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 14 October 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 279 148
Rank change year-on-year +124 -131 +14
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 996 286 811
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 1.15% 0.83% 1.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.24% 0.93% 1.69%
Number of salaries quoted 687 214 475
10th Percentile £35,000 £38,539 £35,000
25th Percentile £46,189 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% +5.85%
75th Percentile £65,000 £60,000 £60,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £68,000 £65,000
UK median annual salary £57,500 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +4.55% - +10.00%

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 80,405 30,801 47,868
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.51% 89.52% 95.38%
Number of salaries quoted 55,513 17,417 26,226
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £46,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +19.57% -8.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £58,500 £53,500 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.35% -2.73% -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 14 October 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 14 October 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 +97 267 £55,000 +5.77% 86
South East +84 233 £55,000 +3.53% 88
Midlands +61 197 £60,000 +22.45% 73
North West +74 133 £57,500 +8.49% 43
West Midlands +29 128 £60,000 +33.33% 34
South West +12 117 £60,000 +9.09% 55
Yorkshire +39 105 £50,000 -37.50% 30
East of England +40 93 £55,000 +7.84% 40
East Midlands +20 69 £60,000 +9.09% 39
Scotland +42 54 £55,000 +2.33% 27
Wales -48 30 £50,000 +0.50% 21
North East -59 29 £55,000 +11.39% 13
Northern Ireland -76 8 £45,000 -21.74% 7
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 14 October 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.

1 362 (36.35%) Cisco
2 267 (26.81%) Cisco Certification
3 229 (22.99%) Firewall
4 204 (20.48%) WAN
5 198 (19.88%) LAN
6 182 (18.27%) CCNA
7 173 (17.37%) Azure
8 171 (17.17%) Microsoft
9 159 (15.96%) VPN
10 141 (14.16%) Network Security
11 133 (13.35%) Security Cleared
12 129 (12.95%) CCNP
13 123 (12.35%) Network+ Certification
14 120 (12.05%) Wireless
15 111 (11.14%) Azure Certification
16 109 (10.94%) Fortinet
17 108 (10.84%) ForeScout
18 102 (10.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 99 (9.94%) BGP
19 99 (9.94%) Wi-Fi
20 91 (9.14%) OSPF
21 85 (8.53%) Problem-Solving
22 78 (7.83%) Aruba
23 77 (7.73%) DNS
23 77 (7.73%) VLAN
24 67 (6.73%) DV Cleared
25 63 (6.33%) TCP/IP
26 58 (5.82%) High Availability
27 57 (5.72%) Windows
28 56 (5.62%) DHCP

