PKI Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term PKI in contract job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited PKI over the 6 months leading up to 2 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 275 220 116
Rank change year-on-year -55 -104 +112
Contract jobs citing PKI 190 124 381
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.72% 0.89% 1.80%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.40% 2.64% 6.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 129 103 262
10th Percentile £412 £350 £363
25th Percentile £463 £483 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -1.35%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £608
90th Percentile £650 £638 £672
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -5.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 1
10th Percentile £47.22 - -
25th Percentile £56.01 - £36.75
Median hourly rate £71.33 - £38.50
75th Percentile £72.27 - £40.25
90th Percentile £72.43 - -
UK median hourly rate £71.33 - £23.80
% change year-on-year - - -63.38%

All Generic Skills
UK excluding London

PKI falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 7,928 4,702 6,102
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 30.06% 33.72% 28.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,821 2,840 3,577
10th Percentile £281 £220 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £594 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 672 369 751
10th Percentile £15.26 £15.13 £12.15
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.51 £14.19
Median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.53% -15.49% +57.78%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.36 £80.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.30 £31.08 £35.65
% change year-on-year +36.10% -12.82% +58.44%

PKI
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing PKI relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

PKI job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

PKI
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing PKI.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing PKI

PKI
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PKI in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 2 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for PKI in the UK excluding London

PKI
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing PKI.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing PKI

PKI
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing PKI in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 2 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for PKI in the UK excluding London

PKI
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing PKI within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 2 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
South East +2 102 £590 +2.61% 24
North of England -51 34 £425 -13.62% 15
Scotland +7 23 £491 -8.22% 9
North West -37 23 £418 -15.14% 8
South West -64 15 £538 -6.52% 20
Midlands -57 11 £450 +17.65% 6
Yorkshire - 11 £500 - 6
West Midlands -66 10 £400 +4.58% 4
East of England -20 4 £400 -23.81% 2
Wales - 3 £525 - 7
East Midlands -18 1 £475 - 2
PKI
UK

