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 12 January 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 64 64
Rank change year-on-year -52 0 +54
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 380 468 624
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.12% 3.40% 3.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.34% 3.69% 3.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 265 256 340
10th Percentile £306 £300 £274
25th Percentile £400 £399 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £454 £440
Median % change year-on-year +4.68% +3.13% -2.22%
75th Percentile £528 £538 £519
90th Percentile £585 £600 £626
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £450
% change year-on-year - +5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 7 34
10th Percentile £20.40 £19.40 £24.65
25th Percentile £44.86 - £42.50
Median hourly rate £56.44 £20.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +182.20% -69.69% +119.64%
75th Percentile £74.26 £20.28 £71.42
90th Percentile £77.33 £42.34 £74.80
UK median hourly rate £52.58 £20.19 £64.49
% change year-on-year +160.46% -68.70% +19.43%

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 16,248 12,697 18,238
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.50% 92.21% 93.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,963 7,524 11,727
10th Percentile £213 £213 £213
25th Percentile £375 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £479 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.73% -4.30% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,642 689 1,388
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.26 £17.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.88 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.54% -31.39% +66.65%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.02 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -18.46% -23.53% +28.79%

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 12 January 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 12 January 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 12 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
South East -2 137 £500 - 144
North of England -69 116 £500 +10.01% 71
North West -35 99 £500 +2.04% 32
Midlands -39 55 £380 -12.64% 57
West Midlands -15 51 £380 -15.08% 31
Scotland +16 47 £425 +6.25% 13
East of England -20 21 £400 +45.45% 79
South West -47 18 £475 +1.60% 59
Yorkshire -68 15 £435 +6.75% 27
Wales -10 8 £550 +57.14% 22
Northern Ireland -2 3 £475 +6.74% 13
North East -6 3 £625 +28.21% 15
East Midlands -36 3 £650 +73.33% 26
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 12 January 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.

1 250 (65.79%) Cisco
2 186 (48.95%) Firewall
3 183 (48.16%) Security Cleared
4 130 (34.21%) SC Cleared
5 112 (29.47%) WAN
6 111 (29.21%) Cisco Certification
7 105 (27.63%) Palo Alto
8 92 (24.21%) CCNP
9 84 (22.11%) LAN
10 76 (20.00%) VPN
11 75 (19.74%) BGP
12 72 (18.95%) Juniper
13 69 (18.16%) Network Security
14 65 (17.11%) DNS
15 62 (16.32%) F5
16 59 (15.53%) Load Balancing
17 57 (15.00%) CCNA
18 55 (14.47%) TCP/IP
19 52 (13.68%) DV Cleared
20 48 (12.63%) Cisco ISE
21 47 (12.37%) OSPF
22 46 (12.11%) CheckPoint
22 46 (12.11%) SolarWinds
22 46 (12.11%) VLAN
23 45 (11.84%) Python
24 44 (11.58%) VMware
24 44 (11.58%) Wireless
25 42 (11.05%) Network Design
26 41 (10.79%) Windows
27 39 (10.26%) Meraki

