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 4 April 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 110 83 57
Rank change year-on-year -27 -26 +38
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 522 376 684
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.30% 2.97% 3.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.50% 3.21% 3.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 343 250 416
10th Percentile £303 £300 £284
25th Percentile £400 £375 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% - -
75th Percentile £538 £573 £519
90th Percentile £588 £613 £625
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £460
% change year-on-year - +3.26% -3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 2 16
10th Percentile £46.02 £23.53 £17.81
25th Percentile £56.44 £31.06 £24.44
Median hourly rate £72.54 £45.75 £66.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.56% -31.20% +7.26%
75th Percentile £75.38 £62.06 £73.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.58 £74.50
UK median hourly rate £72.54 £57.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +26.16% +43.75% -36.74%

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 20,911 11,708 19,417
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.02% 92.41% 92.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,420 7,637 12,043
10th Percentile £263 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.53% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £585 £585 £595
90th Percentile £675 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,273 758 2,116
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.48 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £41.50 £31.29 £34.61
Median % change year-on-year +32.63% -9.58% -18.32%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.73 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £32.00 £33.78
% change year-on-year +25.00% -5.26% -24.15%

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 4 April 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 4 April 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 4 April 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 +3 173 £480 -4.00% 72
North of England -52 156 £478 +0.53% 53
North West -17 135 £479 +0.92% 31
Midlands -9 98 £438 +2.94% 53
West Midlands +13 91 £429 +55.91% 31
Scotland +10 40 £415 +3.75% 19
South West -30 39 £513 +8.47% 31
East of England -10 37 £460 -8.00% 25
Wales -11 25 £425 +9.68% 10
Yorkshire -60 21 £450 -2.70% 16
East Midlands -44 3 £500 +11.11% 22
Northern Ireland - 2 £468 - 5
North East -14 1 - - 6
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 4 April 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.

