM
11 32 (4.70%) Stakeholder Management
12 31 (4.55%) DevOps
13 29 (4.26%) Cybersecurity
13 29 (4.26%) ITIL
14 28 (4.11%) Collaborative Working
15 27 (3.96%) Data Loss Prevention
15 27 (3.96%) Malware Detection/Protection
16 25 (3.67%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 94 (13.80%) Python
2 24 (3.52%) Bash
3 13 (1.91%) PowerShell
4 11 (1.62%) Perl
5 8 (1.17%) Lisp
6 5 (0.73%) SQL
7 4 (0.59%) C++
8 3 (0.44%) Java
8 3 (0.44%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.29%) Go
10 1 (0.15%) ActionScript
10 1 (0.15%) Bicep
10 1 (0.15%) C
10 1 (0.15%) Korn
10 1 (0.15%) PHP
10 1 (0.15%) Ruby
10 1 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 239 (35.10%) Security Cleared
2 186 (27.31%) Cisco Certification
3 173 (25.40%) SC Cleared
4 161 (23.64%) CCNP
5 81 (11.89%) CCNA
6 69 (10.13%) DV Cleared
7 28 (4.11%) CCIE
8 27 (3.96%) JNCIS
9 25 (3.67%) Degree
10 21 (3.08%) JNCIA
11 17 (2.50%) JNCIP
12 11 (1.62%) Network+ Certification
13 6 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
14 5 (0.73%) CISSP
15 4 (0.59%) DBS Check
16 3 (0.44%) BPSS Clearance
16 3 (0.44%) CCDP
16 3 (0.44%) CompTIA Security+
16 3 (0.44%) GIAC
16 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 10 (1.47%) NIST
2 7 (1.03%) PCI DSS
3 6 (0.88%) GDPR
3 6 (0.88%) SLA
4 3 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
4 3 (0.44%) GRC
4 3 (0.44%) QA
5 2 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.29%) NCSC
5 2 (0.29%) PMO
6 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.15%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.15%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 48 (7.05%) VMware NSX
2 44 (6.46%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (5.43%) Active Directory
4 30 (4.41%) Firmware
5 11 (1.62%) Hyper-V
6 10 (1.47%) Docker
7 5 (0.73%) ProxySG
7 5 (0.73%) vSphere
8 4 (0.59%) KVM
9 3 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.29%) vCloud
10 2 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.15%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.15%) RACF
11 1 (0.15%) RHEV
11 1 (0.15%) Xen
Systems Management
1 82 (12.04%) Ansible
2 49 (7.20%) FortiGate
3 36 (5.29%) Terraform
4 20 (2.94%) vCenter Server
5 11 (1.62%) Grafana
6 10 (1.47%) Prometheus
6 10 (1.47%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (1.17%) Cisco Prime
8 7 (1.03%) Nagios
9 6 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.73%) Kubernetes
11 4 (0.59%) CASB
11 4 (0.59%) Tivoli NetView
12 3 (0.44%) Dell DRAC
12 3 (0.44%) SCCM
12 3 (0.44%) SCOrch
13 2 (0.29%) Salt
13 2 (0.29%) WSUS
14 1 (0.15%) OMEGAMON
14 1 (0.15%) SCOM
Vendors
1 389 (57.12%) Cisco
2 173 (25.40%) Palo Alto
3 118 (17.33%) F5
4 107 (15.71%) Juniper
5 74 (10.87%) CheckPoint
6 73 (10.72%) VMware
7 68 (9.99%) SolarWinds
8 66 (9.69%) Aruba
8 66 (9.69%) Fortinet
9 54 (7.93%) Meraki
10 47 (6.90%) Blue Coat
11 41 (6.02%) McAfee
12 37 (5.43%) Microsoft
13 35 (5.14%) Arista
14 23 (3.38%) NetApp
15 20 (2.94%) Splunk
16 19 (2.79%) ServiceNow
17 18 (2.64%) Nokia
17 18 (2.64%) Zscaler
18 12 (1.76%) Remedy