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 9 October 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 174 94
Rank change year-on-year +35 -80 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,113 581 949
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 1.75% 2.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.22% 1.93% 2.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 643 385 543
10th Percentile £303 £306 £311
25th Percentile £400 £400 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.13% -5.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £588
90th Percentile £619 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £488
% change year-on-year -2.63% -2.56% +14.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 13 18
10th Percentile £8.00 £21.01 £19.55
25th Percentile £55.00 £22.50 £20.00
Median hourly rate £68.75 £34.00 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +102.21% -18.07% -33.06%
75th Percentile £78.75 £58.75 £54.69
90th Percentile £92.53 £79.85 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.75 £35.00 £21.39
% change year-on-year +96.43% +63.65% -65.64%

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 50,176 30,117 35,319
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.07% 90.80% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,458 18,999 21,350
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,042 1,639 1,491
10th Percentile £14.32 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.36 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.57
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -39.49% -6.60%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £68.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.96
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.80% -3.47%

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 9 October 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 9 October 2026.

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 9 October 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 +19 905 £475 -1.81% 757
UK excluding London +8 646 £463 -2.63% 472
London +11 343 £500 +4.60% 303
North of England +27 247 £499 +1.89% 97
Work from Home -31 219 £463 +2.83% 237
North West +26 169 £500 - 50
Midlands -8 106 £475 +18.75% 87
South East -62 88 £463 -7.50% 114
West Midlands -20 85 £475 +23.38% 50
Scotland +15 83 £400 -8.57% 27
Yorkshire -6 65 £450 -7.64% 32
East of England +5 60 £410 +7.19% 57
South West -1 58 £535 -14.06% 58
Wales +23 37 £363 - 23
East Midlands -3 21 £475 -26.92% 37
North East -30 13 £600 - 15
Northern Ireland +3 2 £425 -10.53% 11
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 +36.36%

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

For the 6 months to 9 October 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.

1 596 (53.55%) Cisco
2 435 (39.08%) Firewall
3 300 (26.95%) WAN
4 246 (22.10%) BGP
5 243 (21.83%) Network Security
5 243 (21.83%) Security Cleared
6 231 (20.75%) LAN
7 230 (20.66%) VPN
8 227 (20.40%) Cisco Certification
9 223 (20.04%) Palo Alto
10 215 (19.32%) Wireless
11 179 (16.08%) CCNP
12 162 (14.56%) OSPF
13 159 (14.29%) DNS
14 156 (14.02%) Fortinet
15 154 (13.84%) SC Cleared
16 150 (13.48%) VLAN
17 148 (13.30%) Python
18 141 (12.67%) F5
19 136 (12.22%) Migration
20 132 (11.86%) Azure
21 121 (10.87%) Load Balancing
22 115 (10.33%) Problem-Solving
22 115 (10.33%) TCP/IP
23 114 (10.24%) SD-WAN
24 109 (9.79%) Wi-Fi
25 102 (9.16%) Ansible
26 100 (8.98%) Project Delivery
27 91 (8.18%) CCNA
27 91 (8.18%) MPLS

