Network Engineer Contract Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the UK is £474, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 29 May 2026.

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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 123 90
Rank change year-on-year -8 -33 +38
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 981 656 1,019
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.01% 2.28% 2.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.17% 2.47% 2.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 641 399 628
10th Percentile £303 £323 £299
25th Percentile £405 £389 £361
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £475 £473
Median % change year-on-year -0.21% +0.53% +2.16%
75th Percentile £540 £550 £538
90th Percentile £600 £613 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +2.22% - +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 8 21
10th Percentile £44.86 £22.36 £18.50
25th Percentile £56.44 £30.00 £24.50
Median hourly rate £73.00 £53.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.81% +34.38% -36.12%
75th Percentile £78.75 £63.13 £73.75
90th Percentile - £71.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.25 £28.75 £72.50
% change year-on-year +161.74% -60.34% +16.94%

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 45,155 26,550 39,743
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.33% 92.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,543 17,231 25,865
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,003 1,045 2,776
10th Percentile £15.01 £14.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.99 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +51.84% -24.72% -17.38%
75th Percentile £66.38 £59.90 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +73.38% -37.13% -5.88%

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 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 29 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 29 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 -13 816 £475 -3.06% 223
UK excluding London -9 589 £460 +2.22% 226
London -30 264 £500 - 61
Work from Home -7 234 £445 -6.32% 57
South East +6 182 £463 -7.50% 70
North of England -33 178 £474 -3.66% 47
North West -8 137 £474 -5.16% 18
Midlands +8 113 £425 +3.03% 37
West Midlands +16 106 £425 +54.55% 22
Scotland +12 50 £415 +3.75% 20
East of England -4 45 £438 +11.82% 17
South West -35 44 £533 +6.60% 24
Yorkshire -56 30 £450 -8.54% 17
Wales -7 26 £425 +21.43% 12
North East -18 11 £600 +108.70% 12
East Midlands -37 3 £488 +8.33% 15
Northern Ireland +3 2 £468 -18.70% 5

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

For the 6 months to 29 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.

1 518 (52.80%) Cisco
2 430 (43.83%) Firewall
3 298 (30.38%) Security Cleared
4 272 (27.73%) WAN
5 248 (25.28%) Cisco Certification
6 239 (24.36%) LAN
7 233 (23.75%) BGP
7 233 (23.75%) Palo Alto
8 222 (22.63%) SC Cleared
9 216 (22.02%) Network Security
10 207 (21.10%) VPN
11 199 (20.29%) CCNP
12 185 (18.86%) F5
13 174 (17.74%) DNS
14 163 (16.62%) OSPF
15 147 (14.98%) Load Balancing
16 135 (13.76%) VLAN
17 133 (13.56%) Wireless
18 127 (12.95%) Fortinet
19 118 (12.03%) Azure
20 111 (11.31%) Juniper
21 103 (10.50%) Python
22 102 (10.40%) TCP/IP
23 101 (10.30%) Migration
24 100 (10.19%) SD-WAN
25 97 (9.89%) VMware
26 95 (9.68%) CCNA
27 94 (9.58%) High Availability
28 93 (9.48%) Problem-Solving
29 92 (9.38%) Wi-Fi

