Network Engineer Contract Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the UK is £471, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 June 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 116 91
Rank change year-on-year -16 -25 +35
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 977 667 1,019
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.00% 2.32% 2.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.17% 2.51% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 638 410 628
10th Percentile £300 £313 £299
25th Percentile £400 £395 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.84% - +2.70%
75th Percentile £543 £567 £538
90th Percentile £600 £625 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £466 £450
% change year-on-year -1.18% +3.44% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 8 21
10th Percentile £51.25 £22.36 £18.50
25th Percentile £63.55 £30.00 £24.50
Median hourly rate £77.50 £53.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +44.19% +34.38% -36.12%
75th Percentile £78.75 £63.13 £73.75
90th Percentile - £71.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.50 £28.75 £72.50
% change year-on-year +169.57% -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 45,089 26,570 40,007
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.35% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,438 17,201 25,885
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -4.00% -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 3,017 1,072 2,851
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.85 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.79% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £59.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.39% -36.94% -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 3 June 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 3 June 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 3 June 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 -16 809 £475 -3.46% 318
UK excluding London -11 585 £460 -1.18% 308
London -39 266 £500 - 92
Work from Home -18 235 £445 -6.32% 88
South East +3 178 £463 -7.50% 85
North of England -33 177 £474 -3.66% 64
North West -10 135 £474 -5.20% 29
Midlands +12 112 £425 - 43
West Midlands +10 105 £425 +54.55% 26
Scotland +18 53 £413 +3.13% 31
East of England -8 45 £438 +15.51% 27
South West -36 43 £533 +4.00% 34
Yorkshire -61 31 £450 -8.54% 27
Wales -9 26 £425 +21.43% 16
North East -21 11 £600 +108.70% 8
East Midlands -37 3 £488 +8.33% 17
Northern Ireland +4 2 £468 -18.70% 11

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

For the 6 months to 3 June 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.

