TCP/IP Contract Job Trends in the South East

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring TCP/IP skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 111 116
Rank change year-on-year -13 +5 +5
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 58 46 94
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.25% 1.45% 1.71%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.16% 8.03% 7.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 46 25 89
10th Percentile £219 £260 £148
25th Percentile £303 £350 £184
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £350
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +50.00% -33.96%
75th Percentile £604 £615 £538
90th Percentile £653 £675 £563
England median daily rate £456 £505 £475
% change year-on-year -9.70% +6.32% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 1
10th Percentile £71.20 - -
25th Percentile £73.00 £18.50 -
Median hourly rate £79.50 £19.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +318.42% -24.00% -13.04%
75th Percentile £84.50 £19.50 -
90th Percentile £85.40 - -
England median hourly rate £40.72 £63.75 £50.00
% change year-on-year -36.13% +27.50% -23.08%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
South East

TCP/IP falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 633 573 1,298
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 13.69% 18.12% 23.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 469 305 653
10th Percentile £219 £230 £200
25th Percentile £350 £375 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £463
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +8.11% -7.50%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £550
90th Percentile £650 £650 £625
England median daily rate £488 £500 £486
% change year-on-year -2.50% +2.88% -7.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 22 104
10th Percentile £17.87 £31.25 £13.86
25th Percentile £23.25 £35.00 £24.19
Median hourly rate £55.50 £59.13 £58.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.13% +1.08% +29.99%
75th Percentile £69.97 £62.50 £70.47
90th Percentile £84.20 £66.82 £84.01
England median hourly rate £32.00 £35.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -8.57% -30.00% +141.49%

TCP/IP
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

TCP/IP job vacancy trend in the South East

TCP/IP
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing TCP/IP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing TCP/IP

TCP/IP
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing TCP/IP in the South East over the 6 months to 4 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for TCP/IP in the South East

TCP/IP
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing TCP/IP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing TCP/IP

TCP/IP
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 TCP/IP within the South East region over the 6 months to 4 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
Thames Valley -11 40 £458 -25.53% 15
Berkshire -15 26 £267 -56.59% 3
Hampshire -10 13 £500 +29.03% 15
Buckinghamshire -1 12 £625 +1.63% 6
Surrey -5 5 £523 +49.29% 3
Oxfordshire - 2 £425 - 6
TCP/IP
England

