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 26 December 2025.

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

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 115 61 70
Rank change year-on-year -54 +9 +52
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 394 505 617
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.14% 3.42% 3.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.37% 3.70% 3.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 281 275 346
10th Percentile £309 £300 £263
25th Percentile £400 £400 £344
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £440
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% +5.11% -1.18%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £525
90th Percentile £588 £608 £613
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £450
% change year-on-year - +5.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 9 32
10th Percentile £20.75 £19.70 £24.55
25th Percentile £32.81 - £42.09
Median hourly rate £56.44 £20.00 £64.49
Median % change year-on-year +182.20% -68.99% +155.00%
75th Percentile £74.26 £51.91 £68.13
90th Percentile £83.00 £59.00 £75.10
UK median hourly rate £52.58 £29.19 £63.00
% change year-on-year +80.15% -53.67% +32.63%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 16,603 13,650 18,384
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.25% 92.39% 93.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,192 8,131 11,943
10th Percentile £213 £213 £213
25th Percentile £375 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,667 773 1,283
10th Percentile £13.95 £15.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.26 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -29.16% +83.52%
75th Percentile £57.75 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.25 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £33.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -21.21% -26.67% +46.39%

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025. 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 -10 136 £500 - 98
North of England -78 116 £508 +8.56% 60
North West -32 98 £515 +5.10% 30
Midlands -41 64 £390 -8.24% 48
West Midlands -9 58 £380 -15.56% 39
Scotland +16 47 £425 +6.25% 18
East of England -18 26 £475 +72.73% 32
South West -38 18 £475 +0.53% 28
Yorkshire -75 16 £435 +6.75% 22
Wales -11 8 £550 +57.14% 11
East Midlands -37 5 £650 +73.33% 8
Northern Ireland -3 3 £475 +6.74% 8
North East -8 3 £625 +28.21% 10
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 26 December 2025, 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 (64.72%) Cisco
2 185 (46.95%) Security Cleared
3 184 (46.70%) Firewall
4 129 (32.74%) SC Cleared
5 119 (30.20%) Cisco Certification
6 112 (28.43%) WAN
7 101 (25.63%) Palo Alto
8 98 (24.87%) CCNP
9 87 (22.08%) LAN
10 80 (20.30%) VPN
11 78 (19.80%) Juniper
12 75 (19.04%) BGP
13 67 (17.01%) Network Security
14 65 (16.50%) DNS
15 61 (15.48%) F5
16 59 (14.97%) Load Balancing
17 58 (14.72%) CCNA
18 54 (13.71%) TCP/IP
19 52 (13.20%) DV Cleared
20 49 (12.44%) Cisco ISE
21 48 (12.18%) OSPF
22 47 (11.93%) CheckPoint
23 46 (11.68%) Network Design
23 46 (11.68%) Python
24 45 (11.42%) Wireless
25 44 (11.17%) VLAN
26 43 (10.91%) SolarWinds
27 41 (10.41%) VMware
28 40 (10.15%) Wi-Fi
29 38 (9.64%) Cisco IOS

