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 20 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 175 172 227
Rank change year-on-year -3 +55 -14
Contract jobs citing NIST 328 220 175
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.64% 1.64% 1.08%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.66% 9.53% 7.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 226 155 138
10th Percentile £430 £423 £475
25th Percentile £500 £507 £553
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £590 £585 £668
Median % change year-on-year +0.85% -12.43% -1.04%
75th Percentile £705 £700 £775
90th Percentile £795 £820 £780
England median daily rate £575 £590 £650
% change year-on-year -2.54% -9.23% -

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 3,788 2,309 2,221
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 18.88% 17.19% 13.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,568 1,552 1,502
10th Percentile £350 £325 £338
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -2.22%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £738 £750 £794
England median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 47 44
10th Percentile £18.63 - £17.05
25th Percentile £25.25 £25.15 £21.19
Median hourly rate £33.12 £34.00 £27.26
Median % change year-on-year -2.59% +24.72% -0.87%
75th Percentile £41.68 £43.98 £49.06
90th Percentile £65.44 £54.25 £68.31
England median hourly rate £36.07 £31.64 £27.50
% change year-on-year +14.00% +15.05% -21.43%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 +3 47 £600 +4.35% 15
West London -21 4 £431 +11.29% 8
East London 0 3 £750 +33.33% 1
South London -5 3 £744 +35.18% 4
North London - 1 £650 - 1
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 (1.83%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.91%) Confluence
4 1 (0.30%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 8 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 140 (42.68%) Azure
2 102 (31.10%) AWS
3 59 (17.99%) Entra ID
4 48 (14.63%) GCP
5 21 (6.40%) Azure Sentinel
6 19 (5.79%) SaaS
7 17 (5.18%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (4.88%) Microsoft 365
9 12 (3.66%) OCI
10 11 (3.35%) Microsoft Purview
11 10 (3.05%) GitHub
12 8 (2.44%) Azure Key Vault
12 8 (2.44%) Datadog
13 7 (2.13%) AWS Control Tower
14 6 (1.83%) Azure Monitor
14 6 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
15 5 (1.52%) Amazon Bedrock
15 5 (1.52%) AWS KMS
15 5 (1.52%) Azure Logic Apps
15 5 (1.52%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 27 (8.23%) Network Security
2 18 (5.49%) Firewall
3 12 (3.66%) DNS
4 10 (3.05%) VPN
5 7 (2.13%) TCP/IP
6 6 (1.83%) Kerberos
6 6 (1.83%) NGFW
6 6 (1.83%) X.509
7 5 (1.52%) HTTP
7 5 (1.52%) IPsec
7 5 (1.52%) SSL
8 4 (1.22%) Cisco IPT
8 4 (1.22%) SSH
9 3 (0.91%) DHCP
9 3 (0.91%) Internet
10 2 (0.61%) BGP
10 2 (0.61%) IPv4
10 2 (0.61%) IPv6
10 2 (0.61%) S/MIME
10 2 (0.61%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (1.22%) Big Data
1 4 (1.22%) DynamoDB
2 3 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (0.61%) Power BI
4 1 (0.30%) Data Hub
4 1 (0.30%) Metadata
4 1 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (2.74%) JIRA
2 6 (1.83%) GitLab
2 6 (1.83%) Snyk
3 5 (1.52%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.22%) Burp Suite
4 4 (1.22%) SonarQube
5 3 (0.91%) Git
6 2 (0.61%) Claude Code
6 2 (0.61%) MSI
7 1 (0.30%) Postman
7 1 (0.30%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.30%) Selenium
7 1 (0.30%) TestRail
General
1 106 (32.32%) Social Skills
2 100 (30.49%) Finance
3 44 (13.41%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (8.23%) Banking
5 25 (7.62%) Public Sector
6 24 (7.32%) Legal
7 16 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (2.44%) Financial Institution
8 8 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.83%) Law
10 5 (1.52%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.91%) Investment Banking
12 3 (0.91%) Local Government
12 3 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.91%) Retail
12 3 (0.91%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.61%) German Language
13 2 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 2 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 83 (25.30%) Architect
2 57 (17.38%) Analyst
3 45 (13.72%) Security Architect
4 35 (10.67%) Consultant
5 30 (9.15%) Senior
6 28 (8.54%) Lead
7 25 (7.62%) Security Analyst
8 23 (7.01%) Business Analyst
9 20 (6.10%) Security Consultant
9 20 (6.10%) Security Engineer
10 16 (4.88%) Security Manager
11 14 (4.27%) Cybersecurity Analyst
11 14 (4.27%) Cybersecurity Consultant
12 13 (3.96%) Project Manager
12 13 (3.96%) Solutions Architect
13 11 (3.35%) Senior Architect
14 9 (2.74%) CyberArk Architect
14 9 (2.74%) Cybersecurity Architect
14 9 (2.74%) Security Specialist
15 8 (2.44%) Cloud Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (7.32%) Terraform
