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 24 September 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 159 95
Rank change year-on-year +29 -64 +16
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,136 590 927
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.07% 1.79% 2.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.24% 1.97% 2.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 662 387 531
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £466 £495
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -5.96% +10.00%
75th Percentile £544 £566 £588
90th Percentile £625 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £455 £490
% change year-on-year +1.65% -7.14% +15.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 13 20
10th Percentile £13.62 £22.12 £19.85
25th Percentile £57.34 £32.50 £20.00
Median hourly rate £73.00 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.57% -22.22% -27.42%
75th Percentile £79.33 £67.25 £67.50
90th Percentile £92.53 £80.15 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £38.25 £35.48
% change year-on-year +90.85% +7.81% -44.55%

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 50,643 30,010 35,418
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.03% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,934 18,949 21,605
10th Percentile £325 £277 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,909 1,607 1,616
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.75
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.70 £51.57 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.65 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.49% -42.88% +0.83%

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 24 September 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 24 September 2026.

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 24 September 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 +20 922 £475 - 806
UK excluding London +2 654 £463 +1.65% 563
London +12 346 £475 - 290
North of England +20 249 £499 +2.84% 121
Work from Home -28 225 £469 +4.11% 257
North West +22 167 £500 +5.26% 66
Midlands -12 106 £475 +21.79% 94
South East -51 99 £463 -7.50% 113
West Midlands -19 87 £475 +25.00% 62
Scotland +11 83 £400 -5.88% 33
Yorkshire -1 69 £450 -8.07% 39
South West -9 60 £565 -5.44% 83
East of England -2 55 £420 +9.80% 87
Wales +22 37 £363 - 21
East Midlands -6 18 £500 -23.08% 32
North East -34 13 £600 - 16
Northern Ireland +2 3 £425 -10.53% 15
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 +36.36% 2

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

For the 6 months to 24 September 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.

1 617 (54.31%) Cisco
2 440 (38.73%) Firewall
3 309 (27.20%) WAN
4 259 (22.80%) BGP
5 251 (22.10%) Security Cleared
6 248 (21.83%) Network Security
7 240 (21.13%) VPN
8 238 (20.95%) LAN
9 231 (20.33%) Cisco Certification
10 222 (19.54%) Palo Alto
11 212 (18.66%) Wireless
12 180 (15.85%) CCNP
13 168 (14.79%) SC Cleared
14 166 (14.61%) OSPF
15 165 (14.52%) DNS
16 158 (13.91%) Fortinet
17 152 (13.38%) Python
17 152 (13.38%) VLAN
18 150 (13.20%) F5
19 138 (12.15%) Migration
20 133 (11.71%) Azure
21 124 (10.92%) Load Balancing
22 118 (10.39%) SD-WAN
23 115 (10.12%) Wi-Fi
24 114 (10.04%) Problem-Solving
25 107 (9.42%) TCP/IP
26 106 (9.33%) Ansible
27 97 (8.54%) Terraform
28 96 (8.45%) Project Delivery
29 90 (7.92%) VMware

