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

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 179 170 229
Rank change year-on-year -9 +59 -21
Contract jobs citing NIST 327 220 169
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.63% 1.66% 1.05%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.51% 9.75% 7.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 220 154 134
10th Percentile £446 £418 £475
25th Percentile £500 £502 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £595 £580 £650
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -10.77% -3.70%
75th Percentile £708 £693 £775
90th Percentile £800 £809 £780
England median daily rate £575 £588 £650
% change year-on-year -2.13% -9.62% -

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 3,841 2,256 2,219
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 19.15% 17.01% 13.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,590 1,505 1,459
10th Percentile £350 £325 £338
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 £688
90th Percentile £738 £753 £800
England median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 51 40
10th Percentile £19.76 - £18.13
25th Percentile £23.50 £25.15 £23.35
Median hourly rate £28.55 £34.00 £27.92
Median % change year-on-year -16.03% +21.78% +1.53%
75th Percentile £40.00 £43.98 £50.44
90th Percentile £58.25 £55.00 £72.56
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 3 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 3 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 -5 47 £580 -9.52% 30
West London -16 4 £431 +1.47% 14
East London -1 3 £750 +33.33% 2
South London -12 3 £744 +35.18% 3
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 (2.14%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.92%) Confluence
4 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 7 (2.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 144 (44.04%) Azure
2 106 (32.42%) AWS
3 64 (19.57%) Entra ID
4 51 (15.60%) GCP
5 21 (6.42%) Azure Sentinel
6 19 (5.81%) Azure DevOps
6 19 (5.81%) SaaS
7 18 (5.50%) Microsoft 365
8 15 (4.59%) OCI
9 13 (3.98%) GitHub
10 12 (3.67%) Microsoft Purview
11 10 (3.06%) AWS Control Tower
12 9 (2.75%) Azure Key Vault
13 8 (2.45%) Datadog
13 8 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
14 7 (2.14%) Amazon S3
14 7 (2.14%) Azure Monitor
15 6 (1.83%) Amazon EC2
15 6 (1.83%) AWS KMS
15 6 (1.83%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 24 (7.34%) Network Security
2 16 (4.89%) Firewall
3 12 (3.67%) DNS
4 10 (3.06%) VPN
5 8 (2.45%) X.509
6 7 (2.14%) IPsec
7 5 (1.53%) NGFW
7 5 (1.53%) TCP/IP
8 4 (1.22%) DHCP
8 4 (1.22%) Kerberos
8 4 (1.22%) Modbus
8 4 (1.22%) SSH
9 3 (0.92%) HTTP
9 3 (0.92%) Internet
9 3 (0.92%) SSL
9 3 (0.92%) Wireless
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 6 (1.83%) Amazon RDS
1 6 (1.83%) DynamoDB
2 4 (1.22%) Big Data
3 3 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (0.92%) Power BI
4 1 (0.31%) Data Hub
4 1 (0.31%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.31%) Metadata
4 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (2.75%) JIRA
2 8 (2.45%) GitLab
3 7 (2.14%) 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 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 105 (32.11%) Social Skills
2 86 (26.30%) Finance
3 42 (12.84%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (8.56%) Public Sector
5 23 (7.03%) Banking
5 23 (7.03%) Legal
6 15 (4.59%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (3.06%) Influencing Skills
8 8 (2.45%) Manufacturing
9 6 (1.83%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.22%) Law
10 4 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.92%) Local Government
11 3 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.92%) Retail
11 3 (0.92%) Telecoms
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 (27.22%) Architect
2 56 (17.13%) Analyst
3 48 (14.68%) Security Architect
4 38 (11.62%) Consultant
5 28 (8.56%) Lead
5 28 (8.56%) Senior
6 25 (7.65%) Security Analyst
7 21 (6.42%) Security Consultant
8 19 (5.81%) Business Analyst
8 19 (5.81%) Security Engineer
9 15 (4.59%) Cybersecurity Consultant
10 13 (3.98%) Cybersecurity Analyst
10 13 (3.98%) Security Manager
10 13 (3.98%) Solutions Architect
11 12 (3.67%) Project Manager
12 11 (3.36%) Senior Architect
13 9 (2.75%) Cybersecurity Architect
13 9 (2.75%) Senior Analyst
14 8 (2.45%) CyberArk Architect
14 8 (2.45%) Risk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (8.87%) Terraform
2 17 (5.20%) SailPoint
3 13 (3.98%) OAuth
4 10 (3.06%) REST
5 9 (2.75%) SAML
6 8 (2.45%) JSON
6 8 (2.45%) LDAP
