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 25 March 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 152 118 86
Rank change year-on-year -34 -32 +65
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 798 689 1,073
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.82% 2.37% 2.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.98% 2.55% 2.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 536 428 645
10th Percentile £300 £313 £300
25th Percentile £401 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -3.74%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £533
90th Percentile £588 £625 £626
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £458 £450
% change year-on-year +3.83% +1.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 4 30
10th Percentile £20.75 £27.95 £20.69
25th Percentile £40.56 £42.13 £24.63
Median hourly rate £56.44 £53.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +34.38% -36.12%
75th Percentile £72.54 £65.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £71.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.89 £45.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +39.64% -26.80% +12.41%

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 40,363 27,024 41,118
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.92% 92.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,200 17,764 26,931
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £412 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.47% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,503 906 2,513
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.20 £12.87
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.71 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.95% - -24.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.52 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £76.25 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.86 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +13.40% - -20.36%

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 25 March 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 25 March 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 25 March 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 -41 670 £490 - 275
UK excluding London -34 509 £475 +3.83% 264
Work from Home -12 216 £440 -7.37% 71
London -70 201 £500 - 58
South East +7 175 £495 -1.00% 70
North of England -43 159 £481 -0.26% 55
North West -15 137 £481 -0.26% 34
Midlands -10 91 £438 +2.94% 54
West Midlands +12 85 £429 +55.91% 31
Scotland +18 40 £406 -1.81% 19
East of England -12 36 £438 -12.50% 25
South West -38 32 £513 +8.47% 30
Wales -9 23 £425 +9.68% 10
Yorkshire -62 22 £440 -4.86% 15
East Midlands -46 3 £500 +11.11% 23
North East -12 1 - - 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 25 March 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.

1 426 (53.38%) Cisco
2 373 (46.74%) Firewall
3 278 (34.84%) Security Cleared
4 220 (27.57%) WAN
5 208 (26.07%) Cisco Certification
6 201 (25.19%) BGP
7 194 (24.31%) Palo Alto
7 194 (24.31%) SC Cleared
8 190 (23.81%) LAN
9 177 (22.18%) VPN
10 174 (21.80%) CCNP
11 167 (20.93%) Network Security
12 152 (19.05%) F5
13 145 (18.17%) DNS
14 144 (18.05%) OSPF
15 129 (16.17%) Load Balancing
16 128 (16.04%) Juniper
17 111 (13.91%) TCP/IP
18 109 (13.66%) VLAN
19 92 (11.53%) DV Cleared
19 92 (11.53%) Wireless
20 91 (11.40%) Python
21 89 (11.15%) Azure
21 89 (11.15%) CCNA
21 89 (11.15%) VMware
22 87 (10.90%) Problem-Solving
23 82 (10.28%) AWS
24 80 (10.03%) Aruba
25 78 (9.77%) Ansible
26 77 (9.65%) Fortinet

