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 December 2025.

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

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 164 99 113
Rank change year-on-year -65 +14 +66
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 627 851 976
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.70% 2.49% 2.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.87% 2.68% 2.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 429 497 574
10th Percentile £315 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% +7.78% -
75th Percentile £538 £580 £550
90th Percentile £600 £638 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £431
% change year-on-year - +10.14% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 15 40
10th Percentile £20.75 £19.10 £24.93
25th Percentile £33.00 £20.00 £37.59
Median hourly rate £52.58 £38.00 £62.75
Median % change year-on-year +38.37% -39.44% +23.65%
75th Percentile £72.51 £52.83 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.38 £67.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.44 £20.19 £63.00
% change year-on-year +179.58% -67.96% +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 33,513 31,718 41,239
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.01% 92.78% 93.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,192 19,534 27,738
10th Percentile £290 £300 £288
25th Percentile £404 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £644
90th Percentile £720 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £489 £500
% change year-on-year -2.86% -2.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,975 999 1,468
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.52 £15.14
25th Percentile £18.22 £21.22 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.50 £34.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% -23.60% +48.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.84 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £72.55 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -27.78% +80.76%

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 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 19 December 2025.

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 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 -71 529 £495 +1.02% 344
UK excluding London -51 386 £475 - 328
London -46 183 £475 -6.86% 73
Work from Home -52 175 £450 -5.26% 145
South East -17 133 £500 - 113
North of England -70 111 £515 +8.42% 63
North West -42 93 £515 +5.10% 30
Midlands -37 63 £395 -11.73% 56
West Midlands -12 57 £380 -24.00% 45
Scotland +13 47 £425 +6.25% 21
East of England -18 25 £475 +72.73% 41
South West -41 18 £488 +3.17% 23
Yorkshire -77 16 £435 +6.75% 28
Wales -6 8 £550 +41.94% 11
East Midlands -37 5 £650 +73.33% 9
North East -5 3 £625 +28.21% 7
Northern Ireland -5 3 £475 -8.43% 6

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 363 (57.89%) Cisco
2 301 (48.01%) Firewall
3 215 (34.29%) Security Cleared
4 191 (30.46%) Cisco Certification
5 175 (27.91%) WAN
6 159 (25.36%) CCNP
7 145 (23.13%) SC Cleared
8 138 (22.01%) BGP
9 137 (21.85%) Palo Alto
10 129 (20.57%) Network Security
11 127 (20.26%) Juniper
12 123 (19.62%) LAN
13 119 (18.98%) VPN
14 108 (17.22%) Python
15 102 (16.27%) OSPF
16 97 (15.47%) F5
17 92 (14.67%) Ansible
18 91 (14.51%) DNS
19 81 (12.92%) TCP/IP
20 79 (12.60%) Load Balancing
21 78 (12.44%) CCNA
22 76 (12.12%) AWS
22 76 (12.12%) Network Design
23 72 (11.48%) Wi-Fi
24 71 (11.32%) CheckPoint
24 71 (11.32%) SD-WAN
25 70 (11.16%) Wireless
26 68 (10.85%) Problem-Solving
27 65 (10.37%) Azure
27 65 (10.37%) DV Cleared