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 13 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (1.10%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.40%) Confluence
4 1 (0.10%) nginx
4 1 (0.10%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 1 (0.10%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.60%) Raiser’s Edge
Cloud Services
1 173 (17.37%) Azure
2 38 (3.82%) AWS
3 33 (3.31%) Microsoft 365
4 11 (1.10%) Azure Sentinel
5 10 (1.00%) Entra ID
5 10 (1.00%) GCP
6 9 (0.90%) Cloudflare
7 4 (0.40%) OCI
8 3 (0.30%) Mimecast
9 2 (0.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 1 (0.10%) IBM Watson
Communications & Networking
1 229 (22.99%) Firewall
2 204 (20.48%) WAN
3 198 (19.88%) LAN
4 159 (15.96%) VPN
5 141 (14.16%) Network Security
6 120 (12.05%) Wireless
7 99 (9.94%) BGP
7 99 (9.94%) Wi-Fi
8 91 (9.14%) OSPF
9 77 (7.73%) DNS
9 77 (7.73%) VLAN
10 63 (6.33%) TCP/IP
11 56 (5.62%) DHCP
11 56 (5.62%) SD-WAN
12 51 (5.12%) WLAN
13 44 (4.42%) EIGRP
14 38 (3.82%) Cisco ASA
14 38 (3.82%) Cisco Nexus
15 30 (3.01%) Cisco Firepower
16 24 (2.41%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.20%) GIS
Development Applications
1 8 (0.80%) Git
2 6 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
3 5 (0.50%) JIRA
4 1 (0.10%) GitLab
General
1 203 (20.38%) Social Skills
2 64 (6.43%) Public Sector
3 46 (4.62%) Telecoms
4 34 (3.41%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (2.81%) Finance
6 13 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (1.31%) Retail
7 12 (1.20%) Law
8 11 (1.10%) Military
8 11 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
9 9 (0.90%) Banking
9 9 (0.90%) Marketing
10 8 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (0.70%) Aerospace
12 6 (0.60%) Manufacturing
13 5 (0.50%) Back Office
13 5 (0.50%) French Language
14 1 (0.10%) Digital Health
14 1 (0.10%) Electronics
14 1 (0.10%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (3.21%) Terraform
2 7 (0.70%) YAML
3 6 (0.60%) Apache NiFi
4 4 (0.40%) 802.1X
5 3 (0.30%) Jinja
5 3 (0.30%) JSON
5 3 (0.30%) XMPP
6 2 (0.20%) gRPC
6 2 (0.20%) ModSecurity
7 1 (0.10%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 71 (7.13%) Data Centre
2 42 (4.22%) Driving Licence
3 19 (1.91%) Hybrid Cloud
4 18 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
5 17 (1.71%) PKI
6 12 (1.20%) Onboarding
7 11 (1.10%) CCTV
8 10 (1.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 7 (0.70%) Clustering
9 7 (0.70%) Linux Command Line
10 6 (0.60%) Life Science
10 6 (0.60%) Security Posture
11 5 (0.50%) Cloud Native
11 5 (0.50%) Fibre Optics
11 5 (0.50%) Video Conferencing
12 4 (0.40%) CMDB
13 3 (0.30%) Enterprise Cloud
13 3 (0.30%) Management Information System
13 3 (0.30%) Public Cloud
13 3 (0.30%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 57 (5.72%) Windows
2 38 (3.82%) Windows Server
3 35 (3.51%) Linux
4 2 (0.20%) Embedded Linux
4 2 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.10%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (10.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 85 (8.53%) Problem-Solving
3 58 (5.82%) High Availability
4 52 (5.22%) Continuous Improvement
5 48 (4.82%) Network Design
6 47 (4.72%) Mentoring
7 43 (4.32%) Cybersecurity
8 41 (4.12%) Disaster Recovery
8 41 (4.12%) Network Monitoring
8 41 (4.12%) Project Delivery
9 35 (3.51%) DevOps
10 31 (3.11%) ITIL
11 30 (3.01%) Customer Service
11 30 (3.01%) Load Balancing
12 28 (2.81%) Change Management
12 28 (2.81%) Migration
13 27 (2.71%) Network Management
13 27 (2.71%) Root Cause Analysis
13 27 (2.71%) SIEM
14 26 (2.61%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 53 (5.32%) Python
2 20 (2.01%) PowerShell
3 9 (0.90%) Bash
3 9 (0.90%) SQL
4 2 (0.20%) Go
5 1 (0.10%) Bicep
5 1 (0.10%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 267 (26.81%) Cisco Certification
2 182 (18.27%) CCNA
3 133 (13.35%) Security Cleared
4 129 (12.95%) CCNP
5 123 (12.35%) Network+ Certification
6 111 (11.14%) Azure Certification
7 67 (6.73%) DV Cleared
8 51 (5.12%) SC Cleared
9 21 (2.11%) Degree
10 16 (1.61%) CCIE
11 14 (1.41%) DBS Check
12 6 (0.60%) JNCIP
13 5 (0.50%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 4 (0.40%) CompTIA Security+
14 4 (0.40%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 3 (0.30%) AWS Certification
15 3 (0.30%) CCDP
15 3 (0.30%) CISSP
15 3 (0.30%) Computer Science Degree
16 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (1.81%) SLA
2 11 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (1.00%) GDPR
4 7 (0.70%) QA
5 5 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 2 (0.20%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (0.20%) NIST
8 1 (0.10%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.10%) ISO 14001
8 1 (0.10%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 44 (4.42%) VMware Infrastructure
2 35 (3.51%) Active Directory
3 31 (3.11%) Hyper-V
4 18 (1.81%) VMware NSX
5 17 (1.71%) vSphere
6 12 (1.20%) Firmware
7 9 (0.90%) KVM
8 2 (0.20%) Docker
8 2 (0.20%) iptables
8 2 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.10%) FreeRADIUS
9 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.10%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 36 (3.61%) Ansible
2 35 (3.51%) FortiGate
3 13 (1.31%) Proxmox
4 11 (1.10%) Stealthwatch
5 9 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
5 9 (0.90%) ZABBIX
6 8 (0.80%) Graylog
7 7 (0.70%) Failover Clustering
8 6 (0.60%) Microsoft Clustering
9 5 (0.50%) Grafana
9 5 (0.50%) Kubernetes
10 4 (0.40%) Cisco CUCM
10 4 (0.40%) Nagios
11 2 (0.20%) Autotask
11 2 (0.20%) Cisco Prime
11 2 (0.20%) Dell DRAC
11 2 (0.20%) Prometheus
12 1 (0.10%) Cilium
12 1 (0.10%) Istio
12 1 (0.10%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 362 (36.35%) Cisco
2 171 (17.17%) Microsoft
3 109 (10.94%) Fortinet
4 108 (10.84%) ForeScout
5 78 (7.83%) Aruba
6 53 (5.32%) VMware
7 51 (5.12%) Palo Alto
8 34 (3.41%) Juniper
9 27 (2.71%) F5
10 22 (2.21%) Meraki
11 18 (1.81%) Infoblox
12 14 (1.41%) SolarWinds
13 13 (1.31%) CheckPoint
13 13 (1.31%) Dell
14 11 (1.10%) Veeam
15 9 (0.90%) Qualys
15 9 (0.90%) ServiceNow
16 8 (0.80%) Arista
17 7 (0.70%) Mellanox
17 7 (0.70%) NVIDIA