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 14 March 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 157 113 87
Rank change year-on-year -44 -26 +65
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 772 728 1,071
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.79% 2.47% 2.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.95% 2.65% 2.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 511 452 636
10th Percentile £300 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -3.23%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £538
90th Percentile £588 £638 £626
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £459 £440
% change year-on-year +2.83% +4.32% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 4 32
10th Percentile £20.75 £18.95 £23.35
25th Percentile £34.63 £19.63 £30.25
Median hourly rate £56.44 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +61.26% -22.22% -28.83%
75th Percentile £72.27 £56.56 £70.94
90th Percentile £74.26 £68.38 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.44 £20.00 £65.98
% change year-on-year +182.20% -69.69% +6.42%

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 39,662 27,424 41,343
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.89% 92.92% 92.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,771 17,715 27,123
10th Percentile £313 £296 £270
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.40%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,471 874 2,496
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.36 £12.96
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £33.06 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +1.71% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.44
90th Percentile £75.79 £77.50 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -19.90%

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 14 March 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 14 March 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 14 March 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 -46 641 £481 -3.75% 256
UK excluding London -34 493 £472 +2.83% 251
Work from Home -20 221 £438 -7.89% 44
London -77 196 £500 - 58
South East +8 168 £485 -3.00% 75
North of England -51 157 £481 -1.79% 46
North West -17 136 £481 -1.79% 27
Midlands -9 88 £438 -2.78% 45
West Midlands -3 83 £416 -2.06% 22
Scotland +22 45 £418 +2.77% 13
East of England -18 31 £400 +21.21% 30
South West -52 29 £510 +7.94% 30
Wales -8 22 £425 +21.43% 15
Yorkshire -65 21 £440 +4.76% 13
East Midlands -45 3 £500 +11.11% 23
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 3
North East -15 1 - - 6

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

For the 6 months to 14 March 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.

1 422 (54.66%) Cisco
2 368 (47.67%) Firewall
3 267 (34.59%) Security Cleared
4 211 (27.33%) WAN
5 210 (27.20%) Cisco Certification
6 192 (24.87%) Palo Alto
7 191 (24.74%) SC Cleared
8 189 (24.48%) BGP
9 187 (24.22%) LAN
10 175 (22.67%) CCNP
11 172 (22.28%) VPN
12 158 (20.47%) Network Security
13 146 (18.91%) F5
14 137 (17.75%) DNS
15 134 (17.36%) OSPF
16 124 (16.06%) Juniper
17 122 (15.80%) Load Balancing
18 110 (14.25%) TCP/IP
19 104 (13.47%) VLAN
20 91 (11.79%) Python
21 90 (11.66%) CCNA
21 90 (11.66%) Wireless
22 84 (10.88%) Problem-Solving
22 84 (10.88%) VMware
23 83 (10.75%) Azure
24 82 (10.62%) DV Cleared
25 79 (10.23%) Ansible
26 78 (10.10%) Wi-Fi
27 76 (9.84%) Aruba
28 75 (9.72%) AWS

