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 £470, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 April 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 108 86 58
Rank change year-on-year -22 -28 +28
Contract jobs requiring a Network Engineer 531 357 671
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.27% 2.79% 3.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.47% 3.03% 3.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 346 243 411
10th Percentile £301 £300 £281
25th Percentile £400 £369 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +4.33% - -
75th Percentile £538 £565 £525
90th Percentile £588 £613 £634
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £460
% change year-on-year - +3.26% -3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 2 17
10th Percentile £50.65 £23.53 £18.39
25th Percentile £67.11 £31.06 £24.50
Median hourly rate £74.26 £45.75 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +62.32% -34.64% +12.90%
75th Percentile £78.75 £62.06 £73.75
90th Percentile - £70.58 £75.24
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £57.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +29.15% +35.29% -32.79%

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 21,493 11,796 19,161
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.35% 92.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,660 7,622 11,802
10th Percentile £274 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £588 £580 £599
90th Percentile £675 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,385 797 2,187
10th Percentile £14.46 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.72 £18.20 £15.50
Median hourly rate £43.61 £29.80 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.34% -18.36% -15.12%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £60.75
90th Percentile £78.15 £75.80 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.93% -13.00% -22.22%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -1 178 £475 -5.00% 69
North of England -43 148 £474 +0.58% 68
North West -21 122 £475 - 39
Midlands -2 101 £438 +2.94% 51
West Midlands +11 94 £429 +55.91% 31
Scotland +11 43 £413 +3.13% 22
South West -30 41 £529 +11.96% 21
East of England -5 40 £450 -5.26% 32
Yorkshire -62 26 £450 -2.70% 21
Wales -5 25 £425 +13.33% 12
East Midlands -45 3 £500 +11.11% 20
Northern Ireland - 2 £468 - 7
North East -16 1 - - 8
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 April 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.

1 306 (57.63%) Cisco
2 249 (46.89%) Firewall
3 217 (40.87%) Security Cleared
4 159 (29.94%) WAN
5 158 (29.76%) LAN
6 155 (29.19%) SC Cleared
7 152 (28.63%) Cisco Certification
8 130 (24.48%) BGP
9 123 (23.16%) CCNP
10 122 (22.98%) DNS
10 122 (22.98%) VPN
11 120 (22.60%) Palo Alto
12 110 (20.72%) F5
13 106 (19.96%) Network Security
14 93 (17.51%) Load Balancing
14 93 (17.51%) OSPF
15 79 (14.88%) Juniper
16 73 (13.75%) CCNA
17 72 (13.56%) DV Cleared
17 72 (13.56%) Wireless
18 70 (13.18%) TCP/IP
19 69 (12.99%) VLAN
19 69 (12.99%) VMware
20 54 (10.17%) High Availability
20 54 (10.17%) SD-WAN
21 53 (9.98%) Aruba
21 53 (9.98%) CheckPoint
22 52 (9.79%) BIG-IP
23 51 (9.60%) VMware Infrastructure
24 50 (9.42%) Wi-Fi

