F5 Contract Job Trends in the South East

F5
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East requiring knowledge or experience of F5 products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited F5 over the 6 months leading up to 14 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within F5 Networks, Inc.

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 184 149 83
Rank change year-on-year -35 -66 +98
Contract jobs citing F5 42 23 110
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.64% 0.66% 2.38%
As % of the Vendors category 1.45% 1.29% 4.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 30 13 66
10th Percentile £355 - £464
25th Percentile £380 £469 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £433 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -17.62% -4.55% +11.11%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £625
90th Percentile £769 £613 £638
England median daily rate £528 £490 £525
% change year-on-year +7.76% -6.76% -

All Vendors
South East

F5 falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services in the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 2,889 1,782 2,290
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.83% 51.40% 49.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,795 1,197 1,383
10th Percentile £280 £205 £255
25th Percentile £431 £363 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% +3.00%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £627
90th Percentile £700 £650 £700
England median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 244 105 119
10th Percentile £14.31 £14.20 £16.00
25th Percentile £16.50 £14.75 £27.25
Median hourly rate £38.25 £18.87 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +102.70% -67.10% +9.24%
75th Percentile £70.00 £34.83 £61.60
90th Percentile £93.81 £78.10 £70.00
England median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +19.28% -28.14% -17.65%

F5
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing F5 relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

F5 job vacancy trend in the South East

F5
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing F5.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing F5

F5
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing F5 in the South East over the 6 months to 14 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for F5 in the South East

F5
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing F5.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing F5

F5
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing F5 within the South East region over the 6 months to 14 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
Thames Valley -24 31 £400 -23.81% 5
Berkshire 0 27 £400 - 3
Hampshire -35 7 £488 -15.22% 1
Buckinghamshire -30 4 £763 +45.24% 1
Surrey -21 3 £550 +12.82% 5
West Sussex - 1 £700 -
Home Counties - 1 - -
F5
England

