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 19 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 166 184 204
Rank change year-on-year +18 +20 +59
Contract jobs citing NIST 269 181 203
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.55% 1.42% 1.14%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.46% 9.07% 8.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 187 122 154
10th Percentile £425 £488 £400
25th Percentile £511 £525 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £650 £650
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -
75th Percentile £738 £725 £779
90th Percentile £888 £849 £825
England median daily rate £595 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -4.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 0
Median hourly rate - £83.20 -
England median hourly rate £81.50 £78.40 £66.25
% change year-on-year +3.95% +18.34% +3.28%

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 3,178 1,996 2,465
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 18.28% 15.71% 13.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,136 1,326 1,763
10th Percentile £350 £313 £350
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £663 £688
90th Percentile £750 £764 £800
England median daily rate £505 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -0.98% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 25 60
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.88 £12.50
25th Percentile £23.00 £22.27 £17.34
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £25.62
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% +36.61% -39.26%
75th Percentile £37.50 £65.00 £48.83
90th Percentile £69.36 £89.53 £57.75
England median hourly rate £30.49 £34.50 £20.50
% change year-on-year -11.62% +68.29% -50.60%

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 19 April 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 19 April 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 43 £625 -3.18% 17
South London -13 6 £575 +27.78%
East London -4 3 £450 -26.83% 1
West London -26 2 £423 - 2
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 5 (1.86%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.12%) Confluence
2 3 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.37%) nginx
Applications
1 3 (1.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 99 (36.80%) Azure
2 84 (31.23%) AWS
3 40 (14.87%) GCP
4 23 (8.55%) Entra ID
5 18 (6.69%) AWS CloudFormation
6 14 (5.20%) OpenShift
7 12 (4.46%) Amazon ECS
8 11 (4.09%) GitHub
9 10 (3.72%) Azure Sentinel
9 10 (3.72%) SaaS
9 10 (3.72%) Serverless
10 9 (3.35%) Amazon EKS
10 9 (3.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 8 (2.97%) AWS Lambda
12 7 (2.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 7 (2.60%) Amazon MSK
13 6 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (2.23%) Datadog
13 6 (2.23%) Microsoft Purview
13 6 (2.23%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 19 (7.06%) Network Security
2 17 (6.32%) Firewall
3 13 (4.83%) DNS
4 5 (1.86%) Kerberos
5 4 (1.49%) VPN
6 3 (1.12%) Cisco IPT
6 3 (1.12%) HTTP
6 3 (1.12%) SD-WAN
6 3 (1.12%) SSL
6 3 (1.12%) TCP/IP
6 3 (1.12%) WAN
6 3 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (1.12%) X.509
7 2 (0.74%) DHCP
7 2 (0.74%) Intrusion Detection
7 2 (0.74%) IPv4
7 2 (0.74%) IPv6
7 2 (0.74%) LAN
7 2 (0.74%) NGFW
7 2 (0.74%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.97%) Amazon RDS
2 4 (1.49%) Amazon Aurora
2 4 (1.49%) Big Data
2 4 (1.49%) Data Lake
2 4 (1.49%) DocumentDB
2 4 (1.49%) DynamoDB
2 4 (1.49%) MySQL
2 4 (1.49%) NoSQL
2 4 (1.49%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (1.49%) Redis
3 3 (1.12%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (1.12%) Amazon Redshift
3 3 (1.12%) Star Schema
4 2 (0.74%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.37%) Data Hub
5 1 (0.37%) EDRMS
5 1 (0.37%) Metadata
5 1 (0.37%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 17 (6.32%) Jenkins
2 15 (5.58%) JIRA
3 6 (2.23%) GitLab
4 5 (1.86%) Git
5 4 (1.49%) Snyk
6 3 (1.12%) JMeter
7 2 (0.74%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.37%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.37%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.37%) MLflow
8 1 (0.37%) Postman
General
1 101 (37.55%) Social Skills
2 80 (29.74%) Finance
3 44 (16.36%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (9.67%) Documentation Skills
5 25 (9.29%) Banking
6 21 (7.81%) Influencing Skills
7 19 (7.06%) Legal
8 17 (6.32%) Public Sector
9 16 (5.95%) Financial Institution
10 10 (3.72%) Presentation Skills
11 8 (2.97%) Law
12 4 (1.49%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.49%) Retail
12 4 (1.49%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.74%) Investment Banking
14 1 (0.37%) Back Office
14 1 (0.37%) Military
14 1 (0.37%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 54 (20.07%) Architect
2 31 (11.52%) Consultant
3 30 (11.15%) Analyst
4 27 (10.04%) Security Engineer
5 21 (7.81%) Security Architect
