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 29 December 2025.

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

6 months to
29 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 170 99 105
Rank change year-on-year -71 +6 +71
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 624 819 968
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 2.46% 2.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.86% 2.65% 2.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 427 479 566
10th Percentile £308 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -
75th Percentile £538 £575 £549
90th Percentile £588 £638 £626
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £458 £438
% change year-on-year +3.66% +4.74% -1.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 11 44
10th Percentile £20.75 - £24.65
25th Percentile £33.00 £20.00 £37.59
Median hourly rate £52.58 £20.38 £64.49
Median % change year-on-year +158.06% -68.41% +35.77%
75th Percentile £72.51 £47.50 £72.36
90th Percentile £80.38 £55.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.44 £20.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +182.20% -69.69% +160.89%

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 33,636 30,890 40,421
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.16% 92.72% 93.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,275 18,962 27,109
10th Percentile £295 £300 £282
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £640
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £487 £500
% change year-on-year -2.41% -2.65% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,972 959 1,551
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.52 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £19.15
Median hourly rate £25.47 £32.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.63% -27.78% +41.93%
75th Percentile £58.06 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.97 £73.75 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.94
% change year-on-year -22.62% -29.26% +77.99%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -70 527 £495 +1.28% 436
UK excluding London -56 387 £475 +3.66% 392
Work from Home -36 183 £443 -6.35% 151
London -47 179 £484 -5.15% 109
South East -4 135 £500 - 122
North of England -72 113 £500 +8.93% 82
North West -31 95 £508 +3.57% 40
Midlands -35 62 £380 -10.59% 72
West Midlands -5 57 £380 -15.56% 53
Scotland +15 46 £425 +6.25% 16
East of England -16 26 £475 +72.73% 41
South West -35 18 £475 +0.53% 32
Yorkshire -76 16 £435 +6.75% 32
Wales -12 8 £550 +57.14% 15
East Midlands -40 4 £650 +73.33% 18
North East -5 3 £625 +28.21% 13
Northern Ireland -7 3 £475 +6.74% 19

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

For the 6 months to 29 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.

1 357 (57.21%) Cisco
2 302 (48.40%) Firewall
3 227 (36.38%) Security Cleared
4 182 (29.17%) Cisco Certification
5 177 (28.37%) WAN
6 159 (25.48%) SC Cleared
7 154 (24.68%) CCNP
8 146 (23.40%) Palo Alto
9 139 (22.28%) BGP
10 130 (20.83%) LAN
11 123 (19.71%) Network Security
12 121 (19.39%) VPN
13 119 (19.07%) Juniper
14 102 (16.35%) Python
15 101 (16.19%) OSPF
16 95 (15.22%) F5
17 91 (14.58%) DNS
18 89 (14.26%) Ansible
19 85 (13.62%) TCP/IP
20 83 (13.30%) Load Balancing
21 77 (12.34%) CCNA
22 73 (11.70%) SD-WAN
23 72 (11.54%) Wi-Fi
24 71 (11.38%) AWS
24 71 (11.38%) Problem-Solving
25 70 (11.22%) CheckPoint
25 70 (11.22%) Network Design
26 69 (11.06%) VLAN
26 69 (11.06%) Wireless
27 68 (10.90%) Azure

