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 3 December 2025.

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

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 168 98 111
Rank change year-on-year -70 +13 +64
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 611 874 982
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 2.44% 2.18%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.85% 2.63% 2.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 422 506 590
10th Percentile £309 £334 £300
25th Percentile £400 £406 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £450
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% +8.89% -
75th Percentile £550 £579 £550
90th Percentile £600 £638 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £438
% change year-on-year - +8.57% -1.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 16 39
10th Percentile £23.20 £19.25 £24.90
25th Percentile £33.00 £20.00 £39.45
Median hourly rate £48.72 £30.20 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year +61.32% -52.06% +32.63%
75th Percentile £74.26 £52.37 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £65.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £61.47 £20.38 £63.00
% change year-on-year +201.69% -67.66% +162.50%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 32,959 33,240 42,117
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.98% 92.81% 93.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,905 20,226 28,386
10th Percentile £284 £300 £293
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,918 1,167 1,500
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.48 £15.24
25th Percentile £17.91 £20.75 £19.11
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +48.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.47 £73.53 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%

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 3 December 2025.

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 3 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Engineer in the UK

Network Engineer
Top 18 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 3 December 2025. 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 -67 514 £492 +0.41% 219
UK excluding London -61 376 £475 - 207
London -62 180 £475 -6.86% 59
Work from Home -50 173 £450 -8.16% 79
South East -18 118 £500 - 110
North of England -71 112 £500 +5.26% 36
North West -38 86 £515 +5.10% 23
Midlands -22 67 £413 -5.17% 19
West Midlands -5 62 £390 -22.00% 18
Scotland +11 47 £425 +5.59% 13
East of England -10 27 £400 +28.00% 13
Yorkshire -60 24 £450 +10.43% 9
South West -38 16 £513 +8.47% 18
Wales -16 6 £550 +37.50% 4
East Midlands -35 5 £650 +73.33%
Northern Ireland -3 3 £475 -8.43%
North East -5 3 £625 +28.21% 5
Channel Islands - 1 £440 -

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

For the 6 months to 3 December 2025, 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.

