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 5 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 281 225 110
Rank change year-on-year -56 -115 +119
Contract jobs citing PKI 169 112 391
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.67% 0.86% 1.88%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.28% 2.57% 6.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 112 96 269
10th Percentile £413 £381 £363
25th Percentile £463 £492 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.61% +4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £606 £608
90th Percentile £699 £643 £675
UK median daily rate £550 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -4.35%
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 7,410 4,350 5,965
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 29.58% 33.52% 28.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,527 2,661 3,542
10th Percentile £270 £213 £208
25th Percentile £400 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 614 313 747
10th Percentile £15.72 £15.67 £12.15
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.87 £14.17
Median hourly rate £43.96 £32.05 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.16% -8.43% +59.09%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.28 £83.06 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £42.12 £33.05 £35.25
% change year-on-year +27.44% -6.24% +60.23%

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 5 June 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 5 June 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 5 June 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 0 99 £600 +4.35% 26
North of England -58 27 £468 -4.98% 3
North West -23 19 £446 -9.30% 1
Scotland +9 18 £540 +0.93% 2
South West -60 13 £538 -8.12% 9
Midlands -61 10 £400 -8.57% 6
West Midlands -65 10 £400 -8.57% 3
Yorkshire - 8 £650 - 2
East of England -28 4 £400 -23.81% 5
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 7 (4.14%) SharePoint
2 5 (2.96%) IIS
3 4 (2.37%) Confluence
4 3 (1.78%) Apache
4 3 (1.78%) Tomcat
4 3 (1.78%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.59%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (2.37%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 10 (5.92%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.59%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.59%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 41 (24.26%) Azure
2 23 (13.61%) AWS
2 23 (13.61%) Entra ID
3 15 (8.88%) Power Platform
4 11 (6.51%) GCP
5 9 (5.33%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (3.55%) Azure Key Vault
7 4 (2.37%) AWS KMS
8 3 (1.78%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (1.18%) GitHub
9 2 (1.18%) OneDrive
10 1 (0.59%) Anthos
10 1 (0.59%) Azure Logic Apps
10 1 (0.59%) Azure Sentinel
10 1 (0.59%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.59%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 1 (0.59%) Google Workspace
10 1 (0.59%) OpenShift
10 1 (0.59%) Power Automate
10 1 (0.59%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 46 (27.22%) DNS
2 41 (24.26%) Firewall
3 35 (20.71%) BGP
4 34 (20.12%) WAN
5 33 (19.53%) DHCP
6 30 (17.75%) LAN
7 27 (15.98%) OSPF
8 23 (13.61%) BIG-IP
8 23 (13.61%) Ethernet VPN
8 23 (13.61%) Junos
8 23 (13.61%) VPN
8 23 (13.61%) VXLAN
9 22 (13.02%) Cisco ISE
10 15 (8.88%) Network Security
11 12 (7.10%) SSL
12 10 (5.92%) Cisco ASA
12 10 (5.92%) MPLS
13 8 (4.73%) IPsec
14 6 (3.55%) TACACS
14 6 (3.55%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (6.51%) SQL Server
2 10 (5.92%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 6 (3.55%) Robot Framework
2 5 (2.96%) JIRA
2 5 (2.96%) Sonatype Nexus
3 3 (1.78%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.18%) Git
4 2 (1.18%) GitLab
4 2 (1.18%) MSI
5 1 (0.59%) Burp Suite
5 1 (0.59%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.59%) Gatling
5 1 (0.59%) Gradle
5 1 (0.59%) LoadRunner
5 1 (0.59%) REST Assured
5 1 (0.59%) SonarQube
General
1 23 (13.61%) Social Skills
2 18 (10.65%) Public Sector
3 15 (8.88%) Finance
4 10 (5.92%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (2.37%) Banking
5 4 (2.37%) Military
6 3 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (1.78%) Legal
7 2 (1.18%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.18%) Retail
8 1 (0.59%) Back Office
8 1 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.59%) Law
Job Titles
1 40 (23.67%) Senior
2 28 (16.57%) Architect
2 28 (16.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 20 (11.83%) Network Engineer
4 14 (8.28%) Firewall Specialist
4 14 (8.28%) Network Specialist
5 13 (7.69%) Senior Network Engineer
6 11 (6.51%) Security Engineer
7 9 (5.33%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 9 (5.33%) Senior Architect
7 9 (5.33%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 9 (5.33%) Support Engineer
8 8 (4.73%) Storage Engineer
9 6 (3.55%) ITSM Architect
10 5 (2.96%) Citrix Engineer
10 5 (2.96%) Citrix Infrastructure Engineer
