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 10 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 183 168 233
Rank change year-on-year -15 +65 -25
Contract jobs citing NIST 328 230 168
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.61% 1.70% 1.04%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.39% 9.91% 7.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 220 154 129
10th Percentile £446 £418 £475
25th Percentile £500 £502 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £586 £580 £650
Median % change year-on-year +1.08% -10.77% -3.70%
75th Percentile £691 £689 £775
90th Percentile £791 £793 £780
England median daily rate £575 £575 £638
% change year-on-year - -9.80% -1.92%

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 3,909 2,321 2,214
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 19.24% 17.19% 13.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,628 1,535 1,441
10th Percentile £350 £325 £336
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £680
90th Percentile £725 £750 £800
England median daily rate £508 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.50% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 51 42
10th Percentile £16.57 - £18.13
25th Percentile £22.07 £25.15 £23.80
Median hourly rate £28.55 £34.00 £29.81
Median % change year-on-year -16.03% +14.06% -14.83%
75th Percentile £40.00 £43.98 £49.69
90th Percentile £58.00 £55.00 £71.88
England median hourly rate £33.79 £31.64 £29.00
% change year-on-year +6.80% +9.10% -17.14%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 -7 46 £575 -10.30% 34
West London -16 4 £431 +1.47% 13
East London -1 3 £750 +33.33% 5
South London -12 1 - - 2
North London - 1 £650 -
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 7 (2.13%) 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 7 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 143 (43.60%) Azure
2 105 (32.01%) AWS
3 65 (19.82%) Entra ID
4 49 (14.94%) GCP
5 21 (6.40%) Azure Sentinel
6 19 (5.79%) Azure DevOps
6 19 (5.79%) SaaS
7 18 (5.49%) Microsoft 365
8 16 (4.88%) OCI
9 13 (3.96%) GitHub
10 12 (3.66%) Microsoft Purview
11 10 (3.05%) AWS Control Tower
12 9 (2.74%) Azure Key Vault
13 8 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
14 7 (2.13%) Amazon S3
14 7 (2.13%) Azure Monitor
15 6 (1.83%) Amazon EC2
15 6 (1.83%) AWS KMS
15 6 (1.83%) Datadog
15 6 (1.83%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 24 (7.32%) Network Security
2 17 (5.18%) Firewall
3 12 (3.66%) DNS
4 10 (3.05%) VPN
5 8 (2.44%) X.509
6 7 (2.13%) IPsec
7 5 (1.52%) NGFW
7 5 (1.52%) TCP/IP
8 4 (1.22%) DHCP
8 4 (1.22%) Kerberos
8 4 (1.22%) Modbus
8 4 (1.22%) SSH
9 3 (0.91%) HTTP
9 3 (0.91%) Internet
9 3 (0.91%) SSL
9 3 (0.91%) Wireless
10 2 (0.61%) Intrusion Detection
10 2 (0.61%) S/MIME
10 2 (0.61%) VLAN
10 2 (0.61%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.83%) Amazon RDS
1 6 (1.83%) DynamoDB
2 3 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
2 3 (0.91%) Power BI
3 2 (0.61%) Big Data
4 1 (0.30%) Data Hub
4 1 (0.30%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.30%) Metadata
4 1 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (2.74%) JIRA
2 8 (2.44%) GitLab
3 7 (2.13%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.83%) Snyk
5 4 (1.22%) Burp Suite
5 4 (1.22%) Git
5 4 (1.22%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.61%) Claude Code
6 2 (0.61%) MSI
6 2 (0.61%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.61%) Selenium
6 2 (0.61%) TestRail
7 1 (0.30%) Postman
General
1 107 (32.62%) Social Skills
2 87 (26.52%) Finance
3 40 (12.20%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (8.54%) Public Sector
5 23 (7.01%) Banking
6 20 (6.10%) Legal
7 15 (4.57%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (3.05%) Manufacturing
9 5 (1.52%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.91%) Law
11 3 (0.91%) Local Government
11 3 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.91%) Retail
12 2 (0.61%) Cyber-Physical System
12 2 (0.61%) German Language
12 2 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.61%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 89 (27.13%) Architect
2 56 (17.07%) Analyst
3 49 (14.94%) Security Architect
4 39 (11.89%) Consultant
5 28 (8.54%) Lead
5 28 (8.54%) Senior
6 25 (7.62%) Security Analyst
7 20 (6.10%) Security Consultant
8 19 (5.79%) Business Analyst
8 19 (5.79%) Security Engineer
9 15 (4.57%) Security Manager
10 14 (4.27%) Cybersecurity Consultant
11 13 (3.96%) Cybersecurity Analyst
12 12 (3.66%) Project Manager
