Network Engineer Job Trends in the South West

Network Engineer
England > South West

The median Network Engineer salary in the South West is £59,050 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 12 May 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 127 146
Rank change year-on-year +4 +19 +11
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 88 35 145
As % of all permanent jobs in the South West 1.14% 1.30% 1.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.22% 1.40% 1.68%
Number of salaries quoted 22 33 121
10th Percentile £37,500 £43,250 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,563 £50,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,050 £55,000 £49,000
Median % change year-on-year +7.36% +12.24% +15.29%
75th Percentile £75,000 £58,597 £53,750
90th Percentile - £63,750 £62,500
England median annual salary £60,000 £52,500 £49,000
% change year-on-year +14.29% +7.14% -2.00%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
South West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the South West. 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 permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the South West with a recognized job title 7,233 2,495 8,626
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.91% 92.51% 96.14%
Number of salaries quoted 4,973 1,627 6,536
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,096 £28,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £36,250 £36,365
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £77,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £59,000 £54,000
% change year-on-year -6.78% +9.26% -11.18%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Network Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the South West

Network Engineer
Salary Trend in the South West

Salary distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the South West.

Salary distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the South West

Network Engineer
Salary Histogram in the South West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer in the South West over the 6 months to 12 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Network Engineer in the South West

Network Engineer
Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Network Engineer within the South West region over the 6 months to 12 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Gloucestershire -5 23 £65,000 +23.81% 1
Bristol -7 19 £60,000 +9.09% 7
Devon -9 17 £40,000 -32.68% 4
Somerset -19 14 £59,050 +5.22% 6
Dorset -24 8 £90,000 +80.00% 1
Wiltshire -7 6 £58,750 +83.59% 8
Cornwall - 1 - -
Network Engineer
England

Network Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West

For the 6 months to 12 May 2026, Network Engineer 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 permanent job ads across the South West region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 60 (68.18%) Cisco
2 52 (59.09%) Cisco Certification
3 48 (54.55%) Microsoft
4 46 (52.27%) Azure
4 46 (52.27%) CCNA
5 42 (47.73%) Azure Certification
5 42 (47.73%) ForeScout
5 42 (47.73%) Network+ Certification
6 18 (20.45%) Firewall
7 15 (17.05%) Security Cleared
8 11 (12.50%) DV Cleared
9 9 (10.23%) Cybersecurity
9 9 (10.23%) Network Security
10 8 (9.09%) BGP
10 8 (9.09%) VMware
10 8 (9.09%) WAN
11 7 (7.95%) Dell
11 7 (7.95%) DNS
11 7 (7.95%) Palo Alto
11 7 (7.95%) VPN
12 6 (6.82%) Ansible
12 6 (6.82%) AWS
12 6 (6.82%) CCIE
12 6 (6.82%) CCNP
12 6 (6.82%) F5
12 6 (6.82%) Fortinet
12 6 (6.82%) LAN
12 6 (6.82%) Microsoft 365
12 6 (6.82%) Python
12 6 (6.82%) VLAN

Network Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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:

