Network Engineer Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer salary in the UK is £57,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 14 March 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 247 212 228
Rank change year-on-year -35 +16 +73
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 626 674 1,132
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.84% 1.55% 1.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.92% 1.70% 1.42%
Number of salaries quoted 441 507 980
10th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £45,000 £46,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £49,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% +12.24% -2.00%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £57,500
90th Percentile £80,000 £77,500 £73,875
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £53,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year +3.77% +11.58% -

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

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

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 68,062 39,531 79,680
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.83% 90.64% 94.62%
Number of salaries quoted 43,433 22,967 61,167
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,869 £28,500
25th Percentile £38,750 £43,750 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,934
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,793 £50,000
% change year-on-year -8.75% +9.59% -4.76%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Network Engineer
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Network Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer over the 6 months to 14 March 2026.

Salary histogram for Network Engineer in the UK

Network Engineer
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Network Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 14 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -37 573 £60,000 +9.09% 254
UK excluding London -59 397 £55,000 +3.77% 249
London +48 208 £70,000 - 58
Work from Home +49 165 £65,000 +15.82% 43
South East -60 138 £52,500 -0.94% 75
North of England -54 84 £45,000 -5.26% 45
Midlands -5 76 £55,500 +9.75% 45
West Midlands +17 62 £60,000 +21.34% 22
North West -10 45 £45,000 -14.29% 27
South West -43 35 £50,000 -2.44% 30
Scotland +4 33 £45,000 -22.34% 13
Yorkshire -49 23 £45,000 +0.67% 12
East of England +8 22 £65,000 +27.45% 29
North East -20 16 £50,000 +12.36% 6
East Midlands -29 14 £55,000 -4.35% 23
Wales -19 7 £50,000 +13.64% 15
Northern Ireland - 3 £57,500 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 14 March 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 featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 343 (54.79%) Cisco
2 279 (44.57%) Firewall
3 218 (34.82%) WAN
4 172 (27.48%) Cisco Certification
5 170 (27.16%) LAN
6 162 (25.88%) Azure
7 153 (24.44%) CCNP
8 138 (22.04%) VPN
9 122 (19.49%) BGP
10 119 (19.01%) Fortinet
11 118 (18.85%) SD-WAN
12 109 (17.41%) Network Security
13 107 (17.09%) Wireless
14 100 (15.97%) Palo Alto
15 99 (15.81%) SolarWinds
16 93 (14.86%) OSPF
17 90 (14.38%) CheckPoint
18 89 (14.22%) AWS
19 82 (13.10%) Security Cleared
20 81 (12.94%) Python
21 80 (12.78%) VLAN
22 76 (12.14%) Cisco ASA
23 75 (11.98%) Meraki
24 74 (11.82%) Wi-Fi
25 69 (11.02%) CCIE
26 66 (10.54%) Cisco ISE
26 66 (10.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
27 65 (10.38%) Juniper
28 62 (9.90%) CCNA
29 61 (9.74%) Load Balancing

