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 £53,375 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 6 March 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 231 160 206
Rank change year-on-year -71 +46 +43
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 403 533 780
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.78% 1.80% 1.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.85% 1.98% 1.52%
Number of salaries quoted 300 378 670
10th Percentile £30,000 £36,850 £30,000
25th Percentile £41,250 £44,106 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,375 £53,000 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +0.71% +11.58% -
75th Percentile £65,000 £59,000 £53,500
90th Percentile £73,500 £65,565 £60,000
UK median annual salary £55,500 £55,000 £49,000
% change year-on-year +0.91% +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 47,246 26,902 51,266
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.64% 90.88% 94.81%
Number of salaries quoted 29,776 14,030 39,198
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,500 £26,700
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,221 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -5.36%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £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 6 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 6 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 -64 135 £52,500 -1.87% 75
Midlands +10 82 £55,500 +8.29% 49
North of England -68 81 £45,000 -5.26% 47
West Midlands +17 65 £60,000 +17.07% 26
North West -32 43 £45,000 -10.00% 23
South West -32 36 £50,000 - 31
Scotland +5 35 £45,000 -11.57% 15
East of England +7 26 £60,000 +17.65% 23
Yorkshire -45 23 £45,000 -4.96% 18
East Midlands -24 17 £55,000 -4.35% 23
North East -17 15 £50,000 +12.36% 6
Wales -27 5 £50,000 +16.28% 20
Northern Ireland - 4 £45,625 - 5
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 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.

1 183 (45.41%) Cisco
2 141 (34.99%) Firewall
3 120 (29.78%) WAN
4 101 (25.06%) LAN
5 91 (22.58%) Cisco Certification
6 78 (19.35%) Security Cleared
7 75 (18.61%) CCNP
8 70 (17.37%) Azure
9 61 (15.14%) VPN
10 59 (14.64%) Network Security
11 58 (14.39%) SD-WAN
11 58 (14.39%) Wireless
12 55 (13.65%) BGP
13 53 (13.15%) Fortinet
14 52 (12.90%) Palo Alto
15 50 (12.41%) SolarWinds
16 49 (12.16%) SC Cleared
17 45 (11.17%) Juniper
18 43 (10.67%) VLAN
19 42 (10.42%) CheckPoint
20 40 (9.93%) Network Monitoring
21 39 (9.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
22 37 (9.18%) CCNA
23 35 (8.68%) OSPF
24 34 (8.44%) DV Cleared
24 34 (8.44%) Meraki
24 34 (8.44%) Microsoft
25 33 (8.19%) Customer Service
25 33 (8.19%) F5
26 31 (7.69%) AWS

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 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
1 2 (0.50%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (1.99%) MS Visio
2 4 (0.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 70 (17.37%) Azure
2 31 (7.69%) AWS
3 14 (3.47%) Microsoft 365
4 9 (2.23%) Entra ID
5 8 (1.99%) Azure Sentinel
6 7 (1.74%) GCP
7 6 (1.49%) OpenShift
8 3 (0.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 3 (0.74%) Apigee
8 3 (0.74%) Kong
9 2 (0.50%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (0.50%) GitHub
9 2 (0.50%) Mimecast
10 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Purview
10 1 (0.25%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 141 (34.99%) Firewall
2 120 (29.78%) WAN
3 101 (25.06%) LAN
4 61 (15.14%) VPN
5 59 (14.64%) Network Security
6 58 (14.39%) SD-WAN
6 58 (14.39%) Wireless
7 55 (13.65%) BGP
8 43 (10.67%) VLAN
9 35 (8.68%) OSPF
10 31 (7.69%) Cisco ASA
11 29 (7.20%) Cisco ISE
12 27 (6.70%) Wi-Fi
13 24 (5.96%) EIGRP
14 22 (5.46%) Wireshark
15 21 (5.21%) Cisco Firepower
15 21 (5.21%) MPLS
16 20 (4.96%) Cisco IOS
17 18 (4.47%) Cisco Nexus
18 17 (4.22%) Junos
Development Applications
1 6 (1.49%) Git
1 6 (1.49%) GitLab
2 2 (0.50%) Jenkins
2 2 (0.50%) JIRA
3 1 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 69 (17.12%) Social Skills
2 29 (7.20%) Public Sector
3 27 (6.70%) Telecoms