13 11 (3.35%) Senior Architect
13 11 (3.35%) Solutions Architect
14 9 (2.74%) Cybersecurity Architect
14 9 (2.74%) Senior Analyst
15 8 (2.44%) Risk Analyst
15 8 (2.44%) Security Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (8.84%) Terraform
2 18 (5.49%) SailPoint
3 13 (3.96%) OAuth
4 10 (3.05%) REST
5 9 (2.74%) SAML
6 8 (2.44%) JSON
6 8 (2.44%) LDAP
7 6 (1.83%) SOAP
8 4 (1.22%) JDBC
8 4 (1.22%) OpenID
9 3 (0.91%) Playwright
9 3 (0.91%) SLSA
9 3 (0.91%) SPIFFE
9 3 (0.91%) YAML
10 2 (0.61%) Azure Blueprints
10 2 (0.61%) Kafka
10 2 (0.61%) OAuth2
10 2 (0.61%) pytest
11 1 (0.30%) Flask
11 1 (0.30%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 33 (10.06%) Cloud Native
2 31 (9.45%) Onboarding
3 28 (8.54%) Security Posture
4 24 (7.32%) Operational Technology
5 13 (3.96%) PKI
6 12 (3.66%) Hybrid Cloud
7 11 (3.35%) AI Agents
7 11 (3.35%) CMDB
7 11 (3.35%) Cyber Threat
7 11 (3.35%) Management Information System
7 11 (3.35%) SCADA
8 6 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.52%) Cloud Security Posture
9 5 (1.52%) IoT
9 5 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.52%) Taxonomies
10 4 (1.22%) Algorithms
10 4 (1.22%) Data Centre
10 4 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 20 (6.10%) Windows
2 16 (4.88%) 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
1 186 (56.71%) Cybersecurity
2 79 (24.09%) Security Architecture
3 77 (23.48%) Stakeholder Management
4 74 (22.56%) Risk Management
5 66 (20.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 63 (19.21%) Cloud Security
7 58 (17.68%) Identity Access Management
7 58 (17.68%) Roadmaps
8 54 (16.46%) Vulnerability Management
9 53 (16.16%) Incident Response
10 49 (14.94%) AI
10 49 (14.94%) Threat Modelling
11 46 (14.02%) CI/CD
11 46 (14.02%) Information Security
12 44 (13.41%) Zero Trust
13 42 (12.80%) Continuous Improvement
14 41 (12.50%) DevOps
14 41 (12.50%) SIEM
15 36 (10.98%) Infrastructure as Code
16 35 (10.67%) SABSA
Programming Languages
1 41 (12.50%) Python
2 39 (11.89%) PowerShell
3 17 (5.18%) SQL
4 12 (3.66%) Bash
5 8 (2.44%) Java
6 7 (2.13%) Bicep
7 6 (1.83%) Kusto Query Language
8 4 (1.22%) BeanShell
9 3 (0.91%) Korn
10 2 (0.61%) C#
10 2 (0.61%) Go
10 2 (0.61%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.30%) C
11 1 (0.30%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 101 (30.79%) CISSP
2 73 (22.26%) Security Cleared
3 60 (18.29%) CISM
4 57 (17.38%) SC Cleared
5 28 (8.54%) CRISC
6 25 (7.62%) Degree
7 22 (6.71%) Cisco Certification
8 19 (5.79%) Azure Certification
8 19 (5.79%) GIAC
9 18 (5.49%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 17 (5.18%) CISA
11 16 (4.88%) CompTIA Security+
12 15 (4.57%) AWS Certification
12 15 (4.57%) DV Cleared
13 14 (4.27%) CEH
14 10 (3.05%) FFIEC
14 10 (3.05%) PMI Certification
14 10 (3.05%) PMP
15 9 (2.74%) CCSP
16 8 (2.44%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (61.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 47 (14.33%) GRC
3 46 (14.02%) GDPR
4 37 (11.28%) NCSC
5 34 (10.37%) COBIT
6 31 (9.45%) NIST 800
7 20 (6.10%) SOC 2
8 19 (5.79%) PCI DSS
9 18 (5.49%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (5.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 13 (3.96%) QA
11 12 (3.66%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 11 (3.35%) EU AI Act
13 10 (3.05%) ITGC
14 8 (2.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 7 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
16 6 (1.83%) SLA
17 5 (1.52%) ISO 22301
17 5 (1.52%) PMO
18 4 (1.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 44 (13.41%) Active Directory
2 15 (4.57%) Docker
3 4 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.91%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.61%) OpenSSH
5 2 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.30%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 20 (6.10%) Kubernetes
2 12 (3.66%) Single Sign-On
3 10 (3.05%) Ansible
3 10 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.91%) Nessus
5 2 (0.61%) Argo
5 2 (0.61%) Docker Swarm
5 2 (0.61%) HP Fortify
5 2 (0.61%) Nexpose
5 2 (0.61%) Puppet
5 2 (0.61%) SCCM
6 1 (0.30%) CASB
6 1 (0.30%) QRadar
Vendors
1 74 (22.56%) Microsoft
2 27 (8.23%) CyberArk
3 22 (6.71%) ServiceNow
4 20 (6.10%) Splunk
5 17 (5.18%) CrowdStrike
6 13 (3.96%) Tenable
7 12 (3.66%) Google
7 12 (3.66%) Qualys
8 10 (3.05%) Okta
9 9 (2.74%) Palo Alto
10 7 (2.13%) Rapid7
11 5 (1.52%) Cisco
11 5 (1.52%) ForgeRock
11 5 (1.52%) VMware
11 5 (1.52%) Zscaler
12 4 (1.22%) OpenAI
12 4 (1.22%) Salesforce
12 4 (1.22%) SAP
12 4 (1.22%) Veracode
13 3 (0.91%) Workday