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 12 February 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 170 109 92
Rank change year-on-year -61 -17 +71
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 652 742 1,048
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.64% 2.40% 2.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.79% 2.58% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 437 435 611
10th Percentile £297 £311 £300
25th Percentile £400 £403 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% +8.33% -3.23%
75th Percentile £525 £575 £538
90th Percentile £584 £638 £630
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £465 £450
% change year-on-year +1.94% +3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 9 48
10th Percentile £21.98 £19.70 £24.43
25th Percentile £33.00 - £38.75
Median hourly rate £52.58 £20.00 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year +162.90% -67.35% -1.21%
75th Percentile £68.57 £38.00 £72.36
90th Percentile £74.09 £47.50 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.44 £20.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +182.20% -69.69% +12.21%

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 36,458 28,796 41,269
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.54% 92.96% 93.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,924 17,765 27,180
10th Percentile £300 £288 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £478 £489
% change year-on-year -0.52% -2.35% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,214 834 2,292
10th Percentile £14.53 £15.92 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £16.45
Median hourly rate £30.00 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% -2.86% -2.23%
75th Percentile £62.44 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £32.13 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.87% -8.20% -

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 12 February 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 12 February 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 12 February 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 -61 545 £475 -4.04% 237
UK excluding London -48 411 £474 +1.94% 223
Work from Home -23 201 £425 -10.95% 84
London -70 173 £500 -3.85% 76
South East -2 139 £495 -1.00% 73
North of England -71 128 £481 +1.32% 36
North West -29 110 £481 -1.79% 25
Midlands -19 72 £438 -2.78% 37
West Midlands -3 67 £419 -5.10% 25
Scotland +11 42 £399 -3.33% 24
East of England -18 29 £363 +31.82% 16
South West -57 21 £500 +5.82% 28
Yorkshire -77 18 £500 +35.14% 9
Wales -5 14 £550 +69.23% 8
East Midlands -37 3 £575 +27.78% 12
Northern Ireland - 3 £475 - 3
North East -15 1 - - 2

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

For the 6 months to 12 February 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.

1 374 (57.36%) Cisco
2 308 (47.24%) Firewall
3 237 (36.35%) Security Cleared
4 181 (27.76%) Cisco Certification
5 176 (26.99%) SC Cleared
5 176 (26.99%) WAN
6 166 (25.46%) Palo Alto
7 157 (24.08%) CCNP
8 155 (23.77%) LAN
9 152 (23.31%) BGP
10 138 (21.17%) Network Security
11 136 (20.86%) VPN
12 110 (16.87%) DNS
13 109 (16.72%) F5
14 106 (16.26%) OSPF
15 99 (15.18%) TCP/IP
16 98 (15.03%) Juniper
17 96 (14.72%) Python
18 89 (13.65%) Load Balancing
19 86 (13.19%) VLAN
20 83 (12.73%) CCNA
21 82 (12.58%) Ansible
22 74 (11.35%) Problem-Solving
23 72 (11.04%) CheckPoint
24 70 (10.74%) VMware
24 70 (10.74%) Wi-Fi
24 70 (10.74%) Wireless
25 66 (10.12%) MPLS
26 65 (9.97%) DV Cleared
27 64 (9.82%) Network Design

