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 £461, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 June 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 86 59
Rank change year-on-year -12 -27 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 587 383 631
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.32% 2.92% 3.00%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.53% 3.18% 3.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 370 262 386
10th Percentile £303 £300 £274
25th Percentile £400 £376 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £461 £464 £450
Median % change year-on-year -0.59% +3.11% +0.56%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £525
90th Percentile £600 £625 £634
UK median daily rate £474 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -0.21% - +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 5 13
10th Percentile £55.00 £22.22 £15.60
25th Percentile £70.87 £22.50 £20.74
Median hourly rate £77.50 £35.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +121.43% -51.72% +16.94%
75th Percentile £78.75 £43.25 £73.75
90th Percentile - £63.05 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £77.50 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +55.00% +25.00% -36.12%

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 23,197 12,028 19,457
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.88% 91.71% 92.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,347 7,613 11,679
10th Percentile £300 £213 £213
25th Percentile £404 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £590 £575 £593
90th Percentile £684 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,678 889 2,454
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.54 £12.51
25th Percentile £20.25 £16.95 £15.85
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.32 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +77.73% -36.70% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £28.30 £37.50
% change year-on-year +59.04% -24.55% -16.67%

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 7 June 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 7 June 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 7 June 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 -31 179 £474 -3.66% 58
South East +1 177 £463 -7.50% 72
North West -12 135 £474 -5.20% 27
Midlands +16 111 £438 +6.06% 43
West Midlands +7 104 £431 +56.82% 23
Scotland +15 55 £415 +3.75% 28
East of England 0 45 £438 +14.38% 30
South West -38 43 £533 +1.52% 34
Yorkshire -55 32 £450 -8.54% 23
Wales -12 26 £425 +21.43% 16
North East -14 12 £600 +108.70% 8
East Midlands -36 3 £488 +8.33% 20
Northern Ireland +5 2 £468 -18.70% 13
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 June 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.

1 325 (55.37%) Cisco
2 264 (44.97%) Firewall
3 219 (37.31%) Security Cleared
4 172 (29.30%) LAN
5 169 (28.79%) Cisco Certification
5 169 (28.79%) WAN
6 158 (26.92%) SC Cleared
7 137 (23.34%) DNS
8 133 (22.66%) VPN
9 132 (22.49%) CCNP
10 129 (21.98%) BGP
11 128 (21.81%) Network Security
12 127 (21.64%) F5
13 121 (20.61%) Palo Alto
14 111 (18.91%) Load Balancing
15 90 (15.33%) Wireless
16 89 (15.16%) OSPF
17 81 (13.80%) VMware
18 80 (13.63%) CCNA
19 78 (13.29%) VLAN
20 74 (12.61%) Juniper
21 68 (11.58%) TCP/IP
22 67 (11.41%) DV Cleared
22 67 (11.41%) Wi-Fi
23 65 (11.07%) SD-WAN
24 62 (10.56%) High Availability
25 59 (10.05%) VMware Infrastructure
26 57 (9.71%) Network Monitoring
26 57 (9.71%) Windows
27 55 (9.37%) BIG-IP

