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 9 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 173 207 206
Rank change year-on-year +34 -1 +95
Contract jobs citing NIST 238 151 198
As % of all contract jobs in London 1.60% 1.11% 1.06%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.66% 7.80% 7.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 156 84 143
10th Percentile £414 £468 £400
25th Percentile £500 £513 £509
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £633 £625
Median % change year-on-year -5.14% +1.20% -3.85%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £750
90th Percentile £900 £784 £825
England median daily rate £553 £625 £600
% change year-on-year -11.60% +4.17% -5.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 5 0
10th Percentile £81.63 - -
25th Percentile £82.19 £68.80 -
Median hourly rate £88.75 £83.20 -
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% - -
75th Percentile £94.69 - -
90th Percentile £94.88 £90.28 -
England median hourly rate £90.00 £83.20 £44.50
% change year-on-year +8.17% +86.97% -35.73%

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 2,748 1,936 2,525
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 18.49% 14.29% 13.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,818 1,172 1,843
10th Percentile £350 £300 £363
25th Percentile £418 £400 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -3.93%
75th Percentile £638 £668 £688
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 29 61
10th Percentile £18.25 £19.63 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.59 £22.27 £19.00
Median hourly rate £26.11 £39.00 £26.24
Median % change year-on-year -33.05% +48.63% -17.35%
75th Percentile £35.25 £83.20 £49.08
90th Percentile £80.09 £95.50 £61.75
England median hourly rate £24.19 £31.76 £25.12
% change year-on-year -23.84% +26.46% -13.40%

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 9 February 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 9 February 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 -5 31 £594 +7.95% 13
South London -4 5 £525 -
West London -12 4 £423 - 2
East London - 4 £450 - 5
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 (2.52%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.84%) Confluence
4 1 (0.42%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.42%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.42%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 78 (32.77%) Azure
2 61 (25.63%) AWS
3 23 (9.66%) GCP
4 22 (9.24%) Entra ID
5 15 (6.30%) GitHub
6 14 (5.88%) AWS CloudFormation
6 14 (5.88%) Azure Sentinel
6 14 (5.88%) OpenShift
7 11 (4.62%) Amazon ECS
8 10 (4.20%) Serverless
9 9 (3.78%) Amazon EKS
9 9 (3.78%) Microsoft 365
9 9 (3.78%) Microsoft Purview
9 9 (3.78%) SaaS
10 8 (3.36%) PaaS
10 8 (3.36%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 7 (2.94%) AWS Lambda
11 7 (2.94%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (2.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (2.52%) Amazon MSK
Communications & Networking
1 30 (12.61%) Firewall
2 23 (9.66%) Network Security
3 10 (4.20%) DNS
4 6 (2.52%) VPN
5 5 (2.10%) NGFW
6 3 (1.26%) Intrusion Detection
6 3 (1.26%) LAN
6 3 (1.26%) WAN
7 2 (0.84%) BGP
7 2 (0.84%) Modbus
7 2 (0.84%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.84%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.84%) Wireshark
8 1 (0.42%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
8 1 (0.42%) Internet
8 1 (0.42%) Software-Defined Networking
8 1 (0.42%) VSAN
8 1 (0.42%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (5.04%) Data Lake
2 7 (2.94%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (2.10%) Redis
4 4 (1.68%) Amazon Aurora
4 4 (1.68%) DocumentDB
4 4 (1.68%) DynamoDB
4 4 (1.68%) MySQL
4 4 (1.68%) NoSQL
4 4 (1.68%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.26%) Star Schema
6 2 (0.84%) Amazon Athena
6 2 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (0.84%) Oracle Database
6 2 (0.84%) Power BI
7 1 (0.42%) Data Hub
7 1 (0.42%) EDRMS
7 1 (0.42%) Metadata
7 1 (0.42%) Pinecone
7 1 (0.42%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 18 (7.56%) Jenkins
2 12 (5.04%) JIRA
3 6 (2.52%) GitLab
4 5 (2.10%) Git
5 4 (1.68%) JMeter
6 3 (1.26%) Snyk
7 2 (0.84%) Metasploit
7 2 (0.84%) MLflow
8 1 (0.42%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.42%) Postman
8 1 (0.42%) Selenium
8 1 (0.42%) SonarQube
General
1 90 (37.82%) Social Skills
2 60 (25.21%) Finance
3 27 (11.34%) Public Sector
4 25 (10.50%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (8.40%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (7.56%) Banking
6 18 (7.56%) Influencing Skills
6 18 (7.56%) Presentation Skills
7 14 (5.88%) Legal
8 7 (2.94%) Financial Institution
9 6 (2.52%) Organisational Skills
10 4 (1.68%) Law
10 4 (1.68%) Telecoms
11 3 (1.26%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.84%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.84%) Local Government
12 2 (0.84%) Military
13 1 (0.42%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.42%) Marketing
13 1 (0.42%) Retail
Job Titles
1 43 (18.07%) Architect
2 39 (16.39%) Security Engineer
3 32 (13.45%) Analyst
4 22 (9.24%) Consultant
4 22 (9.24%) Security Architect
