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 12 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 271 229 111
Rank change year-on-year -42 -118 +121
Contract jobs citing PKI 176 109 390
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.73% 0.85% 1.90%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.46% 2.58% 6.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 110 92 269
10th Percentile £409 £413 £363
25th Percentile £463 £498 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £558 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.35% +1.36% -3.08%
75th Percentile £642 £606 £608
90th Percentile £725 £666 £675
UK median daily rate £550 £558 £550
% change year-on-year -1.35% +1.36% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 1
10th Percentile £61.41 - -
25th Percentile £70.50 - £36.75
Median hourly rate £79.50 - £38.50
75th Percentile £96.25 - £40.25
90th Percentile £101.65 - -
UK median hourly rate £79.50 - £23.80
% change year-on-year - - -60.00%

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 7,142 4,232 5,975
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 29.49% 33.08% 29.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,432 2,587 3,586
10th Percentile £258 £205 £209
25th Percentile £383 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.54% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £584 £588 £595
90th Percentile £675 £662 £688
UK median daily rate £505 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -3.81% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 568 306 726
10th Percentile £15.79 £16.95 £12.15
25th Percentile £19.34 £19.97 £14.06
Median hourly rate £48.77 £31.76 £29.25
Median % change year-on-year +53.56% +8.58% +32.95%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.65 £83.71 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £43.60 £32.50 £31.25
% change year-on-year +34.16% +4.00% +38.98%

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 12 May 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 12 May 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 12 May 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 +10 104 £600 +4.35% 22
North of England -50 27 £454 -8.57% 4
North West -28 16 £418 -15.14% 2
South West -55 15 £545 -5.22% 3
Midlands -59 14 £450 +5.88% 6
West Midlands -68 14 £450 +5.88% 2
Scotland +8 13 £451 -15.79% 1
Yorkshire -45 11 £482 -34.64% 2
East of England -27 5 £475 -9.52% 5
Wales -11 1 £550 +20.22% 3
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 8 (4.55%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (2.84%) IIS
2 5 (2.84%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.70%) Confluence
3 3 (1.70%) Exchange Server 2010
4 2 (1.14%) Apache
4 2 (1.14%) Tomcat
4 2 (1.14%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.57%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 3 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 9 (5.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.57%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 37 (21.02%) Azure
2 29 (16.48%) AWS
3 19 (10.80%) Entra ID
4 14 (7.95%) Power Platform
5 9 (5.11%) GCP
5 9 (5.11%) Microsoft 365
5 9 (5.11%) OpenShift
6 6 (3.41%) Azure Key Vault
7 4 (2.27%) AWS CloudFormation
7 4 (2.27%) AWS KMS
7 4 (2.27%) SaaS
8 3 (1.70%) Power Automate
9 2 (1.14%) OneDrive
10 1 (0.57%) Anthos
10 1 (0.57%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.57%) Google Workspace
10 1 (0.57%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 50 (28.41%) DNS
2 40 (22.73%) Firewall
3 34 (19.32%) DHCP
4 33 (18.75%) BGP
5 29 (16.48%) WAN
6 25 (14.20%) Junos
6 25 (14.20%) LAN
6 25 (14.20%) OSPF
7 24 (13.64%) Cisco ISE
8 23 (13.07%) BIG-IP
8 23 (13.07%) Ethernet VPN
8 23 (13.07%) VXLAN
9 19 (10.80%) VPN
10 14 (7.95%) SSL
11 12 (6.82%) Network Security
12 8 (4.55%) Cisco IOS
12 8 (4.55%) MPLS
12 8 (4.55%) TCP/IP
13 7 (3.98%) Cisco ASA
14 6 (3.41%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.68%) SQL Server
2 9 (5.11%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 8 (4.55%) JIRA
2 7 (3.98%) Robot Framework
3 5 (2.84%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.14%) MSI
5 1 (0.57%) Git
5 1 (0.57%) GitLab
5 1 (0.57%) Jenkins
General
1 24 (13.64%) Social Skills
2 18 (10.23%) Public Sector
3 12 (6.82%) Finance
4 8 (4.55%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (2.27%) Military
6 3 (1.70%) Banking
7 2 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.14%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.14%) Legal
7 2 (1.14%) Retail
8 1 (0.57%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.57%) Back Office
8 1 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.57%) Law
Job Titles
1 40 (22.73%) Architect
2 38 (21.59%) Senior
3 30 (17.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 17 (9.66%) Network Engineer
5 14 (7.95%) Firewall Specialist
5 14 (7.95%) Network Specialist
6 13 (7.39%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 11 (6.25%) Security Engineer
7 11 (6.25%) Support Engineer
8 10 (5.68%) Senior Network Engineer
9 9 (5.11%) 3rd Line Engineer
9 9 (5.11%) Senior Architect
10 6 (3.41%) ITSM Architect
