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 16 November 2025.

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

6 months to
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 161 89 107
Rank change year-on-year -72 +18 +76
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 625 927 1,040
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.77% 2.53% 2.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.95% 2.73% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 421 542 647
10th Percentile £306 £330 £281
25th Percentile £400 £410 £372
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £450
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% +8.89% -
75th Percentile £574 £580 £545
90th Percentile £625 £638 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £438
% change year-on-year +3.58% +8.57% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 16 41
10th Percentile £21.26 - £25.00
25th Percentile £27.50 £20.00 £40.85
Median hourly rate £35.00 £41.50 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.66% -34.13% +24.14%
75th Percentile £70.76 £54.06 £70.00
90th Percentile £79.50 £70.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.50 £21.39 £63.00
% change year-on-year +94.04% -66.05% +137.02%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 32,121 33,965 44,165
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.96% 92.87% 93.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,371 20,492 29,993
10th Percentile £278 £300 £294
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,875 1,270 1,571
10th Percentile £14.22 £15.10 £15.12
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.14% -19.10% +58.28%
75th Percentile £53.99 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +85.11%

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 16 November 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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 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 -75 528 £500 +2.04% 240
UK excluding London -49 384 £492 +3.58% 195
London -62 187 £475 -5.94% 96
Work from Home -49 184 £450 -8.16% 86
South East -12 113 £500 - 84
North of England -61 107 £500 +2.30% 16
North West -44 79 £508 +3.57% 8
Midlands -24 74 £400 -10.61% 33
West Midlands +2 69 £395 -21.00% 26
Scotland -4 45 £425 +6.25% 21
East of England -13 28 £400 +33.33% 20
South West -30 27 £620 +30.87% 10
Yorkshire -63 26 £490 +19.03% 5
Wales -7 6 £550 +37.50% 9
Northern Ireland -5 5 £475 +6.74% 6
East Midlands -30 5 £650 +73.33% 7
North East -10 3 £625 +38.89% 3
Channel Islands - 1 £440 -

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

For the 6 months to 16 November 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.

