Network Engineer Contract Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the UK is £474, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 July 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 121 94
Rank change year-on-year -10 -27 +30
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,029 693 1,015
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.00% 2.25% 2.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.17% 2.45% 2.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 671 426 627
10th Percentile £303 £325 £300
25th Percentile £406 £400 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.13% - +5.56%
75th Percentile £544 £575 £550
90th Percentile £600 £625 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £463
% change year-on-year -2.63% +2.70% +8.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 9 20
10th Percentile £28.40 £22.41 £18.41
25th Percentile £55.00 £32.50 £23.04
Median hourly rate £72.54 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +45.08% +25.00% -35.48%
75th Percentile £78.75 £61.25 £73.75
90th Percentile - £70.25 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £35.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +108.57% -33.33% -15.32%

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 47,495 28,303 40,138
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.41% 92.03% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,760 18,119 25,771
10th Percentile £325 £288 £283
25th Percentile £415 £401 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,210 1,268 2,866
10th Percentile £15.72 £13.77 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.41 £16.50
Median hourly rate £43.00 £26.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.26% -29.33% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 1 July 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 -19 845 £475 -3.06% 391
UK excluding London -16 609 £463 -2.63% 370
London -36 284 £500 +4.17% 101
Work from Home -26 233 £450 -5.26% 88
North of England -15 212 £481 -2.18% 83
North West 0 159 £481 -3.75% 39
South East -18 155 £463 -7.50% 88
Midlands +3 116 £444 +3.20% 64
West Midlands +13 109 £438 +40.00% 28
Scotland +27 68 £413 -1.49% 26
East of England -3 42 £438 +14.38% 39
South West -44 41 £550 +4.76% 39
Yorkshire -48 40 £450 -8.54% 29
Wales -3 25 £425 - 18
North East -21 13 £600 +108.70% 15
East Midlands -21 4 £475 +5.56% 36
Northern Ireland +2 2 £468 -18.70% 16

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

For the 6 months to 1 July 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.

1 545 (52.96%) Cisco
2 449 (43.63%) Firewall
3 290 (28.18%) WAN
4 275 (26.72%) Security Cleared
5 252 (24.49%) Cisco Certification
6 245 (23.81%) BGP
7 241 (23.42%) LAN
8 236 (22.93%) Network Security
9 223 (21.67%) VPN
10 221 (21.48%) Palo Alto
11 199 (19.34%) SC Cleared
12 194 (18.85%) CCNP
13 181 (17.59%) DNS
14 180 (17.49%) F5
15 168 (16.33%) Wireless
16 164 (15.94%) OSPF
17 147 (14.29%) Fortinet
17 147 (14.29%) Load Balancing
18 134 (13.02%) VLAN
19 123 (11.95%) Azure
20 118 (11.47%) Juniper
20 118 (11.47%) Python
21 116 (11.27%) Migration
22 113 (10.98%) SD-WAN
23 104 (10.11%) CCNA
23 104 (10.11%) TCP/IP
24 99 (9.62%) High Availability
25 97 (9.43%) Wi-Fi
26 95 (9.23%) VMware
27 89 (8.65%) Problem-Solving

