NIST Contract Job Trends in the City of London

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the City of London requiring NIST skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 101 98
Rank change year-on-year +7 -3 +69
Contract jobs citing NIST 30 20 39
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 1.63% 0.99% 1.58%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 7.75% 6.45% 9.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 19 7 29
10th Percentile £400 £435 £388
25th Percentile £463 £473 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -15.60% -0.79% -4.91%
75th Percentile £725 £700 £680
90th Percentile £865 £768 £775
Central London median daily rate £528 £550 £634
% change year-on-year -4.09% -13.21% -4.34%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
City of 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 the City of London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 387 310 403
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 21.08% 15.36% 16.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 265 168 291
10th Percentile £325 £322 £400
25th Percentile £413 £425 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £566 £575
Median % change year-on-year -7.28% -1.52% -0.86%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £680
90th Percentile £825 £775 £775
Central London median daily rate £525 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 1
10th Percentile £26.51 - -
25th Percentile £26.54 - £71.25
Median hourly rate £28.00 - £72.50
Median % change year-on-year - - +271.79%
75th Percentile £32.50 - £73.75
90th Percentile £34.30 - -
Central London median hourly rate £26.34 £28.75 £72.50
% change year-on-year -8.38% -60.34% +271.79%

NIST
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing NIST relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

NIST job vacancy trend in the City of London

NIST
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing NIST.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing NIST

NIST
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NIST in the City of London over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for NIST in the City of London

