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 £463, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 September 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 107 108 62
Rank change year-on-year +1 -46 +1
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 650 347 563
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.31% 2.26% 3.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.53% 2.52% 3.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 352 251 302
10th Percentile £303 £300 £275
25th Percentile £400 £379 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £455 £490
Median % change year-on-year +1.65% -7.14% +15.29%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £550
90th Percentile £600 £638 £634
UK median daily rate £475 £463 £495
% change year-on-year +2.70% -6.57% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 8 16
10th Percentile £26.72 £21.65 £19.25
25th Percentile £66.00 £22.38 £20.00
Median hourly rate £73.00 £38.25 £35.48
Median % change year-on-year +90.85% +7.81% -42.77%
75th Percentile £78.75 £71.19 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £84.99 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £73.00 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +108.57% -22.22% -27.42%

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 25,642 13,783 16,453
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.27% 89.85% 92.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,107 8,459 9,523
10th Percentile £303 £213 £220
25th Percentile £413 £360 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £663 £679
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,340 1,274 1,412
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.50 £14.27
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.19 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.13 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +69.14% -42.76% +0.34%
75th Percentile £67.92 £51.65 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%

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 21 September 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 21 September 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 21 September 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
North of England +23 250 £498 +2.10% 107
North West +26 168 £500 +4.99% 58
Midlands -18 104 £475 +25.00% 85
South East -49 100 £463 -7.50% 108
West Midlands -25 87 £475 +25.83% 51
Scotland +7 80 £400 -5.88% 32
Yorkshire -4 69 £450 -8.07% 36
South West -12 59 £565 -5.44% 79
East of England +1 56 £450 +17.65% 82
Wales +20 36 £363 - 19
East Midlands -4 16 £500 -23.08% 34
North East -30 13 £600 - 13
Northern Ireland +3 3 £425 -10.53% 14
Channel Islands -4 2 £600 +36.36%
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 September 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.