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 6 (0.58%) Confluence
2 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (0.29%) SAS
3 1 (0.097%) Apache
3 1 (0.097%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.097%) CMS
3 1 (0.097%) IIS
3 1 (0.097%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.097%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.097%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 18 (1.75%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.97%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 123 (11.95%) Azure
2 85 (8.26%) AWS
3 53 (5.15%) GCP
4 37 (3.60%) GitHub
5 16 (1.55%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 16 (1.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 12 (1.17%) Entra ID
6 12 (1.17%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 11 (1.07%) AWS CloudFormation
8 10 (0.97%) AWS Direct Connect
9 9 (0.87%) IaaS
10 7 (0.68%) Azure Sentinel
10 7 (0.68%) Microsoft 365
10 7 (0.68%) Nutanix
11 6 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (0.58%) Google Compute Engine
12 5 (0.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 5 (0.49%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.49%) Datadog
12 5 (0.49%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 449 (43.63%) Firewall
2 290 (28.18%) WAN
3 245 (23.81%) BGP
4 241 (23.42%) LAN
5 236 (22.93%) Network Security
6 223 (21.67%) VPN
7 181 (17.59%) DNS
8 168 (16.33%) Wireless
9 164 (15.94%) OSPF
10 134 (13.02%) VLAN
11 113 (10.98%) SD-WAN
12 104 (10.11%) TCP/IP
13 97 (9.43%) Wi-Fi
14 77 (7.48%) Cisco Nexus
15 74 (7.19%) MPLS
16 71 (6.90%) Multicast
17 68 (6.61%) BIG-IP
17 68 (6.61%) Cisco ISE
18 62 (6.03%) DHCP
19 58 (5.64%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.097%) ClickHouse
1 1 (0.097%) GIS
1 1 (0.097%) Oracle Reports
1 1 (0.097%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 29 (2.82%) Jenkins
1 29 (2.82%) JIRA
2 22 (2.14%) Fiddler
3 17 (1.65%) Git
4 9 (0.87%) Sonatype Nexus
5 8 (0.78%) GitLab
6 2 (0.19%) Browser DevTools
General
1 138 (13.41%) Social Skills
2 63 (6.12%) Finance
3 60 (5.83%) Banking
4 48 (4.66%) Analytical Skills
5 43 (4.18%) Telecoms
6 38 (3.69%) Investment Banking
7 37 (3.60%) Public Sector
8 35 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
9 22 (2.14%) Legal
10 21 (2.04%) Manufacturing
11 20 (1.94%) Retail
12 9 (0.87%) Aerospace
13 8 (0.78%) Law
14 7 (0.68%) Financial Institution
15 6 (0.58%) Pharmaceutical
15 6 (0.58%) Police
16 5 (0.49%) Influencing Skills
16 5 (0.49%) Military
16 5 (0.49%) Organisational Skills
16 5 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (4.47%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.07%) REST
3 10 (0.97%) SAML
4 8 (0.78%) LDAP
5 2 (0.19%) AWS CDK
5 2 (0.19%) CSS
5 2 (0.19%) Django
5 2 (0.19%) HTML
5 2 (0.19%) Jinja
5 2 (0.19%) RFC 2544
6 1 (0.097%) Java RMI
6 1 (0.097%) JSON
6 1 (0.097%) ModSecurity
6 1 (0.097%) NETCONF
6 1 (0.097%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.097%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 200 (19.44%) Data Centre
2 26 (2.53%) Hybrid Cloud
3 24 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (2.33%) PKI
4 23 (2.24%) Management Information System
5 21 (2.04%) Security Posture
6 16 (1.55%) Operational Technology
7 15 (1.46%) Onboarding
8 14 (1.36%) Cloud Native
9 10 (0.97%) NHS
10 9 (0.87%) Clustering
11 8 (0.78%) CCTV
12 7 (0.68%) Self-Motivation
13 6 (0.58%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 6 (0.58%) Enterprise Cloud
13 6 (0.58%) Linux Command Line
14 5 (0.49%) Public Cloud
15 4 (0.39%) Driving Licence
15 4 (0.39%) IoT
15 4 (0.39%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 74 (7.19%) Windows
2 41 (3.98%) Linux
3 13 (1.26%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.58%) Unix
4 6 (0.58%) VMS
5 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.19%) CatOS
8 2 (0.19%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.19%) zOS