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 (0.82%) Confluence
2 5 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.31%) Apache
3 3 (0.31%) IIS
3 3 (0.31%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.10%) CMS
4 1 (0.10%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 19 (1.94%) MS Visio
2 9 (0.92%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 118 (12.03%) Azure
2 85 (8.66%) AWS
3 53 (5.40%) GCP
4 31 (3.16%) GitHub
5 16 (1.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (1.43%) Entra ID
7 13 (1.33%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 13 (1.33%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 11 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
9 8 (0.82%) AWS Direct Connect
9 8 (0.82%) Azure Sentinel
9 8 (0.82%) Nutanix
10 7 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (0.61%) Google Compute Engine
11 6 (0.61%) IaaS
11 6 (0.61%) Route 53
12 5 (0.51%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (0.51%) Mimecast
12 5 (0.51%) SaaS
13 3 (0.31%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 430 (43.83%) Firewall
2 272 (27.73%) WAN
3 239 (24.36%) LAN
4 233 (23.75%) BGP
5 216 (22.02%) Network Security
6 207 (21.10%) VPN
7 174 (17.74%) DNS
8 163 (16.62%) OSPF
9 135 (13.76%) VLAN
10 133 (13.56%) Wireless
11 102 (10.40%) TCP/IP
12 100 (10.19%) SD-WAN
13 92 (9.38%) Wi-Fi
14 77 (7.85%) Cisco Nexus
15 71 (7.24%) BIG-IP
16 68 (6.93%) MPLS
17 67 (6.83%) Multicast
18 65 (6.63%) IPsec
19 64 (6.52%) SSL
20 61 (6.22%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.31%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.10%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.10%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 26 (2.65%) Fiddler
1 26 (2.65%) JIRA
2 24 (2.45%) Jenkins
3 21 (2.14%) Git
4 10 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
5 8 (0.82%) GitLab
6 2 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
General
1 129 (13.15%) Social Skills
2 55 (5.61%) Banking
3 54 (5.50%) Finance
4 42 (4.28%) Analytical Skills
5 39 (3.98%) Documentation Skills
6 38 (3.87%) Investment Banking
7 37 (3.77%) Telecoms
8 34 (3.47%) Public Sector
9 26 (2.65%) Manufacturing
10 20 (2.04%) Legal
11 18 (1.83%) Retail
12 10 (1.02%) Law
13 9 (0.92%) Aerospace
14 7 (0.71%) Military
15 6 (0.61%) Financial Institution
16 5 (0.51%) Pharmaceutical
16 5 (0.51%) Police
17 4 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
18 3 (0.31%) Influencing Skills
18 3 (0.31%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (4.69%) 802.1X
2 12 (1.22%) SAML
3 11 (1.12%) LDAP
4 9 (0.92%) REST
5 3 (0.31%) CSS
5 3 (0.31%) HTML
5 3 (0.31%) JSON
6 2 (0.20%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.20%) Django
6 2 (0.20%) Jinja
6 2 (0.20%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.20%) RFC 2544
6 2 (0.20%) VML
7 1 (0.10%) Java RMI
7 1 (0.10%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.10%) XML
7 1 (0.10%) XMPP
7 1 (0.10%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 210 (21.41%) Data Centre
2 26 (2.65%) Data Protection Act
3 25 (2.55%) Hybrid Cloud
4 23 (2.34%) Management Information System
4 23 (2.34%) PKI
5 19 (1.94%) Security Posture
6 15 (1.53%) Operational Technology
7 13 (1.33%) Onboarding
8 10 (1.02%) Cloud Native
9 9 (0.92%) Clustering
9 9 (0.92%) NHS
9 9 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (0.71%) CCTV
11 5 (0.51%) CMDB
11 5 (0.51%) Enterprise Cloud
11 5 (0.51%) Linux Command Line
11 5 (0.51%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.41%) Distributed Systems
12 4 (0.41%) Fibre Optics
12 4 (0.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 69 (7.03%) Windows
2 45 (4.59%) Linux
3 14 (1.43%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.71%) Unix
