Network Engineer Contract Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the UK is £470, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 May 2026.

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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 128 93
Rank change year-on-year +1 -35 +39
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 959 636 1,003
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.99% 2.19% 2.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.15% 2.37% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 629 385 608
10th Percentile £300 £325 £297
25th Percentile £400 £390 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £475 £464
Median % change year-on-year -1.05% +2.43% +0.27%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £538
90th Percentile £600 £613 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +2.22% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 7 20
10th Percentile £44.86 £20.62 £18.14
25th Percentile £56.44 £22.27 £24.19
Median hourly rate £73.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.00% +25.00% -36.74%
75th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £73.75
90th Percentile - £71.75 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.25 £22.27 £72.50
% change year-on-year +237.97% -69.29% +16.94%

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 44,544 26,886 39,472
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.37% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,258 17,494 25,719
10th Percentile £325 £293 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.23%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £489
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.86% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,901 1,057 2,674
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £27.99 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.50% -23.32% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £26.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +70.88% -34.16% -5.88%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 21 May 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 -8 802 £475 -3.06% 262
UK excluding London -11 581 £460 +2.22% 268
London -22 255 £500 - 69
Work from Home -10 232 £445 -6.32% 67
South East +11 185 £463 -7.50% 77
North of England -35 172 £474 -3.66% 63
North West -6 139 £474 -5.20% 26
Midlands +13 112 £425 - 34
West Midlands +18 104 £425 +54.55% 24
East of England +5 46 £453 +3.43% 22
Scotland +11 45 £413 +3.13% 30
South West -33 45 £533 +12.80% 27
Wales -5 25 £425 +21.43% 17
Yorkshire -61 23 £450 -8.54% 22
North East -15 10 £600 +108.70% 15
East Midlands -37 4 £500 +11.11% 10
Northern Ireland - 2 £468 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 21 May 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.

1 505 (52.66%) Cisco
2 415 (43.27%) Firewall
3 302 (31.49%) Security Cleared
4 265 (27.63%) WAN
5 241 (25.13%) Cisco Certification
6 235 (24.50%) Palo Alto
7 232 (24.19%) LAN
8 230 (23.98%) BGP
9 227 (23.67%) SC Cleared
10 205 (21.38%) Network Security
11 201 (20.96%) VPN
12 193 (20.13%) CCNP
13 182 (18.98%) F5
14 165 (17.21%) DNS
15 162 (16.89%) OSPF
16 146 (15.22%) Load Balancing
17 130 (13.56%) VLAN
18 123 (12.83%) Wireless
19 117 (12.20%) Fortinet
20 113 (11.78%) Juniper
21 109 (11.37%) Azure
22 104 (10.84%) TCP/IP
23 98 (10.22%) Python
24 96 (10.01%) CCNA
25 95 (9.91%) Migration
25 95 (9.91%) SD-WAN
26 94 (9.80%) VMware
27 92 (9.59%) Problem-Solving
28 88 (9.18%) Aruba
28 88 (9.18%) DV Cleared

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 (0.83%) Confluence
2 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.31%) Apache
3 3 (0.31%) IIS
