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 19 March 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 231 172 207
Rank change year-on-year -59 +35 +52
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 396 457 847
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.74% 1.68% 1.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.80% 1.87% 1.50%
Number of salaries quoted 299 380 724
10th Percentile £30,000 £36,925 £29,825
25th Percentile £42,500 £46,250 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,750 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +4.27% +11.05% -
75th Percentile £65,000 £59,000 £53,750
90th Percentile £75,000 £66,250 £60,875
UK median annual salary £58,000 £55,000 £49,000
% change year-on-year +5.45% +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 49,507 24,477 56,283
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.08% 89.98% 94.78%
Number of salaries quoted 31,410 14,315 42,596
10th Percentile £28,250 £29,750 £26,750
25th Percentile £35,000 £39,304 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £54,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +8.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £64,294
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £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 19 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 19 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 -62 137 £52,500 -0.94% 70
North of England -42 84 £45,000 -5.26% 44
Midlands +1 77 £55,500 +8.29% 48
West Midlands +14 62 £60,000 +18.65% 28
North West 0 45 £45,000 -14.89% 27
South West -35 35 £50,000 - 26
Scotland -11 31 £45,000 -22.34% 15
East of England -9 22 £65,000 +25.00% 22
Yorkshire -46 22 £45,000 +0.67% 12
North East -19 17 £50,000 +12.36% 5
East Midlands -39 15 £55,000 - 20
Wales -24 8 £50,000 +13.64% 13
Northern Ireland - 3 £57,500 - 4
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 163 (41.16%) Cisco
2 127 (32.07%) Firewall
3 105 (26.52%) WAN
4 86 (21.72%) LAN
5 81 (20.45%) Cisco Certification
6 69 (17.42%) Security Cleared
7 68 (17.17%) CCNP
8 62 (15.66%) Azure
9 55 (13.89%) Network Security
9 55 (13.89%) VPN
9 55 (13.89%) Wireless
10 51 (12.88%) BGP
11 49 (12.37%) Fortinet
12 47 (11.87%) SD-WAN
13 43 (10.86%) Palo Alto
14 42 (10.61%) SC Cleared
14 42 (10.61%) SolarWinds
15 41 (10.35%) VLAN
16 39 (9.85%) Juniper
17 38 (9.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 37 (9.34%) CheckPoint
19 36 (9.09%) Python
20 35 (8.84%) AWS
21 34 (8.59%) OSPF
22 32 (8.08%) F5
23 31 (7.83%) Cisco ASA
24 30 (7.58%) DV Cleared
24 30 (7.58%) Network Monitoring
25 29 (7.32%) Customer Service
25 29 (7.32%) Problem-Solving

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 9 (2.27%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 62 (15.66%) Azure
2 35 (8.84%) AWS
3 11 (2.78%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (2.53%) OpenShift
5 8 (2.02%) Azure Sentinel
5 8 (2.02%) GCP
6 5 (1.26%) Apigee
6 5 (1.26%) Entra ID
6 5 (1.26%) Kong
7 3 (0.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 2 (0.51%) GitHub
8 2 (0.51%) Mimecast
9 1 (0.25%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 127 (32.07%) Firewall
2 105 (26.52%) WAN
3 86 (21.72%) LAN
4 55 (13.89%) Network Security
4 55 (13.89%) VPN
4 55 (13.89%) Wireless
5 51 (12.88%) BGP
6 47 (11.87%) SD-WAN
7 41 (10.35%) VLAN
8 34 (8.59%) OSPF
9 31 (7.83%) Cisco ASA
10 27 (6.82%) Cisco ISE
11 25 (6.31%) EIGRP
12 23 (5.81%) Wi-Fi
13 21 (5.30%) Cisco Nexus
14 20 (5.05%) Cisco Firepower
15 17 (4.29%) MPLS
16 16 (4.04%) Cisco IOS
17 15 (3.79%) DNS
18 14 (3.54%) Wireshark
Development Applications
1 10 (2.53%) GitLab
2 8 (2.02%) Git
3 2 (0.51%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.51%) JIRA
4 1 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 61 (15.40%) Social Skills
2 27 (6.82%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (6.57%) Public Sector
4 24 (6.06%) Telecoms
5 12 (3.03%) Finance
5 12 (3.03%) Law
5 12 (3.03%) Retail
