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 9 July 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 127 97
Rank change year-on-year -2 -30 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,053 722 1,033
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.01% 2.24% 2.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.17% 2.43% 2.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 681 450 642
10th Percentile £303 £325 £288
25th Percentile £401 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £478 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.73% +0.53% +5.56%
75th Percentile £544 £575 £550
90th Percentile £600 £625 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £460
% change year-on-year -2.63% +3.26% +8.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 10 19
10th Percentile £28.70 £21.90 £18.33
25th Percentile £55.00 £25.00 £22.83
Median hourly rate £73.00 £45.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.56% +14.38% -35.48%
75th Percentile £78.75 £60.63 £69.38
90th Percentile - £69.50 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £28.75 £50.53
% change year-on-year +153.91% -43.10% -18.50%

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 48,533 29,683 40,331
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 91.90% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,422 18,950 25,979
10th Percentile £325 £288 £286
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,255 1,354 2,780
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.75 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.33 £16.65
Median hourly rate £43.50 £26.39 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.87% -29.64% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.87 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.10 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% +0.50%

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 9 July 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 9 July 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 9 July 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 -23 863 £475 -3.46% 331
UK excluding London -22 616 £463 -2.63% 312
London -37 295 £495 +1.02% 89
Work from Home -23 239 £450 -5.26% 74
North of England -17 214 £481 -2.18% 76
North West +2 158 £481 -3.75% 31
South East -20 153 £463 -7.50% 77
Midlands -10 119 £450 +2.86% 45
West Midlands -3 112 £438 +25.00% 19
Scotland +27 70 £413 -1.49% 26
East of England -10 43 £438 +11.82% 30
Yorkshire -47 43 £450 -8.54% 31
South West -47 43 £550 +4.76% 38
Wales -4 25 £425 - 13
North East -21 13 £600 +108.70% 14
East Midlands -23 4 £475 -5.00% 26
Northern Ireland +6 2 £468 -18.70% 10

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

For the 6 months to 9 July 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.

1 567 (53.85%) Cisco
2 466 (44.25%) Firewall
3 298 (28.30%) WAN
4 268 (25.45%) Security Cleared
5 256 (24.31%) BGP
6 252 (23.93%) Cisco Certification
7 248 (23.55%) Network Security
8 247 (23.46%) LAN
9 234 (22.22%) VPN
10 228 (21.65%) Palo Alto
11 193 (18.33%) CCNP
12 191 (18.14%) SC Cleared
13 188 (17.85%) F5
14 182 (17.28%) DNS
15 181 (17.19%) Wireless
16 171 (16.24%) OSPF
17 155 (14.72%) Fortinet
18 149 (14.15%) Load Balancing
19 144 (13.68%) VLAN
20 130 (12.35%) Azure
21 129 (12.25%) Juniper
22 122 (11.59%) Migration
22 122 (11.59%) Python
23 116 (11.02%) SD-WAN
24 108 (10.26%) TCP/IP
25 103 (9.78%) CCNA
26 99 (9.40%) High Availability
26 99 (9.40%) Wi-Fi
27 97 (9.21%) VMware
28 96 (9.12%) Problem-Solving

