Network Engineer Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Network Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Network Engineer salary in the UK excluding London is £55,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 28 July 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 277 173
Rank change year-on-year +156 -104 +33
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,067 317 934
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 1.45% 0.93% 1.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.53% 1.04% 1.55%
Number of salaries quoted 596 259 713
10th Percentile £35,000 £35,800 £30,150
25th Percentile £45,000 £43,774 £39,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £50,000 £49,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +2.04% +6.52%
75th Percentile £68,750 £58,750 £57,500
90th Percentile £75,000 £65,000 £65,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +14.29% +5.00% -

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent 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 permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 69,861 30,584 60,125
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 94.87% 89.62% 94.80%
Number of salaries quoted 48,293 17,580 41,285
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,875 £28,000
25th Percentile £37,750 £33,000 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -5.87%
75th Percentile £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £80,000 £78,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - - -8.33%

Network Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Network Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Network Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Network Engineer
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Salary distribution trend for Network Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Network Engineer
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Network Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 28 July 2026.

Salary histogram for Network Engineer in the UK excluding London

Network Engineer
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Network Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 28 July 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North of England +121 296 £52,500 - 59
South East +91 251 £55,000 +10.00% 45
Midlands +93 236 £56,900 +19.16% 31
West Midlands +64 153 £58,500 +21.88% 16
North West +110 134 £57,500 +4.55% 31
Yorkshire +42 132 £50,000 -9.09% 20
South West -15 87 £65,000 +16.99% 25
East Midlands +47 83 £50,000 +5.26% 15
East of England +48 78 £55,000 +10.00% 20
Scotland +64 64 £55,000 -17.13% 20
Wales -18 49 £50,000 -2.20% 9
North East -35 30 £65,576 +31.15% 8
Northern Ireland -57 13 £40,000 -23.81% 3
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 July 2026, Network Engineer 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 permanent job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Network Engineer in the job title.

1 527 (49.39%) Cisco
2 460 (43.11%) Cisco Certification
3 396 (37.11%) Azure
4 384 (35.99%) CCNA
5 375 (35.15%) Microsoft
6 342 (32.05%) Network+ Certification
7 326 (30.55%) Azure Certification
8 324 (30.37%) ForeScout
9 215 (20.15%) Firewall
10 187 (17.53%) WAN
11 167 (15.65%) LAN
12 142 (13.31%) VPN
13 117 (10.97%) Security Cleared
14 111 (10.40%) CCNP
15 110 (10.31%) Network Security
16 94 (8.81%) Wireless
17 88 (8.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 82 (7.69%) Problem-Solving
19 80 (7.50%) Fortinet
20 78 (7.31%) BGP
21 75 (7.03%) Wi-Fi
22 74 (6.94%) VLAN
23 70 (6.56%) SC Cleared
24 69 (6.47%) OSPF
25 60 (5.62%) Python
26 55 (5.15%) SD-WAN
27 54 (5.06%) DNS
28 50 (4.69%) Palo Alto
28 50 (4.69%) Windows
29 49 (4.59%) AWS

