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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 166 156 219
Rank change year-on-year -10 +63 +3
Contract jobs citing NIST 312 234 181
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.56% 1.72% 1.09%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.47% 10.19% 7.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 209 163 141
10th Percentile £430 £425 £400
25th Percentile £500 £513 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £585 £620 £650
Median % change year-on-year -5.65% -4.62% -3.70%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £775
90th Percentile £775 £823 £800
England median daily rate £580 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -3.25% -4.08% -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 3,684 2,297 2,297
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 18.45% 16.91% 13.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,473 1,543 1,585
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 £638 £663 £675
90th Percentile £738 £750 £800
England median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.95% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 35 48
10th Percentile £21.07 £22.75 £16.68
25th Percentile £25.25 £25.15 £20.28
Median hourly rate £28.80 £34.48 £26.62
Median % change year-on-year -16.49% +29.53% -32.47%
75th Percentile £53.56 £46.13 £43.75
90th Percentile £65.02 £56.05 £56.50
England median hourly rate £38.72 £31.64 £26.16
% change year-on-year +22.38% +20.94% -38.44%

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 25 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 25 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 -2 50 £620 +5.98% 25
East London -2 2 £750 +28.21% 3
South London -18 2 £744 +35.18%
West London -19 2 £431 +11.29% 5
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 (1.92%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.60%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.64%) Confluence
4 1 (0.32%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.32%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 5 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 127 (40.71%) Azure
2 94 (30.13%) AWS
3 49 (15.71%) Entra ID
4 45 (14.42%) GCP
5 19 (6.09%) Azure Sentinel
6 16 (5.13%) Azure DevOps
6 16 (5.13%) SaaS
7 13 (4.17%) Microsoft 365
8 11 (3.53%) GitHub
8 11 (3.53%) OCI
9 10 (3.21%) Microsoft Purview
10 8 (2.56%) Datadog
11 7 (2.24%) Azure Key Vault
11 7 (2.24%) Serverless
12 6 (1.92%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.92%) AWS KMS
12 6 (1.92%) Azure Monitor
12 6 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (1.60%) AWS Control Tower
13 5 (1.60%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 24 (7.69%) Network Security
2 16 (5.13%) Firewall
3 12 (3.85%) DNS
4 10 (3.21%) VPN
5 7 (2.24%) TCP/IP
6 6 (1.92%) Kerberos
6 6 (1.92%) NGFW
6 6 (1.92%) X.509
7 5 (1.60%) HTTP
7 5 (1.60%) IPsec
7 5 (1.60%) SSL
8 4 (1.28%) Cisco IPT
9 3 (0.96%) DHCP
9 3 (0.96%) Internet
9 3 (0.96%) SSH
10 2 (0.64%) BGP
10 2 (0.64%) IPv4
10 2 (0.64%) IPv6
10 2 (0.64%) S/MIME
10 2 (0.64%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.28%) Big Data
2 3 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.64%) Data Hub
3 2 (0.64%) Power BI
4 1 (0.32%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (0.32%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.32%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.32%) DynamoDB
4 1 (0.32%) Metadata
4 1 (0.32%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 8 (2.56%) JIRA
1 8 (2.56%) Snyk
2 5 (1.60%) GitLab
3 4 (1.28%) Burp Suite
3 4 (1.28%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.28%) SonarQube
4 2 (0.64%) Claude Code
4 2 (0.64%) Git
5 1 (0.32%) MLflow
5 1 (0.32%) Postman
General
1 100 (32.05%) Finance
2 96 (30.77%) Social Skills
3 43 (13.78%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (8.01%) Banking
5 21 (6.73%) Public Sector
6 18 (5.77%) Legal
7 14 (4.49%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (3.85%) Financial Institution
9 9 (2.88%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.92%) Law
10 6 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.28%) Retail
12 3 (0.96%) Local Government
12 3 (0.96%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.64%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.64%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.32%) Aerospace
14 1 (0.32%) Back Office
14 1 (0.32%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 65 (20.83%) Architect
2 53 (16.99%) Analyst
3 35 (11.22%) Security Architect
4 33 (10.58%) Consultant
5 32 (10.26%) Senior
6 22 (7.05%) Security Analyst
6 22 (7.05%) Security Consultant
6 22 (7.05%) Security Engineer
7 21 (6.73%) Lead
8 17 (5.45%) Security Manager
9 16 (5.13%) Business Analyst
10 15 (4.81%) Project Manager
11 14 (4.49%) Cybersecurity Analyst
12 13 (4.17%) Solutions Architect
13 12 (3.85%) Security Specialist
14 11 (3.53%) Cybersecurity Consultant
15 9 (2.88%) CyberArk Architect
