Network Engineer Job Trends

Network Engineer
UK

The median Network Engineer salary in the UK is £55,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 14 January 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 252 181 212
Rank change year-on-year -71 +31 +89
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 513 876 875
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.86% 1.64% 1.57%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.94% 1.76% 1.65%
Number of salaries quoted 372 554 746
10th Percentile £31,875 £37,575 £35,000
25th Percentile £45,000 £46,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - +10.00% -
75th Percentile £68,750 £65,272 £61,125
90th Percentile £80,000 £80,000 £78,125
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £53,000 £47,500
% change year-on-year -0.94% +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 54,426 49,714 53,040
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.72% 92.90% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 33,710 25,743 40,880
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,625 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,000 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,609 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.96% +5.22% -5.25%

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 January 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 January 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 -66 465 £55,000 - 297
UK excluding London -67 331 £52,500 -0.94% 288
London -7 165 £70,000 - 64
Work from Home -5 134 £65,000 +13.04% 148
South East -57 115 £52,500 -4.55% 83
Midlands +18 73 £55,000 +8.64% 32
North of England -64 59 £45,000 -5.26% 70
West Midlands +15 57 £52,000 +4.00% 25
Scotland +8 30 £45,000 -10.00% 18
North West -30 30 £45,000 -5.26% 37
South West -23 25 £54,000 +27.06% 28
East of England +25 21 £60,000 -5.25% 39
Yorkshire -23 17 £45,000 -10.00% 22
East Midlands -4 16 £55,000 - 7
North East -3 12 £48,000 +13.61% 14
Northern Ireland - 6 £57,500 - 7
Wales -18 2 £43,750 -0.57% 16

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

For the 6 months to 14 January 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.

1 305 (59.45%) Cisco
2 244 (47.56%) Firewall
3 176 (34.31%) WAN
4 169 (32.94%) Cisco Certification
5 161 (31.38%) LAN
6 146 (28.46%) CCNP
7 138 (26.90%) Azure
8 113 (22.03%) BGP
9 109 (21.25%) VPN
10 104 (20.27%) Fortinet
11 95 (18.52%) Network Security
12 94 (18.32%) Wireless
13 92 (17.93%) SD-WAN
14 91 (17.74%) CheckPoint
15 84 (16.37%) SolarWinds
16 81 (15.79%) OSPF
17 79 (15.40%) Palo Alto
18 78 (15.20%) Security Cleared
19 72 (14.04%) Juniper
19 72 (14.04%) Problem-Solving
20 69 (13.45%) Wi-Fi
21 66 (12.87%) Python
22 65 (12.67%) CCNA
23 64 (12.48%) CCIE
23 64 (12.48%) Microsoft
24 63 (12.28%) AWS
25 62 (12.09%) Load Balancing
25 62 (12.09%) Meraki
26 61 (11.89%) Cisco ASA
26 61 (11.89%) VLAN

