Top Networking Skills Every Beginner Needs to Know in 2025 | Kable Academy

Top Networking Skills Every Beginner Needs to Know in 2025

What are the skills you need to conquer the field of network engineering? If you’re just starting, there are a range of skills you’ll need to develop–both from a technical perspective and on a much deeper level.

Of course, you’ll want to learn all kinds of hard skills: The general skills you need to do things like troubleshooting when something goes wrong, how to mitigate risk, or how to configure a firewall. But you’ll also want to hone your “soft skills,” the things like communicating about how you solve a problem, or how to work as a team.

One thing that makes network engineering so unique is how quickly things evolve–and how much your team relies on you. As a result, it’s just as important to stay in the know about upcoming trends in networking–the innovations and shifts that happen over time as technology evolves. This article will help you discover what you need to know about the skills you need as a network engineer in 2025 and beyond.

Key Network Infrastructure Skills You Must Learn

As an emerging network engineer, chances are high that you’re already spending time developing your technical skills and awareness of industry concepts. It’s just as important that you hone your soft skills to find success in a range of work environments–things like:

- Written communication skills to document things like standard operating procedures (SOPs), network diagrams and configurations, and explanations of technical processes, troubleshooting strategies, and other network management practices

Problem-solving skills to address complex issues your team may have. The ability to problem solve can also empower you to implement new innovations and improve existing solutions to elevate your team’s operations network-wide.

Teamwork skills to work with different groups of people across the organization in different departments and help them bring organizational goals to fruition.

Time management skills to adhere to project deadlines and discern when to tackle a project by yourself versus when you need to delegate tasks to team members when facing a tight timeline

Analytical skills to understand complicated problems and evaluate the efficiency of different technical operations and processes. With strong analytical skills, you can optimize performance throughout your organization, solve issues quickly, and assess the best course of action for things like risk management, addressing vulnerabilities, and elevating solutions and practices enterprise-wide.

But what about the actual, technical network infrastructure skills? What technical concepts and strategies should you have in your network engineering “toolbox?” A solid checklist of network infrastructure skills should include:

Understanding of Network Design and Infrastructure

One of the most critical skills you should develop as you embark on your educational journey as a network engineer is how to build a functional network for organizations of different scopes, including early startups, small businesses, and even large enterprises.

How should these networks look–and how do you allow wiggle room to scale? How can you adjust these networks to meet fluctuating business needs? And just as importantly, how do you keep these networks available and secure in an evolving technical landscape? Organizations rely on these network infrastructures to keep them in operation without downtime or other issues–which means you need to know how to set them up and keep them in motion.

Firewalls

Knowing how to establish network security–as well as how to keep these firewalls up and running. After all, firewalls are your first line of defense in the cybersecurity battle, monitoring users and restricting access to internal networks, servers, applications, and data. This means that you should start to investigate which firewalls are best suited for different kinds of work, and how to monitor and patch these firewalls over time.

Additionally, you should develop a thorough understanding of the different kinds of firewalls:

Network firewalls
Web application firewalls (WAF)
Cloud firewalls
Host-based firewalls

Different Programming and Script Languages

Today, novice network engineers should ensure they are honing their skills in a variety of programming and scripting languages. Learning these “languages” is like learning the different techniques used to build a home’s foundation; they are the basis for building and maintaining networks. Becoming well-versed in multiple programming and scripting languages not only empowers you to take on a whole range of kinds of networks but also makes you more employable as well!

Throughout your network engineering career, you’ll use scripting and programming languages to build custom scripts, establish virtual networks, and perform database integrations. Popular languages for scrip and programming include:

Go
Python
C++
Ruby
Perl

Security

Perhaps one of the most vital skills a network engineer should have in 2025 is cybersecurity. How can you minimize the risk of cyber attack, data loss or theft, or other kinds of unauthorized access? A robust security strategy should include a variety of tools to mitigate risk, identify potential threats, and address anomalies across the entire network, including:

Data encryption
Access control
Authentication strategies
Endpoint security
Firewalls

Networking Automation

Anymore, it’s practically essential for network engineers to automate tasks like monitoring and device configuration to make the most of their time. You may even want to develop these automation tools yourself through the use of scripting languages, or by integrating existing automation tools into your current workflows. Java is one such solution you can use to put these solutions on autopilot and free yourself up to tackle more complex tasks.