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 (0.79%) Confluence
2 8 (0.70%) SAS
3 6 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.53%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.18%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.088%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.088%) CMS
5 1 (0.088%) FactoryTalk
5 1 (0.088%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 14 (1.23%) MS Visio
2 12 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.088%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.088%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 133 (11.71%) Azure
2 84 (7.39%) AWS
3 43 (3.79%) GCP
4 40 (3.52%) GitHub
5 27 (2.38%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (1.50%) Microsoft 365
7 15 (1.32%) AWS Direct Connect
7 15 (1.32%) Entra ID
8 12 (1.06%) IaaS
9 11 (0.97%) AWS CloudFormation
10 8 (0.70%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (0.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 6 (0.53%) Azure DevOps
11 6 (0.53%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 6 (0.53%) Nutanix
11 6 (0.53%) OCI
12 5 (0.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 5 (0.44%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (0.44%) Datadog
12 5 (0.44%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 440 (38.73%) Firewall
2 309 (27.20%) WAN
3 259 (22.80%) BGP
4 248 (21.83%) Network Security
5 240 (21.13%) VPN
6 238 (20.95%) LAN
7 212 (18.66%) Wireless
8 166 (14.61%) OSPF
9 165 (14.52%) DNS
10 152 (13.38%) VLAN
11 118 (10.39%) SD-WAN
12 115 (10.12%) Wi-Fi
13 107 (9.42%) TCP/IP
14 86 (7.57%) MPLS
15 75 (6.60%) Multicast
16 74 (6.51%) DHCP
17 73 (6.43%) Cisco ISE
18 72 (6.34%) Cisco Nexus
19 67 (5.90%) Cisco ASA
20 56 (4.93%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.53%) GIS
2 3 (0.26%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.088%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.088%) Metadata
3 1 (0.088%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.088%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 37 (3.26%) Git
2 27 (2.38%) JIRA
3 24 (2.11%) Jenkins
4 13 (1.14%) GitLab
5 12 (1.06%) Fiddler
6 7 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.088%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.088%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.088%) Postman
General
1 136 (11.97%) Social Skills
2 92 (8.10%) Finance
3 69 (6.07%) Analytical Skills
3 69 (6.07%) Telecoms
4 63 (5.55%) Banking
5 52 (4.58%) Public Sector
6 31 (2.73%) Investment Banking
7 28 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
8 24 (2.11%) Legal
9 20 (1.76%) Retail
10 18 (1.58%) Manufacturing
11 10 (0.88%) Aerospace
12 9 (0.79%) Financial Institution
13 8 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
14 7 (0.62%) Police
15 6 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 5 (0.44%) Organisational Skills
17 4 (0.35%) Automotive
17 4 (0.35%) Law
17 4 (0.35%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (8.54%) Terraform
2 44 (3.87%) 802.1X
3 23 (2.02%) REST
4 13 (1.14%) NETCONF
5 11 (0.97%) JSON
6 10 (0.88%) YAML
7 7 (0.62%) SAML
8 5 (0.44%) XML
9 4 (0.35%) YANG
10 3 (0.26%) Java RMI
11 2 (0.18%) eBPF
11 2 (0.18%) Jinja
11 2 (0.18%) LDAP
11 2 (0.18%) ModSecurity
11 2 (0.18%) RESTCONF
11 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
12 1 (0.088%) IDoc
12 1 (0.088%) Middleware
12 1 (0.088%) OpenAPI
12 1 (0.088%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 202 (17.78%) Data Centre
2 40 (3.52%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (2.38%) PKI
4 25 (2.20%) Driving Licence
5 24 (2.11%) Onboarding
6 23 (2.02%) Cloud Native
6 23 (2.02%) Operational Technology
7 18 (1.58%) Management Information System
8 16 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
9 14 (1.23%) IoT
9 14 (1.23%) Security Posture
10 12 (1.06%) Public Cloud
11 10 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
11 10 (0.88%) Linux Command Line
11 10 (0.88%) SCADA
12 9 (0.79%) Fibre Optics
13 8 (0.70%) Digital Signage
14 7 (0.62%) CCTV
14 7 (0.62%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 7 (0.62%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 73 (6.43%) Windows
2 58 (5.11%) Linux
3 18 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 9 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.53%) VMS
6 5 (0.44%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.44%) Unix
6 5 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
6 5 (0.44%) zOS
7 3 (0.26%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.18%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.088%) Solaris
9 1 (0.088%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.088%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.088%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 138 (12.15%) Migration
2 124 (10.92%) Load Balancing
3 114 (10.04%) Problem-Solving
4 96 (8.45%) Project Delivery
5 87 (7.66%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 80 (7.04%) Validation
7 78 (6.87%) Infrastructure as Code
8 77 (6.78%) High Availability
9 76 (6.69%) Network Design
10 71 (6.25%) ITIL
11 61 (5.37%) Zero Trust
12 60 (5.28%) Change Management
13 57 (5.02%) Network Monitoring
14 53 (4.67%) CI/CD
15 47 (4.14%) Stakeholder Management
16 45 (3.96%) Continuous Improvement
17 44 (3.87%) Technical Leadership
18 43 (3.79%) Network Segmentation
19 42 (3.70%) DevOps
20 37 (3.26%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 152 (13.38%) Python
2 31 (2.73%) Bash
3 26 (2.29%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.79%) ActionScript
5 7 (0.62%) SQL
6 6 (0.53%) C++
7 3 (0.26%) C
7 3 (0.26%) Java
7 3 (0.26%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) Go
8 2 (0.18%) Groovy
8 2 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.088%) Bicep
9 1 (0.088%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 251 (22.10%) Security Cleared
2 231 (20.33%) Cisco Certification
3 180 (15.85%) CCNP
4 168 (14.79%) SC Cleared
5 87 (7.66%) CCNA
6 75 (6.60%) DV Cleared
7 47 (4.14%) CCIE
8 33 (2.90%) Degree
9 15 (1.32%) CISSP
10 11 (0.97%) JNCIS
11 9 (0.79%) JNCIP
11 9 (0.79%) Network+ Certification
12 8 (0.70%) CCSE
13 7 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
14 6 (0.53%) BPSS Clearance
14 6 (0.53%) CCIE Security
14 6 (0.53%) DBS Check
15 5 (0.44%) CCSA
15 5 (0.44%) CWNA
16 4 (0.35%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (2.11%) SLA
2 16 (1.41%) QA
3 14 (1.23%) NIST
4 10 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
6 6 (0.53%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.26%) Data Quality
8 2 (0.18%) GDPR
8 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.088%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.088%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.088%) GRC
9 1 (0.088%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.088%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 59 (5.19%) VMware Infrastructure
2 35 (3.08%) Active Directory
3 30 (2.64%) Firmware
4 28 (2.46%) VMware NSX
5 16 (1.41%) vSphere
6 9 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.70%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.44%) FreeRADIUS
8 5 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.35%) Docker
10 3 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.18%) Squid
12 1 (0.088%) iptables
12 1 (0.088%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 106 (9.33%) Ansible
2 70 (6.16%) FortiGate
3 28 (2.46%) Kubernetes
4 16 (1.41%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.79%) Istio
5 9 (0.79%) Nagios
6 7 (0.62%) Grafana
7 6 (0.53%) Cisco CUCM
7 6 (0.53%) Progress Chef
7 6 (0.53%) Puppet
8 5 (0.44%) Cilium
8 5 (0.44%) Prometheus
9 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (0.35%) Packer
9 4 (0.35%) systemd
9 4 (0.35%) vRealize
10 3 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.26%) TrustSec
11 2 (0.18%) Avamar
11 2 (0.18%) SCCM
Vendors
1 617 (54.31%) Cisco
2 222 (19.54%) Palo Alto
3 158 (13.91%) Fortinet
4 150 (13.20%) F5
5 90 (7.92%) VMware
6 86 (7.57%) Juniper
7 80 (7.04%) CheckPoint
8 79 (6.95%) Arista
9 78 (6.87%) Meraki
10 58 (5.11%) Aruba
10 58 (5.11%) Microsoft
11 53 (4.67%) Zscaler
12 41 (3.61%) SolarWinds
13 27 (2.38%) Nokia
14 25 (2.20%) ServiceNow
15 23 (2.02%) Blue Coat
16 22 (1.94%) Google
17 20 (1.76%) Infoblox
18 17 (1.50%) NetApp
19 15 (1.32%) McAfee