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 £54,068 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 10 March 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 227 160 206
Rank change year-on-year -67 +46 +43
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 395 502 833
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.76% 1.78% 1.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.82% 1.97% 1.52%
Number of salaries quoted 291 393 714
10th Percentile £30,000 £36,250 £29,825
25th Percentile £41,875 £43,799 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,068 £52,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +2.99% +10.53% -
75th Percentile £65,000 £59,000 £53,750
90th Percentile £75,000 £66,250 £60,875
UK median annual salary £57,000 £55,000 £49,000
% change year-on-year +3.64% +12.24% -2.00%

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 47,886 25,527 54,907
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.83% 90.52% 94.77%
Number of salaries quoted 30,213 14,208 41,915
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £26,700
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £54,793 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.75% +9.59% -4.81%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £64,750
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,958 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -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 10 March 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 10 March 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
South East -69 133 £52,500 -0.94% 72
North of England -50 83 £45,000 -5.26% 41
Midlands 0 77 £55,500 +8.29% 44
West Midlands +11 62 £60,000 +18.65% 23
North West -16 44 £45,000 -14.29% 21
Scotland -1 36 £45,000 -22.34% 12
South West -42 35 £50,000 - 27
East of England +7 24 £63,750 +25.00% 23
Yorkshire -56 23 £45,000 +0.67% 16
North East -25 16 £50,000 +12.36% 4
East Midlands -23 15 £55,000 -4.35% 21
Wales -26 5 £50,000 +14.94% 15
Northern Ireland - 3 £57,500 - 3
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 10 March 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.

1 172 (43.54%) Cisco
2 133 (33.67%) Firewall
3 115 (29.11%) WAN
4 96 (24.30%) LAN
5 86 (21.77%) Cisco Certification
6 74 (18.73%) Security Cleared
7 71 (17.97%) CCNP
8 67 (16.96%) Azure
9 59 (14.94%) Wireless
10 55 (13.92%) SD-WAN
10 55 (13.92%) VPN
11 53 (13.42%) Network Security
12 52 (13.16%) BGP
13 50 (12.66%) Palo Alto
14 49 (12.41%) Fortinet
15 48 (12.15%) SolarWinds
16 46 (11.65%) SC Cleared
17 42 (10.63%) CheckPoint
18 40 (10.13%) Juniper
18 40 (10.13%) VLAN
19 37 (9.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 37 (9.37%) Network Monitoring
20 35 (8.86%) OSPF
21 33 (8.35%) CCNA
21 33 (8.35%) Customer Service
21 33 (8.35%) Meraki
22 32 (8.10%) DV Cleared
22 32 (8.10%) Load Balancing
23 31 (7.85%) AWS
23 31 (7.85%) F5

