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 13 January 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 112 64 65
Rank change year-on-year -48 +1 +52
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 386 466 623
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.13% 3.40% 3.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.35% 3.69% 3.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 269 255 342
10th Percentile £302 £300 £276
25th Percentile £400 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £458 £440
Median % change year-on-year +3.83% +3.98% -2.22%
75th Percentile £525 £538 £519
90th Percentile £583 £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% +148.23%
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% +27.07%

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 16,411 12,634 18,203
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.52% 92.22% 93.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,069 7,482 11,719
10th Percentile £213 £213 £213
25th Percentile £375 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £477 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.42% -4.60% -
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 1,655 688 1,382
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.26 £17.78
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.62 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.85% -31.97% +64.38%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.08 £76.24
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -18.46% -23.53% +26.87%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 0 139 £500 - 78
North of England -71 117 £491 +6.89% 62
North West -32 100 £500 +2.04% 35
Midlands -38 56 £380 -12.64% 33
West Midlands -15 52 £380 -15.08% 26
Scotland +16 48 £425 +6.25% 15
East of England -17 22 £400 +45.45% 37
South West -49 18 £475 +1.60% 28
Yorkshire -71 15 £435 +6.75% 17
Wales -13 8 £550 +57.14% 17
Northern Ireland -2 3 £475 +6.74% 7
North East -7 3 £625 +28.21% 13
East Midlands -34 3 £650 +73.33% 7
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 13 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.

1 255 (66.06%) Cisco
2 188 (48.70%) Firewall
3 184 (47.67%) Security Cleared
4 131 (33.94%) SC Cleared
5 115 (29.79%) WAN
6 113 (29.27%) Cisco Certification
7 107 (27.72%) Palo Alto
8 93 (24.09%) CCNP
9 87 (22.54%) LAN
10 78 (20.21%) VPN
11 76 (19.69%) BGP
12 73 (18.91%) Juniper
13 70 (18.13%) Network Security
14 65 (16.84%) DNS
15 63 (16.32%) F5
16 60 (15.54%) Load Balancing
17 58 (15.03%) CCNA
18 55 (14.25%) TCP/IP
19 52 (13.47%) DV Cleared
20 48 (12.44%) Cisco ISE
20 48 (12.44%) OSPF
21 47 (12.18%) SolarWinds
21 47 (12.18%) VLAN
21 47 (12.18%) Wireless
22 46 (11.92%) CheckPoint
23 45 (11.66%) Python
24 44 (11.40%) VMware
25 42 (10.88%) Network Design
26 41 (10.62%) Windows
27 39 (10.10%) 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 (2.07%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.55%) Confluence
3 5 (1.30%) Apache
3 5 (1.30%) IIS
Applications
1 16 (4.15%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 27 (6.99%) AWS
1 27 (6.99%) Azure
2 7 (1.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
3 6 (1.55%) Entra ID
4 5 (1.30%) Nutanix
5 3 (0.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 3 (0.78%) Amazon EC2
5 3 (0.78%) Amazon ELB
5 3 (0.78%) Amazon S3
5 3 (0.78%) GCP
5 3 (0.78%) IaaS
5 3 (0.78%) Mimecast
5 3 (0.78%) PaaS
5 3 (0.78%) SaaS
6 2 (0.52%) AWS IoT
6 2 (0.52%) 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
1 188 (48.70%) Firewall
2 115 (29.79%) WAN
3 87 (22.54%) LAN
4 78 (20.21%) VPN
5 76 (19.69%) BGP
6 70 (18.13%) Network Security
7 65 (16.84%) DNS
8 55 (14.25%) TCP/IP
9 48 (12.44%) Cisco ISE
9 48 (12.44%) OSPF
10 47 (12.18%) VLAN
10 47 (12.18%) Wireless
11 38 (9.84%) SSL
11 38 (9.84%) Wi-Fi
12 37 (9.59%) Cisco IOS
12 37 (9.59%) IPsec
12 37 (9.59%) SD-WAN
13 34 (8.81%) MPLS
14 30 (7.77%) Wireshark
15 28 (7.25%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.26%) Oracle Database
1 1 (0.26%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 22 (5.70%) Fiddler
2 8 (2.07%) JIRA
3 4 (1.04%) GitLab
3 4 (1.04%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.04%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (0.78%) Git
5 1 (0.26%) ClearCase
5 1 (0.26%) Robot Framework
General
1 70 (18.13%) Social Skills
2 43 (11.14%) Public Sector
