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 28 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 163 232 205
Rank change year-on-year +69 -27 +114
Contract jobs citing NIST 240 145 201
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.67% 0.98% 1.09%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 9.20% 7.15% 7.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 80 135
10th Percentile £400 £489 £400
25th Percentile £479 £522 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £636 £630
Median % change year-on-year -9.63% +0.99% -3.08%
75th Percentile £678 £690 £725
90th Percentile £775 £776 £800
England median daily rate £550 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -12.00% - -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 £87.50 £83.20 £44.50
% change year-on-year +5.17% +86.97% -35.73%

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 2,609 2,028 2,582
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 18.19% 13.70% 13.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,743 1,228 1,904
10th Percentile £336 £300 £363
25th Percentile £415 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £563
Median % change year-on-year - -6.67% +0.90%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £696
90th Percentile £750 £775 £788
England median daily rate £500 £500 £550
% change year-on-year - -9.09% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 32 49
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.00 £17.90
25th Percentile £25.15 £23.42 £22.29
Median hourly rate £27.75 £35.90 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.70% +10.46% -7.14%
75th Percentile £38.44 £78.40 £51.75
90th Percentile £73.02 £94.88 £65.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £30.67 £34.50
% change year-on-year -17.98% -11.12% +51.65%

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 28 December 2025.

