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 26 December 2025.

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

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 162 102 107
Rank change year-on-year -60 +5 +74
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 632 839 974
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.70% 2.49% 2.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.87% 2.68% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 434 487 575
10th Percentile £313 £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 £550
90th Percentile £600 £638 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £440
% change year-on-year +2.70% +5.11% -1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 12 43
10th Percentile £20.75 - £24.60
25th Percentile £33.00 £20.00 £37.15
Median hourly rate £52.58 £29.19 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year +80.15% -53.67% +32.63%
75th Percentile £72.51 £48.60 £70.95
90th Percentile £80.38 £54.69 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.44 £20.00 £64.49
% change year-on-year +182.20% -68.99% +155.00%

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 33,882 31,304 40,866
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.12% 92.76% 93.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,416 19,227 27,402
10th Percentile £294 £300 £285
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £640
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,989 974 1,553
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £14.51
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £19.12
Median hourly rate £26.00 £33.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.21% -26.67% +46.39%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.46 £73.75 £76.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year -22.62% -29.16% +83.52%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -63 533 £483 -1.53% 318
UK excluding London -54 394 £475 +2.70% 296
Work from Home -31 185 £448 -5.29% 81
London -49 179 £477 -6.57% 76
South East -10 136 £500 - 98
North of England -78 116 £508 +8.56% 60
North West -32 98 £515 +5.10% 30
Midlands -41 64 £390 -8.24% 48
West Midlands -9 58 £380 -15.56% 39
Scotland +16 47 £425 +6.25% 18
East of England -18 26 £475 +72.73% 32
South West -38 18 £475 +0.53% 27
Yorkshire -75 16 £435 +6.75% 22
Wales -11 8 £550 +57.14% 11
East Midlands -37 5 £650 +73.33% 8
Northern Ireland -3 3 £475 +6.74% 8
North East -8 3 £625 +28.21% 10

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

For the 6 months to 26 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.