Understanding of Hardware

As a network engineer, chances are high that you’ll be asked to choose and purchase network hardware at some point. You’ll need to know how to develop an understanding of your client’s existing needs, and then translate this into selecting the proper hardware to support these needs. This hardware includes:

Modems
Routers
Hubs
Cables
Network interface cards

As you evaluate hardware for each client, you’ll want to factor in a variety of characteristics to ensure you can meet their needs, including things like performance, budget, ability to scale, operational capacity, and adaptability to meet future needs.

Cloud Networking

Ninety-eight percent of organizations today use some form of cloud computing. Since nearly every organization stores at least some data in the cloud, network developers must know how to manage both public and private cloud networks and interact with cloud service providers to remain competitive. Additionally, you’ll want to have a comprehensive understanding of the risks of cloud networking–and how to mitigate these risks.

Network Virtualization

As a network engineer, you’ll likely need to create virtual networks based on physical networks–otherwise known as network virtualization. This term refers to the process of separating network services from the physical hardware and infrastructure that support them. By doing so, the different parts of your network can communicate with each other while achieving more efficient routing and simpler network configuration chances while also maintaining scalability and security.

As a network engineer, understanding network virtualization is a critical tool to serve your clients, many of whom may rely on virtual private networks (VPNs) so their team members can securely access organizational networks from their own devices.

Networking

Network engineers must be familiar with a variety of network types, including:

Local area networks (LAN)
Wide area networks (WAN)
Software-defined wide area networks (SD-LAN)

If you are comfortable with many types of networks, you can support your clients by optimizing their network infrastructure to meet their needs and address client concerns, priorities, and requests.

Addressing Issues

When something goes wrong, network engineers must know how to troubleshoot. You’ll need to hone your skills so that when an outage occurs, you can identify and address the problem quickly and keep downtimes to a minimum. This also means having a process to analyze network errors and test out possible solutions.

How do you develop your troubleshooting skills? You’ll want to:

Learn how to identify relevant details about errors and outages
Discover how to customize event logs and security logs to better spot issues
Set up monitoring tools to prevent issues and spot problems early

The Importance of Network Security in 2025

According to the U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor in 2023, the average annual cost of cybersecurity was $8.4 trillion in 2022. If that wasn’t shocking enough, this figure is anticipated to skyrocket to $23 trillion by 2027. What’s more, many are predicting bad actors will expand the use of generative AI to craft very convincing social engineering attacks and other AI-generated cyberattacks, many of which are aimed at organizations and their networks.

It’s also expected that:

Ransomware attacks will expand in frequency and level of sophistication, especially when targeting critical points across supply chains
Identity theft will evolve to include new, more complicated fraud schemes
Geopolitical tension will incite an increase in attacks from cybercriminals looking to respond to economic and political pressures
Bad actors will use AI to craft complex, highly-convincing attacks

But it’s not all bad news for network engineers. One of the biggest reasons that new network engineers should develop an understanding of network security is just how advanced some of these tools are today–and how well these tools are warding off attacks. Network engineers should know how these tools work.

AI and machine learning are increasingly being used by the “good guys” to strengthen network cybersecurity, including:

The adoption of AI and machine learning to detect and address potential threats in real time and adapt to evolving cyber risks.
The use of Zero Trust architecture and principles to segment data and keep it protected, even in remote or hybrid work environments.
Expanded initiatives between the government and private sector to collaborate, share threat intelligence, and strengthen cyber defense strategies

Emerging network engineers will need to develop an in-depth understanding of new and existing security strategies to keep data protected–and to stay competitive.

How to Analyze Data and Monitor Network Performance

As a network engineer, your performance data is a key indicator of the health of your network. This network performance data refers to metrics that track the overall quality of your network–and its efficiency. This performance data will evaluate things like:

Bandwidth: How much data can be transferred over time
Latency: How long it takes for a data packet to get from one network point to another
Throughput: The percentage of data that successfully travels over the network
Availability: How often a network is accessible and operational, as a percentage of time
Jitter: Any variation in the latency of data packets
Packet loss: The proportion of data packets that are lost in the network due to factors like errors, congestion, or other interference, as a percentage

These data points can help you identify the root cause of your network’s issues so you can boost performance and even forecast what your network might need in the future.