3 27 (6.99%) Banking
4 26 (6.74%) Documentation Skills
5 25 (6.48%) Investment Banking
6 22 (5.70%) Analytical Skills
7 20 (5.18%) Telecoms
8 18 (4.66%) Manufacturing
9 9 (2.33%) Finance
9 9 (2.33%) Legal
10 3 (0.78%) Electronics
10 3 (0.78%) Marketing
11 2 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.52%) Law
11 2 (0.52%) Military
11 2 (0.52%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.52%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.26%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.26%) Police
12 1 (0.26%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (6.48%) 802.1X
2 4 (1.04%) RFC 2544
3 3 (0.78%) LDAP
3 3 (0.78%) SAML
4 1 (0.26%) gRPC
4 1 (0.26%) Jinja
4 1 (0.26%) JSON
4 1 (0.26%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 87 (22.54%) Data Centre
2 19 (4.92%) Management Information System
3 13 (3.37%) Onboarding
4 11 (2.85%) Operational Technology
5 10 (2.59%) Self-Motivation
6 9 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
6 9 (2.33%) PKI
7 8 (2.07%) Security Posture
8 6 (1.55%) NHS
9 5 (1.30%) Fibre Optics
10 4 (1.04%) Driving Licence
10 4 (1.04%) IoT
11 3 (0.78%) 3D Printing
11 3 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
11 3 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
11 3 (0.78%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.78%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.52%) Life Science
12 2 (0.52%) Linux Command Line
12 2 (0.52%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 41 (10.62%) Windows
2 25 (6.48%) Windows Server
3 17 (4.40%) Linux
4 2 (0.52%) 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 60 (15.54%) Load Balancing
2 42 (10.88%) Network Design
3 34 (8.81%) Problem-Solving
4 31 (8.03%) Network Monitoring
5 29 (7.51%) Network Management
6 28 (7.25%) Migration
6 28 (7.25%) Project Delivery
7 27 (6.99%) High Availability
8 26 (6.74%) Cybersecurity
8 26 (6.74%) ITSM
9 24 (6.22%) Network Architecture
9 24 (6.22%) Service Management
10 20 (5.18%) Collaborative Working
10 20 (5.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 18 (4.66%) Change Management
11 18 (4.66%) Data Loss Prevention
11 18 (4.66%) Malware Detection/Protection
12 17 (4.40%) Knowledge Transfer
13 16 (4.15%) Incident Response
13 16 (4.15%) Network Segmentation
Programming Languages
1 45 (11.66%) Python
2 15 (3.89%) Bash
3 10 (2.59%) Perl
4 8 (2.07%) Lisp
4 8 (2.07%) PowerShell
5 4 (1.04%) 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
1 184 (47.67%) Security Cleared
2 131 (33.94%) SC Cleared
3 113 (29.27%) Cisco Certification
4 93 (24.09%) CCNP
5 58 (15.03%) CCNA
6 52 (13.47%) DV Cleared
7 13 (3.37%) Degree
8 9 (2.33%) CCIE
8 9 (2.33%) JNCIS
9 8 (2.07%) Network+ Certification
10 7 (1.81%) JNCIA
10 7 (1.81%) JNCIP
11 6 (1.55%) CCDP
12 5 (1.30%) BPSS Clearance
13 3 (0.78%) CompTIA Security+
14 2 (0.52%) Computer Science Degree
15 1 (0.26%) CCIE Collaboration
15 1 (0.26%) CCIE Data Center
15 1 (0.26%) DBS Check
15 1 (0.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.30%) SLA
2 4 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (0.78%) QA
4 2 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (0.52%) GDPR
4 2 (0.52%) NIST
4 2 (0.52%) PCI DSS
4 2 (0.52%) PMO
5 1 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.26%) GRC
5 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (0.26%) JSP 440
System Software
1 36 (9.33%) VMware NSX
2 28 (7.25%) Active Directory
2 28 (7.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (4.66%) Firmware
4 11 (2.85%) Docker
5 5 (1.30%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.52%) 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 (9.33%) Ansible
2 26 (6.74%) FortiGate
3 23 (5.96%) vCenter Server
4 10 (2.59%) Terraform
5 4 (1.04%) Kubernetes
5 4 (1.04%) Nagios
6 3 (0.78%) Cisco Prime
6 3 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.78%) WhatsUp Gold
7 2 (0.52%) Dell DRAC
7 2 (0.52%) 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
1 255 (66.06%) Cisco
2 107 (27.72%) Palo Alto
3 73 (18.91%) Juniper
4 63 (16.32%) F5
5 47 (12.18%) SolarWinds
6 46 (11.92%) CheckPoint
7 44 (11.40%) VMware
8 39 (10.10%) Meraki
9 38 (9.84%) Aruba
10 35 (9.07%) Blue Coat
11 30 (7.77%) McAfee
12 29 (7.51%) Fortinet
13 24 (6.22%) Microsoft
14 17 (4.40%) NetApp
15 13 (3.37%) ServiceNow
16 10 (2.59%) Nokia
17 9 (2.33%) Remedy
18 8 (2.07%) Ekahau
18 8 (2.07%) Zscaler
19 5 (1.30%) Broadcom