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 12 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
1 12 (1.12%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.37%) Confluence
3 1 (0.094%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 5 (0.47%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.56%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 396 (37.11%) Azure
2 49 (4.59%) AWS
3 30 (2.81%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (1.69%) Azure Sentinel
5 11 (1.03%) Entra ID
6 10 (0.94%) OpenShift
7 9 (0.84%) Cloudflare
7 9 (0.84%) GCP
8 5 (0.47%) Apigee
8 5 (0.47%) Kong
9 4 (0.37%) Mimecast
10 3 (0.28%) OCI
11 2 (0.19%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 1 (0.094%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 215 (20.15%) Firewall
2 187 (17.53%) WAN
3 167 (15.65%) LAN
4 142 (13.31%) VPN
5 110 (10.31%) Network Security
6 94 (8.81%) Wireless
7 78 (7.31%) BGP
8 75 (7.03%) Wi-Fi
9 74 (6.94%) VLAN
10 69 (6.47%) OSPF
11 55 (5.15%) SD-WAN
12 54 (5.06%) DNS
13 47 (4.40%) TCP/IP
14 42 (3.94%) WLAN
15 41 (3.84%) DHCP
16 39 (3.66%) Cisco ASA
17 33 (3.09%) EIGRP
18 25 (2.34%) Cisco Nexus
19 20 (1.87%) MPLS
20 18 (1.69%) Cisco Firepower
Development Applications
1 10 (0.94%) GitLab
2 8 (0.75%) Git
3 4 (0.37%) JIRA
4 1 (0.094%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 407 (38.14%) Social Skills
2 56 (5.25%) Public Sector
3 39 (3.66%) Telecoms
4 38 (3.56%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (1.78%) Law
6 17 (1.59%) Finance
7 15 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (0.75%) Manufacturing
9 8 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (0.47%) Aerospace
10 5 (0.47%) Back Office
10 5 (0.47%) Retail
11 4 (0.37%) Marketing
11 4 (0.37%) Police
11 4 (0.37%) Welsh Language
12 3 (0.28%) Banking
12 3 (0.28%) Military
13 2 (0.19%) Influencing Skills
14 1 (0.094%) Digital Health
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (1.12%) Jinja
1 12 (1.12%) JSON
1 12 (1.12%) YAML
2 5 (0.47%) 802.1X
2 5 (0.47%) REST
2 5 (0.47%) XML
2 5 (0.47%) YANG
3 4 (0.37%) ModSecurity
4 3 (0.28%) Apache NiFi
4 3 (0.28%) gRPC
4 3 (0.28%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 58 (5.44%) Data Centre
2 37 (3.47%) Driving Licence
3 20 (1.87%) Self-Motivation
4 17 (1.59%) PKI
5 16 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
6 11 (1.03%) CCTV
7 10 (0.94%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 10 (0.94%) Linux Command Line
8 8 (0.75%) Clustering
8 8 (0.75%) Life Science
8 8 (0.75%) Operational Technology
9 7 (0.66%) Fibre Optics
9 7 (0.66%) Onboarding
9 7 (0.66%) Security Posture
10 5 (0.47%) CMDB
10 5 (0.47%) Public Cloud
10 5 (0.47%) Video Conferencing
11 4 (0.37%) Enterprise Cloud
12 3 (0.28%) FlexPod
13 2 (0.19%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 50 (4.69%) Windows
2 40 (3.75%) Linux
3 30 (2.81%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.47%) Unix
5 1 (0.094%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.094%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.094%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (8.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 82 (7.69%) Problem-Solving
3 46 (4.31%) Continuous Improvement
3 46 (4.31%) High Availability
4 45 (4.22%) Network Monitoring
5 39 (3.66%) Mentoring
6 37 (3.47%) Project Delivery
7 34 (3.19%) ITIL
8 29 (2.72%) Customer Service
8 29 (2.72%) Cybersecurity
8 29 (2.72%) Load Balancing
9 28 (2.62%) Disaster Recovery
10 25 (2.34%) Network Design
11 22 (2.06%) SIEM
12 21 (1.97%) Technical Leadership
13 19 (1.78%) CI/CD
13 19 (1.78%) Root Cause Analysis
14 17 (1.59%) Business Continuity
14 17 (1.59%) Infrastructure as Code
14 17 (1.59%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 60 (5.62%) Python
2 24 (2.25%) PowerShell
3 10 (0.94%) SQL
4 9 (0.84%) Bash
5 5 (0.47%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.094%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 460 (43.11%) Cisco Certification
2 384 (35.99%) CCNA
3 342 (32.05%) Network+ Certification
4 326 (30.55%) Azure Certification
5 117 (10.97%) Security Cleared
6 111 (10.40%) CCNP
7 70 (6.56%) SC Cleared
8 46 (4.31%) DV Cleared
9 22 (2.06%) CCIE
9 22 (2.06%) Degree
10 13 (1.22%) Computer Science Degree
11 11 (1.03%) DBS Check
12 7 (0.66%) JNCIP
13 4 (0.37%) CompTIA Security+
14 3 (0.28%) AWS Certification
14 3 (0.28%) CISSP
14 3 (0.28%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 2 (0.19%) BPSS Clearance
15 2 (0.19%) HNC
16 1 (0.094%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (1.50%) SLA
2 11 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (0.84%) GDPR
3 9 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 7 (0.66%) NIST
5 4 (0.37%) PMO
5 4 (0.37%) QA
6 3 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.094%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.094%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.094%) ISO 14001
7 1 (0.094%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 41 (3.84%) VMware Infrastructure
2 30 (2.81%) Active Directory
3 28 (2.62%) Hyper-V
4 16 (1.50%) VMware NSX
5 13 (1.22%) vSphere
6 10 (0.94%) Firmware
7 8 (0.75%) KVM
8 4 (0.37%) ProxySG
9 3 (0.28%) Docker
10 1 (0.094%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 27 (2.53%) Ansible
2 23 (2.16%) Terraform
3 18 (1.69%) FortiGate
4 11 (1.03%) Proxmox
5 8 (0.75%) Graylog
5 8 (0.75%) ZABBIX
6 7 (0.66%) Failover Clustering
6 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (0.56%) Grafana
7 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Clustering
8 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
8 3 (0.28%) Nagios
9 2 (0.19%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (0.19%) Dell DRAC
9 2 (0.19%) Kubernetes
9 2 (0.19%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.094%) Cilium
10 1 (0.094%) Istio
10 1 (0.094%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.094%) Stealthwatch
Vendors
1 527 (49.39%) Cisco
2 375 (35.15%) Microsoft
3 324 (30.37%) ForeScout
4 80 (7.50%) Fortinet
5 50 (4.69%) Palo Alto
6 48 (4.50%) VMware
7 41 (3.84%) Aruba
8 26 (2.44%) Juniper
9 25 (2.34%) F5
10 16 (1.50%) SolarWinds
11 15 (1.41%) CheckPoint
11 15 (1.41%) Meraki
12 14 (1.31%) Veeam
13 10 (0.94%) Dell
13 10 (0.94%) Red Hat
14 9 (0.84%) Avaya
14 9 (0.84%) HP
14 9 (0.84%) Zscaler
15 8 (0.75%) Infoblox
15 8 (0.75%) ServiceNow