Network Engineer Contract Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the UK is £472, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 June 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 121 91
Rank change year-on-year -10 -30 +38
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 985 671 1,018
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.97% 2.28% 2.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.14% 2.47% 2.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 649 411 625
10th Percentile £300 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £392 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% - +2.70%
75th Percentile £544 £569 £540
90th Percentile £600 £625 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £464 £450
% change year-on-year -0.32% +3.11% +1.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 9 20
10th Percentile £51.25 £22.41 £18.14
25th Percentile £71.08 £32.50 £24.19
Median hourly rate £77.50 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +55.00% +25.00% -36.12%
75th Percentile £78.75 £61.25 £73.75
90th Percentile - £70.25 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.50 £35.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year +121.43% -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 46,065 27,116 40,535
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.32% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,032 17,461 26,079
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.55% -4.76% -2.60%
75th Percentile £621 £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 3,078 1,132 2,932
10th Percentile £15.13 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.70 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.23% -26.13% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £61.60
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% -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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -21 812 £475 -4.04% 200
UK excluding London -15 583 £463 -0.32% 214
London -37 270 £500 - 47
Work from Home -21 237 £445 -6.32% 44
North of England -29 186 £474 -3.58% 52
South East -3 168 £463 -7.50% 48
North West -6 139 £474 -5.16% 30
Midlands -2 113 £438 +2.94% 26
West Midlands +11 106 £431 +56.82% 13
Scotland +10 55 £415 +3.75% 19
East of England -2 45 £438 +14.38% 22
South West -35 41 £533 +1.52% 25
Yorkshire -50 34 £450 -8.54% 17
Wales -7 26 £425 +21.43% 12
North East -17 13 £600 +108.70% 5
East Midlands -36 3 £488 +8.33% 13
Northern Ireland +4 2 £468 -18.70% 12

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 517 (52.49%) Cisco
2 426 (43.25%) Firewall
3 281 (28.53%) Security Cleared
4 271 (27.51%) WAN
5 240 (24.37%) Cisco Certification
6 232 (23.55%) LAN
7 231 (23.45%) BGP
8 230 (23.35%) Palo Alto
9 222 (22.54%) Network Security
10 208 (21.12%) SC Cleared
11 202 (20.51%) VPN
12 190 (19.29%) CCNP
13 182 (18.48%) F5
14 172 (17.46%) DNS
15 156 (15.84%) OSPF
16 145 (14.72%) Load Balancing
17 138 (14.01%) VLAN
17 138 (14.01%) Wireless
18 135 (13.71%) Fortinet
19 120 (12.18%) Azure
20 108 (10.96%) Juniper
21 106 (10.76%) SD-WAN
22 104 (10.56%) Migration
22 104 (10.56%) Python
22 104 (10.56%) TCP/IP
23 94 (9.54%) CCNA
23 94 (9.54%) High Availability
23 94 (9.54%) Wi-Fi
24 93 (9.44%) Problem-Solving
25 90 (9.14%) 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 8 (0.81%) Confluence
2 5 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.30%) Apache
3 3 (0.30%) IIS
3 3 (0.30%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.10%) CMS
4 1 (0.10%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.10%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (1.62%) MS Visio
2 9 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 120 (12.18%) Azure
2 83 (8.43%) AWS
3 55 (5.58%) GCP
4 34 (3.45%) GitHub
5 16 (1.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (1.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 14 (1.42%) Entra ID
7 13 (1.32%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 11 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
9 10 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
10 9 (0.91%) AWS Direct Connect
11 8 (0.81%) Azure Sentinel
11 8 (0.81%) IaaS
12 7 (0.71%) Nutanix
13 6 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
13 6 (0.61%) Google Compute Engine
13 6 (0.61%) Route 53
14 5 (0.51%) Mimecast
14 5 (0.51%) SaaS
15 3 (0.30%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 426 (43.25%) Firewall
2 271 (27.51%) WAN
3 232 (23.55%) LAN
4 231 (23.45%) BGP
5 222 (22.54%) Network Security
6 202 (20.51%) VPN
7 172 (17.46%) DNS
8 156 (15.84%) OSPF
9 138 (14.01%) VLAN
9 138 (14.01%) Wireless
10 106 (10.76%) SD-WAN
11 104 (10.56%) TCP/IP
12 94 (9.54%) Wi-Fi
13 76 (7.72%) Cisco Nexus
14 70 (7.11%) MPLS
15 69 (7.01%) BIG-IP
16 68 (6.90%) Multicast
17 62 (6.29%) Cisco ISE
17 62 (6.29%) SSL
18 58 (5.89%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.20%) SQL Server
1 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 1 (0.10%) ClickHouse
2 1 (0.10%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 28 (2.84%) JIRA
2 26 (2.64%) Jenkins
3 25 (2.54%) Fiddler
4 16 (1.62%) Git
5 10 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.81%) GitLab
7 2 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
General
1 125 (12.69%) Social Skills
2 57 (5.79%) Banking
3 55 (5.58%) Finance
4 42 (4.26%) Analytical Skills
5 40 (4.06%) Investment Banking
6 38 (3.86%) Telecoms
