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 £472, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 August 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 100 61
Rank change year-on-year -3 -39 +2
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 641 376 564
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.32% 2.44% 3.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.53% 2.71% 3.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 366 269 325
10th Percentile £306 £304 £273
25th Percentile £400 £380 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% - +11.76%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £538
90th Percentile £600 £626 £625
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £490
% change year-on-year - -3.06% +8.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 9 14
10th Percentile £34.78 £21.77 £18.95
25th Percentile £70.50 £22.50 £20.33
Median hourly rate £77.50 £41.50 £50.53
Median % change year-on-year +86.75% -17.87% -15.78%
75th Percentile £91.00 £76.25 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £84.33 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £74.00 £57.50 £50.53
% change year-on-year +28.70% +13.79% -12.37%

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 25,361 13,894 16,642
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.62% 90.07% 92.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,227 8,511 9,919
10th Percentile £304 £213 £220
25th Percentile £413 £362 £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 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,094 1,261 1,563
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.46 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.30 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £44.04
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -42.89% +13.95%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.99 £66.16
90th Percentile £78.75 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.96%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 +16 253 £498 +1.63% 43
North West +17 177 £500 +5.26% 21
South East -49 118 £475 -5.00% 37
Midlands -13 105 £475 +21.79% 31
West Midlands -7 95 £475 +31.03% 17
Scotland +21 81 £400 -5.88% 10
Yorkshire -17 63 £450 -8.54% 16
South West -19 57 £550 -7.95% 36
East of England -3 43 £455 +16.29% 28
Wales +13 33 £425 - 11
North East -26 13 £600 - 6
East Midlands -13 8 £500 -16.67% 14
Northern Ireland +1 2 £488 -7.14% 1
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 31 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.

1 361 (56.32%) Cisco
2 241 (37.60%) Firewall
3 195 (30.42%) Security Cleared
4 185 (28.86%) WAN
5 177 (27.61%) LAN
6 156 (24.34%) Cisco Certification
7 151 (23.56%) VPN
8 144 (22.46%) Network Security
9 141 (22.00%) Wireless
10 137 (21.37%) BGP
11 128 (19.97%) DNS
11 128 (19.97%) SC Cleared
12 117 (18.25%) Palo Alto
13 115 (17.94%) F5
14 112 (17.47%) CCNP
15 98 (15.29%) Load Balancing
16 93 (14.51%) OSPF
17 85 (13.26%) Wi-Fi
18 77 (12.01%) VMware
19 75 (11.70%) VLAN
20 74 (11.54%) CCNA
21 72 (11.23%) SD-WAN
22 68 (10.61%) TCP/IP
23 64 (9.98%) DV Cleared
23 64 (9.98%) Problem-Solving
24 61 (9.52%) VMware Infrastructure
25 60 (9.36%) Cisco ASA
26 59 (9.20%) Azure
27 58 (9.05%) Fortinet
28 56 (8.74%) 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 (1.25%) SAS
2 1 (0.16%) CMS
2 1 (0.16%) Confluence
2 1 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
2 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 13 (2.03%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 59 (9.20%) Azure
2 49 (7.64%) AWS
3 26 (4.06%) GCP
4 19 (2.96%) GitHub
5 8 (1.25%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (1.09%) AWS Direct Connect
6 7 (1.09%) IaaS
7 6 (0.94%) Azure Sentinel
7 6 (0.94%) Nutanix
7 6 (0.94%) OCI
8 5 (0.78%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (0.78%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 5 (0.78%) GitHub Actions
8 5 (0.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 4 (0.62%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 3 (0.47%) Cloudflare
10 3 (0.47%) Entra ID
11 2 (0.31%) Amazon EKS
11 2 (0.31%) Google Compute Engine
11 2 (0.31%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 241 (37.60%) Firewall
2 185 (28.86%) WAN
3 177 (27.61%) LAN
4 151 (23.56%) VPN
5 144 (22.46%) Network Security
6 141 (22.00%) Wireless
7 137 (21.37%) BGP
8 128 (19.97%) DNS
9 93 (14.51%) OSPF
10 85 (13.26%) Wi-Fi
11 75 (11.70%) VLAN
12 72 (11.23%) SD-WAN
13 68 (10.61%) TCP/IP
14 60 (9.36%) Cisco ASA
15 49 (7.64%) Cisco Firepower
16 48 (7.49%) Cisco Nexus
16 48 (7.49%) DHCP
17 46 (7.18%) MPLS
18 42 (6.55%) BIG-IP
18 42 (6.55%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.16%) GIS
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 18 (2.81%) Jenkins
2 16 (2.50%) Git
3 15 (2.34%) Fiddler
4 14 (2.18%) JIRA
5 10 (1.56%) GitLab
6 2 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 81 (12.64%) Social Skills