7 6 (1.83%) SOAP
8 4 (1.22%) JDBC
8 4 (1.22%) OpenID
9 3 (0.92%) Playwright
9 3 (0.92%) SLSA
9 3 (0.92%) SPIFFE
9 3 (0.92%) YAML
10 2 (0.61%) Azure Blueprints
10 2 (0.61%) Elastic Stack
10 2 (0.61%) Kafka
10 2 (0.61%) Middleware
10 2 (0.61%) OAuth2
10 2 (0.61%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 33 (10.09%) Cloud Native
2 31 (9.48%) Onboarding
3 28 (8.56%) Security Posture
4 22 (6.73%) Operational Technology
5 13 (3.98%) Hybrid Cloud
6 12 (3.67%) Management Information System
7 11 (3.36%) AI Agents
7 11 (3.36%) CMDB
8 10 (3.06%) Cyber Threat
8 10 (3.06%) PKI
9 9 (2.75%) SCADA
10 6 (1.83%) Data Centre
10 6 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (1.53%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (1.22%) Algorithms
12 4 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (1.22%) Taxonomies
13 3 (0.92%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 20 (6.12%) Windows
2 16 (4.89%) Linux
3 8 (2.45%) Windows Server
4 6 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.22%) Unix
6 3 (0.92%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.61%) Alpine Linux
8 1 (0.31%) Android
8 1 (0.31%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.31%) CentOS
8 1 (0.31%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 184 (56.27%) Cybersecurity
2 79 (24.16%) Security Architecture
3 74 (22.63%) Stakeholder Management
4 72 (22.02%) Risk Management
5 64 (19.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 63 (19.27%) Cloud Security
7 57 (17.43%) Identity Access Management
7 57 (17.43%) Roadmaps
8 51 (15.60%) Vulnerability Management
9 50 (15.29%) AI
9 50 (15.29%) Incident Response
10 49 (14.98%) Threat Modelling
11 48 (14.68%) CI/CD
12 47 (14.37%) Information Security
13 43 (13.15%) Zero Trust
14 41 (12.54%) Continuous Improvement
14 41 (12.54%) DevOps
14 41 (12.54%) SIEM
15 36 (11.01%) SABSA
15 36 (11.01%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 41 (12.54%) Python
2 39 (11.93%) PowerShell
3 17 (5.20%) SQL
4 12 (3.67%) Bash
5 8 (2.45%) Java
6 7 (2.14%) Bicep
7 6 (1.83%) Kusto Query Language
8 4 (1.22%) BeanShell
9 2 (0.61%) C#
9 2 (0.61%) Go
9 2 (0.61%) Korn
9 2 (0.61%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.31%) C
10 1 (0.31%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 98 (29.97%) CISSP
2 72 (22.02%) Security Cleared
3 57 (17.43%) CISM
4 55 (16.82%) SC Cleared
5 28 (8.56%) Degree
6 25 (7.65%) CRISC
7 21 (6.42%) Azure Certification
7 21 (6.42%) Cisco Certification
8 20 (6.12%) GIAC
9 17 (5.20%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 17 (5.20%) AWS Certification
9 17 (5.20%) CISA
9 17 (5.20%) CompTIA Security+
10 15 (4.59%) CEH
10 15 (4.59%) DV Cleared
11 11 (3.36%) PMI Certification
11 11 (3.36%) PMP
12 10 (3.06%) FFIEC
13 8 (2.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 8 (2.45%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 203 (62.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 51 (15.60%) GDPR
3 46 (14.07%) GRC
4 37 (11.31%) NCSC
5 35 (10.70%) COBIT
6 29 (8.87%) NIST 800
7 19 (5.81%) Cyber Essentials
7 19 (5.81%) PCI DSS
7 19 (5.81%) SOC 2
8 18 (5.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 13 (3.98%) QA
10 12 (3.67%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 11 (3.36%) EU AI Act
12 10 (3.06%) ITGC
13 8 (2.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 6 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 6 (1.83%) SLA
15 5 (1.53%) PMO
16 4 (1.22%) HIPAA
16 4 (1.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 42 (12.84%) Active Directory
2 17 (5.20%) Docker
3 3 (0.92%) Hyper-V
3 3 (0.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.61%) OpenSSH
4 2 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.31%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 22 (6.73%) Kubernetes
2 12 (3.67%) Single Sign-On
3 10 (3.06%) Ansible
3 10 (3.06%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.92%) Nessus
5 2 (0.61%) Argo
5 2 (0.61%) Docker Swarm
5 2 (0.61%) Grafana
5 2 (0.61%) HP Fortify
5 2 (0.61%) Nexpose
5 2 (0.61%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.61%) Puppet
5 2 (0.61%) SCCM
6 1 (0.31%) CASB
6 1 (0.31%) QRadar
Vendors
1 72 (22.02%) Microsoft
2 27 (8.26%) CyberArk
3 22 (6.73%) ServiceNow
4 21 (6.42%) Splunk
5 17 (5.20%) CrowdStrike
6 14 (4.28%) Google
6 14 (4.28%) Tenable
7 12 (3.67%) Qualys
8 10 (3.06%) Okta
9 9 (2.75%) Palo Alto
10 7 (2.14%) Rapid7
11 5 (1.53%) Cisco
11 5 (1.53%) ForgeRock
11 5 (1.53%) Zscaler
12 4 (1.22%) OpenAI
12 4 (1.22%) Salesforce
12 4 (1.22%) SAP
12 4 (1.22%) Veracode
12 4 (1.22%) VMware
13 3 (0.92%) Commvault