Network Engineer Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Network Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Network Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 March 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 110 76 58
Rank change year-on-year -34 -18 +38
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 509 386 678
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.31% 3.06% 3.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.52% 3.31% 3.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 338 255 406
10th Percentile £302 £305 £275
25th Percentile £400 £386 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £458 £450
Median % change year-on-year +3.83% +1.67% -
75th Percentile £538 £565 £519
90th Percentile £588 £613 £626
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £450
% change year-on-year - +5.56% -3.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 2 19
10th Percentile £20.58 £23.53 £19.18
25th Percentile £47.76 £31.06 £24.38
Median hourly rate £63.89 £45.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +39.64% -26.80% +12.41%
75th Percentile £72.54 £62.06 £73.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £70.58 -
UK median hourly rate £56.44 £53.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year +5.00% +34.38% -36.12%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 20,206 11,651 19,485
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.64% 92.51% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,997 7,615 12,084
10th Percentile £258 £213 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £482 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +1.47% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £581 £588 £595
90th Percentile £675 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,192 713 2,098
10th Percentile £14.38 £14.99 £12.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.86 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.40% - -20.36%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.00 £75.45 £72.03
UK median hourly rate £36.71 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.95% - -24.42%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Network Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 25 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Engineer in the UK excluding London

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Network Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 25 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Engineer in the UK excluding London

Network Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Network Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 25 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South East +7 175 £495 -1.00% 71
North of England -43 159 £481 -0.26% 54
North West -15 137 £481 -0.26% 32
Midlands -10 91 £438 +2.94% 53
West Midlands +12 85 £429 +55.91% 31
Scotland +18 40 £406 -1.81% 19
East of England -12 36 £438 -12.50% 25
South West -38 32 £513 +8.47% 30
Wales -9 23 £425 +9.68% 10
Yorkshire -62 22 £440 -4.86% 16
East Midlands -46 3 £500 +11.11% 22
North East -12 1 - - 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 - 5
South Coast - 1 £575 -
Network Engineer
UK

Network Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 25 March 2026, Network Engineer contract 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 contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 292 (57.37%) Cisco
2 240 (47.15%) Firewall
3 217 (42.63%) Security Cleared
4 150 (29.47%) SC Cleared
5 146 (28.68%) WAN
6 144 (28.29%) Cisco Certification
7 138 (27.11%) LAN
8 124 (24.36%) BGP
9 119 (23.38%) CCNP
10 116 (22.79%) DNS
11 115 (22.59%) Palo Alto
12 114 (22.40%) VPN
13 101 (19.84%) F5
14 99 (19.45%) Load Balancing
15 97 (19.06%) Network Security
16 88 (17.29%) OSPF
17 87 (17.09%) Juniper
18 77 (15.13%) VMware
19 74 (14.54%) TCP/IP
20 72 (14.15%) DV Cleared
21 69 (13.56%) CCNA
22 65 (12.77%) VLAN
23 63 (12.38%) Wireless
24 55 (10.81%) Aruba
24 55 (10.81%) Cisco ISE
25 53 (10.41%) BIG-IP
26 52 (10.22%) VMware Infrastructure
27 49 (9.63%) High Availability
27 49 (9.63%) Wi-Fi
28 48 (9.43%) CheckPoint