5 6 (0.61%) VMS
6 4 (0.41%) CatOS
7 2 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.20%) zOS
8 1 (0.10%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.10%) Solaris
8 1 (0.10%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.10%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.10%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (14.98%) Load Balancing
2 101 (10.30%) Migration
3 94 (9.58%) High Availability
4 93 (9.48%) Problem-Solving
5 74 (7.54%) Network Monitoring
6 69 (7.03%) Project Delivery
7 61 (6.22%) Network Design
8 59 (6.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 58 (5.91%) ITIL
10 49 (4.99%) Infrastructure as Code
11 48 (4.89%) Change Management
12 45 (4.59%) Validation
13 41 (4.18%) Data Protection
13 41 (4.18%) Technical Leadership
14 39 (3.98%) Network Management
15 38 (3.87%) DevOps
16 36 (3.67%) ITSM
16 36 (3.67%) Zero Trust
17 35 (3.57%) CI/CD
18 32 (3.26%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 103 (10.50%) Python
2 14 (1.43%) Bash
3 9 (0.92%) PowerShell
3 9 (0.92%) SQL
4 6 (0.61%) ActionScript
5 3 (0.31%) Bicep
5 3 (0.31%) C
5 3 (0.31%) Java
5 3 (0.31%) JavaScript
6 2 (0.20%) C++
6 2 (0.20%) Groovy
7 1 (0.10%) Go
7 1 (0.10%) Korn
7 1 (0.10%) Lisp
7 1 (0.10%) Perl
7 1 (0.10%) PHP
Qualifications
1 298 (30.38%) Security Cleared
2 248 (25.28%) Cisco Certification
3 222 (22.63%) SC Cleared
4 199 (20.29%) CCNP
5 95 (9.68%) CCNA
6 89 (9.07%) DV Cleared
7 41 (4.18%) Degree
8 36 (3.67%) CCIE
9 19 (1.94%) JNCIA
10 18 (1.83%) JNCIS
11 17 (1.73%) Network+ Certification
12 12 (1.22%) JNCIP
13 11 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
14 8 (0.82%) CCSE
15 7 (0.71%) Azure Certification
16 6 (0.61%) CompTIA Security+
17 5 (0.51%) CCSM
17 5 (0.51%) CISSP
17 5 (0.51%) CWNA
17 5 (0.51%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (1.53%) SLA
2 12 (1.22%) NIST
3 11 (1.12%) QA
4 7 (0.71%) Disclosure Scotland
5 5 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (0.51%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.41%) GRC
7 3 (0.31%) GDPR
7 3 (0.31%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.20%) NCSC
8 2 (0.20%) PMO
9 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 70 (7.14%) VMware Infrastructure
2 42 (4.28%) VMware NSX
3 32 (3.26%) Firmware
4 31 (3.16%) Active Directory
5 12 (1.22%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.92%) vSphere
7 5 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.20%) KVM
10 2 (0.20%) Squid
10 2 (0.20%) vCloud
11 1 (0.10%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.10%) Docker
11 1 (0.10%) FreeRADIUS
11 1 (0.10%) IAG
11 1 (0.10%) iptables
11 1 (0.10%) RHEV
11 1 (0.10%) Xen
Systems Management
1 89 (9.07%) Ansible
2 73 (7.44%) Terraform
3 66 (6.73%) FortiGate
4 11 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
5 10 (1.02%) Grafana
6 9 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
7 8 (0.82%) Prometheus
8 7 (0.71%) Kubernetes
9 6 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (0.61%) Nagios
10 3 (0.31%) SCOM
10 3 (0.31%) WSUS
11 2 (0.20%) Avamar
11 2 (0.20%) CASB
11 2 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
11 2 (0.20%) Istio
11 2 (0.20%) Puppet
11 2 (0.20%) Salt
11 2 (0.20%) Tivoli NetView
11 2 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 518 (52.80%) Cisco
2 233 (23.75%) Palo Alto
3 185 (18.86%) F5
4 127 (12.95%) Fortinet
5 111 (11.31%) Juniper
6 97 (9.89%) VMware
7 86 (8.77%) Aruba
8 78 (7.95%) CheckPoint
9 61 (6.22%) Arista
10 48 (4.89%) Microsoft
11 46 (4.69%) SolarWinds
12 45 (4.59%) Meraki
13 34 (3.47%) Blue Coat
14 32 (3.26%) Google
15 29 (2.96%) McAfee
15 29 (2.96%) Zscaler
16 28 (2.85%) ServiceNow
17 27 (2.75%) Infoblox
18 21 (2.14%) Extreme Networks
18 21 (2.14%) NetApp