NIST
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of 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 (3.33%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (6.67%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (6.67%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (6.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 17 (56.67%) Azure
2 8 (26.67%) AWS
3 7 (23.33%) Entra ID
4 5 (16.67%) Azure Sentinel
4 5 (16.67%) GCP
4 5 (16.67%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (13.33%) Azure Key Vault
5 4 (13.33%) GitHub
6 3 (10.00%) Azure AKS
6 3 (10.00%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (10.00%) Microsoft Purview
6 3 (10.00%) OCI
6 3 (10.00%) Power Platform
7 2 (6.67%) Azure AI
7 2 (6.67%) Copilot Studio
7 2 (6.67%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 2 (6.67%) IaaS
7 2 (6.67%) Microsoft Copilot
7 2 (6.67%) PaaS
7 2 (6.67%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (16.67%) Firewall
2 3 (10.00%) Network Security
3 1 (3.33%) DNS
3 1 (3.33%) Intrusion Detection
3 1 (3.33%) LAN
3 1 (3.33%) SD-WAN
3 1 (3.33%) TCP/IP
3 1 (3.33%) VPN
3 1 (3.33%) WAN
3 1 (3.33%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (6.67%) Oracle Database
2 1 (3.33%) Pinecone
2 1 (3.33%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (3.33%) Git
1 1 (3.33%) JIRA
1 1 (3.33%) SonarQube
General
1 18 (60.00%) Finance
2 12 (40.00%) Social Skills
3 6 (20.00%) Banking
3 6 (20.00%) Financial Institution
4 5 (16.67%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (10.00%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (6.67%) Legal
6 2 (6.67%) Public Sector
7 1 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (3.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 4 (13.33%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
1 4 (13.33%) Consultant
1 4 (13.33%) Security Engineer
2 3 (10.00%) Migration Manager
2 3 (10.00%) Migration Project Manager
2 3 (10.00%) Project Manager
2 3 (10.00%) Tester
3 2 (6.67%) Analyst
3 2 (6.67%) Architect
3 2 (6.67%) CyberArk Engineer
3 2 (6.67%) Lead
3 2 (6.67%) Programme Manager
3 2 (6.67%) Security Analyst
3 2 (6.67%) Security Architect
3 2 (6.67%) Security Manager
3 2 (6.67%) SIEM Engineer
4 1 (3.33%) Cloud Security Engineer
4 1 (3.33%) Lead Consultant
4 1 (3.33%) Power Platform Engineer
4 1 (3.33%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (10.00%) REST
2 2 (6.67%) LangChain
3 1 (3.33%) .NET
3 1 (3.33%) Faiss
3 1 (3.33%) FastAPI
3 1 (3.33%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (3.33%) Semantic Kernel
3 1 (3.33%) Spring
3 1 (3.33%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 6 (20.00%) Onboarding
2 3 (10.00%) AI Agents
2 3 (10.00%) Cyber Threat
3 2 (6.67%) Management Information System
3 2 (6.67%) Security Posture
4 1 (3.33%) Cloud Security Posture
4 1 (3.33%) CMDB
4 1 (3.33%) Cyber Kill Chain
4 1 (3.33%) Data Centre
4 1 (3.33%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (3.33%) Greenfield Project
4 1 (3.33%) Low-Code
4 1 (3.33%) Operational Technology
4 1 (3.33%) SCADA
4 1 (3.33%) STIX
4 1 (3.33%) YARA
Operating Systems
1 3 (10.00%) Linux
1 3 (10.00%) Windows
2 2 (6.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 2 (6.67%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (46.67%) Cybersecurity
2 10 (33.33%) SIEM
2 10 (33.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 7 (23.33%) Data Loss Prevention
3 7 (23.33%) Incident Response
3 7 (23.33%) Security Architecture
3 7 (23.33%) Stakeholder Management
4 6 (20.00%) Data Protection
4 6 (20.00%) Information Security
4 6 (20.00%) RBAC
5 5 (16.67%) AI
5 5 (16.67%) CI/CD
5 5 (16.67%) Cloud Security
5 5 (16.67%) Risk Management
5 5 (16.67%) Threat Modelling
5 5 (16.67%) Use Case
5 5 (16.67%) Validation
6 4 (13.33%) Analytics
6 4 (13.33%) DevOps
6 4 (13.33%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 5 (16.67%) Python
2 3 (10.00%) PowerShell
3 2 (6.67%) Java
3 2 (6.67%) Kusto Query Language
3 2 (6.67%) SQL
4 1 (3.33%) Bicep
4 1 (3.33%) C#
Qualifications
1 8 (26.67%) CISSP
2 7 (23.33%) Security Cleared
3 6 (20.00%) CISA
4 5 (16.67%) SC Cleared
5 4 (13.33%) CISM
5 4 (13.33%) PMI Certification
5 4 (13.33%) PMP
6 3 (10.00%) CompTIA Security+
6 3 (10.00%) CRISC
6 3 (10.00%) Degree
7 2 (6.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 2 (6.67%) CESG Certified Professional
7 2 (6.67%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (6.67%) CISMP
7 2 (6.67%) CompTIA CySA+
7 2 (6.67%) MCP
7 2 (6.67%) SANS
8 1 (3.33%) CCSP
8 1 (3.33%) GCIA
8 1 (3.33%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (70.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (30.00%) GDPR
3 7 (23.33%) COBIT
4 4 (13.33%) EU AI Act
4 4 (13.33%) GRC
4 4 (13.33%) NCSC
5 3 (10.00%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (10.00%) PCI DSS
6 2 (6.67%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 2 (6.67%) ITGC
6 2 (6.67%) NIST 800
6 2 (6.67%) SOC 2
7 1 (3.33%) COSO
7 1 (3.33%) Data Quality
7 1 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27005
7 1 (3.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (3.33%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (16.67%) Active Directory
2 2 (6.67%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (10.00%) Kubernetes
1 3 (10.00%) Terraform
2 1 (3.33%) FortiGate
2 1 (3.33%) Grafana
2 1 (3.33%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (3.33%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 11 (36.67%) Microsoft
2 7 (23.33%) CyberArk
3 3 (10.00%) Google
3 3 (10.00%) Palo Alto
4 2 (6.67%) CheckPoint
4 2 (6.67%) Fortinet
4 2 (6.67%) LogRhythm
4 2 (6.67%) OpenAI
4 2 (6.67%) Oracle
4 2 (6.67%) Rapid7
4 2 (6.67%) ServiceNow
4 2 (6.67%) VMware
5 1 (3.33%) AlgoSec
5 1 (3.33%) BMC
5 1 (3.33%) Qualys
5 1 (3.33%) Splunk
5 1 (3.33%) Tenable
5 1 (3.33%) Tufin
5 1 (3.33%) Zerto