TCP/IP
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 (5.17%) SharePoint
2 2 (3.45%) Apache
2 2 (3.45%) WordPress
Applications
1 6 (10.34%) MS Visio
2 3 (5.17%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (3.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (3.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 26 (44.83%) AWS
1 26 (44.83%) Azure
2 5 (8.62%) AWS CloudFormation
3 4 (6.90%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (5.17%) Entra ID
5 2 (3.45%) GCP
6 1 (1.72%) Akamai
6 1 (1.72%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (1.72%) Amazon EKS
6 1 (1.72%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 38 (65.52%) DNS
2 26 (44.83%) DHCP
2 26 (44.83%) VLAN
3 25 (43.10%) Firewall
4 16 (27.59%) VPN
5 11 (18.97%) BGP
5 11 (18.97%) WAN
6 10 (17.24%) Network Security
7 9 (15.52%) LAN
7 9 (15.52%) OSPF
8 8 (13.79%) MPLS
9 7 (12.07%) IPv6
10 5 (8.62%) Cisco ASA
10 5 (8.62%) Multicast
10 5 (8.62%) Wireshark
11 4 (6.90%) Intrusion Detection
11 4 (6.90%) IPv4
11 4 (6.90%) SAN
12 3 (5.17%) Intranet
12 3 (5.17%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.17%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.72%) Amazon Aurora
2 1 (1.72%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 1 (1.72%) Jenkins
General
1 19 (32.76%) Analytical Skills
2 18 (31.03%) Social Skills
3 5 (8.62%) Documentation Skills
3 5 (8.62%) Public Sector
4 4 (6.90%) Telecoms
5 2 (3.45%) Aerospace
5 2 (3.45%) Aviation
6 1 (1.72%) Finance
Job Titles
1 18 (31.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 15 (25.86%) Senior
3 13 (22.41%) Support Engineer
4 11 (18.97%) Infrastructure Support
4 11 (18.97%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
5 8 (13.79%) Analyst
6 7 (12.07%) SOC Analyst
7 4 (6.90%) Network Engineer
7 4 (6.90%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 4 (6.90%) Tester
8 3 (5.17%) Designer
8 3 (5.17%) Lead
8 3 (5.17%) Network Designer
8 3 (5.17%) Senior Analyst
8 3 (5.17%) Senior Designer
8 3 (5.17%) Senior Network Designer
8 3 (5.17%) Senior Tester
8 3 (5.17%) Validation Tester
9 2 (3.45%) IP Specialist
9 2 (3.45%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (3.45%) NETCONF
1 2 (3.45%) OpenConfig
1 2 (3.45%) RESTCONF
1 2 (3.45%) YANG
2 1 (1.72%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 14 (24.14%) Analytical Mindset
2 8 (13.79%) Data Centre
3 7 (12.07%) Cyberattack
3 7 (12.07%) Security Operations Centre
4 5 (8.62%) PKI
5 3 (5.17%) Cyber Threat
5 3 (5.17%) Management Information System
5 3 (5.17%) SCADA
6 2 (3.45%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (3.45%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (1.72%) Cyber Defence
7 1 (1.72%) Security Posture
7 1 (1.72%) Smartphone
7 1 (1.72%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 32 (55.17%) Windows
2 31 (53.45%) Linux
3 7 (12.07%) Windows Server
4 5 (8.62%) Ubuntu
5 3 (5.17%) Debian
6 2 (3.45%) CentOS
6 2 (3.45%) Unix
7 1 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (43.10%) Problem-Solving
2 19 (32.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 19 (32.76%) ITIL
3 15 (25.86%) Cybersecurity
3 15 (25.86%) Disaster Recovery
4 12 (20.69%) SIEM
5 11 (18.97%) Incident Response
5 11 (18.97%) Preventative Maintenance
5 11 (18.97%) Service Management
5 11 (18.97%) Virtual Infrastructure
6 9 (15.52%) Network Design
7 8 (13.79%) Test Automation
8 7 (12.07%) Containerisation
8 7 (12.07%) Continuous Improvement
8 7 (12.07%) Security Operations
9 5 (8.62%) CI/CD
9 5 (8.62%) Infrastructure as Code
9 5 (8.62%) Performance Testing
10 4 (6.90%) Agile
10 4 (6.90%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 16 (27.59%) Python
2 12 (20.69%) Bash
3 8 (13.79%) PowerShell
4 4 (6.90%) SQL
5 2 (3.45%) Perl
5 2 (3.45%) Shell Script
6 1 (1.72%) Java
Qualifications
1 39 (67.24%) Security Cleared
2 28 (48.28%) SC Cleared
3 14 (24.14%) Network+ Certification
4 13 (22.41%) Cisco Certification
5 11 (18.97%) Azure Certification
5 11 (18.97%) CCNP
5 11 (18.97%) Microsoft Certification
5 11 (18.97%) Server+ Certification
6 10 (17.24%) DV Cleared
7 6 (10.34%) CCIE
8 4 (6.90%) AWS Certification
8 4 (6.90%) CCNA
8 4 (6.90%) CompTIA CySA+
8 4 (6.90%) CompTIA Security+
8 4 (6.90%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (6.90%) Degree
8 4 (6.90%) JNCIS
9 3 (5.17%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (5.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 2 (3.45%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.45%) NCSC
2 1 (1.72%) GRC
2 1 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.72%) NIST
2 1 (1.72%) PCI DSS
2 1 (1.72%) QA
System Software
1 21 (36.21%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (27.59%) Hyper-V
3 13 (22.41%) Active Directory
4 8 (13.79%) Docker
5 3 (5.17%) KVM
6 1 (1.72%) NDS
6 1 (1.72%) NetIQ eDirectory
6 1 (1.72%) RHEV
6 1 (1.72%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (1.72%) Xen
Systems Management
1 14 (24.14%) Ansible
2 8 (13.79%) Kubernetes
3 7 (12.07%) Nagios
4 5 (8.62%) Iperf
4 5 (8.62%) Nmap
4 5 (8.62%) Terraform
5 3 (5.17%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (5.17%) Progress Chef
5 3 (5.17%) Puppet
5 3 (5.17%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (3.45%) Cisco Prime
6 2 (3.45%) SCCM
7 1 (1.72%) Grafana
7 1 (1.72%) Prometheus
7 1 (1.72%) Proxmox
7 1 (1.72%) Red Hat Satellite
7 1 (1.72%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 24 (41.38%) VMware
2 22 (37.93%) Microsoft
3 14 (24.14%) Cisco
4 12 (20.69%) SolarWinds
5 9 (15.52%) Juniper
5 9 (15.52%) Splunk
6 8 (13.79%) Fortinet
7 7 (12.07%) Red Hat
8 6 (10.34%) F5
9 5 (8.62%) CheckPoint
9 5 (8.62%) Palo Alto
10 2 (3.45%) Citrix
10 2 (3.45%) Tufin
11 1 (1.72%) CyberArk
11 1 (1.72%) Imperva
11 1 (1.72%) NetApp
11 1 (1.72%) NetIQ
11 1 (1.72%) OpenText
11 1 (1.72%) Oracle
11 1 (1.72%) Proofpoint