NIST Contract Job Trends in London

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in London requiring NIST skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 30 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 165 197 213
Rank change year-on-year +32 +16 +61
Contract jobs citing NIST 279 163 197
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.66% 1.28% 1.09%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.89% 8.34% 8.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 191 105 145
10th Percentile £425 £459 £400
25th Percentile £506 £519 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £641 £650
Median % change year-on-year -6.40% -1.38% -
75th Percentile £703 £688 £780
90th Percentile £888 £828 £825
England median daily rate £575 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -8.00% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 5 0
10th Percentile £81.63 - -
25th Percentile £82.19 £68.80 -
Median hourly rate £88.75 £83.20 -
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% - -
75th Percentile £94.69 - -
90th Percentile £94.88 £90.28 -
England median hourly rate £82.25 £78.40 £66.25
% change year-on-year +4.91% +18.34% +1.15%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
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 London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 3,139 1,954 2,431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 18.67% 15.37% 13.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,080 1,306 1,737
10th Percentile £350 £313 £363
25th Percentile £425 £408 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £663 £688
90th Percentile £750 £767 £788
England median daily rate £510 £504 £525
% change year-on-year +1.19% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 25 57
10th Percentile £18.07 £18.88 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.03 £22.27 £17.50
Median hourly rate £26.11 £39.04 £26.24
Median % change year-on-year -33.12% +48.78% -40.17%
75th Percentile £56.63 £78.40 £48.75
90th Percentile £76.69 £89.53 £59.20
England median hourly rate £28.28 £32.50 £22.01
% change year-on-year -13.00% +47.66% -46.96%

NIST
Job Vacancy Trend in London

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

NIST job vacancy trend in London

NIST
Daily Rate Trend in London

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing NIST

NIST
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NIST in London over the 6 months to 30 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for NIST in London

NIST
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing NIST.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing NIST

NIST
Contract Job Locations in 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 London region over the 6 months to 30 March 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
Central London +1 37 £650 +1.56% 24
South London -13 7 £525 +16.67%
East London +1 4 £450 -26.83% 6
West London -19 3 £423 - 6
NIST
England

