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 27 July 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 107 89 62
Rank change year-on-year -18 -27 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 619 407 579
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.29% 2.69% 3.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.49% 2.98% 3.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 374 286 356
10th Percentile £306 £325 £269
25th Percentile £406 £400 £361
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% +2.11% +11.76%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £539
90th Percentile £600 £638 £625
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 8 12
10th Percentile £44.60 £21.65 £17.71
25th Percentile £71.50 £22.38 £20.18
Median hourly rate £77.50 £38.25 £50.53
Median % change year-on-year +102.61% -24.30% -18.50%
75th Percentile £91.00 £77.94 £75.06
90th Percentile £92.53 £84.99 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £77.50 £53.75 £48.56
% change year-on-year +44.19% +10.69% -21.68%

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 24,895 13,678 17,661
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.14% 90.53% 92.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,157 8,441 10,807
10th Percentile £305 £215 £215
25th Percentile £409 £363 £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 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,893 1,181 1,928
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.50 £13.49
25th Percentile £21.00 £16.50 £17.72
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +8.72%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £25.15 £42.03
% change year-on-year +70.97% -40.16% -2.26%

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 27 July 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 27 July 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 27 July 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 -8 219 £500 +1.63% 61
North West -5 159 £500 -4.76% 31
South East -23 150 £463 -7.50% 51
Midlands -7 104 £475 +9.51% 30
West Midlands 0 98 £475 +35.71% 15
Scotland +31 73 £400 -7.25% 21
South West -34 56 £550 +1.38% 30
Yorkshire -41 47 £450 -8.54% 22
East of England -5 42 £470 +17.50% 20
Wales -4 21 £425 -5.56% 9
North East -30 13 £600 +84.62% 8
East Midlands -22 3 £475 -13.64% 15
Northern Ireland +1 1 £550 -4.35% 3
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 27 July 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.

1 335 (54.12%) Cisco
2 267 (43.13%) Firewall
3 217 (35.06%) Security Cleared
4 187 (30.21%) LAN
5 184 (29.73%) WAN
6 161 (26.01%) Cisco Certification
7 149 (24.07%) VPN
8 141 (22.78%) Network Security
9 139 (22.46%) SC Cleared
10 136 (21.97%) BGP
11 132 (21.32%) DNS
12 126 (20.36%) Wireless
13 123 (19.87%) F5
14 116 (18.74%) CCNP
15 111 (17.93%) Palo Alto
16 106 (17.12%) Load Balancing
17 95 (15.35%) OSPF
18 77 (12.44%) CCNA
18 77 (12.44%) DV Cleared
19 76 (12.28%) VMware
20 73 (11.79%) Wi-Fi
21 71 (11.47%) VLAN
22 68 (10.99%) Juniper
23 67 (10.82%) TCP/IP
24 65 (10.50%) SD-WAN
25 64 (10.34%) Problem-Solving
26 63 (10.18%) High Availability
27 59 (9.53%) VMware Infrastructure
28 57 (9.21%) Azure
28 57 (9.21%) Fortinet

