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 20 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 260 232 114
Rank change year-on-year -28 -118 +92
Contract jobs citing PKI 232 133 334
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.84% 0.87% 1.84%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.77% 2.55% 6.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 168 109 242
10th Percentile £417 £350 £363
25th Percentile £463 £463 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £540
Median % change year-on-year - +1.85% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £608
90th Percentile £700 £649 £650
UK median daily rate £550 £559 £538
% change year-on-year -1.57% +3.95% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 1
10th Percentile £91.60 - -
25th Percentile £97.41 - £36.75
Median hourly rate £98.82 - £38.50
75th Percentile £99.41 - £40.25
90th Percentile £100.00 - -
UK median hourly rate £98.82 - £23.80
% change year-on-year - - -68.05%

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 8,387 5,224 5,242
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 30.46% 34.09% 28.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,001 3,109 3,130
10th Percentile £285 £225 £213
25th Percentile £405 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £612
90th Percentile £688 £656 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £550
% change year-on-year +0.96% -5.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 803 410 480
10th Percentile £14.11 £14.78 £12.15
25th Percentile £18.29 £17.99 £18.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.53% -36.84% +13.77%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £78.88 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.00 £29.75 £45.00
% change year-on-year +37.82% -33.89% +10.31%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 20 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
South East +4 98 £590 +2.61% 24
North of England -13 57 £500 +0.81% 17
North West -16 33 £525 +6.71% 8
Scotland +13 31 £481 -1.33% 3
South West -62 26 £697 +21.13% 14
Yorkshire -17 24 £500 -16.67% 7
Midlands -74 9 £475 +18.75% 9
West Midlands -73 8 £475 +18.75% 6
East of England -16 7 £500 -4.76% 4
Wales - 6 £463 -
East Midlands -17 1 £475 - 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 10 (4.31%) SharePoint
2 9 (3.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (3.45%) Confluence
4 5 (2.16%) IIS
5 3 (1.29%) Apache
5 3 (1.29%) Exchange Server 2010
5 3 (1.29%) Tomcat
5 3 (1.29%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.43%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.43%) nginx
Applications
1 4 (1.72%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 12 (5.17%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.43%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 58 (25.00%) Azure
2 40 (17.24%) Entra ID
3 39 (16.81%) AWS
4 20 (8.62%) GCP
5 17 (7.33%) Power Platform
6 14 (6.03%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (2.59%) Azure Key Vault
8 4 (1.72%) AWS KMS
8 4 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (1.72%) OpenShift
9 3 (1.29%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (1.29%) GitHub
10 2 (0.86%) Azure Sentinel
10 2 (0.86%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 1 (0.43%) Akamai
11 1 (0.43%) Azure Logic Apps
11 1 (0.43%) Datadog
11 1 (0.43%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.43%) Google Workspace
11 1 (0.43%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 73 (31.47%) DNS
2 62 (26.72%) Firewall
3 52 (22.41%) DHCP
4 27 (11.64%) TCP/IP
5 25 (10.78%) LAN
5 25 (10.78%) VPN
6 24 (10.34%) WAN
7 23 (9.91%) BGP
8 20 (8.62%) OSPF
9 18 (7.76%) SSL
10 17 (7.33%) IPsec
10 17 (7.33%) VSAN
11 15 (6.47%) Network Security
12 13 (5.60%) Cisco ASA
12 13 (5.60%) Cisco Firepower
13 12 (5.17%) Cisco ISE
13 12 (5.17%) VLAN
13 12 (5.17%) Wireless
14 11 (4.74%) BIG-IP
14 11 (4.74%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (10.78%) SQL Server
2 12 (5.17%) Power BI
3 1 (0.43%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.43%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 10 (4.31%) JIRA
2 5 (2.16%) Git
3 4 (1.72%) Jenkins
4 3 (1.29%) Robot Framework
4 3 (1.29%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.86%) Burp Suite
5 2 (0.86%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.86%) Gatling
5 2 (0.86%) GitLab
5 2 (0.86%) Gradle
5 2 (0.86%) LoadRunner
5 2 (0.86%) MSI
5 2 (0.86%) REST Assured
5 2 (0.86%) SonarQube
General
1 38 (16.38%) Social Skills
2 24 (10.34%) Finance
3 19 (8.19%) Public Sector
4 16 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (3.88%) Banking
5 9 (3.88%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (2.16%) Police
7 3 (1.29%) Military
7 3 (1.29%) Retail
8 2 (0.86%) Aerospace
8 2 (0.86%) Corporate Banking
8 2 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.86%) Investment Banking
8 2 (0.86%) Legal
8 2 (0.86%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.43%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.43%) Law
9 1 (0.43%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 61 (26.29%) Senior
2 41 (17.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 22 (9.48%) Architect
3 22 (9.48%) Network Engineer
4 21 (9.05%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 17 (7.33%) Support Engineer
6 16 (6.90%) Platform Engineer
6 16 (6.90%) Senior Network Engineer
