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 18 June 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 125 92
Rank change year-on-year -5 -33 +34
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,006 678 1,026
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.00% 2.28% 2.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.16% 2.47% 2.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 666 415 630
10th Percentile £301 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% +2.11% +5.56%
75th Percentile £548 £575 £544
90th Percentile £600 £625 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £450
% change year-on-year -2.63% +5.56% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 9 19
10th Percentile £29.00 £22.41 £20.29
25th Percentile £55.00 £32.50 £31.63
Median hourly rate £72.77 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +45.54% +25.00% -35.48%
75th Percentile £78.75 £61.25 £73.75
90th Percentile - £70.25 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £35.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year +108.57% -51.72% +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 46,545 27,461 40,758
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.35% 92.26% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,281 17,668 26,127
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,104 1,179 2,967
10th Percentile £15.24 £13.97 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.79 £17.79 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.61 £27.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.56% -26.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.01
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.45%

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 18 June 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 18 June 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 18 June 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 -15 829 £475 -3.75% 205
UK excluding London -13 594 £463 -2.63% 225
London -18 280 £500 - 47
Work from Home -26 237 £445 -6.32% 51
North of England -24 200 £479 -2.57% 51
South East -7 161 £463 -7.50% 46
North West 0 149 £479 -4.13% 32
Midlands +7 112 £438 +9.38% 33
West Midlands +17 106 £438 +59.09% 13
Scotland +20 61 £413 - 20
East of England -5 45 £425 +11.11% 20
South West -39 40 £550 +4.76% 23
Yorkshire -61 38 £450 -8.54% 13
Wales -8 24 £425 +21.43% 12
North East -25 13 £600 +108.70% 6
East Midlands -31 3 £488 +8.33% 20
Northern Ireland +1 2 £468 -18.70% 22

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

For the 6 months to 18 June 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.

1 528 (52.49%) Cisco
2 438 (43.54%) Firewall
3 283 (28.13%) WAN
4 280 (27.83%) Security Cleared
5 249 (24.75%) Cisco Certification
6 238 (23.66%) LAN
7 233 (23.16%) BGP
8 228 (22.66%) Network Security
8 228 (22.66%) Palo Alto
9 209 (20.78%) VPN
10 205 (20.38%) SC Cleared
11 193 (19.18%) CCNP
12 177 (17.59%) F5
13 176 (17.50%) DNS
14 155 (15.41%) OSPF
15 152 (15.11%) Wireless
16 148 (14.71%) Load Balancing
17 143 (14.21%) Fortinet
18 139 (13.82%) VLAN
19 121 (12.03%) Azure
20 113 (11.23%) Migration
21 112 (11.13%) Juniper
21 112 (11.13%) Python
21 112 (11.13%) SD-WAN
22 104 (10.34%) TCP/IP
23 103 (10.24%) CCNA
24 98 (9.74%) High Availability
25 97 (9.64%) Wi-Fi
26 92 (9.15%) VMware
27 90 (8.95%) Problem-Solving