3 3 (0.31%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.10%) CMS
4 1 (0.10%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (1.67%) MS Visio
2 8 (0.83%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 109 (11.37%) Azure
2 79 (8.24%) AWS
3 52 (5.42%) GCP
4 27 (2.82%) GitHub
5 15 (1.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (1.46%) Entra ID
7 12 (1.25%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 11 (1.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 10 (1.04%) Microsoft 365
10 8 (0.83%) AWS Direct Connect
10 8 (0.83%) Nutanix
11 7 (0.73%) Azure Sentinel
12 6 (0.63%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (0.63%) Google Compute Engine
12 6 (0.63%) Route 53
13 5 (0.52%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.52%) Mimecast
14 4 (0.42%) SaaS
15 3 (0.31%) Catchpoint
15 3 (0.31%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 415 (43.27%) Firewall
2 265 (27.63%) WAN
3 232 (24.19%) LAN
4 230 (23.98%) BGP
5 205 (21.38%) Network Security
6 201 (20.96%) VPN
7 165 (17.21%) DNS
8 162 (16.89%) OSPF
9 130 (13.56%) VLAN
10 123 (12.83%) Wireless
11 104 (10.84%) TCP/IP
12 95 (9.91%) SD-WAN
13 88 (9.18%) Wi-Fi
14 78 (8.13%) Cisco Nexus
15 68 (7.09%) BIG-IP
16 66 (6.88%) MPLS
16 66 (6.88%) Multicast
17 63 (6.57%) IPsec
18 61 (6.36%) Cisco ISE
19 58 (6.05%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.31%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.10%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.10%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 27 (2.82%) Fiddler
2 21 (2.19%) Git
2 21 (2.19%) JIRA
3 19 (1.98%) Jenkins
4 10 (1.04%) Sonatype Nexus
5 8 (0.83%) GitLab
6 2 (0.21%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.10%) Jaeger
General
1 124 (12.93%) Social Skills
2 56 (5.84%) Banking
3 51 (5.32%) Finance
4 43 (4.48%) Analytical Skills
4 43 (4.48%) Documentation Skills
5 39 (4.07%) Investment Banking
6 36 (3.75%) Public Sector
7 35 (3.65%) Telecoms
8 28 (2.92%) Manufacturing
9 20 (2.09%) Legal
10 17 (1.77%) Retail
11 10 (1.04%) Law
12 9 (0.94%) Aerospace
13 7 (0.73%) Military
14 6 (0.63%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.52%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (0.52%) Police
16 4 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
17 3 (0.31%) Influencing Skills
18 2 (0.21%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (4.59%) 802.1X
2 12 (1.25%) SAML
3 11 (1.15%) LDAP
4 7 (0.73%) REST
5 3 (0.31%) CSS
5 3 (0.31%) HTML
5 3 (0.31%) JSON
5 3 (0.31%) VML
6 2 (0.21%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.21%) Django
6 2 (0.21%) Jinja
6 2 (0.21%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.21%) OpenTelemetry
6 2 (0.21%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.10%) Loki
7 1 (0.10%) XML
7 1 (0.10%) XMPP
7 1 (0.10%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 202 (21.06%) Data Centre
2 25 (2.61%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (2.50%) Hybrid Cloud
4 23 (2.40%) Management Information System
5 20 (2.09%) PKI
6 19 (1.98%) Security Posture
7 15 (1.56%) Operational Technology
8 11 (1.15%) Onboarding
9 10 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (0.94%) Cloud Native
10 9 (0.94%) Clustering
10 9 (0.94%) NHS
11 7 (0.73%) CCTV
12 6 (0.63%) Public Cloud
13 5 (0.52%) CMDB
13 5 (0.52%) Enterprise Cloud
14 4 (0.42%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 4 (0.42%) IoT
14 4 (0.42%) Mainframe
14 4 (0.42%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 63 (6.57%) Windows
2 39 (4.07%) Linux
3 14 (1.46%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.73%) Unix
5 6 (0.63%) VMS
6 4 (0.42%) CatOS
6 4 (0.42%) zOS
