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 9 September 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 308 153
Rank change year-on-year +185 -155 +33
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 1,142 272 865
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 1.39% 0.79% 1.55%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.48% 0.88% 1.63%
Number of salaries quoted 655 222 568
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,652 £31,290
25th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £49,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +7.14% +4.81%
75th Percentile £65,000 £58,750 £58,750
90th Percentile £75,000 £64,975 £65,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £54,388 £51,000
% change year-on-year +10.32% +6.64% +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 77,322 30,847 53,097
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.91% 89.32% 95.19%
Number of salaries quoted 53,774 17,601 31,752
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,500 £29,750
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,500
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 £65,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £86,250 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% - -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 9 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 9 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 +119 309 £52,500 -8.70% 57
South East +107 272 £55,000 +4.76% 43
Midlands +82 239 £55,000 +15.79% 47
West Midlands +49 150 £55,000 +22.22% 25
North West +97 144 £57,500 +4.55% 28
Yorkshire +48 133 £50,000 -33.33% 22
South West +4 109 £65,000 +18.18% 47
East of England +38 91 £55,000 +10.00% 38
East Midlands +41 89 £60,000 +9.09% 22
Scotland +64 71 £55,000 +1.85% 16
Wales -29 46 £50,000 +0.50% 11
North East -49 32 £55,000 +10.00% 8
Northern Ireland -73 12 £36,412 -36.67% 4
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 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.

1 551 (48.25%) Cisco
2 464 (40.63%) Cisco Certification
3 394 (34.50%) Azure
4 382 (33.45%) CCNA
5 377 (33.01%) Microsoft
6 343 (30.04%) Network+ Certification
7 326 (28.55%) Azure Certification
8 324 (28.37%) ForeScout
9 225 (19.70%) Firewall
10 197 (17.25%) WAN
11 180 (15.76%) LAN
12 151 (13.22%) VPN
13 130 (11.38%) Security Cleared
14 123 (10.77%) Network Security
15 113 (9.89%) CCNP
16 104 (9.11%) Wireless
17 96 (8.41%) Fortinet
18 94 (8.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 93 (8.14%) BGP
20 85 (7.44%) Problem-Solving
21 84 (7.36%) OSPF
22 83 (7.27%) Wi-Fi
23 77 (6.74%) VLAN
24 65 (5.69%) DNS
24 65 (5.69%) Python
25 63 (5.52%) DV Cleared
25 63 (5.52%) SC Cleared
26 62 (5.43%) Aruba
27 56 (4.90%) TCP/IP
28 53 (4.64%) SD-WAN

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 10 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
1 10 (0.88%) SharePoint
2 4 (0.35%) Confluence
3 1 (0.088%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (0.18%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.53%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 394 (34.50%) Azure
2 47 (4.12%) AWS
3 32 (2.80%) Microsoft 365
4 17 (1.49%) Azure Sentinel
5 10 (0.88%) GCP
6 9 (0.79%) Cloudflare
7 8 (0.70%) Entra ID
8 4 (0.35%) OCI
8 4 (0.35%) OpenShift
9 3 (0.26%) Mimecast
10 2 (0.18%) Apigee
10 2 (0.18%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 2 (0.18%) Kong
11 1 (0.088%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 225 (19.70%) Firewall
2 197 (17.25%) WAN
3 180 (15.76%) LAN
4 151 (13.22%) VPN
5 123 (10.77%) Network Security
6 104 (9.11%) Wireless
7 93 (8.14%) BGP
8 84 (7.36%) OSPF
9 83 (7.27%) Wi-Fi
10 77 (6.74%) VLAN
11 65 (5.69%) DNS
12 56 (4.90%) TCP/IP
13 53 (4.64%) SD-WAN
14 48 (4.20%) DHCP
15 43 (3.77%) WLAN
16 36 (3.15%) Cisco ASA
16 36 (3.15%) EIGRP
17 35 (3.06%) Cisco Nexus
18 28 (2.45%) Cisco Firepower
19 22 (1.93%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.088%) GIS
Development Applications
1 10 (0.88%) Git
2 6 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
3 4 (0.35%) GitLab
3 4 (0.35%) JIRA
General
1 409 (35.81%) Social Skills
2 61 (5.34%) Public Sector
3 50 (4.38%) Telecoms
4 38 (3.33%) Analytical Skills
5 22 (1.93%) Finance
6 16 (1.40%) Law
7 14 (1.23%) Retail
8 12 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (0.96%) Marketing
9 11 (0.96%) Organisational Skills
10 10 (0.88%) Banking
10 10 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (0.79%) Manufacturing
12 6 (0.53%) Aerospace
12 6 (0.53%) Back Office
13 3 (0.26%) Military
