Network Engineer CV Examples & Writing Guide

A mid-level network engineer CV for an NHS trust and a managed service provider. Names and employers are invented. Every bullet carries a number a hiring manager can probe in a technical interview: site counts, device counts, uptime, ticket volume, cutover downtime.

• Vendor match. If the job advert says Cisco, Palo Alto and Meraki and your CV says Juniper and Fortinet, you need to show at least one overlap in the first screen, and mention that protocols transfer. Recruiters search by vendor name.
• Scale. Sites, users, devices, data centres, circuits. A network for 60 users and a network for 6,000 are different jobs. Say which one you have run.
• Certifications and their dates. CCNA is the floor for most enterprise roles; CCNP is what senior job adverts want. Expired certs go in the past tense or come off.
• Production work versus lab work. "Configured BGP" in a home lab and "ran BGP peering with two ISPs for a 2-data-centre network" are read very differently. Be honest about which is which; both have a place.
• Outage and change record. Uptime you maintained, downtime during cutovers, incidents you resolved. Managers hire people who can change a live network without breaking it.
• Automation and cloud. Job adverts in 2026 nearly all mention Python, Ansible or Terraform and at least one cloud provider's networking. Even basic exposure should be visible.

“The first thing checked is whether the person has touched a real production network at the size we run. Device counts, circuit counts, an SD-WAN or firewall migration with downtime numbers. A CV that lists every protocol in the CCNA blueprint but no scale reads like a study guide.”

Group by layer or function so a recruiter finds the job advert's words in seconds. Six or seven lines, 4 to 8 items each. List only what you could be asked about on a whiteboard today.

• Spell names the way vendors and job adverts do: "Palo Alto", "FortiGate", "Cisco ISE", "SD-WAN". ATS matching is literal.
• Separate certifications from skills. Certs are proof, skills are claims.
• No skill bars or percentages. A manager cannot interview "BGP, 80%".

Networking is one of the few IT fields where certifications still decide interviews, because they map to vendor kit the employer already owns. List them in their own section, newest first, with the year. Mark anything expired as such or leave it off.

• Cisco CCNA: the baseline. Most enterprise and MSP job adverts ask for it or an equivalent. Valid 3 years; renew by exam or continuing education credits.
• Cisco CCNP Enterprise (or Security, Data Center, Service Provider): the standard ask for senior roles. Name the concentration exam you passed (for example ENARSI or ENSDWI) if it matches the job advert.
• Cisco CCIE: rare and still respected. If you hold one, put the number and track in your header line.
• CompTIA Network+ and Security+: useful at entry level and for moves from the service desk to the network team. For UK defence and government work, security clearance usually matters more than any one certificate.
• Vendor security certs when the job advert names the firewall: Palo Alto Next-Generation Firewall Engineer (PCNSA was retired in 2024 and PCNSE has been replaced in the newer certification track; a still-valid PCNSE can stay on your CV), Fortinet NSE 4 (now FCP), Check Point CCSA.
• Juniper JNCIA and JNCIS for service providers and universities; Aruba ACSA/ACSP and Meraki (Cisco Meraki Solutions Specialist) for campus and SME.
• Cloud networking: AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty, Azure Network Engineer Associate (AZ-700). Increasingly listed as preferred, rarely required.
• Not certifications, but list them if you have them: security clearance with its level (SC or DV) for defence and government work, or "willing to undergo SC clearance", and an ITIL 4 Foundation certificate for large-enterprise change-management environments.

Pattern for a networking bullet: what you built, migrated or fixed, the platform, and a number for scale or effect (uptime, downtime, cost, tickets, time saved). Seven rewrites from real network work:

Three lines: title, years and certifications; the environment (sites, users, vendors); one result with a number. Use a personal statement rather than a career objective, even as a graduate: a short profile with your certification and lab work reads better than a wish.

Most people enter networking through the service desk, a NOC, a placement, an apprenticeship or a degree plus CCNA. Hiring managers know this. What they want to see is proof that you have configured real kit (or a serious lab) and that you can be trusted on a live network under supervision.

• Lead with the CCNA (or Network+ while studying for it) and the date. Put it in your title line: "Junior Network Engineer, CCNA".
• Write your home lab like a project: devices or emulators (GNS3, EVE-NG, Packet Tracer, used Cisco switches), topology size, protocols configured, and a link to the configs on GitHub. "12-device lab: OSPF multi-area, inter-VLAN routing, NAT, site-to-site IPsec, documented in a GitHub repo" is a real bullet.
• Service desk and IT support experience counts. Pull out the network parts: tickets involving Wi-Fi, VPN, DHCP, DNS, cabling, switch port changes.
• Placements, apprenticeships and NOC shifts: circuits monitored, tickets handled, vendors escalated to, tools used (SolarWinds, PRTG, Zabbix).
• Coursework only if it is specific: a network design final-year project, Cisco Networking Academy, a Linux or Python course.
• One page. No career objective about wanting to grow; the personal statement above does the job.

• One page for graduates and juniors; two pages is the UK norm for experienced, senior and architect roles or long project lists. Never three.
• Order: header (name, title with top cert), personal statement, certifications or skills (whichever the job advert stresses), experience, projects (juniors), education.
• Single column, no icons, no skill bars, no photo. Large employers use Workday, Oracle (Taleo) or SAP SuccessFactors; MSPs and smaller firms often use Workable, Teamtailor or BambooHR. All parse plain PDFs best.
• Mirror the job advert once each where true: vendor names, "BGP", "OSPF", "SD-WAN", "firewall", "wireless", "802.1X", "network monitoring", "change management", "on-call", "Python", "Ansible", the cloud provider.
• Do not list IP addressing schemes, customer names under NDA, or internal hostnames. Describe the environment by size and vendor instead.
• Leave out the photo, date of birth and marital status; UK employers do not expect them. If the role needs security clearance, state your current level or that you are willing to undergo it.

Paste the job advert into the cvplex ATS checker alongside your CV. It lists the vendor, protocol and tool names from the job advert that are missing and shows whether your certifications parsed as a separate section.