Network Engineer Job Trends in the West Midlands

Network Engineer
England > West Midlands

The median Network Engineer salary in the West Midlands is £50,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 5 January 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 114 136 101
Rank change year-on-year +22 -35 +81
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 57 61 80
As % of all permanent jobs in the West Midlands 1.08% 1.44% 2.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.21% 1.54% 2.45%
Number of salaries quoted 52 32 65
10th Percentile £37,850 £30,750 £34,809
25th Percentile £45,000 £43,250 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £50,000 £48,500
Median % change year-on-year - +3.09% +2.11%
75th Percentile £58,837 £55,313 £57,500
90th Percentile £66,250 £60,000 £65,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +10.00% -

All Permanent IT Job Roles
West Midlands

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the West Midlands. 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 West Midlands with a recognized job title 4,720 3,959 3,266
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.58% 93.28% 93.69%
Number of salaries quoted 2,710 1,897 2,736
10th Percentile £28,500 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £34,844
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £49,870
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.27% -5.01%
75th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £82,500 £80,000 £75,000
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -2.44%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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 West Midlands.

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Network Engineer
Salary Trend in the West Midlands

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

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

Network Engineer
Salary Histogram in the West Midlands

Salary distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 5 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Network Engineer in the West Midlands

Network Engineer
Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Network Engineer within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 5 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
Warwickshire +35 16 £54,534 +5.89% 5
Birmingham +11 9 £55,750 +16.15% 6
Walsall +5 8 £45,000 +42.86%
Staffordshire -11 6 £41,000 -20.00% 1
Worcestershire -13 6 £61,250 +24.98% 8
Coventry +4 3 £37,500 -42.31% 4
Herefordshire -12 3 £70,000 +16.67%
Network Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 5 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 across the West Midlands region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 26 (45.61%) Cisco
2 25 (43.86%) WAN
3 21 (36.84%) Firewall
3 21 (36.84%) SD-WAN
4 19 (33.33%) Microsoft
5 18 (31.58%) LAN
6 17 (29.82%) CCNP
6 17 (29.82%) Cisco Certification
6 17 (29.82%) Problem-Solving
7 14 (24.56%) GIS
7 14 (24.56%) Incident Management
7 14 (24.56%) Microsoft Excel
7 14 (24.56%) Regulatory Compliance
8 13 (22.81%) Azure
9 12 (21.05%) Security Cleared
10 11 (19.30%) SC Cleared
10 11 (19.30%) Wi-Fi
11 10 (17.54%) High Availability
11 10 (17.54%) VLAN
11 10 (17.54%) VPN
12 9 (15.79%) Zscaler
13 8 (14.04%) Network Monitoring
13 8 (14.04%) SolarWinds
14 7 (12.28%) BGP
14 7 (12.28%) Network Security
15 6 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
15 6 (10.53%) DNS
15 6 (10.53%) Meraki
15 6 (10.53%) OSPF
16 5 (8.77%) AWS

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

Applications
1 14 (24.56%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 13 (22.81%) Azure
2 5 (8.77%) AWS
2 5 (8.77%) Azure Sentinel
3 3 (5.26%) Azure DevOps
3 3 (5.26%) Entra ID
4 2 (3.51%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (1.75%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 25 (43.86%) WAN
2 21 (36.84%) Firewall
2 21 (36.84%) SD-WAN
3 18 (31.58%) LAN
4 11 (19.30%) Wi-Fi
5 10 (17.54%) VLAN
5 10 (17.54%) VPN
6 7 (12.28%) BGP
6 7 (12.28%) Network Security
7 6 (10.53%) DNS
7 6 (10.53%) OSPF
8 5 (8.77%) DHCP
8 5 (8.77%) Wireshark
9 4 (7.02%) IPsec
10 3 (5.26%) Cisco ASA
10 3 (5.26%) EIGRP
10 3 (5.26%) TCP/IP
10 3 (5.26%) Wireless
11 2 (3.51%) Cisco ISE
11 2 (3.51%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (24.56%) GIS
General
1 14 (24.56%) Finance
1 14 (24.56%) Fire and Rescue
1 14 (24.56%) Legal
2 10 (17.54%) Social Skills
3 8 (14.04%) Public Sector
4 4 (7.02%) Law
5 3 (5.26%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
Miscellaneous
1 14 (24.56%) SCADA
2 3 (5.26%) Cloud Native
2 3 (5.26%) Data Centre
2 3 (5.26%) Data Protection Act
3 2 (3.51%) Algorithms
3 2 (3.51%) Driving Licence
4 1 (1.75%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 3 (5.26%) Windows
2 2 (3.51%) Windows 10
2 2 (3.51%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (29.82%) Problem-Solving
2 14 (24.56%) Incident Management
2 14 (24.56%) Regulatory Compliance
3 10 (17.54%) High Availability
4 8 (14.04%) Network Monitoring
5 6 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
6 5 (8.77%) ITSM
7 4 (7.02%) Customer Service
7 4 (7.02%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 4 (7.02%) ITIL
7 4 (7.02%) Supplier Management
8 3 (5.26%) Change Control
8 3 (5.26%) Data Protection
8 3 (5.26%) DevOps
8 3 (5.26%) Infrastructure as Code
8 3 (5.26%) Service Delivery
8 3 (5.26%) Service Management
8 3 (5.26%) SIEM
9 2 (3.51%) Disaster Recovery
9 2 (3.51%) Virtual Infrastructure
Programming Languages
1 4 (7.02%) Python
2 2 (3.51%) Bash
Qualifications
1 17 (29.82%) CCNP
1 17 (29.82%) Cisco Certification
2 12 (21.05%) Security Cleared
3 11 (19.30%) SC Cleared
4 4 (7.02%) Azure Certification
5 2 (3.51%) CCNA
5 2 (3.51%) Degree
6 1 (1.75%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (8.77%) ISO/IEC 20000
2 1 (1.75%) GDPR
2 1 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.75%) QA
2 1 (1.75%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (8.77%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (7.02%) Active Directory
3 3 (5.26%) Firmware
3 3 (5.26%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 3 (5.26%) Dell DRAC
1 3 (5.26%) Terraform
2 1 (1.75%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 26 (45.61%) Cisco
2 19 (33.33%) Microsoft
3 9 (15.79%) Zscaler
4 8 (14.04%) SolarWinds
5 6 (10.53%) Meraki
6 5 (8.77%) VMware
7 4 (7.02%) Avaya
7 4 (7.02%) Fortinet
7 4 (7.02%) Palo Alto
8 3 (5.26%) Dell
8 3 (5.26%) Juniper