7 33 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (3.25%) Public Sector
9 25 (2.54%) Legal
10 24 (2.44%) Manufacturing
11 17 (1.73%) Retail
12 10 (1.02%) Law
13 9 (0.91%) Aerospace
14 7 (0.71%) Financial Institution
15 6 (0.61%) Military
15 6 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
16 5 (0.51%) Police
17 4 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
18 3 (0.30%) Influencing Skills
19 2 (0.20%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (4.77%) 802.1X
2 11 (1.12%) REST
3 9 (0.91%) SAML
4 8 (0.81%) LDAP
5 3 (0.30%) CSS
5 3 (0.30%) HTML
6 2 (0.20%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.20%) Django
6 2 (0.20%) Jinja
6 2 (0.20%) JSON
6 2 (0.20%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.10%) Java RMI
7 1 (0.10%) NETCONF
7 1 (0.10%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.10%) VML
7 1 (0.10%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 207 (21.02%) Data Centre
2 25 (2.54%) Data Protection Act
2 25 (2.54%) Hybrid Cloud
3 24 (2.44%) PKI
4 23 (2.34%) Management Information System
5 20 (2.03%) Security Posture
6 15 (1.52%) Onboarding
6 15 (1.52%) Operational Technology
7 13 (1.32%) Cloud Native
8 9 (0.91%) Clustering
8 9 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (0.81%) NHS
10 7 (0.71%) CCTV
11 6 (0.61%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 6 (0.61%) Enterprise Cloud
11 6 (0.61%) Linux Command Line
12 5 (0.51%) Public Cloud
13 4 (0.41%) Distributed Systems
13 4 (0.41%) IoT
13 4 (0.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 68 (6.90%) Windows
2 43 (4.37%) Linux
3 13 (1.32%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.71%) Unix
5 6 (0.61%) VMS
6 2 (0.20%) CatOS
6 2 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.20%) zOS
7 1 (0.10%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.10%) Solaris
7 1 (0.10%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.10%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.10%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
7 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (14.72%) Load Balancing
2 104 (10.56%) Migration
3 94 (9.54%) High Availability
4 93 (9.44%) Problem-Solving
5 75 (7.61%) Project Delivery
6 69 (7.01%) Network Monitoring
7 61 (6.19%) Network Design
8 60 (6.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 59 (5.99%) ITIL
10 53 (5.38%) Infrastructure as Code
11 49 (4.97%) Change Management
12 48 (4.87%) Validation
13 42 (4.26%) Data Protection
14 41 (4.16%) Technical Leadership
15 40 (4.06%) ITSM
16 38 (3.86%) DevOps
16 38 (3.86%) Network Management
17 37 (3.76%) CI/CD
18 36 (3.65%) Zero Trust
19 33 (3.35%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 104 (10.56%) Python
2 14 (1.42%) Bash
3 9 (0.91%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.81%) ActionScript
4 8 (0.81%) SQL
5 3 (0.30%) Bicep
5 3 (0.30%) C
5 3 (0.30%) Java
5 3 (0.30%) JavaScript
6 2 (0.20%) C++
6 2 (0.20%) Groovy
7 1 (0.10%) Go
7 1 (0.10%) Korn
7 1 (0.10%) Lisp
7 1 (0.10%) Perl
7 1 (0.10%) PHP
Qualifications
1 281 (28.53%) Security Cleared
2 240 (24.37%) Cisco Certification
3 208 (21.12%) SC Cleared
4 190 (19.29%) CCNP
5 94 (9.54%) CCNA
6 83 (8.43%) DV Cleared
7 41 (4.16%) Degree
8 37 (3.76%) CCIE
9 16 (1.62%) JNCIA
9 16 (1.62%) JNCIS
10 14 (1.42%) Network+ Certification
11 11 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
11 11 (1.12%) JNCIP
12 9 (0.91%) CCSE
13 7 (0.71%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.61%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.51%) CCSM
15 5 (0.51%) CISSP
15 5 (0.51%) CWNA
15 5 (0.51%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (1.52%) SLA
2 13 (1.32%) NIST
3 11 (1.12%) QA
4 8 (0.81%) Disclosure Scotland
5 6 (0.61%) PCI DSS
6 5 (0.51%) GDPR
6 5 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.41%) GRC
8 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.20%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.20%) NCSC
8 2 (0.20%) 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 65 (6.60%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (3.65%) VMware NSX
3 33 (3.35%) Firmware
4 27 (2.74%) Active Directory
5 12 (1.22%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.91%) vSphere
7 6 (0.61%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.20%) Squid
11 2 (0.20%) vCloud
12 1 (0.10%) Citrix Presentation Server
12 1 (0.10%) Docker
12 1 (0.10%) FreeRADIUS
12 1 (0.10%) IAG
12 1 (0.10%) iptables
12 1 (0.10%) KVM
12 1 (0.10%) Snort
Systems Management
1 88 (8.93%) Ansible
2 76 (7.72%) Terraform
3 69 (7.01%) FortiGate
4 9 (0.91%) Cisco Prime
4 9 (0.91%) Grafana
5 8 (0.81%) Kubernetes
5 8 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (0.71%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.20%) Avamar
8 2 (0.20%) CASB
8 2 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
8 2 (0.20%) Istio
8 2 (0.20%) Nagios
8 2 (0.20%) Packer
8 2 (0.20%) Puppet
8 2 (0.20%) Salt
8 2 (0.20%) SCOM
8 2 (0.20%) Tivoli NetView
8 2 (0.20%) WSUS
Vendors
1 517 (52.49%) Cisco
2 230 (23.35%) Palo Alto
3 182 (18.48%) F5
4 135 (13.71%) Fortinet
5 108 (10.96%) Juniper
6 90 (9.14%) VMware
7 84 (8.53%) Aruba
8 76 (7.72%) CheckPoint
9 63 (6.40%) Arista
10 46 (4.67%) Microsoft
11 45 (4.57%) Meraki
12 41 (4.16%) SolarWinds
13 34 (3.45%) Blue Coat
14 32 (3.25%) Google
14 32 (3.25%) Zscaler
15 29 (2.94%) Infoblox
16 28 (2.84%) ServiceNow
17 27 (2.74%) McAfee
18 21 (2.13%) Extreme Networks
18 21 (2.13%) NetApp