Senior Network Engineer Job Trends

Senior Network Engineer
UK

The median Senior Network Engineer salary in the UK is £60,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 30 January 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 523 523 561
Rank change year-on-year 0 +38 +169
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Network Engineer 137 172 245
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.22% 0.33% 0.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.24% 0.36% 0.37%
Number of salaries quoted 102 111 211
10th Percentile £47,500 £44,106 £45,000
25th Percentile £53,000 £51,000 £46,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £61,644 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -2.67% +17.42% -8.70%
75th Percentile £70,000 £80,000 £70,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £85,250 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £49,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% +12.24% -6.67%

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 57,632 48,152 66,101
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.82% 92.24% 95.10%
Number of salaries quoted 35,882 24,796 51,733
10th Percentile £28,750 £33,750 £29,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.71%
75th Percentile £75,000 £79,600 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -7.41% +8.00% -4.76%

Senior Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Senior Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Senior Network Engineer
Salary Trend

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

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

Senior Network Engineer
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Senior Network Engineer over the 6 months to 30 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Network Engineer in the UK

Senior 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 Senior Network Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 30 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 +26 130 £60,000 -7.69% 27
UK excluding London +31 92 £60,000 +9.09% 22
Work from Home +56 36 £65,000 +5.44% 13
London +16 32 £66,250 -14.52% 11
Midlands +35 27 £55,500 -2.63% 3
North of England +5 27 £60,000 -7.69% 7
South East +18 23 £69,000 +27.78% 8
West Midlands +31 19 £60,000 +24.35% 3
North West +22 18 £60,000 +4.35% 5
East Midlands -4 8 £55,000 -20.00%
East of England +22 6 £75,000 +78.57% 3
North East +3 5 £50,000 -
South West +2 5 £56,121 -
Yorkshire -22 4 £63,750 -8.93% 2
Northern Ireland - 2 £57,500 -
Wales -6 1 £55,000 +25.00%
Scotland -12 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 30 January 2026, Senior 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 Senior Network Engineer in the job title.

1 98 (71.53%) Cisco
2 78 (56.93%) Firewall
3 67 (48.91%) WAN
4 65 (47.45%) Cisco Certification
5 60 (43.80%) LAN
6 59 (43.07%) CCNP
7 48 (35.04%) VPN
8 43 (31.39%) BGP
9 36 (26.28%) Azure
10 34 (24.82%) Network Security
11 32 (23.36%) SD-WAN
12 31 (22.63%) OSPF
13 28 (20.44%) Python
13 28 (20.44%) Wireless
14 27 (19.71%) Security Cleared
15 25 (18.25%) F5
16 24 (17.52%) SolarWinds
17 23 (16.79%) AWS
17 23 (16.79%) CCIE
18 22 (16.06%) Cisco ASA
18 22 (16.06%) Fortinet
19 21 (15.33%) Juniper
20 20 (14.60%) MS Visio
20 20 (14.60%) SC Cleared
21 19 (13.87%) EIGRP
21 19 (13.87%) Kalman Filter
21 19 (13.87%) Load Balancing
21 19 (13.87%) Network Design
22 18 (13.14%) CheckPoint
22 18 (13.14%) Cisco Nexus