1 364 (59.57%) Cisco
2 299 (48.94%) Firewall
3 209 (34.21%) Security Cleared
4 184 (30.11%) Cisco Certification
5 167 (27.33%) WAN
6 144 (23.57%) CCNP
7 136 (22.26%) SC Cleared
8 134 (21.93%) BGP
9 129 (21.11%) Juniper
10 119 (19.48%) Network Security
11 118 (19.31%) Palo Alto
12 112 (18.33%) Python
13 110 (18.00%) LAN
14 101 (16.53%) VPN
15 98 (16.04%) OSPF
16 94 (15.38%) F5
17 90 (14.73%) Ansible
18 87 (14.24%) DNS
19 80 (13.09%) CCNA
20 76 (12.44%) SD-WAN
21 74 (12.11%) Cisco ISE
21 74 (12.11%) TCP/IP
21 74 (12.11%) Wireless
22 72 (11.78%) Load Balancing
22 72 (11.78%) Network Design
23 71 (11.62%) AWS
24 70 (11.46%) SolarWinds
25 68 (11.13%) Fortinet
26 66 (10.80%) DV Cleared
26 66 (10.80%) 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 9 (1.47%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.49%) Confluence
4 2 (0.33%) Apache
4 2 (0.33%) IIS
Applications
1 12 (1.96%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.82%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.49%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 71 (11.62%) AWS
2 59 (9.66%) Azure
3 16 (2.62%) GCP
4 10 (1.64%) Akamai
5 9 (1.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 5 (0.82%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 5 (0.82%) Amazon EC2
6 5 (0.82%) Amazon ELB
6 5 (0.82%) Amazon S3
6 5 (0.82%) GitHub
6 5 (0.82%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (0.65%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (0.65%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 4 (0.65%) Cohesity
7 4 (0.65%) Entra ID
7 4 (0.65%) Nutanix
7 4 (0.65%) OCI
8 3 (0.49%) AWS Direct Connect
8 3 (0.49%) IaaS
8 3 (0.49%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 299 (48.94%) Firewall
2 167 (27.33%) WAN
3 134 (21.93%) BGP
4 119 (19.48%) Network Security
5 110 (18.00%) LAN
6 101 (16.53%) VPN
7 98 (16.04%) OSPF
8 87 (14.24%) DNS
9 76 (12.44%) SD-WAN
10 74 (12.11%) Cisco ISE
10 74 (12.11%) TCP/IP
10 74 (12.11%) Wireless
11 66 (10.80%) Wi-Fi
12 62 (10.15%) VLAN
13 61 (9.98%) MPLS
14 55 (9.00%) Cisco IOS
15 51 (8.35%) Cisco Nexus
16 44 (7.20%) SSL
17 40 (6.55%) IPsec
17 40 (6.55%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle Database
1 1 (0.16%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 18 (2.95%) Git
2 15 (2.45%) Fiddler
3 11 (1.80%) GitLab
4 10 (1.64%) Jenkins
5 7 (1.15%) JIRA
5 7 (1.15%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (0.82%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.16%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.16%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.16%) Mercurial
7 1 (0.16%) Subversion
General
1 138 (22.59%) Social Skills
2 64 (10.47%) Public Sector
3 55 (9.00%) Finance
4 34 (5.56%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (5.56%) Telecoms
5 27 (4.42%) Documentation Skills
6 25 (4.09%) Banking
7 23 (3.76%) Manufacturing
8 20 (3.27%) Investment Banking
9 11 (1.80%) Legal
10 7 (1.15%) Local Government
11 6 (0.98%) Financial Institution
11 6 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.65%) Military
13 4 (0.65%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (0.49%) Marketing
14 3 (0.49%) Retail
14 3 (0.49%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (4.58%) 802.1X
2 10 (1.64%) RFC 2544
3 5 (0.82%) Jinja
4 4 (0.65%) Middleware
5 3 (0.49%) SAML
6 2 (0.33%) JSON
6 2 (0.33%) Node.js
6 2 (0.33%) REST
6 2 (0.33%) VML
6 2 (0.33%) YANG
7 1 (0.16%) ADO
7 1 (0.16%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.16%) CSS
7 1 (0.16%) FIX Protocol
7 1 (0.16%) gRPC
7 1 (0.16%) HTML
7 1 (0.16%) Loki
7 1 (0.16%) OpenConfig
7 1 (0.16%) Ultra Messaging
7 1 (0.16%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 116 (18.99%) Data Centre
2 20 (3.27%) Onboarding
3 18 (2.95%) Management Information System
4 17 (2.78%) Data Protection Act
4 17 (2.78%) PKI
5 16 (2.62%) Hedge funds
5 16 (2.62%) Operational Technology
6 13 (2.13%) Fibre Optics
7 9 (1.47%) Driving Licence
7 9 (1.47%) Hybrid Cloud
7 9 (1.47%) Security Posture
8 8 (1.31%) SCADA
9 6 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (0.82%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 5 (0.82%) IoT
10 5 (0.82%) NHS
10 5 (0.82%) Private Cloud
10 5 (0.82%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.65%) Cloud Native
11 4 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 46 (7.53%) Windows
2 27 (4.42%) Linux
2 27 (4.42%) Windows Server
3 5 (0.82%) Unix
4 3 (0.49%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.33%) zOS
6 1 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.16%) VMS
6 1 (0.16%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.16%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.16%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (11.78%) Load Balancing
1 72 (11.78%) Network Design
2 64 (10.47%) Problem-Solving
3 48 (7.86%) Migration
4 42 (6.87%) High Availability
5 39 (6.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 39 (6.38%) Network Monitoring
6 37 (6.06%) Network Architecture
7 36 (5.89%) DevOps
8 34 (5.56%) ITSM
9 33 (5.40%) Service Management
10 32 (5.24%) Network Management
11 31 (5.07%) Incident Response
12 28 (4.58%) Cybersecurity
12 28 (4.58%) Network Segmentation
13 26 (4.26%) Agile
14 25 (4.09%) Change Management
14 25 (4.09%) Collaborative Working
14 25 (4.09%) Infrastructure as Code
15 21 (3.44%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 112 (18.33%) Python
2 32 (5.24%) Bash
3 20 (3.27%) Perl
4 13 (2.13%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.31%) C++
5 8 (1.31%) Lisp
6 4 (0.65%) Java
6 4 (0.65%) SQL
7 3 (0.49%) Go
8 2 (0.33%) VB
9 1 (0.16%) C
9 1 (0.16%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.16%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.16%) PHP
9 1 (0.16%) Ruby
9 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 209 (34.21%) Security Cleared
2 184 (30.11%) Cisco Certification
3 144 (23.57%) CCNP
4 136 (22.26%) SC Cleared
5 80 (13.09%) CCNA
6 66 (10.80%) DV Cleared
7 26 (4.26%) CCIE
8 23 (3.76%) Degree
9 20 (3.27%) JNCIS
10 15 (2.45%) JNCIA
11 12 (1.96%) JNCIP
12 10 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
13 8 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
13 8 (1.31%) Network+ Certification
14 7 (1.15%) CCDP
15 6 (0.98%) CCSA
16 5 (0.82%) CISSP
17 4 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
18 3 (0.49%) CEH
18 3 (0.49%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 9 (1.47%) SLA
2 6 (0.98%) GDPR
3 5 (0.82%) NIST
4 4 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
4 4 (0.65%) PCI DSS
4 4 (0.65%) QA
5 3 (0.49%) GRC
6 2 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 2 (0.33%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.16%) Def Stans
7 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.16%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.16%) NCSC
System Software
1 32 (5.24%) VMware NSX
2 31 (5.07%) Active Directory
3 26 (4.26%) Firmware
4 23 (3.76%) VMware Infrastructure
5 14 (2.29%) Docker
6 9 (1.47%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.82%) ProxySG
9 4 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.33%) KVM
11 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.16%) RACF
11 1 (0.16%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 90 (14.73%) Ansible
2 59 (9.66%) FortiGate
3 34 (5.56%) Terraform
4 26 (4.26%) vCenter Server
5 8 (1.31%) Kubernetes
6 7 (1.15%) Grafana
7 6 (0.98%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.82%) Cisco CUCM
8 5 (0.82%) SCCM
9 4 (0.65%) CASB
9 4 (0.65%) Cisco Prime
9 4 (0.65%) SCOrch
10 3 (0.49%) Dell DRAC
10 3 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.49%) Tivoli NetView
10 3 (0.49%) WhatsUp Gold
11 2 (0.33%) CA Spectrum
11 2 (0.33%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.33%) Nagios
11 2 (0.33%) OpenView
Vendors
1 364 (59.57%) Cisco
2 129 (21.11%) Juniper
3 118 (19.31%) Palo Alto
4 94 (15.38%) F5
5 70 (11.46%) SolarWinds
6 68 (11.13%) Fortinet
7 60 (9.82%) CheckPoint
8 49 (8.02%) Meraki
9 46 (7.53%) Microsoft
10 45 (7.36%) Arista
10 45 (7.36%) VMware
11 35 (5.73%) Blue Coat
12 33 (5.40%) Aruba
13 27 (4.42%) McAfee
13 27 (4.42%) Zscaler
14 18 (2.95%) ServiceNow
15 16 (2.62%) Nokia
16 15 (2.45%) NetApp
17 11 (1.80%) LogicMonitor
17 11 (1.80%) Remedy