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 23 February 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 165 111 89
Rank change year-on-year -54 -22 +65
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 689 726 1,057
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 2.38% 2.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.85% 2.56% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 461 432 617
10th Percentile £293 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £405 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £477 £460
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% +3.75% -0.81%
75th Percentile £525 £575 £543
90th Percentile £588 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £465 £450
% change year-on-year +0.97% +3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 7 39
10th Percentile £21.98 £19.40 £24.05
25th Percentile £33.00 - £34.13
Median hourly rate £52.58 £20.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +162.90% -60.00% -19.35%
75th Percentile £72.13 £29.00 £70.95
90th Percentile £74.09 £41.80 £74.25
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 37,309 28,353 41,398
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.77% 92.89% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,419 17,689 27,239
10th Percentile £306 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £409
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 £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,278 825 2,334
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.30
Median hourly rate £31.76 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.27% - -12.01%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.80
% change year-on-year -7.69% -9.22% -0.98%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -51 576 £475 -5.00% 296
UK excluding London -48 430 £470 +0.97% 291
Work from Home -6 210 £425 -10.99% 82
London -55 186 £500 - 85
South East +18 150 £485 -3.00% 84
North of England -60 136 £481 - 52
North West -29 115 £481 -1.79% 29
Midlands -10 77 £419 -7.71% 41
West Midlands -5 71 £390 -11.61% 21
Scotland +13 42 £418 +0.60% 33
East of England -26 27 £381 +26.03% 21
South West -57 21 £500 +5.82% 45
Yorkshire -70 21 £470 +17.50% 16
Wales -9 15 £550 +62.96% 14
East Midlands -37 4 £500 -2.44% 20
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 5
North East -18 1 - - 7

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 393 (57.04%) Cisco
2 338 (49.06%) Firewall
3 243 (35.27%) Security Cleared
4 192 (27.87%) WAN
5 186 (27.00%) Cisco Certification
6 176 (25.54%) Palo Alto
6 176 (25.54%) SC Cleared
7 168 (24.38%) LAN
8 163 (23.66%) BGP
9 160 (23.22%) CCNP
10 152 (22.06%) Network Security
11 151 (21.92%) VPN
12 125 (18.14%) DNS
13 124 (18.00%) F5
14 115 (16.69%) OSPF
15 114 (16.55%) Juniper
16 101 (14.66%) Load Balancing
16 101 (14.66%) TCP/IP
17 92 (13.35%) VLAN
18 91 (13.21%) Python
19 81 (11.76%) CCNA
20 80 (11.61%) Problem-Solving
21 79 (11.47%) Ansible
22 75 (10.89%) CheckPoint
23 74 (10.74%) Wireless
24 72 (10.45%) MPLS
24 72 (10.45%) VMware
25 71 (10.30%) Azure
26 70 (10.16%) DV Cleared
26 70 (10.16%) 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 (1.45%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.02%) Confluence
3 6 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.73%) Apache
4 5 (0.73%) IIS
Applications
1 19 (2.76%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.87%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 71 (10.30%) Azure
2 66 (9.58%) AWS
3 30 (4.35%) GCP
4 16 (2.32%) Entra ID
5 13 (1.89%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 10 (1.45%) Microsoft 365
7 9 (1.31%) GitHub
8 7 (1.02%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 7 (1.02%) 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%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 5 (0.73%) IaaS
9 5 (0.73%) Mimecast
9 5 (0.73%) SaaS
10 4 (0.58%) AWS Direct Connect
10 4 (0.58%) Cohesity
10 4 (0.58%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 338 (49.06%) Firewall
2 192 (27.87%) WAN
3 168 (24.38%) LAN
4 163 (23.66%) BGP
5 152 (22.06%) Network Security
6 151 (21.92%) VPN
7 125 (18.14%) DNS
8 115 (16.69%) OSPF
9 101 (14.66%) TCP/IP
10 92 (13.35%) VLAN
11 74 (10.74%) Wireless
12 72 (10.45%) MPLS
13 70 (10.16%) Wi-Fi
14 66 (9.58%) Cisco ISE
15 63 (9.14%) SSL
16 61 (8.85%) SD-WAN
17 60 (8.71%) Cisco Nexus
18 53 (7.69%) IPsec
19 49 (7.11%) Wireshark
20 47 (6.82%) 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 (4.35%) Fiddler
2 19 (2.76%) Git
3 13 (1.89%) JIRA
4 12 (1.74%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.45%) Sonatype Nexus
6 9 (1.31%) GitLab
7 1 (0.15%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.15%) Jaeger
General
