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 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 106 104 102
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +72
Contract jobs citing NIST 29 22 38
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 1.44% 1.03% 1.46%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.13% 6.75% 9.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 9 30
10th Percentile £400 £443 £394
25th Percentile £472 £496 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £594 £550 £634
Median % change year-on-year +7.95% -13.21% -6.11%
75th Percentile £790 £638 £680
90th Percentile £873 £765 £775
London median daily rate £600 £636 £625
% change year-on-year -5.70% +1.80% -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 407 326 422
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 20.26% 15.21% 16.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 271 172 310
10th Percentile £325 £279 £400
25th Percentile £420 £425 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -0.86%
75th Percentile £675 £650 £687
90th Percentile £825 £762 £776
London median daily rate £525 £525 £575
% change year-on-year - -8.70% +3.16%
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 £27.75 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -20.71% - +22.81%

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 14 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 14 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 +5 27 £594 -5.00% 27
City of Westminster - 1 £700 - 10
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 (3.45%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 20 (68.97%) Azure
2 11 (37.93%) AWS
3 7 (24.14%) Entra ID
4 5 (17.24%) Azure Sentinel
4 5 (17.24%) GCP
4 5 (17.24%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (13.79%) Azure Key Vault
5 4 (13.79%) GitHub
6 3 (10.34%) Azure AKS
6 3 (10.34%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (10.34%) Microsoft Purview
6 3 (10.34%) OCI
7 2 (6.90%) Azure AI
7 2 (6.90%) Copilot Studio
7 2 (6.90%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 2 (6.90%) IaaS
7 2 (6.90%) Microsoft Copilot
7 2 (6.90%) PaaS
7 2 (6.90%) Power Platform
7 2 (6.90%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (13.79%) Firewall
1 4 (13.79%) Network Security
2 1 (3.45%) DNS
2 1 (3.45%) Intrusion Detection
2 1 (3.45%) LAN
2 1 (3.45%) SD-WAN
2 1 (3.45%) WAN
2 1 (3.45%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (6.90%) Oracle Database
2 1 (3.45%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 1 (3.45%) Git
1 1 (3.45%) SonarQube
General
1 16 (55.17%) Finance
2 12 (41.38%) Social Skills
3 5 (17.24%) Banking
4 4 (13.79%) Financial Institution
5 3 (10.34%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
7 1 (3.45%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (3.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (3.45%) Legal
7 1 (3.45%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (3.45%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 6 (20.69%) Project Manager
2 5 (17.24%) Migration Manager
2 5 (17.24%) Migration Project Manager
3 4 (13.79%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
3 4 (13.79%) Security Engineer
4 3 (10.34%) Security Manager
5 2 (6.90%) Analyst
5 2 (6.90%) Architect
5 2 (6.90%) CyberArk Engineer
5 2 (6.90%) Cybersecurity Manager
5 2 (6.90%) Lead
5 2 (6.90%) Programme Manager
5 2 (6.90%) Security Analyst
5 2 (6.90%) Security Architect
5 2 (6.90%) SIEM Engineer
6 1 (3.45%) Cloud Architect
6 1 (3.45%) Cloud Security Engineer
6 1 (3.45%) Cybersecurity Architect
6 1 (3.45%) Cybersecurity Engineer
6 1 (3.45%) Power Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (10.34%) REST
2 2 (6.90%) LangChain
3 1 (3.45%) .NET
3 1 (3.45%) Faiss
3 1 (3.45%) FastAPI
3 1 (3.45%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (3.45%) Semantic Kernel
3 1 (3.45%) Spring
3 1 (3.45%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 7 (24.14%) Onboarding
2 3 (10.34%) AI Agents
2 3 (10.34%) Cyber Threat
2 3 (10.34%) Security Posture
3 2 (6.90%) Management Information System
4 1 (3.45%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (3.45%) Cloud Security Posture
4 1 (3.45%) CMDB
4 1 (3.45%) Cyber Kill Chain
4 1 (3.45%) Data Centre
4 1 (3.45%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (3.45%) Low-Code
4 1 (3.45%) Operational Technology
4 1 (3.45%) STIX
4 1 (3.45%) YARA
Operating Systems
1 3 (10.34%) Linux
1 3 (10.34%) Windows
2 2 (6.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 2 (6.90%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (48.28%) Cybersecurity
2 9 (31.03%) Incident Response
2 9 (31.03%) Security Architecture
2 9 (31.03%) SIEM
3 7 (24.14%) Agile
3 7 (24.14%) Data Loss Prevention
3 7 (24.14%) Data Protection
3 7 (24.14%) PRINCE2
3 7 (24.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 7 (24.14%) Stakeholder Management
3 7 (24.14%) Validation
4 6 (20.69%) Migration
4 6 (20.69%) Project Delivery
4 6 (20.69%) Project Management
4 6 (20.69%) RBAC
5 5 (17.24%) AI
5 5 (17.24%) Information Security
5 5 (17.24%) Project Governance
5 5 (17.24%) Risk Management
5 5 (17.24%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 4 (13.79%) Python
2 3 (10.34%) PowerShell
3 2 (6.90%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (3.45%) Bicep
4 1 (3.45%) C#
4 1 (3.45%) Java
4 1 (3.45%) SQL
Qualifications
1 8 (27.59%) CISSP
2 7 (24.14%) PMI Certification
2 7 (24.14%) PMP
3 6 (20.69%) CISM
3 6 (20.69%) CompTIA Security+
3 6 (20.69%) Security Cleared
4 5 (17.24%) SC Cleared
5 3 (10.34%) CISA
5 3 (10.34%) CompTIA CySA+
6 2 (6.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 2 (6.90%) CESG Certified Professional
6 2 (6.90%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (6.90%) CISMP
6 2 (6.90%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (6.90%) CRISC
6 2 (6.90%) Degree
6 2 (6.90%) Master's Degree
6 2 (6.90%) MCP
7 1 (3.45%) CEH
7 1 (3.45%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (82.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (37.93%) GDPR
3 4 (13.79%) EU AI Act
3 4 (13.79%) GRC
3 4 (13.79%) NCSC
4 3 (10.34%) COBIT
4 3 (10.34%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (10.34%) NIST 800
4 3 (10.34%) PCI DSS
5 2 (6.90%) ISO/IEC 42001
5 2 (6.90%) ITGC
5 2 (6.90%) SOC 2
6 1 (3.45%) Data Quality
6 1 (3.45%) ISO/IEC 27005
6 1 (3.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (3.45%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (17.24%) Active Directory
2 2 (6.90%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (10.34%) Kubernetes
1 3 (10.34%) Terraform
2 1 (3.45%) Grafana
2 1 (3.45%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (3.45%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 10 (34.48%) Microsoft
2 9 (31.03%) CyberArk
3 3 (10.34%) Google
4 2 (6.90%) LogRhythm
4 2 (6.90%) OpenAI
4 2 (6.90%) Oracle
4 2 (6.90%) ServiceNow
4 2 (6.90%) VMware
5 1 (3.45%) BMC
5 1 (3.45%) CheckPoint
5 1 (3.45%) Fortinet
5 1 (3.45%) Palo Alto
5 1 (3.45%) Rapid7
5 1 (3.45%) Splunk
5 1 (3.45%) Zerto