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 10 (1.53%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.23%) Confluence
3 5 (0.77%) Apache
3 5 (0.77%) IIS
3 5 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 20 (3.07%) MS Visio
2 5 (0.77%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 63 (9.66%) Azure
2 62 (9.51%) AWS
3 27 (4.14%) GCP
4 13 (1.99%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 12 (1.84%) Entra ID
6 9 (1.38%) Microsoft 365
7 8 (1.23%) GitHub
8 7 (1.07%) Nutanix
9 5 (0.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 5 (0.77%) Amazon EC2
9 5 (0.77%) Amazon ELB
9 5 (0.77%) Amazon S3
9 5 (0.77%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 5 (0.77%) IaaS
9 5 (0.77%) Mimecast
10 4 (0.61%) AWS Direct Connect
10 4 (0.61%) Cohesity
10 4 (0.61%) PaaS
10 4 (0.61%) SaaS
11 3 (0.46%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 308 (47.24%) Firewall
2 176 (26.99%) WAN
3 155 (23.77%) LAN
4 152 (23.31%) BGP
5 138 (21.17%) Network Security
6 136 (20.86%) VPN
7 110 (16.87%) DNS
8 106 (16.26%) OSPF
9 99 (15.18%) TCP/IP
10 86 (13.19%) VLAN
11 70 (10.74%) Wi-Fi
11 70 (10.74%) Wireless
12 66 (10.12%) MPLS
13 61 (9.36%) Cisco ISE
13 61 (9.36%) SSL
14 57 (8.74%) Cisco Nexus
14 57 (8.74%) SD-WAN
15 49 (7.52%) IPsec
16 48 (7.36%) Wireshark
17 41 (6.29%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.46%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.15%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 30 (4.60%) Fiddler
2 16 (2.45%) Git
3 14 (2.15%) JIRA
4 12 (1.84%) Sonatype Nexus
5 10 (1.53%) GitLab
5 10 (1.53%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.15%) ClearCase
6 1 (0.15%) Jaeger
6 1 (0.15%) Robot Framework
General
1 129 (19.79%) Social Skills
2 55 (8.44%) Public Sector
3 41 (6.29%) Banking
4 39 (5.98%) Documentation Skills
5 36 (5.52%) Finance
6 35 (5.37%) Investment Banking
6 35 (5.37%) Telecoms
7 32 (4.91%) Analytical Skills
8 24 (3.68%) Manufacturing
9 16 (2.45%) Legal
10 8 (1.23%) Local Government
11 5 (0.77%) Law
11 5 (0.77%) Military
11 5 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (0.77%) Retail
12 4 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.46%) Electronics
13 3 (0.46%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.46%) Marketing
13 3 (0.46%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (4.14%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.38%) SAML
3 7 (1.07%) LDAP
4 4 (0.61%) JSON
4 4 (0.61%) Middleware
4 4 (0.61%) RFC 2544
4 4 (0.61%) VML
5 3 (0.46%) YANG
6 2 (0.31%) CSS
6 2 (0.31%) Django
6 2 (0.31%) HTML
6 2 (0.31%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.31%) REST
6 2 (0.31%) XML
7 1 (0.15%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.15%) gRPC
7 1 (0.15%) Jinja
7 1 (0.15%) Loki
7 1 (0.15%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.15%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 145 (22.24%) Data Centre
2 24 (3.68%) Management Information System
3 22 (3.37%) Data Protection Act
4 19 (2.91%) Onboarding
4 19 (2.91%) Operational Technology
5 15 (2.30%) PKI
5 15 (2.30%) Security Posture
6 12 (1.84%) NHS
7 11 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
8 10 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
9 8 (1.23%) Hedge funds
9 8 (1.23%) Public Cloud
10 6 (0.92%) Fibre Optics
11 5 (0.77%) Driving Licence
11 5 (0.77%) IoT
11 5 (0.77%) SCADA
11 5 (0.77%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.61%) CMDB
12 4 (0.61%) Life Science
12 4 (0.61%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 48 (7.36%) Windows
2 32 (4.91%) Linux