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 7 (1.32%) Confluence
2 5 (0.94%) Apache
2 5 (0.94%) IIS
3 2 (0.38%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 13 (2.45%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 44 (8.29%) AWS
2 40 (7.53%) Azure
3 19 (3.58%) GCP
4 10 (1.88%) GitHub
5 8 (1.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 7 (1.32%) Entra ID
7 6 (1.13%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 5 (0.94%) Nutanix
9 4 (0.75%) Azure Sentinel
9 4 (0.75%) Mimecast
10 3 (0.56%) AWS Direct Connect
10 3 (0.56%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (0.56%) Catchpoint
10 3 (0.56%) GitHub Actions
10 3 (0.56%) Google Ads
10 3 (0.56%) Google Compute Engine
10 3 (0.56%) Route 53
10 3 (0.56%) SaaS
11 2 (0.38%) Amazon EKS
11 2 (0.38%) AWS IoT
Communications & Networking
1 249 (46.89%) Firewall
2 159 (29.94%) WAN
3 158 (29.76%) LAN
4 130 (24.48%) BGP
5 122 (22.98%) DNS
5 122 (22.98%) VPN
6 106 (19.96%) Network Security
7 93 (17.51%) OSPF
8 72 (13.56%) Wireless
9 70 (13.18%) TCP/IP
10 69 (12.99%) VLAN
11 54 (10.17%) SD-WAN
12 52 (9.79%) BIG-IP
13 50 (9.42%) Wi-Fi
14 47 (8.85%) IPsec
15 45 (8.47%) Cisco Nexus
15 45 (8.47%) DHCP
16 44 (8.29%) Cisco ISE
17 42 (7.91%) SSL
17 42 (7.91%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.19%) Oracle Reports
1 1 (0.19%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 27 (5.08%) Fiddler
2 17 (3.20%) JIRA
3 8 (1.51%) Jenkins
4 7 (1.32%) Sonatype Nexus
5 5 (0.94%) Git
6 4 (0.75%) GitLab
7 2 (0.38%) Browser DevTools
General
1 78 (14.69%) Social Skills
2 38 (7.16%) Banking
3 35 (6.59%) Investment Banking
4 32 (6.03%) Documentation Skills
5 31 (5.84%) Public Sector
6 23 (4.33%) Manufacturing
7 22 (4.14%) Telecoms
8 19 (3.58%) Analytical Skills
9 11 (2.07%) Legal
10 10 (1.88%) Finance
11 7 (1.32%) Aerospace
12 5 (0.94%) Law
13 4 (0.75%) Military
13 4 (0.75%) Police
14 3 (0.56%) Influencing Skills
15 2 (0.38%) Electronics
15 2 (0.38%) Marketing
15 2 (0.38%) Pharmaceutical
15 2 (0.38%) Retail
16 1 (0.19%) Back Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (5.65%) 802.1X
2 9 (1.69%) LDAP
3 8 (1.51%) SAML
4 2 (0.38%) REST
4 2 (0.38%) RFC 2544
5 1 (0.19%) Django
5 1 (0.19%) Jinja
5 1 (0.19%) NETCONF
Miscellaneous
1 110 (20.72%) Data Centre
2 21 (3.95%) Management Information System
3 15 (2.82%) PKI
4 12 (2.26%) NHS
4 12 (2.26%) Operational Technology
5 11 (2.07%) Self-Motivation
6 10 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
7 9 (1.69%) Clustering
8 8 (1.51%) Hybrid Cloud
8 8 (1.51%) Security Posture
9 7 (1.32%) Onboarding
10 5 (0.94%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
12 3 (0.56%) 3D Printing
12 3 (0.56%) Cloud Native
12 3 (0.56%) IoT
12 3 (0.56%) Linux Command Line
12 3 (0.56%) Wiki
13 2 (0.38%) Fibre Optics
13 2 (0.38%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 49 (9.23%) Windows
2 25 (4.71%) Linux
3 15 (2.82%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.75%) Unix
5 3 (0.56%) CatOS
6 1 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.19%) Solaris
6 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (17.51%) Load Balancing
2 54 (10.17%) High Availability
3 45 (8.47%) Problem-Solving
4 42 (7.91%) Network Monitoring
5 39 (7.34%) ITIL
5 39 (7.34%) Migration
6 34 (6.40%) Network Design
7 30 (5.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 27 (5.08%) Data Loss Prevention
8 27 (5.08%) ITSM
8 27 (5.08%) Malware Detection/Protection
9 25 (4.71%) Change Management
9 25 (4.71%) Collaborative Working
9 25 (4.71%) Service Management
10 24 (4.52%) Network Management
11 23 (4.33%) Project Delivery
12 22 (4.14%) Validation
13 21 (3.95%) Cybersecurity
13 21 (3.95%) Network Architecture
13 21 (3.95%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 36 (6.78%) Python
2 6 (1.13%) Bash
2 6 (1.13%) SQL
3 3 (0.56%) Perl
4 2 (0.38%) Lisp
4 2 (0.38%) PowerShell
5 1 (0.19%) PHP
5 1 (0.19%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 217 (40.87%) Security Cleared
2 155 (29.19%) SC Cleared
3 152 (28.63%) Cisco Certification
4 123 (23.16%) CCNP
5 73 (13.75%) CCNA
6 72 (13.56%) DV Cleared
7 21 (3.95%) Degree
8 20 (3.77%) JNCIS
9 17 (3.20%) CCIE
10 16 (3.01%) JNCIA
11 11 (2.07%) JNCIP
11 11 (2.07%) Network+ Certification
12 7 (1.32%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (0.56%) AWS Certification
13 3 (0.56%) CCIE Wireless
13 3 (0.56%) CCSE
13 3 (0.56%) CWDP
13 3 (0.56%) CWNA
13 3 (0.56%) CWNE
13 3 (0.56%) CWSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (1.13%) QA
2 5 (0.94%) Disclosure Scotland
2 5 (0.94%) SLA
3 4 (0.75%) NIST
4 3 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.56%) PCI DSS
5 2 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 2 (0.38%) NCSC
5 2 (0.38%) PMO
6 1 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.19%) GDPR
6 1 (0.19%) GRC
6 1 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.19%) JSP 440
System Software
1 51 (9.60%) VMware Infrastructure
2 40 (7.53%) VMware NSX
3 26 (4.90%) Firmware
4 20 (3.77%) Active Directory
5 6 (1.13%) vSphere
6 4 (0.75%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.38%) KVM
7 2 (0.38%) vCloud
8 1 (0.19%) Citrix Presentation Server
8 1 (0.19%) Docker
8 1 (0.19%) RHEV
8 1 (0.19%) Snort
8 1 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.19%) Xen
Systems Management
1 38 (7.16%) Ansible
2 29 (5.46%) FortiGate
3 25 (4.71%) Terraform
4 8 (1.51%) Single Sign-On
5 7 (1.32%) vCenter Server
6 6 (1.13%) Nagios
7 5 (0.94%) Cisco Prime
7 5 (0.94%) Kubernetes
8 3 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.38%) WSUS
10 1 (0.19%) Avamar
10 1 (0.19%) Backup Exec
10 1 (0.19%) CASB
10 1 (0.19%) Iperf
10 1 (0.19%) Nessus
10 1 (0.19%) Norton AntiVirus
10 1 (0.19%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.19%) SCOM
10 1 (0.19%) Suricata
10 1 (0.19%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 306 (57.63%) Cisco
2 120 (22.60%) Palo Alto
3 110 (20.72%) F5
4 79 (14.88%) Juniper
5 69 (12.99%) VMware
6 53 (9.98%) Aruba
6 53 (9.98%) CheckPoint
7 39 (7.34%) SolarWinds
8 35 (6.59%) Fortinet
9 30 (5.65%) McAfee
10 29 (5.46%) Blue Coat
11 26 (4.90%) Meraki
11 26 (4.90%) Microsoft
12 20 (3.77%) NetApp
13 17 (3.20%) ServiceNow
14 15 (2.82%) Ekahau
14 15 (2.82%) Google
15 12 (2.26%) Extreme Networks
16 11 (2.07%) Splunk
17 10 (1.88%) Arista