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 28 September 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 105 107 57
Rank change year-on-year +2 -50 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 651 345 576
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.32% 2.22% 3.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.54% 2.48% 3.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 345 251 305
10th Percentile £303 £305 £275
25th Percentile £400 £399 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.63% - +11.76%
75th Percentile £537 £553 £550
90th Percentile £600 £638 £634
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £495
% change year-on-year -0.07% -4.04% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 8 16
10th Percentile £8.00 £21.65 £19.25
25th Percentile £58.91 £22.38 £20.00
Median hourly rate £73.00 £38.25 £35.48
Median % change year-on-year +90.85% +7.81% -44.55%
75th Percentile £78.75 £71.19 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £84.99 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £73.00 £34.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +111.59% -23.33% -27.42%

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 25,627 13,914 16,307
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.16% 89.69% 92.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,982 8,564 9,302
10th Percentile £302 £210 £220
25th Percentile £413 £360 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £594
90th Percentile £688 £663 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,399 1,306 1,339
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.63
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.30 £19.59
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.08 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.50% -41.69% -2.27%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.56 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.50 £69.83 £74.77
UK median hourly rate £41.72 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.89% -41.51% -3.37%

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 28 September 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 28 September 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 28 September 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 +22 248 £498 +1.63% 106
North West +18 167 £500 +2.30% 61
Midlands -8 106 £475 +18.75% 79
South East -50 95 £463 -7.50% 86
West Midlands -18 86 £475 +23.38% 52
Scotland +10 82 £400 -5.88% 29
Yorkshire -8 68 £450 -8.07% 30
South West -8 60 £550 -7.95% 64
East of England +9 59 £438 +14.38% 64
Wales +19 36 £363 - 18
East Midlands -2 19 £500 -23.08% 27
North East -28 13 £600 - 15
Northern Ireland +1 3 £425 -10.53% 12
Channel Islands -2 2 £600 +36.36% 2
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 September 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.

1 357 (54.84%) Cisco
2 236 (36.25%) Firewall
3 191 (29.34%) Security Cleared
4 179 (27.50%) WAN
5 174 (26.73%) LAN
6 151 (23.20%) Cisco Certification
7 147 (22.58%) Network Security
8 142 (21.81%) VPN
9 140 (21.51%) Wireless
10 132 (20.28%) BGP
11 118 (18.13%) SC Cleared
12 114 (17.51%) DNS
13 111 (17.05%) CCNP
14 110 (16.90%) Palo Alto
15 97 (14.90%) F5
16 92 (14.13%) OSPF
17 87 (13.36%) Load Balancing
18 77 (11.83%) Wi-Fi
19 76 (11.67%) Problem-Solving
20 71 (10.91%) VLAN
21 70 (10.75%) CCNA
22 69 (10.60%) VMware
23 68 (10.45%) DV Cleared
24 67 (10.29%) SD-WAN
24 67 (10.29%) TCP/IP
25 61 (9.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
26 60 (9.22%) Python
27 58 (8.91%) Fortinet
28 53 (8.14%) CheckPoint
29 52 (7.99%) ITIL