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 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.32%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.16%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.16%) Confluence
3 1 (0.16%) nginx
Applications
1 24 (3.83%) MS Visio
2 5 (0.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 162 (25.88%) Azure
2 89 (14.22%) AWS
3 23 (3.67%) Microsoft 365
4 14 (2.24%) AWS Direct Connect
5 12 (1.92%) GCP
6 11 (1.76%) OpenShift
6 11 (1.76%) SaaS
6 11 (1.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 9 (1.44%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 9 (1.44%) Azure Sentinel
7 9 (1.44%) Entra ID
8 7 (1.12%) Azure Monitor
9 6 (0.96%) Apigee
9 6 (0.96%) Kong
10 3 (0.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 3 (0.48%) Cloud Computing
10 3 (0.48%) Datadog
10 3 (0.48%) GitHub
11 2 (0.32%) IaaS
11 2 (0.32%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 279 (44.57%) Firewall
2 218 (34.82%) WAN
3 170 (27.16%) LAN
4 138 (22.04%) VPN
5 122 (19.49%) BGP
6 118 (18.85%) SD-WAN
7 109 (17.41%) Network Security
8 107 (17.09%) Wireless
9 93 (14.86%) OSPF
10 80 (12.78%) VLAN
11 76 (12.14%) Cisco ASA
12 74 (11.82%) Wi-Fi
13 66 (10.54%) Cisco ISE
14 58 (9.27%) Cisco Firepower
15 46 (7.35%) MPLS
16 45 (7.19%) EIGRP
17 42 (6.71%) Cisco Nexus
18 38 (6.07%) WLAN
19 35 (5.59%) DNS
20 31 (4.95%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.16%) Data Lake
1 1 (0.16%) Metadata
1 1 (0.16%) MongoDB
1 1 (0.16%) MySQL
1 1 (0.16%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 20 (3.19%) Git
2 13 (2.08%) GitLab
3 3 (0.48%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (0.32%) JIRA
5 1 (0.16%) Jaeger
5 1 (0.16%) MLflow
General
1 115 (18.37%) Social Skills
2 83 (13.26%) Finance
3 49 (7.83%) Telecoms
4 44 (7.03%) Analytical Skills
5 33 (5.27%) Public Sector
6 21 (3.35%) Banking
7 17 (2.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 17 (2.72%) Retail
8 14 (2.24%) Law
9 13 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
10 12 (1.92%) Manufacturing
11 10 (1.60%) Marketing
11 10 (1.60%) Retail Banking
12 7 (1.12%) Police
13 3 (0.48%) Advertising
13 3 (0.48%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.48%) Electronics
13 3 (0.48%) Military
13 3 (0.48%) Welsh Language
14 2 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.51%) Jinja
2 17 (2.72%) YANG
3 11 (1.76%) 802.1X
3 11 (1.76%) JSON
3 11 (1.76%) NETCONF
3 11 (1.76%) YAML
4 8 (1.28%) REST
5 6 (0.96%) XML
6 3 (0.48%) Apache NiFi
7 2 (0.32%) RESTful
8 1 (0.16%) FastAPI
8 1 (0.16%) Kafka
8 1 (0.16%) Keycloak
8 1 (0.16%) ModSecurity
8 1 (0.16%) PyTorch
8 1 (0.16%) WebRTC
Miscellaneous
1 117 (18.69%) Data Centre
2 23 (3.67%) Management Information System
3 18 (2.88%) Security Posture
4 16 (2.56%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 16 (2.56%) PKI
5 11 (1.76%) Driving Licence
5 11 (1.76%) Onboarding
5 11 (1.76%) Public Cloud
5 11 (1.76%) Social Media
6 8 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
7 7 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (0.80%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (0.64%) CCTV
10 4 (0.64%) Cloud Native
10 4 (0.64%) CMDB
10 4 (0.64%) IoT
10 4 (0.64%) Private Cloud
10 4 (0.64%) Product Ownership
11 3 (0.48%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 43 (6.87%) Windows
2 27 (4.31%) Linux
3 23 (3.67%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.12%) Unix
5 3 (0.48%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (10.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 61 (9.74%) Load Balancing
3 58 (9.27%) Network Monitoring
3 58 (9.27%) Problem-Solving
4 55 (8.79%) High Availability
5 48 (7.67%) Network Design
6 45 (7.19%) Change Management
7 40 (6.39%) Computer Science
7 40 (6.39%) Customer Service
7 40 (6.39%) Kalman Filter
8 38 (6.07%) ITIL
9 32 (5.11%) Continuous Improvement
10 31 (4.95%) Network Architecture
11 30 (4.79%) Problem Management
12 29 (4.63%) Service Management
13 27 (4.31%) Cybersecurity
13 27 (4.31%) Root Cause Analysis
13 27 (4.31%) Zero Trust
14 26 (4.15%) Project Delivery
15 25 (3.99%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 81 (12.94%) Python
2 13 (2.08%) PowerShell
3 6 (0.96%) JavaScript
4 3 (0.48%) Bash
5 2 (0.32%) C++
6 1 (0.16%) Bicep
6 1 (0.16%) Go
6 1 (0.16%) Java
6 1 (0.16%) SQL
Qualifications
1 172 (27.48%) Cisco Certification
2 153 (24.44%) CCNP
3 82 (13.10%) Security Cleared
4 69 (11.02%) CCIE
5 62 (9.90%) CCNA
6 51 (8.15%) Degree
6 51 (8.15%) SC Cleared
7 38 (6.07%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (5.59%) DV Cleared
9 21 (3.35%) CCSE
10 20 (3.19%) CCSA
11 17 (2.72%) Azure Certification
12 8 (1.28%) JNCIP
12 8 (1.28%) Network+ Certification
13 7 (1.12%) JNCIS
14 6 (0.96%) JNCIA
15 4 (0.64%) BPSS Clearance
16 3 (0.48%) AWS Certification
17 2 (0.32%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
18 1 (0.16%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 16 (2.56%) PMO
2 14 (2.24%) NIST
3 10 (1.60%) GDPR
4 8 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 5 (0.80%) QA
5 5 (0.80%) SLA
6 3 (0.48%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.16%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 31 (4.95%) Firmware
2 29 (4.63%) Active Directory
3 26 (4.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (3.35%) VMware NSX
5 14 (2.24%) ProxySG
6 10 (1.60%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.80%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.16%) Docker
8 1 (0.16%) iptables
8 1 (0.16%) NFS
8 1 (0.16%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 38 (6.07%) FortiGate
2 29 (4.63%) Ansible
3 18 (2.88%) Terraform
4 12 (1.92%) vCenter Server
5 8 (1.28%) Check_MK
5 8 (1.28%) Nagios
6 6 (0.96%) Cisco Prime
7 5 (0.80%) Grafana
8 4 (0.64%) Dell DRAC
8 4 (0.64%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.32%) SCCM
10 1 (0.16%) Argo
10 1 (0.16%) CA Spectrum
10 1 (0.16%) Kubernetes
10 1 (0.16%) OpenView
10 1 (0.16%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.16%) Tivoli
10 1 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 343 (54.79%) Cisco
2 119 (19.01%) Fortinet
3 100 (15.97%) Palo Alto
4 99 (15.81%) SolarWinds
5 90 (14.38%) CheckPoint
6 75 (11.98%) Meraki
7 65 (10.38%) Juniper
8 53 (8.47%) F5
9 49 (7.83%) Microsoft
10 37 (5.91%) VMware
11 30 (4.79%) ServiceNow
12 24 (3.83%) Infoblox
13 18 (2.88%) Zscaler
14 17 (2.72%) Arista
15 16 (2.56%) Aruba
15 16 (2.56%) Blue Coat
15 16 (2.56%) Motorola
16 14 (2.24%) Dynatrace
17 11 (1.76%) Dell
17 11 (1.76%) Red Hat