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 17 August 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 102 95 61
Rank change year-on-year -7 -34 +6
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 639 389 558
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.32% 2.52% 3.07%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.53% 2.80% 3.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 377 274 336
10th Percentile £306 £306 £273
25th Percentile £400 £379 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +11.76%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £538
90th Percentile £600 £625 £625
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 9 13
10th Percentile £48.25 £21.77 £17.80
25th Percentile £71.50 £22.50 £20.74
Median hourly rate £77.50 £41.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +86.75% -20.95% -8.95%
75th Percentile £91.00 £76.25 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.53 £84.33 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £77.50 £57.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +34.78% +9.52% -5.10%

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 25,286 13,888 16,745
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.88% 90.13% 92.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,271 8,515 10,242
10th Percentile £305 £213 £220
25th Percentile £410 £363 £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 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,046 1,244 1,711
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.45 £16.32 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +21.62%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.87%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +3 242 £500 +2.15% 67
North West +20 171 £500 +5.26% 33
South East -32 135 £463 -7.50% 57
Midlands -9 106 £475 +18.75% 51
West Midlands -9 99 £475 +32.40% 22
Scotland +28 80 £400 -5.88% 25
Yorkshire -18 58 £475 -3.46% 24
South West -22 57 £550 -4.35% 40
East of England -8 42 £470 +17.50% 34
Wales +2 24 £425 -3.41% 19
North East -33 13 £600 +29.73% 11
East Midlands -22 5 £475 -13.64% 29
Northern Ireland +4 2 £488 -15.22% 7
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 17 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.

1 350 (54.77%) Cisco
2 251 (39.28%) Firewall
3 202 (31.61%) Security Cleared
4 186 (29.11%) WAN
5 180 (28.17%) LAN
6 159 (24.88%) Cisco Certification
7 154 (24.10%) VPN
8 139 (21.75%) BGP
9 134 (20.97%) Network Security
10 130 (20.34%) DNS
10 130 (20.34%) Wireless
11 128 (20.03%) SC Cleared
12 118 (18.47%) F5
13 113 (17.68%) Palo Alto
14 112 (17.53%) CCNP
15 104 (16.28%) Load Balancing
16 92 (14.40%) OSPF
17 81 (12.68%) CCNA
18 79 (12.36%) VMware
19 78 (12.21%) VLAN
19 78 (12.21%) Wi-Fi
20 73 (11.42%) SD-WAN
21 70 (10.95%) DV Cleared
21 70 (10.95%) TCP/IP
22 65 (10.17%) Problem-Solving
23 63 (9.86%) VMware Infrastructure
24 62 (9.70%) Juniper
25 60 (9.39%) Azure
25 60 (9.39%) High Availability
26 59 (9.23%) Migration