7 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.10%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.10%) Solaris
8 1 (0.10%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.10%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.10%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (15.22%) Load Balancing
2 95 (9.91%) Migration
3 92 (9.59%) Problem-Solving
4 87 (9.07%) High Availability
5 67 (6.99%) Network Monitoring
6 61 (6.36%) Network Design
6 61 (6.36%) Project Delivery
7 55 (5.74%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 54 (5.63%) ITIL
9 48 (5.01%) Change Management
10 47 (4.90%) Infrastructure as Code
10 47 (4.90%) Validation
11 40 (4.17%) Network Management
12 39 (4.07%) Technical Leadership
13 38 (3.96%) Data Protection
14 36 (3.75%) DevOps
14 36 (3.75%) ITSM
15 33 (3.44%) Zero Trust
16 32 (3.34%) Cloud Security
16 32 (3.34%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 98 (10.22%) Python
2 14 (1.46%) Bash
3 9 (0.94%) SQL
4 6 (0.63%) PowerShell
5 4 (0.42%) Java
6 3 (0.31%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.21%) ActionScript
7 2 (0.21%) Bicep
7 2 (0.21%) C
7 2 (0.21%) C++
7 2 (0.21%) Go
8 1 (0.10%) Groovy
8 1 (0.10%) Korn
8 1 (0.10%) Lisp
8 1 (0.10%) Perl
8 1 (0.10%) PHP
8 1 (0.10%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 302 (31.49%) Security Cleared
2 241 (25.13%) Cisco Certification
3 227 (23.67%) SC Cleared
4 193 (20.13%) CCNP
5 96 (10.01%) CCNA
6 88 (9.18%) DV Cleared
7 43 (4.48%) Degree
8 34 (3.55%) CCIE
9 21 (2.19%) JNCIS
10 19 (1.98%) JNCIA
11 15 (1.56%) Network+ Certification
12 13 (1.36%) JNCIP
13 11 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
14 7 (0.73%) Azure Certification
14 7 (0.73%) CCSE
15 6 (0.63%) CompTIA Security+
16 4 (0.42%) AWS Certification
16 4 (0.42%) CCSM
16 4 (0.42%) CWNA
16 4 (0.42%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (1.36%) SLA
2 9 (0.94%) NIST
2 9 (0.94%) QA
3 7 (0.73%) Disclosure Scotland
4 5 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (0.52%) PCI DSS
5 4 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
5 4 (0.42%) GRC
6 3 (0.31%) GDPR
6 3 (0.31%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 2 (0.21%) NCSC
7 2 (0.21%) PMO
8 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 66 (6.88%) VMware Infrastructure
2 40 (4.17%) VMware NSX
3 31 (3.23%) Firmware
4 26 (2.71%) Active Directory
5 11 (1.15%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.94%) vSphere
7 5 (0.52%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.21%) KVM
10 2 (0.21%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.21%) vCloud
11 1 (0.10%) Docker
11 1 (0.10%) FreeRADIUS
11 1 (0.10%) IAG
11 1 (0.10%) iptables
11 1 (0.10%) RHEV
11 1 (0.10%) Snort
11 1 (0.10%) Squid
Systems Management
1 87 (9.07%) Ansible
2 71 (7.40%) Terraform
3 65 (6.78%) FortiGate
4 11 (1.15%) Grafana
4 11 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
5 9 (0.94%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.94%) Prometheus
6 7 (0.73%) Kubernetes
7 6 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (0.63%) Nagios
8 4 (0.42%) Tivoli NetView
9 3 (0.31%) SCOM
9 3 (0.31%) WSUS
10 2 (0.21%) Avamar
10 2 (0.21%) CASB
10 2 (0.21%) Salt
10 2 (0.21%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.10%) Istio
11 1 (0.10%) Proxmox
11 1 (0.10%) Suricata
Vendors
1 505 (52.66%) Cisco
2 235 (24.50%) Palo Alto
3 182 (18.98%) F5
4 117 (12.20%) Fortinet
5 113 (11.78%) Juniper
6 94 (9.80%) VMware
7 88 (9.18%) Aruba
8 83 (8.65%) CheckPoint
9 60 (6.26%) Arista
10 48 (5.01%) Meraki
11 45 (4.69%) Microsoft
12 43 (4.48%) SolarWinds
13 35 (3.65%) Blue Coat
14 31 (3.23%) Google
15 30 (3.13%) McAfee
16 28 (2.92%) Zscaler
17 27 (2.82%) Infoblox
18 26 (2.71%) ServiceNow
19 22 (2.29%) NetApp
20 21 (2.19%) Extreme Networks