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 3 August 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 91 62
Rank change year-on-year -13 -29 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 627 408 548
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.31% 2.68% 2.98%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.51% 2.96% 3.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 372 283 334
10th Percentile £306 £325 £267
25th Percentile £406 £381 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +11.76%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £548
90th Percentile £600 £636 £631
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 8 13
10th Percentile £46.33 £21.65 £17.80
25th Percentile £69.87 £22.38 £20.74
Median hourly rate £75.75 £38.25 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +98.04% -27.14% -15.32%
75th Percentile £83.54 £77.94 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £84.99 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £73.50 £53.75 £53.75
% change year-on-year +36.74% - -13.31%

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 25,029 13,783 16,897
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.15% 90.37% 92.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,167 8,468 10,365
10th Percentile £305 £215 £219
25th Percentile £410 £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 £683
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,953 1,208 1,773
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.36 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.75 £16.50 £18.35
Median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +76.94% -42.71% +11.00%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +0.58%

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 3 August 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 3 August 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 3 August 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 -7 226 £500 +2.15% 66
North West +4 164 £500 +5.26% 37
South East -28 148 £463 -7.50% 52
Midlands -5 105 £475 +15.15% 36
West Midlands -10 98 £475 +32.40% 14
Scotland +29 78 £400 -9.86% 20
South West -32 54 £550 - 36
Yorkshire -38 49 £450 -8.54% 24
East of England -1 42 £500 +25.00% 21
Wales -5 20 £425 -5.56% 7
North East -28 13 £600 +84.62% 5
East Midlands -23 4 £475 -15.56% 22
Northern Ireland +2 1 £550 -4.35% 8
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 3 August 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.

1 340 (54.23%) Cisco
2 262 (41.79%) Firewall
3 213 (33.97%) Security Cleared
4 184 (29.35%) LAN
4 184 (29.35%) WAN
5 161 (25.68%) Cisco Certification
6 150 (23.92%) VPN
7 139 (22.17%) BGP
8 137 (21.85%) Network Security
9 134 (21.37%) DNS
9 134 (21.37%) SC Cleared
10 128 (20.41%) Wireless
11 122 (19.46%) F5
12 113 (18.02%) CCNP
13 110 (17.54%) Palo Alto
14 105 (16.75%) Load Balancing
15 97 (15.47%) OSPF
16 81 (12.92%) CCNA
17 80 (12.76%) VMware
18 76 (12.12%) DV Cleared
19 75 (11.96%) VLAN
19 75 (11.96%) Wi-Fi
20 69 (11.00%) SD-WAN
21 68 (10.85%) TCP/IP
22 67 (10.69%) Juniper
23 66 (10.53%) Problem-Solving
24 64 (10.21%) High Availability
25 62 (9.89%) VMware Infrastructure
26 60 (9.57%) Migration
27 57 (9.09%) Azure

