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 27 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 100 96 92
Rank change year-on-year -4 -4 +38
Contract jobs citing NIST 42 29 45
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 1.73% 1.44% 1.83%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 9.01% 9.24% 10.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 32 20 41
10th Percentile £433 £425 £340
25th Percentile £500 £545 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £646 £625
Median % change year-on-year -3.18% +3.28% -3.85%
75th Percentile £750 £735 £775
90th Percentile £798 £778 £875
London median daily rate £600 £650 £650
% change year-on-year -7.69% - -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 466 314 427
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 19.16% 15.58% 17.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 328 203 304
10th Percentile £349 £361 £363
25th Percentile £450 £462 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £534 £557 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +1.27% -8.33%
75th Percentile £668 £688 £673
90th Percentile £775 £800 £775
London median daily rate £520 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -1.89% -3.64% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 5 7
10th Percentile £20.69 £19.36 £18.35
25th Percentile £24.56 £21.25 £20.96
Median hourly rate £26.11 £22.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +16.04% -5.46% +1.28%
75th Percentile £26.93 £24.25 £35.16
90th Percentile £47.35 - £55.75
London median hourly rate £27.75 £34.75 £25.62
% change year-on-year -20.14% +35.64% -32.13%

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 27 April 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 27 April 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 38 £638 -2.67% 11
West End of London +4 1 £625 -3.85% 1
City of Westminster 0 1 £700 +7.69% 1
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 (4.76%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (2.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 22 (52.38%) AWS
1 22 (52.38%) Azure
2 5 (11.90%) GCP
3 3 (7.14%) Amazon SageMaker
3 3 (7.14%) OCI
4 2 (4.76%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (4.76%) SaaS
5 1 (2.38%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (2.38%) Amazon EKS
5 1 (2.38%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (2.38%) AWS Fargate
5 1 (2.38%) Azure AI
5 1 (2.38%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (2.38%) Collibra
5 1 (2.38%) Entra ID
5 1 (2.38%) GitHub
5 1 (2.38%) IaaS
5 1 (2.38%) Nutanix
5 1 (2.38%) PaaS
5 1 (2.38%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 4 (9.52%) Network Security
2 1 (2.38%) DNS
2 1 (2.38%) Intrusion Detection
2 1 (2.38%) LAN
2 1 (2.38%) SD-WAN
2 1 (2.38%) WAN
2 1 (2.38%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.76%) Oracle Database
2 1 (2.38%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 1 (2.38%) Git
1 1 (2.38%) JIRA
1 1 (2.38%) MLflow
General
1 19 (45.24%) Finance
2 15 (35.71%) Social Skills
3 10 (23.81%) Financial Institution
4 8 (19.05%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (14.29%) Banking
6 3 (7.14%) Public Sector
7 2 (4.76%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 12 (28.57%) Project Manager
2 11 (26.19%) Migration Manager
2 11 (26.19%) Migration Project Manager
3 6 (14.29%) Architect
4 5 (11.90%) Analyst
4 5 (11.90%) Security Architect
5 4 (9.52%) IT Analyst
5 4 (9.52%) Security Engineer
5 4 (9.52%) Security Manager
5 4 (9.52%) SOX Analyst
6 3 (7.14%) Senior
7 2 (4.76%) Cloud Engineer
7 2 (4.76%) CyberArk Engineer
7 2 (4.76%) IT Risk Analyst
7 2 (4.76%) Risk Analyst
7 2 (4.76%) Senior Architect
7 2 (4.76%) Senior Security Architect
7 2 (4.76%) SOC Engineer
8 1 (2.38%) Programme Manager
8 1 (2.38%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (7.14%) REST
2 1 (2.38%) .NET
2 1 (2.38%) Google JAX
2 1 (2.38%) Hugging Face
2 1 (2.38%) JAX
2 1 (2.38%) Kafka
2 1 (2.38%) OpenTelemetry
2 1 (2.38%) PyTorch
2 1 (2.38%) Spring
2 1 (2.38%) TensorFlow
2 1 (2.38%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 7 (16.67%) Security Posture
2 6 (14.29%) Onboarding
3 3 (7.14%) Management Information System
4 2 (4.76%) Cloud Native
5 1 (2.38%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (2.38%) Cloud Security Posture
5 1 (2.38%) CMDB
5 1 (2.38%) CSOC
5 1 (2.38%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (2.38%) Operational Technology
5 1 (2.38%) Synthetic Data
Operating Systems
1 2 (4.76%) Linux
1 2 (4.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1 2 (4.76%) Windows
1 2 (4.76%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (40.48%) Security Architecture
2 16 (38.10%) Agile
3 14 (33.33%) Cybersecurity
4 13 (30.95%) PRINCE2
4 13 (30.95%) Project Management
4 13 (30.95%) Stakeholder Management
5 12 (28.57%) Migration
5 12 (28.57%) Validation
6 11 (26.19%) Project Delivery
6 11 (26.19%) Project Governance
7 8 (19.05%) AI
8 7 (16.67%) Cloud Security
8 7 (16.67%) Computer Science
8 7 (16.67%) Incident Response
8 7 (16.67%) Information Security
8 7 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
9 6 (14.29%) Change Management
9 6 (14.29%) Risk Management
9 6 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 5 (11.90%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 3 (7.14%) Python
2 2 (4.76%) Java
2 2 (4.76%) PowerShell
2 2 (4.76%) SQL
Qualifications
1 13 (30.95%) CISSP
1 13 (30.95%) PMI Certification
1 13 (30.95%) PMP
2 9 (21.43%) Degree
3 8 (19.05%) Security Cleared
4 7 (16.67%) CISA
4 7 (16.67%) CISM
5 6 (14.29%) CRISC
5 6 (14.29%) SC Cleared
6 4 (9.52%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 4 (9.52%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (9.52%) CompTIA Security+
7 3 (7.14%) CEH
7 3 (7.14%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (7.14%) OSCP
8 2 (4.76%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (4.76%) CCSP
8 2 (4.76%) CESG Certified Professional
8 2 (4.76%) CompTIA CySA+
8 2 (4.76%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (76.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 12 (28.57%) GDPR
3 10 (23.81%) NIST 800
4 6 (14.29%) COBIT
5 5 (11.90%) NCSC
5 5 (11.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (9.52%) ITGC
6 4 (9.52%) PCI DSS
7 3 (7.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 2 (4.76%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (4.76%) Data Quality
8 2 (4.76%) GRC
9 1 (2.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (2.38%) Def Stans
9 1 (2.38%) EU AI Act
9 1 (2.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (2.38%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1 (2.38%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (2.38%) Kubernetes
1 1 (2.38%) Terraform
Vendors
1 13 (30.95%) CyberArk
2 5 (11.90%) Microsoft
3 3 (7.14%) Google
4 2 (4.76%) Oracle
4 2 (4.76%) Splunk
4 2 (4.76%) VMware
5 1 (2.38%) BMC
5 1 (2.38%) CheckPoint
5 1 (2.38%) CrowdStrike
5 1 (2.38%) Rapid7
5 1 (2.38%) ServiceNow
5 1 (2.38%) Zerto