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 £474, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 August 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 99 94 62
Rank change year-on-year -5 -32 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 653 383 557
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.36% 2.48% 3.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.58% 2.76% 3.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 380 270 330
10th Percentile £307 £306 £272
25th Percentile £401 £380 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.17% - +11.76%
75th Percentile £540 £575 £538
90th Percentile £600 £626 £626
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £485
% change year-on-year - -2.06% +7.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 9 13
10th Percentile £49.60 £21.77 £18.84
25th Percentile £72.02 £22.50 £20.74
Median hourly rate £77.50 £41.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +86.75% -20.95% -12.50%
75th Percentile £91.00 £76.25 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £84.33 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £75.75 £57.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +31.74% +9.52% -8.95%

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 25,334 13,887 16,772
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.69% 90.05% 92.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,259 8,518 10,100
10th Percentile £304 £213 £220
25th Percentile £410 £360 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £650 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,066 1,264 1,652
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.36 £13.87
25th Percentile £20.44 £16.41 £18.27
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £73.60 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.13 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.50% -41.51% -1.71%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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 24 August 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 +16 256 £500 +2.15% 60
North West +19 179 £500 +5.26% 27
South East -43 124 £463 -7.50% 48
Midlands -12 104 £475 +18.75% 45
West Midlands -7 97 £475 +27.95% 24
Scotland +24 81 £400 -5.88% 15
Yorkshire -9 64 £463 -6.00% 23
South West -23 57 £550 -4.35% 40
East of England -10 44 £475 +21.41% 33
Wales +9 34 £425 -3.41% 15
North East -29 13 £600 - 10
East Midlands -18 5 £500 -9.09% 21
Northern Ireland +1 2 £488 -7.14% 4
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 24 August 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.

1 362 (55.44%) Cisco
2 253 (38.74%) Firewall
3 201 (30.78%) Security Cleared
4 189 (28.94%) WAN
5 184 (28.18%) LAN
6 165 (25.27%) Cisco Certification
7 156 (23.89%) VPN
8 144 (22.05%) Network Security
9 143 (21.90%) BGP
10 138 (21.13%) Wireless
11 133 (20.37%) DNS
12 130 (19.91%) SC Cleared
13 118 (18.07%) CCNP
14 117 (17.92%) F5
14 117 (17.92%) Palo Alto
15 104 (15.93%) Load Balancing
16 96 (14.70%) OSPF
17 88 (13.48%) Wi-Fi
18 80 (12.25%) CCNA
19 79 (12.10%) VLAN
19 79 (12.10%) VMware
20 74 (11.33%) SD-WAN
21 73 (11.18%) TCP/IP
22 67 (10.26%) DV Cleared
23 65 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
24 63 (9.65%) VMware Infrastructure
25 60 (9.19%) Azure
26 59 (9.04%) Fortinet
26 59 (9.04%) High Availability
27 58 (8.88%) 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 8 (1.23%) SAS
2 1 (0.15%) CMS
2 1 (0.15%) Confluence
2 1 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
2 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 13 (1.99%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.92%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 60 (9.19%) Azure
2 50 (7.66%) AWS
3 29 (4.44%) GCP
4 22 (3.37%) GitHub
5 8 (1.23%) AWS Direct Connect
5 8 (1.23%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (1.07%) IaaS
6 7 (1.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 6 (0.92%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 6 (0.92%) Azure Sentinel
7 6 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
7 6 (0.92%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 6 (0.92%) Nutanix
7 6 (0.92%) OCI
8 5 (0.77%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (0.46%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (0.46%) Cloudflare
9 3 (0.46%) Entra ID
9 3 (0.46%) Google Compute Engine
9 3 (0.46%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 253 (38.74%) Firewall
2 189 (28.94%) WAN
3 184 (28.18%) LAN
4 156 (23.89%) VPN
5 144 (22.05%) Network Security
6 143 (21.90%) BGP
7 138 (21.13%) Wireless
8 133 (20.37%) DNS
9 96 (14.70%) OSPF
10 88 (13.48%) Wi-Fi
11 79 (12.10%) VLAN
12 74 (11.33%) SD-WAN
13 73 (11.18%) TCP/IP
14 58 (8.88%) Cisco ASA
15 50 (7.66%) Cisco Nexus
15 50 (7.66%) DHCP
16 49 (7.50%) Cisco Firepower
17 45 (6.89%) MPLS
18 44 (6.74%) BIG-IP
19 42 (6.43%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.15%) GIS
1 1 (0.15%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 21 (3.22%) Jenkins
2 17 (2.60%) Git
3 16 (2.45%) Fiddler
4 14 (2.14%) JIRA
5 11 (1.68%) GitLab
