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 30 September 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 284 155
Rank change year-on-year +150 -129 +24
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,134 278 854
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 1.31% 0.81% 1.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.41% 0.90% 1.70%
Number of salaries quoted 683 212 515
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,878 £31,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £65,000 £58,813 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £65,000 £65,000
UK median annual salary £56,900 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year +3.45% +4.76% +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 80,368 30,802 50,337
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.02% 89.49% 95.27%
Number of salaries quoted 55,577 17,131 28,298
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £64,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.27% - -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 30 September 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 30 September 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 +118 311 £55,000 +1.85% 102
South East +94 254 £55,000 +4.76% 91
Midlands +69 236 £56,900 +16.12% 78
North West +89 148 £57,500 +18.56% 56
West Midlands +38 148 £56,900 +26.44% 48
Yorkshire +51 131 £50,000 -37.50% 31
South West +6 123 £60,000 +9.09% 65
East of England +47 102 £55,000 +10.00% 61
East Midlands +35 88 £60,000 +9.09% 30
Scotland +62 66 £55,000 +2.33% 28
Wales -43 38 £50,000 +0.50% 16
North East -50 32 £55,000 +10.00% 15
Northern Ireland -87 10 £40,000 -30.43% 12
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 30 September 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.

1 511 (45.06%) Cisco
2 416 (36.68%) Cisco Certification
3 337 (29.72%) Azure
4 332 (29.28%) CCNA
5 329 (29.01%) Microsoft
6 284 (25.04%) Network+ Certification
7 272 (23.99%) Azure Certification
8 270 (23.81%) ForeScout
9 221 (19.49%) Firewall
10 199 (17.55%) WAN
11 189 (16.67%) LAN
12 153 (13.49%) VPN
13 140 (12.35%) Security Cleared
14 129 (11.38%) Network Security
15 117 (10.32%) CCNP
16 110 (9.70%) Wireless
17 99 (8.73%) Fortinet
17 99 (8.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 96 (8.47%) BGP
19 89 (7.85%) Wi-Fi
20 87 (7.67%) OSPF
21 84 (7.41%) Problem-Solving
22 74 (6.53%) VLAN
23 72 (6.35%) DV Cleared
24 70 (6.17%) Aruba
25 67 (5.91%) DNS
26 58 (5.11%) SC Cleared
26 58 (5.11%) TCP/IP
27 56 (4.94%) Python
28 55 (4.85%) Windows

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 (1.06%) Microsoft Exchange
1 12 (1.06%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.35%) Confluence
3 1 (0.088%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (0.088%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.53%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 337 (29.72%) Azure
2 42 (3.70%) AWS
3 35 (3.09%) Microsoft 365
4 14 (1.23%) Azure Sentinel
5 10 (0.88%) Entra ID
5 10 (0.88%) GCP
6 9 (0.79%) Cloudflare
7 4 (0.35%) OCI
8 3 (0.26%) Mimecast
9 2 (0.18%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 1 (0.088%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 221 (19.49%) Firewall
2 199 (17.55%) WAN
3 189 (16.67%) LAN
4 153 (13.49%) VPN
5 129 (11.38%) Network Security
6 110 (9.70%) Wireless
7 96 (8.47%) BGP
8 89 (7.85%) Wi-Fi
9 87 (7.67%) OSPF
10 74 (6.53%) VLAN
11 67 (5.91%) DNS
12 58 (5.11%) TCP/IP
13 50 (4.41%) SD-WAN
14 48 (4.23%) DHCP
15 46 (4.06%) WLAN
16 40 (3.53%) EIGRP
17 36 (3.17%) Cisco ASA
18 34 (3.00%) Cisco Nexus
19 31 (2.73%) Cisco Firepower
20 23 (2.03%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.088%) GIS
Development Applications
1 8 (0.71%) Git
2 6 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
3 4 (0.35%) JIRA
General
1 355 (31.31%) Social Skills
2 62 (5.47%) Public Sector
3 49 (4.32%) Telecoms
4 34 (3.00%) Analytical Skills
5 25 (2.20%) Finance
6 15 (1.32%) Law
7 13 (1.15%) Retail
8 12 (1.06%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (0.97%) Marketing
9 11 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
10 10 (0.88%) Banking
10 10 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (0.62%) Aerospace
12 6 (0.53%) Back Office
12 6 (0.53%) Military
13 5 (0.44%) Manufacturing
14 1 (0.088%) Digital Health
14 1 (0.088%) Electronics
14 1 (0.088%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (2.82%) Terraform
2 7 (0.62%) YAML
