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 4 July 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 126 96
Rank change year-on-year -8 -30 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,031 703 1,030
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.00% 2.23% 2.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.16% 2.42% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 667 433 638
10th Percentile £303 £325 £287
25th Percentile £406 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +5.56%
75th Percentile £544 £575 £550
90th Percentile £600 £625 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £460
% change year-on-year -2.63% +3.26% +8.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 10 20
10th Percentile £28.50 £21.90 £18.41
25th Percentile £55.00 £25.00 £23.04
Median hourly rate £72.77 £45.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.06% +14.38% -35.48%
75th Percentile £78.75 £60.63 £73.75
90th Percentile - £69.50 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £28.75 £52.50
% change year-on-year +153.91% -45.24% -15.32%

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 47,708 29,033 40,392
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.44% 92.03% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,866 18,550 25,972
10th Percentile £325 £288 £287
25th Percentile £416 £401 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,233 1,310 2,837
10th Percentile £15.72 £13.78 £12.87
25th Percentile £21.15 £17.44 £16.65
Median hourly rate £43.00 £26.50 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year +62.26% -29.80% -12.21%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.25 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% +1.01%

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 4 July 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 4 July 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 4 July 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 -22 845 £475 -3.06% 392
UK excluding London -22 604 £463 -2.63% 364
London -23 288 £500 +4.44% 107
Work from Home -34 233 £450 -5.26% 85
North of England -11 212 £481 -2.18% 82
North West -2 159 £478 -2.17% 37
South East -17 150 £466 -6.75% 88
Midlands -1 118 £450 +4.65% 59
West Midlands +3 111 £438 +25.00% 23
Scotland +23 69 £413 -1.49% 26
East of England -14 41 £438 +15.51% 37
South West -47 40 £550 +4.76% 46
Yorkshire -53 40 £450 -8.54% 29
Wales -6 25 £425 - 15
North East -24 13 £600 +108.70% 16
East Midlands -24 4 £475 +5.56% 36
Northern Ireland +1 2 £468 -18.70% 14

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

For the 6 months to 4 July 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.

