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 18 February 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 67 60
Rank change year-on-year -53 -7 +48
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 419 444 671
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.08% 3.31% 3.22%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.28% 3.58% 3.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 280 246 388
10th Percentile £300 £300 £293
25th Percentile £400 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £470 £450
Median % change year-on-year +0.32% +4.44% -
75th Percentile £525 £550 £519
90th Percentile £575 £615 £632
UK median daily rate £475 £477 £460
% change year-on-year -0.47% +3.75% -1.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 6 26
10th Percentile £20.40 £19.25 £24.38
25th Percentile £44.86 - £44.38
Median hourly rate £56.44 £20.00 £65.98
Median % change year-on-year +182.20% -69.69% +6.42%
75th Percentile £72.54 - £73.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £20.28 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £52.58 £20.00 £64.49
% change year-on-year +162.90% -68.99% +4.02%

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 18,362 12,385 19,413
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.99% 92.43% 93.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,064 7,480 12,138
10th Percentile £223 £210 £213
25th Percentile £380 £363 £365
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +0.53% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £595
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 1,951 622 1,930
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.44 £12.86
25th Percentile £18.26 £20.96 £16.00
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £35.58
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% -8.64% +1.64%
75th Percentile £62.17 £65.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £34.11 £35.00
% change year-on-year -12.05% -2.54% -9.09%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 18 February 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 +4 145 £485 -3.00% 94
North of England -67 130 £481 -1.28% 56
North West -34 111 £481 -1.79% 34
Midlands -18 73 £438 -2.78% 41
West Midlands -1 68 £400 -9.35% 23
Scotland +9 42 £418 +0.60% 33
East of England -22 27 £363 +31.82% 26
South West -59 21 £500 +5.82% 41
Yorkshire -68 19 £500 +34.23% 14
Wales -8 15 £550 +62.96% 12
East Midlands -36 3 £575 +27.78% 18
Northern Ireland - 3 £475 - 5
North East -13 1 - - 9
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 18 February 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.

1 268 (63.96%) Cisco
2 204 (48.69%) Firewall
3 185 (44.15%) Security Cleared
4 131 (31.26%) SC Cleared
5 121 (28.88%) Cisco Certification
5 121 (28.88%) WAN
6 115 (27.45%) LAN
7 103 (24.58%) Palo Alto
8 101 (24.11%) CCNP
9 96 (22.91%) BGP
10 92 (21.96%) DNS
10 92 (21.96%) VPN
11 82 (19.57%) Network Security
12 78 (18.62%) F5
13 75 (17.90%) Load Balancing
14 73 (17.42%) Juniper
15 65 (15.51%) OSPF
16 61 (14.56%) TCP/IP
17 60 (14.32%) CCNA
18 59 (14.08%) VMware
19 55 (13.13%) DV Cleared
20 52 (12.41%) Cisco ISE
21 51 (12.17%) SolarWinds
22 49 (11.69%) CheckPoint
22 49 (11.69%) Python
23 48 (11.46%) Wireless
24 47 (11.22%) VLAN
25 45 (10.74%) Ansible
25 45 (10.74%) SSL
25 45 (10.74%) Windows