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 5 (0.47%) Confluence
2 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (0.28%) SAS
3 1 (0.095%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.095%) CMS
3 1 (0.095%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.095%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.095%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 18 (1.71%) MS Visio
2 11 (1.04%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 130 (12.35%) Azure
2 89 (8.45%) AWS
3 54 (5.13%) GCP
4 38 (3.61%) GitHub
5 17 (1.61%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 16 (1.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 12 (1.14%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 11 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
9 10 (0.95%) AWS Direct Connect
9 10 (0.95%) Entra ID
9 10 (0.95%) IaaS
10 7 (0.66%) Azure Sentinel
10 7 (0.66%) Microsoft 365
10 7 (0.66%) Nutanix
11 6 (0.57%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (0.57%) Google Compute Engine
12 5 (0.47%) Amazon EC2
12 5 (0.47%) Datadog
12 5 (0.47%) SaaS
12 5 (0.47%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 466 (44.25%) Firewall
2 298 (28.30%) WAN
3 256 (24.31%) BGP
4 248 (23.55%) Network Security
5 247 (23.46%) LAN
6 234 (22.22%) VPN
7 182 (17.28%) DNS
8 181 (17.19%) Wireless
9 171 (16.24%) OSPF
10 144 (13.68%) VLAN
11 116 (11.02%) SD-WAN
12 108 (10.26%) TCP/IP
13 99 (9.40%) Wi-Fi
14 81 (7.69%) Cisco Nexus
15 77 (7.31%) MPLS
16 75 (7.12%) Multicast
17 74 (7.03%) Cisco ISE
18 67 (6.36%) BIG-IP
19 63 (5.98%) DHCP
20 60 (5.70%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.095%) ClickHouse
1 1 (0.095%) GIS
1 1 (0.095%) Oracle Reports
1 1 (0.095%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 29 (2.75%) Jenkins
2 28 (2.66%) JIRA
3 21 (1.99%) Fiddler
4 17 (1.61%) Git
5 10 (0.95%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.76%) GitLab
7 2 (0.19%) Browser DevTools
General
1 142 (13.49%) Social Skills
2 65 (6.17%) Finance
3 62 (5.89%) Banking
4 50 (4.75%) Analytical Skills
5 44 (4.18%) Telecoms
6 43 (4.08%) Public Sector
7 38 (3.61%) Investment Banking
8 33 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
9 22 (2.09%) Legal
10 20 (1.90%) Retail
11 19 (1.80%) Manufacturing
12 9 (0.85%) Aerospace
13 8 (0.76%) Law
14 7 (0.66%) Financial Institution
14 7 (0.66%) Police
15 6 (0.57%) Pharmaceutical
16 5 (0.47%) Influencing Skills
16 5 (0.47%) Military
16 5 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
16 5 (0.47%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (4.46%) 802.1X
2 12 (1.14%) SAML
3 11 (1.04%) REST
4 8 (0.76%) LDAP
5 4 (0.38%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.19%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.19%) CSS
6 2 (0.19%) Django
6 2 (0.19%) HTML
6 2 (0.19%) Java RMI
6 2 (0.19%) Jinja
6 2 (0.19%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.095%) JSON
7 1 (0.095%) ModSecurity
7 1 (0.095%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.095%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 203 (19.28%) Data Centre
2 27 (2.56%) Hybrid Cloud
3 25 (2.37%) PKI
4 23 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
4 23 (2.18%) Management Information System
5 21 (1.99%) Security Posture
6 16 (1.52%) Onboarding
6 16 (1.52%) Operational Technology
7 15 (1.42%) Cloud Native
8 14 (1.33%) NHS
9 9 (0.85%) Clustering
9 9 (0.85%) Driving Licence
9 9 (0.85%) IoT
10 8 (0.76%) CCTV
11 7 (0.66%) Self-Motivation
12 6 (0.57%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 6 (0.57%) Enterprise Cloud
12 6 (0.57%) Linux Command Line
13 5 (0.47%) Public Cloud
14 4 (0.38%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 72 (6.84%) Windows
2 40 (3.80%) Linux
3 12 (1.14%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.57%) Unix
4 6 (0.57%) VMS
5 5 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.19%) CatOS
