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 24 August 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
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 186 140 86
Rank change year-on-year -46 -54 +96
Contract jobs citing F5 47 26 104
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.70% 0.73% 2.18%
As % of the Vendors category 1.61% 1.41% 4.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 17 65
10th Percentile £359 £451 £458
25th Percentile £400 £469 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -4.55% +12.24%
75th Percentile £560 £613 £625
90th Percentile £780 - £638
England median daily rate £525 £488 £525
% change year-on-year +7.69% -7.14% -

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 2,913 1,842 2,321
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.67% 51.87% 48.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,824 1,230 1,400
10th Percentile £280 £208 £254
25th Percentile £425 £363 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.75% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £634
90th Percentile £700 £650 £700
England median daily rate £513 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +2.40% -4.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 116 133
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.20 £14.50
25th Percentile £20.88 £15.13 £26.03
Median hourly rate £52.50 £18.94 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +177.26% -66.98% +19.60%
75th Percentile £77.75 £38.98 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £77.38 £70.00
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £29.00
% change year-on-year +29.22% -13.28% -28.24%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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 -16 37 £410 -21.90% 3
Berkshire -4 29 £400 - 3
Buckinghamshire -30 8 £560 +6.67%
Hampshire -32 8 £525 -8.70%
East Sussex - 1 £800 -
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 3 (6.38%) Apache
1 3 (6.38%) IIS
1 3 (6.38%) nginx
1 3 (6.38%) SharePoint
1 3 (6.38%) Tomcat
2 2 (4.26%) OpenStack
Applications
1 4 (8.51%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (8.51%) Microsoft Office
1 4 (8.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 4 (8.51%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 13 (27.66%) Azure
2 12 (25.53%) AWS
3 4 (8.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 3 (6.38%) Cloudflare
5 2 (4.26%) GCP
5 2 (4.26%) OpenShift
6 1 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (2.13%) Entra ID
6 1 (2.13%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (2.13%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 34 (72.34%) Firewall
2 31 (65.96%) WAN
3 28 (59.57%) LAN
4 25 (53.19%) BGP
5 24 (51.06%) BIG-IP
6 21 (44.68%) DNS
6 21 (44.68%) OSPF
7 15 (31.91%) MPLS
7 15 (31.91%) VPN
8 14 (29.79%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 13 (27.66%) Network Security
9 13 (27.66%) TCP/IP
9 13 (27.66%) VXLAN
10 12 (25.53%) Cisco ISE
11 11 (23.40%) DHCP
11 11 (23.40%) Ethernet VPN
11 11 (23.40%) IPsec
12 10 (21.28%) Cisco Nexus
12 10 (21.28%) Junos
13 9 (19.15%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.38%) MySQL
1 3 (6.38%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (4.26%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 11 (23.40%) Social Skills
1 11 (23.40%) Telecoms
2 7 (14.89%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (4.26%) Influencing Skills
3 2 (4.26%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (27.66%) Network Engineer
2 12 (25.53%) Architect
3 10 (21.28%) Network Architect
4 8 (17.02%) Firewall Specialist
4 8 (17.02%) Network Specialist
4 8 (17.02%) Senior
5 7 (14.89%) Security Engineer
5 7 (14.89%) Senior Network Engineer
6 6 (12.77%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 4 (8.51%) Lead
7 4 (8.51%) Lead Architect
8 3 (6.38%) Cloud Engineer
8 3 (6.38%) Network Security Engineer
8 3 (6.38%) Technical Architect
8 3 (6.38%) Technical Leader
9 2 (4.26%) Consultant
9 2 (4.26%) IP Network Consultant
9 2 (4.26%) IP Specialist
9 2 (4.26%) Network Technical Architect
9 2 (4.26%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (31.91%) 802.1X
2 7 (14.89%) Terraform
3 4 (8.51%) NETCONF
3 4 (8.51%) OpenConfig
3 4 (8.51%) RESTCONF
3 4 (8.51%) YANG
4 3 (6.38%) LAMP
4 3 (6.38%) LEMP Stack
4 3 (6.38%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 22 (46.81%) Data Centre
2 10 (21.28%) Clustering
2 10 (21.28%) PKI
3 9 (19.15%) Hybrid Cloud
4 6 (12.77%) Private Cloud
5 5 (10.64%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (8.51%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (8.51%) Cloud Native
6 4 (8.51%) Public Cloud
7 3 (6.38%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 2 (4.26%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (4.26%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (2.13%) Onboarding
9 1 (2.13%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 15 (31.91%) Windows
2 3 (6.38%) CentOS
2 3 (6.38%) Linux
2 3 (6.38%) Ubuntu
2 3 (6.38%) Windows Server
2 3 (6.38%) Windows Server 2012
2 3 (6.38%) Windows Server 2019
3 1 (2.13%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (38.30%) Load Balancing
2 17 (36.17%) High Availability
3 12 (25.53%) Identity Access Management
4 11 (23.40%) Observability
5 9 (19.15%) ITIL
5 9 (19.15%) Network Architecture
6 8 (17.02%) Problem-Solving
6 8 (17.02%) Stakeholder Management
6 8 (17.02%) Technical Leadership
7 7 (14.89%) Roadmaps
8 6 (12.77%) Migration
8 6 (12.77%) Network Design
8 6 (12.77%) Network Virtualisation
8 6 (12.77%) Project Delivery
9 5 (10.64%) Cybersecurity
9 5 (10.64%) Data Protection
9 5 (10.64%) ITSM
9 5 (10.64%) Service Management
9 5 (10.64%) TOGAF
9 5 (10.64%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 9 (19.15%) Python
2 3 (6.38%) Bash
2 3 (6.38%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 35 (74.47%) Security Cleared
2 23 (48.94%) Cisco Certification
3 18 (38.30%) SC Cleared
4 13 (27.66%) DV Cleared
5 9 (19.15%) CCNP
6 7 (14.89%) CCIE
7 4 (8.51%) Degree
7 4 (8.51%) JNCIE
8 3 (6.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 2 (4.26%) AWS Certification
9 2 (4.26%) JNCIA
9 2 (4.26%) JNCIP
9 2 (4.26%) JNCIS
10 1 (2.13%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (2.13%) Azure Certification
10 1 (2.13%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (8.51%) NCSC
2 1 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (2.13%) NIST
2 1 (2.13%) QA
System Software
1 8 (17.02%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (14.89%) VMware NSX
3 4 (8.51%) Active Directory
4 3 (6.38%) Dovecot
4 3 (6.38%) Postfix
5 2 (4.26%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (2.13%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 13 (27.66%) FortiGate
2 11 (23.40%) Ansible
3 3 (6.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 3 (6.38%) HAProxy
4 2 (4.26%) Avamar
5 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (2.13%) SCCM
5 1 (2.13%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 42 (89.36%) Cisco
2 28 (59.57%) Juniper
3 14 (29.79%) SolarWinds
4 13 (27.66%) VMware
5 12 (25.53%) Microsoft
5 12 (25.53%) Palo Alto
6 10 (21.28%) Extreme Networks
6 10 (21.28%) Splunk
7 8 (17.02%) Fortinet
8 4 (8.51%) CheckPoint
9 3 (6.38%) Arista
9 3 (6.38%) Blue Coat
9 3 (6.38%) Red Hat
9 3 (6.38%) Zscaler
10 2 (4.26%) Google
10 2 (4.26%) Nokia
10 2 (4.26%) ServiceNow
11 1 (2.13%) Dell
11 1 (2.13%) Infoblox
11 1 (2.13%) Meraki