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 (1.60%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.80%) Confluence
3 4 (0.64%) Apache
3 4 (0.64%) IIS
3 4 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 16 (2.56%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 71 (11.38%) AWS
2 68 (10.90%) Azure
3 20 (3.21%) GCP
4 13 (2.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 8 (1.28%) Entra ID
6 7 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (0.96%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 6 (0.96%) Nutanix
8 5 (0.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 5 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
8 5 (0.80%) Amazon ELB
8 5 (0.80%) Amazon S3
8 5 (0.80%) AWS Direct Connect
8 5 (0.80%) GitHub
9 4 (0.64%) Akamai
9 4 (0.64%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (0.64%) Cohesity
9 4 (0.64%) Mimecast
9 4 (0.64%) OCI
10 3 (0.48%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 302 (48.40%) Firewall
2 177 (28.37%) WAN
3 139 (22.28%) BGP
4 130 (20.83%) LAN
5 123 (19.71%) Network Security
6 121 (19.39%) VPN
7 101 (16.19%) OSPF
8 91 (14.58%) DNS
9 85 (13.62%) TCP/IP
10 73 (11.70%) SD-WAN
11 72 (11.54%) Wi-Fi
12 69 (11.06%) VLAN
12 69 (11.06%) Wireless
13 64 (10.26%) MPLS
14 62 (9.94%) Cisco ISE
15 55 (8.81%) SSL
16 50 (8.01%) Cisco IOS
16 50 (8.01%) IPsec
17 47 (7.53%) Cisco Nexus
18 39 (6.25%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.32%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 20 (3.21%) Fiddler
1 20 (3.21%) Git
2 11 (1.76%) GitLab
3 10 (1.60%) Jenkins
4 9 (1.44%) JIRA
5 7 (1.12%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.48%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.16%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.16%) Jaeger
General
1 141 (22.60%) Social Skills
2 67 (10.74%) Public Sector
3 46 (7.37%) Finance
4 42 (6.73%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (5.77%) Documentation Skills
6 31 (4.97%) Telecoms
7 29 (4.65%) Banking
8 25 (4.01%) Investment Banking
9 22 (3.53%) Manufacturing
10 11 (1.76%) Legal
11 7 (1.12%) Local Government
12 6 (0.96%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.80%) Military
13 5 (0.80%) Retail
14 4 (0.64%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
15 3 (0.48%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.48%) Marketing
15 3 (0.48%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.97%) 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%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.32%) XML
7 1 (0.16%) ADO
7 1 (0.16%) CSS
7 1 (0.16%) FIX Protocol
7 1 (0.16%) HTML
7 1 (0.16%) Loki
7 1 (0.16%) Node.js
7 1 (0.16%) OpenConfig
7 1 (0.16%) REST
7 1 (0.16%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 119 (19.07%) Data Centre
2 21 (3.37%) Management Information System
3 20 (3.21%) Onboarding
4 18 (2.88%) Data Protection Act
4 18 (2.88%) Operational Technology
4 18 (2.88%) PKI
5 13 (2.08%) Hedge funds
6 10 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
7 9 (1.44%) Fibre Optics
7 9 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.28%) SCADA
8 8 (1.28%) Security Posture
9 6 (0.96%) NHS
10 5 (0.80%) Driving Licence
10 5 (0.80%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.64%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 4 (0.64%) IoT
11 4 (0.64%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (0.64%) Life Science
11 4 (0.64%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 48 (7.69%) Windows
2 30 (4.81%) Linux
3 27 (4.33%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.80%) 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%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (13.30%) Load Balancing
2 71 (11.38%) Problem-Solving
3 70 (11.22%) Network Design
4 50 (8.01%) Migration
5 47 (7.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 47 (7.53%) Network Monitoring
6 44 (7.05%) High Availability
7 39 (6.25%) Network Architecture
8 36 (5.77%) DevOps
9 35 (5.61%) Network Management
10 34 (5.45%) Project Delivery
11 32 (5.13%) Cybersecurity
12 31 (4.97%) ITSM
13 29 (4.65%) Incident Response
13 29 (4.65%) Service Management
14 26 (4.17%) Agile
14 26 (4.17%) Infrastructure as Code
15 25 (4.01%) Network Segmentation
16 23 (3.69%) Change Management
17 21 (3.37%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 102 (16.35%) Python
2 31 (4.97%) Bash
3 19 (3.04%) Perl
4 13 (2.08%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.28%) Lisp
6 6 (0.96%) C++
7 4 (0.64%) SQL
8 2 (0.32%) Go
8 2 (0.32%) Java
9 1 (0.16%) C
9 1 (0.16%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.16%) Ruby
9 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.16%) VB
Qualifications
1 227 (36.38%) Security Cleared
2 182 (29.17%) Cisco Certification
3 159 (25.48%) SC Cleared
4 154 (24.68%) CCNP
5 77 (12.34%) CCNA
6 63 (10.10%) DV Cleared
7 27 (4.33%) CCIE
8 23 (3.69%) Degree
9 20 (3.21%) JNCIS
10 17 (2.72%) JNCIA
11 13 (2.08%) JNCIP
12 10 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (1.60%) Network+ Certification
13 8 (1.28%) CCDP
14 5 (0.80%) Computer Science Degree
15 4 (0.64%) CISSP
15 4 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
16 3 (0.48%) CCSA
16 3 (0.48%) CompTIA Security+
16 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 3 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (0.48%) GRC
5 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 2 (0.32%) QA
5 2 (0.32%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.16%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.16%) PMO
System Software
1 38 (6.09%) VMware NSX
2 35 (5.61%) Active Directory
3 30 (4.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (4.49%) Firmware
5 14 (2.24%) Docker
6 10 (1.60%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.80%) ProxySG
7 5 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.48%) KVM
9 2 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.16%) RACF
10 1 (0.16%) RHEV
10 1 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.16%) vSphere
10 1 (0.16%) Xen
Systems Management
1 89 (14.26%) Ansible
2 53 (8.49%) FortiGate
3 38 (6.09%) Terraform
4 25 (4.01%) vCenter Server
5 8 (1.28%) Kubernetes
6 7 (1.12%) Grafana
6 7 (1.12%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.96%) Nagios
7 6 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.64%) Cisco CUCM
8 4 (0.64%) SCCM
9 3 (0.48%) CASB
9 3 (0.48%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.48%) SCOrch
9 3 (0.48%) Tivoli NetView
9 3 (0.48%) WhatsUp Gold
10 2 (0.32%) Cisco Prime
10 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.16%) CA Spectrum
11 1 (0.16%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 357 (57.21%) Cisco
2 146 (23.40%) Palo Alto
3 119 (19.07%) Juniper
4 95 (15.22%) F5
5 70 (11.22%) CheckPoint
6 60 (9.62%) Fortinet
7 58 (9.29%) SolarWinds
8 57 (9.13%) Meraki
9 52 (8.33%) VMware
10 48 (7.69%) Aruba
11 40 (6.41%) Blue Coat
12 37 (5.93%) Microsoft
13 36 (5.77%) Arista
14 32 (5.13%) McAfee
15 19 (3.04%) Nokia
15 19 (3.04%) Zscaler
16 18 (2.88%) NetApp
17 16 (2.56%) ServiceNow
18 11 (1.76%) Remedy
19 10 (1.60%) Splunk