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 20 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 172 173 211
Rank change year-on-year +1 +38 +8
Contract jobs citing NIST 309 196 197
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.62% 1.57% 1.11%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.88% 9.57% 8.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 209 134 156
10th Percentile £429 £452 £406
25th Percentile £500 £519 £522
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £640 £668
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% -4.12% -1.11%
75th Percentile £738 £715 £775
90th Percentile £890 £825 £825
England median daily rate £595 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -0.83% -4.00% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £73.60 -
England median hourly rate £65.69 £84.50 £67.50
% change year-on-year -22.26% +25.19% +5.23%

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 3,479 2,047 2,433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 18.28% 16.37% 13.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,339 1,352 1,706
10th Percentile £350 £313 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £688
90th Percentile £738 £763 £800
England median daily rate £501 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +0.10% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 26 62
10th Percentile £19.00 £20.63 £12.70
25th Percentile £23.00 £23.35 £17.81
Median hourly rate £28.00 £34.50 £23.99
Median % change year-on-year -18.84% +43.81% -5.92%
75th Percentile £41.92 £53.13 £43.75
90th Percentile £63.75 £74.20 £57.13
England median hourly rate £36.07 £32.66 £23.80
% change year-on-year +10.46% +37.21% -44.00%

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 20 June 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 20 June 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 +10 51 £625 -3.18% 16
East London -5 4 £450 -23.08%
South London -8 2 £744 +35.18% 1
North London +1 1 £650 +48.57% 1
West London -30 1 £488 +14.71% 4
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 (1.94%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.62%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.97%) Confluence
4 1 (0.32%) OpenStack
Applications
1 5 (1.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 122 (39.48%) Azure
2 98 (31.72%) AWS
3 45 (14.56%) GCP
4 36 (11.65%) Entra ID
5 18 (5.83%) Azure Sentinel
5 18 (5.83%) GitHub
6 17 (5.50%) SaaS
7 15 (4.85%) AWS CloudFormation
8 14 (4.53%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (3.88%) OpenShift
9 12 (3.88%) Serverless
10 11 (3.56%) Microsoft 365
11 10 (3.24%) Amazon ECS
12 9 (2.91%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (2.91%) Microsoft Purview
13 8 (2.59%) Datadog
14 7 (2.27%) OCI
14 7 (2.27%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 6 (1.94%) Amazon MSK
15 6 (1.94%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 25 (8.09%) Network Security
2 16 (5.18%) Firewall
3 14 (4.53%) DNS
4 7 (2.27%) VPN
5 6 (1.94%) Kerberos
5 6 (1.94%) NGFW
6 5 (1.62%) X.509
7 4 (1.29%) SD-WAN
7 4 (1.29%) TCP/IP
7 4 (1.29%) WAN
8 3 (0.97%) Cisco IPT
8 3 (0.97%) DHCP
8 3 (0.97%) HTTP
8 3 (0.97%) Internet
8 3 (0.97%) IPsec
8 3 (0.97%) SSH
8 3 (0.97%) SSL
8 3 (0.97%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
9 2 (0.65%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.94%) Amazon RDS
2 5 (1.62%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (1.29%) Amazon Aurora
3 4 (1.29%) Big Data
3 4 (1.29%) Data Lake
3 4 (1.29%) DocumentDB
3 4 (1.29%) DynamoDB
3 4 (1.29%) MySQL
3 4 (1.29%) NoSQL
3 4 (1.29%) Redis
4 3 (0.97%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.97%) Star Schema
5 2 (0.65%) Amazon Athena
5 2 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.65%) Data Hub
5 2 (0.65%) Power BI
6 1 (0.32%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 19 (6.15%) Jenkins
2 12 (3.88%) JIRA
3 8 (2.59%) GitLab
3 8 (2.59%) Snyk
4 5 (1.62%) Git
5 4 (1.29%) Burp Suite
6 3 (0.97%) JMeter
6 3 (0.97%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.65%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.32%) MLflow
8 1 (0.32%) Postman
General
1 103 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 101 (32.69%) Finance
3 49 (15.86%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (8.09%) Documentation Skills
5 23 (7.44%) Banking
6 19 (6.15%) Influencing Skills
7 17 (5.50%) Legal
8 16 (5.18%) Public Sector
9 15 (4.85%) Financial Institution
10 8 (2.59%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (1.62%) Law
11 5 (1.62%) Retail
12 4 (1.29%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.29%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.65%) Local Government
13 2 (0.65%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.32%) Back Office
14 1 (0.32%) Investment Banking
14 1 (0.32%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 76 (24.60%) Architect
2 40 (12.94%) Analyst
3 33 (10.68%) Security Architect
4 30 (9.71%) Consultant
5 25 (8.09%) Security Engineer
6 24 (7.77%) Senior
7 21 (6.80%) CyberArk Architect
7 21 (6.80%) Project Manager
7 21 (6.80%) Security Consultant