6 9 (2.27%) Manufacturing
7 7 (1.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (1.77%) Police
8 6 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.01%) Banking
9 4 (1.01%) Marketing
10 3 (0.76%) Aerospace
10 3 (0.76%) Military
10 3 (0.76%) Welsh Language
11 1 (0.25%) Advertising
11 1 (0.25%) Electronics
11 1 (0.25%) Local Government
11 1 (0.25%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (3.28%) Jinja
2 10 (2.53%) JSON
2 10 (2.53%) YAML
3 8 (2.02%) YANG
4 5 (1.26%) REST
4 5 (1.26%) XML
5 3 (0.76%) NETCONF
6 2 (0.51%) 802.1X
6 2 (0.51%) Apache NiFi
7 1 (0.25%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 43 (10.86%) Data Centre
2 10 (2.53%) Driving Licence
2 10 (2.53%) PKI
3 8 (2.02%) Security Posture
4 7 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
5 6 (1.52%) Management Information System
5 6 (1.52%) Public Cloud
6 5 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.01%) CCTV
7 4 (1.01%) CMDB
7 4 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
7 4 (1.01%) Private Cloud
7 4 (1.01%) Product Ownership
8 3 (0.76%) Social Media
9 2 (0.51%) Algorithms
9 2 (0.51%) Cyber Defence
9 2 (0.51%) EPoS
9 2 (0.51%) Operational Technology
10 1 (0.25%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 24 (6.06%) Windows
2 19 (4.80%) Linux
3 13 (3.28%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.26%) Unix
5 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (9.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 30 (7.58%) Network Monitoring
3 29 (7.32%) Customer Service
3 29 (7.32%) Problem-Solving
4 28 (7.07%) Service Management
5 27 (6.82%) Load Balancing
6 24 (6.06%) ITSM
6 24 (6.06%) Network Design
7 23 (5.81%) Change Management
8 22 (5.56%) Cybersecurity
9 19 (4.80%) Continuous Improvement
10 18 (4.55%) ITIL
11 16 (4.04%) CI/CD
11 16 (4.04%) Problem Management
11 16 (4.04%) Root Cause Analysis
12 15 (3.79%) Project Delivery
12 15 (3.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 14 (3.54%) High Availability
14 13 (3.28%) Collaborative Working
14 13 (3.28%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 36 (9.09%) Python
2 6 (1.52%) PowerShell
3 5 (1.26%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.25%) SQL
Qualifications
1 81 (20.45%) Cisco Certification
2 69 (17.42%) Security Cleared
3 68 (17.17%) CCNP
4 42 (10.61%) SC Cleared
5 30 (7.58%) DV Cleared
6 27 (6.82%) CCNA
7 20 (5.05%) CCIE
8 14 (3.54%) Degree
9 11 (2.78%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (1.26%) Azure Certification
11 4 (1.01%) BPSS Clearance
12 3 (0.76%) JNCIS
12 3 (0.76%) Network+ Certification
13 1 (0.25%) A+ Certification
13 1 (0.25%) CCIE Security
13 1 (0.25%) CCSE
13 1 (0.25%) CCSP
13 1 (0.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 1 (0.25%) JNCIP
13 1 (0.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 20000
1 8 (2.02%) PMO
2 7 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (1.26%) QA
4 4 (1.01%) GDPR
5 3 (0.76%) NIST
6 2 (0.51%) SLA
7 1 (0.25%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 18 (4.55%) VMware NSX
2 16 (4.04%) Active Directory
3 15 (3.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (2.78%) Firmware
5 8 (2.02%) ProxySG
6 4 (1.01%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.25%) iptables
Systems Management
1 11 (2.78%) FortiGate
2 10 (2.53%) Terraform
2 10 (2.53%) vCenter Server
3 8 (2.02%) Ansible
4 3 (0.76%) Grafana
4 3 (0.76%) Nagios
4 3 (0.76%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.51%) Dell DRAC
6 1 (0.25%) OpenView
6 1 (0.25%) Proxmox
6 1 (0.25%) Tivoli
6 1 (0.25%) vRealize
Vendors
1 163 (41.16%) Cisco
2 49 (12.37%) Fortinet
3 43 (10.86%) Palo Alto
4 42 (10.61%) SolarWinds
5 39 (9.85%) Juniper
6 37 (9.34%) CheckPoint
7 32 (8.08%) F5
8 26 (6.57%) Meraki
8 26 (6.57%) Microsoft
9 25 (6.31%) VMware
10 12 (3.03%) Infoblox
11 11 (2.78%) ServiceNow
12 10 (2.53%) Blue Coat
12 10 (2.53%) Red Hat
12 10 (2.53%) Zscaler
13 9 (2.27%) Broadcom
14 8 (2.02%) Aruba
14 8 (2.02%) CrowdStrike
14 8 (2.02%) Motorola
15 7 (1.77%) Avaya