3 29 (4.45%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.61%) CatOS
5 3 (0.46%) Unix
5 3 (0.46%) zOS
6 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (13.65%) Load Balancing
2 74 (11.35%) Problem-Solving
3 64 (9.82%) Network Design
4 54 (8.28%) Migration
5 50 (7.67%) Network Monitoring
6 44 (6.75%) High Availability
6 44 (6.75%) Project Delivery
7 42 (6.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 40 (6.13%) Network Architecture
9 34 (5.21%) Network Management
10 32 (4.91%) Stakeholder Management
11 31 (4.75%) Change Management
11 31 (4.75%) Cybersecurity
12 30 (4.60%) DevOps
12 30 (4.60%) ITSM
13 27 (4.14%) Collaborative Working
14 26 (3.99%) Data Loss Prevention
14 26 (3.99%) Malware Detection/Protection
15 24 (3.68%) Data Protection
15 24 (3.68%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 96 (14.72%) Python
2 25 (3.83%) Bash
3 13 (1.99%) Perl
3 13 (1.99%) PowerShell
4 8 (1.23%) Lisp
5 5 (0.77%) C++
6 4 (0.61%) SQL
7 2 (0.31%) Java
7 2 (0.31%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.15%) Bicep
8 1 (0.15%) C
8 1 (0.15%) Go
8 1 (0.15%) Korn
8 1 (0.15%) PHP
8 1 (0.15%) Ruby
8 1 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 237 (36.35%) Security Cleared
2 181 (27.76%) Cisco Certification
3 176 (26.99%) SC Cleared
4 157 (24.08%) CCNP
5 83 (12.73%) CCNA
6 65 (9.97%) DV Cleared
7 27 (4.14%) CCIE
7 27 (4.14%) Degree
8 24 (3.68%) JNCIS
9 18 (2.76%) JNCIA
10 13 (1.99%) JNCIP
11 10 (1.53%) Network+ Certification
12 6 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
13 4 (0.61%) CCDP
13 4 (0.61%) CISSP
13 4 (0.61%) DBS Check
14 3 (0.46%) GIAC
15 2 (0.31%) CCSA
15 2 (0.31%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (1.23%) NIST
3 6 (0.92%) GDPR
3 6 (0.92%) PCI DSS
3 6 (0.92%) SLA
4 4 (0.61%) GRC
5 3 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.46%) QA
6 2 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 2 (0.31%) PMO
7 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.15%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.15%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.15%) NCSC
7 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 51 (7.82%) VMware NSX
2 40 (6.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (5.67%) Active Directory
4 30 (4.60%) Firmware
5 11 (1.69%) Hyper-V
6 10 (1.53%) Docker
7 5 (0.77%) ProxySG
7 5 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.61%) KVM
8 4 (0.61%) vSphere
9 2 (0.31%) vCloud
9 2 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.15%) RACF
10 1 (0.15%) RHEV
10 1 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.15%) Xen
Systems Management
1 82 (12.58%) Ansible
2 43 (6.60%) FortiGate
3 33 (5.06%) Terraform
4 22 (3.37%) vCenter Server
5 9 (1.38%) Grafana
5 9 (1.38%) Prometheus
5 9 (1.38%) Single Sign-On
6 6 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
6 6 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (0.92%) Nagios
7 5 (0.77%) Kubernetes
8 4 (0.61%) Tivoli NetView
9 3 (0.46%) CASB
9 3 (0.46%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.46%) SCCM
9 3 (0.46%) SCOrch
10 2 (0.31%) Salt
11 1 (0.15%) Amdocs OSS
11 1 (0.15%) ITRS Geneos
11 1 (0.15%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 374 (57.36%) Cisco
2 166 (25.46%) Palo Alto
3 109 (16.72%) F5
4 98 (15.03%) Juniper
5 72 (11.04%) CheckPoint
6 70 (10.74%) VMware
7 64 (9.82%) SolarWinds
8 61 (9.36%) Aruba
9 58 (8.90%) Fortinet
10 55 (8.44%) Meraki
11 45 (6.90%) Blue Coat
12 41 (6.29%) McAfee
13 34 (5.21%) Microsoft
14 31 (4.75%) Arista
15 23 (3.53%) NetApp
16 19 (2.91%) Nokia
16 19 (2.91%) ServiceNow
17 14 (2.15%) Zscaler
18 13 (1.99%) Splunk
19 12 (1.84%) Ekahau