6 20 (7.43%) Security Consultant
7 19 (7.06%) CyberArk Architect
7 19 (7.06%) Project Manager
8 17 (6.32%) Senior
9 16 (5.95%) Security Manager
10 15 (5.58%) Security Specialist
11 13 (4.83%) Lead
12 11 (4.09%) Migration Manager
12 11 (4.09%) Migration Project Manager
13 10 (3.72%) Security Analyst
14 9 (3.35%) Cybersecurity Consultant
15 8 (2.97%) Cloud Architect
16 7 (2.60%) Cloud Engineer
16 7 (2.60%) Cybersecurity Manager
16 7 (2.60%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (7.06%) OpenID
1 19 (7.06%) SAML
2 15 (5.58%) LDAP
3 9 (3.35%) Kafka
3 9 (3.35%) REST
4 8 (2.97%) OAuth
4 8 (2.97%) SailPoint
5 6 (2.23%) RESTful
6 5 (1.86%) .NET
6 5 (1.86%) OAuth2
6 5 (1.86%) OpenTelemetry
6 5 (1.86%) Spring
7 4 (1.49%) gRPC
7 4 (1.49%) Hibernate
7 4 (1.49%) JPA
7 4 (1.49%) Spring Boot
7 4 (1.49%) Spring Cloud
8 3 (1.12%) JSON
8 3 (1.12%) SOAP
9 2 (0.74%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 35 (13.01%) Onboarding
2 26 (9.67%) Cloud Native
3 21 (7.81%) Security Posture
4 17 (6.32%) Management Information System
5 15 (5.58%) Hybrid Cloud
6 13 (4.83%) Operational Technology
7 10 (3.72%) CMDB
8 6 (2.23%) Data Centre
8 6 (2.23%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.86%) BYOD
10 4 (1.49%) AI Agents
10 4 (1.49%) Legacy Applications
10 4 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (1.12%) CSOC
11 3 (1.12%) Cyber Defence
11 3 (1.12%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (1.12%) Mainframe
11 3 (1.12%) PKI
11 3 (1.12%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 13 (4.83%) Linux
1 13 (4.83%) Windows
2 5 (1.86%) Windows Server
3 3 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (1.12%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 129 (47.96%) Cybersecurity
2 64 (23.79%) Information Security
3 63 (23.42%) Stakeholder Management
4 62 (23.05%) CI/CD
5 60 (22.30%) Risk Management
6 54 (20.07%) Cloud Security
7 50 (18.59%) SIEM
8 49 (18.22%) Incident Response
9 47 (17.47%) Security Architecture
10 46 (17.10%) DevOps
11 45 (16.73%) Data Protection
12 44 (16.36%) Threat Modelling
13 42 (15.61%) AI
13 42 (15.61%) Infrastructure as Code
14 41 (15.24%) Continuous Improvement
15 39 (14.50%) Vulnerability Management
16 38 (14.13%) Agile
17 37 (13.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 31 (11.52%) Problem-Solving
18 31 (11.52%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 29 (10.78%) Python
2 23 (8.55%) PowerShell
3 15 (5.58%) Java
4 11 (4.09%) SQL
5 8 (2.97%) Bash
6 4 (1.49%) Kusto Query Language
7 2 (0.74%) Go
8 1 (0.37%) Bicep
8 1 (0.37%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.37%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 74 (27.51%) CISSP
2 62 (23.05%) Security Cleared
3 51 (18.96%) SC Cleared
4 44 (16.36%) CISM
5 37 (13.75%) Degree
6 21 (7.81%) CompTIA Security+
7 20 (7.43%) CEH
7 20 (7.43%) CRISC
8 19 (7.06%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 19 (7.06%) Cisco Certification
9 18 (6.69%) PMI Certification
9 18 (6.69%) PMP
10 16 (5.95%) CISA
11 13 (4.83%) GIAC
12 12 (4.46%) AWS Certification
13 11 (4.09%) CCSP
13 11 (4.09%) Computer Science Degree
13 11 (4.09%) Master's Degree
14 10 (3.72%) OSCP
15 9 (3.35%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (65.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 62 (23.05%) GDPR
3 39 (14.50%) NCSC
4 38 (14.13%) GRC
4 38 (14.13%) PCI DSS
5 31 (11.52%) COBIT
6 27 (10.04%) NIST 800
7 17 (6.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 13 (4.83%) ITGC
9 11 (4.09%) SOC 2
10 10 (3.72%) Cyber Essentials
11 9 (3.35%) QA
12 6 (2.23%) SLA
13 5 (1.86%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 5 (1.86%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 4 (1.49%) ISO 22301
14 4 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 3 (1.12%) EU AI Act
15 3 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 3 (1.12%) PMO
System Software
1 21 (7.81%) Active Directory
2 14 (5.20%) Docker
3 2 (0.74%) OpenSSH
4 1 (0.37%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.37%) Varnish
4 1 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.37%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 35 (13.01%) Kubernetes
2 24 (8.92%) Terraform
3 7 (2.60%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (2.23%) Ansible
5 5 (1.86%) Nessus
6 4 (1.49%) CASB
7 2 (0.74%) Grafana
7 2 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.74%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.37%) Fluentd
8 1 (0.37%) Network Intrusion Detection System
8 1 (0.37%) Nmap
8 1 (0.37%) SELinux
8 1 (0.37%) VxRail
Vendors
1 43 (15.99%) CyberArk
2 34 (12.64%) Microsoft
3 33 (12.27%) Splunk
4 19 (7.06%) ServiceNow
5 12 (4.46%) Tenable
6 10 (3.72%) Google
7 8 (2.97%) Qualys
8 7 (2.60%) Rapid7
9 5 (1.86%) Cisco
10 4 (1.49%) CrowdStrike
10 4 (1.49%) Fortinet
10 4 (1.49%) Oracle
10 4 (1.49%) Palo Alto
10 4 (1.49%) VMware
10 4 (1.49%) Zscaler
11 3 (1.12%) Commvault
11 3 (1.12%) Forcepoint
11 3 (1.12%) ForgeRock
11 3 (1.12%) Workday
12 2 (0.74%) Red Hat