15 9 (2.88%) Risk Analyst
15 9 (2.88%) Senior Architect
16 8 (2.56%) Head of Security
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (4.49%) SailPoint
2 9 (2.88%) SAML
3 8 (2.56%) OAuth
4 5 (1.60%) JSON
5 4 (1.28%) Kafka
5 4 (1.28%) LDAP
5 4 (1.28%) YAML
6 3 (0.96%) OpenID
6 3 (0.96%) REST
6 3 (0.96%) SLSA
6 3 (0.96%) SPIFFE
7 2 (0.64%) Azure Blueprints
7 2 (0.64%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.64%) Middleware
7 2 (0.64%) OAuth2
7 2 (0.64%) OpenTelemetry
7 2 (0.64%) RESTful
7 2 (0.64%) SOAP
7 2 (0.64%) Vert.x
8 1 (0.32%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (9.29%) Cloud Native
1 29 (9.29%) Security Posture
2 23 (7.37%) Onboarding
3 21 (6.73%) Operational Technology
4 18 (5.77%) Hybrid Cloud
5 14 (4.49%) Management Information System
6 11 (3.53%) CMDB
7 10 (3.21%) SCADA
8 9 (2.88%) AI Agents
8 9 (2.88%) PKI
9 6 (1.92%) Cyber Threat
9 6 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.60%) Cloud Security Posture
11 4 (1.28%) BYOD
11 4 (1.28%) Data Centre
11 4 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (0.96%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 3 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.96%) Mainframe
12 3 (0.96%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 18 (5.77%) Windows
2 15 (4.81%) Linux
3 8 (2.56%) Windows Server
4 6 (1.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.28%) Unix
6 3 (0.96%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.64%) Alpine Linux
8 1 (0.32%) Android
8 1 (0.32%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.32%) CentOS
8 1 (0.32%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (53.85%) Cybersecurity
2 70 (22.44%) Risk Management
3 64 (20.51%) Security Architecture
4 62 (19.87%) Information Security
5 60 (19.23%) Stakeholder Management
6 53 (16.99%) Cloud Security
6 53 (16.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 49 (15.71%) CI/CD
8 47 (15.06%) Roadmaps
9 46 (14.74%) AI
10 45 (14.42%) Incident Response
11 44 (14.10%) Vulnerability Management
12 41 (13.14%) Identity Access Management
13 39 (12.50%) DevOps
14 38 (12.18%) Threat Modelling
14 38 (12.18%) Zero Trust
15 37 (11.86%) Agile
15 37 (11.86%) Continuous Improvement
16 36 (11.54%) Risk Assessment
16 36 (11.54%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 36 (11.54%) Python
2 26 (8.33%) PowerShell
3 12 (3.85%) SQL
4 8 (2.56%) Bash
5 6 (1.92%) Kusto Query Language
6 4 (1.28%) Java
7 3 (0.96%) Bicep
8 2 (0.64%) Go
8 2 (0.64%) Objective-C
9 1 (0.32%) C
9 1 (0.32%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.32%) Korn
9 1 (0.32%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 90 (28.85%) CISSP
2 53 (16.99%) Security Cleared
3 48 (15.38%) CISM
4 40 (12.82%) SC Cleared
5 35 (11.22%) Degree
6 23 (7.37%) Cisco Certification
7 22 (7.05%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 22 (7.05%) CRISC
8 21 (6.73%) CISA
9 20 (6.41%) CEH
10 19 (6.09%) GIAC
11 18 (5.77%) CompTIA Security+
12 15 (4.81%) Azure Certification
13 13 (4.17%) AWS Certification
14 12 (3.85%) DV Cleared
14 12 (3.85%) PMI Certification
14 12 (3.85%) PMP
15 10 (3.21%) CCSP
15 10 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
16 9 (2.88%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 191 (61.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 55 (17.63%) GDPR
3 49 (15.71%) GRC
4 39 (12.50%) COBIT
5 33 (10.58%) NIST 800
6 30 (9.62%) NCSC
7 28 (8.97%) PCI DSS
8 25 (8.01%) SOC 2
9 16 (5.13%) Cyber Essentials
10 15 (4.81%) ITGC
11 13 (4.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 9 (2.88%) EU AI Act
12 9 (2.88%) QA
13 8 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 6 (1.92%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 6 (1.92%) PMO
14 6 (1.92%) SLA
15 5 (1.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 5 (1.60%) ISO/IEC 42001
16 4 (1.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 33 (10.58%) Active Directory
2 14 (4.49%) Docker
3 4 (1.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.64%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.64%) OpenSSH
4 2 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.32%) Varnish
5 1 (0.32%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 22 (7.05%) Kubernetes
2 20 (6.41%) Terraform
3 12 (3.85%) Single Sign-On
4 10 (3.21%) Ansible
5 7 (2.24%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.64%) Docker Swarm
6 2 (0.64%) Grafana
6 2 (0.64%) HP Fortify
6 2 (0.64%) Nessus
6 2 (0.64%) Nexpose
6 2 (0.64%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.64%) Puppet
7 1 (0.32%) CASB
7 1 (0.32%) VxRail
Vendors
1 62 (19.87%) Microsoft
2 26 (8.33%) CyberArk
3 23 (7.37%) Splunk
4 21 (6.73%) ServiceNow
5 13 (4.17%) CrowdStrike
5 13 (4.17%) Google
5 13 (4.17%) Tenable
6 12 (3.85%) Qualys
7 9 (2.88%) Palo Alto
8 6 (1.92%) Cisco
8 6 (1.92%) Okta
8 6 (1.92%) Rapid7
9 5 (1.60%) VMware
9 5 (1.60%) Zscaler
10 4 (1.28%) Veracode
11 3 (0.96%) BeyondTrust
11 3 (0.96%) Commvault
11 3 (0.96%) Forcepoint
11 3 (0.96%) ForgeRock
11 3 (0.96%) Workday