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 2 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
1 2 (0.51%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (2.03%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 67 (16.96%) Azure
2 31 (7.85%) AWS
3 12 (3.04%) Microsoft 365
4 7 (1.77%) Azure Sentinel
4 7 (1.77%) GCP
5 6 (1.52%) Entra ID
5 6 (1.52%) OpenShift
6 3 (0.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 3 (0.76%) Apigee
6 3 (0.76%) Kong
7 2 (0.51%) GitHub
7 2 (0.51%) Mimecast
8 1 (0.25%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (0.25%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 133 (33.67%) Firewall
2 115 (29.11%) WAN
3 96 (24.30%) LAN
4 59 (14.94%) Wireless
5 55 (13.92%) SD-WAN
5 55 (13.92%) VPN
6 53 (13.42%) Network Security
7 52 (13.16%) BGP
8 40 (10.13%) VLAN
9 35 (8.86%) OSPF
10 30 (7.59%) Cisco ASA
11 29 (7.34%) Cisco ISE
12 25 (6.33%) EIGRP
12 25 (6.33%) Wi-Fi
13 21 (5.32%) Cisco Firepower
14 20 (5.06%) Wireshark
15 19 (4.81%) Cisco Nexus
16 18 (4.56%) Cisco IOS
16 18 (4.56%) MPLS
17 15 (3.80%) Junos
Development Applications
1 6 (1.52%) Git
1 6 (1.52%) GitLab
2 2 (0.51%) Jenkins
2 2 (0.51%) JIRA
3 1 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 66 (16.71%) Social Skills
2 28 (7.09%) Public Sector
3 27 (6.84%) Telecoms
4 22 (5.57%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (4.56%) Finance
6 11 (2.78%) Law
6 11 (2.78%) Retail
7 7 (1.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (1.77%) Manufacturing
8 6 (1.52%) Police
9 4 (1.01%) Banking
9 4 (1.01%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.01%) Marketing
9 4 (1.01%) Military
10 3 (0.76%) Aerospace
11 2 (0.51%) Advertising
11 2 (0.51%) Welsh Language
12 1 (0.25%) Fire and Rescue
12 1 (0.25%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.25%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.28%) Jinja
2 6 (1.52%) JSON
2 6 (1.52%) YAML
2 6 (1.52%) YANG
3 4 (1.01%) REST
4 3 (0.76%) NETCONF
4 3 (0.76%) XML
5 2 (0.51%) 802.1X
5 2 (0.51%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 47 (11.90%) Data Centre
2 12 (3.04%) Management Information System
3 11 (2.78%) PKI
4 10 (2.53%) Driving Licence
5 8 (2.03%) Security Posture
6 7 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.27%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.01%) CCTV
8 4 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (1.01%) Private Cloud
8 4 (1.01%) Product Ownership
8 4 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (0.76%) CMDB
9 3 (0.76%) Social Media
10 2 (0.51%) Algorithms
10 2 (0.51%) Cyber Defence
10 2 (0.51%) EPoS
11 1 (0.25%) Cloud Native
11 1 (0.25%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 25 (6.33%) Windows
2 16 (4.05%) Linux
3 14 (3.54%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.76%) Unix
5 2 (0.51%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.25%) Android
6 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (9.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
1 37 (9.37%) Network Monitoring
2 33 (8.35%) Customer Service
3 32 (8.10%) Load Balancing
4 29 (7.34%) Change Management
5 27 (6.84%) ITSM
5 27 (6.84%) Service Management
6 26 (6.58%) Network Design
7 25 (6.33%) Problem-Solving
8 23 (5.82%) Cybersecurity
9 22 (5.57%) Problem Management
10 19 (4.81%) Continuous Improvement
10 19 (4.81%) Network Virtualisation
11 17 (4.30%) ITIL
12 15 (3.80%) Asset Management
12 15 (3.80%) Capacity Planning
12 15 (3.80%) Root Cause Analysis
13 13 (3.29%) Coaching
13 13 (3.29%) Network Management
13 13 (3.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 29 (7.34%) Python
2 6 (1.52%) PowerShell
3 3 (0.76%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.25%) SQL
Qualifications
1 86 (21.77%) Cisco Certification
2 74 (18.73%) Security Cleared
3 71 (17.97%) CCNP
4 46 (11.65%) SC Cleared
5 33 (8.35%) CCNA
6 32 (8.10%) DV Cleared
7 18 (4.56%) CCIE
8 12 (3.04%) Degree
9 9 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (1.27%) Azure Certification
10 5 (1.27%) JNCIS
11 4 (1.01%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (0.25%) CCIE Data Center
12 1 (0.25%) CCIE Security
12 1 (0.25%) CCSP
12 1 (0.25%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 1 (0.25%) JNCIP
12 1 (0.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 20000
2 7 (1.77%) PMO
3 6 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.27%) QA
5 4 (1.01%) GDPR
6 2 (0.51%) NIST
7 1 (0.25%) ISO 9001
7 1 (0.25%) SLA
System Software
1 19 (4.81%) VMware NSX
2 17 (4.30%) Active Directory
3 14 (3.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (2.78%) Firmware
5 7 (1.77%) ProxySG
6 4 (1.01%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.76%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.25%) iptables
Systems Management
1 13 (3.29%) FortiGate
2 11 (2.78%) vCenter Server
3 10 (2.53%) Terraform
4 8 (2.03%) Ansible
5 3 (0.76%) Grafana
5 3 (0.76%) Nagios
5 3 (0.76%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.51%) Dell DRAC
7 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.25%) OpenView
7 1 (0.25%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.25%) SCCM
7 1 (0.25%) Tivoli
7 1 (0.25%) vRealize
Vendors
1 172 (43.54%) Cisco
2 50 (12.66%) Palo Alto
3 49 (12.41%) Fortinet
4 48 (12.15%) SolarWinds
5 42 (10.63%) CheckPoint
6 40 (10.13%) Juniper
7 33 (8.35%) Meraki
8 31 (7.85%) F5
9 29 (7.34%) Microsoft
10 25 (6.33%) VMware
11 11 (2.78%) Infoblox
11 11 (2.78%) ServiceNow
12 10 (2.53%) Broadcom
12 10 (2.53%) CrowdStrike
12 10 (2.53%) Zscaler
13 9 (2.28%) Blue Coat
14 8 (2.03%) Aruba
15 7 (1.77%) Avaya
15 7 (1.77%) Dell
15 7 (1.77%) Motorola