PKI
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding 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 10 (5.26%) SharePoint
2 7 (3.68%) Confluence
2 7 (3.68%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (2.63%) IIS
4 3 (1.58%) Apache
4 3 (1.58%) Exchange Server 2010
4 3 (1.58%) Tomcat
4 3 (1.58%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.53%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 5 (2.63%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 10 (5.26%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.53%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.53%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 49 (25.79%) Azure
2 34 (17.89%) Entra ID
3 24 (12.63%) AWS
4 15 (7.89%) Power Platform
5 12 (6.32%) GCP
6 10 (5.26%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (3.16%) Azure Key Vault
8 4 (2.11%) AWS KMS
8 4 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (1.58%) GitHub
9 3 (1.58%) OpenShift
10 2 (1.05%) Azure Monitor
10 2 (1.05%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 2 (1.05%) OneDrive
11 1 (0.53%) Anthos
11 1 (0.53%) Apigee
11 1 (0.53%) Azure Sentinel
11 1 (0.53%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.53%) Google Workspace
11 1 (0.53%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 56 (29.47%) DNS
2 43 (22.63%) Firewall
3 38 (20.00%) DHCP
4 36 (18.95%) BGP
5 35 (18.42%) WAN
6 31 (16.32%) LAN
7 28 (14.74%) OSPF
8 23 (12.11%) BIG-IP
8 23 (12.11%) Ethernet VPN
8 23 (12.11%) Junos
8 23 (12.11%) VPN
8 23 (12.11%) VXLAN
9 22 (11.58%) Cisco ISE
10 15 (7.89%) Network Security
11 13 (6.84%) SSL
12 12 (6.32%) Cisco ASA
13 11 (5.79%) IPsec
14 10 (5.26%) MPLS
15 8 (4.21%) Wireless
16 7 (3.68%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (7.37%) SQL Server
2 10 (5.26%) Power BI
3 1 (0.53%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 10 (5.26%) JIRA
2 4 (2.11%) Jenkins
2 4 (2.11%) Robot Framework
2 4 (2.11%) Sonatype Nexus
3 3 (1.58%) Git
4 2 (1.05%) Burp Suite
4 2 (1.05%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.05%) Gatling
4 2 (1.05%) GitLab
4 2 (1.05%) Gradle
4 2 (1.05%) LoadRunner
4 2 (1.05%) MSI
4 2 (1.05%) REST Assured
4 2 (1.05%) SonarQube
General
1 30 (15.79%) Social Skills
2 19 (10.00%) Public Sector
3 17 (8.95%) Finance
4 11 (5.79%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (3.16%) Banking
5 6 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (2.63%) Military
7 3 (1.58%) Retail
8 2 (1.05%) Corporate Banking
8 2 (1.05%) Investment Banking
8 2 (1.05%) Legal
8 2 (1.05%) Police
8 2 (1.05%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.53%) Back Office
9 1 (0.53%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.53%) Law
Job Titles
1 48 (25.26%) Senior
2 34 (17.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 24 (12.63%) Architect
4 22 (11.58%) Network Engineer
5 16 (8.42%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 14 (7.37%) Firewall Specialist
6 14 (7.37%) Network Specialist
6 14 (7.37%) Senior Network Engineer
7 11 (5.79%) Support Engineer
8 9 (4.74%) 3rd Line Engineer
8 9 (4.74%) Security Engineer
8 9 (4.74%) Senior Architect
8 9 (4.74%) Storage Engineer
9 7 (3.68%) Lead
10 6 (3.16%) ITSM Architect
11 5 (2.63%) Citrix Infrastructure Engineer
11 5 (2.63%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
11 5 (2.63%) Linux Infrastructure Engineer
11 5 (2.63%) VMware Engineer
11 5 (2.63%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (16.32%) 802.1X
2 14 (7.37%) OpenID
3 13 (6.84%) LDAP
4 12 (6.32%) OAuth
4 12 (6.32%) SAML
5 11 (5.79%) REST
6 5 (2.63%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (2.11%) JSON
7 4 (2.11%) OAuth2
8 3 (1.58%) SailPoint
9 2 (1.05%) FIDO
9 2 (1.05%) Microsoft Graph
9 2 (1.05%) Node.js
9 2 (1.05%) Playwright
9 2 (1.05%) Quarkus
9 2 (1.05%) React
9 2 (1.05%) Spring
9 2 (1.05%) Spring Boot
10 1 (0.53%) OpenTelemetry
10 1 (0.53%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 36 (18.95%) Clustering
2 25 (13.16%) Data Centre
3 8 (4.21%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (3.68%) Linux Command Line
4 7 (3.68%) Public Cloud
5 6 (3.16%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (2.63%) Fat Client
6 5 (2.63%) Management Information System