1 366 (57.91%) Cisco
2 308 (48.73%) Firewall
3 226 (35.76%) Security Cleared
4 188 (29.75%) Cisco Certification
5 181 (28.64%) WAN
6 160 (25.32%) CCNP
7 158 (25.00%) SC Cleared
8 149 (23.58%) Palo Alto
9 142 (22.47%) BGP
10 132 (20.89%) LAN
11 129 (20.41%) Network Security
12 122 (19.30%) VPN
13 121 (19.15%) Juniper
14 104 (16.46%) OSPF
15 103 (16.30%) Python
16 99 (15.66%) F5
17 92 (14.56%) DNS
18 90 (14.24%) Ansible
19 86 (13.61%) TCP/IP
20 84 (13.29%) Load Balancing
21 78 (12.34%) CCNA
22 75 (11.87%) SD-WAN
23 73 (11.55%) AWS
23 73 (11.55%) CheckPoint
23 73 (11.55%) Wi-Fi
24 72 (11.39%) Network Design
25 71 (11.23%) Problem-Solving
25 71 (11.23%) VLAN
25 71 (11.23%) Wireless
26 68 (10.76%) 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 (1.58%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.79%) Confluence
3 4 (0.63%) Apache
3 4 (0.63%) IIS
3 4 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 16 (2.53%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.47%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 73 (11.55%) AWS
2 68 (10.76%) Azure
3 20 (3.16%) GCP
4 13 (2.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 8 (1.27%) Entra ID
6 7 (1.11%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (0.95%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 6 (0.95%) Nutanix
8 5 (0.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 5 (0.79%) Amazon EC2
8 5 (0.79%) Amazon ELB
8 5 (0.79%) Amazon S3
8 5 (0.79%) AWS Direct Connect
8 5 (0.79%) GitHub
9 4 (0.63%) Akamai
9 4 (0.63%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (0.63%) Cohesity
9 4 (0.63%) Mimecast
9 4 (0.63%) OCI
10 3 (0.47%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 308 (48.73%) Firewall
2 181 (28.64%) WAN
3 142 (22.47%) BGP
4 132 (20.89%) LAN
5 129 (20.41%) Network Security
6 122 (19.30%) VPN
7 104 (16.46%) OSPF
8 92 (14.56%) DNS
9 86 (13.61%) TCP/IP
10 75 (11.87%) SD-WAN
11 73 (11.55%) Wi-Fi
12 71 (11.23%) VLAN
12 71 (11.23%) Wireless
13 63 (9.97%) Cisco ISE
13 63 (9.97%) MPLS
14 56 (8.86%) SSL
15 51 (8.07%) IPsec
16 50 (7.91%) Cisco IOS
17 49 (7.75%) Cisco Nexus
18 39 (6.17%) 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 (3.16%) Fiddler
1 20 (3.16%) Git
2 11 (1.74%) GitLab
3 10 (1.58%) Jenkins
4 9 (1.42%) JIRA
5 7 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.47%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.16%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.16%) Jaeger
General
1 145 (22.94%) Social Skills
2 67 (10.60%) Public Sector
3 46 (7.28%) Finance
4 42 (6.65%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (5.70%) Documentation Skills
6 30 (4.75%) Telecoms
7 29 (4.59%) Banking
8 25 (3.96%) Investment Banking
9 22 (3.48%) Manufacturing
10 11 (1.74%) Legal
11 7 (1.11%) Local Government
12 6 (0.95%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.79%) Military
13 5 (0.79%) Retail
14 4 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
15 3 (0.47%) Marketing
15 3 (0.47%) Pharmaceutical
15 3 (0.47%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (5.06%) 802.1X
2 6 (0.95%) RFC 2544
2 6 (0.95%) SAML
3 5 (0.79%) Jinja
4 4 (0.63%) JSON
4 4 (0.63%) Middleware
4 4 (0.63%) VML
5 3 (0.47%) LDAP
5 3 (0.47%) YANG
6 2 (0.32%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.32%) XML
7 1 (0.16%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.16%) FIX Protocol
7 1 (0.16%) gRPC
7 1 (0.16%) HTML
7 1 (0.16%) Loki
7 1 (0.16%) Node.js
7 1 (0.16%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.16%) REST
7 1 (0.16%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 122 (19.30%) Data Centre
2 21 (3.32%) Management Information System
3 20 (3.16%) Onboarding
4 18 (2.85%) Operational Technology
4 18 (2.85%) PKI
5 17 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
6 13 (2.06%) Hedge funds
7 10 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
8 9 (1.42%) Fibre Optics
8 9 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.27%) SCADA
9 8 (1.27%) Security Posture
10 6 (0.95%) NHS
11 5 (0.79%) Driving Licence
11 5 (0.79%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.63%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 4 (0.63%) IoT
12 4 (0.63%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (0.63%) Private Cloud
12 4 (0.63%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 48 (7.59%) Windows
2 30 (4.75%) Linux
3 27 (4.27%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.79%) Unix
5 3 (0.47%) 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 84 (13.29%) Load Balancing
2 72 (11.39%) Network Design
3 71 (11.23%) Problem-Solving
4 52 (8.23%) Migration
5 49 (7.75%) Network Monitoring
6 47 (7.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 44 (6.96%) High Availability
8 41 (6.49%) Network Architecture
9 36 (5.70%) DevOps
10 35 (5.54%) Network Management
11 32 (5.06%) Cybersecurity
11 32 (5.06%) Project Delivery
12 31 (4.91%) Incident Response
12 31 (4.91%) ITSM
13 29 (4.59%) Service Management
14 26 (4.11%) Agile
14 26 (4.11%) Infrastructure as Code
15 25 (3.96%) Network Segmentation
16 23 (3.64%) Change Management
17 21 (3.32%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 103 (16.30%) Python
2 31 (4.91%) Bash
3 19 (3.01%) Perl
4 13 (2.06%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.27%) Lisp
6 6 (0.95%) C++
7 4 (0.63%) 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
1 226 (35.76%) Security Cleared
2 188 (29.75%) Cisco Certification
3 160 (25.32%) CCNP
4 158 (25.00%) SC Cleared
5 78 (12.34%) CCNA
6 63 (9.97%) DV Cleared
7 28 (4.43%) CCIE
8 25 (3.96%) Degree
9 20 (3.16%) JNCIS
10 17 (2.69%) JNCIA
11 13 (2.06%) JNCIP
12 10 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (1.58%) Network+ Certification
13 8 (1.27%) CCDP
14 6 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
15 5 (0.79%) CCSA
16 4 (0.63%) CISSP
16 4 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
17 3 (0.47%) CompTIA Security+
17 3 (0.47%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (1.58%) SLA
2 9 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (0.95%) NIST
4 5 (0.79%) GDPR
4 5 (0.79%) PCI DSS
5 4 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (0.47%) GRC
7 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 2 (0.32%) QA
7 2 (0.32%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.16%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.16%) PMO
System Software
1 38 (6.01%) VMware NSX
2 35 (5.54%) Active Directory
3 30 (4.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (4.43%) Firmware
5 14 (2.22%) Docker
6 10 (1.58%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.79%) ProxySG
7 5 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.47%) 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 90 (14.24%) Ansible
2 55 (8.70%) FortiGate
3 38 (6.01%) Terraform
4 25 (3.96%) vCenter Server
5 8 (1.27%) Kubernetes
6 7 (1.11%) Grafana
6 7 (1.11%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.95%) Nagios
7 6 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.63%) Cisco CUCM
8 4 (0.63%) SCCM
9 3 (0.47%) CASB
9 3 (0.47%) Dell DRAC
9 3 (0.47%) SCOrch
9 3 (0.47%) Tivoli NetView
9 3 (0.47%) WhatsUp Gold
10 2 (0.32%) CA Spectrum
10 2 (0.32%) Cisco Prime
10 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 366 (57.91%) Cisco
2 149 (23.58%) Palo Alto
3 121 (19.15%) Juniper
4 99 (15.66%) F5
5 73 (11.55%) CheckPoint
6 62 (9.81%) Fortinet
7 59 (9.34%) SolarWinds
8 58 (9.18%) Meraki
9 52 (8.23%) VMware
10 48 (7.59%) Aruba
11 40 (6.33%) Blue Coat
12 38 (6.01%) Microsoft
13 37 (5.85%) Arista
14 32 (5.06%) McAfee
15 22 (3.48%) Zscaler
16 18 (2.85%) NetApp
16 18 (2.85%) Nokia
17 16 (2.53%) ServiceNow
18 11 (1.74%) Remedy
19 10 (1.58%) Splunk