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 £463, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 July 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 87 59
Rank change year-on-year -17 -28 +12
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 604 404 628
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.28% 2.81% 2.98%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.47% 3.08% 3.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 372 278 391
10th Percentile £303 £306 £273
25th Percentile £400 £381 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £475 £460
Median % change year-on-year -2.63% +3.26% +8.24%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £538
90th Percentile £600 £625 £625
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 6 13
10th Percentile £28.30 £21.39 £17.80
25th Percentile £59.69 £22.15 £20.74
Median hourly rate £73.00 £28.75 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +153.91% -45.24% -15.32%
75th Percentile £78.75 £41.81 £75.00
90th Percentile - £59.75 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £72.77 £45.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year +59.06% +14.38% -35.48%

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 24,422 13,099 19,446
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.03% 91.07% 92.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,905 8,142 11,680
10th Percentile £303 £220 £213
25th Percentile £406 £363 £370
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £595
90th Percentile £688 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,840 1,057 2,405
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.51 £16.84 £16.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.52
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £26.45 £37.50
% change year-on-year +62.57% -29.47% -14.05%

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 6 July 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 6 July 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 6 July 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 -15 211 £483 -1.75% 82
North West -3 158 £481 -3.75% 37
South East -9 150 £466 -6.75% 88
Midlands -5 118 £450 +8.43% 59
West Midlands +5 111 £438 +25.00% 23
Scotland +21 70 £413 -1.49% 26
East of England -14 41 £438 +15.51% 37
South West -44 40 £550 +4.76% 46
Yorkshire -51 40 £450 -8.54% 29
Wales -7 25 £425 - 15
North East -25 13 £600 +108.70% 16
East Midlands -27 4 £475 +5.56% 36
Northern Ireland +3 2 £468 -18.70% 14
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 July 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.

1 333 (55.13%) Cisco
2 265 (43.87%) Firewall
3 204 (33.77%) Security Cleared
4 180 (29.80%) LAN
5 179 (29.64%) WAN
6 166 (27.48%) Cisco Certification
7 147 (24.34%) VPN
8 145 (24.01%) SC Cleared
9 139 (23.01%) DNS
10 135 (22.35%) BGP
11 134 (22.19%) Network Security
12 127 (21.03%) F5
13 120 (19.87%) CCNP
14 118 (19.54%) Wireless
15 115 (19.04%) Load Balancing
16 106 (17.55%) Palo Alto
17 89 (14.74%) OSPF
18 82 (13.58%) CCNA
19 80 (13.25%) VMware
20 74 (12.25%) Juniper
21 71 (11.75%) Wi-Fi
22 68 (11.26%) SD-WAN
23 67 (11.09%) VLAN
24 65 (10.76%) High Availability
25 64 (10.60%) TCP/IP
26 62 (10.26%) DV Cleared
27 59 (9.77%) Migration
27 59 (9.77%) VMware Infrastructure
28 55 (9.11%) BIG-IP
28 55 (9.11%) Problem-Solving

