PKI Contract Job Trends in England

Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI)
UK > England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term PKI in contract job vacancies in England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited PKI over the 6 months leading up to 1 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 371 308 234
Rank change year-on-year -63 -74 +55
Contract jobs citing PKI 279 211 335
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.61% 0.77% 1.01%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.82% 2.13% 3.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 197 167 228
10th Percentile £419 £356 £371
25th Percentile £475 £463 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% +2.33% -6.52%
75th Percentile £650 £632 £608
90th Percentile £728 £694 £675
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £538
% change year-on-year - +2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 0 4
10th Percentile £93.80 - -
25th Percentile £96.00 - -
Median hourly rate £98.82 - £23.80
75th Percentile - - £27.91
90th Percentile £100.00 - £35.32
UK median hourly rate £98.82 - £23.80
% change year-on-year - - -56.73%

All Generic Skills
England

PKI falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 15,353 9,893 10,157
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.62% 35.88% 30.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,355 6,266 6,420
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £688
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £518 £550
% change year-on-year +1.45% -5.91% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 969 491 487
10th Percentile £14.59 £15.50 £13.50
25th Percentile £19.03 £18.87 £20.88
Median hourly rate £38.25 £32.71 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +16.94% -37.70% +14.50%
75th Percentile £68.75 £60.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £77.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £29.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +31.25% -34.44% +3.75%

PKI
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing PKI relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

PKI job vacancy trend in England

PKI
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing PKI.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing PKI

PKI
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PKI in England over the 6 months to 1 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for PKI in England

PKI
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing PKI.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing PKI

PKI
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing PKI in England over the 6 months to 1 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for PKI in England

PKI
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing PKI within the England region over the 6 months to 1 September 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
South East -8 89 £583 +1.30% 27
London -62 82 £550 -8.33% 82
North of England -26 56 £519 +5.49% 22
North West -34 34 £525 +6.71% 11
South West -61 30 £623 +13.18% 25
Yorkshire -15 22 £500 -16.67% 11
East of England -17 9 £500 -4.76% 6
Midlands -75 9 £475 +18.75% 9
West Midlands -70 8 £475 +18.75% 5
East Midlands -14 1 £475 - 4
PKI
UK

