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 £491, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 November 2025.

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

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 116 63 67
Rank change year-on-year -53 +4 +60
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 388 547 661
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.22% 3.33% 3.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.47% 3.61% 3.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 278 299 385
10th Percentile £306 £300 £257
25th Percentile £400 £404 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £475 £438
Median % change year-on-year +3.32% +8.57% -0.57%
75th Percentile £565 £550 £525
90th Percentile £622 £625 £600
UK median daily rate £475 £490 £450
% change year-on-year -3.06% +8.89% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 12 32
10th Percentile £20.75 - £24.55
25th Percentile £22.27 £20.00 £41.34
Median hourly rate £41.50 £21.39 £62.75
Median % change year-on-year +94.04% -65.92% +136.08%
75th Percentile £74.26 £54.06 £66.36
90th Percentile £83.00 £73.00 £76.15
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £41.50 £62.75
% change year-on-year -15.66% -33.86% +23.65%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 15,725 15,172 19,359
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.80% 92.29% 93.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,724 8,689 12,774
10th Percentile £208 £219 £213
25th Percentile £363 £375 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £590 £600
90th Percentile £675 £676 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,565 1,039 1,269
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.09 £14.40
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +86.55%
75th Percentile £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.16 £73.75 £77.10
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -30.14% -20.00% +55.71%

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 19 November 2025.

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 19 November 2025.

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 19 November 2025. 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 -13 114 £500 - 97
North of England -71 106 £500 +2.30% 23
North West -45 78 £500 +2.04% 14
Midlands -26 74 £400 -10.61% 36
West Midlands +1 69 £395 -21.00% 30
Scotland +6 47 £425 +6.25% 18
East of England -14 30 £388 +29.17% 21
Yorkshire -67 26 £490 +19.03% 5
South West -33 25 £623 +31.75% 14
Wales -9 7 £550 +37.50% 6
Northern Ireland -6 5 £475 +6.74% 5
East Midlands -40 5 £650 +73.33% 6
North East -6 3 £625 +38.89% 4
Channel Islands - 1 £440 -
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 19 November 2025, 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.

1 257 (66.24%) Cisco
2 171 (44.07%) Firewall
3 168 (43.30%) Security Cleared
4 120 (30.93%) Cisco Certification
5 109 (28.09%) SC Cleared
6 96 (24.74%) WAN
7 86 (22.16%) CCNP
8 83 (21.39%) Juniper
9 72 (18.56%) BGP
9 72 (18.56%) Palo Alto
10 69 (17.78%) VPN
11 68 (17.53%) LAN
12 66 (17.01%) DNS
13 65 (16.75%) Network Security
14 61 (15.72%) CCNA
15 60 (15.46%) F5
16 59 (15.21%) Cisco ISE
17 57 (14.69%) Python
18 52 (13.40%) DV Cleared
18 52 (13.40%) Load Balancing
18 52 (13.40%) SolarWinds
18 52 (13.40%) Wireless
19 45 (11.60%) Ansible
20 43 (11.08%) Cisco IOS
21 41 (10.57%) TCP/IP
22 40 (10.31%) Network Design
23 39 (10.05%) OSPF
24 38 (9.79%) CheckPoint
24 38 (9.79%) VMware
25 37 (9.54%) MPLS