2 16 (4.88%) SailPoint
3 10 (3.05%) OAuth
4 9 (2.74%) SAML
5 8 (2.44%) REST
6 7 (2.13%) JSON
7 6 (1.83%) LDAP
8 4 (1.22%) SOAP
8 4 (1.22%) YAML
9 3 (0.91%) OpenID
9 3 (0.91%) SLSA
9 3 (0.91%) SPIFFE
10 2 (0.61%) Azure Blueprints
10 2 (0.61%) Elastic Stack
10 2 (0.61%) JDBC
10 2 (0.61%) Kafka
10 2 (0.61%) Middleware
10 2 (0.61%) OAuth2
10 2 (0.61%) Playwright
10 2 (0.61%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 31 (9.45%) Cloud Native
2 28 (8.54%) Onboarding
2 28 (8.54%) Security Posture
3 20 (6.10%) Operational Technology
4 15 (4.57%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (3.66%) CMDB
6 11 (3.35%) AI Agents
6 11 (3.35%) Management Information System
7 10 (3.05%) PKI
8 9 (2.74%) SCADA
9 8 (2.44%) Cyber Threat
10 7 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (1.52%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.52%) Data Centre
11 5 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
13 3 (0.91%) Algorithms
13 3 (0.91%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 3 (0.91%) Mainframe
13 3 (0.91%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 22 (6.71%) Windows
2 19 (5.79%) Linux
3 8 (2.44%) Windows Server
4 6 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.22%) Unix
6 3 (0.91%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.61%) Alpine Linux
8 1 (0.30%) Android
8 1 (0.30%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.30%) CentOS
8 1 (0.30%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 182 (55.49%) Cybersecurity
2 77 (23.48%) Security Architecture
3 71 (21.65%) Stakeholder Management
4 67 (20.43%) Risk Management
5 62 (18.90%) Cloud Security
6 60 (18.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 56 (17.07%) Roadmaps
8 55 (16.77%) Identity Access Management
9 51 (15.55%) Information Security
10 50 (15.24%) AI
10 50 (15.24%) Incident Response
11 47 (14.33%) CI/CD
12 46 (14.02%) Threat Modelling
12 46 (14.02%) Vulnerability Management
13 43 (13.11%) Zero Trust
14 42 (12.80%) SIEM
15 40 (12.20%) Continuous Improvement
16 38 (11.59%) DevOps
17 37 (11.28%) Data Protection
18 35 (10.67%) Risk Assessment
Programming Languages
1 38 (11.59%) Python
2 34 (10.37%) PowerShell
3 19 (5.79%) SQL
4 10 (3.05%) Bash
5 6 (1.83%) Bicep
5 6 (1.83%) Kusto Query Language
6 5 (1.52%) Java
7 2 (0.61%) BeanShell
7 2 (0.61%) Go
7 2 (0.61%) Objective-C
8 1 (0.30%) C
8 1 (0.30%) C#
8 1 (0.30%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.30%) Korn
Qualifications
1 96 (29.27%) CISSP
2 66 (20.12%) Security Cleared
3 52 (15.85%) CISM
4 49 (14.94%) SC Cleared
5 34 (10.37%) Degree
6 24 (7.32%) Cisco Certification
7 21 (6.40%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 20 (6.10%) CEH
8 20 (6.10%) GIAC
9 19 (5.79%) Azure Certification
9 19 (5.79%) CompTIA Security+
10 18 (5.49%) CRISC
11 16 (4.88%) CISA
12 15 (4.57%) AWS Certification
12 15 (4.57%) DV Cleared
13 12 (3.66%) FFIEC
13 12 (3.66%) PMI Certification
13 12 (3.66%) PMP
14 10 (3.05%) CCSP
14 10 (3.05%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (59.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 54 (16.46%) GDPR
3 43 (13.11%) GRC
4 39 (11.89%) COBIT
5 33 (10.06%) NCSC
6 28 (8.54%) NIST 800
7 19 (5.79%) PCI DSS
7 19 (5.79%) SOC 2
8 18 (5.49%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (4.57%) ITGC
10 14 (4.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 12 (3.66%) EU AI Act
11 12 (3.66%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 10 (3.05%) QA
13 8 (2.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 7 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 5 (1.52%) PMO
15 5 (1.52%) SLA
16 4 (1.22%) HIPAA
16 4 (1.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 41 (12.50%) Active Directory
2 15 (4.57%) Docker
3 3 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.61%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.61%) OpenSSH
4 2 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.30%) Firmware
5 1 (0.30%) Varnish
5 1 (0.30%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 21 (6.40%) Kubernetes
2 12 (3.66%) Single Sign-On
3 10 (3.05%) Ansible
4 8 (2.44%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (0.91%) Nessus
6 2 (0.61%) Docker Swarm
6 2 (0.61%) Grafana
6 2 (0.61%) HP Fortify
6 2 (0.61%) Nexpose
6 2 (0.61%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.61%) Puppet
6 2 (0.61%) SCCM
7 1 (0.30%) Argo
7 1 (0.30%) CASB
7 1 (0.30%) QRadar
7 1 (0.30%) VxRail
Vendors
1 71 (21.65%) Microsoft
2 29 (8.84%) CyberArk
3 24 (7.32%) ServiceNow
3 24 (7.32%) Splunk
4 15 (4.57%) CrowdStrike
5 14 (4.27%) Google
6 13 (3.96%) Tenable
7 11 (3.35%) Qualys
8 10 (3.05%) Palo Alto
9 8 (2.44%) Okta
10 7 (2.13%) Rapid7
10 7 (2.13%) Zscaler
11 6 (1.83%) Cisco
12 5 (1.52%) ForgeRock
13 4 (1.22%) Veracode
13 4 (1.22%) VMware
14 3 (0.91%) BeyondTrust
14 3 (0.91%) Commvault
14 3 (0.91%) OpenAI
14 3 (0.91%) Workday