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 (1.30%) SharePoint
2 7 (0.91%) Confluence
3 6 (0.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.65%) Apache
4 5 (0.65%) IIS
Applications
1 21 (2.72%) MS Visio
2 7 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 83 (10.75%) Azure
2 75 (9.72%) AWS
3 44 (5.70%) GCP
4 18 (2.33%) GitHub
5 16 (2.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 15 (1.94%) Entra ID
7 10 (1.30%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 10 (1.30%) Microsoft 365
8 8 (1.04%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 8 (1.04%) Nutanix
9 6 (0.78%) AWS Direct Connect
10 5 (0.65%) Google Compute Engine
10 5 (0.65%) IaaS
10 5 (0.65%) Mimecast
10 5 (0.65%) SaaS
11 4 (0.52%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (0.52%) PaaS
11 4 (0.52%) Route 53
12 3 (0.39%) Catchpoint
12 3 (0.39%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 368 (47.67%) Firewall
2 211 (27.33%) WAN
3 189 (24.48%) BGP
4 187 (24.22%) LAN
5 172 (22.28%) VPN
6 158 (20.47%) Network Security
7 137 (17.75%) DNS
8 134 (17.36%) OSPF
9 110 (14.25%) TCP/IP
10 104 (13.47%) VLAN
11 90 (11.66%) Wireless
12 78 (10.10%) Wi-Fi
13 74 (9.59%) MPLS
14 72 (9.33%) Cisco ISE
15 69 (8.94%) SD-WAN
16 65 (8.42%) Cisco Nexus
17 59 (7.64%) SSL
18 58 (7.51%) BIG-IP
19 55 (7.12%) IPsec
20 52 (6.74%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.39%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 32 (4.15%) Fiddler
2 21 (2.72%) Git
3 16 (2.07%) Jenkins
4 15 (1.94%) JIRA
5 11 (1.42%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (1.04%) GitLab
7 1 (0.13%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.13%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.13%) Jaeger
General
1 139 (18.01%) Social Skills
2 53 (6.87%) Banking
3 52 (6.74%) Public Sector
4 46 (5.96%) Documentation Skills
5 44 (5.70%) Finance
6 41 (5.31%) Investment Banking
7 37 (4.79%) Analytical Skills
7 37 (4.79%) Telecoms
8 21 (2.72%) Legal
8 21 (2.72%) Manufacturing
9 7 (0.91%) Law
10 6 (0.78%) Financial Institution
10 6 (0.78%) Local Government
10 6 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
10 6 (0.78%) Retail
11 5 (0.65%) Military
12 3 (0.39%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.39%) Marketing
12 3 (0.39%) Police
12 3 (0.39%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (5.57%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.17%) LDAP
2 9 (1.17%) SAML
3 4 (0.52%) RFC 2544
3 4 (0.52%) VML
4 3 (0.39%) CSS
4 3 (0.39%) HTML
4 3 (0.39%) JSON
4 3 (0.39%) REST
5 2 (0.26%) Django
5 2 (0.26%) Middleware
5 2 (0.26%) NETCONF
5 2 (0.26%) OpenTelemetry
5 2 (0.26%) XML
5 2 (0.26%) YANG
6 1 (0.13%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.13%) FIX Protocol
6 1 (0.13%) Loki
6 1 (0.13%) OpenConfig
6 1 (0.13%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 164 (21.24%) Data Centre
2 28 (3.63%) Data Protection Act
3 26 (3.37%) Management Information System
4 19 (2.46%) Operational Technology
5 17 (2.20%) PKI
5 17 (2.20%) Security Posture
6 16 (2.07%) Onboarding
7 14 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
8 13 (1.68%) NHS
9 11 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (1.17%) Clustering
10 9 (1.17%) Public Cloud
11 7 (0.91%) Cloud Native
12 6 (0.78%) Fibre Optics
12 6 (0.78%) Hedge funds
13 5 (0.65%) IoT
14 4 (0.52%) CMDB
14 4 (0.52%) Virtual Team
15 3 (0.39%) Enterprise Software
15 3 (0.39%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 59 (7.64%) Windows
2 33 (4.27%) Linux
