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 23 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 97 108 109
Rank change year-on-year +11 +1 +65
Contract jobs citing NIST 36 23 38
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 1.78% 0.99% 1.41%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.74% 6.50% 8.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 26 10 28
10th Percentile £406 £446 £400
25th Percentile £463 £510 £531
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £526 £588 £634
Median % change year-on-year -10.43% -7.30% -2.50%
75th Percentile £719 £731 £680
90th Percentile £831 £775 £723
London median daily rate £575 £638 £628
% change year-on-year -9.80% +1.59% -3.46%

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 412 354 432
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 20.36% 15.22% 16.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 288 190 316
10th Percentile £323 £325 £400
25th Percentile £413 £425 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £561 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.46% -2.39% -
75th Percentile £655 £675 £694
90th Percentile £825 £764 £788
London median daily rate £525 £535 £563
% change year-on-year -1.87% -4.89% +0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 3 1
10th Percentile - £21.48 -
25th Percentile £26.11 £26.55 £71.25
Median hourly rate £26.57 £35.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year -24.09% -51.72% +271.79%
75th Percentile £32.50 - £73.75
90th Percentile £44.00 - -
London median hourly rate £29.75 £36.80 £32.50
% change year-on-year -19.17% +13.23% -8.45%

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 23 December 2025.

