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 5 May 2026.

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

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 131 90
Rank change year-on-year -4 -41 +49
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 919 634 1,033
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.93% 2.16% 2.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.09% 2.34% 2.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 605 389 625
10th Percentile £303 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £389 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £460
Median % change year-on-year - +3.26% -2.65%
75th Percentile £538 £569 £538
90th Percentile £600 £613 £645
UK excluding London median daily rate £461 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +2.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 5 25
10th Percentile £44.00 £31.10 £19.40
25th Percentile £56.08 £50.00 £24.25
Median hourly rate £75.02 £57.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.47% +43.75% -36.74%
75th Percentile £78.75 £68.75 £73.75
90th Percentile - £73.25 £74.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.50 £45.75 £71.25
% change year-on-year +69.40% -35.79% +14.92%

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 43,868 27,092 40,027
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.28% 92.49% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,987 17,695 26,061
10th Percentile £316 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,833 1,048 2,666
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.18 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.38 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.72% -20.55% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.25 £62.50 £61.29
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 £28.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +62.70% -30.00% -5.35%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -12 767 £475 -3.55% 262
UK excluding London -6 570 £461 +2.50% 243
London -38 232 £500 - 78
Work from Home -9 224 £444 -6.58% 73
South East +10 189 £470 -6.00% 70
North of England -37 157 £472 -2.18% 58
North West -15 127 £474 -1.76% 31
Midlands +3 109 £438 +2.94% 38
West Midlands +18 102 £425 +54.55% 32
Scotland +5 47 £413 +3.13% 26
East of England -13 47 £455 -4.21% 20
South West -34 46 £533 +12.80% 20
Wales -9 24 £425 +13.33% 14
Yorkshire -47 24 £450 -10.00% 18
North East -15 6 £600 +84.62% 9
East Midlands -44 3 £500 +11.11% 6
Northern Ireland - 2 £468 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 5 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.

1 498 (54.19%) Cisco
2 407 (44.29%) Firewall
3 300 (32.64%) Security Cleared
4 246 (26.77%) WAN
5 232 (25.24%) BGP
5 232 (25.24%) Palo Alto
6 230 (25.03%) Cisco Certification
7 221 (24.05%) LAN
8 215 (23.39%) SC Cleared
9 201 (21.87%) Network Security
10 197 (21.44%) VPN
11 186 (20.24%) CCNP
12 180 (19.59%) F5
13 167 (18.17%) OSPF
14 159 (17.30%) DNS
15 133 (14.47%) Load Balancing
16 125 (13.60%) VLAN
17 124 (13.49%) Juniper
18 115 (12.51%) Fortinet
19 114 (12.40%) Wireless
20 101 (10.99%) TCP/IP
21 100 (10.88%) Azure
22 97 (10.55%) DV Cleared
23 96 (10.45%) CCNA
24 93 (10.12%) Problem-Solving
24 93 (10.12%) Python
25 91 (9.90%) SD-WAN
26 88 (9.58%) Migration
26 88 (9.58%) VMware
27 87 (9.47%) CheckPoint

