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 15 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 159 210
Rank change year-on-year -9 +51 +18
Contract jobs citing NIST 319 237 196
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.62% 1.75% 1.13%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.81% 10.51% 8.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 217 165 153
10th Percentile £428 £425 £410
25th Percentile £500 £513 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £590 £650
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -9.23% -3.70%
75th Percentile £738 £700 £775
90th Percentile £888 £820 £825
England median daily rate £591 £580 £625
% change year-on-year +1.90% -7.20% -3.85%

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 3,620 2,256 2,405
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 18.33% 16.68% 13.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,434 1,498 1,669
10th Percentile £350 £325 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £637 £669 £675
90th Percentile £738 £758 £795
England median daily rate £509 £500 £523
% change year-on-year +1.85% -4.31% -2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 34 58
10th Percentile £19.87 £22.75 £12.50
25th Percentile £25.25 £25.15 £17.56
Median hourly rate £28.55 £34.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -17.25% +44.96% -27.79%
75th Percentile £41.92 £47.88 £38.06
90th Percentile £62.35 £62.53 £52.73
England median hourly rate £36.07 £31.76 £25.00
% change year-on-year +13.57% +27.04% -41.18%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 +10 51 £623 +7.33% 10
East London -3 2 £750 +28.21% 4
South London -13 2 £744 +35.18%
West London -17 2 £431 +11.29% 8
North London -2 1 £650 +57.58%
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 6 (1.88%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.57%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.94%) Confluence
4 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 5 (1.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 123 (38.56%) Azure
2 94 (29.47%) AWS
3 48 (15.05%) Entra ID
4 45 (14.11%) GCP
5 18 (5.64%) Azure Sentinel
5 18 (5.64%) SaaS
6 14 (4.39%) Azure DevOps
7 13 (4.08%) Microsoft 365
8 12 (3.76%) GitHub
8 12 (3.76%) OpenShift
9 10 (3.13%) Microsoft Purview
10 8 (2.51%) AWS CloudFormation
10 8 (2.51%) Datadog
10 8 (2.51%) OCI
11 7 (2.19%) Serverless
12 6 (1.88%) Azure Monitor
13 5 (1.57%) Amazon Bedrock
13 5 (1.57%) Anthropic Claude
13 5 (1.57%) Azure Key Vault
13 5 (1.57%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 24 (7.52%) Network Security
2 16 (5.02%) Firewall
3 12 (3.76%) DNS
4 10 (3.13%) VPN
5 7 (2.19%) TCP/IP
6 6 (1.88%) Kerberos
6 6 (1.88%) NGFW
7 5 (1.57%) HTTP
7 5 (1.57%) SSL
7 5 (1.57%) X.509
8 4 (1.25%) Cisco IPT
8 4 (1.25%) IPsec
9 3 (0.94%) DHCP
9 3 (0.94%) Internet
9 3 (0.94%) SSH
10 2 (0.63%) BGP
10 2 (0.63%) Intrusion Detection
10 2 (0.63%) IPv4
10 2 (0.63%) S/MIME
10 2 (0.63%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.25%) Big Data
2 3 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (0.63%) Data Hub
3 2 (0.63%) Power BI
4 1 (0.31%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (0.31%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.31%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.31%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.31%) Metadata
4 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 14 (4.39%) Jenkins
2 9 (2.82%) JIRA
3 7 (2.19%) Snyk
4 4 (1.25%) Burp Suite
4 4 (1.25%) Git
4 4 (1.25%) GitLab
5 3 (0.94%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.63%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.31%) MLflow
7 1 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 105 (32.92%) Finance
2 104 (32.60%) Social Skills
3 44 (13.79%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (7.84%) Banking
4 25 (7.84%) Documentation Skills
5 21 (6.58%) Public Sector
6 19 (5.96%) Influencing Skills
7 18 (5.64%) Legal
8 12 (3.76%) Financial Institution
9 6 (1.88%) Law
10 5 (1.57%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (1.57%) Retail
10 5 (1.57%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.94%) Local Government
13 2 (0.63%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.31%) Aerospace
14 1 (0.31%) Back Office
14 1 (0.31%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 75 (23.51%) Architect
2 52 (16.30%) Analyst
3 36 (11.29%) Security Architect
4 32 (10.03%) Senior
5 30 (9.40%) Consultant
6 24 (7.52%) Security Engineer
7 22 (6.90%) Security Analyst
8 20 (6.27%) CyberArk Architect
8 20 (6.27%) Lead
8 20 (6.27%) Security Consultant
9 18 (5.64%) Security Manager
10 16 (5.02%) Business Analyst
10 16 (5.02%) Project Manager
11 14 (4.39%) Cybersecurity Analyst
11 14 (4.39%) Security Specialist
12 11 (3.45%) Cybersecurity Consultant
12 11 (3.45%) Solutions Architect
13 9 (2.82%) Senior Architect
14 8 (2.51%) Cybersecurity Architect
14 8 (2.51%) Risk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.96%) SAML