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 (2.03%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.02%) Apache
2 4 (1.02%) Confluence
2 4 (1.02%) IIS
Applications
1 16 (4.06%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.51%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 27 (6.85%) AWS
1 27 (6.85%) Azure
2 8 (2.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
3 5 (1.27%) Entra ID
3 5 (1.27%) Nutanix
4 3 (0.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 3 (0.76%) Amazon EC2
4 3 (0.76%) Amazon ELB
4 3 (0.76%) Amazon S3
4 3 (0.76%) GCP
4 3 (0.76%) Mimecast
5 2 (0.51%) AWS Direct Connect
5 2 (0.51%) AWS IoT
5 2 (0.51%) Google Ads
6 1 (0.25%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (0.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (0.25%) GitHub
6 1 (0.25%) IaaS
6 1 (0.25%) Lucidchart
6 1 (0.25%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 184 (46.70%) Firewall
2 112 (28.43%) WAN
3 87 (22.08%) LAN
4 80 (20.30%) VPN
5 75 (19.04%) BGP
6 67 (17.01%) Network Security
7 65 (16.50%) DNS
8 54 (13.71%) TCP/IP
9 49 (12.44%) Cisco ISE
10 48 (12.18%) OSPF
11 45 (11.42%) Wireless
12 44 (11.17%) VLAN
13 40 (10.15%) Wi-Fi
14 38 (9.64%) Cisco IOS
15 36 (9.14%) MPLS
15 36 (9.14%) SSL
16 35 (8.88%) IPsec
16 35 (8.88%) SD-WAN
17 31 (7.87%) Junos
18 28 (7.11%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.25%) Oracle Database
1 1 (0.25%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 20 (5.08%) Fiddler
2 6 (1.52%) JIRA
3 4 (1.02%) GitLab
3 4 (1.02%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (0.76%) Git
5 1 (0.25%) ClearCase
5 1 (0.25%) Robot Framework
General
1 78 (19.80%) Social Skills
2 46 (11.68%) Public Sector
3 25 (6.35%) Banking
3 25 (6.35%) Documentation Skills
4 24 (6.09%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (5.84%) Investment Banking
6 22 (5.58%) Telecoms
7 16 (4.06%) Manufacturing
8 11 (2.79%) Finance
9 8 (2.03%) Legal
10 3 (0.76%) Electronics
10 3 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.76%) Marketing
10 3 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.51%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.51%) Military
12 1 (0.25%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.25%) Automotive
12 1 (0.25%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (6.09%) 802.1X
2 4 (1.02%) RFC 2544
3 3 (0.76%) LDAP
3 3 (0.76%) SAML
4 1 (0.25%) gRPC
4 1 (0.25%) Jinja
4 1 (0.25%) JSON
4 1 (0.25%) Node.js
4 1 (0.25%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 76 (19.29%) Data Centre
2 19 (4.82%) Management Information System
3 14 (3.55%) Onboarding
4 11 (2.79%) Operational Technology
4 11 (2.79%) PKI
5 9 (2.28%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
7 6 (1.52%) NHS
7 6 (1.52%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.27%) Fibre Optics
9 4 (1.02%) Driving Licence
9 4 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (1.02%) IoT
9 4 (1.02%) SCADA
10 3 (0.76%) 3D Printing
10 3 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (0.76%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (0.76%) Virtual Team
11 2 (0.51%) Life Science
11 2 (0.51%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 38 (9.64%) Windows
2 23 (5.84%) Windows Server
3 15 (3.81%) Linux
4 2 (0.51%) CatOS
4 2 (0.51%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.25%) Data ONTAP
5 1 (0.25%) Unix
5 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.25%) Windows 7
5 1 (0.25%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (14.97%) Load Balancing
2 46 (11.68%) Network Design
3 35 (8.88%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (7.61%) Migration
5 29 (7.36%) Network Management
6 27 (6.85%) High Availability
6 27 (6.85%) Network Monitoring
7 26 (6.60%) Cybersecurity
7 26 (6.60%) ITSM
8 25 (6.35%) Project Delivery
8 25 (6.35%) Service Management
9 23 (5.84%) Network Architecture
10 19 (4.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 18 (4.57%) Collaborative Working
11 18 (4.57%) Incident Response
12 17 (4.31%) Change Management
12 17 (4.31%) Network Segmentation
13 16 (4.06%) Agile
13 16 (4.06%) Data Loss Prevention
13 16 (4.06%) Malware Detection/Protection
Programming Languages
1 46 (11.68%) Python
2 15 (3.81%) Bash
3 10 (2.54%) Perl
4 8 (2.03%) Lisp
4 8 (2.03%) PowerShell
5 4 (1.02%) SQL
6 1 (0.25%) C
6 1 (0.25%) C++
6 1 (0.25%) Java
6 1 (0.25%) Ruby
6 1 (0.25%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.25%) VB
Qualifications
1 185 (46.95%) Security Cleared
2 129 (32.74%) SC Cleared
3 119 (30.20%) Cisco Certification
4 98 (24.87%) CCNP
5 58 (14.72%) CCNA
6 52 (13.20%) DV Cleared
7 16 (4.06%) Degree
8 10 (2.54%) CCIE
9 8 (2.03%) JNCIA
9 8 (2.03%) JNCIS
9 8 (2.03%) Network+ Certification
10 7 (1.78%) CCDP
11 6 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (1.52%) JNCIP
12 3 (0.76%) CompTIA Security+
13 2 (0.51%) A+ Certification
13 2 (0.51%) CCDA
13 2 (0.51%) CCSA
13 2 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
13 2 (0.51%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
1 4 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 4 (1.02%) SLA
2 3 (0.76%) GDPR
3 2 (0.51%) NIST
3 2 (0.51%) PCI DSS
3 2 (0.51%) QA
4 1 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.25%) GRC
4 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 1 (0.25%) JSP 440
4 1 (0.25%) PMO
System Software
1 33 (8.38%) VMware NSX
2 27 (6.85%) Active Directory
3 26 (6.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (4.31%) Firmware
5 11 (2.79%) Docker
6 5 (1.27%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.25%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.25%) KVM
8 1 (0.25%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.25%) RHEV
8 1 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.25%) vSphere
8 1 (0.25%) Xen
Systems Management
1 36 (9.14%) Ansible
2 32 (8.12%) FortiGate
3 24 (6.09%) vCenter Server
4 12 (3.05%) Terraform
5 4 (1.02%) Kubernetes
5 4 (1.02%) Nagios
6 3 (0.76%) Cisco CUCM
6 3 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.76%) WhatsUp Gold
7 2 (0.51%) Dell DRAC
8 1 (0.25%) Amdocs OSS
8 1 (0.25%) Backup Exec
8 1 (0.25%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.25%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.25%) Norton AntiVirus
8 1 (0.25%) Proxmox
8 1 (0.25%) SCCM
8 1 (0.25%) SCOM
8 1 (0.25%) WSUS
Vendors
1 255 (64.72%) Cisco
2 101 (25.63%) Palo Alto
3 78 (19.80%) Juniper
4 61 (15.48%) F5
5 47 (11.93%) CheckPoint
6 43 (10.91%) SolarWinds
7 41 (10.41%) VMware
8 37 (9.39%) Meraki
9 33 (8.38%) Aruba
9 33 (8.38%) Blue Coat
10 31 (7.87%) Fortinet
11 28 (7.11%) McAfee
12 23 (5.84%) Microsoft
13 16 (4.06%) NetApp
14 13 (3.30%) ServiceNow
15 11 (2.79%) Nokia
15 11 (2.79%) Zscaler
16 9 (2.28%) Remedy
17 8 (2.03%) Ekahau
18 5 (1.27%) Broadcom