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 27 March 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 122 89
Rank change year-on-year -24 -33 +60
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 808 683 1,065
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.83% 2.35% 2.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.99% 2.53% 2.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 543 424 642
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 £533
90th Percentile £588 £625 £626
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +5.44% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 5 29
10th Percentile £22.30 £31.10 £22.75
25th Percentile £42.71 £50.00 £25.00
Median hourly rate £63.89 £57.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.10% +43.75% -36.12%
75th Percentile £72.97 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £73.25 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.33 £45.75 £62.75
% change year-on-year +55.91% -27.09% +12.86%

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 40,577 26,954 41,100
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 92.86% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,287 17,764 26,916
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.18%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,523 918 2,518
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.19 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.41 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% -1.20% -24.38%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.74 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.73 £76.53 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.63 £31.88 £32.90
% change year-on-year +21.17% -3.09% -21.31%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -42 677 £490 - 279
UK excluding London -28 514 £475 +5.44% 264
Work from Home -27 213 £440 -7.37% 69
London -63 204 £500 - 60
South East +4 176 £498 -0.50% 72
North of England -46 158 £479 -0.65% 53
North West -12 136 £481 -0.26% 31
Midlands -11 91 £438 +2.94% 53
West Midlands +5 85 £429 +55.91% 31
Scotland +9 40 £406 -1.52% 19
East of England -10 36 £438 -12.50% 25
South West -35 34 £513 +8.47% 31
Wales -6 25 £425 +9.68% 10
Yorkshire -57 22 £440 -4.86% 16
East Midlands -44 3 £500 +11.11% 22
North East -13 1 - - 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 27 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.

1 432 (53.47%) Cisco
2 376 (46.53%) Firewall
3 284 (35.15%) Security Cleared
4 222 (27.48%) WAN
5 210 (25.99%) Cisco Certification
6 204 (25.25%) BGP
7 199 (24.63%) SC Cleared
8 194 (24.01%) Palo Alto
9 193 (23.89%) LAN
10 179 (22.15%) VPN
11 175 (21.66%) CCNP
12 171 (21.16%) Network Security
13 150 (18.56%) F5
14 147 (18.19%) OSPF
15 143 (17.70%) DNS
16 130 (16.09%) Juniper
17 126 (15.59%) Load Balancing
18 113 (13.99%) VLAN
19 112 (13.86%) TCP/IP
20 93 (11.51%) DV Cleared
20 93 (11.51%) Wireless
21 91 (11.26%) Python
22 90 (11.14%) CCNA
23 87 (10.77%) Azure
23 87 (10.77%) VMware
24 86 (10.64%) Problem-Solving
25 81 (10.02%) AWS
26 80 (9.90%) Aruba
27 79 (9.78%) Ansible
28 78 (9.65%) Fortinet

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 7 (0.87%) Confluence
1 7 (0.87%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.62%) Apache
2 5 (0.62%) IIS
3 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 17 (2.10%) MS Visio
2 8 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 87 (10.77%) Azure