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 (2.11%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.58%) Confluence
3 5 (1.32%) Apache
3 5 (1.32%) IIS
Applications
1 16 (4.21%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.53%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.53%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 27 (7.11%) AWS
1 27 (7.11%) Azure
2 7 (1.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
3 6 (1.58%) Entra ID
4 5 (1.32%) Nutanix
5 3 (0.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 3 (0.79%) Amazon EC2
5 3 (0.79%) Amazon ELB
5 3 (0.79%) Amazon S3
5 3 (0.79%) GCP
5 3 (0.79%) IaaS
5 3 (0.79%) Mimecast
5 3 (0.79%) PaaS
5 3 (0.79%) SaaS
6 2 (0.53%) AWS IoT
6 2 (0.53%) Google Ads
7 1 (0.26%) AWS Direct Connect
7 1 (0.26%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (0.26%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 1 (0.26%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 186 (48.95%) Firewall
2 112 (29.47%) WAN
3 84 (22.11%) LAN
4 76 (20.00%) VPN
5 75 (19.74%) BGP
6 69 (18.16%) Network Security
7 65 (17.11%) DNS
8 55 (14.47%) TCP/IP
9 48 (12.63%) Cisco ISE
10 47 (12.37%) OSPF
11 46 (12.11%) VLAN
12 44 (11.58%) Wireless
13 38 (10.00%) SSL
13 38 (10.00%) Wi-Fi
14 37 (9.74%) Cisco IOS
15 36 (9.47%) IPsec
16 35 (9.21%) SD-WAN
17 32 (8.42%) MPLS
18 30 (7.89%) Wireshark
19 28 (7.37%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.26%) Oracle Database
1 1 (0.26%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 22 (5.79%) Fiddler
2 7 (1.84%) JIRA
3 4 (1.05%) GitLab
3 4 (1.05%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.05%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (0.79%) Git
5 1 (0.26%) ClearCase
5 1 (0.26%) Robot Framework
General
1 69 (18.16%) Social Skills
2 42 (11.05%) Public Sector
3 27 (7.11%) Banking
4 26 (6.84%) Documentation Skills
5 25 (6.58%) Investment Banking
6 22 (5.79%) Analytical Skills
7 19 (5.00%) Telecoms
8 18 (4.74%) Manufacturing
9 9 (2.37%) Finance
10 8 (2.11%) Legal
11 3 (0.79%) Electronics
11 3 (0.79%) Marketing
12 2 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.53%) Military
12 2 (0.53%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
13 1 (0.26%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.26%) Automotive
13 1 (0.26%) Police
13 1 (0.26%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (6.32%) 802.1X
2 4 (1.05%) RFC 2544
3 3 (0.79%) LDAP
3 3 (0.79%) SAML
4 1 (0.26%) gRPC
4 1 (0.26%) Jinja
4 1 (0.26%) JSON
4 1 (0.26%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 85 (22.37%) Data Centre
2 19 (5.00%) Management Information System
3 12 (3.16%) Onboarding
4 11 (2.89%) Operational Technology
5 9 (2.37%) Data Protection Act
5 9 (2.37%) PKI
5 9 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
6 7 (1.84%) Security Posture
7 5 (1.32%) Fibre Optics
7 5 (1.32%) NHS
8 4 (1.05%) Driving Licence
8 4 (1.05%) IoT
9 3 (0.79%) 3D Printing
9 3 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (0.79%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.79%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.53%) Life Science
10 2 (0.53%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (0.53%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 41 (10.79%) Windows
2 25 (6.58%) Windows Server
3 17 (4.47%) Linux
4 2 (0.53%) CatOS
5 1 (0.26%) Data ONTAP
5 1 (0.26%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.26%) Unix
5 1 (0.26%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.26%) Windows 7
5 1 (0.26%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (15.53%) Load Balancing
2 42 (11.05%) Network Design
3 32 (8.42%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (7.89%) Network Monitoring
5 28 (7.37%) Network Management
5 28 (7.37%) Project Delivery
6 27 (7.11%) Migration
7 26 (6.84%) Cybersecurity
7 26 (6.84%) High Availability
7 26 (6.84%) ITSM
8 24 (6.32%) Network Architecture
8 24 (6.32%) Service Management
9 20 (5.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 19 (5.00%) Collaborative Working
11 18 (4.74%) Data Loss Prevention
11 18 (4.74%) Malware Detection/Protection
12 17 (4.47%) Change Management
12 17 (4.47%) Knowledge Transfer
13 16 (4.21%) Incident Response
13 16 (4.21%) Network Segmentation
Programming Languages
1 45 (11.84%) Python
2 15 (3.95%) Bash
3 10 (2.63%) Perl
4 8 (2.11%) Lisp
4 8 (2.11%) PowerShell
5 4 (1.05%) SQL
6 1 (0.26%) C
6 1 (0.26%) C++
6 1 (0.26%) Java
6 1 (0.26%) Ruby
6 1 (0.26%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 183 (48.16%) Security Cleared
2 130 (34.21%) SC Cleared
3 111 (29.21%) Cisco Certification
4 92 (24.21%) CCNP
5 57 (15.00%) CCNA
6 52 (13.68%) DV Cleared
7 13 (3.42%) Degree
8 9 (2.37%) CCIE
9 8 (2.11%) JNCIS
9 8 (2.11%) Network+ Certification
10 6 (1.58%) CCDP
10 6 (1.58%) JNCIA
10 6 (1.58%) JNCIP
11 5 (1.32%) BPSS Clearance
12 3 (0.79%) CompTIA Security+
13 2 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
14 1 (0.26%) CCDA
14 1 (0.26%) CCIE Collaboration
14 1 (0.26%) CCIE Data Center
14 1 (0.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 4 (1.05%) SLA
2 3 (0.79%) QA
3 2 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (0.53%) GDPR
3 2 (0.53%) NIST
3 2 (0.53%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.26%) GRC
4 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 1 (0.26%) JSP 440
4 1 (0.26%) PMO
System Software
1 36 (9.47%) VMware NSX
2 28 (7.37%) Active Directory
2 28 (7.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (4.74%) Firmware
4 11 (2.89%) Docker
5 5 (1.32%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.53%) vCloud
7 1 (0.26%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.26%) KVM
7 1 (0.26%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.26%) RHEV
7 1 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.26%) vSphere
7 1 (0.26%) Xen
Systems Management
1 36 (9.47%) Ansible
2 26 (6.84%) FortiGate
3 23 (6.05%) vCenter Server
4 10 (2.63%) Terraform
5 4 (1.05%) Kubernetes
5 4 (1.05%) Nagios
6 3 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.79%) WhatsUp Gold
7 2 (0.53%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (0.53%) Dell DRAC
7 2 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.26%) Amdocs OSS
8 1 (0.26%) Backup Exec
8 1 (0.26%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.26%) Norton AntiVirus
8 1 (0.26%) Proxmox
8 1 (0.26%) SCCM
8 1 (0.26%) SCOM
8 1 (0.26%) WSUS
Vendors
1 250 (65.79%) Cisco
2 105 (27.63%) Palo Alto
3 72 (18.95%) Juniper
4 62 (16.32%) F5
5 46 (12.11%) CheckPoint
5 46 (12.11%) SolarWinds
6 44 (11.58%) VMware
7 39 (10.26%) Meraki
8 37 (9.74%) Aruba
9 35 (9.21%) Blue Coat
10 30 (7.89%) McAfee
11 28 (7.37%) Fortinet
12 24 (6.32%) Microsoft
13 17 (4.47%) NetApp
14 12 (3.16%) ServiceNow
15 10 (2.63%) Nokia
16 9 (2.37%) Remedy
17 8 (2.11%) Ekahau
17 8 (2.11%) Zscaler
18 5 (1.32%) Broadcom