There are many tools available on the market today to analyze data and monitor network performance by amassing and monitoring performance data, performing tests, analyzing performance trends, and pinpointing possible causes and solutions to any network issues. The goal? To identify anomalies or other issues and develop a better understanding of how your network performs from several perspectives including connectivity, latency, throughput, and bandwidth.

There are a few ways to analyze performance data, but it’s a good idea to follow some of these best practices:

Gather a baseline analysis so you have something to compare it to and determine whether your network performance is within normal, acceptable, or optimal ranges
Perform an analysis of trends over time to spot patterns, and opt for a root cause analysis to identify the origin of the data to address issues that arise.
Run an impact analysis assessment to discover how your data affects things like your objectives, your user experience, or your customers to determine the severity of any issues and justify actions to address these issues.
Define your key goals and important metrics so you can choose the right tests, tools, and methods of analysis to evaluate your network performance.

Tools and Software for Networking Professionals

As you progress in your career as a networking professional, there are some essential tools you’ll want to familiarize yourself with. These tools will be pivotal to your work designing, troubleshooting, and optimizing networks. Here’s a look at some of the necessary and popular tools you’ll want to master for a career in network engineering–and what these solutions can do:

Network analyzers: These tools capture and analyze information about the traffic that’s flowing through your network. They provide you with a deeper understanding of how your network performs, how secure it is, and how efficient it is–and ultimately, can help you identify and address network issues like misconfigurations, suspicious activity, or congestion. Popular network analyzers include Wireshark, tcpdump, and Nmap.

Network simulators: Network simulators serve as virtual models of your network, running hypothetical simulations to discover how your network will perform in different situations. You can use network simulators to evaluate how effective, scalable, and reliable your network is, but you can also use these tools to test out alternate network parameters like routing and protocols and see how they might impact performance. Well-regarded network simulation tools include Cisco Packet Tracer, GNS3, and NS3.

Network emulators: These tools recreate the conditions of your network, only in a more controlled setting. The purpose of a network emulator is to evaluate how well your network devices and applications perform and function with real-life conditions like latency or bandwidth loss. You can use a network emulator to test out different network types like a cloud-based network or LAN versus WAN. WANem, NetSim, and NetEm are all examples of respected network emulation tools.

Network monitoring tools: These solutions provide you with all kinds of information about your network devices and services. Network monitoring tools allow you to track things like how available your network resources (like servers, routers, applications, and firewalls) are, how healthy they are, and how they are being used. They also help detect issues like failures and security breaches. Popular options include SolarWinds, Zabbix, and Nagios.

Network configuration tools: Configuration tools are designed to automate the process of configuring your network devices and services, and make it easier to manage all these pieces. These solutions can help you spend less time and effort manually configuring a network and limit the number of errors in your configuration. Network configuration tools can help configure settings like your routing protocols, IP addresses, and security, and keep these configurations as up-to-date as possible, while also maintaining compliance across your network. Reputable network configuration tools include Puppet, Cisco DNA Center, and Ansible.

Network testing tools: Testing tools evaluate how well your network connections and services perform so you can gain a deeper understanding of your network’s overall speed, function, and reliability. Tests may evaluate things like tracerout, jitter, packet loss, or throughput, or look for potential bottlenecks or other errors. Popular solutions include Speedtest, iperf, and PinPlotter.

Problem-Solving Skills Every Network Engineer Needs

The world of network engineering is a busy one–and one of the primary reasons for this is that as a network engineer, you are called to adapt, think creatively, and make logical decisions for the good of the network as you design, build, and maintain complicated networks and troubleshoot when things go wrong. Problem-solving is a critical part of this process.