F5
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 (14.29%) IIS
2 3 (7.14%) Apache
2 3 (7.14%) nginx
2 3 (7.14%) Tomcat
3 2 (4.76%) OpenStack
3 2 (4.76%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (4.76%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (4.76%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (4.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (4.76%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 11 (26.19%) AWS
1 11 (26.19%) Azure
2 5 (11.90%) GCP
3 4 (9.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 3 (7.14%) Cloudflare
5 2 (4.76%) OpenShift
6 1 (2.38%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (2.38%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 27 (64.29%) Firewall
2 25 (59.52%) WAN
3 19 (45.24%) VPN
4 18 (42.86%) LAN
5 17 (40.48%) BGP
5 17 (40.48%) BIG-IP
5 17 (40.48%) DNS
6 15 (35.71%) OSPF
7 13 (30.95%) MPLS
7 13 (30.95%) Network Security
8 12 (28.57%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 11 (26.19%) IPsec
9 11 (26.19%) SSL
9 11 (26.19%) VLAN
10 10 (23.81%) Cisco Nexus
11 9 (21.43%) SD-WAN
11 9 (21.43%) VXLAN
12 8 (19.05%) TCP/IP
13 7 (16.67%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 6 (14.29%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (7.14%) MySQL
1 3 (7.14%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (4.76%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 12 (28.57%) Telecoms
2 10 (23.81%) Social Skills
3 5 (11.90%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (4.76%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (4.76%) Influencing Skills
4 2 (4.76%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 15 (35.71%) Architect
2 12 (28.57%) Security Engineer
3 10 (23.81%) Network Architect
4 9 (21.43%) Network Engineer
5 5 (11.90%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 5 (11.90%) Security Architect
6 4 (9.52%) Firewall Specialist
6 4 (9.52%) Network Security Engineer
6 4 (9.52%) Network Specialist
6 4 (9.52%) Senior
7 3 (7.14%) Analyst
7 3 (7.14%) Cloud Engineer
7 3 (7.14%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 3 (7.14%) Cybersecurity Architect
7 3 (7.14%) Cybersecurity Engineer
7 3 (7.14%) Lead
7 3 (7.14%) Lead Architect
7 3 (7.14%) Security Analyst
7 3 (7.14%) Technical Architect
7 3 (7.14%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (26.19%) 802.1X
2 7 (16.67%) Terraform
3 4 (9.52%) NETCONF
3 4 (9.52%) RESTCONF
4 3 (7.14%) LAMP
4 3 (7.14%) LEMP Stack
4 3 (7.14%) YAML
5 2 (4.76%) gRPC
5 2 (4.76%) OpenConfig
5 2 (4.76%) REST
5 2 (4.76%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 21 (50.00%) Data Centre
2 7 (16.67%) Hybrid Cloud
2 7 (16.67%) Public Cloud
3 6 (14.29%) Private Cloud
4 5 (11.90%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (9.52%) Cloud Native
5 4 (9.52%) Clustering
5 4 (9.52%) PKI
6 3 (7.14%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 3 (7.14%) Embedded Systems
6 3 (7.14%) Management Information System
6 3 (7.14%) Mobile Payment
6 3 (7.14%) Smartcard
7 2 (4.76%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (4.76%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (2.38%) Greenfield Project
8 1 (2.38%) Onboarding
8 1 (2.38%) Renewable Energy
8 1 (2.38%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 12 (28.57%) Windows
2 7 (16.67%) Linux
3 6 (14.29%) Windows Server
4 3 (7.14%) CentOS
4 3 (7.14%) Ubuntu
5 2 (4.76%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (4.76%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (2.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (30.95%) Load Balancing
2 10 (23.81%) High Availability
3 9 (21.43%) Network Architecture
4 8 (19.05%) Cybersecurity
4 8 (19.05%) Data Protection
4 8 (19.05%) ITIL
4 8 (19.05%) TOGAF
5 7 (16.67%) Cloud Security
5 7 (16.67%) Computer Science
6 6 (14.29%) Identity Access Management
6 6 (14.29%) PRINCE2
6 6 (14.29%) Project Delivery
6 6 (14.29%) Roadmaps
6 6 (14.29%) Technical Leadership
7 5 (11.90%) Change Management
7 5 (11.90%) Observability
7 5 (11.90%) Stakeholder Management
7 5 (11.90%) Zero Trust
8 4 (9.52%) Technology Roadmap
8 4 (9.52%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 10 (23.81%) Python
2 3 (7.14%) Bash
2 3 (7.14%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 29 (69.05%) Security Cleared
2 21 (50.00%) Cisco Certification
3 20 (47.62%) SC Cleared
4 10 (23.81%) CCNP
5 7 (16.67%) CCIE
5 7 (16.67%) Degree
5 7 (16.67%) DV Cleared
6 4 (9.52%) JNCIE
7 3 (7.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 3 (7.14%) CCSP
7 3 (7.14%) CISA
7 3 (7.14%) CISM
7 3 (7.14%) CISSP
7 3 (7.14%) CLAS
7 3 (7.14%) CREST Certified
7 3 (7.14%) IISP
7 3 (7.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 2 (4.76%) AWS Certification
9 1 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (2.38%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (9.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 4 (9.52%) NCSC
1 4 (9.52%) NIST
2 3 (7.14%) GDPR
2 3 (7.14%) GRC
2 3 (7.14%) ISO 31000
2 3 (7.14%) ISO 9001
2 3 (7.14%) ISO/IEC 27005
2 3 (7.14%) PCI DSS
3 1 (2.38%) QA
System Software
1 7 (16.67%) VMware NSX
2 5 (11.90%) Active Directory
3 4 (9.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (7.14%) Dovecot
4 3 (7.14%) ISA Server
4 3 (7.14%) Postfix
4 3 (7.14%) Virtual Servers
5 1 (2.38%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 12 (28.57%) Ansible
2 9 (21.43%) FortiGate
3 3 (7.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 3 (7.14%) CASB
3 3 (7.14%) HAProxy
4 2 (4.76%) Avamar
5 1 (2.38%) SCCM
5 1 (2.38%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 37 (88.10%) Cisco
2 23 (54.76%) Juniper
3 13 (30.95%) Microsoft
4 10 (23.81%) Palo Alto
5 9 (21.43%) Fortinet
5 9 (21.43%) VMware
6 8 (19.05%) SolarWinds
7 7 (16.67%) Splunk
8 6 (14.29%) CheckPoint
9 5 (11.90%) Blue Coat
9 5 (11.90%) Google
9 5 (11.90%) Zscaler
10 4 (9.52%) Extreme Networks
10 4 (9.52%) Red Hat
11 3 (7.14%) Arista
11 3 (7.14%) Centrify
11 3 (7.14%) CrowdStrike
11 3 (7.14%) Qualys
11 3 (7.14%) Tripwire
12 2 (4.76%) Nokia