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 7 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 252 207 134
Rank change year-on-year -45 -73 +115
Contract jobs citing PKI 175 146 369
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.82% 1.09% 1.74%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.64% 3.29% 5.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 117 87 236
10th Percentile £350 £413 £363
25th Percentile £482 £513 £465
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £556
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +3.46% -2.07%
75th Percentile £663 £634 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £681
UK median daily rate £550 £570 £575
% change year-on-year -3.51% -0.87% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 2
10th Percentile £61.41 - £56.61
25th Percentile £70.50 - £56.93
Median hourly rate £79.50 - £59.70
75th Percentile £96.25 - £64.73
90th Percentile £101.65 - £66.39
UK median hourly rate £79.50 - £59.70
% change year-on-year - - +8.55%

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 6,620 4,444 6,363
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 31.07% 33.28% 29.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,116 2,649 3,815
10th Percentile £205 £200 £206
25th Percentile £358 £360 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £594
90th Percentile £675 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 521 263 659
10th Percentile £14.25 £16.95 £12.26
25th Percentile £18.17 £21.75 £15.16
Median hourly rate £33.50 £31.76 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.48% +11.44% +29.55%
75th Percentile £67.00 £66.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.37 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £32.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +3.08% +8.33% +33.42%

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 7 March 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 7 March 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 7 March 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 +32 95 £600 -0.83% 36
South West -47 29 £550 -4.35% 8
West Midlands -41 26 £375 -11.76% 7
Midlands -51 26 £375 -11.76% 13
North of England -65 18 £482 -32.35% 7
Yorkshire -56 10 £482 -33.52% 3
North West -32 8 £444 -11.25% 3
Scotland -19 6 £625 +16.93% 1
East of England - 3 £550 - 10
Wales -1 1 £550 +20.22% 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 20 (11.43%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (4.57%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.71%) Confluence
3 3 (1.71%) Exchange Server 2010
3 3 (1.71%) SharePoint Server
3 3 (1.71%) Skype for Business
4 2 (1.14%) IIS
5 1 (0.57%) Apache
5 1 (0.57%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.57%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.57%) WebSphere
Applications
1 8 (4.57%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.71%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.57%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 30 (17.14%) Azure
2 25 (14.29%) AWS
3 14 (8.00%) Entra ID
4 10 (5.71%) Microsoft 365
5 9 (5.14%) OpenShift
6 7 (4.00%) Power Platform
7 5 (2.86%) AWS CloudFormation
8 4 (2.29%) GCP
8 4 (2.29%) SaaS
9 3 (1.71%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (1.71%) Azure Key Vault
9 3 (1.71%) GitHub
9 3 (1.71%) Power Automate
10 2 (1.14%) AWS KMS
10 2 (1.14%) Google Workspace
10 2 (1.14%) OneDrive
11 1 (0.57%) Anthos
11 1 (0.57%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 47 (26.86%) DNS
2 46 (26.29%) Firewall
3 36 (20.57%) BGP
4 32 (18.29%) DHCP
5 30 (17.14%) WAN
6 21 (12.00%) Junos
6 21 (12.00%) VPN
7 19 (10.86%) OSPF
8 18 (10.29%) LAN
9 17 (9.71%) BIG-IP
9 17 (9.71%) Cisco ISE
9 17 (9.71%) Ethernet VPN
9 17 (9.71%) MPLS
9 17 (9.71%) VXLAN
10 11 (6.29%) IPsec
10 11 (6.29%) SSL
11 10 (5.71%) Cisco IOS
12 9 (5.14%) Skype
12 9 (5.14%) TCP/IP
13 7 (4.00%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.71%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.71%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 8 (4.57%) JIRA
2 6 (3.43%) Robot Framework
3 4 (2.29%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.14%) GitLab
5 1 (0.57%) Git
5 1 (0.57%) Jenkins
General
1 30 (17.14%) Social Skills
2 24 (13.71%) Public Sector
3 14 (8.00%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (4.00%) Military
5 6 (3.43%) Finance
6 3 (1.71%) Banking
6 3 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (1.14%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.14%) Legal
8 1 (0.57%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.57%) Back Office
8 1 (0.57%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.57%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 48 (27.43%) Architect
2 30 (17.14%) Senior
3 25 (14.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 15 (8.57%) Support Engineer
5 14 (8.00%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 14 (8.00%) Network Engineer
6 12 (6.86%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
7 11 (6.29%) 3rd Line Support
8 10 (5.71%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 10 (5.71%) Security Engineer