10 5 (2.96%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
10 5 (2.96%) Integration Engineer
10 5 (2.96%) Linux Infrastructure Engineer
10 5 (2.96%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (18.34%) 802.1X
2 11 (6.51%) REST
3 10 (5.92%) OpenID
4 9 (5.33%) LDAP
5 8 (4.73%) OAuth
5 8 (4.73%) SAML
6 4 (2.37%) JSON
6 4 (2.37%) RabbitMQ
7 3 (1.78%) OAuth2
7 3 (1.78%) SailPoint
8 2 (1.18%) Microsoft Graph
9 1 (0.59%) FIDO
9 1 (0.59%) Node.js
9 1 (0.59%) OpenTelemetry
9 1 (0.59%) Playwright
9 1 (0.59%) Quarkus
9 1 (0.59%) React
9 1 (0.59%) Spring
9 1 (0.59%) Spring Boot
9 1 (0.59%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 33 (19.53%) Clustering
2 23 (13.61%) Data Centre
3 8 (4.73%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (4.14%) Public Cloud
5 6 (3.55%) Algorithms
6 5 (2.96%) Linux Command Line
6 5 (2.96%) Operational Technology
7 4 (2.37%) Management Information System
7 4 (2.37%) Onboarding
7 4 (2.37%) Smartcard
8 3 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.78%) Enterprise Cloud
8 3 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.78%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.78%) Tandem
9 2 (1.18%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (1.18%) Enterprise Storage
9 2 (1.18%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 87 (51.48%) Windows
2 43 (25.44%) Windows Server
3 37 (21.89%) Linux
4 6 (3.55%) Debian
4 6 (3.55%) Ubuntu
5 4 (2.37%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (1.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.78%) Unix
7 2 (1.18%) CentOS
7 2 (1.18%) Windows 7
7 2 (1.18%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (1.18%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.59%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.59%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (34.32%) Identity Access Management
2 42 (24.85%) Agile
3 37 (21.89%) ITIL
4 34 (20.12%) High Availability
5 32 (18.93%) Problem-Solving
6 30 (17.75%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 26 (15.38%) ITSM
7 26 (15.38%) Observability
8 25 (14.79%) Load Balancing
9 23 (13.61%) Cybersecurity
9 23 (13.61%) Service Management
10 20 (11.83%) Zero Trust
11 19 (11.24%) RBAC
12 17 (10.06%) Key Management
13 15 (8.88%) Identity Management
14 13 (7.69%) DevOps
14 13 (7.69%) Project Delivery
15 12 (7.10%) Continuous Improvement
15 12 (7.10%) Infrastructure as Code
16 11 (6.51%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 39 (23.08%) PowerShell
2 31 (18.34%) Python
3 11 (6.51%) SQL
4 10 (5.92%) JavaScript
5 5 (2.96%) Bash
6 4 (2.37%) C#
6 4 (2.37%) Java
6 4 (2.37%) PHP
7 1 (0.59%) Go
7 1 (0.59%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 108 (63.91%) Security Cleared
2 77 (45.56%) DV Cleared
3 33 (19.53%) SC Cleared
4 27 (15.98%) Cisco Certification
5 13 (7.69%) Degree
6 10 (5.92%) GIAC
7 9 (5.33%) CISSP
8 8 (4.73%) CISM
9 7 (4.14%) CompTIA Security+
9 7 (4.14%) JNCIA
9 7 (4.14%) JNCIP
9 7 (4.14%) JNCIS
10 6 (3.55%) CCNP
10 6 (3.55%) MCSE
10 6 (3.55%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (2.37%) APMG
11 4 (2.37%) Azure Certification
11 4 (2.37%) CCNA
11 4 (2.37%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (2.37%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (15.98%) NIST
2 19 (11.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (5.92%) Cyber Essentials
4 8 (4.73%) NCSC
5 6 (3.55%) SLA
6 4 (2.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (2.37%) PCI DSS
7 2 (1.18%) GDPR
7 2 (1.18%) ISA99
7 2 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.59%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.59%) SOC 2
System Software
1 51 (30.18%) Active Directory
2 35 (20.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (9.47%) VMware NSX
4 8 (4.73%) Hyper-V
5 7 (4.14%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (2.96%) Docker
6 5 (2.96%) Firmware
7 2 (1.18%) KVM
7 2 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (1.18%) XenApp
7 2 (1.18%) XenDesktop
8 1 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.59%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 23 (13.61%) Ansible
1 23 (13.61%) FortiGate
1 23 (13.61%) Terraform
2 16 (9.47%) vCenter Server
3 13 (7.69%) Single Sign-On
4 12 (7.10%) SCOM
5 10 (5.92%) Kubernetes
6 9 (5.33%) Microsoft Intune
7 8 (4.73%) Avamar
8 6 (3.55%) SCCM
8 6 (3.55%) WMI
9 2 (1.18%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (1.18%) Istio
9 2 (1.18%) Prometheus
9 2 (1.18%) WSUS
10 1 (0.59%) Argo
10 1 (0.59%) CASB
10 1 (0.59%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.59%) Grafana
10 1 (0.59%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 54 (31.95%) VMware
2 47 (27.81%) Cisco
3 46 (27.22%) Microsoft
4 29 (17.16%) Juniper
5 27 (15.98%) F5
5 27 (15.98%) SolarWinds
6 23 (13.61%) Splunk
7 22 (13.02%) Extreme Networks
8 17 (10.06%) ServiceNow
8 17 (10.06%) Thales
9 10 (5.92%) BMC
9 10 (5.92%) Remedy
10 9 (5.33%) Citrix
10 9 (5.33%) Okta
10 9 (5.33%) Palo Alto
11 8 (4.73%) Dell
12 7 (4.14%) IBM
13 5 (2.96%) ForeScout
14 4 (2.37%) BeyondTrust
14 4 (2.37%) Fortinet