3 5 (0.44%) 802.1X
3 5 (0.44%) Apache NiFi
4 4 (0.35%) XMPP
5 3 (0.26%) gRPC
5 3 (0.26%) Jinja
5 3 (0.26%) JSON
6 2 (0.18%) ModSecurity
7 1 (0.088%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 64 (5.64%) Data Centre
2 44 (3.88%) Driving Licence
3 19 (1.68%) Hybrid Cloud
4 17 (1.50%) PKI
5 14 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
6 13 (1.15%) Onboarding
7 11 (0.97%) CCTV
8 10 (0.88%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 8 (0.71%) Linux Command Line
10 7 (0.62%) Clustering
10 7 (0.62%) Life Science
11 6 (0.53%) Fibre Optics
11 6 (0.53%) Security Posture
11 6 (0.53%) Video Conferencing
12 5 (0.44%) Cloud Native
12 5 (0.44%) CMDB
13 4 (0.35%) FlexPod
13 4 (0.35%) Public Cloud
14 3 (0.26%) Enterprise Cloud
14 3 (0.26%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 55 (4.85%) Windows
2 36 (3.17%) Windows Server
3 35 (3.09%) Linux
4 2 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
5 1 (0.088%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.088%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.088%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.088%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (8.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 84 (7.41%) Problem-Solving
3 49 (4.32%) Continuous Improvement
4 48 (4.23%) High Availability
5 45 (3.97%) Mentoring
6 44 (3.88%) Network Design
7 43 (3.79%) Network Monitoring
8 39 (3.44%) Cybersecurity
8 39 (3.44%) Disaster Recovery
9 37 (3.26%) Project Delivery
10 29 (2.56%) Customer Service
10 29 (2.56%) ITIL
11 27 (2.38%) DevOps
12 26 (2.29%) SIEM
13 25 (2.20%) Business Continuity
13 25 (2.20%) Load Balancing
13 25 (2.20%) Migration
13 25 (2.20%) Root Cause Analysis
13 25 (2.20%) Technical Leadership
14 24 (2.12%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 56 (4.94%) Python
2 21 (1.85%) PowerShell
3 9 (0.79%) Bash
3 9 (0.79%) SQL
4 2 (0.18%) Go
5 1 (0.088%) Bicep
5 1 (0.088%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 416 (36.68%) Cisco Certification
2 332 (29.28%) CCNA
3 284 (25.04%) Network+ Certification
4 272 (23.99%) Azure Certification
5 140 (12.35%) Security Cleared
6 117 (10.32%) CCNP
7 72 (6.35%) DV Cleared
8 58 (5.11%) SC Cleared
9 19 (1.68%) Degree
10 16 (1.41%) DBS Check
11 15 (1.32%) CCIE
12 6 (0.53%) JNCIP
13 4 (0.35%) CompTIA Security+
13 4 (0.35%) Computer Science Degree
13 4 (0.35%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 3 (0.26%) AWS Certification
14 3 (0.26%) CCDP
14 3 (0.26%) CISSP
14 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.18%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (1.68%) SLA
2 11 (0.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (0.88%) GDPR
4 6 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 20000
4 6 (0.53%) QA
5 5 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (0.26%) NIST
7 2 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.088%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.088%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.088%) ISO 14001
8 1 (0.088%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 43 (3.79%) VMware Infrastructure
2 33 (2.91%) Active Directory
3 30 (2.65%) Hyper-V
4 18 (1.59%) VMware NSX
5 15 (1.32%) vSphere
6 12 (1.06%) Firmware
7 9 (0.79%) KVM
8 3 (0.26%) Docker
9 2 (0.18%) iptables
10 1 (0.088%) FreeRADIUS
10 1 (0.088%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.088%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.088%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 36 (3.17%) Ansible
2 34 (3.00%) FortiGate
3 13 (1.15%) Proxmox
4 11 (0.97%) Stealthwatch
5 9 (0.79%) ZABBIX
6 8 (0.71%) Graylog
6 8 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (0.62%) Failover Clustering
7 7 (0.62%) Grafana
8 6 (0.53%) Microsoft Clustering
9 5 (0.44%) Cisco CUCM
9 5 (0.44%) Kubernetes
10 4 (0.35%) Nagios
11 2 (0.18%) Autotask
11 2 (0.18%) Cisco Prime
11 2 (0.18%) Dell DRAC
11 2 (0.18%) Prometheus
12 1 (0.088%) Cilium
12 1 (0.088%) Istio
12 1 (0.088%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 511 (45.06%) Cisco
2 329 (29.01%) Microsoft
3 270 (23.81%) ForeScout
4 99 (8.73%) Fortinet
5 70 (6.17%) Aruba
6 52 (4.59%) VMware
7 51 (4.50%) Palo Alto
8 31 (2.73%) Juniper
9 22 (1.94%) Meraki
10 21 (1.85%) F5
11 16 (1.41%) SolarWinds
12 13 (1.15%) Veeam
13 12 (1.06%) Dell
14 11 (0.97%) Infoblox
15 10 (0.88%) Avaya
16 9 (0.79%) CheckPoint
16 9 (0.79%) Qualys
17 8 (0.71%) ServiceNow
18 7 (0.62%) Arista
18 7 (0.62%) HP