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 (2.06%) Confluence
1 8 (2.06%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.52%) Apache
2 2 (0.52%) IIS
Applications
1 13 (3.35%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (3.09%) MS Visio
3 6 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 26 (6.70%) Azure
2 25 (6.44%) AWS
3 8 (2.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 4 (1.03%) AWS Direct Connect
5 3 (0.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 3 (0.77%) Amazon EC2
5 3 (0.77%) Amazon ELB
5 3 (0.77%) Amazon S3
5 3 (0.77%) Entra ID
5 3 (0.77%) Nutanix
6 2 (0.52%) AWS IoT
6 2 (0.52%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 2 (0.52%) Mimecast
7 1 (0.26%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (0.26%) GCP
7 1 (0.26%) GitHub
7 1 (0.26%) Lucidchart
7 1 (0.26%) OCI
7 1 (0.26%) PaaS
7 1 (0.26%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 171 (44.07%) Firewall
2 96 (24.74%) WAN
3 72 (18.56%) BGP
4 69 (17.78%) VPN
5 68 (17.53%) LAN
6 66 (17.01%) DNS
7 65 (16.75%) Network Security
8 59 (15.21%) Cisco ISE
9 52 (13.40%) Wireless
10 43 (11.08%) Cisco IOS
11 41 (10.57%) TCP/IP
12 39 (10.05%) OSPF
13 37 (9.54%) MPLS
14 35 (9.02%) VLAN
15 34 (8.76%) SD-WAN
15 34 (8.76%) Wi-Fi
16 33 (8.51%) Cisco Firepower
17 30 (7.73%) DHCP
17 30 (7.73%) Junos
18 27 (6.96%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.26%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 14 (3.61%) JIRA
2 13 (3.35%) Fiddler
3 5 (1.29%) Robot Framework
4 4 (1.03%) GitLab
4 4 (1.03%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.03%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.77%) Git
6 1 (0.26%) ClearCase
General
1 72 (18.56%) Social Skills
2 45 (11.60%) Public Sector
3 29 (7.47%) Telecoms
4 26 (6.70%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (5.15%) Banking
6 18 (4.64%) Investment Banking
7 15 (3.87%) Manufacturing
8 11 (2.84%) Finance
9 10 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (2.32%) Legal
11 4 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.52%) Electronics
12 2 (0.52%) Financial Institution
12 2 (0.52%) Marketing
12 2 (0.52%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.26%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.26%) French Language
13 1 (0.26%) Military
13 1 (0.26%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (5.41%) 802.1X
2 9 (2.32%) RFC 2544
3 7 (1.80%) NETCONF
3 7 (1.80%) RESTCONF
4 1 (0.26%) CSS
4 1 (0.26%) gRPC
4 1 (0.26%) HTML
4 1 (0.26%) Jinja
4 1 (0.26%) JSON
4 1 (0.26%) Node.js
4 1 (0.26%) REST
4 1 (0.26%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 67 (17.27%) Data Centre
2 19 (4.90%) Management Information System
3 16 (4.12%) PKI
4 14 (3.61%) Onboarding
5 10 (2.58%) Data Protection Act
5 10 (2.58%) Fibre Optics
6 9 (2.32%) Operational Technology
7 8 (2.06%) Driving Licence
8 7 (1.80%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.29%) Hybrid Cloud
9 5 (1.29%) NHS
10 4 (1.03%) Cloud Native
10 4 (1.03%) IoT
10 4 (1.03%) SCADA
10 4 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.77%) 3D Printing
11 3 (0.77%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.52%) Legacy Systems
12 2 (0.52%) Life Science
12 2 (0.52%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 34 (8.76%) Windows
2 22 (5.67%) Windows Server
3 11 (2.84%) Linux
4 2 (0.52%) Mac OS
4 2 (0.52%) Unix
5 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.26%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.26%) Windows 7
5 1 (0.26%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (13.40%) Load Balancing
2 40 (10.31%) Network Design
3 37 (9.54%) Service Management
4 31 (7.99%) Problem-Solving
5 29 (7.47%) Migration
6 26 (6.70%) ITSM
7 24 (6.19%) Network Management
8 23 (5.93%) High Availability
9 21 (5.41%) Agile
9 21 (5.41%) Cybersecurity
10 20 (5.15%) Network Architecture
11 19 (4.90%) Incident Response
11 19 (4.90%) Network Monitoring
12 18 (4.64%) Collaborative Working
12 18 (4.64%) DevOps
13 17 (4.38%) Network Virtualisation
14 16 (4.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 16 (4.12%) Network Segmentation
14 16 (4.12%) Project Delivery
15 15 (3.87%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 57 (14.69%) Python
2 16 (4.12%) Bash
3 13 (3.35%) PowerShell
4 9 (2.32%) Perl
5 8 (2.06%) Lisp
6 4 (1.03%) VB
7 3 (0.77%) SQL
8 2 (0.52%) Java
9 1 (0.26%) C
9 1 (0.26%) C++
9 1 (0.26%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.26%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.26%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 168 (43.30%) Security Cleared
2 120 (30.93%) Cisco Certification
3 109 (28.09%) SC Cleared
4 86 (22.16%) CCNP
5 61 (15.72%) CCNA
6 52 (13.40%) DV Cleared
7 22 (5.67%) Degree
8 9 (2.32%) CCIE
9 7 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (1.55%) CCDP
10 6 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
10 6 (1.55%) JNCIA
10 6 (1.55%) Network+ Certification
11 5 (1.29%) JNCIP
11 5 (1.29%) JNCIS
12 3 (0.77%) CCSA
12 3 (0.77%) CompTIA Security+
13 2 (0.52%) A+ Certification
13 2 (0.52%) CCDA
13 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (1.55%) QA
1 6 (1.55%) SLA
2 4 (1.03%) Cyber Essentials
2 4 (1.03%) GDPR
2 4 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (0.52%) NCSC
4 1 (0.26%) Def Stans
4 1 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.26%) GRC
4 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 1 (0.26%) NIST
4 1 (0.26%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 24 (6.19%) VMware Infrastructure
1 24 (6.19%) VMware NSX
2 22 (5.67%) Active Directory
3 14 (3.61%) Firmware
4 11 (2.84%) Docker
5 10 (2.58%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (1.03%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.52%) Ceph
8 1 (0.26%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.26%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.26%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 45 (11.60%) Ansible
2 34 (8.76%) FortiGate
3 24 (6.19%) vCenter Server
4 14 (3.61%) Terraform
5 5 (1.29%) Cisco CUCM
6 4 (1.03%) HP ALM
6 4 (1.03%) Kubernetes
7 3 (0.77%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (0.52%) Dell DRAC
8 2 (0.52%) OpenView
8 2 (0.52%) WhatsUp Gold
9 1 (0.26%) Amdocs OSS
9 1 (0.26%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.26%) Grafana
9 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.26%) Nagios
9 1 (0.26%) SCCM
Vendors
1 257 (66.24%) Cisco
2 83 (21.39%) Juniper
3 72 (18.56%) Palo Alto
4 60 (15.46%) F5
5 52 (13.40%) SolarWinds
6 38 (9.79%) CheckPoint
6 38 (9.79%) VMware
7 31 (7.99%) Fortinet
8 29 (7.47%) Microsoft
9 27 (6.96%) Meraki
10 26 (6.70%) Blue Coat
11 22 (5.67%) Aruba
12 21 (5.41%) ServiceNow
13 20 (5.15%) McAfee
14 15 (3.87%) Zscaler
15 12 (3.09%) NetApp
16 10 (2.58%) Nokia
17 9 (2.32%) Remedy
18 8 (2.06%) Ekahau
18 8 (2.06%) LogicMonitor