Network Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 6 (1.18%) Confluence
1 6 (1.18%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.98%) Apache
2 5 (0.98%) IIS
3 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 16 (3.14%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 44 (8.64%) AWS
2 41 (8.06%) Azure
3 17 (3.34%) GCP
4 8 (1.57%) GitHub
4 8 (1.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 7 (1.38%) Entra ID
6 6 (1.18%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 5 (0.98%) Nutanix
8 4 (0.79%) Mimecast
9 3 (0.59%) AWS Direct Connect
9 3 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
9 3 (0.59%) Catchpoint
9 3 (0.59%) Google Ads
9 3 (0.59%) Google Compute Engine
9 3 (0.59%) Route 53
9 3 (0.59%) SaaS
10 2 (0.39%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (0.39%) AWS IoT
10 2 (0.39%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 2 (0.39%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 240 (47.15%) Firewall
2 146 (28.68%) WAN
3 138 (27.11%) LAN
4 124 (24.36%) BGP
5 116 (22.79%) DNS
6 114 (22.40%) VPN
7 97 (19.06%) Network Security
8 88 (17.29%) OSPF
9 74 (14.54%) TCP/IP
10 65 (12.77%) VLAN
11 63 (12.38%) Wireless
12 55 (10.81%) Cisco ISE
13 53 (10.41%) BIG-IP
14 49 (9.63%) Wi-Fi
15 44 (8.64%) Wireshark
16 43 (8.45%) SSL
17 42 (8.25%) DHCP
17 42 (8.25%) IPsec
17 42 (8.25%) SD-WAN
18 36 (7.07%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.20%) Oracle Database
1 1 (0.20%) Oracle Reports
1 1 (0.20%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 30 (5.89%) Fiddler
2 14 (2.75%) JIRA
3 9 (1.77%) Jenkins
4 7 (1.38%) Sonatype Nexus
5 5 (0.98%) Git
6 4 (0.79%) GitLab
7 1 (0.20%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.20%) ClearCase
General
1 78 (15.32%) Social Skills
2 41 (8.06%) Banking
3 38 (7.47%) Investment Banking
4 33 (6.48%) Documentation Skills
4 33 (6.48%) Public Sector
5 23 (4.52%) Telecoms
6 19 (3.73%) Analytical Skills
7 18 (3.54%) Manufacturing
8 14 (2.75%) Finance
9 12 (2.36%) Legal
10 4 (0.79%) Law
10 4 (0.79%) Military
11 3 (0.59%) Electronics
11 3 (0.59%) Marketing
11 3 (0.59%) Police
12 2 (0.39%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.39%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.39%) Retail
13 1 (0.20%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.20%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (6.29%) 802.1X
2 8 (1.57%) LDAP
3 6 (1.18%) SAML
4 2 (0.39%) RFC 2544
5 1 (0.20%) Django
5 1 (0.20%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 107 (21.02%) Data Centre
2 22 (4.32%) Management Information System
3 15 (2.95%) PKI
4 13 (2.55%) NHS
5 12 (2.36%) Operational Technology
6 11 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
7 9 (1.77%) Clustering
7 9 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.57%) Security Posture
9 7 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
10 6 (1.18%) Onboarding
11 5 (0.98%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.79%) IoT
13 3 (0.59%) 3D Printing
13 3 (0.59%) Cloud Native
13 3 (0.59%) Enterprise Software
13 3 (0.59%) Linux Command Line
14 2 (0.39%) Enterprise Cloud
14 2 (0.39%) Product Ownership
14 2 (0.39%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 48 (9.43%) Windows
2 23 (4.52%) Linux
3 20 (3.93%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.59%) CatOS
5 2 (0.39%) Unix
6 1 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.20%) Solaris
6 1 (0.20%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (19.45%) Load Balancing
2 49 (9.63%) High Availability
3 44 (8.64%) Problem-Solving
4 40 (7.86%) Network Monitoring
5 39 (7.66%) ITIL
6 38 (7.47%) Network Design
7 35 (6.88%) Migration
8 30 (5.89%) Data Loss Prevention
8 30 (5.89%) ITSM
8 30 (5.89%) Malware Detection/Protection
9 29 (5.70%) Collaborative Working
10 28 (5.50%) Service Management
11 25 (4.91%) Network Architecture
12 24 (4.72%) Project Delivery
13 23 (4.52%) Change Management
14 20 (3.93%) Cybersecurity
14 20 (3.93%) Network Management
15 19 (3.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 19 (3.73%) Network Segmentation
15 19 (3.73%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 45 (8.84%) Python
2 11 (2.16%) Bash
3 8 (1.57%) SQL
4 7 (1.38%) Perl
5 6 (1.18%) Lisp
5 6 (1.18%) PowerShell
6 1 (0.20%) C
6 1 (0.20%) C++
6 1 (0.20%) Java
6 1 (0.20%) PHP
6 1 (0.20%) Ruby
6 1 (0.20%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 217 (42.63%) Security Cleared
2 150 (29.47%) SC Cleared
3 144 (28.29%) Cisco Certification
4 119 (23.38%) CCNP
5 72 (14.15%) DV Cleared
6 69 (13.56%) CCNA
7 21 (4.13%) JNCIS
8 20 (3.93%) Degree
9 17 (3.34%) JNCIA
10 15 (2.95%) CCIE
11 12 (2.36%) JNCIP
12 11 (2.16%) Network+ Certification
13 6 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
14 3 (0.59%) AWS Certification
14 3 (0.59%) CCSE
15 2 (0.39%) CCDP
15 2 (0.39%) ISTQB
15 2 (0.39%) MCSE
15 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
15 2 (0.39%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (1.18%) SLA
2 4 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (0.79%) NIST
3 3 (0.59%) PCI DSS
4 2 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
4 2 (0.39%) GDPR
4 2 (0.39%) NCSC
4 2 (0.39%) PMO
4 2 (0.39%) QA
5 1 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.20%) GRC
5 1 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
5 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.20%) JSP 440
System Software
1 52 (10.22%) VMware Infrastructure
2 44 (8.64%) VMware NSX
3 27 (5.30%) Firmware
4 26 (5.11%) Active Directory
5 6 (1.18%) Docker
6 5 (0.98%) vSphere
7 4 (0.79%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.39%) KVM
8 2 (0.39%) vCloud
9 1 (0.20%) Citrix Presentation Server
9 1 (0.20%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.20%) RHEV
9 1 (0.20%) Snort
9 1 (0.20%) Xen
Systems Management
1 40 (7.86%) Ansible
2 31 (6.09%) FortiGate
3 23 (4.52%) Terraform
4 14 (2.75%) vCenter Server
5 6 (1.18%) Nagios
5 6 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (0.98%) Kubernetes
7 4 (0.79%) Cisco Prime
8 3 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.39%) Dell DRAC
9 2 (0.39%) WSUS
10 1 (0.20%) Amdocs OSS
10 1 (0.20%) Backup Exec
10 1 (0.20%) CASB
10 1 (0.20%) Nessus
10 1 (0.20%) Norton AntiVirus
10 1 (0.20%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.20%) SCOM
10 1 (0.20%) Suricata
10 1 (0.20%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 292 (57.37%) Cisco
2 115 (22.59%) Palo Alto
3 101 (19.84%) F5
4 87 (17.09%) Juniper
5 77 (15.13%) VMware
6 55 (10.81%) Aruba
7 48 (9.43%) CheckPoint
8 42 (8.25%) SolarWinds
9 38 (7.47%) Blue Coat
9 38 (7.47%) McAfee
10 33 (6.48%) Fortinet
11 29 (5.70%) Meraki
12 25 (4.91%) Microsoft
13 21 (4.13%) NetApp
14 19 (3.73%) ServiceNow
15 16 (3.14%) Ekahau
16 13 (2.55%) Google
17 12 (2.36%) Extreme Networks
18 10 (1.96%) Arista
18 10 (1.96%) Splunk