Network Engineer Contract Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the UK is £473, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 May 2026.

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

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 124 93
Rank change year-on-year -2 -31 +41
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 958 630 1,004
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.98% 2.19% 2.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.15% 2.37% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 626 382 611
10th Percentile £303 £325 £298
25th Percentile £400 £395 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £475 £465
Median % change year-on-year -0.42% +2.15% -0.27%
75th Percentile £540 £550 £538
90th Percentile £600 £613 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +2.22% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 7 20
10th Percentile £44.86 £20.62 £18.14
25th Percentile £56.44 £22.27 £24.19
Median hourly rate £73.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.00% +25.00% -36.74%
75th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £73.75
90th Percentile - £71.75 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.25 £22.27 £72.50
% change year-on-year +237.97% -69.29% +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 44,606 26,623 39,417
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.40% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,281 17,328 25,680
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.31%
75th Percentile £615 £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 2,914 1,023 2,675
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.82
25th Percentile £20.36 £18.17 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £28.15 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.63% -22.88% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.74
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £27.13 £40.00
% change year-on-year +65.90% -32.19% -5.88%

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 22 May 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 22 May 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 22 May 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 -7 800 £475 -3.06% 253
UK excluding London -10 582 £460 +2.22% 263
London -23 253 £500 - 67
Work from Home -1 231 £445 -6.32% 69
South East +6 185 £463 -7.50% 76
North of England -38 173 £474 -3.66% 58
North West -4 140 £474 -5.16% 26
Midlands +6 112 £425 - 34
West Midlands +23 104 £425 +54.55% 24
East of England +1 46 £453 +3.43% 21
Scotland +8 45 £418 +4.38% 31
South West -26 45 £533 +10.18% 26
Wales -10 25 £425 +21.43% 16
Yorkshire -61 23 £450 -8.54% 19
North East -20 10 £600 +108.70% 13
East Midlands -34 4 £500 +11.11% 10
Northern Ireland - 2 £468 - 4

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

For the 6 months to 22 May 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.

1 504 (52.61%) Cisco
2 414 (43.22%) Firewall
3 304 (31.73%) Security Cleared
4 264 (27.56%) WAN
5 241 (25.16%) Cisco Certification
6 234 (24.43%) Palo Alto
7 232 (24.22%) LAN
8 230 (24.01%) BGP
9 229 (23.90%) SC Cleared
10 206 (21.50%) Network Security
11 201 (20.98%) VPN
12 193 (20.15%) CCNP
13 183 (19.10%) F5
14 163 (17.01%) DNS
15 162 (16.91%) OSPF
16 147 (15.34%) Load Balancing
17 128 (13.36%) VLAN
18 122 (12.73%) Wireless
19 117 (12.21%) Fortinet
20 112 (11.69%) Juniper
21 111 (11.59%) Azure
22 100 (10.44%) TCP/IP
23 96 (10.02%) Migration
23 96 (10.02%) Python
24 95 (9.92%) CCNA
25 94 (9.81%) VMware
26 93 (9.71%) Problem-Solving
26 93 (9.71%) SD-WAN
27 89 (9.29%) Wi-Fi
28 88 (9.19%) Aruba