11 5 (2.84%) Identity Management Engineer
12 4 (2.27%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
12 4 (2.27%) Delivery Manager
12 4 (2.27%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 4 (2.27%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
12 4 (2.27%) Infrastructure Support
12 4 (2.27%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (16.48%) 802.1X
2 10 (5.68%) REST
3 9 (5.11%) OpenID
4 8 (4.55%) LDAP
4 8 (4.55%) OAuth
4 8 (4.55%) SAML
5 4 (2.27%) OAuth2
6 3 (1.70%) JSON
6 3 (1.70%) SailPoint
7 2 (1.14%) RabbitMQ
8 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Graph
8 1 (0.57%) OpenTelemetry
8 1 (0.57%) Web Services
8 1 (0.57%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 31 (17.61%) Clustering
2 23 (13.07%) Data Centre
3 8 (4.55%) Public Cloud
4 7 (3.98%) Algorithms
4 7 (3.98%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (3.98%) Onboarding
5 5 (2.84%) Operational Technology
5 5 (2.84%) Smartcard
6 4 (2.27%) Fat Client
6 4 (2.27%) Thin Client
7 3 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.70%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.14%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.14%) Enterprise Storage
8 2 (1.14%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (1.14%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.14%) SCADA
8 2 (1.14%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 79 (44.89%) Windows
2 38 (21.59%) Windows Server
3 33 (18.75%) Linux
4 6 (3.41%) Ubuntu
5 5 (2.84%) Windows Server 2012
5 5 (2.84%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (2.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (2.27%) Windows 7
7 3 (1.70%) Debian
7 3 (1.70%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (1.14%) CentOS
8 2 (1.14%) Unix
9 1 (0.57%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.57%) Solaris
9 1 (0.57%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (30.68%) Identity Access Management
2 45 (25.57%) Agile
3 34 (19.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 33 (18.75%) High Availability
4 33 (18.75%) Problem-Solving
5 32 (18.18%) ITIL
6 26 (14.77%) Observability
7 25 (14.20%) ITSM
7 25 (14.20%) Load Balancing
8 24 (13.64%) Key Management
8 24 (13.64%) Service Management
9 22 (12.50%) Cybersecurity
10 19 (10.80%) CI/CD
11 17 (9.66%) DevOps
11 17 (9.66%) Zero Trust
12 16 (9.09%) Change Management
12 16 (9.09%) Identity Management
13 15 (8.52%) Cloud Security
13 15 (8.52%) Continuous Improvement
13 15 (8.52%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 41 (23.30%) PowerShell
2 34 (19.32%) Python
3 12 (6.82%) SQL
4 11 (6.25%) Bash
5 9 (5.11%) JavaScript
6 4 (2.27%) C#
6 4 (2.27%) PHP
7 2 (1.14%) Java
8 1 (0.57%) Go
8 1 (0.57%) Perl
8 1 (0.57%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 118 (67.05%) Security Cleared
2 78 (44.32%) DV Cleared
3 37 (21.02%) SC Cleared
4 25 (14.20%) Cisco Certification
5 17 (9.66%) CISSP
6 16 (9.09%) CISM
7 11 (6.25%) GIAC
8 10 (5.68%) Degree
9 7 (3.98%) CompTIA Security+
9 7 (3.98%) JNCIA
9 7 (3.98%) JNCIP
9 7 (3.98%) JNCIS
10 4 (2.27%) APMG
10 4 (2.27%) AWS Certification
10 4 (2.27%) Azure Certification
10 4 (2.27%) CCNA
10 4 (2.27%) CCNP
10 4 (2.27%) SSCP
11 3 (1.70%) Network+ Certification
11 3 (1.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (13.64%) NIST
2 20 (11.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (5.68%) Cyber Essentials
4 8 (4.55%) NCSC
5 7 (3.98%) PCI DSS
6 6 (3.41%) SLA
7 4 (2.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 4 (2.27%) GDPR
8 2 (1.14%) ISA99
8 2 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.57%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.57%) SOC 2
System Software
1 54 (30.68%) Active Directory
2 36 (20.45%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (6.25%) VMware NSX
4 8 (4.55%) Hyper-V
5 7 (3.98%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (3.41%) Docker
7 5 (2.84%) Firmware
8 3 (1.70%) Sendmail
9 2 (1.14%) KVM
9 2 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (1.14%) vSphere
9 2 (1.14%) XenApp
9 2 (1.14%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 27 (15.34%) Ansible
1 27 (15.34%) Terraform
2 23 (13.07%) FortiGate
3 18 (10.23%) Kubernetes
4 16 (9.09%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (7.39%) vCenter Server
6 8 (4.55%) SCOM
7 6 (3.41%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (3.41%) WMI
8 5 (2.84%) SCCM
9 4 (2.27%) Prometheus
10 3 (1.70%) Avamar
10 3 (1.70%) Grafana
11 2 (1.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 2 (1.14%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (1.14%) WSUS
12 1 (0.57%) CA Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.57%) Progress Chef
12 1 (0.57%) Puppet
12 1 (0.57%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 55 (31.25%) VMware
2 52 (29.55%) Microsoft
3 44 (25.00%) Cisco
4 29 (16.48%) Juniper
5 27 (15.34%) SolarWinds
6 25 (14.20%) F5
7 23 (13.07%) Splunk
8 22 (12.50%) Extreme Networks
9 15 (8.52%) ServiceNow
10 13 (7.39%) Thales
11 9 (5.11%) BMC
11 9 (5.11%) Remedy
12 8 (4.55%) Okta
13 7 (3.98%) Citrix
14 6 (3.41%) Palo Alto
15 5 (2.84%) BeyondTrust
15 5 (2.84%) ForeScout
15 5 (2.84%) IBM
16 3 (1.70%) Aruba
16 3 (1.70%) Dell