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 6 (1.02%) Confluence
2 3 (0.51%) Apache
2 3 (0.51%) IIS
3 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.17%) CMS
4 1 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 13 (2.21%) MS Visio
2 8 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 52 (8.86%) Azure
2 42 (7.16%) AWS
3 23 (3.92%) GCP
4 15 (2.56%) GitHub
5 9 (1.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 7 (1.19%) Azure Sentinel
6 7 (1.19%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 7 (1.19%) IaaS
7 5 (0.85%) Entra ID
8 4 (0.68%) Google Compute Engine
8 4 (0.68%) Nutanix
8 4 (0.68%) SaaS
9 3 (0.51%) AWS Direct Connect
9 3 (0.51%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (0.51%) Catchpoint
9 3 (0.51%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (0.51%) OCI
9 3 (0.51%) Route 53
10 2 (0.34%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (0.34%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 264 (44.97%) Firewall
2 172 (29.30%) LAN
3 169 (28.79%) WAN
4 137 (23.34%) DNS
5 133 (22.66%) VPN
6 129 (21.98%) BGP
7 128 (21.81%) Network Security
8 90 (15.33%) Wireless
9 89 (15.16%) OSPF
10 78 (13.29%) VLAN
11 68 (11.58%) TCP/IP
12 67 (11.41%) Wi-Fi
13 65 (11.07%) SD-WAN
14 55 (9.37%) BIG-IP
15 52 (8.86%) Cisco Nexus
16 47 (8.01%) DHCP
17 46 (7.84%) SSL
18 44 (7.50%) IPsec
19 39 (6.64%) Multicast
20 38 (6.47%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.17%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 24 (4.09%) Fiddler
2 22 (3.75%) JIRA
3 16 (2.73%) Jenkins
4 9 (1.53%) Git
5 7 (1.19%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (1.02%) GitLab
7 2 (0.34%) Browser DevTools
General
1 75 (12.78%) Social Skills
2 37 (6.30%) Banking
3 35 (5.96%) Investment Banking
4 26 (4.43%) Documentation Skills
4 26 (4.43%) Telecoms
5 25 (4.26%) Analytical Skills
5 25 (4.26%) Manufacturing
6 24 (4.09%) Public Sector
7 15 (2.56%) Finance
8 13 (2.21%) Legal
9 9 (1.53%) Aerospace
10 6 (1.02%) Retail
11 5 (0.85%) Law
11 5 (0.85%) Military
11 5 (0.85%) Police
12 3 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.17%) Back Office
13 1 (0.17%) Electronics
13 1 (0.17%) Marketing
13 1 (0.17%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (5.79%) 802.1X
2 7 (1.19%) LDAP
3 6 (1.02%) SAML
4 3 (0.51%) REST
5 2 (0.34%) RFC 2544
6 1 (0.17%) Django
6 1 (0.17%) Java RMI
6 1 (0.17%) Jinja
6 1 (0.17%) NETCONF
6 1 (0.17%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 116 (19.76%) Data Centre
2 21 (3.58%) Management Information System
3 20 (3.41%) PKI
4 12 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
4 12 (2.04%) Security Posture
5 11 (1.87%) Hybrid Cloud
6 10 (1.70%) Onboarding
7 9 (1.53%) Cloud Native
7 9 (1.53%) Clustering
7 9 (1.53%) NHS
7 9 (1.53%) Operational Technology
7 9 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (0.85%) Public Cloud
9 4 (0.68%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.51%) Fibre Optics
10 3 (0.51%) SCADA
10 3 (0.51%) Wiki
11 2 (0.34%) Enterprise Software
11 2 (0.34%) Life Science
11 2 (0.34%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 57 (9.71%) Windows
2 36 (6.13%) Linux
3 12 (2.04%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.68%) 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
1 111 (18.91%) Load Balancing
2 62 (10.56%) High Availability
3 57 (9.71%) Network Monitoring
4 54 (9.20%) Migration
5 50 (8.52%) Problem-Solving
6 46 (7.84%) ITIL
7 42 (7.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 40 (6.81%) Project Delivery
9 33 (5.62%) Network Design
10 27 (4.60%) Network Management
10 27 (4.60%) Technical Leadership
11 26 (4.43%) ITSM
12 25 (4.26%) Data Loss Prevention
12 25 (4.26%) Validation
13 24 (4.09%) Change Management
13 24 (4.09%) Malware Detection/Protection
13 24 (4.09%) Service Management
14 22 (3.75%) Agile
14 22 (3.75%) Continuous Improvement
14 22 (3.75%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 39 (6.64%) Python
2 6 (1.02%) SQL
3 5 (0.85%) ActionScript
4 4 (0.68%) Bash
5 3 (0.51%) PowerShell
6 1 (0.17%) Groovy
6 1 (0.17%) Perl
6 1 (0.17%) PHP
Qualifications
1 219 (37.31%) Security Cleared
2 169 (28.79%) Cisco Certification
3 158 (26.92%) SC Cleared
4 132 (22.49%) CCNP
5 80 (13.63%) CCNA
6 67 (11.41%) DV Cleared
7 25 (4.26%) Degree
8 18 (3.07%) CCIE
9 15 (2.56%) JNCIA
9 15 (2.56%) JNCIS
10 14 (2.39%) Network+ Certification
11 10 (1.70%) JNCIP
12 7 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
13 6 (1.02%) CCSE
14 5 (0.85%) CCSM
14 5 (0.85%) CompTIA Security+
14 5 (0.85%) Server+ Certification
15 4 (0.68%) CCIE Wireless
15 4 (0.68%) CWDP
15 4 (0.68%) CWNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (2.04%) SLA
2 10 (1.70%) QA
3 9 (1.53%) NIST
4 8 (1.36%) Disclosure Scotland
5 3 (0.51%) GDPR
5 3 (0.51%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 2 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.34%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.34%) NCSC
6 2 (0.34%) PMO
7 1 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.17%) GRC
7 1 (0.17%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 59 (10.05%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (5.62%) VMware NSX
3 26 (4.43%) Firmware
4 20 (3.41%) Active Directory
5 9 (1.53%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (1.19%) vSphere
7 4 (0.68%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.34%) KVM
8 2 (0.34%) vCloud
8 2 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.17%) Citrix Presentation Server
9 1 (0.17%) Docker
9 1 (0.17%) FreeRADIUS
9 1 (0.17%) RHEV
9 1 (0.17%) Snort
9 1 (0.17%) Squid
9 1 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.17%) Xen
Systems Management
1 40 (6.81%) Ansible
2 29 (4.94%) FortiGate
2 29 (4.94%) Terraform
3 6 (1.02%) Nagios
3 6 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (0.85%) Cisco Prime
4 5 (0.85%) Kubernetes
5 2 (0.34%) Avamar
5 2 (0.34%) CASB
5 2 (0.34%) Cisco CUCM
5 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.34%) WSUS
6 1 (0.17%) Iperf
6 1 (0.17%) Packer
6 1 (0.17%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.17%) Puppet
6 1 (0.17%) SCOM
6 1 (0.17%) SolarWinds Orion
6 1 (0.17%) Suricata
6 1 (0.17%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 325 (55.37%) Cisco
2 127 (21.64%) F5
3 121 (20.61%) Palo Alto
4 81 (13.80%) VMware
5 74 (12.61%) Juniper
6 54 (9.20%) Aruba
7 49 (8.35%) CheckPoint
8 44 (7.50%) Fortinet
9 35 (5.96%) SolarWinds
10 28 (4.77%) Microsoft
11 26 (4.43%) Blue Coat
11 26 (4.43%) McAfee
12 22 (3.75%) ServiceNow
13 19 (3.24%) Google
13 19 (3.24%) Meraki
13 19 (3.24%) NetApp
14 17 (2.90%) Extreme Networks
15 14 (2.39%) Ekahau
15 14 (2.39%) Splunk
16 13 (2.21%) Arista