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 £52,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 8 January 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 243 164 173
Rank change year-on-year -79 +9 +88
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 316 614 617
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.75% 1.68% 1.87%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.82% 1.81% 1.96%
Number of salaries quoted 254 388 533
10th Percentile £30,000 £36,250 £32,100
25th Percentile £45,000 £43,125 £39,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £53,000 £48,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% +10.42% +1.05%
75th Percentile £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
90th Percentile £68,750 £65,000 £63,750
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year - +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 38,350 33,985 31,530
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.47% 92.95% 95.32%
Number of salaries quoted 23,323 16,721 23,831
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £27,760
25th Percentile £35,000 £40,000 £37,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £68,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,500 £79,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%

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 8 January 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 8 January 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 -63 113 £52,500 -4.55% 123
Midlands +11 72 £55,000 +10.00% 60
West Midlands +18 57 £50,000 - 33
North of England -68 48 £45,000 -5.26% 81
Scotland -2 27 £45,000 -10.00% 14
South West -24 26 £55,000 +29.41% 52
North West -30 25 £45,000 -5.26% 39
East of England +23 20 £60,000 -5.25% 73
East Midlands +3 15 £55,000 - 26
Yorkshire -27 12 £45,000 -10.00% 30
North East -12 11 £50,000 +18.34% 15
Northern Ireland - 6 £57,500 - 12
Wales -17 3 £43,750 -0.57% 22
Isle of Man +10 1 £60,000 +53.85%
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 8 January 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.

1 172 (54.43%) Cisco
2 127 (40.19%) Firewall
3 95 (30.06%) WAN
4 87 (27.53%) LAN
5 83 (26.27%) Cisco Certification
6 71 (22.47%) Security Cleared
7 69 (21.84%) Azure
8 65 (20.57%) CCNP
9 51 (16.14%) Network Security
9 51 (16.14%) SD-WAN
10 50 (15.82%) BGP
10 50 (15.82%) VPN
11 49 (15.51%) Juniper
12 48 (15.19%) Fortinet
12 48 (15.19%) Palo Alto
12 48 (15.19%) SolarWinds
13 46 (14.56%) Microsoft
13 46 (14.56%) Wireless
14 45 (14.24%) SC Cleared
15 42 (13.29%) Problem-Solving
16 40 (12.66%) CheckPoint
16 40 (12.66%) Meraki
16 40 (12.66%) Network Monitoring
17 37 (11.71%) DV Cleared
18 36 (11.39%) CCNA
19 33 (10.44%) OSPF
19 33 (10.44%) VLAN
20 30 (9.49%) Infrastructure Engineering
21 28 (8.86%) Change Management
21 28 (8.86%) ITSM

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:

Applications
1 21 (6.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (2.53%) MS Visio
3 6 (1.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (0.95%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 69 (21.84%) Azure
2 17 (5.38%) AWS
3 12 (3.80%) Microsoft 365
4 7 (2.22%) Entra ID
5 6 (1.90%) Azure Sentinel
5 6 (1.90%) GCP
6 3 (0.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 3 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (0.63%) Nutanix
8 1 (0.32%) GitHub
8 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 127 (40.19%) Firewall
2 95 (30.06%) WAN
3 87 (27.53%) LAN
4 51 (16.14%) Network Security
4 51 (16.14%) SD-WAN
5 50 (15.82%) BGP
5 50 (15.82%) VPN
6 46 (14.56%) Wireless
7 33 (10.44%) OSPF
7 33 (10.44%) VLAN
8 26 (8.23%) Cisco ASA
9 25 (7.91%) Wi-Fi
10 24 (7.59%) Cisco Firepower
11 23 (7.28%) Cisco ISE
12 22 (6.96%) MPLS
13 21 (6.65%) EIGRP
13 21 (6.65%) IPsec
13 21 (6.65%) Wireshark
14 18 (5.70%) Cisco IOS
15 17 (5.38%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (4.43%) GIS
Development Applications
1 2 (0.63%) JIRA
2 1 (0.32%) Jenkins
General
1 54 (17.09%) Social Skills
2 28 (8.86%) Finance
3 17 (5.38%) Telecoms
4 16 (5.06%) Public Sector
5 14 (4.43%) Fire and Rescue
5 14 (4.43%) Legal
6 10 (3.16%) Analytical Skills
7 9 (2.85%) Manufacturing
7 9 (2.85%) Retail
8 6 (1.90%) Automotive
8 6 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (1.90%) Law
9 4 (1.27%) Police
10 2 (0.63%) Advertising
10 2 (0.63%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.63%) Banking
10 2 (0.63%) Marketing
11 1 (0.32%) Electronics
11 1 (0.32%) Military
11 1 (0.32%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (0.95%) 802.1X
1 3 (0.95%) REST
2 1 (0.32%) Apache NiFi
2 1 (0.32%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 39 (12.34%) Data Centre
2 14 (4.43%) SCADA
3 13 (4.11%) Management Information System
4 11 (3.48%) PKI
5 10 (3.16%) Driving Licence
6 6 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
6 6 (1.90%) Public Cloud
7 5 (1.58%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (1.27%) Product Ownership
8 4 (1.27%) Virtual Team
9 3 (0.95%) CCTV
9 3 (0.95%) Cloud Native
9 3 (0.95%) CMDB
9 3 (0.95%) iPad
9 3 (0.95%) Private Cloud
10 2 (0.63%) EPoS
10 2 (0.63%) FMCG
10 2 (0.63%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 21 (6.65%) Windows
2 14 (4.43%) Windows Server
3 6 (1.90%) Linux
4 5 (1.58%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.95%) Android
6 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (13.29%) Problem-Solving
2 40 (12.66%) Network Monitoring
3 30 (9.49%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 28 (8.86%) Change Management
4 28 (8.86%) ITSM
5 26 (8.23%) Customer Service
5 26 (8.23%) Service Management
6 24 (7.59%) Load Balancing
7 23 (7.28%) Network Design
7 23 (7.28%) Network Virtualisation
8 22 (6.96%) ITIL
9 18 (5.70%) Network Management
9 18 (5.70%) Problem Management
10 17 (5.38%) High Availability
11 16 (5.06%) Continuous Improvement
11 16 (5.06%) Incident Management
12 15 (4.75%) Asset Management
12 15 (4.75%) Cybersecurity
13 14 (4.43%) Mentoring
13 14 (4.43%) Regulatory Compliance
Programming Languages
1 13 (4.11%) Python
2 8 (2.53%) PowerShell
3 2 (0.63%) Bash
4 1 (0.32%) VB
Qualifications
1 83 (26.27%) Cisco Certification
2 71 (22.47%) Security Cleared
3 65 (20.57%) CCNP
4 45 (14.24%) SC Cleared
5 37 (11.71%) DV Cleared
6 36 (11.39%) CCNA
7 10 (3.16%) CCIE
7 10 (3.16%) Degree
7 10 (3.16%) JNCIS
8 9 (2.85%) Azure Certification
9 3 (0.95%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.63%) CCSP
10 2 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.63%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 2 (0.63%) JNCIA
11 1 (0.32%) CCIE Security
11 1 (0.32%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.58%) ISO/IEC 20000
2 4 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (0.95%) QA
3 3 (0.95%) SLA
4 2 (0.63%) PMO
5 1 (0.32%) GDPR
5 1 (0.32%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 17 (5.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (5.06%) VMware NSX
3 15 (4.75%) Active Directory
3 15 (4.75%) Firmware
4 4 (1.27%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.63%) KVM
5 2 (0.63%) ProxySG
5 2 (0.63%) RHEV
5 2 (0.63%) Xen
6 1 (0.32%) iptables
6 1 (0.32%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 18 (5.70%) FortiGate
2 11 (3.48%) vCenter Server
3 10 (3.16%) Terraform
4 9 (2.85%) Ansible
5 7 (2.22%) Nagios
6 4 (1.27%) Dell DRAC
7 3 (0.95%) Grafana
7 3 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.95%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.95%) Proxmox
7 3 (0.95%) SCCM
8 1 (0.32%) VxRail
Vendors
1 172 (54.43%) Cisco
2 49 (15.51%) Juniper
3 48 (15.19%) Fortinet
3 48 (15.19%) Palo Alto
3 48 (15.19%) SolarWinds
4 46 (14.56%) Microsoft
5 40 (12.66%) CheckPoint
5 40 (12.66%) Meraki
6 28 (8.86%) VMware
7 27 (8.54%) F5
8 10 (3.16%) Aruba
8 10 (3.16%) Broadcom
8 10 (3.16%) Zscaler
9 8 (2.53%) ServiceNow
10 7 (2.22%) Splunk
11 6 (1.90%) Dell
12 5 (1.58%) Avaya
12 5 (1.58%) Blue Coat
12 5 (1.58%) HP
13 4 (1.27%) Infoblox