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 January 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 101 102
Rank change year-on-year -67 +1 +71
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 620 776 981
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.68% 2.46% 2.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.83% 2.65% 2.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 416 451 571
10th Percentile £300 £310 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -
75th Percentile £538 £575 £543
90th Percentile £588 £638 £626
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £440
% change year-on-year +5.56% +2.27% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 10 45
10th Percentile £20.75 £19.85 £24.70
25th Percentile £33.00 £20.00 £38.04
Median hourly rate £48.72 £20.19 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year +141.34% -67.96% +24.14%
75th Percentile £61.85 £45.13 £73.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £50.25 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.44 £20.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +182.20% -69.69% +148.23%

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 33,788 29,232 40,213
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.39% 92.85% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,356 17,863 26,715
10th Percentile £300 £295 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £481 £500
% change year-on-year -1.14% -3.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,002 885 1,834
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £13.99
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.76
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.32
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -19.39% +18.58%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +46.55%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 -66 525 £481 -1.79% 268
UK excluding London -50 392 £475 +5.56% 257
Work from Home -20 193 £438 -7.89% 117
London -55 171 £500 -4.31% 64
South East -1 137 £500 - 81
North of England -65 118 £500 +11.11% 63
North West -33 104 £500 +2.04% 32
Midlands -22 65 £380 -10.59% 29
West Midlands -1 61 £380 -10.59% 23
Scotland +17 43 £425 +6.25% 17
East of England -12 25 £381 +38.64% 34
South West -42 18 £475 +2.70% 21
Yorkshire -75 13 £437 +7.30% 22
Wales -13 11 £550 +57.14% 12
Northern Ireland -2 3 £475 +6.74% 4
East Midlands -40 3 £650 +73.33% 6
North East -13 2 £600 +23.08% 12

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

For the 6 months to 19 January 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.

1 359 (57.90%) Cisco
2 301 (48.55%) Firewall
3 235 (37.90%) Security Cleared
4 178 (28.71%) WAN
5 177 (28.55%) Cisco Certification
6 171 (27.58%) SC Cleared
7 155 (25.00%) Palo Alto
8 153 (24.68%) CCNP
9 139 (22.42%) LAN
10 137 (22.10%) BGP
11 126 (20.32%) Network Security
12 124 (20.00%) VPN
13 101 (16.29%) F5
14 100 (16.13%) Juniper
15 96 (15.48%) DNS
16 94 (15.16%) OSPF
16 94 (15.16%) Python
17 90 (14.52%) TCP/IP
18 83 (13.39%) Load Balancing
19 79 (12.74%) Ansible
20 78 (12.58%) CCNA
21 76 (12.26%) VLAN
22 72 (11.61%) Problem-Solving
22 72 (11.61%) Wireless
23 70 (11.29%) CheckPoint
24 69 (11.13%) Wi-Fi
25 67 (10.81%) Network Design
26 65 (10.48%) SolarWinds
27 63 (10.16%) AWS
27 63 (10.16%) Azure

