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 10 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 160 214
Rank change year-on-year -8 +54 +8
Contract jobs citing NIST 320 232 197
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.62% 1.72% 1.12%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.81% 10.32% 8.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 217 162 152
10th Percentile £428 £425 £405
25th Percentile £500 £511 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £595 £650
Median % change year-on-year +0.84% -8.46% -3.70%
75th Percentile £738 £700 £775
90th Percentile £888 £824 £825
England median daily rate £600 £585 £625
% change year-on-year +2.48% -6.40% -3.85%

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 3,633 2,248 2,417
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 18.39% 16.63% 13.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,439 1,493 1,678
10th Percentile £350 £325 £350
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 £673 £675
90th Percentile £738 £756 £798
England median daily rate £505 £500 £523
% change year-on-year +1.00% -4.31% -2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 33 59
10th Percentile £20.04 £22.75 £12.50
25th Percentile £25.25 £25.15 £17.88
Median hourly rate £28.28 £34.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -18.04% +44.96% -9.33%
75th Percentile £41.80 £48.00 £41.25
90th Percentile £62.00 £63.35 £56.00
England median hourly rate £36.07 £31.76 £25.00
% change year-on-year +13.57% +27.04% -41.18%

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 10 July 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 10 July 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 +11 51 £625 -2.34% 27
East London -6 2 £750 +28.21% 4
South London -10 2 £744 +35.18%
West London -18 2 £431 +1.47% 8
North London -3 1 £650 +48.57%
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 (1.88%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.56%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.94%) Confluence
4 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 5 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 124 (38.75%) Azure
2 97 (30.31%) AWS
3 47 (14.69%) Entra ID
4 46 (14.38%) GCP
5 20 (6.25%) SaaS
6 18 (5.63%) Azure Sentinel
7 14 (4.38%) Azure DevOps
7 14 (4.38%) GitHub
8 13 (4.06%) Microsoft 365
9 12 (3.75%) OpenShift
10 11 (3.44%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (3.13%) Microsoft Purview
11 10 (3.13%) OCI
12 8 (2.50%) Datadog
12 8 (2.50%) Serverless
13 6 (1.88%) Amazon ECS
13 6 (1.88%) Azure Monitor
14 5 (1.56%) Amazon Bedrock
14 5 (1.56%) Azure Key Vault
14 5 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 25 (7.81%) Network Security
2 16 (5.00%) Firewall
3 11 (3.44%) DNS
4 9 (2.81%) VPN
5 7 (2.19%) NGFW
6 6 (1.88%) Kerberos
6 6 (1.88%) TCP/IP
7 5 (1.56%) HTTP
7 5 (1.56%) SSL
7 5 (1.56%) X.509
8 4 (1.25%) Cisco IPT
8 4 (1.25%) IPsec
9 3 (0.94%) DHCP
9 3 (0.94%) Internet
9 3 (0.94%) SSH
10 2 (0.63%) BGP
10 2 (0.63%) IPv4
10 2 (0.63%) IPv6
10 2 (0.63%) S/MIME
10 2 (0.63%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.25%) Big Data
2 3 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (0.63%) Amazon Athena
3 2 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
3 2 (0.63%) Data Hub
3 2 (0.63%) Power BI
4 1 (0.31%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.31%) Metadata
4 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 14 (4.38%) Jenkins
2 9 (2.81%) JIRA
3 8 (2.50%) Snyk
4 6 (1.88%) Git
5 4 (1.25%) Burp Suite
5 4 (1.25%) GitLab
6 3 (0.94%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.63%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.31%) MLflow
8 1 (0.31%) Postman
General
1 104 (32.50%) Social Skills
2 103 (32.19%) Finance
3 47 (14.69%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (7.81%) Documentation Skills
5 24 (7.50%) Banking
6 22 (6.88%) Public Sector
7 19 (5.94%) Influencing Skills
8 18 (5.63%) Legal
9 12 (3.75%) Financial Institution
10 6 (1.88%) Law
10 6 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.56%) Retail
12 4 (1.25%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.94%) Local Government
14 2 (0.63%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
15 1 (0.31%) Aerospace
15 1 (0.31%) Back Office
15 1 (0.31%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 75 (23.44%) Architect
2 50 (15.63%) Analyst
3 36 (11.25%) Security Architect
4 32 (10.00%) Consultant
5 31 (9.69%) Senior
6 28 (8.75%) Security Engineer
7 21 (6.56%) Security Analyst
7 21 (6.56%) Security Consultant
8 20 (6.25%) CyberArk Architect
8 20 (6.25%) Lead
9 18 (5.63%) Security Manager
10 16 (5.00%) Business Analyst
10 16 (5.00%) Project Manager
11 14 (4.38%) Security Specialist
12 13 (4.06%) Cybersecurity Analyst
13 11 (3.44%) Cybersecurity Consultant
13 11 (3.44%) Solutions Architect
14 10 (3.13%) Cloud Engineer
15 9 (2.81%) Cloud Security Engineer