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 (1.00%) SharePoint
2 7 (0.88%) Confluence
3 5 (0.63%) Apache
3 5 (0.63%) IIS
4 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 18 (2.26%) MS Visio
2 7 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 89 (11.15%) Azure
2 82 (10.28%) AWS
3 48 (6.02%) GCP
4 21 (2.63%) GitHub
5 15 (1.88%) Entra ID
5 15 (1.88%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 10 (1.25%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 10 (1.25%) Microsoft 365
7 8 (1.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 8 (1.00%) Nutanix
8 7 (0.88%) AWS Direct Connect
9 6 (0.75%) Mimecast
9 6 (0.75%) Route 53
10 5 (0.63%) Google Compute Engine
11 4 (0.50%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (0.50%) Azure Sentinel
11 4 (0.50%) IaaS
11 4 (0.50%) SaaS
12 3 (0.38%) Cloudflare
12 3 (0.38%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 373 (46.74%) Firewall
2 220 (27.57%) WAN
3 201 (25.19%) BGP
4 190 (23.81%) LAN
5 177 (22.18%) VPN
6 167 (20.93%) Network Security
7 145 (18.17%) DNS
8 144 (18.05%) OSPF
9 111 (13.91%) TCP/IP
10 109 (13.66%) VLAN
11 92 (11.53%) Wireless
12 76 (9.52%) Wi-Fi
13 71 (8.90%) Cisco ISE
13 71 (8.90%) MPLS
13 71 (8.90%) SD-WAN
14 61 (7.64%) Cisco Nexus
15 58 (7.27%) BIG-IP
16 57 (7.14%) SSL
17 53 (6.64%) IPsec
17 53 (6.64%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.38%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 30 (3.76%) Fiddler
2 22 (2.76%) Git
3 17 (2.13%) Jenkins
3 17 (2.13%) JIRA
4 9 (1.13%) GitLab
4 9 (1.13%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.13%) Browser DevTools
5 1 (0.13%) ClearCase
5 1 (0.13%) Jaeger
General
1 139 (17.42%) Social Skills
2 53 (6.64%) Banking
3 50 (6.27%) Public Sector
4 46 (5.76%) Finance
5 44 (5.51%) Documentation Skills
6 41 (5.14%) Analytical Skills
7 39 (4.89%) Investment Banking
8 35 (4.39%) Telecoms
9 21 (2.63%) Legal
10 20 (2.51%) Manufacturing
11 8 (1.00%) Law
12 7 (0.88%) Retail
13 6 (0.75%) Financial Institution
13 6 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (0.63%) Local Government
14 5 (0.63%) Military
15 4 (0.50%) Police
16 3 (0.38%) Electronics
16 3 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
16 3 (0.38%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (5.14%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.13%) LDAP
2 9 (1.13%) SAML
3 4 (0.50%) REST
3 4 (0.50%) VML
4 3 (0.38%) CSS
4 3 (0.38%) HTML
4 3 (0.38%) JSON
5 2 (0.25%) AWS CDK
5 2 (0.25%) Django
5 2 (0.25%) NETCONF
5 2 (0.25%) OpenTelemetry
5 2 (0.25%) RFC 2544
5 2 (0.25%) XML
5 2 (0.25%) YANG
6 1 (0.13%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.13%) FIX Protocol
6 1 (0.13%) Loki
6 1 (0.13%) OpenConfig
6 1 (0.13%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 162 (20.30%) Data Centre
2 26 (3.26%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (3.01%) Management Information System
4 18 (2.26%) Operational Technology
5 17 (2.13%) PKI
6 16 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
7 15 (1.88%) Security Posture
8 13 (1.63%) NHS
9 12 (1.50%) Onboarding
10 10 (1.25%) Public Cloud
10 10 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
11 9 (1.13%) Clustering
12 7 (0.88%) Cloud Native
13 5 (0.63%) IoT
14 4 (0.50%) CMDB
14 4 (0.50%) Enterprise Cloud
14 4 (0.50%) Fibre Optics
14 4 (0.50%) Hedge funds
14 4 (0.50%) Mainframe
15 3 (0.38%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 58 (7.27%) Windows
2 31 (3.88%) Linux
3 21 (2.63%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.63%) Unix
5 4 (0.50%) CatOS
5 4 (0.50%) zOS
6 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.13%) Solaris