1 380 (60.80%) Cisco
2 305 (48.80%) Firewall
3 202 (32.32%) Security Cleared
4 195 (31.20%) Cisco Certification
5 165 (26.40%) WAN
6 148 (23.68%) CCNP
7 146 (23.36%) BGP
8 137 (21.92%) SC Cleared
9 130 (20.80%) Juniper
10 125 (20.00%) Python
11 123 (19.68%) Network Security
12 116 (18.56%) Palo Alto
13 113 (18.08%) LAN
14 110 (17.60%) Ansible
15 106 (16.96%) VPN
16 104 (16.64%) OSPF
17 103 (16.48%) F5
18 99 (15.84%) DNS
19 83 (13.28%) CCNA
20 82 (13.12%) AWS
21 78 (12.48%) Cisco ISE
21 78 (12.48%) Wireless
22 77 (12.32%) SD-WAN
23 76 (12.16%) SolarWinds
24 74 (11.84%) Load Balancing
25 72 (11.52%) Fortinet
25 72 (11.52%) TCP/IP
26 71 (11.36%) VLAN
27 67 (10.72%) Azure
28 66 (10.56%) 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 9 (1.44%) Confluence
1 9 (1.44%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (0.64%) nginx
Applications
1 13 (2.08%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.92%) MS Visio
3 6 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (0.64%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 82 (13.12%) AWS
2 67 (10.72%) Azure
3 17 (2.72%) GCP
4 12 (1.92%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 10 (1.60%) Akamai
6 7 (1.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 7 (1.12%) Amazon S3
6 7 (1.12%) GitHub
7 6 (0.96%) Microsoft 365
8 5 (0.80%) Amazon EC2
8 5 (0.80%) Amazon ELB
8 5 (0.80%) AWS Direct Connect
8 5 (0.80%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (0.64%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (0.64%) Cohesity
9 4 (0.64%) OCI
9 4 (0.64%) SaaS
10 3 (0.48%) IaaS
11 2 (0.32%) PaaS
11 2 (0.32%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 305 (48.80%) Firewall
2 165 (26.40%) WAN
3 146 (23.36%) BGP
4 123 (19.68%) Network Security
5 113 (18.08%) LAN
6 106 (16.96%) VPN
7 104 (16.64%) OSPF
8 99 (15.84%) DNS
9 78 (12.48%) Cisco ISE
9 78 (12.48%) Wireless
10 77 (12.32%) SD-WAN
11 72 (11.52%) TCP/IP
12 71 (11.36%) VLAN
13 63 (10.08%) MPLS
13 63 (10.08%) Wi-Fi
14 56 (8.96%) Cisco IOS
15 53 (8.48%) Cisco Nexus
16 45 (7.20%) IPsec
17 44 (7.04%) DHCP
18 41 (6.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 18 (2.88%) Git
1 18 (2.88%) JIRA
2 13 (2.08%) Fiddler
3 12 (1.92%) GitLab
3 12 (1.92%) Jenkins
4 9 (1.44%) Sonatype Nexus
5 7 (1.12%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.32%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.16%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.16%) Mercurial
7 1 (0.16%) Subversion
General
1 142 (22.72%) Social Skills
2 64 (10.24%) Finance
3 60 (9.60%) Public Sector
4 40 (6.40%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (6.08%) Telecoms
6 27 (4.32%) Banking
7 24 (3.84%) Documentation Skills
8 23 (3.68%) Manufacturing
9 20 (3.20%) Investment Banking
10 12 (1.92%) Legal
11 8 (1.28%) Local Government
12 6 (0.96%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.64%) Law
14 4 (0.64%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.64%) Pharmaceutical
15 3 (0.48%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.48%) Electronics
15 3 (0.48%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (4.16%) 802.1X
2 13 (2.08%) RFC 2544
3 8 (1.28%) NETCONF
4 7 (1.12%) RESTCONF
5 5 (0.80%) Jinja
6 4 (0.64%) Middleware
6 4 (0.64%) REST
7 3 (0.48%) SAML
8 2 (0.32%) JSON
8 2 (0.32%) Node.js
8 2 (0.32%) YANG
9 1 (0.16%) ADO
9 1 (0.16%) ARM Templates
9 1 (0.16%) CSS
9 1 (0.16%) FIX Protocol
9 1 (0.16%) gRPC
9 1 (0.16%) HTML
9 1 (0.16%) OpenConfig
9 1 (0.16%) Ultra Messaging
9 1 (0.16%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 116 (18.56%) Data Centre
2 24 (3.84%) Onboarding
3 23 (3.68%) PKI
4 21 (3.36%) Management Information System
5 18 (2.88%) Hedge funds
6 16 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
6 16 (2.56%) Fibre Optics
6 16 (2.56%) Operational Technology
7 10 (1.60%) Security Posture
8 9 (1.44%) Driving Licence
9 8 (1.28%) SCADA
10 7 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
10 7 (1.12%) Private Cloud
10 7 (1.12%) Public Cloud
11 6 (0.96%) NHS
12 5 (0.80%) Cloud Native
12 5 (0.80%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 5 (0.80%) IoT
12 5 (0.80%) Life Science
13 4 (0.64%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 45 (7.20%) Windows
2 28 (4.48%) Linux
3 25 (4.00%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.80%) Unix
5 3 (0.48%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.32%) Amazon Linux
6 2 (0.32%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.16%) VMS
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (11.84%) Load Balancing
2 66 (10.56%) Network Design
3 60 (9.60%) Problem-Solving
4 48 (7.68%) Migration
4 48 (7.68%) Network Monitoring
5 45 (7.20%) High Availability
6 43 (6.88%) Service Management
7 42 (6.72%) DevOps
8 39 (6.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 38 (6.08%) Network Architecture
10 32 (5.12%) Incident Response
10 32 (5.12%) ITSM
11 31 (4.96%) Agile
11 31 (4.96%) Network Management
12 30 (4.80%) Network Segmentation
13 27 (4.32%) Cybersecurity
13 27 (4.32%) ITIL
14 26 (4.16%) Infrastructure as Code
15 25 (4.00%) Network Virtualisation
16 24 (3.84%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 125 (20.00%) Python
2 31 (4.96%) Bash
3 19 (3.04%) Perl
4 18 (2.88%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.28%) C++
5 8 (1.28%) Lisp
6 4 (0.64%) VB
7 3 (0.48%) Java
7 3 (0.48%) SQL
8 2 (0.32%) Go
9 1 (0.16%) C
9 1 (0.16%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.16%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.16%) PHP
9 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 202 (32.32%) Security Cleared
2 195 (31.20%) Cisco Certification
3 148 (23.68%) CCNP
4 137 (21.92%) SC Cleared
5 83 (13.28%) CCNA
6 59 (9.44%) DV Cleared
7 32 (5.12%) Degree
8 24 (3.84%) CCIE
9 17 (2.72%) JNCIS
10 16 (2.56%) JNCIA
11 11 (1.76%) JNCIP
12 10 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
13 9 (1.44%) Network+ Certification
14 7 (1.12%) CCDP
15 6 (0.96%) CCSA
16 5 (0.80%) CISSP
17 4 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
18 3 (0.48%) CEH
18 3 (0.48%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (1.92%) SLA
2 9 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.12%) QA
4 6 (0.96%) GDPR
5 5 (0.80%) NIST
6 4 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
6 4 (0.64%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.48%) GRC
8 2 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (0.32%) NCSC
8 2 (0.32%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.16%) Def Stans
System Software
1 31 (4.96%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (4.80%) VMware NSX
3 29 (4.64%) Firmware
4 28 (4.48%) Active Directory
5 14 (2.24%) Docker
6 12 (1.92%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (1.12%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.48%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.32%) Ceph
10 2 (0.32%) KVM
10 2 (0.32%) vSphere
11 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.16%) RACF
Systems Management
1 110 (17.60%) Ansible
2 63 (10.08%) FortiGate
3 39 (6.24%) Terraform
4 26 (4.16%) vCenter Server
5 8 (1.28%) Kubernetes
6 6 (0.96%) Cisco CUCM
6 6 (0.96%) Nagios
7 5 (0.80%) Cisco Prime
7 5 (0.80%) Grafana
7 5 (0.80%) SCCM
8 4 (0.64%) CASB
8 4 (0.64%) HP ALM
8 4 (0.64%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.64%) SCOrch
9 3 (0.48%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.32%) CA Spectrum
10 2 (0.32%) Kibana
10 2 (0.32%) Packer
10 2 (0.32%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 380 (60.80%) Cisco
2 130 (20.80%) Juniper
3 116 (18.56%) Palo Alto
4 103 (16.48%) F5
5 76 (12.16%) SolarWinds
6 72 (11.52%) Fortinet
7 60 (9.60%) CheckPoint
8 55 (8.80%) VMware
9 50 (8.00%) Arista
10 48 (7.68%) Microsoft
11 46 (7.36%) Meraki
12 32 (5.12%) Blue Coat
13 31 (4.96%) Aruba
14 27 (4.32%) ServiceNow
14 27 (4.32%) Zscaler
15 23 (3.68%) McAfee
16 15 (2.40%) Nokia
17 13 (2.08%) NetApp
18 12 (1.92%) Remedy
19 11 (1.76%) HP