NIST
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in 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 5 (1.79%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.08%) Confluence
2 3 (1.08%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.36%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.72%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.36%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 90 (32.26%) Azure
2 77 (27.60%) AWS
3 33 (11.83%) GCP
4 23 (8.24%) Entra ID
5 17 (6.09%) AWS CloudFormation
6 14 (5.02%) OpenShift
7 12 (4.30%) Amazon ECS
8 10 (3.58%) Azure Sentinel
8 10 (3.58%) GitHub
8 10 (3.58%) Serverless
9 9 (3.23%) Amazon EKS
9 9 (3.23%) SaaS
9 9 (3.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 8 (2.87%) AWS Lambda
11 7 (2.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 7 (2.51%) Amazon MSK
11 7 (2.51%) Microsoft Purview
12 6 (2.15%) Amazon S3
12 6 (2.15%) IaaS
12 6 (2.15%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 21 (7.53%) Network Security
2 19 (6.81%) Firewall
3 15 (5.38%) DNS
4 5 (1.79%) Kerberos
4 5 (1.79%) VPN
5 4 (1.43%) TCP/IP
5 4 (1.43%) WAN
6 3 (1.08%) Cisco IPT
6 3 (1.08%) HTTP
6 3 (1.08%) LAN
6 3 (1.08%) NGFW
6 3 (1.08%) SD-WAN
6 3 (1.08%) SSL
7 2 (0.72%) DHCP
7 2 (0.72%) Ethernet VPN
7 2 (0.72%) Intrusion Detection
7 2 (0.72%) IPv4
7 2 (0.72%) IPv6
7 2 (0.72%) VSAN
7 2 (0.72%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (4.30%) Data Lake
2 8 (2.87%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (1.79%) Redis
4 4 (1.43%) Amazon Aurora
4 4 (1.43%) Big Data
4 4 (1.43%) DocumentDB
4 4 (1.43%) DynamoDB
4 4 (1.43%) MySQL
4 4 (1.43%) NoSQL
4 4 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.08%) Amazon Athena
5 3 (1.08%) Amazon Redshift
5 3 (1.08%) Star Schema
6 2 (0.72%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.36%) Data Hub
7 1 (0.36%) EDRMS
7 1 (0.36%) Metadata
7 1 (0.36%) Power BI
7 1 (0.36%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 17 (6.09%) Jenkins
2 13 (4.66%) JIRA
3 6 (2.15%) GitLab
4 5 (1.79%) Git
5 4 (1.43%) Snyk
6 3 (1.08%) JMeter
7 1 (0.36%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.36%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.36%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.36%) MLflow
General
1 111 (39.78%) Social Skills
2 83 (29.75%) Finance
3 44 (15.77%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (9.68%) Documentation Skills
5 26 (9.32%) Public Sector
6 23 (8.24%) Banking
7 22 (7.89%) Influencing Skills
8 16 (5.73%) Legal
9 15 (5.38%) Financial Institution
10 14 (5.02%) Presentation Skills
11 8 (2.87%) Law
12 5 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (1.79%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.72%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.72%) Military
13 2 (0.72%) Retail
14 1 (0.36%) Electronics
14 1 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 1 (0.36%) Manufacturing
14 1 (0.36%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 54 (19.35%) Architect
2 35 (12.54%) Analyst
2 35 (12.54%) Security Engineer
3 32 (11.47%) Consultant
4 23 (8.24%) Senior
5 22 (7.89%) Security Architect
6 19 (6.81%) Security Consultant
7 18 (6.45%) CyberArk Architect
8 17 (6.09%) Project Manager
9 16 (5.73%) Security Specialist
10 14 (5.02%) Security Manager
11 11 (3.94%) Lead
11 11 (3.94%) Security Analyst
12 10 (3.58%) Migration Manager
12 10 (3.58%) Migration Project Manager
13 9 (3.23%) Cybersecurity Consultant
14 8 (2.87%) Business Analyst
14 8 (2.87%) Cloud Architect
14 8 (2.87%) Cybersecurity Architect
14 8 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (6.81%) OpenID
2 18 (6.45%) SAML
3 15 (5.38%) LDAP
4 9 (3.23%) REST
5 8 (2.87%) Kafka
6 6 (2.15%) OAuth
6 6 (2.15%) SailPoint
7 5 (1.79%) .NET
7 5 (1.79%) OpenTelemetry
7 5 (1.79%) RESTful
7 5 (1.79%) Spring
8 4 (1.43%) gRPC
8 4 (1.43%) Hibernate
8 4 (1.43%) JPA
8 4 (1.43%) OAuth2
8 4 (1.43%) Spring Boot
8 4 (1.43%) Spring Cloud
9 3 (1.08%) Elastic Stack
10 2 (0.72%) SOAP
10 2 (0.72%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 35 (12.54%) Onboarding
2 25 (8.96%) Cloud Native