6 2 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 88 (13.48%) Social Skills
2 42 (6.43%) Analytical Skills
2 42 (6.43%) Public Sector
3 40 (6.13%) Banking
4 39 (5.97%) Telecoms
5 32 (4.90%) Investment Banking
6 29 (4.44%) Finance
7 19 (2.91%) Manufacturing
8 16 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
9 13 (1.99%) Legal
10 9 (1.38%) Aerospace
10 9 (1.38%) Police
11 6 (0.92%) Retail
12 4 (0.61%) Military
13 3 (0.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.46%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.31%) Law
14 2 (0.31%) Pharmaceutical
15 1 (0.15%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (5.82%) Terraform
2 29 (4.44%) 802.1X
3 8 (1.23%) NETCONF
3 8 (1.23%) REST
4 7 (1.07%) SAML
5 3 (0.46%) Java RMI
5 3 (0.46%) JSON
5 3 (0.46%) LDAP
5 3 (0.46%) YAML
6 1 (0.15%) Jinja
6 1 (0.15%) ModSecurity
6 1 (0.15%) RESTCONF
6 1 (0.15%) XML
6 1 (0.15%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 86 (13.17%) Data Centre
2 22 (3.37%) PKI
3 20 (3.06%) Hybrid Cloud
4 19 (2.91%) Management Information System
5 17 (2.60%) Driving Licence
6 14 (2.14%) Cloud Native
7 11 (1.68%) Onboarding
8 10 (1.53%) Operational Technology
8 10 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
10 7 (1.07%) Public Cloud
10 7 (1.07%) Security Posture
11 5 (0.77%) NHS
11 5 (0.77%) Private Cloud
11 5 (0.77%) SCADA
12 4 (0.61%) CMDB
12 4 (0.61%) Fibre Optics
13 3 (0.46%) Distributed Systems
14 2 (0.31%) Legacy Systems
14 2 (0.31%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 46 (7.04%) Windows
2 34 (5.21%) Linux
3 6 (0.92%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.77%) Unix
5 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.15%) Solaris
5 1 (0.15%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
5 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
5 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (15.93%) Load Balancing
2 65 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
3 59 (9.04%) High Availability
4 57 (8.73%) Migration
5 56 (8.58%) ITIL
6 52 (7.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 49 (7.50%) Network Monitoring
8 47 (7.20%) Project Delivery
9 37 (5.67%) Change Management
9 37 (5.67%) Validation
10 35 (5.36%) Technical Leadership
11 34 (5.21%) Continuous Improvement
12 33 (5.05%) Network Design
13 29 (4.44%) CI/CD
13 29 (4.44%) Network Management
13 29 (4.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 27 (4.13%) Infrastructure as Code
15 26 (3.98%) Network Virtualisation
16 24 (3.68%) Network Segmentation
17 22 (3.37%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 47 (7.20%) Python
2 11 (1.68%) Bash
3 9 (1.38%) PowerShell
4 7 (1.07%) ActionScript
5 6 (0.92%) SQL
6 3 (0.46%) C++
7 2 (0.31%) Perl
8 1 (0.15%) Go
8 1 (0.15%) Groovy
8 1 (0.15%) Search Processing Language
8 1 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 201 (30.78%) Security Cleared
2 165 (25.27%) Cisco Certification
3 130 (19.91%) SC Cleared
4 118 (18.07%) CCNP
5 80 (12.25%) CCNA
6 67 (10.26%) DV Cleared
7 24 (3.68%) CCIE
8 21 (3.22%) Degree
9 8 (1.23%) CISSP
9 8 (1.23%) Network+ Certification
10 7 (1.07%) JNCIS
11 6 (0.92%) AWS Certification
11 6 (0.92%) CCSE
11 6 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (0.92%) JNCIA
12 5 (0.77%) CCIE Wireless
12 5 (0.77%) CCSM
12 5 (0.77%) CWNA
12 5 (0.77%) DBS Check
12 5 (0.77%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (2.45%) SLA
2 10 (1.53%) QA
3 9 (1.38%) NIST
4 8 (1.23%) Disclosure Scotland
5 4 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.31%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.31%) GDPR
6 2 (0.31%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.31%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (0.15%) NIST 800
System Software
1 63 (9.65%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (4.44%) VMware NSX
3 26 (3.98%) Firmware
4 17 (2.60%) Active Directory
5 10 (1.53%) vSphere
6 9 (1.38%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.77%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.46%) Docker
8 3 (0.46%) FreeRADIUS
9 2 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.15%) Snort
10 1 (0.15%) Squid
10 1 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 38 (5.82%) Ansible
2 24 (3.68%) FortiGate
3 11 (1.68%) Kubernetes
4 6 (0.92%) Cisco Prime
5 5 (0.77%) Cisco CUCM
6 4 (0.61%) Nagios
6 4 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.46%) Progress Chef
7 3 (0.46%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.31%) Avamar
8 2 (0.31%) Grafana
8 2 (0.31%) Puppet
8 2 (0.31%) SolarWinds Orion
9 1 (0.15%) Argo
9 1 (0.15%) CASB
9 1 (0.15%) Cilium
9 1 (0.15%) Iperf
9 1 (0.15%) Istio
9 1 (0.15%) Packer
9 1 (0.15%) Suricata
Vendors
1 362 (55.44%) Cisco
2 117 (17.92%) F5
2 117 (17.92%) Palo Alto
3 79 (12.10%) VMware
4 59 (9.04%) Fortinet
5 58 (8.88%) CheckPoint
6 55 (8.42%) Juniper
7 38 (5.82%) Aruba
8 34 (5.21%) Microsoft
9 31 (4.75%) Meraki
10 29 (4.44%) SolarWinds
11 22 (3.37%) ServiceNow
12 20 (3.06%) Google
12 20 (3.06%) McAfee
12 20 (3.06%) Nokia
13 18 (2.76%) Blue Coat
13 18 (2.76%) NetApp
14 15 (2.30%) Ekahau
15 12 (1.84%) Arista
16 11 (1.68%) Infoblox