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 (0.87%) Confluence
2 5 (0.54%) Apache
2 5 (0.54%) IIS
3 4 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.44%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.11%) CMS
4 1 (0.11%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 17 (1.85%) MS Visio
2 7 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 100 (10.88%) Azure
2 78 (8.49%) AWS
3 51 (5.55%) GCP
4 24 (2.61%) GitHub
5 16 (1.74%) Entra ID
6 14 (1.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 11 (1.20%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 10 (1.09%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 9 (0.98%) Nutanix
10 8 (0.87%) Microsoft 365
11 6 (0.65%) AWS Direct Connect
11 6 (0.65%) Azure Sentinel
11 6 (0.65%) Google Compute Engine
11 6 (0.65%) Mimecast
11 6 (0.65%) Route 53
12 5 (0.54%) OCI
13 4 (0.44%) SaaS
14 3 (0.33%) Catchpoint
14 3 (0.33%) GitHub Actions
14 3 (0.33%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 407 (44.29%) Firewall
2 246 (26.77%) WAN
3 232 (25.24%) BGP
4 221 (24.05%) LAN
5 201 (21.87%) Network Security
6 197 (21.44%) VPN
7 167 (18.17%) OSPF
8 159 (17.30%) DNS
9 125 (13.60%) VLAN
10 114 (12.40%) Wireless
11 101 (10.99%) TCP/IP
12 91 (9.90%) SD-WAN
13 79 (8.60%) Wi-Fi
14 78 (8.49%) Cisco Nexus
15 70 (7.62%) MPLS
16 68 (7.40%) BIG-IP
17 64 (6.96%) Cisco ISE
18 63 (6.86%) IPsec
19 61 (6.64%) Multicast
20 57 (6.20%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.33%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.11%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 28 (3.05%) Fiddler
2 19 (2.07%) Git
3 18 (1.96%) JIRA
4 17 (1.85%) Jenkins
5 10 (1.09%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.87%) GitLab
7 2 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.11%) Jaeger
General
1 127 (13.82%) Social Skills
2 55 (5.98%) Banking
3 48 (5.22%) Public Sector
4 43 (4.68%) Analytical Skills
4 43 (4.68%) Finance
5 42 (4.57%) Documentation Skills
6 39 (4.24%) Investment Banking
7 38 (4.13%) Telecoms
8 26 (2.83%) Manufacturing
9 22 (2.39%) Legal
10 16 (1.74%) Retail
11 10 (1.09%) Aerospace
11 10 (1.09%) Law
12 6 (0.65%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.65%) Military
12 6 (0.65%) Police
13 5 (0.54%) Local Government
13 5 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.33%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.33%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (4.79%) 802.1X
2 12 (1.31%) SAML
3 11 (1.20%) LDAP
4 7 (0.76%) REST
5 4 (0.44%) VML
6 3 (0.33%) CSS
6 3 (0.33%) HTML
6 3 (0.33%) JSON
7 2 (0.22%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.22%) Django
7 2 (0.22%) Jinja
7 2 (0.22%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.22%) OpenTelemetry
7 2 (0.22%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.11%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.11%) Loki
8 1 (0.11%) XML
8 1 (0.11%) XMPP
8 1 (0.11%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 192 (20.89%) Data Centre
2 27 (2.94%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (2.61%) Hybrid Cloud
3 24 (2.61%) Management Information System
4 23 (2.50%) PKI
5 15 (1.63%) Security Posture
6 13 (1.41%) Operational Technology
7 12 (1.31%) NHS
7 12 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
8 11 (1.20%) Onboarding
9 9 (0.98%) Cloud Native
9 9 (0.98%) Clustering
10 8 (0.87%) Public Cloud
11 5 (0.54%) CCTV
11 5 (0.54%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.44%) CMDB
12 4 (0.44%) Distributed Systems
12 4 (0.44%) Enterprise Cloud
12 4 (0.44%) Enterprise Software
12 4 (0.44%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 60 (6.53%) Windows
2 36 (3.92%) Linux
3 14 (1.52%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.76%) Unix
5 4 (0.44%) CatOS