1 552 (53.54%) Cisco
2 452 (43.84%) Firewall
3 290 (28.13%) WAN
4 268 (25.99%) Security Cleared
5 251 (24.35%) BGP
6 249 (24.15%) Cisco Certification
7 239 (23.18%) LAN
7 239 (23.18%) Network Security
8 228 (22.11%) VPN
9 218 (21.14%) Palo Alto
10 193 (18.72%) SC Cleared
11 191 (18.53%) CCNP
12 183 (17.75%) F5
13 182 (17.65%) DNS
14 173 (16.78%) Wireless
15 166 (16.10%) OSPF
16 153 (14.84%) Fortinet
17 149 (14.45%) Load Balancing
18 137 (13.29%) VLAN
19 126 (12.22%) Azure
20 121 (11.74%) Juniper
21 120 (11.64%) Python
22 118 (11.45%) Migration
23 114 (11.06%) SD-WAN
24 104 (10.09%) TCP/IP
25 102 (9.89%) CCNA
26 100 (9.70%) High Availability
27 98 (9.51%) Wi-Fi
28 94 (9.12%) VMware
29 89 (8.63%) 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 5 (0.48%) Confluence
2 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (0.29%) SAS
3 1 (0.097%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.097%) CMS
3 1 (0.097%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.097%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.097%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 18 (1.75%) MS Visio
2 11 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 126 (12.22%) Azure
2 86 (8.34%) AWS
3 54 (5.24%) GCP
4 37 (3.59%) GitHub
5 16 (1.55%) Azure ExpressRoute
5 16 (1.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 12 (1.16%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 11 (1.07%) AWS CloudFormation
8 10 (0.97%) AWS Direct Connect
8 10 (0.97%) Entra ID
8 10 (0.97%) IaaS
9 7 (0.68%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (0.68%) Microsoft 365
9 7 (0.68%) Nutanix
10 6 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
10 6 (0.58%) Google Compute Engine
11 5 (0.48%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (0.48%) Datadog
11 5 (0.48%) SaaS
11 5 (0.48%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 452 (43.84%) Firewall
2 290 (28.13%) WAN
3 251 (24.35%) BGP
4 239 (23.18%) LAN
4 239 (23.18%) Network Security
5 228 (22.11%) VPN
6 182 (17.65%) DNS
7 173 (16.78%) Wireless
8 166 (16.10%) OSPF
9 137 (13.29%) VLAN
10 114 (11.06%) SD-WAN
11 104 (10.09%) TCP/IP
12 98 (9.51%) Wi-Fi
13 79 (7.66%) Cisco Nexus
14 75 (7.27%) MPLS
14 75 (7.27%) Multicast
15 68 (6.60%) Cisco ISE
16 67 (6.50%) BIG-IP
17 63 (6.11%) DHCP
18 58 (5.63%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.097%) ClickHouse
1 1 (0.097%) GIS
1 1 (0.097%) Oracle Reports
1 1 (0.097%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 29 (2.81%) Jenkins
2 28 (2.72%) JIRA
3 21 (2.04%) Fiddler
4 17 (1.65%) Git
5 9 (0.87%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.78%) GitLab
7 2 (0.19%) Browser DevTools
General
1 139 (13.48%) Social Skills
2 64 (6.21%) Finance
3 62 (6.01%) Banking
4 49 (4.75%) Analytical Skills
5 43 (4.17%) Telecoms
6 38 (3.69%) Investment Banking
6 38 (3.69%) Public Sector
7 33 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (2.13%) Legal
9 20 (1.94%) Retail
10 19 (1.84%) Manufacturing
11 9 (0.87%) Aerospace
12 8 (0.78%) Law
13 7 (0.68%) Financial Institution
13 7 (0.68%) Police
14 6 (0.58%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (0.48%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.48%) Military
15 5 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
15 5 (0.48%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (4.56%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.07%) REST
3 10 (0.97%) SAML
4 8 (0.78%) LDAP
5 2 (0.19%) AWS CDK
5 2 (0.19%) CSS
5 2 (0.19%) Django
5 2 (0.19%) HTML
5 2 (0.19%) Java RMI
5 2 (0.19%) Jinja
5 2 (0.19%) NETCONF
5 2 (0.19%) RFC 2544
6 1 (0.097%) JSON
6 1 (0.097%) ModSecurity
6 1 (0.097%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.097%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 199 (19.30%) Data Centre
2 26 (2.52%) Hybrid Cloud
3 25 (2.42%) PKI
4 23 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
4 23 (2.23%) Management Information System
5 21 (2.04%) Security Posture
6 16 (1.55%) Operational Technology
7 15 (1.45%) Cloud Native
7 15 (1.45%) Onboarding
8 10 (0.97%) NHS
9 9 (0.87%) Clustering
10 8 (0.78%) CCTV
11 7 (0.68%) Self-Motivation
12 6 (0.58%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 6 (0.58%) Enterprise Cloud
12 6 (0.58%) Linux Command Line