PKI
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 13 (4.66%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (3.94%) Confluence
3 8 (2.87%) SharePoint
4 3 (1.08%) IIS
5 1 (0.36%) Apache
5 1 (0.36%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.36%) nginx
Applications
1 4 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 10 (3.58%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 100 (35.84%) Azure
2 76 (27.24%) AWS
3 43 (15.41%) Entra ID
4 31 (11.11%) GCP
5 16 (5.73%) Microsoft 365
6 13 (4.66%) Power Platform
7 12 (4.30%) Azure Key Vault
8 11 (3.94%) IaaS
9 10 (3.58%) PaaS
10 9 (3.23%) OpenShift
11 7 (2.51%) SaaS
12 6 (2.15%) Amazon EKS
12 6 (2.15%) AWS KMS
12 6 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
12 6 (2.15%) GitHub
13 5 (1.79%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 5 (1.79%) OCI
14 3 (1.08%) Azure Monitor
14 3 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
14 3 (1.08%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 94 (33.69%) DNS
2 75 (26.88%) DHCP
3 73 (26.16%) Firewall
4 40 (14.34%) VPN
5 32 (11.47%) TCP/IP
6 25 (8.96%) SSL
7 23 (8.24%) Network Security
8 21 (7.53%) LAN
9 20 (7.17%) WAN
10 18 (6.45%) BGP
11 17 (6.09%) IPsec
12 16 (5.73%) OSPF
12 16 (5.73%) VLAN
12 16 (5.73%) VSAN
13 15 (5.38%) Wireless
14 13 (4.66%) Cisco ASA
14 13 (4.66%) Cisco Firepower
14 13 (4.66%) Cisco Nexus
14 13 (4.66%) SSH
15 12 (4.30%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (7.17%) SQL Server
2 12 (4.30%) Power BI
3 7 (2.51%) Elasticsearch
3 7 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (2.15%) Amazon RDS
4 6 (2.15%) MySQL
5 4 (1.43%) Db2
5 4 (1.43%) MongoDB
6 3 (1.08%) Big Data
6 3 (1.08%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.72%) Metadata
7 2 (0.72%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.36%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.36%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 13 (4.66%) Git
1 13 (4.66%) JIRA
2 10 (3.58%) GitLab
3 7 (2.51%) Jenkins
4 3 (1.08%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.72%) Burp Suite
5 2 (0.72%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.72%) Gatling
5 2 (0.72%) Gradle
5 2 (0.72%) LoadRunner
5 2 (0.72%) MSI
5 2 (0.72%) REST Assured
5 2 (0.72%) SonarQube
5 2 (0.72%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.36%) Robot Framework
General
1 57 (20.43%) Social Skills
2 34 (12.19%) Finance
3 29 (10.39%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (8.24%) Public Sector
5 15 (5.38%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (4.66%) Banking
7 5 (1.79%) Police
8 4 (1.43%) Automotive
8 4 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (1.43%) Legal
9 3 (1.08%) Law
9 3 (1.08%) Military
9 3 (1.08%) Retail
10 2 (0.72%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.72%) Corporate Banking
10 2 (0.72%) Investment Banking
10 2 (0.72%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.36%) Local Government
11 1 (0.36%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 59 (21.15%) Senior
2 46 (16.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 28 (10.04%) Architect
4 26 (9.32%) Network Engineer
5 22 (7.89%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 19 (6.81%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 19 (6.81%) Senior Network Engineer
7 18 (6.45%) Platform Engineer
8 15 (5.38%) Consultant
8 15 (5.38%) Storage Engineer
9 11 (3.94%) DevOps Engineer
10 9 (3.23%) Active Directory Engineer
11 8 (2.87%) Lead
11 8 (2.87%) Linux Engineer
11 8 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
12 7 (2.51%) Analyst
12 7 (2.51%) Principal Engineer
12 7 (2.51%) VMware Engineer
13 6 (2.15%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
13 6 (2.15%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (18.64%) Terraform
2 24 (8.60%) 802.1X
3 20 (7.17%) OpenID
4 18 (6.45%) LDAP
4 18 (6.45%) SAML
5 14 (5.02%) OAuth
6 12 (4.30%) REST
7 8 (2.87%) OAuth2
8 7 (2.51%) Kafka
9 6 (2.15%) Keycloak
9 6 (2.15%) RabbitMQ
10 5 (1.79%) Middleware
11 4 (1.43%) SailPoint
12 3 (1.08%) JSON
12 3 (1.08%) Microsoft Graph
12 3 (1.08%) SPIFFE
13 2 (0.72%) .NET Core
13 2 (0.72%) Apache NiFi
13 2 (0.72%) Blazor
13 2 (0.72%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 36 (12.90%) Data Centre
2 34 (12.19%) Clustering
3 16 (5.73%) Public Cloud
4 15 (5.38%) Cloud Native
5 12 (4.30%) Linux Command Line
6 11 (3.94%) Distributed Systems
6 11 (3.94%) Onboarding
7 9 (3.23%) Hybrid Cloud
8 8 (2.87%) Enterprise Storage
8 8 (2.87%) Management Information System
8 8 (2.87%) Security Posture
8 8 (2.87%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (2.51%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.79%) Replication