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 7 (0.70%) Confluence
2 5 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.30%) Apache
3 3 (0.30%) IIS
3 3 (0.30%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.099%) CMS
4 1 (0.099%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.099%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 17 (1.69%) MS Visio
2 10 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 121 (12.03%) Azure
2 84 (8.35%) AWS
3 53 (5.27%) GCP
4 36 (3.58%) GitHub
5 17 (1.69%) Entra ID
5 17 (1.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 13 (1.29%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 13 (1.29%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 11 (1.09%) Microsoft 365
8 10 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
9 9 (0.89%) AWS Direct Connect
9 9 (0.89%) IaaS
10 8 (0.80%) Azure Sentinel
10 8 (0.80%) Nutanix
11 6 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (0.60%) Google Compute Engine
11 6 (0.60%) Route 53
12 5 (0.50%) Mimecast
12 5 (0.50%) SaaS
13 4 (0.40%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 438 (43.54%) Firewall
2 283 (28.13%) WAN
3 238 (23.66%) LAN
4 233 (23.16%) BGP
5 228 (22.66%) Network Security
6 209 (20.78%) VPN
7 176 (17.50%) DNS
8 155 (15.41%) OSPF
9 152 (15.11%) Wireless
10 139 (13.82%) VLAN
11 112 (11.13%) SD-WAN
12 104 (10.34%) TCP/IP
13 97 (9.64%) Wi-Fi
14 77 (7.65%) Cisco Nexus
15 72 (7.16%) MPLS
16 69 (6.86%) Multicast
17 68 (6.76%) BIG-IP
18 64 (6.36%) Cisco ISE
19 60 (5.96%) DHCP
20 57 (5.67%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.20%) SQL Server
1 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 1 (0.099%) ClickHouse
2 1 (0.099%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 29 (2.88%) JIRA
2 28 (2.78%) Jenkins
3 23 (2.29%) Fiddler
4 17 (1.69%) Git
5 9 (0.89%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.80%) GitLab
7 2 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
General
1 135 (13.42%) Social Skills
2 57 (5.67%) Finance
3 56 (5.57%) Banking
4 43 (4.27%) Analytical Skills
5 40 (3.98%) Telecoms
6 38 (3.78%) Investment Banking
7 36 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
8 34 (3.38%) Public Sector
9 25 (2.49%) Legal
10 23 (2.29%) Manufacturing
11 19 (1.89%) Retail
12 10 (0.99%) Law
13 9 (0.89%) Aerospace
14 7 (0.70%) Financial Institution
15 6 (0.60%) Military
15 6 (0.60%) Pharmaceutical
16 5 (0.50%) Police
17 4 (0.40%) Local Government
17 4 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
18 3 (0.30%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (4.97%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.09%) REST
3 9 (0.89%) SAML
4 8 (0.80%) LDAP
5 2 (0.20%) AWS CDK
5 2 (0.20%) CSS
5 2 (0.20%) Django
5 2 (0.20%) HTML
5 2 (0.20%) Jinja
5 2 (0.20%) RFC 2544
6 1 (0.099%) Java RMI
6 1 (0.099%) JSON
6 1 (0.099%) ModSecurity
6 1 (0.099%) NETCONF
6 1 (0.099%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.099%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 205 (20.38%) Data Centre
2 26 (2.58%) Data Protection Act
2 26 (2.58%) Hybrid Cloud
3 22 (2.19%) Management Information System
3 22 (2.19%) PKI
3 22 (2.19%) Security Posture
4 19 (1.89%) Onboarding
5 14 (1.39%) Cloud Native
5 14 (1.39%) Operational Technology
6 9 (0.89%) Clustering
6 9 (0.89%) NHS
6 9 (0.89%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (0.70%) CCTV
8 6 (0.60%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 6 (0.60%) Enterprise Cloud
9 5 (0.50%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (0.50%) Public Cloud
10 4 (0.40%) Distributed Systems
10 4 (0.40%) IoT
10 4 (0.40%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 74 (7.36%) Windows
2 41 (4.08%) Linux
3 14 (1.39%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.60%) Unix
4 6 (0.60%) VMS
5 3 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.20%) CatOS
6 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (0.20%) zOS
