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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 172 155 220
Rank change year-on-year -17 +65 -8
Contract jobs citing NIST 337 235 175
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.65% 1.74% 1.08%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.56% 10.01% 7.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 153 128
10th Percentile £433 £403 £475
25th Percentile £500 £500 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £585 £650
Median % change year-on-year -1.71% -10.00% -1.33%
75th Percentile £675 £690 £775
90th Percentile £790 £775 £777
England median daily rate £565 £575 £625
% change year-on-year -1.74% -8.00% -3.40%

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 3,935 2,347 2,217
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 19.32% 17.41% 13.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,677 1,558 1,414
10th Percentile £350 £325 £331
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -2.22%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £688
90th Percentile £725 £750 £800
England median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 50 40
10th Percentile £15.88 £24.91 £18.13
25th Percentile £21.33 £25.15 £23.35
Median hourly rate £28.00 £34.00 £29.73
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% +14.36% +8.11%
75th Percentile £40.00 £41.75 £49.06
90th Percentile £55.78 £54.05 £71.88
England median hourly rate £33.00 £32.50 £33.07
% change year-on-year +1.54% -1.72% -8.14%

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 24 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 24 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 -17 44 £570 -1.72% 56
West London -19 4 £431 +1.47% 12
East London 0 3 £750 +33.33% 7
South London -9 3 £495 -23.85% 1
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 (2.08%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.19%) Confluence
4 1 (0.30%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 6 (1.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.89%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 142 (42.14%) Azure
2 107 (31.75%) AWS
3 70 (20.77%) Entra ID
4 53 (15.73%) GCP
5 23 (6.82%) Azure Sentinel
6 21 (6.23%) Microsoft 365
7 19 (5.64%) Azure DevOps
7 19 (5.64%) SaaS
8 17 (5.04%) OCI
9 14 (4.15%) GitHub
9 14 (4.15%) Microsoft Purview
10 10 (2.97%) AWS Control Tower
10 10 (2.97%) Azure Key Vault
11 9 (2.67%) Amazon S3
12 8 (2.37%) Amazon EC2
12 8 (2.37%) GitHub Actions
13 7 (2.08%) Azure Monitor
14 6 (1.78%) AWS KMS
14 6 (1.78%) Serverless
15 5 (1.48%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 28 (8.31%) Network Security
2 21 (6.23%) Firewall
3 12 (3.56%) DNS
3 12 (3.56%) VPN
4 9 (2.67%) X.509
5 8 (2.37%) IPsec
6 6 (1.78%) SSH
7 5 (1.48%) Kerberos
7 5 (1.48%) Modbus
7 5 (1.48%) NGFW
7 5 (1.48%) TCP/IP
8 4 (1.19%) DHCP
8 4 (1.19%) SSL
9 3 (0.89%) HTTP
9 3 (0.89%) Internet
9 3 (0.89%) Wireless
10 2 (0.59%) Cisco IOS
10 2 (0.59%) S/MIME
10 2 (0.59%) VLAN
10 2 (0.59%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.78%) Amazon RDS
1 6 (1.78%) DynamoDB
2 3 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
2 3 (0.89%) Power BI
3 2 (0.59%) Metadata
4 1 (0.30%) Big Data
4 1 (0.30%) Data Hub
4 1 (0.30%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 10 (2.97%) GitLab
2 9 (2.67%) JIRA
3 8 (2.37%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.78%) Snyk
5 5 (1.48%) Git
6 4 (1.19%) Burp Suite
6 4 (1.19%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.89%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.89%) Selenium
7 3 (0.89%) TestRail
8 2 (0.59%) MSI
9 1 (0.30%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.30%) Postman
General
1 108 (32.05%) Social Skills
2 88 (26.11%) Finance
3 36 (10.68%) Analytical Skills
4 32 (9.50%) Public Sector
5 25 (7.42%) Banking
6 21 (6.23%) Legal
7 17 (5.04%) Manufacturing
8 11 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (3.26%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.48%) Financial Institution
10 3 (0.89%) Cyber-Physical System
10 3 (0.89%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.89%) Local Government
10 3 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (0.89%) Retail
11 2 (0.59%) German Language
11 2 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.59%) Law
11 2 (0.59%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 87 (25.82%) Architect
2 54 (16.02%) Analyst
3 48 (14.24%) Security Architect
4 47 (13.95%) Consultant
5 31 (9.20%) Lead
6 29 (8.61%) Senior
7 25 (7.42%) Security Analyst
8 24 (7.12%) Security Consultant
9 21 (6.23%) Security Engineer
10 17 (5.04%) Business Analyst
10 17 (5.04%) Cybersecurity Consultant
11 16 (4.75%) Security Manager
12 14 (4.15%) Cybersecurity Analyst
13 12 (3.56%) Project Manager
13 12 (3.56%) Senior Architect
14 11 (3.26%) Solutions Architect
15 9 (2.67%) Security Project Manager
15 9 (2.67%) Senior Analyst
16 8 (2.37%) CyberArk Architect