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 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.39%) nginx
3 1 (0.19%) Confluence
Applications
1 32 (6.24%) MS Visio
2 20 (3.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (2.34%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.58%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 138 (26.90%) Azure
2 63 (12.28%) AWS
3 21 (4.09%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (1.95%) Entra ID
5 9 (1.75%) GCP
5 9 (1.75%) SaaS
6 8 (1.56%) AWS Direct Connect
7 7 (1.36%) Azure Sentinel
8 5 (0.97%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 4 (0.78%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (0.78%) IaaS
9 4 (0.78%) PaaS
10 3 (0.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 3 (0.58%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (0.58%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (0.39%) Dagster
11 2 (0.39%) Mimecast
11 2 (0.39%) Rubrik
11 2 (0.39%) SecurityScorecard
12 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 244 (47.56%) Firewall
2 176 (34.31%) WAN
3 161 (31.38%) LAN
4 113 (22.03%) BGP
5 109 (21.25%) VPN
6 95 (18.52%) Network Security
7 94 (18.32%) Wireless
8 92 (17.93%) SD-WAN
9 81 (15.79%) OSPF
10 69 (13.45%) Wi-Fi
11 61 (11.89%) Cisco ASA
11 61 (11.89%) VLAN
12 44 (8.58%) MPLS
13 42 (8.19%) EIGRP
14 41 (7.99%) Cisco Nexus
15 37 (7.21%) Cisco Firepower
15 37 (7.21%) Cisco ISE
16 34 (6.63%) Wireshark
17 31 (6.04%) DNS
18 30 (5.85%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.34%) GIS
2 2 (0.39%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.39%) Metadata
2 2 (0.39%) MongoDB
2 2 (0.39%) MySQL
2 2 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (0.39%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.19%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 13 (2.53%) Git
2 3 (0.58%) Jenkins
2 3 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (0.39%) GitLab
3 2 (0.39%) Jaeger
3 2 (0.39%) JIRA
3 2 (0.39%) MLflow
General
1 106 (20.66%) Social Skills
2 80 (15.59%) Finance
3 43 (8.38%) Telecoms
4 35 (6.82%) Analytical Skills
5 26 (5.07%) Public Sector
6 20 (3.90%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (3.31%) Banking
8 15 (2.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 13 (2.53%) Law
9 13 (2.53%) Marketing
10 12 (2.34%) Fire and Rescue
10 12 (2.34%) Legal
10 12 (2.34%) Manufacturing
10 12 (2.34%) Retail
11 6 (1.17%) Automotive
12 4 (0.78%) Police
13 3 (0.58%) Advertising
13 3 (0.58%) Electronics
14 2 (0.39%) Aerospace
14 2 (0.39%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (1.95%) Jinja
1 10 (1.95%) NETCONF
1 10 (1.95%) YANG
2 6 (1.17%) 802.1X
3 5 (0.97%) REST
4 4 (0.78%) RESTful
5 2 (0.39%) Apache NiFi
5 2 (0.39%) FastAPI
5 2 (0.39%) Kafka
5 2 (0.39%) Keycloak
5 2 (0.39%) WebRTC
6 1 (0.19%) LDAP
6 1 (0.19%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 99 (19.30%) Data Centre
2 23 (4.48%) Management Information System
3 13 (2.53%) Driving Licence
4 12 (2.34%) SCADA
5 11 (2.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 10 (1.95%) PKI
6 10 (1.95%) Public Cloud
6 10 (1.95%) Security Posture
6 10 (1.95%) Social Media
7 8 (1.56%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
9 5 (0.97%) CCTV
9 5 (0.97%) IoT
9 5 (0.97%) Virtual Team
10 4 (0.78%) Cloud Native
10 4 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
10 4 (0.78%) EPoS
10 4 (0.78%) Product Ownership
11 3 (0.58%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 39 (7.60%) Windows
2 25 (4.87%) Windows Server
3 15 (2.92%) Linux
4 7 (1.36%) Windows 10
5 4 (0.78%) Android
6 1 (0.19%) Unix
6 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (14.04%) Problem-Solving
2 62 (12.09%) Load Balancing
3 58 (11.31%) Network Monitoring
4 54 (10.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 48 (9.36%) Change Management
6 46 (8.97%) High Availability
7 44 (8.58%) Customer Service
8 41 (7.99%) Network Design
9 35 (6.82%) Change Control
10 34 (6.63%) ITIL
10 34 (6.63%) Kalman Filter
11 33 (6.43%) Network Virtualisation
12 29 (5.65%) Computer Science
12 29 (5.65%) Problem Management
13 28 (5.46%) ITSM
14 26 (5.07%) Continuous Improvement
15 25 (4.87%) Service Management
16 23 (4.48%) Project Delivery
17 22 (4.29%) Agile
17 22 (4.29%) Capacity Planning
Programming Languages
1 66 (12.87%) Python
2 14 (2.73%) PowerShell
3 7 (1.36%) Bash
4 2 (0.39%) C++
5 1 (0.19%) Bicep
5 1 (0.19%) Go
5 1 (0.19%) Java
5 1 (0.19%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 169 (32.94%) Cisco Certification
2 146 (28.46%) CCNP
3 78 (15.20%) Security Cleared
4 65 (12.67%) CCNA
5 64 (12.48%) CCIE
6 51 (9.94%) Degree
6 51 (9.94%) SC Cleared
7 36 (7.02%) DV Cleared
8 27 (5.26%) Computer Science Degree
9 21 (4.09%) CCSE
10 20 (3.90%) CCSA
11 14 (2.73%) Azure Certification
12 12 (2.34%) JNCIS
13 8 (1.56%) JNCIA
14 7 (1.36%) JNCIP
14 7 (1.36%) Network+ Certification
15 3 (0.58%) AWS Certification
15 3 (0.58%) DBS Check
15 3 (0.58%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 2 (0.39%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.73%) PMO
2 8 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 5 (0.97%) SLA
5 4 (0.78%) QA
6 3 (0.58%) GDPR
6 3 (0.58%) NIST
7 1 (0.19%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 31 (6.04%) Firmware
2 28 (5.46%) Active Directory
3 25 (4.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (3.51%) VMware NSX
5 12 (2.34%) ProxySG
6 7 (1.36%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.39%) Docker
8 2 (0.39%) EMC RecoverPoint
8 2 (0.39%) KVM
8 2 (0.39%) NFS
8 2 (0.39%) pfSense
8 2 (0.39%) RHEV
8 2 (0.39%) Squid
8 2 (0.39%) Xen
9 1 (0.19%) iptables
9 1 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.19%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 37 (7.21%) FortiGate
2 35 (6.82%) Ansible
3 20 (3.90%) Terraform
4 11 (2.14%) Nagios
5 10 (1.95%) vCenter Server
6 9 (1.75%) Grafana
7 8 (1.56%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.97%) Dell DRAC
8 5 (0.97%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (0.97%) SCCM
9 3 (0.58%) Proxmox
9 3 (0.58%) VxRail
10 2 (0.39%) Argo
10 2 (0.39%) Cisco CUCM
10 2 (0.39%) Kubernetes
11 1 (0.19%) CA Spectrum
11 1 (0.19%) Cisco Prime
11 1 (0.19%) Kibana
11 1 (0.19%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 305 (59.45%) Cisco
2 104 (20.27%) Fortinet
3 91 (17.74%) CheckPoint
4 84 (16.37%) SolarWinds
5 79 (15.40%) Palo Alto
6 72 (14.04%) Juniper
7 64 (12.48%) Microsoft
8 62 (12.09%) Meraki
9 54 (10.53%) F5
10 39 (7.60%) VMware
11 24 (4.68%) ServiceNow
12 17 (3.31%) Aruba
12 17 (3.31%) Infoblox
12 17 (3.31%) Zscaler
13 16 (3.12%) Arista
14 15 (2.92%) Blue Coat
15 14 (2.73%) Motorola
16 12 (2.34%) Dell
17 11 (2.14%) Splunk
18 9 (1.75%) Broadcom