14 2 (0.18%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.18%) Police
14 2 (0.18%) Welsh Language
15 1 (0.088%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (2.89%) Terraform
2 11 (0.96%) YAML
3 7 (0.61%) Jinja
3 7 (0.61%) JSON
4 6 (0.53%) 802.1X
5 4 (0.35%) ModSecurity
5 4 (0.35%) XMPP
6 3 (0.26%) Apache NiFi
6 3 (0.26%) gRPC
7 2 (0.18%) REST
7 2 (0.18%) XML
7 2 (0.18%) YANG
8 1 (0.088%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 67 (5.87%) Data Centre
2 41 (3.59%) Driving Licence
3 18 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
4 17 (1.49%) PKI
4 17 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
5 11 (0.96%) CCTV
5 11 (0.96%) Onboarding
6 10 (0.88%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 9 (0.79%) Fibre Optics
7 9 (0.79%) Linux Command Line
8 8 (0.70%) CMDB
9 7 (0.61%) Clustering
9 7 (0.61%) Life Science
9 7 (0.61%) Operational Technology
9 7 (0.61%) Security Posture
10 6 (0.53%) Video Conferencing
11 5 (0.44%) Cloud Native
11 5 (0.44%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.35%) Enterprise Cloud
12 4 (0.35%) FlexPod
Operating Systems
1 50 (4.38%) Windows
2 38 (3.33%) Linux
3 31 (2.71%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
4 2 (0.18%) Unix
5 1 (0.088%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.088%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.088%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (8.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 85 (7.44%) Problem-Solving
3 52 (4.55%) Continuous Improvement
4 48 (4.20%) High Availability
5 45 (3.94%) Network Monitoring
6 44 (3.85%) Mentoring
7 39 (3.42%) Cybersecurity
7 39 (3.42%) Project Delivery
8 38 (3.33%) Disaster Recovery
9 37 (3.24%) Network Design
10 33 (2.89%) ITIL
11 27 (2.36%) Customer Service
11 27 (2.36%) SIEM
12 25 (2.19%) Business Continuity
12 25 (2.19%) Change Management
12 25 (2.19%) Load Balancing
12 25 (2.19%) Technical Leadership
13 23 (2.01%) Root Cause Analysis
13 23 (2.01%) Vulnerability Management
14 22 (1.93%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 65 (5.69%) Python
2 24 (2.10%) PowerShell
3 9 (0.79%) Bash
3 9 (0.79%) SQL
4 2 (0.18%) Go
4 2 (0.18%) JavaScript
5 1 (0.088%) Bicep
5 1 (0.088%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 464 (40.63%) Cisco Certification
2 382 (33.45%) CCNA
3 343 (30.04%) Network+ Certification
4 326 (28.55%) Azure Certification
5 130 (11.38%) Security Cleared
6 113 (9.89%) CCNP
7 63 (5.52%) DV Cleared
7 63 (5.52%) SC Cleared
8 23 (2.01%) Degree
9 18 (1.58%) CCIE
10 13 (1.14%) DBS Check
11 9 (0.79%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (0.53%) JNCIP
13 4 (0.35%) CompTIA Security+
14 3 (0.26%) AWS Certification
14 3 (0.26%) CCDP
14 3 (0.26%) CISSP
14 3 (0.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 2 (0.18%) HNC
16 1 (0.088%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (1.58%) SLA
2 14 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (0.88%) GDPR
4 8 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 20000
5 6 (0.53%) NIST
6 5 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
6 5 (0.44%) QA
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
8 1 (0.088%) PMO
System Software
1 43 (3.77%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (2.54%) Active Directory
3 28 (2.45%) Hyper-V
4 18 (1.58%) VMware NSX
5 14 (1.23%) Firmware
5 14 (1.23%) vSphere
6 9 (0.79%) KVM
7 3 (0.26%) Docker
8 2 (0.18%) iptables
8 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.088%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.088%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.088%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 39 (3.42%) Ansible
2 32 (2.80%) FortiGate
3 13 (1.14%) Proxmox
4 11 (0.96%) Stealthwatch
5 9 (0.79%) ZABBIX
6 8 (0.70%) Graylog
6 8 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (0.61%) Failover Clustering
7 7 (0.61%) Grafana
8 6 (0.53%) Microsoft Clustering
9 5 (0.44%) Kubernetes
10 4 (0.35%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.26%) Nagios
12 2 (0.18%) Cisco Prime
12 2 (0.18%) Dell DRAC
12 2 (0.18%) Prometheus
13 1 (0.088%) Cilium
13 1 (0.088%) Istio
13 1 (0.088%) Single Sign-On
13 1 (0.088%) vRealize
Vendors
1 551 (48.25%) Cisco
2 377 (33.01%) Microsoft
3 324 (28.37%) ForeScout
4 96 (8.41%) Fortinet
5 62 (5.43%) Aruba
6 51 (4.47%) Palo Alto
6 51 (4.47%) VMware
7 29 (2.54%) Juniper
8 22 (1.93%) F5
9 19 (1.66%) Meraki
10 17 (1.49%) SolarWinds
11 13 (1.14%) Veeam
12 11 (0.96%) Avaya
13 10 (0.88%) CheckPoint
13 10 (0.88%) Dell
14 9 (0.79%) Qualys
14 9 (0.79%) ServiceNow
15 8 (0.70%) HP
15 8 (0.70%) Infoblox
15 8 (0.70%) Zscaler