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 (1.44%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.64%) Confluence
2 4 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.32%) Apache
3 2 (0.32%) IIS
Applications
1 16 (2.55%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.64%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 76 (12.12%) AWS
2 65 (10.37%) Azure
3 21 (3.35%) GCP
4 11 (1.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 6 (0.96%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (0.80%) Akamai
6 5 (0.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 5 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
6 5 (0.80%) Amazon ELB
6 5 (0.80%) Amazon S3
6 5 (0.80%) AWS Direct Connect
6 5 (0.80%) GitHub
6 5 (0.80%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (0.80%) Nutanix
7 4 (0.64%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (0.64%) Cohesity
7 4 (0.64%) Entra ID
7 4 (0.64%) OCI
8 3 (0.48%) IaaS
8 3 (0.48%) Mimecast
Communications & Networking
1 301 (48.01%) Firewall
2 175 (27.91%) WAN
3 138 (22.01%) BGP
4 129 (20.57%) Network Security
5 123 (19.62%) LAN
6 119 (18.98%) VPN
7 102 (16.27%) OSPF
8 91 (14.51%) DNS
9 81 (12.92%) TCP/IP
10 72 (11.48%) Wi-Fi
11 71 (11.32%) SD-WAN
12 70 (11.16%) Wireless
13 65 (10.37%) VLAN
14 64 (10.21%) Cisco ISE
15 62 (9.89%) MPLS
16 54 (8.61%) SSL
17 52 (8.29%) Cisco IOS
18 47 (7.50%) Cisco Nexus
18 47 (7.50%) IPsec
19 38 (6.06%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle Database
1 1 (0.16%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 22 (3.51%) Git
2 18 (2.87%) Fiddler
3 11 (1.75%) GitLab
4 10 (1.59%) Jenkins
5 8 (1.28%) JIRA
5 8 (1.28%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.48%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.16%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.16%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.16%) Mercurial
7 1 (0.16%) Subversion
General
1 145 (23.13%) Social Skills
2 67 (10.69%) Public Sector
3 51 (8.13%) Finance
4 42 (6.70%) Analytical Skills
5 34 (5.42%) Documentation Skills
6 33 (5.26%) Telecoms
7 27 (4.31%) Banking
8 24 (3.83%) Manufacturing
9 23 (3.67%) Investment Banking
10 10 (1.59%) Legal
11 7 (1.12%) Local Government
12 6 (0.96%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.80%) Retail
14 4 (0.64%) Electronics
14 4 (0.64%) Marketing
14 4 (0.64%) Military
14 4 (0.64%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.64%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (4.47%) 802.1X
2 6 (0.96%) RFC 2544
2 6 (0.96%) SAML
3 5 (0.80%) Jinja
4 4 (0.64%) JSON
4 4 (0.64%) Middleware
4 4 (0.64%) VML
5 3 (0.48%) LDAP
5 3 (0.48%) YANG
6 2 (0.32%) CSS
6 2 (0.32%) HTML
6 2 (0.32%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.32%) Node.js
6 2 (0.32%) REST
6 2 (0.32%) XML
7 1 (0.16%) ADO
7 1 (0.16%) FIX Protocol
7 1 (0.16%) gRPC
7 1 (0.16%) Loki
7 1 (0.16%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 114 (18.18%) Data Centre
2 20 (3.19%) Management Information System
3 18 (2.87%) Data Protection Act
3 18 (2.87%) Onboarding
3 18 (2.87%) Operational Technology
3 18 (2.87%) PKI
4 14 (2.23%) Hedge funds
5 10 (1.59%) Fibre Optics
5 10 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
6 8 (1.28%) SCADA
6 8 (1.28%) Security Posture
7 6 (0.96%) NHS
7 6 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (0.80%) Driving Licence
8 5 (0.80%) IoT
8 5 (0.80%) Public Cloud
9 4 (0.64%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 4 (0.64%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (0.64%) Private Cloud
9 4 (0.64%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 45 (7.18%) Windows
2 30 (4.78%) Linux
3 26 (4.15%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.96%) Unix
5 3 (0.48%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.32%) CatOS
6 2 (0.32%) zOS
7 1 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.16%) VMS
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (12.60%) Load Balancing
2 76 (12.12%) Network Design
3 68 (10.85%) Problem-Solving
4 50 (7.97%) Migration
5 46 (7.34%) Network Monitoring
6 43 (6.86%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 42 (6.70%) High Availability
8 39 (6.22%) Network Architecture
9 37 (5.90%) DevOps
10 34 (5.42%) Cybersecurity
10 34 (5.42%) Network Management
11 32 (5.10%) Incident Response
12 31 (4.94%) ITSM
13 29 (4.63%) Service Management
14 28 (4.47%) Project Delivery
15 27 (4.31%) Infrastructure as Code
16 25 (3.99%) Change Management
16 25 (3.99%) Network Segmentation
17 24 (3.83%) Agile
17 24 (3.83%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 108 (17.22%) Python
2 31 (4.94%) Bash
3 19 (3.03%) Perl
4 12 (1.91%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.28%) Lisp
6 7 (1.12%) C++
7 4 (0.64%) Java
7 4 (0.64%) SQL
8 3 (0.48%) Go
9 2 (0.32%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.16%) C
10 1 (0.16%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.16%) PHP
10 1 (0.16%) Ruby
10 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.16%) VB
Qualifications
1 215 (34.29%) Security Cleared
2 191 (30.46%) Cisco Certification
3 159 (25.36%) CCNP
4 145 (23.13%) SC Cleared
5 78 (12.44%) CCNA
6 65 (10.37%) DV Cleared
7 29 (4.63%) CCIE
8 27 (4.31%) Degree
9 19 (3.03%) JNCIS
10 16 (2.55%) JNCIA
11 13 (2.07%) JNCIP
12 11 (1.75%) Network+ Certification
13 10 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
14 8 (1.28%) CCDP
14 8 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
15 6 (0.96%) CCSA
16 4 (0.64%) CISSP
16 4 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
17 3 (0.48%) CompTIA Security+
17 3 (0.48%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 9 (1.44%) SLA
2 6 (0.96%) NIST
3 5 (0.80%) GDPR
3 5 (0.80%) PCI DSS
4 4 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (0.48%) GRC
6 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 2 (0.32%) QA
6 2 (0.32%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.16%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.16%) PMO
System Software
1 37 (5.90%) VMware NSX
2 34 (5.42%) Active Directory
3 30 (4.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (4.31%) Firmware
5 14 (2.23%) Docker
6 9 (1.44%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.80%) ProxySG
9 3 (0.48%) KVM
9 3 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
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 92 (14.67%) Ansible
2 55 (8.77%) FortiGate
3 38 (6.06%) Terraform
4 26 (4.15%) vCenter Server
5 8 (1.28%) Grafana
5 8 (1.28%) Kubernetes
6 7 (1.12%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.96%) Nagios
7 6 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.80%) SCCM
9 4 (0.64%) CASB
9 4 (0.64%) Cisco CUCM
9 4 (0.64%) SCOrch
10 3 (0.48%) Dell DRAC
10 3 (0.48%) Tivoli NetView
10 3 (0.48%) WhatsUp Gold
11 2 (0.32%) CA Spectrum
11 2 (0.32%) Cisco Prime
12 1 (0.16%) ITRS Geneos
12 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 363 (57.89%) Cisco
2 137 (21.85%) Palo Alto
3 127 (20.26%) Juniper
4 97 (15.47%) F5
5 71 (11.32%) CheckPoint
6 62 (9.89%) Fortinet
7 59 (9.41%) SolarWinds
8 58 (9.25%) Meraki
9 51 (8.13%) VMware
10 43 (6.86%) Aruba
11 40 (6.38%) Arista
11 40 (6.38%) Microsoft
12 38 (6.06%) Blue Coat
13 30 (4.78%) McAfee
14 25 (3.99%) Zscaler
15 19 (3.03%) Nokia
16 18 (2.87%) ServiceNow
17 17 (2.71%) NetApp
18 11 (1.75%) Remedy
19 10 (1.59%) Splunk