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 (1.61%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.13%) Confluence
3 5 (0.81%) Apache
3 5 (0.81%) IIS
3 5 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 19 (3.06%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 63 (10.16%) AWS
1 63 (10.16%) Azure
2 19 (3.06%) GCP
3 13 (2.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 12 (1.94%) Entra ID
5 9 (1.45%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (0.97%) GitHub
7 5 (0.81%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 5 (0.81%) Amazon EC2
7 5 (0.81%) Amazon ELB
7 5 (0.81%) Amazon S3
7 5 (0.81%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 5 (0.81%) IaaS
7 5 (0.81%) Nutanix
8 4 (0.65%) AWS Direct Connect
8 4 (0.65%) Cohesity
8 4 (0.65%) Mimecast
8 4 (0.65%) OCI
8 4 (0.65%) PaaS
8 4 (0.65%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 301 (48.55%) Firewall
2 178 (28.71%) WAN
3 139 (22.42%) LAN
4 137 (22.10%) BGP
5 126 (20.32%) Network Security
6 124 (20.00%) VPN
7 96 (15.48%) DNS
8 94 (15.16%) OSPF
9 90 (14.52%) TCP/IP
10 76 (12.26%) VLAN
11 72 (11.61%) Wireless
12 69 (11.13%) Wi-Fi
13 62 (10.00%) MPLS
13 62 (10.00%) SD-WAN
14 60 (9.68%) Cisco ISE
14 60 (9.68%) SSL
15 51 (8.23%) Cisco Nexus
15 51 (8.23%) IPsec
16 48 (7.74%) Cisco IOS
17 42 (6.77%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.48%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 24 (3.87%) Fiddler
2 20 (3.23%) Git
3 11 (1.77%) GitLab
3 11 (1.77%) Jenkins
4 10 (1.61%) JIRA
5 7 (1.13%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.48%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.16%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.16%) Jaeger
General
1 133 (21.45%) Social Skills
2 59 (9.52%) Public Sector
3 40 (6.45%) Finance
4 39 (6.29%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (5.81%) Documentation Skills
6 34 (5.48%) Telecoms
7 32 (5.16%) Banking
8 28 (4.52%) Investment Banking
9 24 (3.87%) Manufacturing
10 16 (2.58%) Legal
11 7 (1.13%) Local Government
12 5 (0.81%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.81%) Law
12 5 (0.81%) Military
12 5 (0.81%) Retail
13 4 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.48%) Aerospace
14 3 (0.48%) Electronics
14 3 (0.48%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (5.32%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.45%) SAML
3 6 (0.97%) LDAP
4 5 (0.81%) Jinja
4 5 (0.81%) RFC 2544
5 4 (0.65%) JSON
5 4 (0.65%) Middleware
5 4 (0.65%) VML
6 3 (0.48%) YANG
7 2 (0.32%) CSS
7 2 (0.32%) HTML
7 2 (0.32%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.32%) XML
8 1 (0.16%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.16%) FIX Protocol
8 1 (0.16%) gRPC
8 1 (0.16%) Loki
8 1 (0.16%) OpenConfig
8 1 (0.16%) OpenTelemetry
8 1 (0.16%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 136 (21.94%) Data Centre
2 21 (3.39%) Management Information System
3 20 (3.23%) Data Protection Act
3 20 (3.23%) Onboarding
4 17 (2.74%) PKI
5 16 (2.58%) Operational Technology
6 13 (2.10%) Security Posture
7 11 (1.77%) NHS
7 11 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
8 10 (1.61%) Hedge funds
9 9 (1.45%) Hybrid Cloud
10 8 (1.29%) Fibre Optics
11 5 (0.81%) Driving Licence
11 5 (0.81%) Public Cloud
11 5 (0.81%) SCADA
12 4 (0.65%) IoT
12 4 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (0.65%) Life Science
12 4 (0.65%) Mainframe
12 4 (0.65%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 50 (8.06%) Windows
2 33 (5.32%) Linux
3 30 (4.84%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.97%) Unix
5 4 (0.65%) CatOS
6 3 (0.48%) zOS
7 1 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.16%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (13.39%) Load Balancing
2 72 (11.61%) Problem-Solving
3 67 (10.81%) Network Design
4 51 (8.23%) Network Monitoring
5 48 (7.74%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 47 (7.58%) Migration
7 46 (7.42%) High Availability
8 42 (6.77%) Network Architecture
9 40 (6.45%) Project Delivery
10 37 (5.97%) Cybersecurity
11 35 (5.65%) DevOps
12 34 (5.48%) Network Management
13 31 (5.00%) ITSM
14 28 (4.52%) Stakeholder Management
15 26 (4.19%) Change Management
15 26 (4.19%) Incident Response
15 26 (4.19%) Service Management
16 23 (3.71%) Agile
16 23 (3.71%) Collaborative Working
17 22 (3.55%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 94 (15.16%) Python
2 28 (4.52%) Bash
3 19 (3.06%) Perl
4 14 (2.26%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.29%) Lisp
6 6 (0.97%) C++
7 4 (0.65%) SQL
8 2 (0.32%) Go
8 2 (0.32%) Java
8 2 (0.32%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.16%) C
9 1 (0.16%) Ruby
9 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 235 (37.90%) Security Cleared
2 177 (28.55%) Cisco Certification
3 171 (27.58%) SC Cleared
4 153 (24.68%) CCNP
5 78 (12.58%) CCNA
6 63 (10.16%) DV Cleared
7 28 (4.52%) CCIE
8 22 (3.55%) JNCIS
9 20 (3.23%) Degree
10 17 (2.74%) JNCIA
11 13 (2.10%) JNCIP
12 10 (1.61%) Network+ Certification
13 9 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
14 7 (1.13%) CCDP
15 5 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
16 4 (0.65%) DBS Check
17 3 (0.48%) CISSP
17 3 (0.48%) CompTIA Security+
17 3 (0.48%) MCP
18 2 (0.32%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (1.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 8 (1.29%) SLA
2 5 (0.81%) NIST
3 4 (0.65%) GDPR
3 4 (0.65%) PCI DSS
4 3 (0.48%) QA
5 2 (0.32%) GRC
5 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (0.32%) PMO
6 1 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.16%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 44 (7.10%) VMware NSX
2 39 (6.29%) Active Directory
3 35 (5.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (4.35%) Firmware
5 14 (2.26%) Docker
6 10 (1.61%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.81%) ProxySG
7 5 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.48%) KVM
9 2 (0.32%) vCloud
9 2 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.16%) RACF
10 1 (0.16%) RHEV
10 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.16%) vSphere
10 1 (0.16%) Xen
Systems Management
1 79 (12.74%) Ansible
2 44 (7.10%) FortiGate
3 33 (5.32%) Terraform
4 23 (3.71%) vCenter Server
5 9 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (1.29%) Grafana
6 8 (1.29%) Kubernetes
6 8 (1.29%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.97%) Cisco Prime
7 6 (0.97%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (0.97%) Nagios
8 4 (0.65%) SCCM
8 4 (0.65%) Tivoli NetView
9 3 (0.48%) CASB
9 3 (0.48%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.48%) SCOrch
9 3 (0.48%) WhatsUp Gold
10 2 (0.32%) Salt
11 1 (0.16%) Amdocs OSS
11 1 (0.16%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 359 (57.90%) Cisco
2 155 (25.00%) Palo Alto
3 101 (16.29%) F5
4 100 (16.13%) Juniper
5 70 (11.29%) CheckPoint
6 65 (10.48%) SolarWinds
7 58 (9.35%) Aruba
8 57 (9.19%) VMware
9 56 (9.03%) Meraki
10 54 (8.71%) Fortinet
11 44 (7.10%) Blue Coat
12 40 (6.45%) Microsoft
13 36 (5.81%) McAfee
14 33 (5.32%) Arista
15 20 (3.23%) NetApp
15 20 (3.23%) Nokia
16 16 (2.58%) ServiceNow
16 16 (2.58%) Zscaler
17 11 (1.77%) Remedy
17 11 (1.77%) Splunk