3 23 (2.98%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.52%) CatOS
4 4 (0.52%) Unix
5 3 (0.39%) zOS
6 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (15.80%) Load Balancing
2 84 (10.88%) Problem-Solving
3 66 (8.55%) Network Design
4 65 (8.42%) High Availability
5 64 (8.29%) Migration
6 56 (7.25%) Network Monitoring
7 43 (5.57%) Change Management
7 43 (5.57%) ITIL
7 43 (5.57%) Project Delivery
8 41 (5.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 36 (4.66%) DevOps
9 36 (4.66%) ITSM
9 36 (4.66%) Network Architecture
9 36 (4.66%) Stakeholder Management
10 34 (4.40%) Data Protection
10 34 (4.40%) Network Management
11 31 (4.02%) Collaborative Working
11 31 (4.02%) Root Cause Analysis
12 30 (3.89%) Data Loss Prevention
12 30 (3.89%) Malware Detection/Protection
Programming Languages
1 91 (11.79%) Python
2 20 (2.59%) Bash
3 12 (1.55%) PowerShell
4 10 (1.30%) SQL
5 8 (1.04%) Lisp
5 8 (1.04%) Perl
6 3 (0.39%) Java
6 3 (0.39%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.26%) ActionScript
7 2 (0.26%) Go
8 1 (0.13%) Bicep
8 1 (0.13%) C
8 1 (0.13%) C++
8 1 (0.13%) Korn
8 1 (0.13%) PHP
8 1 (0.13%) Ruby
8 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 267 (34.59%) Security Cleared
2 210 (27.20%) Cisco Certification
3 191 (24.74%) SC Cleared
4 175 (22.67%) CCNP
5 90 (11.66%) CCNA
6 82 (10.62%) DV Cleared
7 34 (4.40%) Degree
8 33 (4.27%) CCIE
9 28 (3.63%) JNCIS
10 22 (2.85%) JNCIA
11 20 (2.59%) JNCIP
12 13 (1.68%) Network+ Certification
13 11 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
14 4 (0.52%) AWS Certification
14 4 (0.52%) CISSP
14 4 (0.52%) DBS Check
15 3 (0.39%) CCDP
15 3 (0.39%) CCSE
15 3 (0.39%) GIAC
15 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (1.30%) SLA
2 8 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (1.04%) NIST
3 5 (0.65%) GDPR
3 5 (0.65%) PCI DSS
4 3 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
4 3 (0.39%) GRC
4 3 (0.39%) QA
5 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
5 2 (0.26%) NCSC
5 2 (0.26%) PMO
6 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
System Software
1 55 (7.12%) VMware Infrastructure
2 45 (5.83%) VMware NSX
3 33 (4.27%) Active Directory
4 30 (3.89%) Firmware
5 7 (0.91%) Docker
6 6 (0.78%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.78%) vSphere
7 5 (0.65%) ProxySG
8 3 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.26%) KVM
9 2 (0.26%) vCloud
9 2 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.13%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.13%) IAG
10 1 (0.13%) RHEV
10 1 (0.13%) Xen
Systems Management
1 79 (10.23%) Ansible
2 55 (7.12%) FortiGate
3 44 (5.70%) Terraform
4 15 (1.94%) vCenter Server
5 13 (1.68%) Grafana
6 12 (1.55%) Prometheus
7 8 (1.04%) Nagios
7 8 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.91%) Cisco Prime
9 6 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.65%) Kubernetes
11 4 (0.52%) CASB
12 3 (0.39%) Dell DRAC
12 3 (0.39%) SCCM
12 3 (0.39%) SCOrch
12 3 (0.39%) Tivoli NetView
13 2 (0.26%) Salt
13 2 (0.26%) WSUS
14 1 (0.13%) ITRS Geneos
14 1 (0.13%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 422 (54.66%) Cisco
2 192 (24.87%) Palo Alto
3 146 (18.91%) F5
4 124 (16.06%) Juniper
5 84 (10.88%) VMware
6 76 (9.84%) Aruba
7 73 (9.46%) CheckPoint
8 69 (8.94%) Fortinet
9 57 (7.38%) SolarWinds
10 55 (7.12%) Meraki
11 48 (6.22%) Blue Coat
12 44 (5.70%) McAfee
13 42 (5.44%) Microsoft
14 37 (4.79%) Arista
15 25 (3.24%) NetApp
16 24 (3.11%) ServiceNow
17 21 (2.72%) Ekahau
17 21 (2.72%) Google
18 19 (2.46%) Splunk
19 18 (2.33%) Nokia