7 13 (5.60%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 13 (5.60%) Storage Engineer
8 10 (4.31%) Consultant
9 9 (3.88%) Firewall Specialist
9 9 (3.88%) Network Specialist
10 8 (3.45%) Lead
10 8 (3.45%) Senior Architect
11 7 (3.02%) Principal Engineer
11 7 (3.02%) VMware Engineer
12 6 (2.59%) Cloud Engineer
12 6 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
13 5 (2.16%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (17.67%) Terraform
2 21 (9.05%) 802.1X
3 18 (7.76%) LDAP
4 17 (7.33%) OpenID
5 15 (6.47%) SAML
6 14 (6.03%) OAuth
7 13 (5.60%) REST
8 8 (3.45%) .NET
8 8 (3.45%) .NET Framework
8 8 (3.45%) XML
9 6 (2.59%) OAuth2
10 5 (2.16%) RabbitMQ
11 4 (1.72%) JSON
12 2 (0.86%) Microsoft Graph
12 2 (0.86%) ModSecurity
12 2 (0.86%) Node.js
12 2 (0.86%) React
12 2 (0.86%) Spring
12 2 (0.86%) Spring Boot
12 2 (0.86%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 33 (14.22%) Data Centre
2 28 (12.07%) Clustering
3 11 (4.74%) Public Cloud
4 8 (3.45%) Cloud Native
4 8 (3.45%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (3.45%) Self-Motivation
5 7 (3.02%) Linux Command Line
5 7 (3.02%) Onboarding
6 6 (2.59%) Distributed Systems
6 6 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (2.59%) Management Information System
7 5 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.72%) Fat Client
8 4 (1.72%) Fibre Optics
8 4 (1.72%) Product Ownership
8 4 (1.72%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.72%) Tandem
8 4 (1.72%) Thin Client
9 3 (1.29%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 122 (52.59%) Windows
2 67 (28.88%) Windows Server
3 66 (28.45%) Linux
4 9 (3.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (3.45%) Windows Server 2016
6 7 (3.02%) Unix
6 7 (3.02%) Windows Server 2012
7 6 (2.59%) Debian
8 5 (2.16%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (1.72%) CentOS
10 2 (0.86%) Android
10 2 (0.86%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.86%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.86%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.86%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.43%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.43%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (35.78%) Identity Access Management
2 49 (21.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 44 (18.97%) ITIL
4 41 (17.67%) Problem-Solving
5 38 (16.38%) Cybersecurity
6 37 (15.95%) Technical Leadership
7 35 (15.09%) Agile
8 33 (14.22%) High Availability
9 32 (13.79%) Continuous Improvement
10 31 (13.36%) Infrastructure as Code
11 30 (12.93%) DevSecOps
11 30 (12.93%) Zero Trust
12 29 (12.50%) CI/CD
13 28 (12.07%) ITSM
14 27 (11.64%) Platform Engineering
14 27 (11.64%) Service Management
15 26 (11.21%) Key Management
16 25 (10.78%) Mentoring
17 23 (9.91%) SIEM
17 23 (9.91%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 71 (30.60%) PowerShell
2 44 (18.97%) Python
3 22 (9.48%) Bash
4 12 (5.17%) JavaScript
4 12 (5.17%) SQL
5 11 (4.74%) C#
6 6 (2.59%) Java
7 2 (0.86%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.43%) Bicep
8 1 (0.43%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 136 (58.62%) Security Cleared
2 88 (37.93%) DV Cleared
3 56 (24.14%) SC Cleared
4 26 (11.21%) Cisco Certification
5 17 (7.33%) Degree
6 14 (6.03%) Microsoft Certification
7 13 (5.60%) CCNP
8 12 (5.17%) CISSP
8 12 (5.17%) VCAP
9 11 (4.74%) MCSE
10 8 (3.45%) AWS Certification
11 7 (3.02%) Azure Certification
12 6 (2.59%) CISM
13 5 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
13 5 (2.16%) GIAC
13 5 (2.16%) ISTQB
13 5 (2.16%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 5 (2.16%) Master's Degree
14 4 (1.72%) MCSA
15 3 (1.29%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (9.91%) NIST
2 15 (6.47%) NCSC
3 12 (5.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 11 (4.74%) SLA
5 5 (2.16%) Cyber Essentials
5 5 (2.16%) JSP 440
6 4 (1.72%) GRC
7 2 (0.86%) GDPR
7 2 (0.86%) ISA99
7 2 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 2 (0.86%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.43%) QA
System Software
1 110 (47.41%) Active Directory
2 57 (24.57%) VMware Infrastructure
3 33 (14.22%) VMware NSX
4 25 (10.78%) Hyper-V
5 20 (8.62%) Docker
6 16 (6.90%) vSphere
7 3 (1.29%) Firmware
7 3 (1.29%) OpenAM
7 3 (1.29%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.86%) XenApp
8 2 (0.86%) XenDesktop
9 1 (0.43%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 1 (0.43%) KVM
Systems Management
1 40 (17.24%) Ansible
2 37 (15.95%) Kubernetes
3 17 (7.33%) Single Sign-On
4 16 (6.90%) vCenter Server
5 14 (6.03%) VxRail
6 13 (5.60%) Avamar
6 13 (5.60%) SCOM
7 11 (4.74%) FortiGate
8 9 (3.88%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (3.02%) Istio
9 7 (3.02%) SCCM
10 5 (2.16%) Failover Clustering
10 5 (2.16%) WSUS
11 4 (1.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (1.72%) Cisco CUCM
11 4 (1.72%) WMI
12 2 (0.86%) Kibana
13 1 (0.43%) Forefront Identity Manager
13 1 (0.43%) Progress Chef
13 1 (0.43%) Puppet
Vendors
1 89 (38.36%) Microsoft
2 72 (31.03%) VMware
3 43 (18.53%) Cisco
4 26 (11.21%) Thales
5 23 (9.91%) ServiceNow
6 22 (9.48%) Okta
7 18 (7.76%) SolarWinds
8 16 (6.90%) BeyondTrust
8 16 (6.90%) Juniper
9 15 (6.47%) F5
10 13 (5.60%) Dell
11 12 (5.17%) BMC
11 12 (5.17%) Remedy
11 12 (5.17%) Splunk
12 11 (4.74%) Extreme Networks
12 11 (4.74%) Palo Alto
13 9 (3.88%) CheckPoint
13 9 (3.88%) Citrix
14 8 (3.45%) IBM
15 6 (2.59%) NetApp