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 3 (0.48%) SAS
2 2 (0.32%) Confluence
2 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.16%) CMS
3 1 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 11 (1.78%) MS Visio
2 7 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 57 (9.21%) Azure
2 44 (7.11%) AWS
3 26 (4.20%) GCP
4 20 (3.23%) GitHub
5 7 (1.13%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 7 (1.13%) IaaS
5 7 (1.13%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 6 (0.97%) Azure Sentinel
6 6 (0.97%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (0.97%) OCI
7 5 (0.81%) AWS Direct Connect
7 5 (0.81%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
8 4 (0.65%) Cloudflare
8 4 (0.65%) Entra ID
8 4 (0.65%) Google Compute Engine
8 4 (0.65%) Nutanix
9 3 (0.48%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 3 (0.48%) Route 53
10 2 (0.32%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 267 (43.13%) Firewall
2 187 (30.21%) LAN
3 184 (29.73%) WAN
4 149 (24.07%) VPN
5 141 (22.78%) Network Security
6 136 (21.97%) BGP
7 132 (21.32%) DNS
8 126 (20.36%) Wireless
9 95 (15.35%) OSPF
10 73 (11.79%) Wi-Fi
11 71 (11.47%) VLAN
12 67 (10.82%) TCP/IP
13 65 (10.50%) SD-WAN
14 50 (8.08%) BIG-IP
15 48 (7.75%) DHCP
15 48 (7.75%) MPLS
16 45 (7.27%) Cisco Nexus
17 44 (7.11%) Cisco ISE
17 44 (7.11%) IPsec
17 44 (7.11%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 21 (3.39%) Jenkins
2 19 (3.07%) JIRA
3 17 (2.75%) Fiddler
4 14 (2.26%) Git
5 8 (1.29%) GitLab
6 2 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 83 (13.41%) Social Skills
2 37 (5.98%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (5.82%) Banking
4 35 (5.65%) Telecoms
5 34 (5.49%) Public Sector
6 31 (5.01%) Investment Banking
7 21 (3.39%) Documentation Skills
7 21 (3.39%) Finance
8 19 (3.07%) Manufacturing
9 13 (2.10%) Legal
10 9 (1.45%) Aerospace
10 9 (1.45%) Police
11 7 (1.13%) Military
12 6 (0.97%) Retail
13 4 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.48%) Law
14 3 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
15 1 (0.16%) Advertising
15 1 (0.16%) Games
15 1 (0.16%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (5.82%) 802.1X
2 7 (1.13%) SAML
3 6 (0.97%) NETCONF
4 5 (0.81%) LDAP
5 4 (0.65%) REST
6 3 (0.48%) Java RMI
7 2 (0.32%) RFC 2544
8 1 (0.16%) Jinja
8 1 (0.16%) JSON
8 1 (0.16%) ModSecurity
8 1 (0.16%) XMPP
8 1 (0.16%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 91 (14.70%) Data Centre
2 27 (4.36%) PKI
3 19 (3.07%) Management Information System
4 15 (2.42%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (1.94%) Cloud Native
5 12 (1.94%) Driving Licence
6 10 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
6 10 (1.62%) Onboarding
6 10 (1.62%) Operational Technology
6 10 (1.62%) Security Posture
6 10 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
7 9 (1.45%) Clustering
8 6 (0.97%) Fibre Optics
9 5 (0.81%) NHS
10 4 (0.65%) Public Cloud
11 3 (0.48%) SCADA
12 2 (0.32%) CCTV
12 2 (0.32%) Enterprise Cloud
12 2 (0.32%) Video Conferencing
12 2 (0.32%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 53 (8.56%) Windows
2 37 (5.98%) Linux
3 7 (1.13%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.97%) Unix
5 1 (0.16%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.16%) Solaris
5 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.16%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.16%) Windows 7
5 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
5 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (17.12%) Load Balancing
2 64 (10.34%) Problem-Solving
3 63 (10.18%) High Availability
4 57 (9.21%) Migration
5 54 (8.72%) ITIL
6 47 (7.59%) Network Monitoring
7 45 (7.27%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 42 (6.79%) Project Delivery
9 35 (5.65%) Change Management
10 33 (5.33%) Continuous Improvement
10 33 (5.33%) Network Design
11 32 (5.17%) Technical Leadership
12 30 (4.85%) Validation
13 29 (4.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 28 (4.52%) Service Management
15 26 (4.20%) CI/CD
15 26 (4.20%) Network Management
15 26 (4.20%) Network Virtualisation
16 25 (4.04%) ITSM
17 24 (3.88%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 39 (6.30%) Python
2 7 (1.13%) ActionScript
2 7 (1.13%) Bash
2 7 (1.13%) PowerShell
3 6 (0.97%) SQL
4 2 (0.32%) C++
4 2 (0.32%) Perl
5 1 (0.16%) Groovy
5 1 (0.16%) PHP
Qualifications
1 217 (35.06%) Security Cleared
2 161 (26.01%) Cisco Certification
3 139 (22.46%) SC Cleared
4 116 (18.74%) CCNP
5 77 (12.44%) CCNA
5 77 (12.44%) DV Cleared
6 21 (3.39%) CCIE
6 21 (3.39%) Degree
7 12 (1.94%) JNCIS
8 10 (1.62%) JNCIP
8 10 (1.62%) Network+ Certification
9 9 (1.45%) JNCIA
10 5 (0.81%) CCIE Wireless
10 5 (0.81%) CCSE
10 5 (0.81%) CCSM
10 5 (0.81%) CompTIA Security+
10 5 (0.81%) Server+ Certification
11 4 (0.65%) AWS Certification
11 4 (0.65%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.26%) SLA
2 9 (1.45%) NIST
2 9 (1.45%) QA
3 8 (1.29%) Disclosure Scotland
4 4 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.48%) GDPR
6 2 (0.32%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.32%) NCSC
6 2 (0.32%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.16%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.16%) GRC
7 1 (0.16%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 59 (9.53%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (4.68%) VMware NSX
3 26 (4.20%) Firmware
4 21 (3.39%) Active Directory
5 11 (1.78%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (1.62%) vSphere
7 4 (0.65%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.48%) Docker
9 2 (0.32%) FreeRADIUS
9 2 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.16%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.16%) KVM
10 1 (0.16%) Snort
10 1 (0.16%) Squid
10 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 34 (5.49%) Terraform
2 33 (5.33%) Ansible
3 29 (4.68%) FortiGate
4 7 (1.13%) Kubernetes
5 6 (0.97%) Cisco Prime
6 5 (0.81%) Cisco CUCM
7 4 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.48%) Nagios
9 2 (0.32%) Avamar
9 2 (0.32%) CASB
9 2 (0.32%) Grafana
9 2 (0.32%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.32%) Puppet
9 2 (0.32%) WSUS
10 1 (0.16%) Iperf
10 1 (0.16%) Packer
10 1 (0.16%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.16%) SCOM
10 1 (0.16%) SolarWinds Orion
10 1 (0.16%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 335 (54.12%) Cisco
2 123 (19.87%) F5
3 111 (17.93%) Palo Alto
4 76 (12.28%) VMware
5 68 (10.99%) Juniper
6 57 (9.21%) Fortinet
7 52 (8.40%) CheckPoint
8 44 (7.11%) Aruba
9 33 (5.33%) SolarWinds
10 31 (5.01%) Microsoft
11 21 (3.39%) Blue Coat
11 21 (3.39%) Google
11 21 (3.39%) McAfee
11 21 (3.39%) ServiceNow
12 19 (3.07%) Meraki
13 17 (2.75%) NetApp
14 15 (2.42%) Extreme Networks
14 15 (2.42%) Splunk
15 14 (2.26%) Ekahau
16 13 (2.10%) Nokia