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 6 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 179 153 213
Rank change year-on-year -26 +60 -11
Contract jobs citing NIST 334 243 173
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.65% 1.83% 1.08%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.51% 10.39% 7.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 236 158 120
10th Percentile £434 £400 £473
25th Percentile £500 £496 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £575 £650
Median % change year-on-year - -11.54% -
75th Percentile £675 £688 £775
90th Percentile £783 £775 £776
England median daily rate £563 £571 £625
% change year-on-year -1.49% -8.64% -0.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £85.00 £68.80
Median hourly rate - £90.00 £73.60
Median % change year-on-year - +22.28% -
75th Percentile - £95.00 £78.40
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £65.69 £90.00 £76.80
% change year-on-year -27.01% +17.19% +64.28%

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 3,924 2,339 2,184
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 19.38% 17.57% 13.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,657 1,547 1,362
10th Percentile £350 £325 £318
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £725 £750 £800
England median daily rate £515 £500 £518
% change year-on-year +3.00% -3.47% -4.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 54 39
10th Percentile £15.55 £23.47 £18.13
25th Percentile £21.33 £25.15 £23.80
Median hourly rate £28.00 £34.00 £31.62
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% +7.53% +9.98%
75th Percentile £40.36 £44.37 £50.88
90th Percentile £58.58 £62.60 £78.47
England median hourly rate £32.40 £32.50 £34.47
% change year-on-year -0.32% -5.70% -12.57%

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 6 October 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 6 October 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 -9 42 £570 +1.33% 62
West London -19 5 £488 +14.71% 7
East London 0 3 £750 +33.33% 6
South London -7 3 £495 -23.85% 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 (2.10%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.50%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.90%) Confluence
4 1 (0.30%) Apache
4 1 (0.30%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.30%) IIS
4 1 (0.30%) nginx
4 1 (0.30%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 7 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 139 (41.62%) Azure
2 102 (30.54%) AWS
3 65 (19.46%) Entra ID
4 53 (15.87%) GCP
5 24 (7.19%) Microsoft 365
6 22 (6.59%) Azure Sentinel
7 20 (5.99%) SaaS
8 19 (5.69%) Azure DevOps
9 18 (5.39%) OCI
10 15 (4.49%) GitHub
11 13 (3.89%) Microsoft Purview
12 10 (2.99%) Amazon S3
12 10 (2.99%) AWS Control Tower
12 10 (2.99%) Azure Key Vault
13 8 (2.40%) Amazon EC2
13 8 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
14 7 (2.10%) Azure Monitor
15 6 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
15 6 (1.80%) AWS KMS
15 6 (1.80%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 30 (8.98%) Network Security
2 22 (6.59%) Firewall
3 11 (3.29%) VPN
4 9 (2.69%) DNS
4 9 (2.69%) X.509
5 8 (2.40%) IPsec
6 7 (2.10%) SSH
7 6 (1.80%) Modbus
8 5 (1.50%) NGFW
9 4 (1.20%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.90%) Internet
10 3 (0.90%) Kerberos
10 3 (0.90%) SSL
10 3 (0.90%) Wireless
11 2 (0.60%) 4G
11 2 (0.60%) Cisco ASA
11 2 (0.60%) Cisco Firepower
11 2 (0.60%) Cisco IOS
11 2 (0.60%) DHCP
11 2 (0.60%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.80%) Amazon RDS
1 6 (1.80%) DynamoDB
2 5 (1.50%) Power BI
3 3 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (0.90%) Metadata
4 2 (0.60%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.30%) Big Data
5 1 (0.30%) Data Hub
5 1 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 10 (2.99%) GitLab
2 8 (2.40%) Jenkins
2 8 (2.40%) JIRA
3 6 (1.80%) Snyk
4 5 (1.50%) Git
5 4 (1.20%) Burp Suite
5 4 (1.20%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.90%) Robot Framework
6 3 (0.90%) Selenium
6 3 (0.90%) TestRail
7 2 (0.60%) MSI
General
1 105 (31.44%) Social Skills
2 85 (25.45%) Finance
3 34 (10.18%) Public Sector
4 33 (9.88%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (6.89%) Banking
6 22 (6.59%) Legal
7 19 (5.69%) Manufacturing
8 11 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (3.29%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (1.20%) Investment Banking
9 4 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.90%) Cyber-Physical System
10 3 (0.90%) Financial Institution
10 3 (0.90%) Local Government
10 3 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.60%) German Language
11 2 (0.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.60%) Law
11 2 (0.60%) Retail
12 1 (0.30%) Military
Job Titles
1 80 (23.95%) Architect
2 54 (16.17%) Analyst
3 48 (14.37%) Consultant
4 46 (13.77%) Security Architect
5 34 (10.18%) Lead
6 27 (8.08%) Security Analyst
6 27 (8.08%) Senior
7 24 (7.19%) Security Consultant
8 23 (6.89%) Security Engineer
9 19 (5.69%) Security Manager
10 17 (5.09%) Business Analyst
10 17 (5.09%) Cybersecurity Consultant
