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 4 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 167 187 198
Rank change year-on-year +20 +11 +71
Contract jobs citing NIST 267 166 200
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.56% 1.31% 1.11%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.39% 8.56% 8.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 188 105 148
10th Percentile £425 £459 £400
25th Percentile £506 £519 £522
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £640 £650
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% -1.54% -
75th Percentile £713 £688 £780
90th Percentile £888 £838 £825
England median daily rate £583 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -6.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 4 0
10th Percentile - £73.12 -
25th Percentile £81.25 £79.60 -
Median hourly rate £87.50 £83.20 -
Median % change year-on-year +5.17% - -
75th Percentile £93.75 £86.15 -
90th Percentile - £91.46 -
England median hourly rate £81.50 £83.20 £66.25
% change year-on-year -2.04% +25.58% +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 3,184 1,939 2,446
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 18.62% 15.29% 13.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,130 1,298 1,748
10th Percentile £350 £313 £363
25th Percentile £423 £410 £431
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 £766 £788
England median daily rate £510 £509 £525
% change year-on-year +0.25% -3.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 24 58
10th Percentile £18.07 £18.69 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.39 £22.27 £17.56
Median hourly rate £26.11 £39.02 £26.40
Median % change year-on-year -33.09% +47.80% -39.81%
75th Percentile £36.41 £68.35 £49.00
90th Percentile £70.30 £90.59 £60.53
England median hourly rate £28.55 £32.81 £21.38
% change year-on-year -12.98% +53.48% -49.70%

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 4 April 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 4 April 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 39 £650 +1.56% 24
South London -12 7 £525 +16.67%
East London -2 3 £450 -26.83% 6
West London -20 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 (1.87%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.12%) Confluence
2 3 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.37%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 90 (33.71%) Azure
2 76 (28.46%) AWS
3 35 (13.11%) GCP
4 24 (8.99%) Entra ID
5 17 (6.37%) AWS CloudFormation
6 14 (5.24%) OpenShift
7 12 (4.49%) Amazon ECS
7 12 (4.49%) Azure Sentinel
8 10 (3.75%) GitHub
8 10 (3.75%) Serverless
9 9 (3.37%) Amazon EKS
9 9 (3.37%) SaaS
9 9 (3.37%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 8 (3.00%) AWS Lambda
10 8 (3.00%) Microsoft Purview
11 7 (2.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 7 (2.62%) Amazon MSK
12 6 (2.25%) IaaS
12 6 (2.25%) Microsoft 365
12 6 (2.25%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (7.12%) Network Security
2 17 (6.37%) Firewall
3 15 (5.62%) DNS
4 5 (1.87%) Kerberos
4 5 (1.87%) VPN
5 4 (1.50%) TCP/IP
5 4 (1.50%) WAN
6 3 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
6 3 (1.12%) HTTP
6 3 (1.12%) LAN
6 3 (1.12%) NGFW
6 3 (1.12%) SD-WAN
6 3 (1.12%) SSL
7 2 (0.75%) DHCP
7 2 (0.75%) Intrusion Detection
7 2 (0.75%) IPv4
7 2 (0.75%) IPv6
7 2 (0.75%) Modbus
7 2 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.37%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.00%) Amazon RDS
2 4 (1.50%) Amazon Aurora
2 4 (1.50%) Big Data
2 4 (1.50%) Data Lake
2 4 (1.50%) DocumentDB
2 4 (1.50%) DynamoDB
2 4 (1.50%) MySQL
2 4 (1.50%) NoSQL
2 4 (1.50%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (1.50%) Redis
3 3 (1.12%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (1.12%) Amazon Redshift
3 3 (1.12%) Star Schema
4 2 (0.75%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.37%) Data Hub
5 1 (0.37%) EDRMS
5 1 (0.37%) Metadata
5 1 (0.37%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 17 (6.37%) Jenkins
2 14 (5.24%) JIRA
3 5 (1.87%) Git
3 5 (1.87%) GitLab
4 4 (1.50%) Snyk
5 3 (1.12%) JMeter
6 2 (0.75%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.37%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.37%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.37%) MLflow
7 1 (0.37%) Postman
General
1 101 (37.83%) Social Skills
2 85 (31.84%) Finance
3 42 (15.73%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (9.36%) Documentation Skills
5 23 (8.61%) Banking
6 22 (8.24%) Influencing Skills
7 17 (6.37%) Financial Institution
7 17 (6.37%) Legal
8 15 (5.62%) Public Sector
9 12 (4.49%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (3.00%) Law
11 4 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.50%) Telecoms
12 3 (1.12%) Retail
13 2 (0.75%) Investment Banking
14 1 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 1 (0.37%) Military
14 1 (0.37%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 54 (20.22%) Architect
2 32 (11.99%) Consultant
3 30 (11.24%) Analyst
4 27 (10.11%) Security Engineer
