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 20 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 96 84
Rank change year-on-year +7 -12 +34
Contract jobs citing NIST 50 28 44
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 2.02% 1.43% 1.83%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 11.01% 8.67% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 35 19 40
10th Percentile £440 £425 £340
25th Percentile £506 £547 £509
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £650 £625
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £750 £740 £775
90th Percentile £800 £780 £875
London median daily rate £615 £650 £650
% change year-on-year -5.38% - -3.70%

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 454 323 411
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 18.37% 16.48% 17.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 313 211 293
10th Percentile £346 £375 £363
25th Percentile £431 £462 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £565 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.65% +2.73% -8.33%
75th Percentile £653 £708 £650
90th Percentile £763 £825 £773
London median daily rate £520 £533 £550
% change year-on-year -2.35% -3.18% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 5 6
10th Percentile £20.12 £19.36 £17.96
25th Percentile £23.78 £21.25 £20.44
Median hourly rate £26.11 £22.50 £23.40
Median % change year-on-year +16.04% -3.85% -6.40%
75th Percentile £27.34 £24.25 £25.92
90th Percentile £52.25 - £35.16
London median hourly rate £28.00 £34.50 £24.18
% change year-on-year -18.84% +42.68% -30.91%

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 20 May 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 20 May 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 +10 46 £625 -4.58% 25
West End of London -3 1 £625 -3.85%
City of Westminster -3 1 £575 -11.54%
Kensington and Chelsea - 1 £638 -
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 2 (4.00%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (2.00%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (2.00%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (2.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 21 (42.00%) AWS
2 20 (40.00%) Azure
3 4 (8.00%) GCP
4 3 (6.00%) Amazon SageMaker
4 3 (6.00%) Microsoft Purview
4 3 (6.00%) SaaS
5 2 (4.00%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (2.00%) Amazon Bedrock
6 1 (2.00%) AWS Control Tower
6 1 (2.00%) Azure AI
6 1 (2.00%) Azure Logic Apps
6 1 (2.00%) Collibra
6 1 (2.00%) Entra ID
6 1 (2.00%) Nutanix
6 1 (2.00%) OCI
6 1 (2.00%) Rubrik
6 1 (2.00%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 4 (8.00%) Network Security
2 1 (2.00%) DNS
2 1 (2.00%) Intrusion Detection
2 1 (2.00%) LAN
2 1 (2.00%) SD-WAN
2 1 (2.00%) WAN
2 1 (2.00%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.00%) Data Hub
1 1 (2.00%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 1 (2.00%) JIRA
1 1 (2.00%) MLflow
General
1 22 (44.00%) Finance
2 15 (30.00%) Social Skills
3 11 (22.00%) Financial Institution
4 9 (18.00%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (10.00%) Banking
6 3 (6.00%) Public Sector
7 2 (4.00%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (4.00%) Legal
8 1 (2.00%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (26.00%) Project Manager
2 11 (22.00%) Migration Manager
2 11 (22.00%) Migration Project Manager
3 7 (14.00%) Analyst
3 7 (14.00%) Architect
4 6 (12.00%) Security Architect
5 4 (8.00%) IT Analyst
5 4 (8.00%) Security Manager
5 4 (8.00%) SOX Analyst
6 3 (6.00%) Consultant
6 3 (6.00%) Senior
7 2 (4.00%) Cybersecurity Architect
7 2 (4.00%) Cybersecurity Consultant
7 2 (4.00%) IT Risk Analyst
7 2 (4.00%) Risk Analyst
7 2 (4.00%) Security Analyst
7 2 (4.00%) Security Consultant
7 2 (4.00%) Security Engineer
7 2 (4.00%) Senior Architect
7 2 (4.00%) Senior Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.00%) Google JAX
1 1 (2.00%) Hugging Face
1 1 (2.00%) JAX
1 1 (2.00%) Kafka
1 1 (2.00%) OpenTelemetry
1 1 (2.00%) PyTorch
1 1 (2.00%) REST
1 1 (2.00%) TensorFlow
1 1 (2.00%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 6 (12.00%) Security Posture
2 4 (8.00%) Onboarding
3 3 (6.00%) Management Information System
4 2 (4.00%) Cloud Native
5 1 (2.00%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (2.00%) CMDB
5 1 (2.00%) CSOC
5 1 (2.00%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (2.00%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (2.00%) Genomics
5 1 (2.00%) Operational Technology
5 1 (2.00%) SCADA
5 1 (2.00%) Synthetic Data
5 1 (2.00%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.00%) Linux
1 1 (2.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1 1 (2.00%) Windows
1 1 (2.00%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (50.00%) Cybersecurity
2 18 (36.00%) Security Architecture
3 16 (32.00%) Stakeholder Management
4 15 (30.00%) Agile
5 13 (26.00%) Project Delivery
5 13 (26.00%) Project Management
5 13 (26.00%) Validation
6 12 (24.00%) Migration
6 12 (24.00%) PRINCE2
7 11 (22.00%) Project Governance
8 10 (20.00%) Risk Management
9 9 (18.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 8 (16.00%) AI
10 8 (16.00%) Incident Response
11 7 (14.00%) Computer Science
11 7 (14.00%) Continuous Improvement
11 7 (14.00%) Information Security
11 7 (14.00%) Problem-Solving
12 6 (12.00%) Change Management
12 6 (12.00%) Risk Assessment
Programming Languages
1 2 (4.00%) PowerShell
1 2 (4.00%) Python
1 2 (4.00%) SQL
2 1 (2.00%) Java
2 1 (2.00%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 13 (26.00%) CISSP
2 12 (24.00%) PMI Certification
2 12 (24.00%) PMP
3 10 (20.00%) Security Cleared
4 9 (18.00%) Degree
5 8 (16.00%) SC Cleared
6 7 (14.00%) CISA
6 7 (14.00%) CISM
7 6 (12.00%) CRISC
8 3 (6.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 3 (6.00%) CEH
8 3 (6.00%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (6.00%) CompTIA Security+
8 3 (6.00%) GIAC
9 2 (4.00%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (4.00%) CompTIA CySA+
9 2 (4.00%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (4.00%) OSCP
10 1 (2.00%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (2.00%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (72.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 13 (26.00%) GDPR
3 9 (18.00%) COBIT
4 8 (16.00%) NIST 800
5 6 (12.00%) GRC
5 6 (12.00%) ITGC
5 6 (12.00%) NCSC
6 5 (10.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (8.00%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (6.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (6.00%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (6.00%) PCI DSS
9 2 (4.00%) Data Quality
9 2 (4.00%) EU AI Act
10 1 (2.00%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (2.00%) Def Stans
10 1 (2.00%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 1 (2.00%) JSP 440
10 1 (2.00%) SOC 2
Systems Management
1 1 (2.00%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 12 (24.00%) CyberArk
2 8 (16.00%) Microsoft
3 2 (4.00%) Google
3 2 (4.00%) VMware
4 1 (2.00%) BMC
4 1 (2.00%) CrowdStrike
4 1 (2.00%) OneTrust
4 1 (2.00%) Oracle
4 1 (2.00%) ServiceNow
4 1 (2.00%) Splunk
4 1 (2.00%) Zerto