1 133 (19.30%) Social Skills
2 55 (7.98%) Public Sector
3 43 (6.24%) Banking
4 42 (6.10%) Documentation Skills
4 42 (6.10%) Finance
5 37 (5.37%) Telecoms
6 36 (5.22%) Investment Banking
7 32 (4.64%) Analytical Skills
8 22 (3.19%) Manufacturing
9 19 (2.76%) Legal
10 8 (1.16%) Law
10 8 (1.16%) Local Government
11 6 (0.87%) Military
11 6 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.73%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.73%) Retail
13 4 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.44%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.44%) Marketing
14 3 (0.44%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (4.93%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.60%) SAML
3 8 (1.16%) LDAP
4 5 (0.73%) RFC 2544
5 4 (0.58%) Middleware
5 4 (0.58%) VML
6 3 (0.44%) CSS
6 3 (0.44%) HTML
6 3 (0.44%) JSON
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
7 2 (0.29%) YANG
8 1 (0.15%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.15%) AWS CDK
8 1 (0.15%) Loki
8 1 (0.15%) OpenConfig
8 1 (0.15%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 151 (21.92%) Data Centre
2 23 (3.34%) Data Protection Act
2 23 (3.34%) Management Information System
3 20 (2.90%) Operational Technology
4 19 (2.76%) Onboarding
4 19 (2.76%) PKI
5 15 (2.18%) Security Posture
6 12 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
6 12 (1.74%) NHS
7 11 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.16%) Public Cloud
9 7 (1.02%) Clustering
9 7 (1.02%) Fibre Optics
9 7 (1.02%) Hedge funds
10 5 (0.73%) IoT
11 4 (0.58%) Cloud Native
11 4 (0.58%) CMDB
11 4 (0.58%) Driving Licence
11 4 (0.58%) SCADA
11 4 (0.58%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 56 (8.13%) Windows
2 32 (4.64%) Linux
3 28 (4.06%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.58%) CatOS
4 4 (0.58%) 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
1 101 (14.66%) Load Balancing
2 80 (11.61%) Problem-Solving
3 61 (8.85%) Network Design
4 55 (7.98%) Migration
5 52 (7.55%) High Availability
5 52 (7.55%) Network Monitoring
6 42 (6.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 42 (6.10%) Project Delivery
7 39 (5.66%) Change Management
8 38 (5.52%) Network Architecture
9 34 (4.93%) Network Management
10 33 (4.79%) ITSM
11 32 (4.64%) ITIL
11 32 (4.64%) Stakeholder Management
12 30 (4.35%) DevOps
13 28 (4.06%) Collaborative Working
13 28 (4.06%) Cybersecurity
14 27 (3.92%) Data Loss Prevention
14 27 (3.92%) Malware Detection/Protection
14 27 (3.92%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 91 (13.21%) Python
2 25 (3.63%) Bash
3 13 (1.89%) PowerShell
4 11 (1.60%) Perl
5 8 (1.16%) Lisp
6 5 (0.73%) SQL
7 4 (0.58%) 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
1 243 (35.27%) Security Cleared
2 186 (27.00%) Cisco Certification
3 176 (25.54%) SC Cleared
4 160 (23.22%) CCNP
5 81 (11.76%) CCNA
6 70 (10.16%) DV Cleared
7 28 (4.06%) JNCIS
8 27 (3.92%) CCIE
9 26 (3.77%) Degree
10 22 (3.19%) JNCIA
11 18 (2.61%) JNCIP
12 11 (1.60%) Network+ Certification
13 6 (0.87%) Computer Science Degree
14 4 (0.58%) CISSP
14 4 (0.58%) DBS Check
15 3 (0.44%) BPSS Clearance
15 3 (0.44%) CCDP
15 3 (0.44%) GIAC
15 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
15 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (1.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 10 (1.45%) NIST
2 7 (1.02%) PCI DSS
2 7 (1.02%) SLA
3 6 (0.87%) GDPR
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 46 (6.68%) VMware NSX
2 43 (6.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (5.52%) Active Directory
4 30 (4.35%) Firmware
5 10 (1.45%) Docker
6 8 (1.16%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.73%) ProxySG
7 5 (0.73%) vSphere
8 4 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.29%) KVM
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 79 (11.47%) Ansible
2 51 (7.40%) FortiGate
3 35 (5.08%) Terraform
4 20 (2.90%) vCenter Server
5 11 (1.60%) Grafana
6 10 (1.45%) Prometheus
6 10 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (1.16%) Cisco Prime
8 7 (1.02%) Nagios
9 6 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.58%) CASB
10 4 (0.58%) Tivoli NetView
11 3 (0.44%) Dell DRAC
11 3 (0.44%) Kubernetes
11 3 (0.44%) SCCM
11 3 (0.44%) SCOrch
12 2 (0.29%) Salt
12 2 (0.29%) WSUS
13 1 (0.15%) ITRS Geneos
13 1 (0.15%) OMEGAMON
Vendors
1 393 (57.04%) Cisco
2 176 (25.54%) Palo Alto
3 124 (18.00%) F5
4 114 (16.55%) Juniper
5 75 (10.89%) CheckPoint
6 72 (10.45%) VMware
7 67 (9.72%) SolarWinds
8 66 (9.58%) Fortinet
9 65 (9.43%) Aruba
10 53 (7.69%) Meraki
11 48 (6.97%) Blue Coat
12 41 (5.95%) McAfee
13 37 (5.37%) Microsoft
14 32 (4.64%) Arista
15 23 (3.34%) NetApp
16 21 (3.05%) Splunk
17 19 (2.76%) ServiceNow
17 19 (2.76%) Zscaler
18 18 (2.61%) Nokia
19 12 (1.74%) Remedy