15 9 (2.81%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.94%) SAML
2 15 (4.69%) LDAP
3 14 (4.38%) OpenID
3 14 (4.38%) SailPoint
4 7 (2.19%) OAuth
5 5 (1.56%) JSON
5 5 (1.56%) Kafka
6 4 (1.25%) .NET
7 3 (0.94%) REST
7 3 (0.94%) SLSA
7 3 (0.94%) SPIFFE
7 3 (0.94%) YAML
8 2 (0.63%) Azure Blueprints
8 2 (0.63%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.63%) Middleware
8 2 (0.63%) OAuth2
8 2 (0.63%) OpenTelemetry
8 2 (0.63%) RESTful
8 2 (0.63%) SOAP
8 2 (0.63%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 38 (11.88%) Cloud Native
2 32 (10.00%) Onboarding
3 31 (9.69%) Security Posture
4 20 (6.25%) Operational Technology
5 18 (5.63%) Hybrid Cloud
6 15 (4.69%) Management Information System
7 10 (3.13%) CMDB
7 10 (3.13%) SCADA
8 9 (2.81%) AI Agents
9 8 (2.50%) PKI
10 6 (1.88%) Cyber Threat
11 5 (1.56%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.56%) Data Centre
11 5 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (1.25%) BYOD
12 4 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.25%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 4 (1.25%) Legacy Applications
12 4 (1.25%) Legacy Systems
13 3 (0.94%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 18 (5.63%) Windows
2 15 (4.69%) Linux
3 8 (2.50%) Windows Server
4 6 (1.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.25%) Unix
6 3 (0.94%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.63%) 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
1 177 (55.31%) Cybersecurity
2 72 (22.50%) Stakeholder Management
3 70 (21.88%) Security Architecture
4 67 (20.94%) Risk Management
5 65 (20.31%) Information Security
6 62 (19.38%) CI/CD
7 59 (18.44%) Cloud Security
8 54 (16.88%) Threat Modelling
9 53 (16.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 50 (15.63%) AI
11 48 (15.00%) DevOps
11 48 (15.00%) SIEM
12 45 (14.06%) Incident Response
12 45 (14.06%) Roadmaps
12 45 (14.06%) Vulnerability Management
13 43 (13.44%) Infrastructure as Code
14 42 (13.13%) Identity Access Management
15 40 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
15 40 (12.50%) Data Protection
16 35 (10.94%) Risk Assessment
Programming Languages
1 40 (12.50%) Python
2 25 (7.81%) PowerShell
3 12 (3.75%) SQL
4 9 (2.81%) Bash
4 9 (2.81%) Java
5 5 (1.56%) Kusto Query Language
6 3 (0.94%) Bicep
7 2 (0.63%) Go
7 2 (0.63%) Objective-C
8 1 (0.31%) C
8 1 (0.31%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.31%) Korn
8 1 (0.31%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 90 (28.13%) CISSP
2 68 (21.25%) Security Cleared
3 53 (16.56%) SC Cleared
4 47 (14.69%) CISM
5 37 (11.56%) Degree
6 26 (8.13%) Cisco Certification
7 25 (7.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 23 (7.19%) CRISC
9 21 (6.56%) CISA
9 21 (6.56%) GIAC
10 20 (6.25%) CEH
11 18 (5.63%) CompTIA Security+
12 15 (4.69%) Azure Certification
13 13 (4.06%) AWS Certification
13 13 (4.06%) CCSP
14 12 (3.75%) Computer Science Degree
14 12 (3.75%) PMI Certification
14 12 (3.75%) PMP
15 10 (3.13%) DV Cleared
16 9 (2.81%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (61.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 60 (18.75%) GDPR
3 51 (15.94%) GRC
4 45 (14.06%) NCSC
5 39 (12.19%) COBIT
6 33 (10.31%) NIST 800
7 31 (9.69%) PCI DSS
8 23 (7.19%) SOC 2
9 16 (5.00%) Cyber Essentials
10 14 (4.38%) ITGC
11 11 (3.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 9 (2.81%) EU AI Act
12 9 (2.81%) QA
13 7 (2.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 6 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 6 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 6 (1.88%) SLA
15 5 (1.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 5 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 5 (1.56%) PMO
System Software
1 33 (10.31%) Active Directory
2 16 (5.00%) Docker
3 3 (0.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.63%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.63%) OpenSSH
4 2 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.31%) Varnish
5 1 (0.31%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 35 (10.94%) Kubernetes
2 23 (7.19%) Terraform
3 11 (3.44%) Single Sign-On
4 9 (2.81%) Ansible
5 7 (2.19%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.63%) Grafana
6 2 (0.63%) HP Fortify
6 2 (0.63%) Nessus
6 2 (0.63%) Nexpose
6 2 (0.63%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.63%) Puppet
7 1 (0.31%) CASB
7 1 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
7 1 (0.31%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.31%) SELinux
7 1 (0.31%) VxRail
Vendors
1 58 (18.13%) Microsoft
2 38 (11.88%) CyberArk
3 33 (10.31%) Splunk
4 22 (6.88%) ServiceNow
5 17 (5.31%) Google
6 14 (4.38%) Tenable
7 13 (4.06%) CrowdStrike
8 12 (3.75%) Qualys
9 10 (3.13%) Palo Alto
9 10 (3.13%) Rapid7
10 6 (1.88%) Okta
11 5 (1.56%) Cisco
11 5 (1.56%) Zscaler
12 4 (1.25%) Veracode
12 4 (1.25%) VMware
13 3 (0.94%) Commvault
13 3 (0.94%) Forcepoint
13 3 (0.94%) ForgeRock
13 3 (0.94%) Fortinet
13 3 (0.94%) Workday