Network Engineer salary by region
| Region | Typical annual pay |
|---|---|
| United StatesNational range; SF/NYC skew higher. | $85,000 – $135,000 |
| United KingdomNational range; London skews higher. | £55,000 – £85,000 |
| European UnionVaries widely by country. | €65,000 – €105,000 |
Ranges are directional benchmarks for budgeting, not offers. Actual pay depends on location, company stage, and the candidate’s track record.
Salary factors for Network Engineer
Seniority is the biggest lever (mid–senior is the common band for this role), followed by the depth of these skills:
- 5+ years configuring routers, switches, and firewalls (Cisco, Ubiquiti, or Fortinet)
- Hands-on experience with VPN, DNS, DHCP, and TCP/IP networking fundamentals
- Proficiency managing cloud networking (AWS VPC or Azure virtual networks)
- Active Directory or identity management for 100+ user environments
- Incident response: ability to diagnose and resolve outages with minimal guidance
- Security compliance basics: understand PCI-DSS, HIPAA, or SOC 2 requirements relevant to your sector
Why companies invest in Network Engineer
As SMBs expand, a single IT generalist can't manage increasingly complex networks. You're hired to prevent downtime, secure remote access, and support hybrid work without breaking the budget.
When you are ready to hire
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