7 1 (0.099%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.099%) Solaris
7 1 (0.099%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.099%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.099%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.099%) Windows Server 2008
7 1 (0.099%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (14.71%) Load Balancing
2 113 (11.23%) Migration
3 98 (9.74%) High Availability
4 90 (8.95%) Problem-Solving
5 76 (7.55%) Project Delivery
6 69 (6.86%) Network Monitoring
7 64 (6.36%) Network Design
8 62 (6.16%) ITIL
9 59 (5.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 56 (5.57%) Infrastructure as Code
11 54 (5.37%) Validation
12 53 (5.27%) Change Management
13 43 (4.27%) Data Protection
14 42 (4.17%) Technical Leadership
15 40 (3.98%) DevOps
15 40 (3.98%) ITSM
16 39 (3.88%) CI/CD
16 39 (3.88%) Zero Trust
17 37 (3.68%) Network Management
18 35 (3.48%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 112 (11.13%) Python
2 15 (1.49%) Bash
3 12 (1.19%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.89%) ActionScript
5 8 (0.80%) SQL
6 3 (0.30%) Bicep
6 3 (0.30%) C
6 3 (0.30%) Java
7 2 (0.20%) C++
7 2 (0.20%) Groovy
7 2 (0.20%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.20%) Perl
8 1 (0.099%) Go
8 1 (0.099%) Korn
8 1 (0.099%) Lisp
8 1 (0.099%) PHP
Qualifications
1 280 (27.83%) Security Cleared
2 249 (24.75%) Cisco Certification
3 205 (20.38%) SC Cleared
4 193 (19.18%) CCNP
5 103 (10.24%) CCNA
6 83 (8.25%) DV Cleared
7 39 (3.88%) CCIE
8 38 (3.78%) Degree
9 16 (1.59%) JNCIA
9 16 (1.59%) JNCIS
10 13 (1.29%) Network+ Certification
11 11 (1.09%) JNCIP
12 9 (0.89%) CCSE
12 9 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (0.70%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.60%) CISSP
14 6 (0.60%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.50%) AWS Certification
15 5 (0.50%) CCSM
15 5 (0.50%) CWNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (1.49%) SLA
2 12 (1.19%) NIST
3 11 (1.09%) QA
4 8 (0.80%) Disclosure Scotland
5 5 (0.50%) GDPR
5 5 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (0.50%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.40%) GRC
7 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 2 (0.20%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.20%) NCSC
8 1 (0.099%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.099%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.099%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.099%) PMO
System Software
1 67 (6.66%) VMware Infrastructure
2 37 (3.68%) VMware NSX
3 33 (3.28%) Firmware
4 31 (3.08%) Active Directory
5 13 (1.29%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (0.99%) vSphere
7 7 (0.70%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.20%) Squid
10 2 (0.20%) vCloud
11 1 (0.099%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.099%) Docker
11 1 (0.099%) FreeRADIUS
11 1 (0.099%) IAG
11 1 (0.099%) iptables
11 1 (0.099%) KVM
11 1 (0.099%) Snort
Systems Management
1 87 (8.65%) Ansible
2 78 (7.75%) Terraform
3 71 (7.06%) FortiGate
4 9 (0.89%) Cisco Prime
4 9 (0.89%) Grafana
5 8 (0.80%) Kubernetes
5 8 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (0.70%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (0.30%) Packer
8 3 (0.30%) Puppet
9 2 (0.20%) Avamar
9 2 (0.20%) CASB
9 2 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (0.20%) Istio
9 2 (0.20%) Nagios
9 2 (0.20%) SCOM
9 2 (0.20%) Tivoli NetView
9 2 (0.20%) WSUS
10 1 (0.099%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 528 (52.49%) Cisco
2 228 (22.66%) Palo Alto
3 177 (17.59%) F5
4 143 (14.21%) Fortinet
5 112 (11.13%) Juniper
6 92 (9.15%) VMware
7 79 (7.85%) Aruba
8 71 (7.06%) CheckPoint
9 66 (6.56%) Arista
10 48 (4.77%) Microsoft
11 46 (4.57%) Meraki
12 41 (4.08%) SolarWinds
13 35 (3.48%) Zscaler
14 33 (3.28%) Google
15 32 (3.18%) Blue Coat
16 31 (3.08%) Infoblox
17 26 (2.58%) McAfee
17 26 (2.58%) ServiceNow
18 21 (2.09%) Extreme Networks
19 20 (1.99%) Splunk