2 81 (10.02%) AWS
3 47 (5.82%) GCP
4 22 (2.72%) GitHub
5 15 (1.86%) Entra ID
5 15 (1.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 10 (1.24%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 10 (1.24%) Microsoft 365
7 9 (1.11%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 8 (0.99%) Nutanix
9 7 (0.87%) AWS Direct Connect
10 6 (0.74%) Mimecast
10 6 (0.74%) Route 53
11 5 (0.62%) Google Compute Engine
12 4 (0.50%) Azure DevOps
12 4 (0.50%) Azure Sentinel
12 4 (0.50%) IaaS
12 4 (0.50%) SaaS
13 3 (0.37%) Catchpoint
13 3 (0.37%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 376 (46.53%) Firewall
2 222 (27.48%) WAN
3 204 (25.25%) BGP
4 193 (23.89%) LAN
5 179 (22.15%) VPN
6 171 (21.16%) Network Security
7 147 (18.19%) OSPF
8 143 (17.70%) DNS
9 113 (13.99%) VLAN
10 112 (13.86%) TCP/IP
11 93 (11.51%) Wireless
12 75 (9.28%) Wi-Fi
13 72 (8.91%) MPLS
14 71 (8.79%) Cisco ISE
14 71 (8.79%) SD-WAN
15 62 (7.67%) Cisco Nexus
16 58 (7.18%) BIG-IP
17 56 (6.93%) SSL
18 54 (6.68%) IPsec
19 53 (6.56%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.37%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.12%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.12%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 30 (3.71%) Fiddler
2 22 (2.72%) Git
3 18 (2.23%) JIRA
4 17 (2.10%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
6 8 (0.99%) GitLab
7 1 (0.12%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.12%) ClearCase
7 1 (0.12%) Jaeger
General
1 138 (17.08%) Social Skills
2 52 (6.44%) Banking
3 50 (6.19%) Public Sector
4 45 (5.57%) Documentation Skills
4 45 (5.57%) Finance
5 41 (5.07%) Analytical Skills
6 38 (4.70%) Investment Banking
7 35 (4.33%) Telecoms
8 21 (2.60%) Legal
9 20 (2.48%) Manufacturing
10 8 (0.99%) Law
10 8 (0.99%) Retail
11 6 (0.74%) Financial Institution
12 5 (0.62%) Local Government
12 5 (0.62%) Military
12 5 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.50%) Police
14 3 (0.37%) Electronics
14 3 (0.37%) Marketing
14 3 (0.37%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (5.07%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.11%) LDAP
2 9 (1.11%) SAML
3 4 (0.50%) REST
3 4 (0.50%) VML
4 3 (0.37%) CSS
4 3 (0.37%) HTML
4 3 (0.37%) JSON
5 2 (0.25%) AWS CDK
5 2 (0.25%) Django
5 2 (0.25%) NETCONF
5 2 (0.25%) OpenTelemetry
5 2 (0.25%) RFC 2544
5 2 (0.25%) XML
5 2 (0.25%) YANG
6 1 (0.12%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.12%) FIX Protocol
6 1 (0.12%) Loki
6 1 (0.12%) OpenConfig
6 1 (0.12%) Ultra Messaging
Miscellaneous
1 162 (20.05%) Data Centre
2 25 (3.09%) Data Protection Act
3 24 (2.97%) Management Information System
4 18 (2.23%) Operational Technology
5 17 (2.10%) Hybrid Cloud
5 17 (2.10%) PKI
6 15 (1.86%) Security Posture
7 13 (1.61%) NHS
8 12 (1.49%) Onboarding
9 10 (1.24%) Public Cloud
9 10 (1.24%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (1.11%) Clustering
11 7 (0.87%) Cloud Native
12 5 (0.62%) IoT
13 4 (0.50%) CMDB
13 4 (0.50%) Enterprise Cloud
13 4 (0.50%) Fibre Optics
13 4 (0.50%) Hedge funds
13 4 (0.50%) Mainframe
14 3 (0.37%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 58 (7.18%) Windows
2 31 (3.84%) Linux
3 20 (2.48%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.62%) Unix
5 4 (0.50%) CatOS
5 4 (0.50%) zOS
6 1 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.12%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.12%) Solaris
6 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (15.59%) Load Balancing
