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 17 March 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 112 90
Rank change year-on-year -42 -22 +62
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 776 723 1,066
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.80% 2.46% 2.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.96% 2.65% 2.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 518 450 635
10th Percentile £300 £324 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £476 £450
Median % change year-on-year -0.21% +5.78% -3.23%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £534
90th Percentile £588 £638 £626
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £473 £440
% change year-on-year +0.32% +7.39% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 3 32
10th Percentile £21.98 £24.80 £20.99
25th Percentile £35.44 £34.25 £24.88
Median hourly rate £56.44 £50.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.88% +17.65% -32.79%
75th Percentile £72.54 £63.13 £70.94
90th Percentile £74.09 £71.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.89 £45.75 £63.00
% change year-on-year +39.64% -27.38% +1.61%

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 39,673 27,289 41,313
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.89% 92.94% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,785 17,711 27,109
10th Percentile £313 £300 £272
25th Percentile £410 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.11%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,471 884 2,499
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.25 £12.98
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.04 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.71 £33.00 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +8.21% +0.32% -22.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.95
90th Percentile £75.79 £77.41 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £32.70
% change year-on-year +7.69% -0.60% -19.44%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -48 645 £483 -3.32% 226
UK excluding London -31 495 £474 +0.32% 218
Work from Home -17 216 £438 -7.89% 41
London -66 198 £500 - 48
South East +6 169 £500 - 67
North of England -50 156 £481 -1.79% 42
North West -17 135 £481 -1.79% 26
Midlands -9 86 £438 -2.78% 40
West Midlands -5 81 £420 -1.18% 22
Scotland +20 44 £415 +2.15% 10
East of England -13 32 £413 -21.43% 22
South West -46 30 £510 +7.94% 26
Wales -9 23 £425 +15.25% 12
Yorkshire -59 21 £440 -4.86% 11
East Midlands -46 3 £500 +11.11% 18
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 3
North East -12 1 - - 5

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

For the 6 months to 17 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.