8 2 (0.19%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.19%) zOS
9 1 (0.095%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.095%) Solaris
9 1 (0.095%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.095%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 149 (14.15%) Load Balancing
2 122 (11.59%) Migration
3 99 (9.40%) High Availability
4 96 (9.12%) Problem-Solving
5 78 (7.41%) Project Delivery
6 73 (6.93%) ITIL
7 68 (6.46%) Network Design
8 67 (6.36%) Network Monitoring
9 65 (6.17%) Change Management
10 59 (5.60%) Infrastructure as Code
11 57 (5.41%) Validation
12 51 (4.84%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 45 (4.27%) Technical Leadership
14 43 (4.08%) Zero Trust
15 41 (3.89%) Continuous Improvement
16 40 (3.80%) CI/CD
16 40 (3.80%) Data Protection
16 40 (3.80%) ITSM
17 39 (3.70%) DevOps
18 37 (3.51%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 122 (11.59%) Python
2 15 (1.42%) Bash
3 11 (1.04%) PowerShell
4 9 (0.85%) ActionScript
5 8 (0.76%) SQL
6 3 (0.28%) Bicep
6 3 (0.28%) C
6 3 (0.28%) Java
7 2 (0.19%) C++
7 2 (0.19%) Groovy
7 2 (0.19%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.19%) Perl
8 1 (0.095%) Go
8 1 (0.095%) Korn
8 1 (0.095%) Lisp
8 1 (0.095%) PHP
Qualifications
1 268 (25.45%) Security Cleared
2 252 (23.93%) Cisco Certification
3 193 (18.33%) CCNP
4 191 (18.14%) SC Cleared
5 103 (9.78%) CCNA
6 83 (7.88%) DV Cleared
7 43 (4.08%) CCIE
8 41 (3.89%) Degree
9 19 (1.80%) JNCIS
10 15 (1.42%) JNCIA
10 15 (1.42%) JNCIP
11 13 (1.23%) Network+ Certification
12 10 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
13 9 (0.85%) CCSE
13 9 (0.85%) CISSP
14 6 (0.57%) Azure Certification
14 6 (0.57%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.47%) AWS Certification
15 5 (0.47%) CCIE Wireless
15 5 (0.47%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (1.61%) SLA
2 12 (1.14%) NIST
3 11 (1.04%) QA
4 10 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (0.76%) Disclosure Scotland
6 5 (0.47%) GDPR
6 5 (0.47%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.38%) GRC
8 2 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 2 (0.19%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.19%) NCSC
9 1 (0.095%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.095%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.095%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.095%) PMO
System Software
1 72 (6.84%) VMware Infrastructure
2 38 (3.61%) VMware NSX
3 34 (3.23%) Firmware
4 30 (2.85%) Active Directory
5 16 (1.52%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (1.52%) vSphere
6 6 (0.57%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
9 2 (0.19%) vCloud
10 1 (0.095%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.095%) Docker
10 1 (0.095%) FreeRADIUS
10 1 (0.095%) IAG
10 1 (0.095%) iptables
10 1 (0.095%) KVM
10 1 (0.095%) Snort
10 1 (0.095%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 92 (8.74%) Ansible
2 85 (8.07%) Terraform
3 76 (7.22%) FortiGate
4 10 (0.95%) Cisco Prime
5 9 (0.85%) Grafana
6 8 (0.76%) Kubernetes
6 8 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.66%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.38%) Packer
8 4 (0.38%) Puppet
9 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
9 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.28%) Nagios
10 2 (0.19%) CASB
10 2 (0.19%) Nessus
10 2 (0.19%) SCCM
10 2 (0.19%) SCOM
10 2 (0.19%) Tivoli NetView
10 2 (0.19%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.19%) WSUS
Vendors
1 567 (53.85%) Cisco
2 228 (21.65%) Palo Alto
3 188 (17.85%) F5
4 155 (14.72%) Fortinet
5 129 (12.25%) Juniper
6 97 (9.21%) VMware
7 78 (7.41%) CheckPoint
8 71 (6.74%) Arista
9 70 (6.65%) Aruba
10 54 (5.13%) Meraki
11 49 (4.65%) Microsoft
12 40 (3.80%) SolarWinds
12 40 (3.80%) Zscaler
13 33 (3.13%) Google
14 32 (3.04%) Infoblox
15 30 (2.85%) Blue Coat
16 27 (2.56%) ServiceNow
17 24 (2.28%) McAfee
18 21 (1.99%) Extreme Networks
19 20 (1.90%) Ekahau