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 22 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 100 94
Rank change year-on-year +5 -6 +58
Contract jobs citing NIST 34 24 43
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 1.60% 1.15% 1.65%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.66% 7.16% 10.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 23 12 40
10th Percentile £405 £455 £340
25th Percentile £481 £537 £509
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £630 £625
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% +0.80% -7.41%
75th Percentile £780 £689 £682
90th Percentile £840 £759 £875
London median daily rate £615 £635 £625
% change year-on-year -3.15% +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 444 335 420
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 20.84% 16.07% 16.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 294 192 314
10th Percentile £363 £348 £390
25th Percentile £425 £434 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £650 £651 £680
90th Percentile £796 £763 £775
London median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 2
10th Percentile £20.69 £19.04 £25.05
25th Percentile £24.56 £20.46 £32.75
Median hourly rate £26.11 £28.75 £46.55
Median % change year-on-year -9.18% -38.24% +111.60%
75th Percentile £26.93 £35.00 £60.64
90th Percentile £28.45 - £68.50
London median hourly rate £26.11 £39.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year -33.05% +41.84% -21.44%

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 22 February 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 22 February 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 +6 31 £638 +0.39% 12
City of Westminster +5 1 £700 +7.69%
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:

Cloud Services
1 21 (61.76%) Azure
2 16 (47.06%) AWS
3 5 (14.71%) GCP
4 4 (11.76%) Azure Sentinel
4 4 (11.76%) Entra ID
4 4 (11.76%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (8.82%) OCI
6 2 (5.88%) Amazon SageMaker
6 2 (5.88%) IaaS
6 2 (5.88%) Microsoft Purview
6 2 (5.88%) PaaS
6 2 (5.88%) SaaS
7 1 (2.94%) Amazon ECS
7 1 (2.94%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (2.94%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (2.94%) AWS Control Tower
7 1 (2.94%) AWS Fargate
7 1 (2.94%) Azure Key Vault
7 1 (2.94%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (2.94%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 5 (14.71%) Network Security
2 2 (5.88%) Firewall
3 1 (2.94%) DNS
3 1 (2.94%) Intrusion Detection
3 1 (2.94%) LAN
3 1 (2.94%) SD-WAN
3 1 (2.94%) WAN
3 1 (2.94%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.88%) Oracle Database
2 1 (2.94%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 1 (2.94%) Git
1 1 (2.94%) MLflow
General
1 17 (50.00%) Finance
2 12 (35.29%) Social Skills
3 7 (20.59%) Banking
4 6 (17.65%) Financial Institution
5 3 (8.82%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (8.82%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (2.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.94%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (2.94%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 8 (23.53%) Project Manager
2 7 (20.59%) Migration Manager
2 7 (20.59%) Migration Project Manager
3 4 (11.76%) Security Engineer
4 3 (8.82%) Security Manager
5 2 (5.88%) Analyst
5 2 (5.88%) Architect
5 2 (5.88%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 2 (5.88%) Cloud Engineer
5 2 (5.88%) Consultant
5 2 (5.88%) CyberArk Engineer
5 2 (5.88%) Cybersecurity Manager
5 2 (5.88%) Lead
5 2 (5.88%) Programme Manager
5 2 (5.88%) Security Analyst
5 2 (5.88%) Security Architect
5 2 (5.88%) Security Specialist
5 2 (5.88%) SOC Engineer
6 1 (2.94%) Cloud Security Engineer
6 1 (2.94%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (8.82%) REST
2 1 (2.94%) .NET
2 1 (2.94%) Google JAX
2 1 (2.94%) Hugging Face
2 1 (2.94%) JAX
2 1 (2.94%) Kafka
2 1 (2.94%) Model Context Protocol
2 1 (2.94%) OpenTelemetry
2 1 (2.94%) PyTorch
2 1 (2.94%) Spring
2 1 (2.94%) TensorFlow
2 1 (2.94%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 6 (17.65%) Onboarding
1 6 (17.65%) Security Posture
2 3 (8.82%) Cyber Threat
2 3 (8.82%) Management Information System
3 1 (2.94%) Analytical Mindset
3 1 (2.94%) Cloud Native
3 1 (2.94%) Cloud Security Posture
3 1 (2.94%) CMDB
3 1 (2.94%) Data Centre
3 1 (2.94%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (2.94%) Operational Technology
3 1 (2.94%) Synthetic Data
Operating Systems
1 2 (5.88%) Linux
1 2 (5.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
1 2 (5.88%) Windows
1 2 (5.88%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (38.24%) Cybersecurity
1 13 (38.24%) Security Architecture
2 10 (29.41%) Agile
3 9 (26.47%) Incident Response
3 9 (26.47%) PRINCE2
3 9 (26.47%) Project Management
3 9 (26.47%) Stakeholder Management
3 9 (26.47%) Validation
4 8 (23.53%) Migration
4 8 (23.53%) Project Delivery
4 8 (23.53%) SIEM
5 7 (20.59%) Cloud Security
5 7 (20.59%) Information Security
5 7 (20.59%) Project Governance
5 7 (20.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 6 (17.65%) AI
6 6 (17.65%) Data Protection
7 5 (14.71%) Change Management
7 5 (14.71%) Risk Management
7 5 (14.71%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 3 (8.82%) Python
2 2 (5.88%) Java
2 2 (5.88%) PowerShell
2 2 (5.88%) SQL
3 1 (2.94%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 10 (29.41%) CISSP
2 9 (26.47%) CISM
2 9 (26.47%) PMI Certification
2 9 (26.47%) PMP
3 7 (20.59%) Security Cleared
4 6 (17.65%) CompTIA Security+
4 6 (17.65%) SC Cleared
5 5 (14.71%) Degree
6 4 (11.76%) CompTIA CySA+
7 3 (8.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 3 (8.82%) CISA
7 3 (8.82%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (8.82%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (8.82%) CRISC
7 3 (8.82%) Master's Degree
8 2 (5.88%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (5.88%) CCSP
8 2 (5.88%) CESG Certified Professional
8 2 (5.88%) CISMP
8 2 (5.88%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (85.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (29.41%) GDPR
3 5 (14.71%) NIST 800
3 5 (14.71%) PCI DSS
4 4 (11.76%) GRC
4 4 (11.76%) NCSC
5 3 (8.82%) COBIT
5 3 (8.82%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (5.88%) Data Quality
6 2 (5.88%) SOC 2
7 1 (2.94%) EU AI Act
7 1 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27005
7 1 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 1 (2.94%) ITGC
7 1 (2.94%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (2.94%) SLA
System Software
1 3 (8.82%) Active Directory
2 1 (2.94%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (2.94%) Kubernetes
1 1 (2.94%) Microsoft Intune
1 1 (2.94%) Terraform
Vendors
1 11 (32.35%) CyberArk
2 8 (23.53%) Microsoft
3 3 (8.82%) Google
4 2 (5.88%) LogRhythm
4 2 (5.88%) Oracle
4 2 (5.88%) ServiceNow
4 2 (5.88%) VMware
5 1 (2.94%) BMC
5 1 (2.94%) CheckPoint
5 1 (2.94%) Fortinet
5 1 (2.94%) Palo Alto
5 1 (2.94%) Rapid7
5 1 (2.94%) Splunk
5 1 (2.94%) Zerto