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 28 August 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 141 93
Rank change year-on-year +8 -48 +21
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,105 664 928
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.06% 2.03% 2.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.22% 2.23% 2.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 678 422 570
10th Percentile £313 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year - -2.56% +8.33%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £550
90th Percentile £625 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -0.63% - +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 13 16
10th Percentile £32.63 £22.12 £19.25
25th Percentile £62.81 £32.50 £20.60
Median hourly rate £75.75 £57.50 £50.53
Median % change year-on-year +31.74% +13.79% -15.78%
75th Percentile £91.00 £68.75 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £81.65 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.50 £41.50 £50.53
% change year-on-year +86.75% -17.87% -15.78%

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 49,702 29,842 36,074
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.23% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,679 18,834 22,885
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,561 1,567 1,910
10th Percentile £14.96 £13.72 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.08 £19.50
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -0.73%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 28 August 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 -4 895 £475 -2.51% 441
UK excluding London -6 644 £472 -0.63% 335
London -26 321 £483 - 175
North of England +13 253 £498 +1.63% 73
Work from Home -23 226 £469 +1.41% 103
North West +23 176 £500 +5.26% 32
South East -43 120 £470 -6.00% 64
Midlands -15 103 £475 +21.79% 54
West Midlands -18 94 £475 +31.03% 30
Scotland +27 82 £400 -5.88% 19
Yorkshire -16 64 £450 -8.54% 30
South West -8 57 £550 -7.95% 57
East of England -5 44 £465 +18.85% 46
Wales +11 34 £425 - 22
North East -29 13 £600 - 12
East Midlands -20 7 £500 -16.67% 24
Northern Ireland +2 2 £488 -7.14% 7

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

For the 6 months to 28 August 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.

1 605 (54.75%) Cisco
2 444 (40.18%) Firewall
3 315 (28.51%) WAN
4 267 (24.16%) BGP
5 261 (23.62%) Security Cleared
6 245 (22.17%) VPN
7 244 (22.08%) Network Security
8 243 (21.99%) LAN
9 236 (21.36%) Cisco Certification
10 223 (20.18%) Palo Alto
11 205 (18.55%) Wireless
12 181 (16.38%) CCNP
13 177 (16.02%) DNS
14 176 (15.93%) F5
15 175 (15.84%) SC Cleared
16 170 (15.38%) OSPF
17 159 (14.39%) Fortinet
18 153 (13.85%) VLAN
19 142 (12.85%) Azure
20 140 (12.67%) Load Balancing
21 136 (12.31%) Migration
22 128 (11.58%) Python
23 120 (10.86%) SD-WAN
24 117 (10.59%) Wi-Fi
25 108 (9.77%) TCP/IP
26 98 (8.87%) Ansible
27 97 (8.78%) Problem-Solving
28 96 (8.69%) Project Delivery
28 96 (8.69%) VMware
29 94 (8.51%) Juniper