2 15 (4.70%) LDAP
3 14 (4.39%) OpenID
3 14 (4.39%) SailPoint
4 7 (2.19%) OAuth
5 5 (1.57%) JSON
6 4 (1.25%) Kafka
7 3 (0.94%) REST
7 3 (0.94%) SLSA
7 3 (0.94%) SPIFFE
7 3 (0.94%) YAML
8 2 (0.63%) .NET
8 2 (0.63%) Azure Blueprints
8 2 (0.63%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.63%) Middleware
8 2 (0.63%) OAuth2
8 2 (0.63%) OpenTelemetry
8 2 (0.63%) RESTful
8 2 (0.63%) SOAP
8 2 (0.63%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 38 (11.91%) Cloud Native
2 32 (10.03%) Onboarding
3 30 (9.40%) Security Posture
4 21 (6.58%) Operational Technology
5 18 (5.64%) Hybrid Cloud
6 14 (4.39%) Management Information System
7 11 (3.45%) CMDB
8 10 (3.13%) SCADA
9 9 (2.82%) AI Agents
9 9 (2.82%) PKI
10 6 (1.88%) Cyber Threat
11 5 (1.57%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (1.25%) BYOD
12 4 (1.25%) Data Centre
12 4 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.25%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 4 (1.25%) Legacy Applications
12 4 (1.25%) Legacy Systems
13 3 (0.94%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 18 (5.64%) Windows
2 15 (4.70%) Linux
3 8 (2.51%) Windows Server
4 6 (1.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.25%) Unix
6 3 (0.94%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.63%) Alpine Linux
8 1 (0.31%) Android
8 1 (0.31%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.31%) CentOS
8 1 (0.31%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (54.86%) Cybersecurity
2 70 (21.94%) Stakeholder Management
3 68 (21.32%) Risk Management
3 68 (21.32%) Security Architecture
4 62 (19.44%) Information Security
5 59 (18.50%) CI/CD
6 55 (17.24%) Cloud Security
7 52 (16.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 52 (16.30%) Threat Modelling
8 48 (15.05%) AI
8 48 (15.05%) DevOps
9 47 (14.73%) SIEM
10 45 (14.11%) Vulnerability Management
11 44 (13.79%) Incident Response
11 44 (13.79%) Roadmaps
12 41 (12.85%) Identity Access Management
13 40 (12.54%) Infrastructure as Code
14 38 (11.91%) Continuous Improvement
14 38 (11.91%) Data Protection
15 35 (10.97%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 38 (11.91%) Python
2 26 (8.15%) PowerShell
3 12 (3.76%) SQL
4 8 (2.51%) Bash
5 6 (1.88%) Java
6 5 (1.57%) Kusto Query Language
7 3 (0.94%) Bicep
8 2 (0.63%) Go
8 2 (0.63%) Objective-C
9 1 (0.31%) C
9 1 (0.31%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.31%) Korn
9 1 (0.31%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 90 (28.21%) CISSP
2 67 (21.00%) Security Cleared
3 53 (16.61%) SC Cleared
4 48 (15.05%) CISM
5 35 (10.97%) Degree
6 24 (7.52%) Cisco Certification
7 23 (7.21%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 23 (7.21%) CRISC
8 21 (6.58%) CISA
8 21 (6.58%) GIAC
9 20 (6.27%) CEH
10 18 (5.64%) CompTIA Security+
11 15 (4.70%) Azure Certification
12 12 (3.76%) AWS Certification
12 12 (3.76%) PMI Certification
12 12 (3.76%) PMP
13 11 (3.45%) CCSP
13 11 (3.45%) DV Cleared
14 10 (3.13%) Computer Science Degree
15 9 (2.82%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 200 (62.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 56 (17.55%) GDPR
3 49 (15.36%) GRC
4 46 (14.42%) NCSC
5 39 (12.23%) COBIT
6 33 (10.34%) NIST 800
7 28 (8.78%) PCI DSS
8 23 (7.21%) SOC 2
9 16 (5.02%) Cyber Essentials
10 15 (4.70%) ITGC
11 12 (3.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 9 (2.82%) EU AI Act
12 9 (2.82%) QA
13 6 (1.88%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 6 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 6 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (1.88%) PMO
13 6 (1.88%) SLA
14 5 (1.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 5 (1.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 34 (10.66%) Active Directory
2 14 (4.39%) Docker
3 3 (0.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.63%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.63%) OpenSSH
4 2 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.31%) Varnish
5 1 (0.31%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 33 (10.34%) Kubernetes
2 20 (6.27%) Terraform
3 12 (3.76%) Single Sign-On
4 9 (2.82%) Ansible
5 7 (2.19%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.63%) Grafana
6 2 (0.63%) HP Fortify
6 2 (0.63%) Nessus
6 2 (0.63%) Nexpose
6 2 (0.63%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.63%) Puppet
7 1 (0.31%) CASB
7 1 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
7 1 (0.31%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.31%) SELinux
7 1 (0.31%) VxRail
Vendors
1 59 (18.50%) Microsoft
2 38 (11.91%) CyberArk
3 33 (10.34%) Splunk
4 21 (6.58%) ServiceNow
5 15 (4.70%) Google
6 13 (4.08%) CrowdStrike
6 13 (4.08%) Tenable
7 12 (3.76%) Qualys
8 9 (2.82%) Palo Alto
9 8 (2.51%) Rapid7
10 6 (1.88%) Okta
11 5 (1.57%) Cisco
11 5 (1.57%) Zscaler
12 4 (1.25%) Veracode
12 4 (1.25%) VMware
13 3 (0.94%) BeyondTrust
13 3 (0.94%) Commvault
13 3 (0.94%) Forcepoint
13 3 (0.94%) ForgeRock
13 3 (0.94%) Workday