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 8 (0.84%) Confluence
2 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.31%) Apache
3 3 (0.31%) IIS
3 3 (0.31%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.10%) CMS
4 1 (0.10%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (1.67%) MS Visio
2 8 (0.84%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 111 (11.59%) Azure
2 79 (8.25%) AWS
3 52 (5.43%) GCP
4 27 (2.82%) GitHub
5 15 (1.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (1.46%) Entra ID
7 12 (1.25%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 11 (1.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 10 (1.04%) Microsoft 365
10 8 (0.84%) AWS Direct Connect
10 8 (0.84%) Nutanix
11 7 (0.73%) Azure Sentinel
12 6 (0.63%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (0.63%) Google Compute Engine
12 6 (0.63%) Route 53
13 5 (0.52%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (0.52%) Mimecast
14 4 (0.42%) SaaS
15 3 (0.31%) Catchpoint
15 3 (0.31%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 414 (43.22%) Firewall
2 264 (27.56%) WAN
3 232 (24.22%) LAN
4 230 (24.01%) BGP
5 206 (21.50%) Network Security
6 201 (20.98%) VPN
7 163 (17.01%) DNS
8 162 (16.91%) OSPF
9 128 (13.36%) VLAN
10 122 (12.73%) Wireless
11 100 (10.44%) TCP/IP
12 93 (9.71%) SD-WAN
13 89 (9.29%) Wi-Fi
14 78 (8.14%) Cisco Nexus
15 68 (7.10%) BIG-IP
16 66 (6.89%) MPLS
16 66 (6.89%) Multicast
17 64 (6.68%) IPsec
18 61 (6.37%) Cisco ISE
19 58 (6.05%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.31%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.10%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.10%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 27 (2.82%) Fiddler
2 21 (2.19%) Git
2 21 (2.19%) JIRA
3 19 (1.98%) Jenkins
4 10 (1.04%) Sonatype Nexus
5 8 (0.84%) GitLab
6 2 (0.21%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.10%) Jaeger
General
1 125 (13.05%) Social Skills
2 56 (5.85%) Banking
3 51 (5.32%) Finance
4 43 (4.49%) Analytical Skills
4 43 (4.49%) Documentation Skills
5 39 (4.07%) Investment Banking
6 37 (3.86%) Public Sector
7 34 (3.55%) Telecoms
8 28 (2.92%) Manufacturing
9 20 (2.09%) Legal
10 17 (1.77%) Retail
11 10 (1.04%) Law
12 9 (0.94%) Aerospace
13 7 (0.73%) Military
14 6 (0.63%) Financial Institution
15 5 (0.52%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (0.52%) Police
16 4 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
17 3 (0.31%) Influencing Skills
18 2 (0.21%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (4.59%) 802.1X
2 12 (1.25%) SAML
3 11 (1.15%) LDAP
4 7 (0.73%) REST
5 3 (0.31%) CSS
5 3 (0.31%) HTML
5 3 (0.31%) JSON
5 3 (0.31%) VML
6 2 (0.21%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.21%) Django
6 2 (0.21%) Jinja
6 2 (0.21%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.21%) OpenTelemetry
6 2 (0.21%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.10%) Loki
7 1 (0.10%) XML
7 1 (0.10%) XMPP
7 1 (0.10%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 204 (21.29%) Data Centre
2 26 (2.71%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (2.51%) Hybrid Cloud
4 23 (2.40%) Management Information System
5 20 (2.09%) PKI
6 19 (1.98%) Security Posture
7 15 (1.57%) Operational Technology
8 11 (1.15%) Onboarding
9 9 (0.94%) Cloud Native
9 9 (0.94%) Clustering
9 9 (0.94%) NHS
9 9 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (0.73%) CCTV
11 6 (0.63%) Public Cloud
12 5 (0.52%) CMDB
12 5 (0.52%) Enterprise Cloud
13 4 (0.42%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 4 (0.42%) IoT
13 4 (0.42%) Linux Command Line
13 4 (0.42%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 64 (6.68%) Windows
2 40 (4.18%) Linux
3 14 (1.46%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.73%) Unix
5 6 (0.63%) VMS
6 4 (0.42%) CatOS