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 (0.90%) Confluence
2 8 (0.72%) SAS
3 6 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.54%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.18%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.090%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.090%) CMS
5 1 (0.090%) FactoryTalk
5 1 (0.090%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 14 (1.26%) MS Visio
2 11 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.090%) SAP MDG
1 1 (0.090%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 132 (11.86%) Azure
2 84 (7.55%) AWS
3 43 (3.86%) GCP
4 34 (3.05%) GitHub
5 26 (2.34%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 18 (1.62%) AWS Direct Connect
7 16 (1.44%) Microsoft 365
8 15 (1.35%) Entra ID
9 12 (1.08%) AWS CloudFormation
9 12 (1.08%) IaaS
10 8 (0.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 7 (0.63%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (0.54%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 6 (0.54%) Nutanix
12 6 (0.54%) OCI
13 5 (0.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 5 (0.45%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.45%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (0.45%) Datadog
13 5 (0.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 435 (39.08%) Firewall
2 300 (26.95%) WAN
3 246 (22.10%) BGP
4 243 (21.83%) Network Security
5 231 (20.75%) LAN
6 230 (20.66%) VPN
7 215 (19.32%) Wireless
8 162 (14.56%) OSPF
9 159 (14.29%) DNS
10 150 (13.48%) VLAN
11 115 (10.33%) TCP/IP
12 114 (10.24%) SD-WAN
13 109 (9.79%) Wi-Fi
14 91 (8.18%) MPLS
15 73 (6.56%) DHCP
16 71 (6.38%) Cisco ISE
16 71 (6.38%) Cisco Nexus
17 70 (6.29%) Multicast
18 67 (6.02%) Cisco ASA
19 55 (4.94%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.54%) GIS
2 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.090%) BigQuery
3 1 (0.090%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.090%) Metadata
3 1 (0.090%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 40 (3.59%) Git
2 26 (2.34%) JIRA
3 25 (2.25%) Jenkins
4 11 (0.99%) Fiddler
4 11 (0.99%) GitLab
5 8 (0.72%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.090%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.090%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.090%) Postman
General
1 135 (12.13%) Social Skills
2 104 (9.34%) Finance
3 73 (6.56%) Analytical Skills
4 70 (6.29%) Banking
5 69 (6.20%) Telecoms
6 52 (4.67%) Public Sector
7 31 (2.79%) Investment Banking
8 26 (2.34%) Documentation Skills
9 23 (2.07%) Legal
10 16 (1.44%) Retail
11 14 (1.26%) Manufacturing
12 9 (0.81%) Financial Institution
13 8 (0.72%) Pharmaceutical
14 6 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.54%) Police
15 5 (0.45%) Aerospace
15 5 (0.45%) Military
15 5 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.36%) Automotive
16 4 (0.36%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (8.18%) Terraform
2 43 (3.86%) 802.1X
3 22 (1.98%) REST
4 13 (1.17%) JSON
4 13 (1.17%) NETCONF
5 10 (0.90%) YAML
6 6 (0.54%) SAML
7 5 (0.45%) XML
7 5 (0.45%) YANG
8 3 (0.27%) Java RMI
9 2 (0.18%) eBPF
9 2 (0.18%) LDAP
9 2 (0.18%) ModSecurity
9 2 (0.18%) RESTCONF
9 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
10 1 (0.090%) BAPI
10 1 (0.090%) Middleware
10 1 (0.090%) OpenAPI
10 1 (0.090%) SAP ALE
10 1 (0.090%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 191 (17.16%) Data Centre
2 36 (3.23%) Hybrid Cloud
3 26 (2.34%) Onboarding
3 26 (2.34%) PKI
4 25 (2.25%) Driving Licence
5 23 (2.07%) Cloud Native
5 23 (2.07%) Operational Technology
6 21 (1.89%) Management Information System
7 18 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
8 16 (1.44%) IoT
9 14 (1.26%) Security Posture
10 13 (1.17%) Public Cloud
11 10 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
11 10 (0.90%) Linux Command Line
11 10 (0.90%) SCADA
12 9 (0.81%) Fibre Optics
13 8 (0.72%) CMDB
13 8 (0.72%) Digital Signage
14 7 (0.63%) Cyber Threat
14 7 (0.63%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 73 (6.56%) Windows
2 58 (5.21%) Linux
3 20 (1.80%) Windows Server
4 12 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.45%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.45%) VMS
5 5 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
5 5 (0.45%) zOS
6 4 (0.36%) Unix
7 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.090%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.090%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (12.22%) Migration
2 121 (10.87%) Load Balancing
3 115 (10.33%) Problem-Solving
4 100 (8.98%) Project Delivery
5 82 (7.37%) Validation
6 81 (7.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 80 (7.19%) Network Design
8 77 (6.92%) Infrastructure as Code
9 71 (6.38%) ITIL
10 68 (6.11%) High Availability
11 64 (5.75%) Change Management
12 62 (5.57%) Zero Trust
13 59 (5.30%) Stakeholder Management
14 56 (5.03%) CI/CD
14 56 (5.03%) Network Monitoring
15 46 (4.13%) Network Segmentation
16 44 (3.95%) Continuous Improvement
16 44 (3.95%) DevOps
17 41 (3.68%) Technical Leadership
18 38 (3.41%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 148 (13.30%) Python
2 33 (2.96%) Bash
3 27 (2.43%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.81%) ActionScript
5 8 (0.72%) SQL
6 4 (0.36%) C++
7 3 (0.27%) Go
7 3 (0.27%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) Groovy
8 2 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.090%) Bicep
9 1 (0.090%) C
9 1 (0.090%) Java
9 1 (0.090%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 243 (21.83%) Security Cleared
2 227 (20.40%) Cisco Certification
3 179 (16.08%) CCNP
4 154 (13.84%) SC Cleared
5 91 (8.18%) CCNA
6 78 (7.01%) DV Cleared
7 46 (4.13%) CCIE
8 29 (2.61%) Degree
9 15 (1.35%) CISSP
10 10 (0.90%) JNCIS
11 9 (0.81%) JNCIP
11 9 (0.81%) Network+ Certification
12 8 (0.72%) CCSE
13 6 (0.54%) BPSS Clearance
13 6 (0.54%) CCIE Security
13 6 (0.54%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.45%) CCSA
14 5 (0.45%) Computer Science Degree
15 4 (0.36%) CWNA
15 4 (0.36%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (2.25%) SLA
2 16 (1.44%) NIST
3 15 (1.35%) QA
4 13 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (0.72%) PCI DSS
6 5 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.27%) Data Quality
8 2 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.18%) GDPR
8 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.090%) GRC
9 1 (0.090%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 55 (4.94%) VMware Infrastructure
2 37 (3.32%) Active Directory
3 33 (2.96%) Firmware
4 23 (2.07%) VMware NSX
5 17 (1.53%) vSphere
6 9 (0.81%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.72%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.45%) FreeRADIUS
9 4 (0.36%) Docker
9 4 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.18%) Squid
Systems Management
1 102 (9.16%) Ansible
2 65 (5.84%) FortiGate
3 29 (2.61%) Kubernetes
4 18 (1.62%) Cisco Prime
5 12 (1.08%) Nagios
6 9 (0.81%) Istio
7 7 (0.63%) Grafana
7 7 (0.63%) Progress Chef
8 6 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
8 6 (0.54%) Puppet
9 5 (0.45%) Cilium
9 5 (0.45%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.36%) Packer
10 4 (0.36%) systemd
10 4 (0.36%) vRealize
11 3 (0.27%) TrustSec
12 2 (0.18%) SCCM
12 2 (0.18%) SCOM
12 2 (0.18%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 596 (53.55%) Cisco
2 223 (20.04%) Palo Alto
3 156 (14.02%) Fortinet
4 141 (12.67%) F5
5 85 (7.64%) VMware
6 81 (7.28%) Juniper
7 80 (7.19%) Arista
8 79 (7.10%) Meraki
9 76 (6.83%) CheckPoint
10 58 (5.21%) Microsoft
11 56 (5.03%) Aruba
12 52 (4.67%) Zscaler
13 43 (3.86%) SolarWinds
14 27 (2.43%) Nokia
14 27 (2.43%) ServiceNow
15 21 (1.89%) Blue Coat
15 21 (1.89%) Google
15 21 (1.89%) Infoblox
16 16 (1.44%) Splunk
17 15 (1.35%) NetApp