NIST Contract Job Trends in Central London

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
London > Central London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Central London requiring NIST skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 105 103
Rank change year-on-year +5 -2 +58
Contract jobs citing NIST 28 24 39
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 1.39% 1.13% 1.49%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.83% 7.25% 9.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 17 11 33
10th Percentile £400 £413 £352
25th Percentile £463 £473 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £550 £630
Median % change year-on-year +2.27% -12.70% -4.91%
75th Percentile £800 £656 £680
90th Percentile £880 £763 £775
London median daily rate £575 £635 £625
% change year-on-year -9.45% +1.60% -3.85%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
Central London

NIST falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in Central London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 410 331 428
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 20.39% 15.56% 16.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 274 178 315
10th Percentile £329 £301 £400
25th Percentile £420 £413 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -0.43%
75th Percentile £675 £650 £688
90th Percentile £825 £766 £775
London median daily rate £525 £525 £563
% change year-on-year - -6.67% +1.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 1
10th Percentile £22.56 £19.04 -
25th Percentile - £20.46 £71.25
Median hourly rate £26.11 £28.75 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.18% -60.34% +249.40%
75th Percentile £28.04 £35.00 £73.75
90th Percentile £31.90 - -
London median hourly rate £26.34 £36.80 £32.50
% change year-on-year -28.42% +13.23% +21.97%

NIST
Job Vacancy Trend in Central London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing NIST relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London.

NIST job vacancy trend in Central London

NIST
Daily Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing NIST.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing NIST

NIST
Daily Rate Histogram in Central London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NIST in Central London over the 6 months to 19 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for NIST in Central London

NIST
Contract Job Locations in Central London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NIST within the Central London region over the 6 months to 19 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
City of London -2 26 £563 +0.22% 25
City of Westminster +2 1 £700 +7.69% 9
NIST
London