5 15 (6.30%) Lead
6 14 (5.88%) Security Analyst
6 14 (5.88%) Security Specialist
7 13 (5.46%) CyberArk Architect
7 13 (5.46%) Senior
8 10 (4.20%) Project Manager
8 10 (4.20%) Security Manager
9 9 (3.78%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
9 9 (3.78%) Security Consultant
10 8 (3.36%) Risk Consultant
11 7 (2.94%) Cloud Architect
11 7 (2.94%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 6 (2.52%) AWS Architect
12 6 (2.52%) Cloud Engineer
12 6 (2.52%) Migration Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (8.40%) OpenID
2 17 (7.14%) SAML
3 13 (5.46%) LDAP
4 8 (3.36%) .NET
4 8 (3.36%) REST
5 7 (2.94%) Kafka
5 7 (2.94%) OAuth
6 6 (2.52%) RESTful
7 5 (2.10%) Model Context Protocol
7 5 (2.10%) OpenTelemetry
7 5 (2.10%) Spring
8 4 (1.68%) gRPC
8 4 (1.68%) Hibernate
8 4 (1.68%) JPA
8 4 (1.68%) OAuth2
8 4 (1.68%) Spring Boot
8 4 (1.68%) Spring Cloud
9 3 (1.26%) PyTorch
9 3 (1.26%) Semantic Kernel
9 3 (1.26%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 32 (13.45%) Onboarding
2 28 (11.76%) Cloud Native
3 23 (9.66%) Security Posture
4 20 (8.40%) Management Information System
5 11 (4.62%) Cyber Threat
5 11 (4.62%) Operational Technology
6 8 (3.36%) Security Operations Centre
7 6 (2.52%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 6 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (2.10%) AI Agents
8 5 (2.10%) Data Centre
9 4 (1.68%) NHS
10 3 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (1.26%) Cloud Security Posture
10 3 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (1.26%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (1.26%) Hybrid Cloud
10 3 (1.26%) IoT
10 3 (1.26%) Product Ownership
10 3 (1.26%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 13 (5.46%) Linux
1 13 (5.46%) Windows
2 8 (3.36%) Windows Server
3 4 (1.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.26%) Unix
5 1 (0.42%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (44.54%) Cybersecurity
2 70 (29.41%) Risk Management
3 68 (28.57%) Cloud Security
4 64 (26.89%) SIEM
5 53 (22.27%) Information Security
5 53 (22.27%) Stakeholder Management
6 50 (21.01%) CI/CD
7 47 (19.75%) Infrastructure as Code
8 46 (19.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 41 (17.23%) Incident Response
10 39 (16.39%) Threat Modelling
11 36 (15.13%) DevOps
11 36 (15.13%) Security Architecture
12 32 (13.45%) AI
13 31 (13.03%) Data Protection
14 30 (12.61%) Identity Access Management
15 28 (11.76%) Vulnerability Management
16 27 (11.34%) Continuous Improvement
17 26 (10.92%) Agile
17 26 (10.92%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 26 (10.92%) Python
2 15 (6.30%) Java
2 15 (6.30%) PowerShell
3 10 (4.20%) SQL
4 6 (2.52%) Bash
4 6 (2.52%) Kusto Query Language
5 2 (0.84%) C++
6 1 (0.42%) Bicep
6 1 (0.42%) C#
6 1 (0.42%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 68 (28.57%) Security Cleared
2 61 (25.63%) SC Cleared
3 50 (21.01%) CISSP
4 35 (14.71%) CISM
5 22 (9.24%) Degree
6 13 (5.46%) CompTIA Security+
6 13 (5.46%) DV Cleared
7 11 (4.62%) CISA
7 11 (4.62%) PMI Certification
7 11 (4.62%) PMP
8 10 (4.20%) CEH
8 10 (4.20%) Cisco Certification
8 10 (4.20%) CRISC
9 9 (3.78%) AWS Certification
9 9 (3.78%) OSCP
9 9 (3.78%) SANS
10 8 (3.36%) Master's Degree
11 7 (2.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 7 (2.94%) CREST Certified
11 7 (2.94%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 159 (66.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 63 (26.47%) GDPR
3 31 (13.03%) GRC
3 31 (13.03%) NCSC
4 30 (12.61%) PCI DSS
5 21 (8.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 17 (7.14%) COBIT
7 14 (5.88%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (4.62%) EU AI Act
8 11 (4.62%) NIST 800
9 10 (4.20%) HIPAA
10 9 (3.78%) ITGC
11 8 (3.36%) QA
12 7 (2.94%) SOC 2
12 7 (2.94%) SOX 404
13 5 (2.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 5 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 4 (1.68%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 3 (1.26%) RMADS
System Software
1 20 (8.40%) Active Directory
2 13 (5.46%) Docker
3 4 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.26%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.42%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 31 (13.03%) Kubernetes
2 22 (9.24%) Terraform
3 6 (2.52%) Ansible
4 5 (2.10%) Nessus
4 5 (2.10%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (1.68%) CASB
5 4 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.84%) CSIRT
6 2 (0.84%) Grafana
6 2 (0.84%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.84%) QRadar
6 2 (0.84%) RSA Archer
6 2 (0.84%) SCCM
7 1 (0.42%) Fluentd
7 1 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.42%) Kubeflow
7 1 (0.42%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.42%) Nmap
7 1 (0.42%) VxRail
7 1 (0.42%) WSUS
Vendors
1 44 (18.49%) Microsoft
2 27 (11.34%) CyberArk
3 25 (10.50%) Splunk
4 11 (4.62%) ServiceNow
5 9 (3.78%) Oracle
6 8 (3.36%) Google
6 8 (3.36%) Palo Alto
6 8 (3.36%) SAP
7 7 (2.94%) Cisco
7 7 (2.94%) Tenable
8 6 (2.52%) Fortinet
8 6 (2.52%) Rapid7
8 6 (2.52%) VMware
9 5 (2.10%) CrowdStrike
9 5 (2.10%) Qualys
10 4 (1.68%) Dell
10 4 (1.68%) Trend Micro
11 3 (1.26%) CheckPoint
12 2 (0.84%) Foundry
12 2 (0.84%) Red Hat