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 (0.50%) Confluence
1 3 (0.50%) SAS
2 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.17%) CMS
3 1 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 14 (2.32%) MS Visio
2 9 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 51 (8.44%) Azure
2 41 (6.79%) AWS
3 25 (4.14%) GCP
4 17 (2.81%) GitHub
5 9 (1.49%) IaaS
6 7 (1.16%) Azure Sentinel
6 7 (1.16%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 7 (1.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (0.66%) AWS Direct Connect
7 4 (0.66%) Entra ID
7 4 (0.66%) Google Compute Engine
7 4 (0.66%) Nutanix
7 4 (0.66%) SaaS
8 3 (0.50%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (0.50%) Catchpoint
8 3 (0.50%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (0.50%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (0.50%) OCI
8 3 (0.50%) Route 53
9 2 (0.33%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 265 (43.87%) Firewall
2 180 (29.80%) LAN
3 179 (29.64%) WAN
4 147 (24.34%) VPN
5 139 (23.01%) DNS
6 135 (22.35%) BGP
7 134 (22.19%) Network Security
8 118 (19.54%) Wireless
9 89 (14.74%) OSPF
10 71 (11.75%) Wi-Fi
11 68 (11.26%) SD-WAN
12 67 (11.09%) VLAN
13 64 (10.60%) TCP/IP
14 55 (9.11%) BIG-IP
15 52 (8.61%) Cisco Nexus
16 45 (7.45%) DHCP
16 45 (7.45%) SSL
17 44 (7.28%) MPLS
18 43 (7.12%) Multicast
19 41 (6.79%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.17%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 21 (3.48%) Fiddler
1 21 (3.48%) JIRA
2 18 (2.98%) Jenkins
3 10 (1.66%) Git
4 6 (0.99%) GitLab
4 6 (0.99%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.33%) Browser DevTools
General
1 82 (13.58%) Social Skills
2 40 (6.62%) Banking
3 35 (5.79%) Investment Banking
4 31 (5.13%) Telecoms
5 30 (4.97%) Analytical Skills
6 28 (4.64%) Public Sector
7 21 (3.48%) Documentation Skills
8 19 (3.15%) Manufacturing
9 18 (2.98%) Finance
10 13 (2.15%) Legal
11 9 (1.49%) Aerospace
12 7 (1.16%) Police
13 6 (0.99%) Retail
14 5 (0.83%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.83%) Military
15 4 (0.66%) Law
16 3 (0.50%) Organisational Skills
17 1 (0.17%) Back Office
17 1 (0.17%) Pharmaceutical
17 1 (0.17%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (5.96%) 802.1X
2 7 (1.16%) LDAP
3 6 (0.99%) SAML
4 3 (0.50%) REST
5 2 (0.33%) Java RMI
5 2 (0.33%) NETCONF
5 2 (0.33%) RFC 2544
6 1 (0.17%) Django
6 1 (0.17%) Jinja
6 1 (0.17%) ModSecurity
6 1 (0.17%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 103 (17.05%) Data Centre
2 22 (3.64%) PKI
3 21 (3.48%) Management Information System
4 13 (2.15%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (1.99%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (1.82%) Cloud Native
6 11 (1.82%) Onboarding
6 11 (1.82%) Operational Technology
6 11 (1.82%) Security Posture
7 10 (1.66%) NHS
8 9 (1.49%) Clustering
9 7 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (0.83%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.66%) Driving Licence
12 3 (0.50%) Fibre Optics
12 3 (0.50%) SCADA
13 2 (0.33%) CCTV
13 2 (0.33%) Legacy Systems
13 2 (0.33%) Video Conferencing
13 2 (0.33%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 54 (8.94%) Windows
2 32 (5.30%) Linux
3 10 (1.66%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.66%) Unix
5 1 (0.17%) CatOS
5 1 (0.17%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.17%) Solaris
5 1 (0.17%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.17%) Windows 7
5 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
5 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 115 (19.04%) Load Balancing
2 65 (10.76%) High Availability
3 59 (9.77%) Migration
4 55 (9.11%) Problem-Solving
5 51 (8.44%) ITIL
6 48 (7.95%) Network Monitoring
7 39 (6.46%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 38 (6.29%) Project Delivery
9 33 (5.46%) Change Management
10 31 (5.13%) Network Design
11 30 (4.97%) Technical Leadership
12 28 (4.64%) Continuous Improvement
13 26 (4.30%) ITSM
13 26 (4.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 26 (4.30%) Validation
14 25 (4.14%) CI/CD
14 25 (4.14%) Network Management
14 25 (4.14%) Service Management
15 23 (3.81%) Network Architecture
16 22 (3.64%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 44 (7.28%) Python
2 7 (1.16%) ActionScript
3 6 (0.99%) SQL
4 5 (0.83%) PowerShell
5 4 (0.66%) Bash
6 2 (0.33%) Perl
7 1 (0.17%) Groovy
7 1 (0.17%) PHP
Qualifications
1 204 (33.77%) Security Cleared
2 166 (27.48%) Cisco Certification
3 145 (24.01%) SC Cleared
4 120 (19.87%) CCNP
5 82 (13.58%) CCNA
6 62 (10.26%) DV Cleared
7 22 (3.64%) CCIE
7 22 (3.64%) Degree
8 13 (2.15%) JNCIS
9 12 (1.99%) JNCIA
10 10 (1.66%) Network+ Certification
11 9 (1.49%) JNCIP
12 6 (0.99%) CCSE
13 5 (0.83%) CCIE Wireless
13 5 (0.83%) CCSM
13 5 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
13 5 (0.83%) Computer Science Degree
13 5 (0.83%) Server+ Certification
14 4 (0.66%) Azure Certification
14 4 (0.66%) CWDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.32%) SLA
2 10 (1.66%) QA
3 8 (1.32%) Disclosure Scotland
3 8 (1.32%) NIST
4 3 (0.50%) GDPR
5 2 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 2 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.33%) JSP 440
5 2 (0.33%) NCSC
5 2 (0.33%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.17%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.17%) GRC
6 1 (0.17%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.17%) PMO
System Software
1 59 (9.77%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (5.13%) VMware NSX
3 28 (4.64%) Firmware
4 22 (3.64%) Active Directory
5 11 (1.82%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (1.66%) vSphere
7 4 (0.66%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.33%) vCloud
8 2 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.17%) Citrix Presentation Server
9 1 (0.17%) Docker
9 1 (0.17%) FreeRADIUS
9 1 (0.17%) KVM
9 1 (0.17%) Snort
9 1 (0.17%) Squid
9 1 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 36 (5.96%) Ansible
2 29 (4.80%) FortiGate
3 28 (4.64%) Terraform
4 6 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (0.83%) Cisco Prime
5 5 (0.83%) Kubernetes
6 3 (0.50%) Nagios
7 2 (0.33%) Avamar
7 2 (0.33%) CASB
7 2 (0.33%) Cisco CUCM
7 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.33%) WSUS
8 1 (0.17%) Grafana
8 1 (0.17%) Iperf
8 1 (0.17%) Packer
8 1 (0.17%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.17%) Puppet
8 1 (0.17%) SolarWinds Orion
8 1 (0.17%) Suricata
8 1 (0.17%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 333 (55.13%) Cisco
2 127 (21.03%) F5
3 106 (17.55%) Palo Alto
4 80 (13.25%) VMware
5 74 (12.25%) Juniper
6 53 (8.77%) Fortinet
7 50 (8.28%) CheckPoint
8 41 (6.79%) Aruba
9 34 (5.63%) Microsoft
10 32 (5.30%) SolarWinds
11 24 (3.97%) McAfee
12 23 (3.81%) Blue Coat
13 21 (3.48%) Meraki
13 21 (3.48%) ServiceNow
14 20 (3.31%) Google
15 19 (3.15%) NetApp
16 17 (2.81%) Extreme Networks
17 16 (2.65%) Arista
17 16 (2.65%) Splunk
18 14 (2.32%) Ekahau