8 20 (6.47%) Lead
9 19 (6.15%) Security Manager
10 16 (5.18%) Business Analyst
11 15 (4.85%) Security Specialist
12 14 (4.53%) Security Analyst
13 11 (3.56%) Cloud Architect
13 11 (3.56%) Cybersecurity Consultant
13 11 (3.56%) Solutions Architect
14 10 (3.24%) Cloud Engineer
14 10 (3.24%) Migration Manager
14 10 (3.24%) Migration Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (6.15%) SAML
2 18 (5.83%) OpenID
3 16 (5.18%) LDAP
4 12 (3.88%) SailPoint
5 9 (2.91%) Kafka
5 9 (2.91%) OAuth
6 7 (2.27%) REST
7 6 (1.94%) OAuth2
7 6 (1.94%) OpenTelemetry
7 6 (1.94%) RESTful
8 5 (1.62%) JSON
9 4 (1.29%) .NET
9 4 (1.29%) gRPC
9 4 (1.29%) Hibernate
9 4 (1.29%) JPA
9 4 (1.29%) Spring
9 4 (1.29%) Spring Boot
9 4 (1.29%) Spring Cloud
10 3 (0.97%) SPIFFE
10 3 (0.97%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 40 (12.94%) Cloud Native
2 35 (11.33%) Onboarding
3 27 (8.74%) Security Posture
4 19 (6.15%) Hybrid Cloud
4 19 (6.15%) Management Information System
5 16 (5.18%) Operational Technology
6 10 (3.24%) CMDB
7 8 (2.59%) AI Agents
7 8 (2.59%) SCADA
8 7 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.62%) Cloud Security Posture
9 5 (1.62%) Data Centre
9 5 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (1.29%) BYOD
10 4 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.29%) Legacy Applications
10 4 (1.29%) PKI
10 4 (1.29%) Taxonomies
11 3 (0.97%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.97%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 18 (5.83%) Windows
2 15 (4.85%) Linux
3 8 (2.59%) Windows Server
4 6 (1.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.29%) Unix
6 3 (0.97%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.65%) 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
1 165 (53.40%) Cybersecurity
2 78 (25.24%) Stakeholder Management
3 71 (22.98%) Security Architecture
4 69 (22.33%) CI/CD
5 66 (21.36%) Risk Management
6 61 (19.74%) Information Security
7 59 (19.09%) Cloud Security
8 58 (18.77%) DevOps
9 55 (17.80%) Threat Modelling
10 53 (17.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 49 (15.86%) AI
12 48 (15.53%) Infrastructure as Code
12 48 (15.53%) SIEM
13 46 (14.89%) Incident Response
14 45 (14.56%) Agile
14 45 (14.56%) Continuous Improvement
14 45 (14.56%) Roadmaps
15 42 (13.59%) Data Protection
16 41 (13.27%) Vulnerability Management
17 40 (12.94%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 35 (11.33%) Python
2 24 (7.77%) PowerShell
3 20 (6.47%) SQL
4 13 (4.21%) Java
5 9 (2.91%) Bash
6 3 (0.97%) Bicep
6 3 (0.97%) Kusto Query Language
7 2 (0.65%) Go
8 1 (0.32%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.32%) Korn
8 1 (0.32%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 87 (28.16%) CISSP
2 65 (21.04%) Security Cleared
3 52 (16.83%) SC Cleared
4 48 (15.53%) CISM
5 40 (12.94%) Degree
6 26 (8.41%) Cisco Certification
7 25 (8.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 25 (8.09%) CRISC
8 22 (7.12%) CISA
8 22 (7.12%) GIAC
9 20 (6.47%) CEH
9 20 (6.47%) CompTIA Security+
10 17 (5.50%) PMI Certification
10 17 (5.50%) PMP
11 14 (4.53%) Azure Certification
12 13 (4.21%) AWS Certification
12 13 (4.21%) CCSP
13 12 (3.88%) Computer Science Degree
14 9 (2.91%) Master's Degree
14 9 (2.91%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (63.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 63 (20.39%) GDPR
3 47 (15.21%) GRC
4 42 (13.59%) NCSC
5 40 (12.94%) COBIT
6 35 (11.33%) PCI DSS
7 29 (9.39%) NIST 800
8 20 (6.47%) SOC 2
9 14 (4.53%) QA
10 13 (4.21%) Cyber Essentials
10 13 (4.21%) ITGC
11 11 (3.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 8 (2.59%) EU AI Act
13 7 (2.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 6 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 6 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 6 (1.94%) SLA
15 4 (1.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 4 (1.29%) ISO 22301
15 4 (1.29%) PMO
System Software
1 27 (8.74%) Active Directory
2 18 (5.83%) Docker
3 3 (0.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.65%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.65%) OpenSSH
4 2 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.32%) Varnish
5 1 (0.32%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 39 (12.62%) Kubernetes
2 28 (9.06%) Terraform
3 10 (3.24%) Ansible
3 10 (3.24%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (1.94%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.65%) Grafana
5 2 (0.65%) HP Fortify
5 2 (0.65%) Nessus
5 2 (0.65%) Nexpose
5 2 (0.65%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.65%) Puppet
6 1 (0.32%) CASB
6 1 (0.32%) Docker Swarm
6 1 (0.32%) Network Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.32%) SELinux
6 1 (0.32%) VxRail
Vendors
1 54 (17.48%) Microsoft
2 39 (12.62%) CyberArk
3 35 (11.33%) Splunk
4 22 (7.12%) ServiceNow
5 14 (4.53%) Google
6 13 (4.21%) Tenable
7 11 (3.56%) Qualys
8 10 (3.24%) CrowdStrike
9 9 (2.91%) Palo Alto
9 9 (2.91%) Rapid7
10 6 (1.94%) Cisco
11 5 (1.62%) VMware
11 5 (1.62%) Zscaler
12 4 (1.29%) Fortinet
12 4 (1.29%) Okta
12 4 (1.29%) Veracode
13 3 (0.97%) Commvault
13 3 (0.97%) Forcepoint
13 3 (0.97%) ForgeRock
13 3 (0.97%) Workday