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 £469, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 February 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 71 58
Rank change year-on-year -48 -13 +49
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 433 432 673
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.12% 3.22% 3.21%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.33% 3.49% 3.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 289 250 390
10th Percentile £299 £299 £294
25th Percentile £400 £400 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.41% +2.78% -
75th Percentile £525 £550 £519
90th Percentile £575 £613 £631
UK median daily rate £475 £477 £460
% change year-on-year -0.42% +3.70% -0.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 6 27
10th Percentile £20.40 £19.25 £22.65
25th Percentile £44.86 - £42.50
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 £74.75
UK median hourly rate £52.58 £20.00 £63.00
% change year-on-year +162.90% -68.25% +1.61%

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 18,595 12,382 19,513
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.15% 92.41% 93.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,161 7,563 12,221
10th Percentile £230 £210 £213
25th Percentile £381 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £578 £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 1,982 639 1,945
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.36 £12.86
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.95
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% -9.60% +0.42%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.00 £72.65
UK median hourly rate £31.49 £34.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.38% -2.86% -10.26%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +14 149 £485 -3.00% 87
North of England -63 137 £481 - 53
North West -29 115 £481 -1.79% 30
Midlands -11 79 £419 -6.94% 40
West Midlands +1 73 £400 -9.35% 20
Scotland +8 42 £418 +0.60% 37
East of England -20 27 £381 +26.03% 21
Yorkshire -73 22 £470 +29.66% 16
South West -59 21 £500 +5.82% 45
Wales -6 15 £550 +62.96% 12
East Midlands -36 4 £500 +11.11% 20
Northern Ireland - 3 £475 - 5
North East -21 1 - - 7
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 21 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.

1 275 (63.51%) Cisco
2 212 (48.96%) Firewall
3 188 (43.42%) Security Cleared
4 133 (30.72%) SC Cleared
5 125 (28.87%) WAN
6 123 (28.41%) Cisco Certification
7 116 (26.79%) LAN
8 104 (24.02%) Palo Alto
9 103 (23.79%) CCNP
10 99 (22.86%) BGP
11 97 (22.40%) DNS
12 96 (22.17%) VPN
13 84 (19.40%) F5
14 83 (19.17%) Network Security
15 79 (18.24%) Load Balancing
16 76 (17.55%) Juniper
17 67 (15.47%) OSPF
18 62 (14.32%) TCP/IP
19 61 (14.09%) CCNA
20 60 (13.86%) VMware
21 56 (12.93%) DV Cleared
22 54 (12.47%) Cisco ISE
23 52 (12.01%) CheckPoint
24 50 (11.55%) SolarWinds
24 50 (11.55%) Wireless
25 49 (11.32%) VLAN
26 48 (11.09%) Python
27 47 (10.85%) SSL
28 45 (10.39%) Ansible
28 45 (10.39%) 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 (1.85%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.62%) Confluence
3 5 (1.15%) Apache
3 5 (1.15%) IIS
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 19 (4.39%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 28 (6.47%) AWS
2 25 (5.77%) Azure
3 7 (1.62%) Entra ID
3 7 (1.62%) GCP
4 6 (1.39%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 5 (1.15%) Nutanix
6 4 (0.92%) SaaS
7 3 (0.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 3 (0.69%) Amazon EC2
7 3 (0.69%) Amazon ELB
7 3 (0.69%) Amazon S3
7 3 (0.69%) Catchpoint
7 3 (0.69%) IaaS
7 3 (0.69%) Mimecast
7 3 (0.69%) PaaS
8 2 (0.46%) AWS IoT
8 2 (0.46%) GitHub
8 2 (0.46%) Google Ads
8 2 (0.46%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 1 (0.23%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 212 (48.96%) Firewall
2 125 (28.87%) WAN
3 116 (26.79%) LAN
4 99 (22.86%) BGP
5 97 (22.40%) DNS
6 96 (22.17%) VPN
7 83 (19.17%) Network Security
8 67 (15.47%) OSPF
9 62 (14.32%) TCP/IP
10 54 (12.47%) Cisco ISE
11 50 (11.55%) Wireless
12 49 (11.32%) VLAN
13 47 (10.85%) SSL
14 43 (9.93%) BIG-IP
15 41 (9.47%) IPsec
16 39 (9.01%) MPLS
16 39 (9.01%) Wireshark
17 37 (8.55%) HTTP
17 37 (8.55%) Wi-Fi
18 36 (8.31%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.23%) Oracle Database
1 1 (0.23%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 30 (6.93%) Fiddler
2 11 (2.54%) JIRA
3 9 (2.08%) Sonatype Nexus
4 6 (1.39%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.92%) Git
6 3 (0.69%) GitLab
7 1 (0.23%) ClearCase
General
1 70 (16.17%) Social Skills
2 37 (8.55%) Banking
3 36 (8.31%) Public Sector
4 35 (8.08%) Investment Banking
5 33 (7.62%) Documentation Skills
6 25 (5.77%) Telecoms