2 86 (10.64%) Problem-Solving
3 67 (8.29%) Migration
3 67 (8.29%) Network Design
4 66 (8.17%) High Availability
5 57 (7.05%) Network Monitoring
6 50 (6.19%) ITIL
7 49 (6.06%) Change Management
8 42 (5.20%) Project Delivery
9 41 (5.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 39 (4.83%) ITSM
11 37 (4.58%) DevOps
12 35 (4.33%) Network Architecture
12 35 (4.33%) Stakeholder Management
13 34 (4.21%) Infrastructure as Code
13 34 (4.21%) Network Management
13 34 (4.21%) Validation
14 32 (3.96%) Collaborative Working
14 32 (3.96%) Data Protection
15 30 (3.71%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 91 (11.26%) Python
2 21 (2.60%) Bash
3 11 (1.36%) PowerShell
4 10 (1.24%) SQL
5 7 (0.87%) Perl
6 5 (0.62%) Lisp
7 3 (0.37%) Java
7 3 (0.37%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.25%) ActionScript
8 2 (0.25%) Bicep
8 2 (0.25%) Go
9 1 (0.12%) C
9 1 (0.12%) C++
9 1 (0.12%) Korn
9 1 (0.12%) PHP
9 1 (0.12%) Ruby
9 1 (0.12%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 284 (35.15%) Security Cleared
2 210 (25.99%) Cisco Certification
3 199 (24.63%) SC Cleared
4 175 (21.66%) CCNP
5 93 (11.51%) DV Cleared
6 90 (11.14%) CCNA
7 34 (4.21%) Degree
8 32 (3.96%) CCIE
9 30 (3.71%) JNCIS
10 23 (2.85%) JNCIA
11 20 (2.48%) JNCIP
12 12 (1.49%) Network+ Certification
13 10 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
14 5 (0.62%) AWS Certification
15 4 (0.50%) CCSE
15 4 (0.50%) CISSP
15 4 (0.50%) DBS Check
16 3 (0.37%) GIAC
16 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
16 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (1.36%) SLA
2 8 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (0.99%) NIST
3 5 (0.62%) GDPR
3 5 (0.62%) PCI DSS
4 4 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.37%) GRC
6 2 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
6 2 (0.25%) NCSC
6 2 (0.25%) PMO
6 2 (0.25%) QA
7 1 (0.12%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.12%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.12%) JSP 440
System Software
1 59 (7.30%) VMware Infrastructure
2 49 (6.06%) VMware NSX
3 30 (3.71%) Active Directory
3 30 (3.71%) Firmware
4 7 (0.87%) Docker
4 7 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
4 7 (0.87%) vSphere
5 5 (0.62%) ProxySG
6 4 (0.50%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.25%) KVM
8 2 (0.25%) vCloud
8 2 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.12%) Citrix Presentation Server
9 1 (0.12%) IAG
9 1 (0.12%) RHEV
9 1 (0.12%) Snort
9 1 (0.12%) Xen
Systems Management
1 79 (9.78%) Ansible
2 55 (6.81%) FortiGate
3 52 (6.44%) Terraform
4 15 (1.86%) vCenter Server
5 14 (1.73%) Grafana
6 13 (1.61%) Prometheus
7 8 (0.99%) Cisco Prime
7 8 (0.99%) Nagios
7 8 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.74%) Kubernetes
8 6 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (0.50%) Tivoli NetView
10 2 (0.25%) Dell DRAC
10 2 (0.25%) Salt
10 2 (0.25%) WSUS
11 1 (0.12%) Amdocs OSS
11 1 (0.12%) CASB
11 1 (0.12%) ITRS Geneos
11 1 (0.12%) Proxmox
11 1 (0.12%) Suricata
Vendors
1 432 (53.47%) Cisco
2 194 (24.01%) Palo Alto
3 150 (18.56%) F5
4 130 (16.09%) Juniper
5 87 (10.77%) VMware
6 80 (9.90%) Aruba
7 78 (9.65%) Fortinet
8 73 (9.03%) CheckPoint
9 56 (6.93%) SolarWinds
10 50 (6.19%) Meraki
11 43 (5.32%) Blue Coat
12 41 (5.07%) Arista
13 40 (4.95%) McAfee
14 37 (4.58%) Microsoft
15 24 (2.97%) ServiceNow
16 23 (2.85%) Google
16 23 (2.85%) NetApp
17 19 (2.35%) Infoblox
17 19 (2.35%) Nokia
17 19 (2.35%) Splunk