1 358 (55.08%) Cisco
2 234 (36.00%) Firewall
3 191 (29.38%) Security Cleared
4 181 (27.85%) WAN
5 175 (26.92%) LAN
6 152 (23.38%) Cisco Certification
7 145 (22.31%) VPN
8 144 (22.15%) Network Security
9 139 (21.38%) Wireless
10 131 (20.15%) BGP
11 122 (18.77%) SC Cleared
12 116 (17.85%) DNS
13 112 (17.23%) CCNP
14 110 (16.92%) Palo Alto
15 99 (15.23%) F5
16 91 (14.00%) OSPF
17 84 (12.92%) Load Balancing
18 81 (12.46%) Wi-Fi
19 73 (11.23%) Problem-Solving
20 72 (11.08%) VLAN
21 69 (10.62%) CCNA
21 69 (10.62%) SD-WAN
21 69 (10.62%) VMware
22 66 (10.15%) TCP/IP
23 63 (9.69%) DV Cleared
23 63 (9.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
24 58 (8.92%) Fortinet
24 58 (8.92%) Python
25 54 (8.31%) Migration
26 53 (8.15%) 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 8 (1.23%) SAS
2 4 (0.62%) Confluence
3 1 (0.15%) CMS
3 1 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
3 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 12 (1.85%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.92%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 49 (7.54%) Azure
2 41 (6.31%) AWS
3 28 (4.31%) GCP
4 20 (3.08%) GitHub
5 9 (1.38%) IaaS
6 8 (1.23%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (0.92%) AWS Direct Connect
7 6 (0.92%) Entra ID
7 6 (0.92%) Nutanix
7 6 (0.92%) OCI
8 5 (0.77%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 4 (0.62%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (0.62%) Azure Sentinel
9 4 (0.62%) GitHub Actions
10 3 (0.46%) Cloudflare
11 2 (0.31%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 2 (0.31%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 1 (0.15%) AWS KMS
12 1 (0.15%) AWS Step Functions
12 1 (0.15%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 234 (36.00%) Firewall
2 181 (27.85%) WAN
3 175 (26.92%) LAN
4 145 (22.31%) VPN
5 144 (22.15%) Network Security
6 139 (21.38%) Wireless
7 131 (20.15%) BGP
8 116 (17.85%) DNS
9 91 (14.00%) OSPF
10 81 (12.46%) Wi-Fi
11 72 (11.08%) VLAN
12 69 (10.62%) SD-WAN
13 66 (10.15%) TCP/IP
14 52 (8.00%) Cisco ASA
15 49 (7.54%) MPLS
16 47 (7.23%) Cisco Nexus
17 46 (7.08%) DHCP
18 45 (6.92%) SSL
19 43 (6.62%) Cisco Firepower
20 40 (6.15%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.77%) GIS
2 1 (0.15%) Metadata
2 1 (0.15%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 18 (2.77%) Git
2 17 (2.62%) Jenkins
3 16 (2.46%) JIRA
4 12 (1.85%) Fiddler
5 8 (1.23%) GitLab
6 2 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.15%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.15%) Browser DevTools
General
1 82 (12.62%) Social Skills
2 41 (6.31%) Telecoms
3 39 (6.00%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (5.85%) Public Sector
5 36 (5.54%) Banking
6 28 (4.31%) Finance
7 26 (4.00%) Investment Banking
8 18 (2.77%) Manufacturing
9 14 (2.15%) Documentation Skills
10 13 (2.00%) Legal
11 10 (1.54%) Aerospace
12 7 (1.08%) Police
13 4 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.62%) Military
13 4 (0.62%) Retail
14 3 (0.46%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.31%) Law
15 2 (0.31%) Pharmaceutical
16 1 (0.15%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.85%) Terraform
2 25 (3.85%) 802.1X
3 10 (1.54%) REST
4 9 (1.38%) NETCONF
5 6 (0.92%) SAML
6 5 (0.77%) XML
7 4 (0.62%) JSON
7 4 (0.62%) YAML
8 3 (0.46%) Java RMI
9 2 (0.31%) LDAP
9 2 (0.31%) ModSecurity
10 1 (0.15%) Jinja
10 1 (0.15%) RESTCONF
10 1 (0.15%) XMPP
10 1 (0.15%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 91 (14.00%) Data Centre
2 21 (3.23%) Driving Licence
3 20 (3.08%) Hybrid Cloud
3 20 (3.08%) PKI
4 17 (2.62%) Management Information System
4 17 (2.62%) Operational Technology
5 15 (2.31%) Onboarding
5 15 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
6 12 (1.85%) Cloud Native
7 10 (1.54%) SCADA
8 8 (1.23%) Public Cloud
8 8 (1.23%) Security Posture
9 7 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.08%) Fibre Optics
10 5 (0.77%) CMDB
10 5 (0.77%) Private Cloud
11 4 (0.62%) NHS
11 4 (0.62%) Video Conferencing
12 3 (0.46%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 3 (0.46%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 44 (6.77%) Windows
2 37 (5.69%) Linux
3 11 (1.69%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.77%) Unix
6 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.15%) Solaris
6 1 (0.15%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
6 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (12.92%) Load Balancing
2 73 (11.23%) Problem-Solving
3 63 (9.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 54 (8.31%) Migration
5 53 (8.15%) ITIL
6 49 (7.54%) Project Delivery
7 44 (6.77%) High Availability
7 44 (6.77%) Network Monitoring
8 40 (6.15%) Validation
9 37 (5.69%) Continuous Improvement
9 37 (5.69%) Network Design
10 36 (5.54%) Change Management
11 31 (4.77%) Network Management
12 29 (4.46%) Infrastructure as Code
12 29 (4.46%) Technical Leadership
13 28 (4.31%) CI/CD
13 28 (4.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 26 (4.00%) Incident Management
14 26 (4.00%) Network Segmentation
15 25 (3.85%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 58 (8.92%) Python
2 16 (2.46%) PowerShell
3 13 (2.00%) Bash
4 9 (1.38%) ActionScript
5 6 (0.92%) SQL
6 3 (0.46%) C++
6 3 (0.46%) Perl
7 2 (0.31%) Search Processing Language
8 1 (0.15%) Go
8 1 (0.15%) Groovy
8 1 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 191 (29.38%) Security Cleared
2 152 (23.38%) Cisco Certification
3 122 (18.77%) SC Cleared
4 112 (17.23%) CCNP
5 69 (10.62%) CCNA
6 63 (9.69%) DV Cleared
7 25 (3.85%) CCIE
8 22 (3.38%) Degree
9 8 (1.23%) CISSP
10 6 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
11 5 (0.77%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.77%) JNCIS
12 4 (0.62%) CCIE Wireless
12 4 (0.62%) CCSE
12 4 (0.62%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (0.62%) CWNA
13 3 (0.46%) CCIE Security
13 3 (0.46%) CWSP
13 3 (0.46%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.15%) QA
1 14 (2.15%) SLA
2 11 (1.69%) NIST
3 7 (1.08%) Disclosure Scotland
4 5 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.46%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.46%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.31%) GDPR
6 2 (0.31%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.31%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 50 (7.69%) VMware Infrastructure
2 25 (3.85%) VMware NSX
3 23 (3.54%) Firmware
4 22 (3.38%) Active Directory
5 15 (2.31%) vSphere
6 7 (1.08%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.92%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.62%) FreeRADIUS
9 2 (0.31%) Docker
9 2 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.15%) Squid
Systems Management
1 45 (6.92%) Ansible
2 21 (3.23%) FortiGate
3 10 (1.54%) Kubernetes
4 9 (1.38%) Nagios
5 6 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
5 6 (0.92%) Progress Chef
6 5 (0.77%) Cisco CUCM
7 4 (0.62%) Grafana
7 4 (0.62%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.31%) Avamar
9 2 (0.31%) Puppet
9 2 (0.31%) SolarWinds Orion
10 1 (0.15%) Argo
10 1 (0.15%) Cilium
10 1 (0.15%) Iperf
10 1 (0.15%) Packer
10 1 (0.15%) SCOM
10 1 (0.15%) TrustSec
10 1 (0.15%) WSUS
Vendors
1 358 (55.08%) Cisco
2 110 (16.92%) Palo Alto
3 99 (15.23%) F5
4 69 (10.62%) VMware
5 58 (8.92%) Fortinet
6 53 (8.15%) CheckPoint
7 46 (7.08%) Juniper
8 39 (6.00%) Meraki
9 36 (5.54%) Microsoft
10 33 (5.08%) SolarWinds
11 32 (4.92%) Aruba
12 22 (3.38%) Nokia
13 20 (3.08%) ServiceNow
14 17 (2.62%) Blue Coat
15 16 (2.46%) Arista
16 15 (2.31%) McAfee
17 14 (2.15%) NetApp
18 13 (2.00%) Google
19 12 (1.85%) Zscaler
20 9 (1.38%) Splunk