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 (0.72%) SAS
2 6 (0.54%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.45%) Confluence
3 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.090%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.090%) CMS
4 1 (0.090%) FactoryTalk
4 1 (0.090%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.090%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 15 (1.36%) MS Visio
2 12 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 142 (12.85%) Azure
2 87 (7.87%) AWS
3 48 (4.34%) GCP
4 38 (3.44%) GitHub
5 24 (2.17%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 16 (1.45%) Microsoft 365
7 13 (1.18%) AWS Direct Connect
8 12 (1.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 11 (1.00%) AWS CloudFormation
10 10 (0.90%) Entra ID
10 10 (0.90%) IaaS
11 8 (0.72%) GitHub Actions
11 8 (0.72%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 7 (0.63%) Nutanix
13 6 (0.54%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (0.54%) Azure Sentinel
13 6 (0.54%) OCI
14 5 (0.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 5 (0.45%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (0.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 444 (40.18%) Firewall
2 315 (28.51%) WAN
3 267 (24.16%) BGP
4 245 (22.17%) VPN
5 244 (22.08%) Network Security
6 243 (21.99%) LAN
7 205 (18.55%) Wireless
8 177 (16.02%) DNS
9 170 (15.38%) OSPF
10 153 (13.85%) VLAN
11 120 (10.86%) SD-WAN
12 117 (10.59%) Wi-Fi
13 108 (9.77%) TCP/IP
14 78 (7.06%) Cisco ASA
15 75 (6.79%) Cisco ISE
15 75 (6.79%) DHCP
15 75 (6.79%) MPLS
15 75 (6.79%) Multicast
16 73 (6.61%) Cisco Nexus
17 64 (5.79%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.18%) GIS
3 1 (0.090%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.090%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.090%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 31 (2.81%) Git
2 26 (2.35%) Jenkins
3 23 (2.08%) JIRA
4 15 (1.36%) Fiddler
4 15 (1.36%) GitLab
5 6 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.18%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
General
1 133 (12.04%) Social Skills
2 85 (7.69%) Finance
3 66 (5.97%) Analytical Skills
3 66 (5.97%) Telecoms
4 63 (5.70%) Banking
5 55 (4.98%) Public Sector
6 34 (3.08%) Investment Banking
7 30 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (1.99%) Legal
8 22 (1.99%) Retail
9 19 (1.72%) Manufacturing
10 9 (0.81%) Aerospace
10 9 (0.81%) Police
11 7 (0.63%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (0.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.36%) Automotive
14 4 (0.36%) Law
14 4 (0.36%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (8.42%) Terraform
2 44 (3.98%) 802.1X
3 15 (1.36%) REST
4 8 (0.72%) NETCONF
4 8 (0.72%) SAML
5 5 (0.45%) JSON
5 5 (0.45%) YAML
6 3 (0.27%) Java RMI
6 3 (0.27%) LDAP
7 2 (0.18%) eBPF
7 2 (0.18%) Jinja
7 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.090%) AWS CDK
8 1 (0.090%) Django
8 1 (0.090%) ModSecurity
8 1 (0.090%) RESTCONF
8 1 (0.090%) XML
8 1 (0.090%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 192 (17.38%) Data Centre
2 40 (3.62%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (2.53%) PKI
4 25 (2.26%) Cloud Native
5 23 (2.08%) Driving Licence
6 19 (1.72%) Management Information System
6 19 (1.72%) Onboarding
7 16 (1.45%) Operational Technology
8 12 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
9 11 (1.00%) IoT
9 11 (1.00%) Public Cloud
9 11 (1.00%) Security Posture
10 10 (0.90%) Linux Command Line
10 10 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (0.63%) CCTV
11 7 (0.63%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 7 (0.63%) Distributed Systems
11 7 (0.63%) Fibre Optics
11 7 (0.63%) NHS
12 6 (0.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 70 (6.33%) Windows
2 54 (4.89%) Linux
3 12 (1.09%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.54%) VMS
5 5 (0.45%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.45%) Unix
5 5 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
7 3 (0.27%) zOS
8 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.090%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.090%) Solaris
9 1 (0.090%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (12.67%) Load Balancing
2 136 (12.31%) Migration
3 97 (8.78%) Problem-Solving
4 96 (8.69%) Project Delivery
5 89 (8.05%) High Availability
6 80 (7.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 77 (6.97%) Validation
8 75 (6.79%) ITIL
9 70 (6.33%) Infrastructure as Code
9 70 (6.33%) Network Design
10 65 (5.88%) Change Management
11 60 (5.43%) Network Monitoring
12 48 (4.34%) Zero Trust
13 46 (4.16%) Technical Leadership
14 43 (3.89%) CI/CD
15 41 (3.71%) Continuous Improvement
16 40 (3.62%) DevOps
17 37 (3.35%) Network Segmentation
17 37 (3.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 36 (3.26%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 128 (11.58%) Python
2 25 (2.26%) Bash
3 17 (1.54%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.72%) ActionScript
5 6 (0.54%) C++
5 6 (0.54%) SQL
6 3 (0.27%) C
6 3 (0.27%) Java
7 2 (0.18%) Bicep
7 2 (0.18%) Go
7 2 (0.18%) Groovy
7 2 (0.18%) Perl
7 2 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
7 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.090%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 261 (23.62%) Security Cleared
2 236 (21.36%) Cisco Certification
3 181 (16.38%) CCNP
4 175 (15.84%) SC Cleared
5 92 (8.33%) CCNA
6 83 (7.51%) DV Cleared
7 46 (4.16%) CCIE
8 32 (2.90%) Degree
9 13 (1.18%) CISSP
10 12 (1.09%) JNCIS
11 9 (0.81%) JNCIP
11 9 (0.81%) Network+ Certification
12 8 (0.72%) CCSE
12 8 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
13 6 (0.54%) CCIE Security
13 6 (0.54%) CWNA
13 6 (0.54%) DBS Check
13 6 (0.54%) JNCIA
14 5 (0.45%) CCIE Wireless
14 5 (0.45%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (2.26%) SLA
2 12 (1.09%) QA
3 10 (0.90%) NIST
4 7 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
4 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.27%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.18%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.18%) GDPR
6 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.090%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.090%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.090%) GRC
7 1 (0.090%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.090%) NIST 800
System Software
1 71 (6.43%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (2.81%) Firmware
3 30 (2.71%) VMware NSX
4 28 (2.53%) Active Directory
5 12 (1.09%) vSphere
6 11 (1.00%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.63%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.27%) Docker
9 3 (0.27%) FreeRADIUS
9 3 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.18%) Squid
11 1 (0.090%) iptables
11 1 (0.090%) Snort
11 1 (0.090%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 98 (8.87%) Ansible
2 73 (6.61%) FortiGate
3 28 (2.53%) Kubernetes
4 14 (1.27%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.81%) Istio
6 6 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
6 6 (0.54%) Grafana
6 6 (0.54%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.54%) Puppet
7 5 (0.45%) Cilium
8 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.36%) Nagios
8 4 (0.36%) Packer
8 4 (0.36%) Progress Chef
8 4 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.36%) systemd
8 4 (0.36%) vRealize
9 3 (0.27%) TrustSec
10 2 (0.18%) SCCM
10 2 (0.18%) SCOM
Vendors
1 605 (54.75%) Cisco
2 223 (20.18%) Palo Alto
3 176 (15.93%) F5
4 159 (14.39%) Fortinet
5 96 (8.69%) VMware
6 94 (8.51%) Juniper
7 79 (7.15%) CheckPoint
8 73 (6.61%) Arista
9 66 (5.97%) Meraki
10 63 (5.70%) Aruba
11 56 (5.07%) Microsoft
12 43 (3.89%) Zscaler
13 36 (3.26%) SolarWinds
14 30 (2.71%) Google
15 28 (2.53%) Infoblox
16 25 (2.26%) Nokia
17 24 (2.17%) Blue Coat
17 24 (2.17%) ServiceNow
18 19 (1.72%) McAfee
18 19 (1.72%) NetApp