Senior 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 2 (1.46%) Apache Airflow
1 2 (1.46%) Microsoft Exchange
1 2 (1.46%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (14.60%) MS Visio
2 3 (2.19%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.46%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 36 (26.28%) Azure
2 23 (16.79%) AWS
3 6 (4.38%) GCP
4 4 (2.92%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (1.46%) Dagster
5 2 (1.46%) Datadog
5 2 (1.46%) GitHub
6 1 (0.73%) Azure Monitor
6 1 (0.73%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (0.73%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (0.73%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 78 (56.93%) Firewall
2 67 (48.91%) WAN
3 60 (43.80%) LAN
4 48 (35.04%) VPN
5 43 (31.39%) BGP
6 34 (24.82%) Network Security
7 32 (23.36%) SD-WAN
8 31 (22.63%) OSPF
9 28 (20.44%) Wireless
10 22 (16.06%) Cisco ASA
11 19 (13.87%) EIGRP
12 18 (13.14%) Cisco Nexus
12 18 (13.14%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (12.41%) Cisco ISE
13 17 (12.41%) VLAN
14 13 (9.49%) Cisco Wireless
14 13 (9.49%) SNMP
15 12 (8.76%) WAAS
16 9 (6.57%) TCP/IP
17 8 (5.84%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.46%) Data Lake
1 2 (1.46%) Metadata
1 2 (1.46%) MongoDB
1 2 (1.46%) MySQL
1 2 (1.46%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 4 (2.92%) Jenkins
2 2 (1.46%) GitLab
2 2 (1.46%) Jaeger
2 2 (1.46%) MLflow
2 2 (1.46%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 25 (18.25%) Social Skills
2 20 (14.60%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (9.49%) Law
4 12 (8.76%) Finance
5 11 (8.03%) Public Sector
6 8 (5.84%) Retail
6 8 (5.84%) Telecoms
7 7 (5.11%) Banking
7 7 (5.11%) Marketing
8 6 (4.38%) Police
9 4 (2.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (1.46%) Agriculture
10 2 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.73%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (2.19%) Apache NiFi
2 2 (1.46%) 802.1X
2 2 (1.46%) FastAPI
2 2 (1.46%) Kafka
2 2 (1.46%) Keycloak
2 2 (1.46%) WebRTC
Miscellaneous
1 33 (24.09%) Data Centre
2 10 (7.30%) Driving Licence
3 5 (3.65%) Management Information System
3 5 (3.65%) Security Posture
4 3 (2.19%) Onboarding
4 3 (2.19%) Public Cloud
5 2 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.46%) IoT
5 2 (1.46%) MPEG
5 2 (1.46%) PKI
5 2 (1.46%) Robotics
6 1 (0.73%) BYOD
6 1 (0.73%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 1 (0.73%) Low-Code
6 1 (0.73%) Web3
Operating Systems
1 5 (3.65%) Windows
1 5 (3.65%) Windows Server
2 3 (2.19%) Linux
3 1 (0.73%) Android
3 1 (0.73%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (13.87%) Kalman Filter
1 19 (13.87%) Load Balancing
1 19 (13.87%) Network Design
2 17 (12.41%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 16 (11.68%) High Availability
4 15 (10.95%) Mentoring
5 14 (10.22%) Continuous Improvement
6 12 (8.76%) Computer Science
6 12 (8.76%) Network Monitoring
6 12 (8.76%) Problem-Solving
7 11 (8.03%) Project Delivery
7 11 (8.03%) Root Cause Analysis
7 11 (8.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 10 (7.30%) Requirements Gathering
9 9 (6.57%) Analytical Thinking
9 9 (6.57%) Change Control
9 9 (6.57%) Decision-Making
9 9 (6.57%) Network Architecture
10 8 (5.84%) AI
10 8 (5.84%) WAN Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 28 (20.44%) Python
2 1 (0.73%) Bicep
2 1 (0.73%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 65 (47.45%) Cisco Certification
2 59 (43.07%) CCNP
3 27 (19.71%) Security Cleared
4 23 (16.79%) CCIE
5 20 (14.60%) SC Cleared
6 16 (11.68%) CCNA
7 14 (10.22%) Degree
8 13 (9.49%) DV Cleared
9 12 (8.76%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (6.57%) JNCIS
11 6 (4.38%) Azure Certification
12 5 (3.65%) JNCIP
13 2 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
13 2 (1.46%) CCSA
13 2 (1.46%) CCSE
13 2 (1.46%) CCSP
13 2 (1.46%) JNCIA
14 1 (0.73%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (8.76%) PMO
2 2 (1.46%) NIST
2 2 (1.46%) PCI DSS
3 1 (0.73%) ISO 9001
3 1 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 10 (7.30%) ProxySG
1 10 (7.30%) VMware Infrastructure
2 8 (5.84%) Firmware
3 7 (5.11%) VMware NSX
4 4 (2.92%) Active Directory
5 2 (1.46%) Docker
5 2 (1.46%) KVM
5 2 (1.46%) NFS
5 2 (1.46%) RHEV
5 2 (1.46%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.46%) Xen
6 1 (0.73%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 14 (10.22%) Ansible
2 11 (8.03%) FortiGate
3 8 (5.84%) Terraform
4 5 (3.65%) Nagios
5 2 (1.46%) Argo
5 2 (1.46%) Grafana
5 2 (1.46%) Kubernetes
5 2 (1.46%) Prometheus
5 2 (1.46%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.73%) VxRail
Vendors
1 98 (71.53%) Cisco
2 25 (18.25%) F5
3 24 (17.52%) SolarWinds
4 22 (16.06%) Fortinet
5 21 (15.33%) Juniper
6 18 (13.14%) CheckPoint
6 18 (13.14%) Palo Alto
7 17 (12.41%) Infoblox
7 17 (12.41%) VMware
8 14 (10.22%) Microsoft
9 12 (8.76%) Motorola
10 11 (8.03%) Meraki
11 10 (7.30%) Blue Coat
12 8 (5.84%) Dell
12 8 (5.84%) ServiceNow
13 6 (4.38%) Arista
14 3 (2.19%) Aruba
14 3 (2.19%) CrowdStrike
15 2 (1.46%) SevOne
15 2 (1.46%) Starlink