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 10 September 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 147 96
Rank change year-on-year +15 -51 +15
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,119 625 914
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 1.89% 2.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.22% 2.08% 2.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 674 401 541
10th Percentile £306 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year - -3.06% +8.89%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £624 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £486
% change year-on-year -2.63% -2.31% +14.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 15 20
10th Percentile £28.10 £22.22 £19.85
25th Percentile £57.34 £32.75 £20.14
Median hourly rate £73.50 £50.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.00% +11.11% -25.00%
75th Percentile £91.00 £68.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £92.53 £80.30 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.00 £41.50 £35.48
% change year-on-year +78.31% +16.97% -41.84%

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 50,324 30,039 35,625
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 91.06% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,923 18,938 22,148
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.32%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,732 1,556 1,742
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.67 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.06 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.90 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 10 September 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 +10 915 £475 -0.52% 295
UK excluding London +1 643 £463 -2.63% 222
London +4 345 £475 - 106
North of England +17 251 £492 +0.97% 48
Work from Home -30 221 £463 - 108
North West +20 174 £499 +5.00% 23
South East -46 112 £475 -5.00% 39
Midlands -23 105 £475 +18.75% 39
West Midlands -12 91 £475 +27.95% 20
Scotland -1 79 £400 -5.88% 11
Yorkshire -15 64 £450 -8.07% 17
South West -14 60 £550 -7.95% 36
East of England -13 42 £450 +17.65% 45
Wales +19 36 £363 -19.44% 10
North East -36 13 £600 - 8
East Midlands -13 12 £500 -16.67% 19
Northern Ireland +2 2 £488 -7.14% 2
Channel Islands -2 2 £600 +36.36%

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

For the 6 months to 10 September 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.

1 612 (54.69%) Cisco
2 446 (39.86%) Firewall
3 312 (27.88%) WAN
4 260 (23.24%) BGP
5 256 (22.88%) Security Cleared
6 248 (22.16%) Network Security
7 241 (21.54%) VPN
8 237 (21.18%) LAN
9 236 (21.09%) Cisco Certification
10 231 (20.64%) Palo Alto
11 213 (19.03%) Wireless
12 184 (16.44%) CCNP
13 174 (15.55%) DNS
13 174 (15.55%) SC Cleared
14 167 (14.92%) F5
15 164 (14.66%) OSPF
16 158 (14.12%) Fortinet
17 155 (13.85%) VLAN
18 141 (12.60%) Python
19 140 (12.51%) Azure
20 131 (11.71%) Load Balancing
20 131 (11.71%) Migration
21 122 (10.90%) Wi-Fi
22 114 (10.19%) SD-WAN
23 104 (9.29%) Problem-Solving
24 102 (9.12%) TCP/IP
25 97 (8.67%) Ansible
26 96 (8.58%) Project Delivery
27 95 (8.49%) Terraform
28 94 (8.40%) VMware