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 23 December 2025. 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 +3 33 £528 -16.27% 28
City of Westminster - 1 £700 - 3
Kensington and Chelsea - 1 £450 -
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 (2.78%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (5.56%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (5.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 17 (47.22%) Azure
2 12 (33.33%) AWS
3 7 (19.44%) Entra ID
4 6 (16.67%) GCP
5 5 (13.89%) Azure Sentinel
5 5 (13.89%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (11.11%) Azure Key Vault
6 4 (11.11%) GitHub
7 3 (8.33%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 3 (8.33%) Azure AKS
7 3 (8.33%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (8.33%) Microsoft Purview
7 3 (8.33%) OCI
7 3 (8.33%) Power Platform
8 2 (5.56%) Azure AI
8 2 (5.56%) Copilot Studio
8 2 (5.56%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 2 (5.56%) IaaS
8 2 (5.56%) Microsoft Copilot
8 2 (5.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 5 (13.89%) Firewall
2 4 (11.11%) Network Security
3 1 (2.78%) Intrusion Detection
3 1 (2.78%) TCP/IP
3 1 (2.78%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.56%) Oracle Database
2 1 (2.78%) Pinecone
2 1 (2.78%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (2.78%) Git
1 1 (2.78%) JIRA
1 1 (2.78%) MLflow
1 1 (2.78%) SonarQube
General
1 22 (61.11%) Finance
2 16 (44.44%) Social Skills
3 7 (19.44%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (19.44%) Banking
4 5 (13.89%) Financial Institution
5 3 (8.33%) Legal
5 3 (8.33%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (5.56%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (5.56%) Public Sector
7 1 (2.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (2.78%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 5 (13.89%) Security Engineer
2 4 (11.11%) Architect
2 4 (11.11%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 4 (11.11%) Consultant
2 4 (11.11%) Lead
2 4 (11.11%) Security Architect
3 3 (8.33%) Analyst
3 3 (8.33%) Cloud Architect
3 3 (8.33%) Project Manager
3 3 (8.33%) Tester
4 2 (5.56%) AWS Architect
4 2 (5.56%) AWS Security Architect
4 2 (5.56%) Cloud Engineer
4 2 (5.56%) CyberArk Engineer
4 2 (5.56%) Cybersecurity Manager
4 2 (5.56%) Migration Manager
4 2 (5.56%) Migration Project Manager
4 2 (5.56%) Security Analyst
4 2 (5.56%) Security Manager
4 2 (5.56%) SIEM Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (8.33%) REST
2 2 (5.56%) LangChain
3 1 (2.78%) .NET
3 1 (2.78%) Faiss
3 1 (2.78%) FastAPI
3 1 (2.78%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (2.78%) Semantic Kernel
3 1 (2.78%) Spring
3 1 (2.78%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 6 (16.67%) Onboarding
2 4 (11.11%) Security Posture
3 3 (8.33%) AI Agents
3 3 (8.33%) Cyber Threat
3 3 (8.33%) Management Information System
4 2 (5.56%) Cloud Native
4 2 (5.56%) Operational Technology
5 1 (2.78%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (2.78%) Cloud Security Posture
5 1 (2.78%) CMDB
5 1 (2.78%) Cyber Kill Chain
5 1 (2.78%) Data Centre
5 1 (2.78%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (2.78%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (2.78%) Low-Code
5 1 (2.78%) SCADA
5 1 (2.78%) STIX
5 1 (2.78%) YARA
Operating Systems
1 3 (8.33%) Linux
1 3 (8.33%) Windows
2 2 (5.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 2 (5.56%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (47.22%) Cybersecurity
2 11 (30.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 10 (27.78%) SIEM
4 9 (25.00%) Cloud Security
4 9 (25.00%) Data Protection
4 9 (25.00%) Incident Response
4 9 (25.00%) Security Architecture
5 8 (22.22%) Information Security
6 7 (19.44%) Data Loss Prevention
7 6 (16.67%) AI
7 6 (16.67%) DevOps
7 6 (16.67%) RBAC
7 6 (16.67%) Security Operations
7 6 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
7 6 (16.67%) Threat Modelling
7 6 (16.67%) Vulnerability Management
8 5 (13.89%) CI/CD
8 5 (13.89%) Risk Management
8 5 (13.89%) Use Case
9 4 (11.11%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 6 (16.67%) Python
2 3 (8.33%) PowerShell
3 2 (5.56%) Java
3 2 (5.56%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (2.78%) Bicep
4 1 (2.78%) C#
4 1 (2.78%) SQL
Qualifications
1 12 (33.33%) CISSP
2 8 (22.22%) CISA
2 8 (22.22%) CISM
3 7 (19.44%) Security Cleared
4 5 (13.89%) CompTIA Security+
4 5 (13.89%) Degree
4 5 (13.89%) SC Cleared
5 3 (8.33%) CRISC
5 3 (8.33%) Master's Degree
5 3 (8.33%) PMI Certification
5 3 (8.33%) PMP
6 2 (5.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 2 (5.56%) CEH
6 2 (5.56%) CESG Certified Professional
6 2 (5.56%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (5.56%) CISMP
6 2 (5.56%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (5.56%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
6 2 (5.56%) MCP
6 2 (5.56%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (69.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (25.00%) GDPR
3 7 (19.44%) COBIT
4 5 (13.89%) PCI DSS
5 4 (11.11%) EU AI Act
5 4 (11.11%) GRC
5 4 (11.11%) NCSC
6 3 (8.33%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (8.33%) NIST 800
7 2 (5.56%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (5.56%) ITGC
7 2 (5.56%) SLA
7 2 (5.56%) SOC 2
8 1 (2.78%) COSO
8 1 (2.78%) Data Quality
8 1 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 5 (13.89%) Active Directory
2 2 (5.56%) Docker
3 1 (2.78%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 3 (8.33%) Kubernetes
1 3 (8.33%) Terraform
2 1 (2.78%) FortiGate
2 1 (2.78%) Grafana
2 1 (2.78%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (2.78%) Nessus
2 1 (2.78%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 10 (27.78%) Microsoft
2 6 (16.67%) CyberArk
3 3 (8.33%) Google
3 3 (8.33%) Palo Alto
4 2 (5.56%) CheckPoint
4 2 (5.56%) Fortinet
4 2 (5.56%) LogRhythm
4 2 (5.56%) OpenAI
4 2 (5.56%) Oracle
4 2 (5.56%) Rapid7
4 2 (5.56%) ServiceNow
4 2 (5.56%) Tenable
5 1 (2.78%) AlgoSec
5 1 (2.78%) BMC
5 1 (2.78%) Qualys
5 1 (2.78%) Splunk
5 1 (2.78%) Tufin
5 1 (2.78%) VMware
5 1 (2.78%) Zerto