11 16 (4.79%) Cybersecurity Analyst
12 11 (3.29%) Senior Architect
13 10 (2.99%) Project Manager
13 10 (2.99%) Solutions Architect
14 9 (2.69%) Senior Analyst
15 8 (2.40%) Security Project Manager
16 7 (2.10%) Cybersecurity Architect
16 7 (2.10%) Risk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (10.18%) Terraform
2 14 (4.19%) SailPoint
3 13 (3.89%) OAuth
4 11 (3.29%) REST
5 9 (2.69%) JSON
6 8 (2.40%) LDAP
6 8 (2.40%) SAML
7 4 (1.20%) JDBC
7 4 (1.20%) Playwright
7 4 (1.20%) SOAP
8 3 (0.90%) OpenID
8 3 (0.90%) pytest
8 3 (0.90%) SLSA
8 3 (0.90%) SPIFFE
8 3 (0.90%) YAML
9 2 (0.60%) Azure Blueprints
9 2 (0.60%) Kafka
9 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Graph
10 1 (0.30%) FastAPI
10 1 (0.30%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 34 (10.18%) Cloud Native
1 34 (10.18%) Onboarding
2 32 (9.58%) Operational Technology
2 32 (9.58%) Security Posture
3 17 (5.09%) Cyber Threat
4 16 (4.79%) Management Information System
4 16 (4.79%) PKI
5 14 (4.19%) SCADA
6 10 (2.99%) AI Agents
7 7 (2.10%) Hybrid Cloud
7 7 (2.10%) IoT
8 6 (1.80%) Cloud Security Posture
8 6 (1.80%) CMDB
8 6 (1.80%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.50%) Taxonomies
10 4 (1.20%) Algorithms
10 4 (1.20%) Cyberattack
10 4 (1.20%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 20 (5.99%) Windows
2 18 (5.39%) Linux
3 10 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 8 (2.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.90%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.60%) Alpine Linux
7 1 (0.30%) Android
7 1 (0.30%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.30%) CentOS
7 1 (0.30%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.30%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 203 (60.78%) Cybersecurity
2 85 (25.45%) Risk Management
3 84 (25.15%) Stakeholder Management
4 83 (24.85%) Security Architecture
5 71 (21.26%) Cloud Security
5 71 (21.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 62 (18.56%) Identity Access Management
6 62 (18.56%) Vulnerability Management
7 61 (18.26%) Roadmaps
8 53 (15.87%) Incident Response
9 51 (15.27%) Threat Modelling
10 49 (14.67%) Information Security
11 45 (13.47%) AI
12 44 (13.17%) Zero Trust
13 43 (12.87%) Continuous Improvement
14 42 (12.57%) CI/CD
15 40 (11.98%) SIEM
16 39 (11.68%) Security Operations
17 38 (11.38%) Infrastructure as Code
18 37 (11.08%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 43 (12.87%) Python
2 40 (11.98%) PowerShell
3 19 (5.69%) SQL
4 18 (5.39%) Bash
5 8 (2.40%) Bicep
5 8 (2.40%) Java
5 8 (2.40%) Kusto Query Language
6 4 (1.20%) BeanShell
7 3 (0.90%) C#
7 3 (0.90%) Korn
8 2 (0.60%) Go
8 2 (0.60%) Objective-C
9 1 (0.30%) C
9 1 (0.30%) CodeQL
Qualifications
1 112 (33.53%) CISSP
2 83 (24.85%) Security Cleared
3 77 (23.05%) CISM
4 68 (20.36%) SC Cleared
5 33 (9.88%) CRISC
6 26 (7.78%) Cisco Certification
7 23 (6.89%) Degree
8 21 (6.29%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 20 (5.99%) Azure Certification
10 19 (5.69%) CISA
10 19 (5.69%) GIAC
11 18 (5.39%) AWS Certification
12 17 (5.09%) CompTIA Security+
13 16 (4.79%) DV Cleared
14 12 (3.59%) CCSP
14 12 (3.59%) CEH
14 12 (3.59%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
15 11 (3.29%) FFIEC
15 11 (3.29%) PMI Certification
15 11 (3.29%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 216 (64.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 53 (15.87%) GRC
3 44 (13.17%) NCSC
4 42 (12.57%) GDPR
5 30 (8.98%) NIST 800
6 28 (8.38%) COBIT
7 25 (7.49%) PCI DSS
8 24 (7.19%) Cyber Essentials
9 22 (6.59%) SOC 2
10 12 (3.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 12 (3.59%) QA
11 11 (3.29%) EU AI Act
12 10 (2.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 9 (2.69%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 7 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 7 (2.10%) ITGC
15 6 (1.80%) Data Quality
16 5 (1.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 5 (1.50%) SLA
17 4 (1.20%) HIPAA
System Software
1 45 (13.47%) Active Directory
2 15 (4.49%) Docker
3 5 (1.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.60%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.60%) OpenSSH
5 1 (0.30%) Firmware
5 1 (0.30%) ISA Server
5 1 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 21 (6.29%) Kubernetes
2 13 (3.89%) Ansible
2 13 (3.89%) Microsoft Intune
3 7 (2.10%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.90%) Argo
4 3 (0.90%) HP Fortify
5 2 (0.60%) CASB
5 2 (0.60%) Docker Swarm
5 2 (0.60%) Nessus
5 2 (0.60%) Nexpose
5 2 (0.60%) Puppet
5 2 (0.60%) SCCM
6 1 (0.30%) Grafana
6 1 (0.30%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.30%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.30%) QRadar
Vendors
1 82 (24.55%) Microsoft
2 21 (6.29%) CyberArk
3 19 (5.69%) ServiceNow
4 18 (5.39%) Google
5 17 (5.09%) CrowdStrike
6 16 (4.79%) Splunk
7 14 (4.19%) Qualys
8 11 (3.29%) Palo Alto
8 11 (3.29%) Tenable
9 10 (2.99%) Okta
9 10 (2.99%) Rapid7
10 9 (2.69%) Cisco
11 6 (1.80%) VMware
12 5 (1.50%) Zscaler
13 4 (1.20%) Databricks
13 4 (1.20%) ForgeRock
13 4 (1.20%) OpenAI
13 4 (1.20%) Oracle
13 4 (1.20%) SAP
13 4 (1.20%) Veracode