9 1 (0.097%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.097%) Solaris
9 1 (0.097%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.097%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (14.29%) Load Balancing
2 116 (11.27%) Migration
3 99 (9.62%) High Availability
4 89 (8.65%) Problem-Solving
5 75 (7.29%) Project Delivery
6 67 (6.51%) ITIL
7 66 (6.41%) Network Design
8 64 (6.22%) Network Monitoring
9 60 (5.83%) Change Management
10 59 (5.73%) Infrastructure as Code
11 55 (5.34%) Validation
12 53 (5.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 42 (4.08%) Zero Trust
14 41 (3.98%) Data Protection
14 41 (3.98%) Technical Leadership
15 40 (3.89%) DevOps
15 40 (3.89%) ITSM
16 39 (3.79%) CI/CD
16 39 (3.79%) Continuous Improvement
17 36 (3.50%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 118 (11.47%) Python
2 15 (1.46%) Bash
3 11 (1.07%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.87%) ActionScript
5 8 (0.78%) SQL
6 3 (0.29%) Bicep
6 3 (0.29%) C
6 3 (0.29%) Java
7 2 (0.19%) C++
7 2 (0.19%) Groovy
7 2 (0.19%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.19%) Perl
8 1 (0.097%) Go
8 1 (0.097%) Korn
8 1 (0.097%) Lisp
8 1 (0.097%) PHP
Qualifications
1 275 (26.72%) Security Cleared
2 252 (24.49%) Cisco Certification
3 199 (19.34%) SC Cleared
4 194 (18.85%) CCNP
5 104 (10.11%) CCNA
6 82 (7.97%) DV Cleared
7 42 (4.08%) CCIE
7 42 (4.08%) Degree
8 15 (1.46%) JNCIA
8 15 (1.46%) JNCIS
9 13 (1.26%) Network+ Certification
10 11 (1.07%) JNCIP
11 10 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
12 9 (0.87%) CCSE
13 8 (0.78%) CISSP
14 6 (0.58%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.58%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.49%) AWS Certification
15 5 (0.49%) CCIE Wireless
15 5 (0.49%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (1.55%) SLA
2 12 (1.17%) NIST
3 11 (1.07%) QA
4 8 (0.78%) Disclosure Scotland
5 6 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.49%) GDPR
6 5 (0.49%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.39%) GRC
8 2 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.19%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.19%) NCSC
9 1 (0.097%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.097%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.097%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.097%) PMO
System Software
1 69 (6.71%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (3.50%) VMware NSX
3 33 (3.21%) Firmware
4 30 (2.92%) Active Directory
5 16 (1.55%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (1.26%) vSphere
7 6 (0.58%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) vCloud
11 1 (0.097%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.097%) Docker
11 1 (0.097%) FreeRADIUS
11 1 (0.097%) IAG
11 1 (0.097%) iptables
11 1 (0.097%) KVM
11 1 (0.097%) Snort
11 1 (0.097%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 87 (8.45%) Ansible
2 81 (7.87%) Terraform
3 75 (7.29%) FortiGate
4 9 (0.87%) Grafana
5 8 (0.78%) Cisco Prime
5 8 (0.78%) Kubernetes
5 8 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (0.68%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.39%) Packer
7 4 (0.39%) Puppet
8 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (0.19%) Avamar
9 2 (0.19%) CASB
9 2 (0.19%) Istio
9 2 (0.19%) Nagios
9 2 (0.19%) Nessus
9 2 (0.19%) Tivoli NetView
9 2 (0.19%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.19%) WSUS
Vendors
1 545 (52.96%) Cisco
2 221 (21.48%) Palo Alto
3 180 (17.49%) F5
4 147 (14.29%) Fortinet
5 118 (11.47%) Juniper
6 95 (9.23%) VMware
7 76 (7.39%) CheckPoint
8 72 (7.00%) Aruba
9 68 (6.61%) Arista
10 51 (4.96%) Meraki
11 49 (4.76%) Microsoft
12 39 (3.79%) SolarWinds
13 38 (3.69%) Zscaler
14 33 (3.21%) Google
15 31 (3.01%) Blue Coat
15 31 (3.01%) Infoblox
16 27 (2.62%) ServiceNow
17 25 (2.43%) McAfee
18 21 (2.04%) Extreme Networks
19 20 (1.94%) Splunk