7 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (0.21%) zOS
8 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.10%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.10%) Solaris
8 1 (0.10%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.10%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.10%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (15.34%) Load Balancing
2 96 (10.02%) Migration
3 93 (9.71%) Problem-Solving
4 88 (9.19%) High Availability
5 67 (6.99%) Network Monitoring
6 62 (6.47%) Project Delivery
7 59 (6.16%) Network Design
8 55 (5.74%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 54 (5.64%) ITIL
10 48 (5.01%) Change Management
11 47 (4.91%) Infrastructure as Code
11 47 (4.91%) Validation
12 39 (4.07%) Data Protection
12 39 (4.07%) Network Management
12 39 (4.07%) Technical Leadership
13 36 (3.76%) DevOps
13 36 (3.76%) ITSM
14 33 (3.44%) Zero Trust
15 32 (3.34%) Cloud Security
15 32 (3.34%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 96 (10.02%) Python
2 13 (1.36%) Bash
3 9 (0.94%) SQL
4 6 (0.63%) PowerShell
5 4 (0.42%) Java
6 3 (0.31%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.21%) ActionScript
7 2 (0.21%) Bicep
7 2 (0.21%) C
7 2 (0.21%) C++
7 2 (0.21%) Go
8 1 (0.10%) Groovy
8 1 (0.10%) Korn
8 1 (0.10%) Lisp
8 1 (0.10%) PHP
Qualifications
1 304 (31.73%) Security Cleared
2 241 (25.16%) Cisco Certification
3 229 (23.90%) SC Cleared
4 193 (20.15%) CCNP
5 95 (9.92%) CCNA
6 88 (9.19%) DV Cleared
7 43 (4.49%) Degree
8 34 (3.55%) CCIE
9 20 (2.09%) JNCIS
10 18 (1.88%) JNCIA
11 15 (1.57%) Network+ Certification
12 12 (1.25%) JNCIP
13 11 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
14 7 (0.73%) Azure Certification
14 7 (0.73%) CCSE
15 6 (0.63%) CompTIA Security+
16 4 (0.42%) AWS Certification
16 4 (0.42%) CISSP
16 4 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
16 4 (0.42%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (1.36%) SLA
2 10 (1.04%) QA
3 9 (0.94%) NIST
4 7 (0.73%) Disclosure Scotland
5 5 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (0.52%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.42%) GRC
7 3 (0.31%) GDPR
7 3 (0.31%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.21%) NCSC
8 2 (0.21%) PMO
9 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 66 (6.89%) VMware Infrastructure
2 40 (4.18%) VMware NSX
3 31 (3.24%) Firmware
4 26 (2.71%) Active Directory
5 11 (1.15%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.94%) vSphere
7 5 (0.52%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.21%) KVM
10 2 (0.21%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.21%) vCloud
11 1 (0.10%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.10%) Docker
11 1 (0.10%) iptables
11 1 (0.10%) RHEV
11 1 (0.10%) Snort
11 1 (0.10%) Squid
11 1 (0.10%) Xen
Systems Management
1 87 (9.08%) Ansible
2 71 (7.41%) Terraform
3 65 (6.78%) FortiGate
4 11 (1.15%) Grafana
4 11 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
5 9 (0.94%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.94%) Prometheus
6 7 (0.73%) Kubernetes
7 6 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (0.63%) Nagios
8 3 (0.31%) SCOM
8 3 (0.31%) WSUS
9 2 (0.21%) Avamar
9 2 (0.21%) CASB
9 2 (0.21%) Salt
9 2 (0.21%) Tivoli NetView
9 2 (0.21%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.10%) Istio
10 1 (0.10%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.10%) Suricata
Vendors
1 504 (52.61%) Cisco
2 234 (24.43%) Palo Alto
3 183 (19.10%) F5
4 117 (12.21%) Fortinet
5 112 (11.69%) Juniper
6 94 (9.81%) VMware
7 88 (9.19%) Aruba
8 83 (8.66%) CheckPoint
9 58 (6.05%) Arista
10 47 (4.91%) Meraki
11 45 (4.70%) Microsoft
12 43 (4.49%) SolarWinds
13 35 (3.65%) Blue Coat
14 31 (3.24%) Google
15 30 (3.13%) McAfee
16 28 (2.92%) Zscaler
17 27 (2.82%) Infoblox
18 26 (2.71%) ServiceNow
19 22 (2.30%) NetApp
20 21 (2.19%) Extreme Networks