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 12 (1.91%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 57 (9.09%) Azure
2 44 (7.02%) AWS
3 26 (4.15%) GCP
4 20 (3.19%) GitHub
5 7 (1.12%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 7 (1.12%) IaaS
5 7 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 6 (0.96%) Azure Sentinel
6 6 (0.96%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (0.96%) Nutanix
6 6 (0.96%) OCI
7 5 (0.80%) AWS Direct Connect
7 5 (0.80%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
8 4 (0.64%) Cloudflare
8 4 (0.64%) Entra ID
8 4 (0.64%) Google Compute Engine
9 3 (0.48%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 3 (0.48%) Route 53
10 2 (0.32%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 262 (41.79%) Firewall
2 184 (29.35%) LAN
2 184 (29.35%) WAN
3 150 (23.92%) VPN
4 139 (22.17%) BGP
5 137 (21.85%) Network Security
6 134 (21.37%) DNS
7 128 (20.41%) Wireless
8 97 (15.47%) OSPF
9 75 (11.96%) VLAN
9 75 (11.96%) Wi-Fi
10 69 (11.00%) SD-WAN
11 68 (10.85%) TCP/IP
12 50 (7.97%) DHCP
13 49 (7.81%) BIG-IP
13 49 (7.81%) MPLS
14 47 (7.50%) Cisco Nexus
15 45 (7.18%) Cisco ASA
16 43 (6.86%) Cisco ISE
16 43 (6.86%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 21 (3.35%) Jenkins
2 19 (3.03%) JIRA
3 16 (2.55%) Fiddler
4 14 (2.23%) Git
5 8 (1.28%) GitLab
6 3 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.32%) Browser DevTools
General
1 85 (13.56%) Social Skills
2 38 (6.06%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (5.90%) Public Sector
4 36 (5.74%) Banking
4 36 (5.74%) Telecoms
5 31 (4.94%) Investment Banking
6 24 (3.83%) Finance
7 18 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (2.87%) Manufacturing
8 13 (2.07%) Legal
9 9 (1.44%) Aerospace
9 9 (1.44%) Police
10 6 (0.96%) Military
10 6 (0.96%) Retail
11 4 (0.64%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.48%) Law
12 3 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 1 (0.16%) Advertising
14 1 (0.16%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (5.74%) 802.1X
2 7 (1.12%) NETCONF
2 7 (1.12%) SAML
3 5 (0.80%) LDAP
4 4 (0.64%) REST
5 3 (0.48%) Java RMI
6 2 (0.32%) RFC 2544
7 1 (0.16%) Jinja
7 1 (0.16%) JSON
7 1 (0.16%) ModSecurity
7 1 (0.16%) XMPP
7 1 (0.16%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 88 (14.04%) Data Centre
2 27 (4.31%) PKI
3 19 (3.03%) Management Information System
4 15 (2.39%) Hybrid Cloud
5 13 (2.07%) Driving Licence
6 12 (1.91%) Cloud Native
7 11 (1.75%) Onboarding
8 10 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
9 9 (1.44%) Clustering
9 9 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (1.44%) Operational Technology
9 9 (1.44%) Security Posture
10 6 (0.96%) Fibre Optics
11 5 (0.80%) NHS
12 4 (0.64%) Public Cloud
13 3 (0.48%) CMDB
13 3 (0.48%) Distributed Systems
13 3 (0.48%) SCADA
14 2 (0.32%) Legacy Systems
14 2 (0.32%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 53 (8.45%) Windows
2 37 (5.90%) Linux
3 7 (1.12%) Windows Server
4 6 (0.96%) 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
1 105 (16.75%) Load Balancing
2 66 (10.53%) Problem-Solving
3 64 (10.21%) High Availability
4 60 (9.57%) Migration
5 57 (9.09%) ITIL
6 48 (7.66%) Network Monitoring
7 47 (7.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 44 (7.02%) Project Delivery
9 37 (5.90%) Change Management
10 34 (5.42%) Network Design
11 32 (5.10%) Continuous Improvement
11 32 (5.10%) Technical Leadership
11 32 (5.10%) Validation
12 29 (4.63%) Network Management
13 28 (4.47%) Service Management
13 28 (4.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 27 (4.31%) CI/CD
15 26 (4.15%) Network Virtualisation
16 25 (3.99%) ITSM
17 24 (3.83%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 40 (6.38%) Python
2 7 (1.12%) ActionScript
2 7 (1.12%) Bash
2 7 (1.12%) PowerShell
3 6 (0.96%) SQL
4 3 (0.48%) C++
5 2 (0.32%) Perl
6 1 (0.16%) Groovy
6 1 (0.16%) PHP
6 1 (0.16%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 213 (33.97%) Security Cleared
2 161 (25.68%) Cisco Certification
3 134 (21.37%) SC Cleared
4 113 (18.02%) CCNP
5 81 (12.92%) CCNA
6 76 (12.12%) DV Cleared
7 22 (3.51%) Degree
8 21 (3.35%) CCIE
9 13 (2.07%) JNCIS
10 10 (1.59%) JNCIA
10 10 (1.59%) JNCIP
10 10 (1.59%) Network+ Certification
11 6 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
12 5 (0.80%) CCIE Wireless
12 5 (0.80%) CCSE
12 5 (0.80%) CCSM
12 5 (0.80%) CompTIA Security+
12 5 (0.80%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.80%) Server+ Certification
13 4 (0.64%) CWDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.23%) SLA
2 9 (1.44%) QA
3 8 (1.28%) Disclosure Scotland
3 8 (1.28%) NIST
4 3 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.32%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.32%) GDPR
5 2 (0.32%) JSP 440
5 2 (0.32%) NCSC
6 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.16%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 62 (9.89%) VMware Infrastructure
2 28 (4.47%) VMware NSX
3 26 (4.15%) Firmware
4 21 (3.35%) Active Directory
5 11 (1.75%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (1.59%) vSphere
7 6 (0.96%) 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 (5.42%) Terraform
2 32 (5.10%) Ansible
3 29 (4.63%) FortiGate
4 7 (1.12%) Kubernetes
5 6 (0.96%) Cisco Prime
5 6 (0.96%) Nagios
6 5 (0.80%) Cisco CUCM
7 4 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.32%) Avamar
8 2 (0.32%) CASB
8 2 (0.32%) Grafana
8 2 (0.32%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.32%) Puppet
8 2 (0.32%) WSUS
9 1 (0.16%) Iperf
9 1 (0.16%) Nessus
9 1 (0.16%) Packer
9 1 (0.16%) SCOM
9 1 (0.16%) SolarWinds Orion
9 1 (0.16%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 340 (54.23%) Cisco
2 122 (19.46%) F5
3 110 (17.54%) Palo Alto
4 80 (12.76%) VMware
5 67 (10.69%) Juniper
6 54 (8.61%) Fortinet
7 51 (8.13%) CheckPoint
8 41 (6.54%) Aruba
9 36 (5.74%) SolarWinds
10 32 (5.10%) Microsoft
11 23 (3.67%) ServiceNow
12 21 (3.35%) Google
12 21 (3.35%) Meraki
13 20 (3.19%) Blue Coat
13 20 (3.19%) McAfee
14 17 (2.71%) NetApp
15 16 (2.55%) Splunk
16 15 (2.39%) Extreme Networks
16 15 (2.39%) Nokia
17 14 (2.23%) Ekahau