6 5 (2.63%) Operational Technology
6 5 (2.63%) Thin Client
7 4 (2.11%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (2.11%) Onboarding
7 4 (2.11%) Security Posture
7 4 (2.11%) Smartcard
8 3 (1.58%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.58%) Enterprise Cloud
8 3 (1.58%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 98 (51.58%) Windows
2 51 (26.84%) Windows Server
3 44 (23.16%) Linux
4 6 (3.16%) Debian
4 6 (3.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 6 (3.16%) Ubuntu
5 5 (2.63%) Unix
5 5 (2.63%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (2.11%) Windows Server 2012
7 3 (1.58%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (1.05%) Android
8 2 (1.05%) Apple iOS
8 2 (1.05%) CentOS
8 2 (1.05%) Mac OS
8 2 (1.05%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.53%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.53%) VMS
9 1 (0.53%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (36.84%) Identity Access Management
2 44 (23.16%) ITIL
3 37 (19.47%) Agile
3 37 (19.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 34 (17.89%) High Availability
4 34 (17.89%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (14.21%) ITSM
5 27 (14.21%) Zero Trust
6 26 (13.68%) Observability
6 26 (13.68%) Service Management
7 25 (13.16%) Cybersecurity
7 25 (13.16%) Load Balancing
8 20 (10.53%) RBAC
9 19 (10.00%) Key Management
9 19 (10.00%) Project Delivery
10 17 (8.95%) Identity Management
11 16 (8.42%) Continuous Improvement
12 15 (7.89%) Change Management
13 14 (7.37%) DevOps
14 13 (6.84%) Cryptography
Programming Languages
1 45 (23.68%) PowerShell
2 34 (17.89%) Python
3 11 (5.79%) SQL
4 10 (5.26%) JavaScript
5 6 (3.16%) Java
6 5 (2.63%) Bash
7 4 (2.11%) C#
7 4 (2.11%) PHP
8 1 (0.53%) Go
8 1 (0.53%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 113 (59.47%) Security Cleared
2 71 (37.37%) DV Cleared
3 46 (24.21%) SC Cleared
4 29 (15.26%) Cisco Certification
5 15 (7.89%) Degree
6 11 (5.79%) MCSE
6 11 (5.79%) Microsoft Certification
7 9 (4.74%) GIAC
8 8 (4.21%) CCNP
8 8 (4.21%) CISSP
9 7 (3.68%) CompTIA Security+
9 7 (3.68%) JNCIA
9 7 (3.68%) JNCIP
9 7 (3.68%) JNCIS
10 5 (2.63%) Azure Certification
10 5 (2.63%) CISM
10 5 (2.63%) SSCP
11 4 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (2.11%) Master's Degree
11 4 (2.11%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (13.68%) NIST
2 17 (8.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (5.26%) Cyber Essentials
4 9 (4.74%) NCSC
5 7 (3.68%) SLA
6 4 (2.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 3 (1.58%) PCI DSS
8 2 (1.05%) GDPR
8 2 (1.05%) ISA99
8 2 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.53%) SOC 2
System Software
1 67 (35.26%) Active Directory
2 39 (20.53%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (8.95%) VMware NSX
4 12 (6.32%) Hyper-V
5 8 (4.21%) Docker
5 8 (4.21%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (2.11%) Firmware
7 3 (1.58%) OpenAM
8 2 (1.05%) KVM
8 2 (1.05%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (1.05%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (1.05%) XenApp
8 2 (1.05%) XenDesktop
9 1 (0.53%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 1 (0.53%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 24 (12.63%) Ansible
2 23 (12.11%) FortiGate
2 23 (12.11%) Terraform
3 18 (9.47%) vCenter Server
4 15 (7.89%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (6.84%) Kubernetes
5 13 (6.84%) SCOM
6 9 (4.74%) Avamar
6 9 (4.74%) Microsoft Intune
7 8 (4.21%) SCCM
8 5 (2.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 5 (2.63%) Failover Clustering
8 5 (2.63%) WMI
8 5 (2.63%) WSUS
9 3 (1.58%) Istio
10 2 (1.05%) Kibana
10 2 (1.05%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.53%) Cisco CUCM
11 1 (0.53%) Grafana
11 1 (0.53%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 65 (34.21%) Microsoft
2 55 (28.95%) VMware
3 51 (26.84%) Cisco
4 29 (15.26%) Juniper
5 27 (14.21%) F5
5 27 (14.21%) SolarWinds
6 23 (12.11%) Splunk
7 22 (11.58%) Extreme Networks
8 19 (10.00%) ServiceNow
9 18 (9.47%) Thales
10 15 (7.89%) Okta
11 10 (5.26%) BMC
11 10 (5.26%) Remedy
12 9 (4.74%) BeyondTrust
12 9 (4.74%) Citrix
12 9 (4.74%) Dell
13 8 (4.21%) Palo Alto
14 7 (3.68%) IBM
15 5 (2.63%) Fortinet
15 5 (2.63%) NetApp