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 6 (0.94%) SAS
2 1 (0.16%) CMS
2 1 (0.16%) Confluence
2 1 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
2 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 13 (2.03%) MS Visio
2 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 60 (9.39%) Azure
2 50 (7.82%) AWS
3 27 (4.23%) GCP
4 22 (3.44%) GitHub
5 8 (1.25%) AWS Direct Connect
6 7 (1.10%) IaaS
6 7 (1.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 6 (0.94%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 6 (0.94%) Azure Sentinel
7 6 (0.94%) GitHub Actions
7 6 (0.94%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 6 (0.94%) Nutanix
7 6 (0.94%) OCI
8 5 (0.78%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (0.78%) Microsoft 365
9 4 (0.63%) Cloudflare
9 4 (0.63%) Entra ID
10 3 (0.47%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (0.47%) Google Compute Engine
10 3 (0.47%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 251 (39.28%) Firewall
2 186 (29.11%) WAN
3 180 (28.17%) LAN
4 154 (24.10%) VPN
5 139 (21.75%) BGP
6 134 (20.97%) Network Security
7 130 (20.34%) DNS
7 130 (20.34%) Wireless
8 92 (14.40%) OSPF
9 78 (12.21%) VLAN
9 78 (12.21%) Wi-Fi
10 73 (11.42%) SD-WAN
11 70 (10.95%) TCP/IP
12 52 (8.14%) Cisco ASA
13 47 (7.36%) Cisco Nexus
13 47 (7.36%) MPLS
14 46 (7.20%) BIG-IP
14 46 (7.20%) DHCP
15 44 (6.89%) Cisco Firepower
16 43 (6.73%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.16%) GIS
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 21 (3.29%) Jenkins
2 17 (2.66%) Git
3 16 (2.50%) Fiddler
4 15 (2.35%) JIRA
5 11 (1.72%) GitLab
6 2 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 86 (13.46%) Social Skills
2 40 (6.26%) Analytical Skills
2 40 (6.26%) Public Sector
3 39 (6.10%) Banking
3 39 (6.10%) Telecoms
4 32 (5.01%) Investment Banking
5 28 (4.38%) Finance
6 18 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (2.82%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.03%) Legal
8 10 (1.56%) Police
9 9 (1.41%) Aerospace
10 6 (0.94%) Retail
11 4 (0.63%) Military
12 3 (0.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.47%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.31%) Law
13 2 (0.31%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.16%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.85%) 802.1X
2 8 (1.25%) NETCONF
3 7 (1.10%) REST
3 7 (1.10%) SAML
4 3 (0.47%) Java RMI
4 3 (0.47%) JSON
4 3 (0.47%) LDAP
4 3 (0.47%) YAML
5 1 (0.16%) Jinja
5 1 (0.16%) ModSecurity
5 1 (0.16%) RESTCONF
5 1 (0.16%) XML
5 1 (0.16%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 83 (12.99%) Data Centre
2 22 (3.44%) PKI
3 19 (2.97%) Hybrid Cloud
3 19 (2.97%) Management Information System
4 16 (2.50%) Driving Licence
5 14 (2.19%) Cloud Native
6 11 (1.72%) Onboarding
7 10 (1.56%) Operational Technology
7 10 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.10%) Security Posture
10 6 (0.94%) Public Cloud
10 6 (0.94%) SCADA
11 5 (0.78%) NHS
12 4 (0.63%) CMDB
12 4 (0.63%) Fibre Optics
12 4 (0.63%) Private Cloud
13 3 (0.47%) Clustering
13 3 (0.47%) Distributed Systems
14 2 (0.31%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 47 (7.36%) Windows
2 34 (5.32%) Linux
3 6 (0.94%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.78%) Unix
5 1 (0.16%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.16%) Solaris
5 1 (0.16%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.16%) Windows 7
5 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
5 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (16.28%) Load Balancing
2 65 (10.17%) Problem-Solving
3 60 (9.39%) High Availability
4 59 (9.23%) Migration
5 55 (8.61%) ITIL
6 50 (7.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 49 (7.67%) Network Monitoring
8 44 (6.89%) Project Delivery
9 36 (5.63%) Change Management
10 34 (5.32%) Continuous Improvement
10 34 (5.32%) Network Design
10 34 (5.32%) Technical Leadership
10 34 (5.32%) Validation
11 29 (4.54%) CI/CD
11 29 (4.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 27 (4.23%) Network Management
13 26 (4.07%) Infrastructure as Code
13 26 (4.07%) Network Virtualisation
14 24 (3.76%) Network Architecture
15 23 (3.60%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 46 (7.20%) Python
2 10 (1.56%) Bash
3 8 (1.25%) PowerShell
4 7 (1.10%) ActionScript
5 6 (0.94%) SQL
6 3 (0.47%) C++
7 2 (0.31%) Perl
8 1 (0.16%) Go
8 1 (0.16%) Groovy
8 1 (0.16%) Search Processing Language
8 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 202 (31.61%) Security Cleared
2 159 (24.88%) Cisco Certification
3 128 (20.03%) SC Cleared
4 112 (17.53%) CCNP
5 81 (12.68%) CCNA
6 70 (10.95%) DV Cleared
7 23 (3.60%) CCIE
8 21 (3.29%) Degree
9 10 (1.56%) Network+ Certification
10 9 (1.41%) JNCIS
11 8 (1.25%) JNCIA
12 6 (0.94%) AWS Certification
12 6 (0.94%) CCSE
12 6 (0.94%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (0.94%) JNCIP
13 5 (0.78%) CCIE Wireless
13 5 (0.78%) CCSM
13 5 (0.78%) DBS Check
13 5 (0.78%) Server+ Certification
14 4 (0.63%) CWDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (2.50%) SLA
2 10 (1.56%) QA
3 8 (1.25%) Disclosure Scotland
3 8 (1.25%) NIST
4 3 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.31%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.31%) GDPR
5 2 (0.31%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 1 (0.16%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 63 (9.86%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (4.54%) VMware NSX
3 26 (4.07%) Firmware
4 18 (2.82%) Active Directory
5 10 (1.56%) vSphere
6 9 (1.41%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (0.78%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.47%) Docker
8 3 (0.47%) FreeRADIUS
9 2 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 1 (0.16%) Snort
10 1 (0.16%) Squid
10 1 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 37 (5.79%) Ansible
1 37 (5.79%) Terraform
2 25 (3.91%) FortiGate
3 9 (1.41%) Kubernetes
4 6 (0.94%) Cisco Prime
4 6 (0.94%) Nagios
5 5 (0.78%) Cisco CUCM
6 4 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.47%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.31%) Avamar
8 2 (0.31%) Grafana
8 2 (0.31%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.31%) Puppet
8 2 (0.31%) SolarWinds Orion
9 1 (0.16%) Cilium
9 1 (0.16%) Iperf
9 1 (0.16%) Packer
9 1 (0.16%) SCOM
9 1 (0.16%) TrustSec
9 1 (0.16%) WSUS
Vendors
1 350 (54.77%) Cisco
2 118 (18.47%) F5
3 113 (17.68%) Palo Alto
4 79 (12.36%) VMware
5 62 (9.70%) Juniper
6 58 (9.08%) Fortinet
7 55 (8.61%) CheckPoint
8 39 (6.10%) Aruba
9 33 (5.16%) Microsoft
10 31 (4.85%) SolarWinds
11 23 (3.60%) ServiceNow
12 21 (3.29%) Meraki
13 20 (3.13%) Google
13 20 (3.13%) McAfee
14 19 (2.97%) Blue Coat
15 18 (2.82%) NetApp
15 18 (2.82%) Nokia
16 14 (2.19%) Ekahau
17 12 (1.88%) Arista
18 11 (1.72%) Extreme Networks