6 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 129 (16.17%) Load Balancing
2 87 (10.90%) Problem-Solving
3 67 (8.40%) Network Design
4 66 (8.27%) High Availability
5 65 (8.15%) Migration
6 56 (7.02%) Network Monitoring
7 49 (6.14%) ITIL
8 48 (6.02%) Change Management
9 41 (5.14%) Project Delivery
10 40 (5.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 38 (4.76%) DevOps
12 37 (4.64%) ITSM
13 35 (4.39%) Network Architecture
13 35 (4.39%) Stakeholder Management
14 34 (4.26%) Infrastructure as Code
14 34 (4.26%) Network Management
15 33 (4.14%) Data Protection
16 32 (4.01%) Collaborative Working
17 31 (3.88%) Root Cause Analysis
18 30 (3.76%) Malware Detection/Protection
Programming Languages
1 91 (11.40%) Python
2 21 (2.63%) Bash
3 11 (1.38%) PowerShell
4 10 (1.25%) SQL
5 7 (0.88%) Perl
6 6 (0.75%) Lisp
7 3 (0.38%) Java
7 3 (0.38%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.25%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.25%) Bicep
8 2 (0.25%) Go
9 1 (0.13%) C
9 1 (0.13%) C++
9 1 (0.13%) Korn
9 1 (0.13%) PHP
9 1 (0.13%) Ruby
9 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 278 (34.84%) Security Cleared
2 208 (26.07%) Cisco Certification
3 194 (24.31%) SC Cleared
4 174 (21.80%) CCNP
5 92 (11.53%) DV Cleared
6 89 (11.15%) CCNA
7 34 (4.26%) Degree
8 32 (4.01%) CCIE
9 30 (3.76%) JNCIS
10 23 (2.88%) JNCIA
11 20 (2.51%) JNCIP
12 12 (1.50%) Network+ Certification
13 11 (1.38%) Computer Science Degree
14 5 (0.63%) AWS Certification
15 4 (0.50%) CCSE
15 4 (0.50%) CISSP
15 4 (0.50%) DBS Check
16 3 (0.38%) GIAC
16 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
16 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (1.38%) SLA
2 8 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (1.00%) NIST
3 5 (0.63%) GDPR
3 5 (0.63%) PCI DSS
4 4 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.38%) GRC
6 2 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
6 2 (0.25%) NCSC
6 2 (0.25%) PMO
6 2 (0.25%) QA
7 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
System Software
1 59 (7.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 49 (6.14%) VMware NSX
3 31 (3.88%) Active Directory
4 30 (3.76%) Firmware
5 7 (0.88%) Docker
5 7 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (0.88%) vSphere
6 5 (0.63%) ProxySG
7 4 (0.50%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.25%) KVM
9 2 (0.25%) vCloud
9 2 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.13%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.13%) IAG
10 1 (0.13%) RHEV
10 1 (0.13%) Snort
10 1 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.13%) Xen
Systems Management
1 78 (9.77%) Ansible
2 53 (6.64%) FortiGate
3 52 (6.52%) Terraform
4 15 (1.88%) vCenter Server
5 14 (1.75%) Grafana
6 13 (1.63%) Prometheus
7 8 (1.00%) Nagios
7 8 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.88%) Cisco Prime
9 6 (0.75%) Kubernetes
9 6 (0.75%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.50%) Tivoli NetView
11 2 (0.25%) CASB
11 2 (0.25%) Dell DRAC
11 2 (0.25%) Salt
11 2 (0.25%) WSUS
12 1 (0.13%) Amdocs OSS
12 1 (0.13%) ITRS Geneos
12 1 (0.13%) Proxmox
12 1 (0.13%) Suricata
Vendors
1 426 (53.38%) Cisco
2 194 (24.31%) Palo Alto
3 152 (19.05%) F5
4 128 (16.04%) Juniper
5 89 (11.15%) VMware
6 80 (10.03%) Aruba
7 77 (9.65%) Fortinet
8 73 (9.15%) CheckPoint
9 56 (7.02%) SolarWinds
10 50 (6.27%) Meraki
11 45 (5.64%) Blue Coat
12 42 (5.26%) McAfee
13 41 (5.14%) Arista
14 39 (4.89%) Microsoft
15 24 (3.01%) ServiceNow
16 23 (2.88%) Google
16 23 (2.88%) NetApp
17 20 (2.51%) Ekahau
17 20 (2.51%) Infoblox
18 18 (2.26%) Splunk