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 5 (0.77%) Confluence
3 1 (0.15%) CMS
3 1 (0.15%) FactoryTalk
3 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 12 (1.84%) MS Visio
2 5 (0.77%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 49 (7.53%) Azure
2 42 (6.45%) AWS
3 27 (4.15%) GCP
4 18 (2.76%) GitHub
5 9 (1.38%) IaaS
6 8 (1.23%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (1.08%) Entra ID
8 6 (0.92%) AWS Direct Connect
8 6 (0.92%) Nutanix
8 6 (0.92%) OCI
9 5 (0.77%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 4 (0.61%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (0.61%) Azure Sentinel
10 4 (0.61%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (0.46%) Cloudflare
12 2 (0.31%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 2 (0.31%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 1 (0.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 1 (0.15%) AWS CloudTrail
13 1 (0.15%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 236 (36.25%) Firewall
2 179 (27.50%) WAN
3 174 (26.73%) LAN
4 147 (22.58%) Network Security
5 142 (21.81%) VPN
6 140 (21.51%) Wireless
7 132 (20.28%) BGP
8 114 (17.51%) DNS
9 92 (14.13%) OSPF
10 77 (11.83%) Wi-Fi
11 71 (10.91%) VLAN
12 67 (10.29%) SD-WAN
12 67 (10.29%) TCP/IP
13 51 (7.83%) Cisco ASA
14 50 (7.68%) MPLS
15 47 (7.22%) SSL
16 46 (7.07%) Cisco Nexus
16 46 (7.07%) DHCP
17 42 (6.45%) Cisco Firepower
18 39 (5.99%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.77%) GIS
2 1 (0.15%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 19 (2.92%) Git
2 17 (2.61%) Jenkins
3 15 (2.30%) JIRA
4 12 (1.84%) Fiddler
5 8 (1.23%) GitLab
6 2 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.15%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.15%) Browser DevTools
General
1 85 (13.06%) Social Skills
2 41 (6.30%) Telecoms
3 39 (5.99%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (5.84%) Banking
5 37 (5.68%) Public Sector
6 30 (4.61%) Finance
7 26 (3.99%) Investment Banking
8 17 (2.61%) Manufacturing
9 15 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
10 13 (2.00%) Legal
11 9 (1.38%) Aerospace
12 7 (1.08%) Police
13 4 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.61%) Military
13 4 (0.61%) Retail
14 3 (0.46%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.31%) Law
15 2 (0.31%) Pharmaceutical
16 1 (0.15%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (5.68%) Terraform
2 24 (3.69%) 802.1X
3 11 (1.69%) REST
4 9 (1.38%) NETCONF
5 6 (0.92%) SAML
6 5 (0.77%) JSON
6 5 (0.77%) XML
6 5 (0.77%) YAML
7 3 (0.46%) Java RMI
8 2 (0.31%) LDAP
8 2 (0.31%) ModSecurity
9 1 (0.15%) Jinja
9 1 (0.15%) RESTCONF
9 1 (0.15%) XMPP
9 1 (0.15%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 94 (14.44%) Data Centre
2 21 (3.23%) Driving Licence
3 20 (3.07%) Hybrid Cloud
3 20 (3.07%) PKI
4 18 (2.76%) Management Information System
4 18 (2.76%) Operational Technology
5 17 (2.61%) Onboarding
5 17 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
6 12 (1.84%) Cloud Native
7 10 (1.54%) SCADA
8 9 (1.38%) Security Posture
9 8 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (1.23%) Public Cloud
10 7 (1.08%) Fibre Optics
11 6 (0.92%) Video Conferencing
12 5 (0.77%) CMDB
12 5 (0.77%) Private Cloud
13 4 (0.61%) Cyber Defence
13 4 (0.61%) Handset
13 4 (0.61%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 42 (6.45%) Windows
2 35 (5.38%) Linux
3 12 (1.84%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.61%) Unix
6 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.15%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
6 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (13.36%) Load Balancing
2 76 (11.67%) Problem-Solving
3 61 (9.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 52 (7.99%) ITIL
5 50 (7.68%) Migration
5 50 (7.68%) Project Delivery
6 43 (6.61%) Network Monitoring
7 42 (6.45%) High Availability
7 42 (6.45%) Network Design
8 39 (5.99%) Continuous Improvement
8 39 (5.99%) Validation
9 35 (5.38%) Change Management
10 31 (4.76%) Infrastructure as Code
11 29 (4.45%) CI/CD
11 29 (4.45%) Network Management
12 28 (4.30%) Network Segmentation
12 28 (4.30%) Technical Leadership
13 27 (4.15%) Zero Trust
14 26 (3.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 25 (3.84%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 60 (9.22%) Python
2 18 (2.76%) PowerShell
3 15 (2.30%) Bash
4 9 (1.38%) ActionScript
5 6 (0.92%) SQL
6 3 (0.46%) C++
6 3 (0.46%) Perl
7 2 (0.31%) Search Processing Language
8 1 (0.15%) Go
8 1 (0.15%) Groovy
8 1 (0.15%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 191 (29.34%) Security Cleared
2 151 (23.20%) Cisco Certification
3 118 (18.13%) SC Cleared
4 111 (17.05%) CCNP
5 70 (10.75%) CCNA
6 68 (10.45%) DV Cleared
7 24 (3.69%) CCIE
8 21 (3.23%) Degree
9 8 (1.23%) CISSP
10 6 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
11 5 (0.77%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.61%) CCSE
12 4 (0.61%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (0.61%) JNCIS
13 3 (0.46%) AWS Certification
13 3 (0.46%) CWNA
13 3 (0.46%) GIAC
13 3 (0.46%) JNCIP
13 3 (0.46%) Server+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.15%) SLA
2 13 (2.00%) NIST
2 13 (2.00%) QA
3 7 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (0.77%) Disclosure Scotland
4 5 (0.77%) PCI DSS
5 3 (0.46%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.31%) GDPR
6 2 (0.31%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.31%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 51 (7.83%) VMware Infrastructure
2 24 (3.69%) Active Directory
3 23 (3.53%) Firmware
3 23 (3.53%) VMware NSX
4 16 (2.46%) vSphere
5 7 (1.08%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.92%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.77%) FreeRADIUS
8 2 (0.31%) Docker
8 2 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.15%) Squid
Systems Management
1 46 (7.07%) Ansible
2 20 (3.07%) FortiGate
3 11 (1.69%) Nagios
4 10 (1.54%) Kubernetes
5 7 (1.08%) Progress Chef
6 5 (0.77%) Cisco CUCM
6 5 (0.77%) Cisco Prime
7 4 (0.61%) Grafana
7 4 (0.61%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.31%) Avamar
9 2 (0.31%) Puppet
9 2 (0.31%) SolarWinds Orion
10 1 (0.15%) CASB
10 1 (0.15%) Cilium
10 1 (0.15%) Istio
10 1 (0.15%) Packer
10 1 (0.15%) SCOM
10 1 (0.15%) TrustSec
10 1 (0.15%) WSUS
Vendors
1 357 (54.84%) Cisco
2 110 (16.90%) Palo Alto
3 97 (14.90%) F5
4 69 (10.60%) VMware
5 58 (8.91%) Fortinet
6 53 (8.14%) CheckPoint
7 45 (6.91%) Juniper
8 42 (6.45%) Meraki
9 37 (5.68%) Microsoft
10 35 (5.38%) SolarWinds
11 30 (4.61%) Aruba
12 22 (3.38%) Nokia
13 19 (2.92%) ServiceNow
14 17 (2.61%) Blue Coat
15 16 (2.46%) Arista
16 15 (2.30%) McAfee
17 14 (2.15%) NetApp
18 12 (1.84%) Zscaler
19 11 (1.69%) Google
20 9 (1.38%) Infoblox