16 8 (2.37%) Risk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (10.09%) Terraform
2 16 (4.75%) SailPoint
3 14 (4.15%) OAuth
4 10 (2.97%) REST
4 10 (2.97%) SAML
5 9 (2.67%) JSON
5 9 (2.67%) LDAP
6 5 (1.48%) SOAP
7 4 (1.19%) JDBC
7 4 (1.19%) OpenID
7 4 (1.19%) Playwright
8 3 (0.89%) pytest
8 3 (0.89%) SLSA
8 3 (0.89%) SPIFFE
8 3 (0.89%) YAML
9 2 (0.59%) Azure Blueprints
9 2 (0.59%) Kafka
9 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Graph
9 2 (0.59%) OAuth2
9 2 (0.59%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 35 (10.39%) Onboarding
2 33 (9.79%) Cloud Native
3 29 (8.61%) Operational Technology
3 29 (8.61%) Security Posture
4 16 (4.75%) PKI
5 14 (4.15%) Cyber Threat
6 13 (3.86%) Management Information System
6 13 (3.86%) SCADA
7 10 (2.97%) AI Agents
8 7 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
9 6 (1.78%) Cloud Security Posture
9 6 (1.78%) CMDB
9 6 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.78%) IoT
10 5 (1.48%) Data Centre
10 5 (1.48%) Taxonomies
11 4 (1.19%) Algorithms
11 4 (1.19%) Cyberattack
11 4 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (1.19%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 20 (5.93%) Windows
2 18 (5.34%) Linux
3 8 (2.37%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.19%) Unix
6 3 (0.89%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.59%) Alpine Linux
8 1 (0.30%) Android
8 1 (0.30%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.30%) CentOS
8 1 (0.30%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 196 (58.16%) Cybersecurity
2 85 (25.22%) Security Architecture
3 81 (24.04%) Risk Management
3 81 (24.04%) Stakeholder Management
4 72 (21.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 67 (19.88%) Cloud Security
6 65 (19.29%) Identity Access Management
7 63 (18.69%) Roadmaps
8 57 (16.91%) Vulnerability Management
9 56 (16.62%) Incident Response
10 51 (15.13%) Threat Modelling
11 47 (13.95%) Information Security
12 46 (13.65%) AI
12 46 (13.65%) Zero Trust
13 45 (13.35%) CI/CD
14 44 (13.06%) SIEM
15 42 (12.46%) Continuous Improvement
15 42 (12.46%) DevOps
16 39 (11.57%) Infrastructure as Code
16 39 (11.57%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 43 (12.76%) Python
2 40 (11.87%) PowerShell
3 17 (5.04%) SQL
4 16 (4.75%) Bash
5 8 (2.37%) Bicep
5 8 (2.37%) Java
6 6 (1.78%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (1.19%) BeanShell
8 3 (0.89%) Korn
9 2 (0.59%) C#
9 2 (0.59%) Go
9 2 (0.59%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.30%) C
10 1 (0.30%) CodeQL
10 1 (0.30%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 107 (31.75%) CISSP
2 81 (24.04%) Security Cleared
3 69 (20.47%) CISM
4 66 (19.58%) SC Cleared
5 29 (8.61%) CRISC
6 25 (7.42%) Cisco Certification
7 24 (7.12%) Degree
8 20 (5.93%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 20 (5.93%) Azure Certification
9 19 (5.64%) GIAC
10 18 (5.34%) AWS Certification
11 16 (4.75%) CompTIA Security+
11 16 (4.75%) DV Cleared
12 15 (4.45%) CISA
13 12 (3.56%) CEH
13 12 (3.56%) PMI Certification
13 12 (3.56%) PMP
14 10 (2.97%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 10 (2.97%) CCSP
14 10 (2.97%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 215 (63.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 50 (14.84%) GRC
3 44 (13.06%) GDPR
4 41 (12.17%) NCSC
5 33 (9.79%) NIST 800
6 29 (8.61%) COBIT
7 22 (6.53%) PCI DSS
7 22 (6.53%) SOC 2
8 21 (6.23%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (4.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 13 (3.86%) QA
11 12 (3.56%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 10 (2.97%) EU AI Act
13 8 (2.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 8 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 8 (2.37%) ITGC
14 6 (1.78%) SLA
15 4 (1.19%) Data Quality
15 4 (1.19%) HIPAA
15 4 (1.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 48 (14.24%) Active Directory
2 16 (4.75%) Docker
3 5 (1.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.59%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.59%) OpenSSH
4 2 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.30%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 22 (6.53%) Kubernetes
2 13 (3.86%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (3.56%) Ansible
3 12 (3.56%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.89%) Argo
4 3 (0.89%) HP Fortify
5 2 (0.59%) Docker Swarm
5 2 (0.59%) Nessus
5 2 (0.59%) Nexpose
5 2 (0.59%) Puppet
5 2 (0.59%) SCCM
6 1 (0.30%) CASB
6 1 (0.30%) QRadar
Vendors
1 80 (23.74%) Microsoft
2 26 (7.72%) CyberArk
3 21 (6.23%) ServiceNow
4 18 (5.34%) Splunk
5 17 (5.04%) CrowdStrike
6 15 (4.45%) Google
7 13 (3.86%) Qualys
8 11 (3.26%) Palo Alto
8 11 (3.26%) Tenable
9 10 (2.97%) Okta
10 8 (2.37%) Cisco
10 8 (2.37%) Rapid7
11 6 (1.78%) VMware
12 5 (1.48%) ForgeRock
12 5 (1.48%) Zscaler
13 4 (1.19%) OpenAI
13 4 (1.19%) Salesforce
13 4 (1.19%) SAP
13 4 (1.19%) Siemens
13 4 (1.19%) Veracode