NIST
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Central 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 1 (3.57%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 19 (67.86%) Azure
2 10 (35.71%) AWS
3 7 (25.00%) Entra ID
4 5 (17.86%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (14.29%) Azure Key Vault
5 4 (14.29%) Azure Sentinel
5 4 (14.29%) GCP
5 4 (14.29%) GitHub
6 3 (10.71%) Azure AKS
6 3 (10.71%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (10.71%) Microsoft Purview
6 3 (10.71%) OCI
7 2 (7.14%) Azure AI
7 2 (7.14%) Copilot Studio
7 2 (7.14%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 2 (7.14%) IaaS
7 2 (7.14%) Microsoft Copilot
7 2 (7.14%) PaaS
7 2 (7.14%) Power Platform
7 2 (7.14%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (14.29%) Network Security
2 3 (10.71%) Firewall
3 1 (3.57%) DNS
3 1 (3.57%) Intrusion Detection
3 1 (3.57%) LAN
3 1 (3.57%) SD-WAN
3 1 (3.57%) WAN
3 1 (3.57%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (7.14%) Oracle Database
2 1 (3.57%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 1 (3.57%) Git
1 1 (3.57%) SonarQube
General
1 16 (57.14%) Finance
2 12 (42.86%) Social Skills
3 5 (17.86%) Banking
4 4 (14.29%) Financial Institution
5 3 (10.71%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
7 1 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (3.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (3.57%) Legal
7 1 (3.57%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (3.57%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 6 (21.43%) Project Manager
2 5 (17.86%) Migration Manager
2 5 (17.86%) Migration Project Manager
3 4 (14.29%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
4 3 (10.71%) Security Engineer
4 3 (10.71%) Security Manager
5 2 (7.14%) Analyst
5 2 (7.14%) Architect
5 2 (7.14%) CyberArk Engineer
5 2 (7.14%) Cybersecurity Manager
5 2 (7.14%) Lead
5 2 (7.14%) Programme Manager
5 2 (7.14%) Security Analyst
5 2 (7.14%) Security Architect
6 1 (3.57%) Business Change Manager
6 1 (3.57%) Change Manager
6 1 (3.57%) Consultant
6 1 (3.57%) Delivery Manager
6 1 (3.57%) Principal Consultant
6 1 (3.57%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (10.71%) REST
2 2 (7.14%) LangChain
3 1 (3.57%) .NET
3 1 (3.57%) Faiss
3 1 (3.57%) FastAPI
3 1 (3.57%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (3.57%) Semantic Kernel
3 1 (3.57%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 7 (25.00%) Onboarding
2 3 (10.71%) AI Agents
2 3 (10.71%) Cyber Threat
2 3 (10.71%) Security Posture
3 2 (7.14%) Management Information System
4 1 (3.57%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (3.57%) Cloud Security Posture
4 1 (3.57%) CMDB
4 1 (3.57%) Data Centre
4 1 (3.57%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (3.57%) Low-Code
4 1 (3.57%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 2 (7.14%) Linux
1 2 (7.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1 2 (7.14%) Windows
1 2 (7.14%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (50.00%) Cybersecurity
2 9 (32.14%) Security Architecture
3 8 (28.57%) Incident Response
3 8 (28.57%) SIEM
4 7 (25.00%) Agile
4 7 (25.00%) Data Protection
4 7 (25.00%) PRINCE2
4 7 (25.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 7 (25.00%) Stakeholder Management
4 7 (25.00%) Validation
5 6 (21.43%) Data Loss Prevention
5 6 (21.43%) Migration
5 6 (21.43%) Project Delivery
5 6 (21.43%) Project Management
5 6 (21.43%) RBAC
6 5 (17.86%) AI
6 5 (17.86%) CI/CD
6 5 (17.86%) Cloud Security
6 5 (17.86%) Information Security
6 5 (17.86%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 3 (10.71%) Python
2 2 (7.14%) PowerShell
3 1 (3.57%) Bicep
3 1 (3.57%) C#
3 1 (3.57%) Java
3 1 (3.57%) Kusto Query Language
3 1 (3.57%) SQL
Qualifications
1 7 (25.00%) CISSP
1 7 (25.00%) PMI Certification
1 7 (25.00%) PMP
2 6 (21.43%) CISM
2 6 (21.43%) Security Cleared
3 5 (17.86%) CompTIA Security+
3 5 (17.86%) SC Cleared
4 3 (10.71%) CISA
4 3 (10.71%) CompTIA CySA+
5 2 (7.14%) CESG Certified Professional
5 2 (7.14%) CISMP
5 2 (7.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (7.14%) CRISC
5 2 (7.14%) Degree
5 2 (7.14%) Master's Degree
5 2 (7.14%) MCP
6 1 (3.57%) CCSP
6 1 (3.57%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (3.57%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
6 1 (3.57%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (85.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (39.29%) GDPR
3 4 (14.29%) EU AI Act
3 4 (14.29%) GRC
3 4 (14.29%) NCSC
4 3 (10.71%) COBIT
4 3 (10.71%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (10.71%) NIST 800
4 3 (10.71%) PCI DSS
5 2 (7.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
5 2 (7.14%) ITGC
5 2 (7.14%) SOC 2
6 1 (3.57%) Data Quality
6 1 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27005
6 1 (3.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (3.57%) SLA
System Software
1 4 (14.29%) Active Directory
2 2 (7.14%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (10.71%) Kubernetes
1 3 (10.71%) Terraform
2 1 (3.57%) Grafana
2 1 (3.57%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (3.57%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 9 (32.14%) CyberArk
1 9 (32.14%) Microsoft
2 3 (10.71%) Google
3 2 (7.14%) LogRhythm
3 2 (7.14%) OpenAI
3 2 (7.14%) Oracle
3 2 (7.14%) ServiceNow
3 2 (7.14%) VMware
4 1 (3.57%) BMC
4 1 (3.57%) CheckPoint
4 1 (3.57%) Fortinet
4 1 (3.57%) Palo Alto
4 1 (3.57%) Rapid7
4 1 (3.57%) Splunk
4 1 (3.57%) Zerto