1 302 (57.85%) Cisco
2 250 (47.89%) Firewall
3 221 (42.34%) Security Cleared
4 157 (30.08%) SC Cleared
5 153 (29.31%) WAN
6 147 (28.16%) Cisco Certification
7 145 (27.78%) LAN
8 127 (24.33%) BGP
9 121 (23.18%) CCNP
10 119 (22.80%) VPN
11 118 (22.61%) Palo Alto
12 117 (22.41%) DNS
13 102 (19.54%) F5
14 100 (19.16%) Load Balancing
14 100 (19.16%) Network Security
15 90 (17.24%) OSPF
16 86 (16.48%) Juniper
17 75 (14.37%) TCP/IP
18 74 (14.18%) VMware
19 71 (13.60%) DV Cleared
20 69 (13.22%) CCNA
21 65 (12.45%) VLAN
22 63 (12.07%) Wireless
23 55 (10.54%) Aruba
24 53 (10.15%) VMware Infrastructure
25 52 (9.96%) BIG-IP
26 51 (9.77%) Cisco ISE
26 51 (9.77%) High Availability
26 51 (9.77%) Wi-Fi
27 49 (9.39%) 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 7 (1.34%) Confluence
2 5 (0.96%) Apache
2 5 (0.96%) IIS
3 4 (0.77%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 14 (2.68%) MS Visio
2 7 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 43 (8.24%) AWS
2 41 (7.85%) Azure
3 18 (3.45%) GCP
4 10 (1.92%) GitHub
5 8 (1.53%) Entra ID
5 8 (1.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 6 (1.15%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 5 (0.96%) Nutanix
8 4 (0.77%) Mimecast
9 3 (0.57%) AWS Direct Connect
9 3 (0.57%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (0.57%) Azure Sentinel
9 3 (0.57%) Catchpoint
9 3 (0.57%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (0.57%) Google Ads
9 3 (0.57%) Google Compute Engine
9 3 (0.57%) Route 53
9 3 (0.57%) SaaS
10 2 (0.38%) AWS IoT
10 2 (0.38%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 250 (47.89%) Firewall
2 153 (29.31%) WAN
3 145 (27.78%) LAN
4 127 (24.33%) BGP
5 119 (22.80%) VPN
6 117 (22.41%) DNS
7 100 (19.16%) Network Security
8 90 (17.24%) OSPF
9 75 (14.37%) TCP/IP
10 65 (12.45%) VLAN
11 63 (12.07%) Wireless
12 52 (9.96%) BIG-IP
13 51 (9.77%) Cisco ISE
13 51 (9.77%) Wi-Fi
14 47 (9.00%) SD-WAN
15 44 (8.43%) IPsec
16 43 (8.24%) SSL
16 43 (8.24%) Wireshark
17 42 (8.05%) DHCP
18 37 (7.09%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.19%) Oracle Database
1 1 (0.19%) Oracle Reports
1 1 (0.19%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 29 (5.56%) Fiddler
2 17 (3.26%) JIRA
3 8 (1.53%) Jenkins
4 7 (1.34%) Sonatype Nexus
5 5 (0.96%) Git
6 4 (0.77%) GitLab
7 2 (0.38%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.19%) ClearCase
General
1 76 (14.56%) Social Skills
2 40 (7.66%) Banking
3 37 (7.09%) Investment Banking
4 35 (6.70%) Public Sector
5 33 (6.32%) Documentation Skills
6 23 (4.41%) Telecoms
7 20 (3.83%) Analytical Skills
7 20 (3.83%) Manufacturing
8 14 (2.68%) Finance
9 11 (2.11%) Legal
10 5 (0.96%) Law
11 4 (0.77%) Military
11 4 (0.77%) Police
12 3 (0.57%) Aerospace
12 3 (0.57%) Electronics
12 3 (0.57%) Marketing
13 2 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.38%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (0.38%) Retail
14 1 (0.19%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (6.32%) 802.1X
2 8 (1.53%) LDAP
3 7 (1.34%) SAML
4 2 (0.38%) REST
4 2 (0.38%) RFC 2544
5 1 (0.19%) Django
5 1 (0.19%) Jinja
5 1 (0.19%) NETCONF
Miscellaneous
1 109 (20.88%) Data Centre
2 22 (4.21%) Management Information System
3 15 (2.87%) PKI
4 13 (2.49%) NHS
5 12 (2.30%) Operational Technology
6 10 (1.92%) Data Protection Act
6 10 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
7 9 (1.72%) Clustering
8 8 (1.53%) Security Posture
9 7 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
9 7 (1.34%) Onboarding
10 5 (0.96%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.77%) Enterprise Software
11 4 (0.77%) IoT
12 3 (0.57%) 3D Printing
12 3 (0.57%) Cloud Native
12 3 (0.57%) Linux Command Line
12 3 (0.57%) Wiki
13 2 (0.38%) Fibre Optics
13 2 (0.38%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 49 (9.39%) Windows
2 26 (4.98%) Linux
3 16 (3.07%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.57%) CatOS
5 2 (0.38%) Unix
6 1 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.19%) Solaris
6 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (19.16%) Load Balancing
2 51 (9.77%) High Availability
3 44 (8.43%) Problem-Solving
4 41 (7.85%) ITIL
4 41 (7.85%) Network Monitoring
5 39 (7.47%) Network Design
6 38 (7.28%) Migration
7 29 (5.56%) Collaborative Working
7 29 (5.56%) Data Loss Prevention
7 29 (5.56%) Malware Detection/Protection
8 27 (5.17%) ITSM
8 27 (5.17%) Network Architecture
9 26 (4.98%) Change Management
10 25 (4.79%) Service Management
11 23 (4.41%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 23 (4.41%) Project Delivery
12 22 (4.21%) Network Management
12 22 (4.21%) Validation
13 20 (3.83%) Cybersecurity
14 19 (3.64%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 44 (8.43%) Python
2 10 (1.92%) Bash
3 8 (1.53%) SQL
4 7 (1.34%) Perl
5 6 (1.15%) PowerShell
6 4 (0.77%) Lisp
7 1 (0.19%) C
7 1 (0.19%) C++
7 1 (0.19%) Java
7 1 (0.19%) PHP
7 1 (0.19%) Ruby
7 1 (0.19%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 221 (42.34%) Security Cleared
2 157 (30.08%) SC Cleared
3 147 (28.16%) Cisco Certification
4 121 (23.18%) CCNP
5 71 (13.60%) DV Cleared
6 69 (13.22%) CCNA
7 21 (4.02%) Degree
7 21 (4.02%) JNCIS
8 17 (3.26%) CCIE
8 17 (3.26%) JNCIA
9 12 (2.30%) JNCIP
10 11 (2.11%) Network+ Certification
11 6 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (0.57%) AWS Certification
12 3 (0.57%) Azure Certification
12 3 (0.57%) CCSE
13 2 (0.38%) CCIE Wireless
13 2 (0.38%) CCSM
13 2 (0.38%) CompTIA Security+
13 2 (0.38%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (0.96%) SLA
2 4 (0.77%) NIST
3 3 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
3 3 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (0.57%) PCI DSS
3 3 (0.57%) QA
4 2 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (0.38%) GDPR
4 2 (0.38%) NCSC
4 2 (0.38%) PMO
5 1 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.19%) GRC
5 1 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
5 1 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.19%) JSP 440
System Software
1 53 (10.15%) VMware Infrastructure
2 41 (7.85%) VMware NSX
3 27 (5.17%) Firmware
4 23 (4.41%) Active Directory
5 5 (0.96%) Docker
5 5 (0.96%) vSphere
6 4 (0.77%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.77%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.38%) KVM
7 2 (0.38%) vCloud
8 1 (0.19%) Citrix Presentation Server
8 1 (0.19%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.19%) RHEV
8 1 (0.19%) Snort
8 1 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 40 (7.66%) Ansible
2 29 (5.56%) FortiGate
3 24 (4.60%) Terraform
4 8 (1.53%) vCenter Server
5 7 (1.34%) Single Sign-On
6 6 (1.15%) Nagios
7 5 (0.96%) Cisco Prime
7 5 (0.96%) Kubernetes
8 3 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.38%) WSUS
10 1 (0.19%) Backup Exec
10 1 (0.19%) CASB
10 1 (0.19%) Iperf
10 1 (0.19%) Nessus
10 1 (0.19%) Norton AntiVirus
10 1 (0.19%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.19%) SCOM
10 1 (0.19%) Suricata
10 1 (0.19%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 302 (57.85%) Cisco
2 118 (22.61%) Palo Alto
3 102 (19.54%) F5
4 86 (16.48%) Juniper
5 74 (14.18%) VMware
6 55 (10.54%) Aruba
7 49 (9.39%) CheckPoint
8 38 (7.28%) SolarWinds
9 34 (6.51%) Blue Coat
9 34 (6.51%) McAfee
10 33 (6.32%) Fortinet
11 30 (5.75%) Meraki
12 24 (4.60%) Microsoft
13 21 (4.02%) NetApp
14 19 (3.64%) ServiceNow
15 15 (2.87%) Ekahau
16 14 (2.68%) Google
17 12 (2.30%) Extreme Networks
18 11 (2.11%) Splunk
19 10 (1.92%) Arista