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 (1.91%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.67%) Confluence
3 5 (1.19%) Apache
3 5 (1.19%) IIS
4 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 19 (4.53%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 27 (6.44%) AWS
2 24 (5.73%) Azure
3 7 (1.67%) GCP
4 6 (1.43%) Entra ID
4 6 (1.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 5 (1.19%) Nutanix
6 4 (0.95%) SaaS
7 3 (0.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 3 (0.72%) Amazon EC2
7 3 (0.72%) Amazon ELB
7 3 (0.72%) Amazon S3
7 3 (0.72%) Catchpoint
7 3 (0.72%) IaaS
7 3 (0.72%) Mimecast
7 3 (0.72%) PaaS
8 2 (0.48%) AWS IoT
8 2 (0.48%) GitHub
8 2 (0.48%) Google Ads
8 2 (0.48%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 1 (0.24%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 204 (48.69%) Firewall
2 121 (28.88%) WAN
3 115 (27.45%) LAN
4 96 (22.91%) BGP
5 92 (21.96%) DNS
5 92 (21.96%) VPN
6 82 (19.57%) Network Security
7 65 (15.51%) OSPF
8 61 (14.56%) TCP/IP
9 52 (12.41%) Cisco ISE
10 48 (11.46%) Wireless
11 47 (11.22%) VLAN
12 45 (10.74%) SSL
13 41 (9.79%) BIG-IP
14 38 (9.07%) IPsec
15 37 (8.83%) MPLS
15 37 (8.83%) Wireshark
16 36 (8.59%) HTTP
16 36 (8.59%) Wi-Fi
17 35 (8.35%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.24%) Oracle Database
1 1 (0.24%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 29 (6.92%) Fiddler
2 11 (2.63%) JIRA
3 9 (2.15%) Sonatype Nexus
4 6 (1.43%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.95%) Git
5 4 (0.95%) GitLab
6 1 (0.24%) ClearCase
6 1 (0.24%) Robot Framework
General
1 69 (16.47%) Social Skills
2 36 (8.59%) Public Sector
3 35 (8.35%) Banking
4 33 (7.88%) Investment Banking
5 31 (7.40%) Documentation Skills
6 24 (5.73%) Telecoms
7 17 (4.06%) Manufacturing
8 14 (3.34%) Analytical Skills
9 11 (2.63%) Finance
9 11 (2.63%) Legal
10 4 (0.95%) Military
11 3 (0.72%) Electronics
11 3 (0.72%) Law
11 3 (0.72%) Marketing
12 2 (0.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.48%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.48%) Pharmaceutical
13 1 (0.24%) Back Office
13 1 (0.24%) Financial Institution
13 1 (0.24%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (5.49%) 802.1X
2 7 (1.67%) LDAP
3 5 (1.19%) RFC 2544
3 5 (1.19%) SAML
4 1 (0.24%) Django
4 1 (0.24%) gRPC
4 1 (0.24%) Jinja
4 1 (0.24%) JSON
4 1 (0.24%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 106 (25.30%) Data Centre
2 22 (5.25%) Management Information System
3 13 (3.10%) PKI
4 12 (2.86%) NHS
4 12 (2.86%) Operational Technology
5 10 (2.39%) Onboarding
5 10 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
6 9 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
6 9 (2.15%) Security Posture
7 7 (1.67%) Clustering
8 5 (1.19%) Fibre Optics
8 5 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (0.95%) Driving Licence
9 4 (0.95%) IoT
10 3 (0.72%) 3D Printing
10 3 (0.72%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (0.72%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.72%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.72%) Virtual Team
11 2 (0.48%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 45 (10.74%) Windows
2 26 (6.21%) Windows Server
3 19 (4.53%) Linux
4 3 (0.72%) CatOS
5 1 (0.24%) Data ONTAP
5 1 (0.24%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.24%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (17.90%) Load Balancing
2 36 (8.59%) Problem-Solving
3 35 (8.35%) High Availability
3 35 (8.35%) Network Design
4 33 (7.88%) Network Monitoring
5 30 (7.16%) Migration
6 28 (6.68%) Project Delivery
7 26 (6.21%) Data Loss Prevention
7 26 (6.21%) ITSM
7 26 (6.21%) Malware Detection/Protection
8 25 (5.97%) Collaborative Working
8 25 (5.97%) Service Management
9 23 (5.49%) Network Architecture
9 23 (5.49%) Network Management
10 22 (5.25%) Cybersecurity
10 22 (5.25%) ITIL
11 18 (4.30%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 17 (4.06%) Network Segmentation
13 16 (3.82%) Change Management
14 15 (3.58%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 49 (11.69%) Python
2 11 (2.63%) Bash
3 8 (1.91%) Lisp
4 7 (1.67%) Perl
4 7 (1.67%) PowerShell
5 5 (1.19%) SQL
6 1 (0.24%) C
6 1 (0.24%) C++
6 1 (0.24%) Java
6 1 (0.24%) PHP
6 1 (0.24%) Ruby
6 1 (0.24%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 185 (44.15%) Security Cleared
2 131 (31.26%) SC Cleared
3 121 (28.88%) Cisco Certification
4 101 (24.11%) CCNP
5 60 (14.32%) CCNA
6 55 (13.13%) DV Cleared
7 16 (3.82%) Degree
8 15 (3.58%) JNCIS
9 13 (3.10%) CCIE
10 12 (2.86%) JNCIA
11 9 (2.15%) JNCIP
11 9 (2.15%) Network+ Certification
12 3 (0.72%) CompTIA Security+
12 3 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
13 2 (0.48%) BPSS Clearance
13 2 (0.48%) CCDP
13 2 (0.48%) CISSP
13 2 (0.48%) ISTQB
13 2 (0.48%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 5 (1.19%) NIST
2 4 (0.95%) PCI DSS
2 4 (0.95%) SLA
3 3 (0.72%) QA
4 2 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (0.48%) GDPR
4 2 (0.48%) NCSC
4 2 (0.48%) PMO
5 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.24%) GRC
5 1 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
5 1 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.24%) JSP 440
System Software
1 43 (10.26%) VMware NSX
2 36 (8.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (7.16%) Active Directory
4 21 (5.01%) Firmware
5 8 (1.91%) Docker
6 6 (1.43%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.95%) vSphere
8 2 (0.48%) KVM
8 2 (0.48%) vCloud
8 2 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.24%) Citrix Presentation Server
9 1 (0.24%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.24%) RHEV
9 1 (0.24%) Xen
Systems Management
1 45 (10.74%) Ansible
2 26 (6.21%) FortiGate
3 20 (4.77%) vCenter Server
4 16 (3.82%) Terraform
5 5 (1.19%) Nagios
5 5 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.95%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.48%) Dell DRAC
8 2 (0.48%) Kubernetes
8 2 (0.48%) WSUS
9 1 (0.24%) Amdocs OSS
9 1 (0.24%) Backup Exec
9 1 (0.24%) CASB
9 1 (0.24%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.24%) Nessus
9 1 (0.24%) Norton AntiVirus
9 1 (0.24%) Proxmox
9 1 (0.24%) SCOM
9 1 (0.24%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 268 (63.96%) Cisco
2 103 (24.58%) Palo Alto
3 78 (18.62%) F5
4 73 (17.42%) Juniper
5 59 (14.08%) VMware
6 51 (12.17%) SolarWinds
7 49 (11.69%) CheckPoint
8 42 (10.02%) Aruba
9 39 (9.31%) Blue Coat
10 36 (8.59%) McAfee
11 33 (7.88%) Meraki
12 28 (6.68%) Fortinet
13 23 (5.49%) Microsoft
14 20 (4.77%) NetApp
15 14 (3.34%) ServiceNow
16 10 (2.39%) Arista
16 10 (2.39%) Ekahau
16 10 (2.39%) Remedy
17 8 (1.91%) Extreme Networks
18 7 (1.67%) Splunk