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 May 2026.

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

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 236 211
Rank change year-on-year +105 -25 +25
Permanent jobs requiring a Network Engineer 873 350 937
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 1.33% 1.23% 1.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.43% 1.38% 1.44%
Number of salaries quoted 421 310 785
10th Percentile £35,000 £36,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £37,101
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £51,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +6.80% +8.42% +5.56%
75th Percentile £65,000 £57,500 £55,000
90th Percentile £75,000 £63,750 £63,750
UK median annual salary £58,099 £52,500 £49,745
% change year-on-year +10.66% +5.54% -0.51%

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 61,245 25,370 64,986
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 93.42% 88.97% 94.73%
Number of salaries quoted 39,864 14,579 47,406
10th Percentile £30,000 £27,750 £26,750
25th Percentile £36,188 £36,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £68,750 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £85,000 £82,500 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £58,000 £52,777
% change year-on-year -5.17% +9.90% -12.04%

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 May 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 May 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 +82 228 £50,000 -6.10% 60
South East +7 212 £50,000 -4.76% 74
Midlands +73 192 £55,500 +13.27% 34
West Midlands +46 134 £56,900 +15.08% 31
North West +63 105 £50,000 -9.09% 36
Yorkshire +8 96 £50,000 +11.86% 16
South West +2 86 £59,050 +7.36% 23
East of England +41 61 £57,500 +35.29% 16
East Midlands +23 58 £55,000 +29.41% 3
Scotland +29 51 £45,000 -14.20% 18
Wales 0 39 £50,000 +16.28% 15
North East -24 27 £55,000 -4.35% 8
Northern Ireland - 11 £50,000 - 2
Network Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 May 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.

1 495 (56.70%) Cisco
2 415 (47.54%) Cisco Certification
3 393 (45.02%) Azure
4 360 (41.24%) Microsoft
5 357 (40.89%) CCNA
6 330 (37.80%) Network+ Certification
7 327 (37.46%) Azure Certification
8 324 (37.11%) ForeScout
9 148 (16.95%) Firewall
10 136 (15.58%) WAN
11 108 (12.37%) LAN
12 105 (12.03%) Security Cleared
13 88 (10.08%) VPN
14 79 (9.05%) CCNP
15 78 (8.93%) Network Security
16 60 (6.87%) SC Cleared
17 58 (6.64%) Wireless
18 57 (6.53%) BGP
19 55 (6.30%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 55 (6.30%) VLAN
20 53 (6.07%) SD-WAN
21 52 (5.96%) Fortinet
22 51 (5.84%) AWS
23 49 (5.61%) Python
24 47 (5.38%) DV Cleared
25 42 (4.81%) Problem-Solving
26 40 (4.58%) Network Monitoring
27 39 (4.47%) Cisco ASA
27 39 (4.47%) OSPF
27 39 (4.47%) VMware