1 424 (54.64%) Cisco
2 370 (47.68%) Firewall
3 270 (34.79%) Security Cleared
4 213 (27.45%) WAN
5 211 (27.19%) Cisco Certification
6 193 (24.87%) Palo Alto
7 191 (24.61%) SC Cleared
8 190 (24.48%) BGP
9 186 (23.97%) LAN
10 176 (22.68%) CCNP
11 174 (22.42%) VPN
12 160 (20.62%) Network Security
13 144 (18.56%) F5
14 136 (17.53%) DNS
15 135 (17.40%) OSPF
16 125 (16.11%) Juniper
17 120 (15.46%) Load Balancing
18 109 (14.05%) TCP/IP
19 105 (13.53%) VLAN
20 91 (11.73%) CCNA
21 90 (11.60%) Python
21 90 (11.60%) Wireless
22 87 (11.21%) VMware
23 86 (11.08%) DV Cleared
24 85 (10.95%) Problem-Solving
25 84 (10.82%) Azure
26 78 (10.05%) Ansible
27 77 (9.92%) Aruba
27 77 (9.92%) Wi-Fi
28 75 (9.66%) 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 (1.29%) SharePoint
2 7 (0.90%) Confluence
3 6 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.64%) Apache
4 5 (0.64%) IIS
Applications
1 21 (2.71%) MS Visio
2 7 (0.90%) 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 84 (10.82%) Azure
2 75 (9.66%) AWS
3 45 (5.80%) GCP
4 19 (2.45%) GitHub
5 16 (2.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 15 (1.93%) Entra ID
7 10 (1.29%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 10 (1.29%) Microsoft 365
8 9 (1.16%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 8 (1.03%) Nutanix
10 6 (0.77%) AWS Direct Connect
11 5 (0.64%) Google Compute Engine
11 5 (0.64%) IaaS
11 5 (0.64%) Mimecast
11 5 (0.64%) SaaS
12 4 (0.52%) Azure DevOps
12 4 (0.52%) PaaS
12 4 (0.52%) Route 53
13 3 (0.39%) Catchpoint
13 3 (0.39%) Cloudflare
Communications & Networking
1 370 (47.68%) Firewall
2 213 (27.45%) WAN
3 190 (24.48%) BGP
4 186 (23.97%) LAN
5 174 (22.42%) VPN
6 160 (20.62%) Network Security
7 136 (17.53%) DNS
8 135 (17.40%) OSPF
9 109 (14.05%) TCP/IP
10 105 (13.53%) VLAN
11 90 (11.60%) Wireless
12 77 (9.92%) Wi-Fi
13 73 (9.41%) MPLS
14 72 (9.28%) Cisco ISE
15 71 (9.15%) SD-WAN
16 64 (8.25%) Cisco Nexus
17 56 (7.22%) BIG-IP
17 56 (7.22%) SSL
18 54 (6.96%) IPsec
19 52 (6.70%) 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 30 (3.87%) Fiddler
2 21 (2.71%) Git
3 16 (2.06%) Jenkins
4 15 (1.93%) JIRA
5 11 (1.42%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (1.03%) GitLab
7 1 (0.13%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.13%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.13%) Jaeger
General
1 140 (18.04%) Social Skills
2 52 (6.70%) Public Sector
3 51 (6.57%) Banking
4 47 (6.06%) Documentation Skills
5 42 (5.41%) Finance
6 39 (5.03%) Investment Banking
7 37 (4.77%) Analytical Skills
8 36 (4.64%) Telecoms
9 21 (2.71%) Legal
10 20 (2.58%) Manufacturing
11 7 (0.90%) Law
12 6 (0.77%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.77%) Local Government
12 6 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (0.77%) Retail
13 5 (0.64%) Military
14 3 (0.39%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.39%) Marketing
14 3 (0.39%) Police
14 3 (0.39%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (5.54%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.16%) LDAP
2 9 (1.16%) SAML
3 4 (0.52%) REST
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
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%) AWS CDK
6 1 (0.13%) Loki
6 1 (0.13%) OpenConfig
6 1 (0.13%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 162 (20.88%) Data Centre
2 27 (3.48%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (3.09%) Management Information System
4 18 (2.32%) Operational Technology
5 17 (2.19%) PKI
5 17 (2.19%) Security Posture
6 14 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
7 13 (1.68%) NHS
7 13 (1.68%) Onboarding
8 10 (1.29%) Public Cloud
8 10 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
9 9 (1.16%) Clustering
10 7 (0.90%) Cloud Native
11 6 (0.77%) Fibre Optics
12 5 (0.64%) Hedge funds
12 5 (0.64%) IoT
13 4 (0.52%) CMDB
13 4 (0.52%) Mainframe
13 4 (0.52%) Virtual Team
14 3 (0.39%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 59 (7.60%) Windows
2 32 (4.12%) Linux
3 23 (2.96%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.52%) CatOS
4 4 (0.52%) Unix
4 4 (0.52%) zOS
5 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
5 1 (0.13%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (15.46%) Load Balancing
2 85 (10.95%) Problem-Solving
3 64 (8.25%) High Availability
4 63 (8.12%) Network Design
5 61 (7.86%) Migration
6 55 (7.09%) Network Monitoring
7 43 (5.54%) Change Management
7 43 (5.54%) ITIL
8 42 (5.41%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 40 (5.15%) Project Delivery
10 37 (4.77%) Network Architecture
11 36 (4.64%) DevOps
11 36 (4.64%) ITSM
12 35 (4.51%) Stakeholder Management
13 33 (4.25%) Data Protection
13 33 (4.25%) Network Management
14 31 (3.99%) Collaborative Working
14 31 (3.99%) Root Cause Analysis
15 30 (3.87%) Data Loss Prevention
15 30 (3.87%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 90 (11.60%) Python
2 20 (2.58%) Bash
3 12 (1.55%) PowerShell
4 10 (1.29%) SQL
5 8 (1.03%) Lisp
5 8 (1.03%) 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
1 270 (34.79%) Security Cleared
2 211 (27.19%) Cisco Certification
3 191 (24.61%) SC Cleared
4 176 (22.68%) CCNP
5 91 (11.73%) CCNA
6 86 (11.08%) DV Cleared
7 34 (4.38%) Degree
8 33 (4.25%) CCIE
9 29 (3.74%) JNCIS
10 23 (2.96%) JNCIA
11 20 (2.58%) 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 (1.29%) SLA
2 8 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (1.03%) NIST
3 5 (0.64%) GDPR
3 5 (0.64%) 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%) NCSC
5 2 (0.26%) PMO
6 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
System Software
1 57 (7.35%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (5.93%) VMware NSX
3 33 (4.25%) Active Directory
4 30 (3.87%) Firmware
5 7 (0.90%) Docker
6 6 (0.77%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.77%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.77%) vSphere
7 5 (0.64%) 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%) Snort
10 1 (0.13%) Xen
Systems Management
1 78 (10.05%) Ansible
2 55 (7.09%) FortiGate
3 47 (6.06%) Terraform
4 15 (1.93%) vCenter Server
5 13 (1.68%) Grafana
6 12 (1.55%) Prometheus
7 8 (1.03%) Nagios
7 8 (1.03%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.90%) Cisco Prime
9 6 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (0.64%) Kubernetes
11 4 (0.52%) CASB
11 4 (0.52%) Tivoli NetView
12 3 (0.39%) SCCM
12 3 (0.39%) SCOrch
13 2 (0.26%) Dell DRAC
13 2 (0.26%) Salt
13 2 (0.26%) WSUS
14 1 (0.13%) Amdocs OSS
14 1 (0.13%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 424 (54.64%) Cisco
2 193 (24.87%) Palo Alto
3 144 (18.56%) F5
4 125 (16.11%) Juniper
5 87 (11.21%) VMware
6 77 (9.92%) Aruba
7 72 (9.28%) CheckPoint
8 69 (8.89%) Fortinet
9 56 (7.22%) SolarWinds
10 55 (7.09%) Meraki
11 45 (5.80%) Blue Coat
12 42 (5.41%) McAfee
12 42 (5.41%) Microsoft
13 36 (4.64%) Arista
14 24 (3.09%) ServiceNow
15 23 (2.96%) NetApp
16 22 (2.84%) Google
17 21 (2.71%) Ekahau
18 18 (2.32%) Nokia
18 18 (2.32%) Splunk