9 9 (5.14%) Firewall Specialist
9 9 (5.14%) Network Specialist
9 9 (5.14%) Wintel Engineer
10 8 (4.57%) Cloud Engineer
10 8 (4.57%) Senior Network Engineer
11 7 (4.00%) 2nd Line Engineer
11 7 (4.00%) Senior Architect
12 6 (3.43%) Platform Engineer
12 6 (3.43%) WAN Engineer
13 5 (2.86%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (9.71%) 802.1X
2 7 (4.00%) LDAP
3 5 (2.86%) OpenID
3 5 (2.86%) REST
4 4 (2.29%) OAuth
4 4 (2.29%) SAML
5 3 (1.71%) OAuth2
5 3 (1.71%) SailPoint
6 2 (1.14%) JSON
7 1 (0.57%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.57%) Web Services
7 1 (0.57%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (10.29%) Clustering
1 18 (10.29%) Data Centre
2 9 (5.14%) Fat Client
2 9 (5.14%) Thin Client
3 6 (3.43%) Algorithms
3 6 (3.43%) Public Cloud
4 5 (2.86%) Smartcard
5 4 (2.29%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (2.29%) Security Operations Centre
6 3 (1.71%) Onboarding
6 3 (1.71%) Operational Technology
6 3 (1.71%) Security Posture
7 2 (1.14%) Cloud Native
7 2 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.14%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.14%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 1 (0.57%) CMDB
8 1 (0.57%) Replication
8 1 (0.57%) Tandem
8 1 (0.57%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 72 (41.14%) Windows
2 34 (19.43%) Windows Server
3 33 (18.86%) Linux
4 9 (5.14%) Windows 7
5 8 (4.57%) Windows 10
5 8 (4.57%) Windows Server 2012
6 6 (3.43%) Ubuntu
7 5 (2.86%) CentOS
8 4 (2.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (2.29%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (1.14%) VMS
9 2 (1.14%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.57%) Solaris
10 1 (0.57%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (27.43%) Agile
2 36 (20.57%) Identity Access Management
3 29 (16.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 29 (16.57%) Problem-Solving
4 24 (13.71%) ITIL
5 23 (13.14%) CI/CD
5 23 (13.14%) Key Management
5 23 (13.14%) Load Balancing
6 21 (12.00%) Service Management
7 20 (11.43%) High Availability
8 19 (10.86%) DevOps
8 19 (10.86%) Observability
8 19 (10.86%) Platform Engineering
9 17 (9.71%) Change Management
9 17 (9.71%) Cybersecurity
10 16 (9.14%) Infrastructure as Code
10 16 (9.14%) ITSM
11 15 (8.57%) Prototyping
12 14 (8.00%) Continuous Improvement
13 13 (7.43%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 37 (21.14%) PowerShell
2 35 (20.00%) Python
3 14 (8.00%) SQL
4 11 (6.29%) Bash
5 4 (2.29%) PHP
6 3 (1.71%) C#
6 3 (1.71%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.57%) Bicep
7 1 (0.57%) Go
7 1 (0.57%) Java
7 1 (0.57%) Perl
7 1 (0.57%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 127 (72.57%) Security Cleared
2 80 (45.71%) DV Cleared
3 46 (26.29%) SC Cleared
4 18 (10.29%) Cisco Certification
5 16 (9.14%) Degree
6 14 (8.00%) CISM
6 14 (8.00%) CISSP
7 11 (6.29%) Microsoft Certification
8 9 (5.14%) MCSE
9 8 (4.57%) GIAC
10 6 (3.43%) JNCIA
10 6 (3.43%) JNCIP
10 6 (3.43%) JNCIS
11 5 (2.86%) Master's Degree
11 5 (2.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 4 (2.29%) APMG
12 4 (2.29%) AWS Certification
12 4 (2.29%) CompTIA Security+
12 4 (2.29%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (2.29%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (8.57%) NIST
2 13 (7.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (4.00%) Cyber Essentials
4 6 (3.43%) NCSC
4 6 (3.43%) PCI DSS
5 5 (2.86%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (2.29%) GDPR
6 4 (2.29%) SLA
7 1 (0.57%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.57%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.57%) SOC 2
System Software
1 58 (33.14%) Active Directory
2 35 (20.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (5.71%) VMware NSX
4 8 (4.57%) Hyper-V
5 7 (4.00%) Docker
5 7 (4.00%) Firmware
5 7 (4.00%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (2.86%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (2.29%) vSphere
8 3 (1.71%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (1.71%) Sendmail
8 3 (1.71%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (1.14%) KVM
10 1 (0.57%) NFS
Systems Management
1 26 (14.86%) Terraform
2 25 (14.29%) Ansible
3 17 (9.71%) FortiGate
4 16 (9.14%) Kubernetes
4 16 (9.14%) vCenter Server
5 12 (6.86%) Single Sign-On
6 9 (5.14%) Microsoft Intune
6 9 (5.14%) SCCM
6 9 (5.14%) WMI
6 9 (5.14%) WSUS
7 7 (4.00%) SCOM
8 6 (3.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (2.29%) Prometheus
9 4 (2.29%) QRadar
10 3 (1.71%) Grafana
10 3 (1.71%) Podman
10 3 (1.71%) Proxmox
11 1 (0.57%) Argo
11 1 (0.57%) Istio
11 1 (0.57%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 61 (34.86%) Microsoft
2 56 (32.00%) VMware
3 42 (24.00%) Cisco
4 33 (18.86%) Juniper
5 28 (16.00%) SolarWinds
6 24 (13.71%) Splunk
7 19 (10.86%) F5
8 16 (9.14%) Extreme Networks
9 10 (5.71%) Thales
10 8 (4.57%) Veeam
11 7 (4.00%) Google
11 7 (4.00%) ServiceNow
12 5 (2.86%) Broadcom
13 4 (2.29%) Palo Alto
13 4 (2.29%) Red Hat
14 3 (1.71%) BMC
14 3 (1.71%) CheckPoint
14 3 (1.71%) Citrix
14 3 (1.71%) IBM
14 3 (1.71%) Remedy