7 17 (3.93%) Manufacturing
8 13 (3.00%) Analytical Skills
9 11 (2.54%) Finance
9 11 (2.54%) Legal
10 4 (0.92%) Military
11 3 (0.69%) Electronics
11 3 (0.69%) Law
11 3 (0.69%) Marketing
12 2 (0.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.46%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.46%) Pharmaceutical
13 1 (0.23%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.23%) Financial Institution
13 1 (0.23%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (6.24%) 802.1X
2 7 (1.62%) LDAP
3 5 (1.15%) RFC 2544
3 5 (1.15%) SAML
4 1 (0.23%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 107 (24.71%) Data Centre
2 22 (5.08%) Management Information System
3 14 (3.23%) PKI
4 13 (3.00%) Operational Technology
5 12 (2.77%) NHS
6 11 (2.54%) Onboarding
7 10 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (1.85%) Security Posture
10 7 (1.62%) Clustering
11 5 (1.15%) Fibre Optics
11 5 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
12 4 (0.92%) Driving Licence
12 4 (0.92%) IoT
13 3 (0.69%) 3D Printing
13 3 (0.69%) Enterprise Software
13 3 (0.69%) Linux Command Line
13 3 (0.69%) Public Cloud
13 3 (0.69%) Virtual Team
14 2 (0.46%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 45 (10.39%) Windows
2 25 (5.77%) Windows Server
3 19 (4.39%) Linux
4 3 (0.69%) CatOS
5 1 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
5 1 (0.23%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.23%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (18.24%) Load Balancing
2 37 (8.55%) Problem-Solving
3 36 (8.31%) High Availability
4 35 (8.08%) Network Design
5 33 (7.62%) Network Monitoring
6 32 (7.39%) Migration
7 28 (6.47%) Project Delivery
8 27 (6.24%) Data Loss Prevention
8 27 (6.24%) Malware Detection/Protection
9 26 (6.00%) ITSM
9 26 (6.00%) Service Management
10 25 (5.77%) Collaborative Working
10 25 (5.77%) ITIL
11 24 (5.54%) Network Architecture
12 23 (5.31%) Network Management
13 22 (5.08%) Cybersecurity
14 18 (4.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 18 (4.16%) Network Segmentation
15 17 (3.93%) Change Management
16 15 (3.46%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 48 (11.09%) Python
2 11 (2.54%) Bash
3 8 (1.85%) Lisp
4 7 (1.62%) Perl
4 7 (1.62%) PowerShell
5 4 (0.92%) SQL
6 1 (0.23%) C
6 1 (0.23%) C++
6 1 (0.23%) Java
6 1 (0.23%) PHP
6 1 (0.23%) Ruby
6 1 (0.23%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 188 (43.42%) Security Cleared
2 133 (30.72%) SC Cleared
3 123 (28.41%) Cisco Certification
4 103 (23.79%) CCNP
5 61 (14.09%) CCNA
6 56 (12.93%) DV Cleared
7 16 (3.70%) Degree
7 16 (3.70%) JNCIS
8 13 (3.00%) CCIE
8 13 (3.00%) JNCIA
9 10 (2.31%) JNCIP
10 9 (2.08%) Network+ Certification
11 3 (0.69%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (0.46%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (0.46%) CCDP
12 2 (0.46%) CompTIA Security+
12 2 (0.46%) ISTQB
12 2 (0.46%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 2 (0.46%) MCSE
12 2 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 5 (1.15%) NIST
2 4 (0.92%) PCI DSS
2 4 (0.92%) SLA
3 3 (0.69%) QA
4 2 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (0.46%) GDPR
4 2 (0.46%) NCSC
4 2 (0.46%) PMO
5 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.23%) GRC
5 1 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
5 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 1 (0.23%) JSP 440
System Software
1 42 (9.70%) VMware NSX
2 37 (8.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (6.93%) Active Directory
4 23 (5.31%) Firmware
5 8 (1.85%) Docker
6 5 (1.15%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.92%) vSphere
8 2 (0.46%) KVM
8 2 (0.46%) vCloud
8 2 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.23%) Citrix Presentation Server
9 1 (0.23%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.23%) RHEV
9 1 (0.23%) Xen
Systems Management
1 45 (10.39%) Ansible
2 28 (6.47%) FortiGate
3 19 (4.39%) vCenter Server
4 16 (3.70%) Terraform
5 5 (1.15%) Nagios
5 5 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
7 3 (0.69%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.46%) Dell DRAC
8 2 (0.46%) Kubernetes
8 2 (0.46%) WSUS
9 1 (0.23%) Amdocs OSS
9 1 (0.23%) Backup Exec
9 1 (0.23%) CASB
9 1 (0.23%) Nessus
9 1 (0.23%) Norton AntiVirus
9 1 (0.23%) Proxmox
9 1 (0.23%) SCOM
9 1 (0.23%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 275 (63.51%) Cisco
2 104 (24.02%) Palo Alto
3 84 (19.40%) F5
4 76 (17.55%) Juniper
5 60 (13.86%) VMware
6 52 (12.01%) CheckPoint
7 50 (11.55%) SolarWinds
8 43 (9.93%) Aruba
9 41 (9.47%) Blue Coat
10 37 (8.55%) McAfee
11 33 (7.62%) Meraki
12 30 (6.93%) Fortinet
13 24 (5.54%) Microsoft
14 21 (4.85%) NetApp
15 14 (3.23%) ServiceNow
16 10 (2.31%) Arista
16 10 (2.31%) Ekahau
16 10 (2.31%) Remedy
17 9 (2.08%) Extreme Networks
18 8 (1.85%) Splunk