2 42 (6.55%) Analytical Skills
3 41 (6.40%) Telecoms
4 40 (6.24%) Public Sector
5 39 (6.08%) Banking
6 30 (4.68%) Investment Banking
7 28 (4.37%) Finance
8 19 (2.96%) Manufacturing
9 15 (2.34%) Documentation Skills
10 13 (2.03%) Legal
11 9 (1.40%) Aerospace
11 9 (1.40%) Police
12 6 (0.94%) Retail
13 4 (0.62%) Military
14 3 (0.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.47%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.31%) Law
15 2 (0.31%) Pharmaceutical
16 1 (0.16%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (5.62%) Terraform
2 26 (4.06%) 802.1X
3 8 (1.25%) NETCONF
3 8 (1.25%) REST
4 7 (1.09%) SAML
5 3 (0.47%) Java RMI
5 3 (0.47%) JSON
5 3 (0.47%) LDAP
5 3 (0.47%) YAML
6 1 (0.16%) Jinja
6 1 (0.16%) ModSecurity
6 1 (0.16%) RESTCONF
6 1 (0.16%) XML
6 1 (0.16%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 83 (12.95%) Data Centre
2 21 (3.28%) PKI
3 20 (3.12%) Driving Licence
3 20 (3.12%) Hybrid Cloud
4 18 (2.81%) Management Information System
5 14 (2.18%) Cloud Native
6 10 (1.56%) Onboarding
6 10 (1.56%) Operational Technology
6 10 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
7 8 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (1.09%) Public Cloud
9 6 (0.94%) Fibre Optics
10 5 (0.78%) Private Cloud
10 5 (0.78%) SCADA
10 5 (0.78%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.62%) CMDB
11 4 (0.62%) NHS
12 3 (0.47%) Distributed Systems
13 2 (0.31%) Legacy Systems
13 2 (0.31%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 44 (6.86%) Windows
2 32 (4.99%) Linux
3 6 (0.94%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.78%) Unix
5 1 (0.16%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.16%) Solaris
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 98 (15.29%) Load Balancing
2 64 (9.98%) Problem-Solving
3 56 (8.74%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 56 (8.74%) ITIL
4 54 (8.42%) High Availability
4 54 (8.42%) Migration
5 48 (7.49%) Project Delivery
6 47 (7.33%) Network Monitoring
7 40 (6.24%) Change Management
7 40 (6.24%) Validation
8 34 (5.30%) Network Design
9 33 (5.15%) Continuous Improvement
9 33 (5.15%) Technical Leadership
10 29 (4.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 27 (4.21%) Network Management
12 26 (4.06%) CI/CD
13 24 (3.74%) Incident Management
13 24 (3.74%) Infrastructure as Code
13 24 (3.74%) Network Virtualisation
14 23 (3.59%) Network Segmentation
Programming Languages
1 47 (7.33%) Python
2 10 (1.56%) Bash
2 10 (1.56%) PowerShell
3 7 (1.09%) ActionScript
4 5 (0.78%) SQL
5 3 (0.47%) C++
6 2 (0.31%) Perl
6 2 (0.31%) Search Processing Language
7 1 (0.16%) Go
7 1 (0.16%) Groovy
7 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 195 (30.42%) Security Cleared
2 156 (24.34%) Cisco Certification
3 128 (19.97%) SC Cleared
4 112 (17.47%) CCNP
5 74 (11.54%) CCNA
6 64 (9.98%) DV Cleared
7 24 (3.74%) CCIE
8 18 (2.81%) Degree
9 8 (1.25%) CISSP
10 6 (0.94%) CCSE
10 6 (0.94%) JNCIS
10 6 (0.94%) Network+ Certification
11 5 (0.78%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.78%) CCIE Wireless
11 5 (0.78%) CCSM
11 5 (0.78%) CWNA
11 5 (0.78%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.78%) JNCIA
12 4 (0.62%) CWDP
12 4 (0.62%) CWSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (2.50%) SLA
2 11 (1.72%) QA
3 9 (1.40%) NIST
4 7 (1.09%) Disclosure Scotland
5 4 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.31%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.31%) GDPR
6 2 (0.31%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.31%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.16%) NIST 800
System Software
1 61 (9.52%) VMware Infrastructure
2 28 (4.37%) VMware NSX
3 26 (4.06%) Firmware
4 17 (2.65%) Active Directory
5 10 (1.56%) vSphere
6 9 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.78%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.47%) FreeRADIUS
9 2 (0.31%) Docker
9 2 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.16%) Snort
10 1 (0.16%) Squid
10 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 39 (6.08%) Ansible
2 21 (3.28%) FortiGate
3 11 (1.72%) Kubernetes
4 6 (0.94%) Cisco Prime
5 5 (0.78%) Cisco CUCM
6 4 (0.62%) Nagios
6 4 (0.62%) Progress Chef
6 4 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.47%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.31%) Avamar
8 2 (0.31%) Grafana
8 2 (0.31%) Puppet
8 2 (0.31%) SolarWinds Orion
9 1 (0.16%) CASB
9 1 (0.16%) Iperf
9 1 (0.16%) Istio
9 1 (0.16%) Packer
9 1 (0.16%) SCOM
9 1 (0.16%) TrustSec
9 1 (0.16%) WSUS
Vendors
1 361 (56.32%) Cisco
2 117 (18.25%) Palo Alto
3 115 (17.94%) F5
4 77 (12.01%) VMware
5 58 (9.05%) Fortinet
6 56 (8.74%) CheckPoint
7 50 (7.80%) Juniper
8 35 (5.46%) Aruba
8 35 (5.46%) Meraki
9 34 (5.30%) Microsoft
10 29 (4.52%) SolarWinds
11 22 (3.43%) Nokia
12 20 (3.12%) ServiceNow
13 19 (2.96%) Blue Coat
13 19 (2.96%) McAfee
14 17 (2.65%) NetApp
15 16 (2.50%) Google
16 12 (1.87%) Arista
16 12 (1.87%) Ekahau
17 11 (1.72%) Zscaler