2 25 (8.96%) Security Posture
3 17 (6.09%) Management Information System
4 14 (5.02%) Hybrid Cloud
5 13 (4.66%) Operational Technology
6 9 (3.23%) CMDB
7 7 (2.51%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 7 (2.51%) Data Centre
7 7 (2.51%) Security Operations Centre
8 6 (2.15%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.79%) BYOD
9 5 (1.79%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.43%) Cyber Defence
10 4 (1.43%) Legacy Applications
10 4 (1.43%) Product Ownership
10 4 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (1.08%) AI Agents
11 3 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (1.08%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.45%) Linux
1 18 (6.45%) Windows
2 7 (2.51%) Windows Server
3 6 (2.15%) Unix
4 4 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.36%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (46.95%) Cybersecurity
2 66 (23.66%) Information Security
3 63 (22.58%) Cloud Security
4 62 (22.22%) Stakeholder Management
5 59 (21.15%) Risk Management
5 59 (21.15%) SIEM
6 58 (20.79%) CI/CD
7 47 (16.85%) Infrastructure as Code
8 45 (16.13%) Incident Response
9 44 (15.77%) Continuous Improvement
9 44 (15.77%) DevOps
9 44 (15.77%) Security Architecture
10 43 (15.41%) Data Protection
11 42 (15.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 42 (15.05%) Threat Modelling
12 38 (13.62%) Agile
12 38 (13.62%) AI
12 38 (13.62%) Vulnerability Management
13 31 (11.11%) Identity Access Management
13 31 (11.11%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 27 (9.68%) Python
2 20 (7.17%) PowerShell
3 16 (5.73%) Java
4 12 (4.30%) SQL
5 7 (2.51%) Kusto Query Language
6 5 (1.79%) Bash
7 2 (0.72%) C++
8 1 (0.36%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 73 (26.16%) Security Cleared
2 71 (25.45%) CISSP
3 61 (21.86%) SC Cleared
4 45 (16.13%) CISM
5 38 (13.62%) Degree
6 21 (7.53%) CEH
7 20 (7.17%) Cisco Certification
7 20 (7.17%) CompTIA Security+
8 19 (6.81%) CRISC
9 18 (6.45%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 16 (5.73%) PMI Certification
10 16 (5.73%) PMP
11 14 (5.02%) CISA
12 13 (4.66%) GIAC
13 12 (4.30%) Computer Science Degree
14 11 (3.94%) Master's Degree
15 10 (3.58%) AWS Certification
15 10 (3.58%) CCSP
15 10 (3.58%) DV Cleared
15 10 (3.58%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (64.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 72 (25.81%) GDPR
3 38 (13.62%) GRC
4 37 (13.26%) PCI DSS
5 36 (12.90%) NCSC
6 32 (11.47%) COBIT
7 22 (7.89%) NIST 800
8 21 (7.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 17 (6.09%) ITGC
10 13 (4.66%) Cyber Essentials
11 11 (3.94%) SOC 2
12 9 (3.23%) HIPAA
13 8 (2.87%) QA
14 7 (2.51%) SOX 404
15 6 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 5 (1.79%) ISO 22301
16 5 (1.79%) SLA
17 4 (1.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 4 (1.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 3 (1.08%) PMO
System Software
1 21 (7.53%) Active Directory
2 13 (4.66%) Docker
3 4 (1.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.72%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.36%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.36%) Varnish
5 1 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 31 (11.11%) Kubernetes
2 22 (7.89%) Terraform
3 7 (2.51%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (2.15%) Nessus
5 5 (1.79%) Ansible
5 5 (1.79%) CASB
6 3 (1.08%) Grafana
6 3 (1.08%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.72%) VxRail
8 1 (0.36%) Fluentd
8 1 (0.36%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.36%) Network Intrusion Detection System
8 1 (0.36%) Nmap
8 1 (0.36%) RSA Archer
8 1 (0.36%) SELinux
Vendors
1 40 (14.34%) CyberArk
2 37 (13.26%) Microsoft
3 31 (11.11%) Splunk
4 19 (6.81%) ServiceNow
5 13 (4.66%) Tenable
6 11 (3.94%) Google
7 9 (3.23%) Cisco
7 9 (3.23%) Oracle
8 8 (2.87%) Qualys
8 8 (2.87%) SAP
9 7 (2.51%) Palo Alto
9 7 (2.51%) Rapid7
9 7 (2.51%) VMware
10 5 (1.79%) CrowdStrike
10 5 (1.79%) Fortinet
11 4 (1.43%) Trend Micro
11 4 (1.43%) Zscaler
12 3 (1.08%) CheckPoint
12 3 (1.08%) Commvault
12 3 (1.08%) Red Hat