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 (0.71%) SAS
2 6 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (0.54%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.45%) Confluence
4 1 (0.089%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.089%) CMS
4 1 (0.089%) FactoryTalk
4 1 (0.089%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.089%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 14 (1.25%) MS Visio
2 12 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 140 (12.51%) Azure
2 89 (7.95%) AWS
3 43 (3.84%) GCP
4 39 (3.49%) GitHub
5 26 (2.32%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 17 (1.52%) Microsoft 365
7 14 (1.25%) AWS Direct Connect
8 11 (0.98%) AWS CloudFormation
8 11 (0.98%) Entra ID
9 10 (0.89%) IaaS
9 10 (0.89%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 9 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (0.63%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 6 (0.54%) Azure Sentinel
12 6 (0.54%) Nutanix
12 6 (0.54%) OCI
13 5 (0.45%) AWS Lambda
13 5 (0.45%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (0.45%) Datadog
13 5 (0.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 446 (39.86%) Firewall
2 312 (27.88%) WAN
3 260 (23.24%) BGP
4 248 (22.16%) Network Security
5 241 (21.54%) VPN
6 237 (21.18%) LAN
7 213 (19.03%) Wireless
8 174 (15.55%) DNS
9 164 (14.66%) OSPF
10 155 (13.85%) VLAN
11 122 (10.90%) Wi-Fi
12 114 (10.19%) SD-WAN
13 102 (9.12%) TCP/IP
14 78 (6.97%) Multicast
15 75 (6.70%) DHCP
16 74 (6.61%) Cisco Nexus
17 73 (6.52%) MPLS
18 72 (6.43%) Cisco ASA
18 72 (6.43%) Cisco ISE
19 60 (5.36%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.54%) GIS
2 3 (0.27%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.089%) ClickHouse
3 1 (0.089%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.089%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 31 (2.77%) Git
2 25 (2.23%) Jenkins
3 22 (1.97%) JIRA
4 15 (1.34%) GitLab
5 14 (1.25%) Fiddler
6 6 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.18%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.089%) Browser DevTools
General
1 135 (12.06%) Social Skills
2 87 (7.77%) Finance
3 66 (5.90%) Analytical Skills
3 66 (5.90%) Telecoms
4 59 (5.27%) Banking
5 52 (4.65%) Public Sector
6 32 (2.86%) Investment Banking
7 30 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (1.97%) Retail
9 21 (1.88%) Legal
10 19 (1.70%) Manufacturing
11 9 (0.80%) Aerospace
11 9 (0.80%) Police
12 6 (0.54%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 6 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.36%) Automotive
14 4 (0.36%) Law
14 4 (0.36%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (8.49%) Terraform
2 45 (4.02%) 802.1X
3 16 (1.43%) REST
4 9 (0.80%) NETCONF
5 7 (0.63%) JSON
5 7 (0.63%) SAML
5 7 (0.63%) YAML
6 5 (0.45%) XML
7 3 (0.27%) Java RMI
8 2 (0.18%) eBPF
8 2 (0.18%) Jinja
8 2 (0.18%) LDAP
8 2 (0.18%) RESTCONF
8 2 (0.18%) RFC 2544
9 1 (0.089%) AWS CDK
9 1 (0.089%) Django
9 1 (0.089%) ModSecurity
9 1 (0.089%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 201 (17.96%) Data Centre
2 39 (3.49%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (2.50%) PKI
4 25 (2.23%) Cloud Native
4 25 (2.23%) Driving Licence
5 23 (2.06%) Onboarding
6 20 (1.79%) Operational Technology
7 18 (1.61%) Management Information System
8 12 (1.07%) IoT
9 11 (0.98%) Data Protection Act
9 11 (0.98%) Security Posture
9 11 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
10 10 (0.89%) Linux Command Line
10 10 (0.89%) Public Cloud
10 10 (0.89%) SCADA
11 9 (0.80%) Fibre Optics
12 8 (0.71%) Digital Signage
13 7 (0.63%) CCTV
13 7 (0.63%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 7 (0.63%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 69 (6.17%) Windows
2 52 (4.65%) Linux
3 13 (1.16%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.54%) VMS
4 6 (0.54%) zOS
5 5 (0.45%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.45%) Unix
5 5 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.18%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.089%) Solaris
9 1 (0.089%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.089%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.089%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (11.71%) Load Balancing
1 131 (11.71%) Migration
2 104 (9.29%) Problem-Solving
3 96 (8.58%) Project Delivery
4 85 (7.60%) High Availability
5 81 (7.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 77 (6.88%) ITIL
7 75 (6.70%) Validation
8 71 (6.34%) Infrastructure as Code
8 71 (6.34%) Network Design
9 67 (5.99%) Change Management
10 60 (5.36%) Network Monitoring
11 50 (4.47%) Zero Trust
12 47 (4.20%) CI/CD
13 45 (4.02%) Technical Leadership
14 42 (3.75%) Network Segmentation
15 41 (3.66%) Continuous Improvement
16 38 (3.40%) DevOps
16 38 (3.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 38 (3.40%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 141 (12.60%) Python
2 26 (2.32%) Bash
3 18 (1.61%) PowerShell
4 8 (0.71%) SQL
5 7 (0.63%) ActionScript
6 6 (0.54%) C++
7 3 (0.27%) C
7 3 (0.27%) Java
8 2 (0.18%) Bicep
8 2 (0.18%) Go
8 2 (0.18%) Groovy
8 2 (0.18%) Perl
8 2 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
8 2 (0.18%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.089%) Lisp
Qualifications
1 256 (22.88%) Security Cleared
2 236 (21.09%) Cisco Certification
3 184 (16.44%) CCNP
4 174 (15.55%) SC Cleared
5 91 (8.13%) CCNA
6 76 (6.79%) DV Cleared
7 46 (4.11%) CCIE
8 35 (3.13%) Degree
9 13 (1.16%) CISSP
10 12 (1.07%) JNCIS
11 9 (0.80%) JNCIP
11 9 (0.80%) Network+ Certification
12 8 (0.71%) CCSE
13 7 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
14 6 (0.54%) CCIE Security
14 6 (0.54%) DBS Check
14 6 (0.54%) JNCIA
15 5 (0.45%) AWS Certification
15 5 (0.45%) CCSM
15 5 (0.45%) CWNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (2.14%) SLA
2 16 (1.43%) QA
3 11 (0.98%) NIST
4 7 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
4 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.27%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.18%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.18%) GDPR
6 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.089%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.089%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.089%) GRC
7 1 (0.089%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 68 (6.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (2.77%) Firmware
3 29 (2.59%) Active Directory
4 28 (2.50%) VMware NSX
5 12 (1.07%) vSphere
6 11 (0.98%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.71%) Hyper-V
8 5 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.36%) Docker
10 3 (0.27%) FreeRADIUS
10 3 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.18%) Squid
12 1 (0.089%) iptables
12 1 (0.089%) Snort
12 1 (0.089%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 97 (8.67%) Ansible
2 69 (6.17%) FortiGate
3 29 (2.59%) Kubernetes
4 16 (1.43%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.80%) Istio
6 6 (0.54%) Cisco CUCM
6 6 (0.54%) Grafana
6 6 (0.54%) Puppet
7 5 (0.45%) Cilium
7 5 (0.45%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.36%) Nagios
8 4 (0.36%) Packer
8 4 (0.36%) Progress Chef
8 4 (0.36%) systemd
8 4 (0.36%) vRealize
9 3 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.27%) TrustSec
10 2 (0.18%) Avamar
10 2 (0.18%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 612 (54.69%) Cisco
2 231 (20.64%) Palo Alto
3 167 (14.92%) F5
4 158 (14.12%) Fortinet
5 94 (8.40%) VMware
6 88 (7.86%) Juniper
7 81 (7.24%) CheckPoint
8 74 (6.61%) Meraki
9 73 (6.52%) Arista
10 62 (5.54%) Aruba
11 54 (4.83%) Microsoft
12 48 (4.29%) Zscaler
13 36 (3.22%) SolarWinds
14 26 (2.32%) Nokia
15 25 (2.23%) Blue Coat
15 25 (2.23%) Google
15 25 (2.23%) Infoblox
15 25 (2.23%) ServiceNow
16 18 (1.61%) NetApp
17 17 (1.52%) McAfee