10 5 (1.79%) Robotics
10 5 (1.79%) Smartcard
11 4 (1.43%) Mainframe
11 4 (1.43%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 142 (50.90%) Windows
2 92 (32.97%) Linux
3 76 (27.24%) Windows Server
4 11 (3.94%) Ubuntu
4 11 (3.94%) Unix
5 10 (3.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (2.87%) Windows Server 2016
7 7 (2.51%) Windows Server 2012
8 6 (2.15%) Debian
9 5 (1.79%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (1.08%) Android
10 3 (1.08%) Apple iOS
10 3 (1.08%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (1.08%) Mac OS
10 3 (1.08%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.72%) CentOS
11 2 (0.72%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.36%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (22.94%) Identity Access Management
2 57 (20.43%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 53 (19.00%) Problem-Solving
4 51 (18.28%) Infrastructure as Code
5 48 (17.20%) ITIL
6 47 (16.85%) Cybersecurity
6 47 (16.85%) High Availability
7 42 (15.05%) Technical Leadership
8 41 (14.70%) CI/CD
9 39 (13.98%) DevOps
9 39 (13.98%) Zero Trust
10 38 (13.62%) Key Management
11 35 (12.54%) Stakeholder Management
12 34 (12.19%) Change Management
13 33 (11.83%) Agile
14 32 (11.47%) Cryptography
14 32 (11.47%) DevSecOps
15 31 (11.11%) Mentoring
16 30 (10.75%) Continuous Improvement
16 30 (10.75%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 72 (25.81%) PowerShell
2 57 (20.43%) Python
3 31 (11.11%) Bash
4 15 (5.38%) SQL
5 11 (3.94%) JavaScript
6 6 (2.15%) Java
7 4 (1.43%) Go
8 3 (1.08%) C#
9 2 (0.72%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.36%) Bicep
10 1 (0.36%) C++
10 1 (0.36%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 151 (54.12%) Security Cleared
2 97 (34.77%) DV Cleared
3 62 (22.22%) SC Cleared
4 27 (9.68%) Cisco Certification
5 20 (7.17%) Degree
6 18 (6.45%) CCNP
7 15 (5.38%) CISSP
8 13 (4.66%) Azure Certification
9 12 (4.30%) VCAP
10 11 (3.94%) Microsoft Certification
11 9 (3.23%) AWS Certification
12 7 (2.51%) CISM
13 6 (2.15%) GIAC
14 5 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
14 5 (1.79%) ISTQB
14 5 (1.79%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 5 (1.79%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 5 (1.79%) JNCIP
14 5 (1.79%) JNCIS
14 5 (1.79%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (11.47%) NIST
2 23 (8.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 16 (5.73%) NCSC
4 7 (2.51%) JSP 440
5 6 (2.15%) GRC
6 4 (1.43%) GDPR
6 4 (1.43%) QA
6 4 (1.43%) SLA
7 3 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (1.08%) SOC 2
8 2 (0.72%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.72%) ISA99
8 2 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (0.72%) ITGC
8 2 (0.72%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.36%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.36%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.36%) PSD2
System Software
1 127 (45.52%) Active Directory
2 62 (22.22%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (13.26%) Docker
4 31 (11.11%) VMware NSX
5 29 (10.39%) Hyper-V
6 16 (5.73%) vSphere
7 9 (3.23%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (2.51%) BitLocker
9 6 (2.15%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (1.43%) NFS
10 4 (1.43%) Terminal Services
10 4 (1.43%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (1.43%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (1.08%) Firmware
11 3 (1.08%) OpenAM
11 3 (1.08%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.72%) XenApp
12 2 (0.72%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.36%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 1 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 60 (21.51%) Kubernetes
2 53 (19.00%) Ansible
3 22 (7.89%) vCenter Server
4 18 (6.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (6.09%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (5.02%) VxRail
7 13 (4.66%) Avamar
7 13 (4.66%) SCOM
8 10 (3.58%) Puppet
9 7 (2.51%) FortiGate
9 7 (2.51%) Istio
9 7 (2.51%) WSUS
10 6 (2.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (2.15%) CA Single Sign-On
10 6 (2.15%) Grafana
10 6 (2.15%) Kibana
10 6 (2.15%) Prometheus
10 6 (2.15%) vMotion
11 5 (1.79%) Failover Clustering
12 4 (1.43%) systemd
Vendors
1 108 (38.71%) Microsoft
2 78 (27.96%) VMware
3 47 (16.85%) Cisco
4 28 (10.04%) Thales
5 25 (8.96%) ServiceNow
6 16 (5.73%) Citrix
6 16 (5.73%) Juniper
7 14 (5.02%) Dell
7 14 (5.02%) SolarWinds
7 14 (5.02%) Splunk
8 13 (4.66%) CyberArk
8 13 (4.66%) Google
9 11 (3.94%) F5
9 11 (3.94%) Palo Alto
10 10 (3.58%) BMC
10 10 (3.58%) Remedy
11 9 (3.23%) CheckPoint
12 8 (2.87%) NetApp
13 7 (2.51%) Extreme Networks
14 6 (2.15%) HP