1 514 (52.61%) Cisco
2 427 (43.71%) Firewall
3 292 (29.89%) Security Cleared
4 269 (27.53%) WAN
5 245 (25.08%) Cisco Certification
6 235 (24.05%) BGP
7 234 (23.95%) LAN
8 231 (23.64%) Palo Alto
9 219 (22.42%) Network Security
10 216 (22.11%) SC Cleared
11 205 (20.98%) VPN
12 197 (20.16%) CCNP
13 181 (18.53%) F5
14 171 (17.50%) DNS
15 162 (16.58%) OSPF
16 147 (15.05%) Load Balancing
17 134 (13.72%) VLAN
18 131 (13.41%) Wireless
19 129 (13.20%) Fortinet
20 120 (12.28%) Azure
21 108 (11.05%) Juniper
22 104 (10.64%) Migration
23 103 (10.54%) Python
23 103 (10.54%) TCP/IP
24 101 (10.34%) SD-WAN
25 95 (9.72%) CCNA
26 94 (9.62%) High Availability
27 93 (9.52%) Problem-Solving
27 93 (9.52%) VMware
28 92 (9.42%) 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 17 (1.74%) MS Visio
2 9 (0.92%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 120 (12.28%) Azure
2 85 (8.70%) AWS
3 54 (5.53%) GCP
4 32 (3.28%) GitHub
5 16 (1.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (1.43%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 14 (1.43%) Entra ID
7 13 (1.33%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 11 (1.13%) Microsoft 365
9 9 (0.92%) AWS CloudFormation
9 9 (0.92%) AWS Direct Connect
10 8 (0.82%) Azure Sentinel
10 8 (0.82%) Nutanix
11 6 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (0.61%) Google Compute Engine
11 6 (0.61%) IaaS
11 6 (0.61%) Route 53
12 5 (0.51%) Mimecast
12 5 (0.51%) SaaS
13 3 (0.31%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 427 (43.71%) Firewall
2 269 (27.53%) WAN
3 235 (24.05%) BGP
4 234 (23.95%) LAN
5 219 (22.42%) Network Security
6 205 (20.98%) VPN
7 171 (17.50%) DNS
8 162 (16.58%) OSPF
9 134 (13.72%) VLAN
10 131 (13.41%) Wireless
11 103 (10.54%) TCP/IP
12 101 (10.34%) SD-WAN
13 92 (9.42%) Wi-Fi
14 75 (7.68%) Cisco Nexus
15 68 (6.96%) BIG-IP
16 67 (6.86%) Multicast
17 66 (6.76%) MPLS
18 61 (6.24%) IPsec
18 61 (6.24%) SSL
19 60 (6.14%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.20%) SQL Server
1 2 (0.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 1 (0.10%) ClickHouse
2 1 (0.10%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 26 (2.66%) JIRA
2 25 (2.56%) Fiddler
3 24 (2.46%) Jenkins
4 19 (1.94%) Git
5 10 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.82%) GitLab
7 2 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
General
1 128 (13.10%) Social Skills
2 56 (5.73%) Banking
2 56 (5.73%) Finance
3 43 (4.40%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (3.99%) Documentation Skills
4 39 (3.99%) Investment Banking
5 36 (3.68%) Telecoms
6 33 (3.38%) Public Sector
7 26 (2.66%) Manufacturing
8 20 (2.05%) Legal
9 18 (1.84%) Retail
10 10 (1.02%) Law
11 9 (0.92%) Aerospace
12 7 (0.72%) Financial Institution
13 6 (0.61%) Military
13 6 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (0.51%) Police
15 4 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
16 3 (0.31%) Influencing Skills
17 2 (0.20%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (4.71%) 802.1X
2 10 (1.02%) REST
2 10 (1.02%) SAML
3 9 (0.92%) LDAP
4 3 (0.31%) CSS
4 3 (0.31%) HTML
4 3 (0.31%) JSON
5 2 (0.20%) AWS CDK
5 2 (0.20%) Django
5 2 (0.20%) Jinja
5 2 (0.20%) NETCONF
5 2 (0.20%) RFC 2544
5 2 (0.20%) VML
6 1 (0.10%) Java RMI
6 1 (0.10%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.10%) XML
6 1 (0.10%) XMPP
6 1 (0.10%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 209 (21.39%) Data Centre
2 27 (2.76%) Data Protection Act
3 25 (2.56%) Hybrid Cloud
4 23 (2.35%) Management Information System
5 22 (2.25%) PKI
6 19 (1.94%) Security Posture
7 15 (1.54%) Operational Technology
8 13 (1.33%) Onboarding
9 11 (1.13%) Cloud Native
10 9 (0.92%) Clustering
10 9 (0.92%) NHS
10 9 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (0.72%) CCTV
12 6 (0.61%) Enterprise Cloud
13 5 (0.51%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 5 (0.51%) Linux Command Line
13 5 (0.51%) Public Cloud
14 4 (0.41%) Distributed Systems
14 4 (0.41%) Fibre Optics
14 4 (0.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 68 (6.96%) Windows
2 43 (4.40%) Linux
3 13 (1.33%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.72%) Unix
5 6 (0.61%) VMS
6 2 (0.20%) CatOS
6 2 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.20%) zOS
7 1 (0.10%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.10%) Solaris
7 1 (0.10%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.10%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.10%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
7 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (15.05%) Load Balancing
2 104 (10.64%) Migration
3 94 (9.62%) High Availability
4 93 (9.52%) Problem-Solving
5 72 (7.37%) Network Monitoring
6 71 (7.27%) Project Delivery
7 62 (6.35%) Network Design
8 57 (5.83%) ITIL
9 56 (5.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 52 (5.32%) Infrastructure as Code
11 48 (4.91%) Change Management
12 44 (4.50%) Validation
13 42 (4.30%) Data Protection
14 41 (4.20%) Technical Leadership
15 39 (3.99%) DevOps
16 38 (3.89%) Network Management
17 36 (3.68%) ITSM
18 35 (3.58%) CI/CD
18 35 (3.58%) Zero Trust
19 32 (3.28%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 103 (10.54%) Python
2 13 (1.33%) Bash
3 9 (0.92%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.82%) SQL
5 6 (0.61%) ActionScript
6 3 (0.31%) Bicep
6 3 (0.31%) C
6 3 (0.31%) Java
6 3 (0.31%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.20%) C++
7 2 (0.20%) Groovy
8 1 (0.10%) Go
8 1 (0.10%) Korn
8 1 (0.10%) Lisp
8 1 (0.10%) Perl
8 1 (0.10%) PHP
Qualifications
1 292 (29.89%) Security Cleared
2 245 (25.08%) Cisco Certification
3 216 (22.11%) SC Cleared
4 197 (20.16%) CCNP
5 95 (9.72%) CCNA
6 86 (8.80%) DV Cleared
7 41 (4.20%) Degree
8 37 (3.79%) CCIE
9 19 (1.94%) JNCIA
10 18 (1.84%) JNCIS
11 17 (1.74%) Network+ Certification
12 12 (1.23%) JNCIP
13 11 (1.13%) Computer Science Degree
14 8 (0.82%) CCSE
15 7 (0.72%) 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 (1.54%) SLA
2 12 (1.23%) NIST
3 11 (1.13%) QA
4 8 (0.82%) 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
8 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.20%) JSP 440
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 67 (6.86%) VMware Infrastructure
2 38 (3.89%) VMware NSX
3 31 (3.17%) Firmware
4 28 (2.87%) Active Directory
5 12 (1.23%) 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%) IAG
11 1 (0.10%) iptables
11 1 (0.10%) RHEV
11 1 (0.10%) Snort
11 1 (0.10%) Xen
Systems Management
1 90 (9.21%) Ansible
2 76 (7.78%) Terraform
3 67 (6.86%) FortiGate
4 9 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
4 9 (0.92%) Grafana
4 9 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
5 7 (0.72%) Kubernetes
5 7 (0.72%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (0.61%) Nagios
7 2 (0.20%) Avamar
7 2 (0.20%) CASB
7 2 (0.20%) Cisco CUCM
7 2 (0.20%) Istio
7 2 (0.20%) Packer
7 2 (0.20%) Puppet
7 2 (0.20%) Salt
7 2 (0.20%) SCOM
7 2 (0.20%) Tivoli NetView
7 2 (0.20%) WSUS
Vendors
1 514 (52.61%) Cisco
2 231 (23.64%) Palo Alto
3 181 (18.53%) F5
4 129 (13.20%) Fortinet
5 108 (11.05%) Juniper
6 93 (9.52%) VMware
7 86 (8.80%) Aruba
8 78 (7.98%) CheckPoint
9 63 (6.45%) Arista
10 46 (4.71%) Microsoft
11 44 (4.50%) Meraki
11 44 (4.50%) SolarWinds
12 33 (3.38%) Blue Coat
13 32 (3.28%) Google
14 30 (3.07%) Zscaler
15 28 (2.87%) ServiceNow
16 27 (2.76%) Infoblox
16 27 (2.76%) McAfee
17 21 (2.15%) Extreme Networks
17 21 (2.15%) NetApp