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 28 May 2026.

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

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 125 89
Rank change year-on-year -5 -36 +41
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 978 648 1,016
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.00% 2.26% 2.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.17% 2.45% 2.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 639 396 624
10th Percentile £303 £325 £299
25th Percentile £406 £393 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £475 £473
Median % change year-on-year -0.21% +0.53% +2.16%
75th Percentile £539 £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 7 21
10th Percentile £44.86 £22.31 £18.50
25th Percentile £56.44 £36.25 £24.50
Median hourly rate £73.00 £57.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.96% +43.75% -36.12%
75th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £73.75
90th Percentile - £71.75 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.25 £22.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year +234.44% -68.97% +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 45,082 26,443 39,660
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.30% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,504 17,178 25,818
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -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 3,000 1,028 2,760
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.80
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.09 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.98% -23.38% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.63 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.54
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £25.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year +72.35% -36.75% -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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -11 813 £475 -3.46% 275
UK excluding London -6 588 £460 +2.22% 285
London -27 262 £500 - 72
Work from Home -15 234 £445 -6.32% 65
South East +2 182 £463 -7.50% 80
North of England -32 177 £474 -3.66% 59
North West -8 136 £474 -5.20% 25
Midlands +6 113 £425 - 43
West Midlands +17 106 £425 +54.55% 25
Scotland +13 50 £415 +3.75% 33
East of England -3 45 £438 +9.38% 21
South West -28 44 £533 +6.60% 34
Yorkshire -60 30 £450 -8.54% 19
Wales -10 26 £425 +21.43% 15
North East -19 11 £600 +108.70% 15
East Midlands -37 3 £488 +8.33% 18
Northern Ireland +4 2 £468 -18.70% 5

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

For the 6 months to 28 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.