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 28 December 2025. 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 +9 32 £545 -0.91% 55
South London -1 5 £525 - 5
West London -13 5 £423 - 6
East London - 3 £450 - 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 9 (3.75%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.42%) Confluence
3 1 (0.42%) nginx
Applications
1 5 (2.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.67%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.42%) GNU Octave
3 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.42%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.42%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 96 (40.00%) Azure
2 60 (25.00%) AWS
3 28 (11.67%) Entra ID
4 23 (9.58%) Azure Sentinel
4 23 (9.58%) GCP
5 15 (6.25%) GitHub
6 12 (5.00%) GitHub Actions
6 12 (5.00%) Microsoft 365
7 11 (4.58%) Microsoft Purview
8 8 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
9 6 (2.50%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (2.50%) Azure Key Vault
9 6 (2.50%) Azure Machine Learning
10 5 (2.08%) Azure AKS
10 5 (2.08%) Power Platform
10 5 (2.08%) SaaS
11 4 (1.67%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (1.67%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 4 (1.67%) PaaS
11 4 (1.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 40 (16.67%) Firewall
2 25 (10.42%) Network Security
3 10 (4.17%) VPN
4 5 (2.08%) NGFW
4 5 (2.08%) WAN
5 4 (1.67%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (1.67%) SD-WAN
6 3 (1.25%) DMZ
6 3 (1.25%) DNS
6 3 (1.25%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.83%) BGP
7 2 (0.83%) LAN
7 2 (0.83%) Modbus
7 2 (0.83%) SSH
7 2 (0.83%) Telnet
7 2 (0.83%) VLAN
7 2 (0.83%) Wireshark
8 1 (0.42%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (0.42%) Software-Defined Networking
8 1 (0.42%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (4.58%) Data Lake
2 4 (1.67%) Delta Lake
3 3 (1.25%) Power BI
4 2 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.83%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.83%) Star Schema
5 1 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
5 1 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.42%) EDRMS
5 1 (0.42%) Pinecone
5 1 (0.42%) Redis
5 1 (0.42%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 14 (5.83%) JIRA
2 6 (2.50%) Snyk
3 5 (2.08%) CircleCI
4 3 (1.25%) JMeter
4 3 (1.25%) Metasploit
5 2 (0.83%) Burp Suite
5 2 (0.83%) GitLab
5 2 (0.83%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.42%) Git
6 1 (0.42%) MLflow
6 1 (0.42%) Postman
6 1 (0.42%) Selenium
6 1 (0.42%) SonarQube
General
1 84 (35.00%) Social Skills
2 55 (22.92%) Finance
3 31 (12.92%) Public Sector
4 23 (9.58%) Analytical Skills
5 22 (9.17%) Banking
6 14 (5.83%) Presentation Skills
7 13 (5.42%) Legal
8 8 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (3.33%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (2.92%) Financial Institution
10 5 (2.08%) Local Government
10 5 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.67%) Law
12 3 (1.25%) Manufacturing
12 3 (1.25%) Military
13 2 (0.83%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.83%) Telecoms
14 1 (0.42%) Japanese Language
14 1 (0.42%) Marketing
14 1 (0.42%) Private Banking
Job Titles
1 43 (17.92%) Security Engineer
2 35 (14.58%) Analyst
3 33 (13.75%) Architect
4 25 (10.42%) Lead
5 24 (10.00%) Consultant
6 23 (9.58%) Security Architect
7 20 (8.33%) Senior
8 17 (7.08%) Security Analyst
9 11 (4.58%) Security Specialist
10 10 (4.17%) Security Consultant
10 10 (4.17%) Tester
11 9 (3.75%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 8 (3.33%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 8 (3.33%) Cloud Architect
12 8 (3.33%) Risk Consultant
12 8 (3.33%) Security Manager
13 7 (2.92%) Azure Architect
13 7 (2.92%) Project Manager
13 7 (2.92%) Senior Security Engineer
14 6 (2.50%) Cybersecurity Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (2.08%) Loki
1 5 (2.08%) SAML
2 4 (1.67%) .NET
2 4 (1.67%) OpenID
2 4 (1.67%) REST
3 3 (1.25%) OAuth
3 3 (1.25%) PyTorch
3 3 (1.25%) Semantic Kernel
3 3 (1.25%) TensorFlow
3 3 (1.25%) YAML
4 2 (0.83%) LangChain
4 2 (0.83%) Microsoft Graph
4 2 (0.83%) RESTful
5 1 (0.42%) Elastic Stack
5 1 (0.42%) JSSE
5 1 (0.42%) Kafka
5 1 (0.42%) LDAP
5 1 (0.42%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (0.42%) SailPoint
5 1 (0.42%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 23 (9.58%) Security Posture
2 20 (8.33%) Management Information System
3 19 (7.92%) Cloud Native
3 19 (7.92%) Onboarding
4 14 (5.83%) Cyber Threat
5 10 (4.17%) Operational Technology
6 9 (3.75%) Hybrid Cloud
7 8 (3.33%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 8 (3.33%) Security Operations Centre
8 7 (2.92%) Data Centre
9 5 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (2.08%) Reinsurance
10 4 (1.67%) AI Agents
10 4 (1.67%) NHS
11 3 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (1.25%) Cloud Security Posture
11 3 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
11 3 (1.25%) Product Ownership
11 3 (1.25%) STIX
11 3 (1.25%) YARA
Operating Systems
1 19 (7.92%) Windows
2 14 (5.83%) Linux
3 8 (3.33%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (1.25%) Unix
6 2 (0.83%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.42%) CentOS
7 1 (0.42%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.42%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (43.75%) Cybersecurity
2 73 (30.42%) Cloud Security
3 67 (27.92%) Risk Management
4 66 (27.50%) Information Security
5 61 (25.42%) SIEM
6 53 (22.08%) Incident Response
7 46 (19.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 41 (17.08%) CI/CD
9 38 (15.83%) Infrastructure as Code
10 35 (14.58%) DevOps
11 34 (14.17%) Data Protection
12 32 (13.33%) Stakeholder Management
13 31 (12.92%) Security Architecture
13 31 (12.92%) Vulnerability Management
14 30 (12.50%) Data Loss Prevention
15 29 (12.08%) AI
16 28 (11.67%) Threat Modelling
17 26 (10.83%) Identity Access Management
18 23 (9.58%) Machine Learning
18 23 (9.58%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 25 (10.42%) Python
2 24 (10.00%) PowerShell
3 9 (3.75%) Kusto Query Language
4 8 (3.33%) Bash
5 6 (2.50%) Bicep
5 6 (2.50%) Java
6 5 (2.08%) SQL
7 2 (0.83%) C++
8 1 (0.42%) C#
8 1 (0.42%) Go
Qualifications
1 59 (24.58%) CISSP
2 52 (21.67%) Security Cleared
3 46 (19.17%) SC Cleared
4 41 (17.08%) CISM
5 25 (10.42%) Degree
6 20 (8.33%) CISA
7 13 (5.42%) Cisco Certification
7 13 (5.42%) CompTIA Security+
7 13 (5.42%) CRISC
8 12 (5.00%) CEH
8 12 (5.00%) DV Cleared
9 11 (4.58%) Azure Certification
10 9 (3.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 9 (3.75%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
10 9 (3.75%) OSCP
11 8 (3.33%) FFIEC
12 7 (2.92%) AWS Certification
12 7 (2.92%) CREST Certified
12 7 (2.92%) SANS
13 6 (2.50%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 154 (64.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 65 (27.08%) GDPR
3 32 (13.33%) PCI DSS
4 28 (11.67%) GRC
5 24 (10.00%) COBIT
6 22 (9.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 17 (7.08%) Cyber Essentials
8 14 (5.83%) NCSC
9 12 (5.00%) NIST 800
10 11 (4.58%) EU AI Act
11 10 (4.17%) HIPAA
11 10 (4.17%) ITGC
12 8 (3.33%) SOC 2
13 7 (2.92%) SOX 404
14 5 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 5 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 5 (2.08%) QA
15 4 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 4 (1.67%) SLA
16 2 (0.83%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 23 (9.58%) Active Directory
2 10 (4.17%) Docker
3 3 (1.25%) Hyper-V
3 3 (1.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.83%) Firmware
5 1 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.42%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 24 (10.00%) Terraform
2 15 (6.25%) Kubernetes
3 7 (2.92%) Prometheus
4 6 (2.50%) Ansible
4 6 (2.50%) QRadar
5 5 (2.08%) CASB
5 5 (2.08%) Nessus
5 5 (2.08%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (1.67%) CSIRT
7 3 (1.25%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (1.25%) SCCM
8 2 (0.83%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.83%) Grafana
8 2 (0.83%) Nmap
8 2 (0.83%) RSA Archer
9 1 (0.42%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 1 (0.42%) Fluentd
9 1 (0.42%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.42%) VxRail
9 1 (0.42%) WSUS
Vendors
1 59 (24.58%) Microsoft
2 13 (5.42%) Splunk
3 12 (5.00%) ServiceNow
4 11 (4.58%) CyberArk
5 10 (4.17%) Palo Alto
5 10 (4.17%) Tenable
6 9 (3.75%) Oracle
7 8 (3.33%) Fortinet
7 8 (3.33%) Qualys
7 8 (3.33%) SAP
8 7 (2.92%) Cisco
8 7 (2.92%) CrowdStrike
9 6 (2.50%) OpenAI
10 5 (2.08%) Google
10 5 (2.08%) Rapid7
10 5 (2.08%) Zscaler
11 4 (1.67%) CheckPoint
11 4 (1.67%) Databricks
11 4 (1.67%) Dell
11 4 (1.67%) VMware