13 5 (0.48%) Driving Licence
13 5 (0.48%) IoT
13 5 (0.48%) Public Cloud
14 4 (0.39%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 72 (6.98%) Windows
2 40 (3.88%) Linux
3 12 (1.16%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.58%) Unix
4 6 (0.58%) VMS
5 5 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.19%) CatOS
8 2 (0.19%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.19%) zOS
9 1 (0.097%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.097%) Solaris
9 1 (0.097%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.097%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 149 (14.45%) Load Balancing
2 118 (11.45%) Migration
3 100 (9.70%) High Availability
4 89 (8.63%) Problem-Solving
5 77 (7.47%) Project Delivery
6 67 (6.50%) ITIL
6 67 (6.50%) Network Design
7 64 (6.21%) Network Monitoring
8 63 (6.11%) Change Management
9 59 (5.72%) Infrastructure as Code
10 55 (5.33%) Validation
11 50 (4.85%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 42 (4.07%) Technical Leadership
12 42 (4.07%) Zero Trust
13 40 (3.88%) CI/CD
13 40 (3.88%) Data Protection
13 40 (3.88%) ITSM
14 39 (3.78%) Continuous Improvement
14 39 (3.78%) DevOps
15 37 (3.59%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 120 (11.64%) Python
2 15 (1.45%) Bash
3 11 (1.07%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.87%) ActionScript
5 8 (0.78%) SQL
6 3 (0.29%) Bicep
6 3 (0.29%) C
6 3 (0.29%) Java
7 2 (0.19%) C++
7 2 (0.19%) Groovy
7 2 (0.19%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.19%) Perl
8 1 (0.097%) Go
8 1 (0.097%) Korn
8 1 (0.097%) Lisp
8 1 (0.097%) PHP
Qualifications
1 268 (25.99%) Security Cleared
2 249 (24.15%) Cisco Certification
3 193 (18.72%) SC Cleared
4 191 (18.53%) CCNP
5 102 (9.89%) CCNA
6 81 (7.86%) DV Cleared
7 42 (4.07%) CCIE
8 41 (3.98%) Degree
9 15 (1.45%) JNCIA
9 15 (1.45%) JNCIS
10 13 (1.26%) Network+ Certification
11 11 (1.07%) JNCIP
12 10 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
13 9 (0.87%) CCSE
14 8 (0.78%) CISSP
15 6 (0.58%) Azure Certification
15 6 (0.58%) CompTIA Security+
16 5 (0.48%) AWS Certification
16 5 (0.48%) CCIE Wireless
16 5 (0.48%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (1.65%) SLA
2 12 (1.16%) NIST
3 11 (1.07%) QA
4 8 (0.78%) Disclosure Scotland
5 6 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.48%) GDPR
6 5 (0.48%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.39%) GRC
8 2 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.19%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.19%) NCSC
9 1 (0.097%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.097%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.097%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.097%) PMO
System Software
1 69 (6.69%) VMware Infrastructure
2 35 (3.39%) VMware NSX
3 34 (3.30%) Firmware
4 30 (2.91%) Active Directory
5 16 (1.55%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (1.26%) vSphere
7 6 (0.58%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) vCloud
11 1 (0.097%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.097%) Docker
11 1 (0.097%) FreeRADIUS
11 1 (0.097%) IAG
11 1 (0.097%) iptables
11 1 (0.097%) KVM
11 1 (0.097%) Snort
11 1 (0.097%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 87 (8.44%) Ansible
2 81 (7.86%) Terraform
3 76 (7.37%) FortiGate
4 9 (0.87%) Cisco Prime
4 9 (0.87%) Grafana
5 8 (0.78%) Kubernetes
5 8 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (0.68%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.39%) Packer
7 4 (0.39%) Puppet
8 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
8 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (0.29%) Nagios
9 2 (0.19%) CASB
9 2 (0.19%) Istio
9 2 (0.19%) Nessus
9 2 (0.19%) SCCM
9 2 (0.19%) SCOM
9 2 (0.19%) Tivoli NetView
9 2 (0.19%) WSUS
Vendors
1 552 (53.54%) Cisco
2 218 (21.14%) Palo Alto
3 183 (17.75%) F5
4 153 (14.84%) Fortinet
5 121 (11.74%) Juniper
6 94 (9.12%) VMware
7 76 (7.37%) CheckPoint
8 71 (6.89%) Arista
9 69 (6.69%) Aruba
10 51 (4.95%) Meraki
11 49 (4.75%) Microsoft
12 39 (3.78%) SolarWinds
12 39 (3.78%) Zscaler
13 33 (3.20%) Google
14 32 (3.10%) Infoblox
15 30 (2.91%) Blue Coat
16 27 (2.62%) ServiceNow
17 24 (2.33%) McAfee
18 21 (2.04%) Extreme Networks
19 20 (1.94%) Splunk