1 515 (52.66%) Cisco
2 426 (43.56%) Firewall
3 298 (30.47%) Security Cleared
4 270 (27.61%) WAN
5 247 (25.26%) Cisco Certification
6 239 (24.44%) LAN
7 232 (23.72%) Palo Alto
8 231 (23.62%) BGP
9 222 (22.70%) SC Cleared
10 214 (21.88%) Network Security
11 206 (21.06%) VPN
12 198 (20.25%) CCNP
13 185 (18.92%) F5
14 172 (17.59%) DNS
15 162 (16.56%) OSPF
16 147 (15.03%) Load Balancing
17 135 (13.80%) VLAN
18 131 (13.39%) Wireless
19 125 (12.78%) Fortinet
20 118 (12.07%) Azure
21 111 (11.35%) Juniper
22 101 (10.33%) Python
22 101 (10.33%) TCP/IP
23 100 (10.22%) SD-WAN
24 98 (10.02%) Migration
25 96 (9.82%) CCNA
25 96 (9.82%) VMware
26 93 (9.51%) High Availability
26 93 (9.51%) Problem-Solving
27 90 (9.20%) 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 18 (1.84%) MS Visio
2 8 (0.82%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 118 (12.07%) Azure
2 85 (8.69%) AWS
3 53 (5.42%) GCP
4 31 (3.17%) GitHub
5 16 (1.64%) 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 (0.72%) 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
1 426 (43.56%) Firewall
2 270 (27.61%) WAN
3 239 (24.44%) LAN
4 231 (23.62%) BGP
5 214 (21.88%) Network Security
6 206 (21.06%) VPN
7 172 (17.59%) DNS
8 162 (16.56%) OSPF
9 135 (13.80%) VLAN
10 131 (13.39%) Wireless
11 101 (10.33%) TCP/IP
12 100 (10.22%) SD-WAN
13 90 (9.20%) Wi-Fi
14 77 (7.87%) Cisco Nexus
15 71 (7.26%) BIG-IP
16 68 (6.95%) MPLS
17 66 (6.75%) Multicast
18 64 (6.54%) IPsec
19 62 (6.34%) SSL
20 61 (6.24%) 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 (2.66%) Fiddler
1 26 (2.66%) JIRA
2 24 (2.45%) Jenkins
3 21 (2.15%) Git
4 10 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
5 8 (0.82%) GitLab
6 2 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
General
1 128 (13.09%) Social Skills
2 55 (5.62%) Banking
3 54 (5.52%) Finance
4 42 (4.29%) Analytical Skills
5 39 (3.99%) Documentation Skills
6 38 (3.89%) Investment Banking
7 37 (3.78%) Telecoms
8 34 (3.48%) Public Sector
9 26 (2.66%) Manufacturing
10 20 (2.04%) Legal
11 18 (1.84%) Retail
12 10 (1.02%) Law
13 9 (0.92%) Aerospace
14 7 (0.72%) 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 45 (4.60%) 802.1X
2 12 (1.23%) 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
1 209 (21.37%) Data Centre
2 26 (2.66%) 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 (1.53%) Operational Technology
8 13 (1.33%) Onboarding
9 10 (1.02%) Cloud Native
10 9 (0.92%) Clustering
10 9 (0.92%) NHS
10 9 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (0.72%) CCTV
12 5 (0.51%) CMDB
12 5 (0.51%) Enterprise Cloud
12 5 (0.51%) Linux Command Line
12 5 (0.51%) Public Cloud
13 4 (0.41%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 4 (0.41%) Distributed Systems
13 4 (0.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 68 (6.95%) Windows
2 44 (4.50%) Linux
3 14 (1.43%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.72%) 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 (15.03%) Load Balancing
2 98 (10.02%) Migration
3 93 (9.51%) High Availability
3 93 (9.51%) Problem-Solving
4 73 (7.46%) Network Monitoring
5 67 (6.85%) Project Delivery
6 61 (6.24%) Network Design
7 59 (6.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 57 (5.83%) ITIL
9 49 (5.01%) Infrastructure as Code
10 47 (4.81%) Change Management
11 44 (4.50%) Validation
12 41 (4.19%) Data Protection
13 40 (4.09%) Technical Leadership
14 39 (3.99%) Network Management
15 38 (3.89%) DevOps
16 36 (3.68%) ITSM
16 36 (3.68%) Zero Trust
17 35 (3.58%) CI/CD
18 32 (3.27%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 101 (10.33%) Python
2 14 (1.43%) Bash
3 9 (0.92%) SQL
4 8 (0.82%) PowerShell
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%) PHP
Qualifications
1 298 (30.47%) Security Cleared
2 247 (25.26%) Cisco Certification
3 222 (22.70%) SC Cleared
4 198 (20.25%) CCNP
5 96 (9.82%) CCNA
6 89 (9.10%) DV Cleared
7 40 (4.09%) Degree
8 35 (3.58%) CCIE
9 19 (1.94%) JNCIA
9 19 (1.94%) JNCIS
10 17 (1.74%) Network+ Certification
11 12 (1.23%) JNCIP
12 11 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
13 8 (0.82%) CCSE
14 7 (0.72%) Azure Certification
15 6 (0.61%) CompTIA Security+
16 5 (0.51%) CCSM
16 5 (0.51%) CISSP
16 5 (0.51%) CWNA
16 5 (0.51%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (1.53%) SLA
2 11 (1.12%) NIST
2 11 (1.12%) QA
3 7 (0.72%) Disclosure Scotland
4 5 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (0.51%) PCI DSS
5 4 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
5 4 (0.41%) GRC
6 3 (0.31%) GDPR
6 3 (0.31%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 2 (0.20%) NCSC
7 2 (0.20%) PMO
8 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 69 (7.06%) VMware Infrastructure
2 41 (4.19%) VMware NSX
3 32 (3.27%) Firmware
4 30 (3.07%) 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%) FreeRADIUS
11 1 (0.10%) IAG
11 1 (0.10%) iptables
11 1 (0.10%) RHEV
11 1 (0.10%) Xen
Systems Management
1 88 (9.00%) Ansible
2 73 (7.46%) Terraform
3 66 (6.75%) 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 (0.72%) 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%) Istio
11 2 (0.20%) Packer
11 2 (0.20%) Puppet
11 2 (0.20%) Salt
11 2 (0.20%) Tivoli NetView
11 2 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 515 (52.66%) Cisco
2 232 (23.72%) Palo Alto
3 185 (18.92%) F5
4 125 (12.78%) Fortinet
5 111 (11.35%) Juniper
6 96 (9.82%) VMware
7 86 (8.79%) Aruba
8 78 (7.98%) CheckPoint
9 60 (6.13%) Arista
10 48 (4.91%) Microsoft
11 45 (4.60%) Meraki
11 45 (4.60%) SolarWinds
12 34 (3.48%) Blue Coat
13 32 (3.27%) Google
14 29 (2.97%) Zscaler
15 28 (2.86%) McAfee
16 27 (2.76%) Infoblox
16 27 (2.76%) ServiceNow
17 21 (2.15%) Extreme Networks
17 21 (2.15%) NetApp