5 22 (8.24%) Security Architect
6 20 (7.49%) Senior
7 19 (7.12%) Project Manager
7 19 (7.12%) Security Consultant
8 18 (6.74%) CyberArk Architect
9 16 (5.99%) Security Specialist
10 15 (5.62%) Security Manager
11 11 (4.12%) Lead
11 11 (4.12%) Migration Manager
11 11 (4.12%) Migration Project Manager
12 10 (3.75%) Security Analyst
13 9 (3.37%) Cybersecurity Consultant
14 8 (3.00%) Cloud Architect
15 7 (2.62%) Cybersecurity Architect
15 7 (2.62%) Cybersecurity Manager
15 7 (2.62%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (7.12%) OpenID
2 18 (6.74%) SAML
3 15 (5.62%) LDAP
4 9 (3.37%) Kafka
4 9 (3.37%) REST
5 7 (2.62%) OAuth
5 7 (2.62%) SailPoint
6 6 (2.25%) RESTful
7 5 (1.87%) .NET
7 5 (1.87%) OAuth2
7 5 (1.87%) OpenTelemetry
7 5 (1.87%) Spring
8 4 (1.50%) gRPC
8 4 (1.50%) Hibernate
8 4 (1.50%) JPA
8 4 (1.50%) Spring Boot
8 4 (1.50%) Spring Cloud
9 3 (1.12%) SOAP
10 2 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
10 2 (0.75%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 33 (12.36%) Onboarding
2 25 (9.36%) Cloud Native
3 20 (7.49%) Security Posture
4 15 (5.62%) Management Information System
5 14 (5.24%) Hybrid Cloud
6 13 (4.87%) Operational Technology
7 9 (3.37%) CMDB
8 6 (2.25%) Data Centre
8 6 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.87%) BYOD
10 4 (1.50%) Legacy Applications
10 4 (1.50%) Product Ownership
10 4 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (1.12%) AI Agents
11 3 (1.12%) Cyber Defence
11 3 (1.12%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (1.12%) Mainframe
11 3 (1.12%) Taxonomies
12 2 (0.75%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.24%) Linux
1 14 (5.24%) Windows
2 6 (2.25%) Windows Server
3 4 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.12%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (46.07%) Cybersecurity
2 64 (23.97%) Stakeholder Management
3 62 (23.22%) Information Security
4 59 (22.10%) Risk Management
5 58 (21.72%) CI/CD
6 52 (19.48%) Cloud Security
7 49 (18.35%) SIEM
8 45 (16.85%) Data Protection
8 45 (16.85%) Security Architecture
9 43 (16.10%) Continuous Improvement
9 43 (16.10%) DevOps
9 43 (16.10%) Incident Response
9 43 (16.10%) Threat Modelling
10 40 (14.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 39 (14.61%) AI
11 39 (14.61%) Infrastructure as Code
12 38 (14.23%) Agile
12 38 (14.23%) Vulnerability Management
13 32 (11.99%) Roadmaps
14 31 (11.61%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 26 (9.74%) Python
2 20 (7.49%) PowerShell
3 15 (5.62%) Java
4 11 (4.12%) SQL
5 5 (1.87%) Bash
5 5 (1.87%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.37%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.37%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 70 (26.22%) CISSP
2 63 (23.60%) Security Cleared
3 54 (20.22%) SC Cleared
4 44 (16.48%) CISM
5 37 (13.86%) Degree
6 21 (7.87%) CEH
7 20 (7.49%) CompTIA Security+
8 19 (7.12%) Cisco Certification
8 19 (7.12%) CRISC
9 18 (6.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 18 (6.74%) PMI Certification
9 18 (6.74%) PMP
10 14 (5.24%) CISA
11 13 (4.87%) GIAC
12 11 (4.12%) Computer Science Degree
12 11 (4.12%) Master's Degree
13 10 (3.75%) AWS Certification
13 10 (3.75%) CCSP
14 9 (3.37%) DV Cleared
15 8 (3.00%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (65.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 64 (23.97%) GDPR
3 38 (14.23%) GRC
4 36 (13.48%) NCSC
4 36 (13.48%) PCI DSS
5 32 (11.99%) COBIT
6 23 (8.61%) NIST 800
7 22 (8.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 17 (6.37%) ITGC
9 11 (4.12%) SOC 2
10 9 (3.37%) Cyber Essentials
10 9 (3.37%) QA
11 7 (2.62%) SOX 404
12 6 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 5 (1.87%) ISO 22301
13 5 (1.87%) SLA
14 4 (1.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 4 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 3 (1.12%) EU AI Act
15 3 (1.12%) PMO
System Software
1 20 (7.49%) Active Directory
2 13 (4.87%) Docker
3 3 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.37%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.37%) Varnish
4 1 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.37%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 31 (11.61%) Kubernetes
2 21 (7.87%) Terraform
3 7 (2.62%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (2.25%) Nessus
5 5 (1.87%) CASB
6 4 (1.50%) Ansible
7 2 (0.75%) Grafana
7 2 (0.75%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.37%) Fluentd
8 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.37%) Network Intrusion Detection System
8 1 (0.37%) Nmap
8 1 (0.37%) RSA Archer
8 1 (0.37%) SELinux
8 1 (0.37%) VxRail
Vendors
1 42 (15.73%) CyberArk
2 35 (13.11%) Microsoft
3 31 (11.61%) Splunk
4 19 (7.12%) ServiceNow
5 13 (4.87%) Tenable
6 11 (4.12%) Google
7 9 (3.37%) Oracle
8 8 (3.00%) Cisco
8 8 (3.00%) Qualys
9 7 (2.62%) Rapid7
9 7 (2.62%) SAP
10 6 (2.25%) VMware
11 5 (1.87%) Fortinet
11 5 (1.87%) Palo Alto
12 4 (1.50%) Zscaler
13 3 (1.12%) Commvault
13 3 (1.12%) CrowdStrike
13 3 (1.12%) ForgeRock
13 3 (1.12%) Trend Micro
13 3 (1.12%) Workday