4 21 (5.21%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (4.47%) Finance
6 12 (2.98%) Law
7 11 (2.73%) Retail
8 8 (1.99%) Manufacturing
9 7 (1.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.49%) Police
11 4 (0.99%) Banking
11 4 (0.99%) Marketing
11 4 (0.99%) Military
12 3 (0.74%) Aerospace
12 3 (0.74%) Automotive
13 2 (0.50%) Advertising
13 2 (0.50%) Welsh Language
14 1 (0.25%) Electronics
14 1 (0.25%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.23%) Jinja
2 6 (1.49%) JSON
2 6 (1.49%) YAML
2 6 (1.49%) YANG
3 4 (0.99%) REST
4 3 (0.74%) NETCONF
4 3 (0.74%) XML
5 2 (0.50%) Apache NiFi
6 1 (0.25%) 802.1X
6 1 (0.25%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 50 (12.41%) Data Centre
2 12 (2.98%) Management Information System
3 11 (2.73%) Driving Licence
3 11 (2.73%) PKI
4 8 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
5 7 (1.74%) Security Posture
6 6 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.24%) Public Cloud
8 4 (0.99%) CCTV
8 4 (0.99%) CMDB
8 4 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (0.99%) Private Cloud
8 4 (0.99%) Product Ownership
8 4 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (0.74%) Social Media
10 2 (0.50%) Algorithms
10 2 (0.50%) Cloud Native
10 2 (0.50%) Cyber Defence
10 2 (0.50%) EPoS
10 2 (0.50%) iPad
Operating Systems
1 30 (7.44%) Windows
2 16 (3.97%) Linux
2 16 (3.97%) Windows Server
3 4 (0.99%) Windows 10
4 3 (0.74%) Unix
5 2 (0.50%) Android
6 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (9.93%) Network Monitoring
2 39 (9.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 33 (8.19%) Customer Service
4 31 (7.69%) Load Balancing
5 30 (7.44%) ITSM
5 30 (7.44%) Network Design
6 29 (7.20%) Change Management
7 28 (6.95%) Service Management
8 26 (6.45%) Cybersecurity
9 25 (6.20%) Problem-Solving
10 22 (5.46%) Problem Management
11 21 (5.21%) Continuous Improvement
11 21 (5.21%) ITIL
11 21 (5.21%) Network Virtualisation
12 17 (4.22%) Network Management
13 16 (3.97%) Asset Management
14 15 (3.72%) Capacity Planning
14 15 (3.72%) Root Cause Analysis
15 14 (3.47%) High Availability
16 13 (3.23%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 28 (6.95%) Python
2 7 (1.74%) PowerShell
3 3 (0.74%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.25%) SQL
Qualifications
1 91 (22.58%) Cisco Certification
2 78 (19.35%) Security Cleared
3 75 (18.61%) CCNP
4 49 (12.16%) SC Cleared
5 37 (9.18%) CCNA
6 34 (8.44%) DV Cleared
7 18 (4.47%) CCIE
8 11 (2.73%) Degree
9 8 (1.99%) JNCIS
10 7 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (1.49%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.99%) BPSS Clearance
13 2 (0.50%) DBS Check
14 1 (0.25%) CCIE Data Center
14 1 (0.25%) CCIE Security
14 1 (0.25%) CCSP
14 1 (0.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 1 (0.25%) JNCIA
14 1 (0.25%) JNCIP
14 1 (0.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 20000
2 7 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (1.49%) PMO
4 5 (1.24%) GDPR
4 5 (1.24%) QA
5 2 (0.50%) NIST
6 1 (0.25%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.25%) SLA
System Software
1 19 (4.71%) Active Directory
1 19 (4.71%) VMware NSX
2 17 (4.22%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (2.98%) Firmware
4 6 (1.49%) Hyper-V
4 6 (1.49%) ProxySG
5 3 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.25%) iptables
6 1 (0.25%) KVM
6 1 (0.25%) RHEV
6 1 (0.25%) Xen
Systems Management
1 15 (3.72%) FortiGate
2 11 (2.73%) Terraform
2 11 (2.73%) vCenter Server
3 8 (1.99%) Ansible
4 6 (1.49%) Nagios
5 3 (0.74%) Dell DRAC
5 3 (0.74%) Grafana
5 3 (0.74%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.50%) Proxmox
6 2 (0.50%) SCCM
7 1 (0.25%) OpenView
7 1 (0.25%) Tivoli
7 1 (0.25%) vRealize
Vendors
1 183 (45.41%) Cisco
2 53 (13.15%) Fortinet
3 52 (12.90%) Palo Alto
4 50 (12.41%) SolarWinds
5 45 (11.17%) Juniper
6 42 (10.42%) CheckPoint
7 34 (8.44%) Meraki
7 34 (8.44%) Microsoft
8 33 (8.19%) F5
9 28 (6.95%) VMware
10 12 (2.98%) Zscaler
11 11 (2.73%) CrowdStrike
11 11 (2.73%) ServiceNow
12 10 (2.48%) Broadcom
12 10 (2.48%) Infoblox
13 9 (2.23%) Blue Coat
14 8 (1.99%) Aruba
14 8 (1.99%) Dell
15 7 (1.74%) Avaya
15 7 (1.74%) Splunk