Cloud Services
1 46 (52.27%) Azure
2 6 (6.82%) AWS
2 6 (6.82%) Microsoft 365
3 2 (2.27%) GCP
4 1 (1.14%) Mimecast
4 1 (1.14%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 18 (20.45%) Firewall
2 9 (10.23%) Network Security
3 8 (9.09%) BGP
3 8 (9.09%) WAN
4 7 (7.95%) DNS
4 7 (7.95%) VPN
5 6 (6.82%) LAN
5 6 (6.82%) VLAN
6 4 (4.55%) Cisco ASA
6 4 (4.55%) Cisco Firepower
6 4 (4.55%) Software-Defined Networking
6 4 (4.55%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (3.41%) DHCP
7 3 (3.41%) DMZ
7 3 (3.41%) OSPF
7 3 (3.41%) SSL
7 3 (3.41%) TCP/IP
7 3 (3.41%) Unified Communications
7 3 (3.41%) VXLAN
7 3 (3.41%) WebEx
Development Applications
1 2 (2.27%) Git
1 2 (2.27%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 54 (61.36%) Social Skills
2 8 (9.09%) Public Sector
3 5 (5.68%) Telecoms
4 4 (4.55%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (4.55%) Finance
4 4 (4.55%) Retail
5 3 (3.41%) Aerospace
5 3 (3.41%) Banking
5 3 (3.41%) Marketing
6 2 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (2.27%) Manufacturing
6 2 (2.27%) Military
7 1 (1.14%) Local Government
7 1 (1.14%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.41%) Apache NiFi
1 3 (3.41%) XMPP
2 2 (2.27%) Jinja
2 2 (2.27%) NETCONF
2 2 (2.27%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 8 (9.09%) Data Centre
2 3 (3.41%) FlexPod
2 3 (3.41%) Hybrid Cloud
2 3 (3.41%) Onboarding
2 3 (3.41%) Security Posture
2 3 (3.41%) Video Conferencing
3 2 (2.27%) CMDB
3 2 (2.27%) Public Cloud
3 2 (2.27%) Social Media
4 1 (1.14%) CCTV
4 1 (1.14%) Cyber Defence
4 1 (1.14%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 5 (5.68%) Linux
1 5 (5.68%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (10.23%) Cybersecurity
2 5 (5.68%) Agile
3 4 (4.55%) Incident Response
3 4 (4.55%) Load Balancing
3 4 (4.55%) Network Design
3 4 (4.55%) Network Monitoring
3 4 (4.55%) Performance Management
4 3 (3.41%) Analytics
4 3 (3.41%) BCP
4 3 (3.41%) Business Continuity
4 3 (3.41%) Business Continuity Planning
4 3 (3.41%) Business Intelligence
4 3 (3.41%) Collaborative Engineering
4 3 (3.41%) Collaborative Working
4 3 (3.41%) Data Management
4 3 (3.41%) High Availability
4 3 (3.41%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 3 (3.41%) ITIL
4 3 (3.41%) Penetration Testing
5 2 (2.27%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 6 (6.82%) Python
2 1 (1.14%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 52 (59.09%) Cisco Certification
2 46 (52.27%) CCNA
3 42 (47.73%) Azure Certification
3 42 (47.73%) Network+ Certification
4 15 (17.05%) Security Cleared
5 11 (12.50%) DV Cleared
6 6 (6.82%) CCIE
6 6 (6.82%) CCNP
7 5 (5.68%) SC Cleared
8 2 (2.27%) CCIE Data Center
8 2 (2.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (4.55%) GDPR
1 4 (4.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.14%) NIST
System Software
1 5 (5.68%) VMware Infrastructure
1 5 (5.68%) VMware NSX
2 3 (3.41%) Active Directory
2 3 (3.41%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 6 (6.82%) Ansible
2 3 (3.41%) Cisco CUCM
2 3 (3.41%) FortiGate
2 3 (3.41%) Grafana
2 3 (3.41%) Terraform
3 2 (2.27%) Nagios
3 2 (2.27%) vRealize
Vendors
1 60 (68.18%) Cisco
2 48 (54.55%) Microsoft
3 42 (47.73%) ForeScout
4 8 (9.09%) VMware
5 7 (7.95%) Dell
5 7 (7.95%) Palo Alto
6 6 (6.82%) F5
6 6 (6.82%) Fortinet
7 4 (4.55%) CheckPoint
7 4 (4.55%) Infoblox
7 4 (4.55%) Splunk
8 3 (3.41%) CrowdStrike
9 2 (2.27%) Juniper
9 2 (2.27%) SolarWinds
10 1 (1.14%) Aruba
10 1 (1.14%) NetScout
10 1 (1.14%) Oracle
10 1 (1.14%) Sophos