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 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
1 5 (0.57%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.11%) Confluence
2 1 (0.11%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 9 (1.03%) MS Visio
2 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 393 (45.02%) Azure
2 51 (5.84%) AWS
3 23 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
4 19 (2.18%) Azure Sentinel
5 10 (1.15%) GCP
5 10 (1.15%) OpenShift
6 8 (0.92%) Entra ID
7 5 (0.57%) Apigee
7 5 (0.57%) Kong
8 3 (0.34%) Cloudflare
8 3 (0.34%) Mimecast
9 2 (0.23%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (0.23%) GitHub
10 1 (0.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 1 (0.11%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 148 (16.95%) Firewall
2 136 (15.58%) WAN
3 108 (12.37%) LAN
4 88 (10.08%) VPN
5 78 (8.93%) Network Security
6 58 (6.64%) Wireless
7 57 (6.53%) BGP
8 55 (6.30%) VLAN
9 53 (6.07%) SD-WAN
10 39 (4.47%) Cisco ASA
10 39 (4.47%) OSPF
11 26 (2.98%) DNS
12 25 (2.86%) TCP/IP
13 24 (2.75%) Wi-Fi
14 23 (2.63%) Cisco Firepower
15 21 (2.41%) DHCP
15 21 (2.41%) MPLS
16 20 (2.29%) Cisco ISE
16 20 (2.29%) EIGRP
16 20 (2.29%) WLAN
Development Applications
1 10 (1.15%) GitLab
2 8 (0.92%) Git
3 2 (0.23%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.11%) JIRA
General
1 380 (43.53%) Social Skills
2 51 (5.84%) Public Sector
3 34 (3.89%) Analytical Skills
4 32 (3.67%) Telecoms
5 17 (1.95%) Law
6 14 (1.60%) Manufacturing
7 13 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (1.49%) Retail
8 11 (1.26%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (1.15%) Finance
10 8 (0.92%) Marketing
11 7 (0.80%) Banking
11 7 (0.80%) Police
12 5 (0.57%) Aerospace
13 4 (0.46%) Back Office
13 4 (0.46%) Welsh Language
14 3 (0.34%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.34%) Military
15 1 (0.11%) Advertising
15 1 (0.11%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (1.49%) Jinja
2 10 (1.15%) JSON
2 10 (1.15%) YAML
3 8 (0.92%) YANG
4 5 (0.57%) 802.1X
4 5 (0.57%) REST
4 5 (0.57%) XML
5 4 (0.46%) ModSecurity
6 3 (0.34%) Apache NiFi
6 3 (0.34%) NETCONF
6 3 (0.34%) XMPP
7 1 (0.11%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 46 (5.27%) Data Centre
2 15 (1.72%) Driving Licence
3 14 (1.60%) PKI
4 13 (1.49%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (1.03%) Security Posture
6 8 (0.92%) Operational Technology
6 8 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (0.80%) Public Cloud
8 6 (0.69%) CMDB
9 5 (0.57%) Video Conferencing
10 4 (0.46%) Enterprise Software
10 4 (0.46%) Fibre Optics
10 4 (0.46%) Private Cloud
11 3 (0.34%) Enterprise Cloud
11 3 (0.34%) FlexPod
11 3 (0.34%) Linux Command Line
11 3 (0.34%) Onboarding
11 3 (0.34%) Social Media
12 2 (0.23%) Algorithms
12 2 (0.23%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 28 (3.21%) Windows
2 27 (3.09%) Linux
3 12 (1.37%) Windows Server
4 5 (0.57%) Unix
5 2 (0.23%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (6.30%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 42 (4.81%) Problem-Solving
3 40 (4.58%) Network Monitoring
4 31 (3.55%) Continuous Improvement
5 30 (3.44%) Cybersecurity
5 30 (3.44%) High Availability
5 30 (3.44%) Service Management
6 29 (3.32%) ITSM
7 27 (3.09%) ITIL
8 26 (2.98%) Network Design
9 22 (2.52%) Load Balancing
9 22 (2.52%) Project Delivery
10 21 (2.41%) Customer Service
11 20 (2.29%) Mentoring
12 17 (1.95%) Computer Science
12 17 (1.95%) Root Cause Analysis
13 16 (1.83%) CI/CD
13 16 (1.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 15 (1.72%) Infrastructure as Code
14 15 (1.72%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 49 (5.61%) Python
2 11 (1.26%) PowerShell
3 5 (0.57%) JavaScript
4 3 (0.34%) Bash
5 2 (0.23%) SQL
6 1 (0.11%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 415 (47.54%) Cisco Certification
2 357 (40.89%) CCNA
3 330 (37.80%) Network+ Certification
4 327 (37.46%) Azure Certification
5 105 (12.03%) Security Cleared
6 79 (9.05%) CCNP
7 60 (6.87%) SC Cleared
8 47 (5.38%) DV Cleared
9 25 (2.86%) CCIE
10 19 (2.18%) Degree
11 16 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
12 5 (0.57%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.46%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (0.46%) JNCIP
14 2 (0.23%) AWS Certification
14 2 (0.23%) CCIE Data Center
14 2 (0.23%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 1 (0.11%) CCIE Security
15 1 (0.11%) CCSE
15 1 (0.11%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 20000
2 10 (1.15%) SLA
3 9 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (0.92%) PMO
5 7 (0.80%) QA
6 6 (0.69%) NIST
7 4 (0.46%) GDPR
System Software
1 28 (3.21%) VMware Infrastructure
2 23 (2.63%) VMware NSX
3 17 (1.95%) Active Directory
4 13 (1.49%) Firmware
5 8 (0.92%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.92%) ProxySG
6 4 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.34%) Docker
7 3 (0.34%) KVM
7 3 (0.34%) vSphere
8 1 (0.11%) iptables
Systems Management
1 16 (1.83%) Ansible
2 13 (1.49%) Terraform
3 11 (1.26%) FortiGate
4 7 (0.80%) vCenter Server
5 5 (0.57%) Grafana
6 4 (0.46%) Proxmox
7 3 (0.34%) Cisco CUCM
7 3 (0.34%) Graylog
7 3 (0.34%) Nagios
7 3 (0.34%) ZABBIX
8 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.23%) vRealize
9 1 (0.11%) Cisco Prime
9 1 (0.11%) Dell DRAC
9 1 (0.11%) OpenView
9 1 (0.11%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.11%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 495 (56.70%) Cisco
2 360 (41.24%) Microsoft
3 324 (37.11%) ForeScout
4 52 (5.96%) Fortinet
5 39 (4.47%) VMware
6 36 (4.12%) Palo Alto
7 35 (4.01%) Juniper
7 35 (4.01%) SolarWinds
8 26 (2.98%) CheckPoint
8 26 (2.98%) F5
9 15 (1.72%) Aruba
9 15 (1.72%) Meraki
9 15 (1.72%) Zscaler
10 14 (1.60%) Avaya
11 13 (1.49%) Infoblox
12 10 (1.15%) Blue Coat
12 10 (1.15%) Dell
12 10 (1.15%) Red Hat
13 9 (1.03%) ServiceNow
14 8 (0.92%) Motorola