5 4 (0.44%) VMS
5 4 (0.44%) zOS
6 1 (0.11%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.11%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.11%) Solaris
6 1 (0.11%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (14.47%) Load Balancing
2 93 (10.12%) Problem-Solving
3 88 (9.58%) Migration
4 85 (9.25%) High Availability
5 65 (7.07%) Network Monitoring
6 63 (6.86%) Network Design
7 55 (5.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 54 (5.88%) Project Delivery
9 52 (5.66%) ITIL
10 51 (5.55%) Change Management
11 45 (4.90%) Validation
12 42 (4.57%) Infrastructure as Code
13 39 (4.24%) Network Management
14 38 (4.13%) Data Protection
15 36 (3.92%) ITSM
16 35 (3.81%) DevOps
17 34 (3.70%) Technical Leadership
18 32 (3.48%) Stakeholder Management
19 31 (3.37%) Collaborative Working
19 31 (3.37%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 93 (10.12%) Python
2 14 (1.52%) Bash
3 9 (0.98%) SQL
4 6 (0.65%) PowerShell
5 4 (0.44%) Java
6 3 (0.33%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.22%) ActionScript
7 2 (0.22%) Bicep
7 2 (0.22%) C
7 2 (0.22%) C++
7 2 (0.22%) Go
7 2 (0.22%) Lisp
8 1 (0.11%) Korn
8 1 (0.11%) Perl
8 1 (0.11%) PHP
8 1 (0.11%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 300 (32.64%) Security Cleared
2 230 (25.03%) Cisco Certification
3 215 (23.39%) SC Cleared
4 186 (20.24%) CCNP
5 97 (10.55%) DV Cleared
6 96 (10.45%) CCNA
7 38 (4.13%) Degree
8 31 (3.37%) CCIE
9 26 (2.83%) JNCIS
10 22 (2.39%) JNCIA
11 16 (1.74%) JNCIP
12 14 (1.52%) Network+ Certification
13 11 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
14 6 (0.65%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.54%) CCSE
15 5 (0.54%) CWNA
16 4 (0.44%) AWS Certification
16 4 (0.44%) Azure Certification
16 4 (0.44%) DBS Check
17 3 (0.33%) CWDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (1.63%) SLA
2 8 (0.87%) NIST
3 7 (0.76%) QA
4 6 (0.65%) Disclosure Scotland
4 6 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (0.54%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.33%) GDPR
7 3 (0.33%) GRC
7 3 (0.33%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.22%) NCSC
8 2 (0.22%) PMO
9 1 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.11%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 63 (6.86%) VMware Infrastructure
2 45 (4.90%) VMware NSX
3 32 (3.48%) Firmware
4 25 (2.72%) Active Directory
5 9 (0.98%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (0.87%) vSphere
7 5 (0.54%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.22%) KVM
9 2 (0.22%) ProxySG
9 2 (0.22%) vCloud
10 1 (0.11%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.11%) Docker
10 1 (0.11%) IAG
10 1 (0.11%) iptables
10 1 (0.11%) RHEV
10 1 (0.11%) Snort
10 1 (0.11%) Xen
Systems Management
1 85 (9.25%) Ansible
2 66 (7.18%) FortiGate
3 65 (7.07%) Terraform
4 11 (1.20%) Grafana
4 11 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
5 9 (0.98%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.98%) Prometheus
6 7 (0.76%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (0.65%) Kubernetes
7 6 (0.65%) Nagios
7 6 (0.65%) vCenter Server
8 4 (0.44%) Tivoli NetView
9 2 (0.22%) Salt
9 2 (0.22%) SCOM
9 2 (0.22%) WSUS
10 1 (0.11%) Avamar
10 1 (0.11%) CASB
10 1 (0.11%) Iperf
10 1 (0.11%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.11%) Suricata
Vendors
1 498 (54.19%) Cisco
2 232 (25.24%) Palo Alto
3 180 (19.59%) F5
4 124 (13.49%) Juniper
5 115 (12.51%) Fortinet
6 88 (9.58%) VMware
7 87 (9.47%) CheckPoint
8 86 (9.36%) Aruba
9 54 (5.88%) Arista
10 50 (5.44%) Meraki
11 49 (5.33%) SolarWinds
12 41 (4.46%) Microsoft
13 35 (3.81%) Blue Coat
14 32 (3.48%) McAfee
15 28 (3.05%) Infoblox
16 27 (2.94%) Google
17 23 (2.50%) NetApp
17 23 (2.50%) ServiceNow
17 23 (2.50%) Zscaler
18 19 (2.07%) Ekahau