For a network engineer, problem-solving includes skills like:

Understanding the technical components and concepts of a network, including the devices, protocols, technologies, and standards
Developing a familiarity with tools and strategies for troubleshooting
Knowing how to document the solutions you discover and effectively convey these solutions to others, including your peers, collaborators, and supervisors
Applying critical thinking skills and approaching an issue from an analytical and systematic perspective
Segmenting a complicated issue into smaller pieces to address each problem thoroughly and without overwhelm
Spotting patterns and relationships between network components
Thinking creatively and seeking innovative solutions
Adapting to situations as they evolve

Real-World Examples of Networking Projects for Beginners

For organizations both large and small, the network serves as both a foundational tool for daily operations and as a pathway to share and receive information–that’s why it’s so important that network engineers develop a full understanding of network infrastructure. Here are a few examples of network projects that can help you discover how networks work, and how they facilitate communication:

Set up a business network to simulate the different parts of a network, either via actual hardware or virtualization tools
Set up–then manage–an open-source security information event management (SIEM) platform to sort and prioritize security alerts
Configure an intrusion detection system (IDS) and/or an intrusion prevention system (IPS), then simulate actual network traffic and evaluate how well your system performs
Establish a secure backup plan that includes a backup server to house important files and data
Configure secure file sharing to transfer files securely even over an unsecured service (like over email, for example)
Create and set up a corporate VPN server
Set up an open source firewall to keep bad actors out of your network
Set up a web server that’s protected by strong security tools and protocols

Trends Shaping the Future of Networking Careers

Networking is a continuously evolving field, which means that throughout your career as an engineer, your work will shift and change over time too. Here’s a look at the trends that are shaping the near future of networking careers:

The Use of AI and Machine Learning

As is the case with nearly every facet of technology, network engineering will continue to be impacted by artificial intelligence and machine learning which means as an engineer, it’s your job to learn about–and embrace–these technologies for things like adaptive network management, threat mitigation, and building new networks. You should continue to implement concepts like predictive analytics, anomaly detection, and automated responses to potential security threats, as well as network performance optimization, predicting network issues, and the automation of basic tasks.

Zero-Trust Infrastructure

More than ever before, organizations are relying on zero-trust protocols to strengthen security and safeguard network access. In many cases, this means establishing a zero-trust architecture that grants access based on user identities and device health and security, instead of just location on the network, which can provide intruders with access to sensitive data. As a network engineer, you should plan to default to a zero-trust infrastructure.

The Internet of Things, 5G, and Increased Connectedness

Things like the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G are empowering users to gain access to networks in real time–all while keeping latency low. But as networks become increasingly accessible and increasingly spread out, network engineers must find ways to balance security, efficiency, and performance across the entire network.

Cloud and Hybrid Infrastructures

Network engineers are called to integrate cloud infrastructures, multicloud solutions, and hybrid strategies to promote seamless connectivity–both for on-premises cloud environments. What does this mean for engineers? They must continue to incorporate robust security tools and protocols to keep networks flexible, scalable, and secure. The goal for network engineers will increasingly be to keep cloud infrastructure secure and adapt to meet evolving cybersecurity threats and industry compliance requirements.

Quantum Computing and Blockchain

Two factors that are shifting network engineering are quantum computing and blockchain, which support incredibly high computational speed and unprecedented network optimization. This also translates to more advanced security procedures and protocols. Network engineers with an eye to the future can prepare for this upcoming trend by staying up-to-date on quantum computing and working with specialists to implement “quantum-resistant technologies.” This might include blockchain technology to garner tamper-proof logs of network events to increase transparency, data integrity, and ultimately, security across the network, or blockchain-based identity management to boost security in identity verification systems.

Kable Academy: The Ideal Resource for Beginning Engineers

At Kable Academy, we’re eager to help you enter your career as a network engineer with the knowledge and confidence you need to be a success. We offer a range of courses designed to meet you at your level of expertise and prepare you for a career in the field of network engineering. Through our award-winning technical bootcamps, we’ll provide you with a deeper understanding of the critical tools you need to excel at networking.

Whether it’s setting up a new network, maintaining security, or honing your troubleshooting skills for when outages happen, Kable Academy will equip you with the knowledge you need to conquer the field of networking.

Ready to learn more? Discover the details on our range of courses today!