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

6 months to
29 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 263 190 129
Rank change year-on-year -73 -61 +100
Contract jobs citing PKI 173 153 380
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.77% 1.21% 1.81%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.52% 3.64% 6.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 111 99 245
10th Percentile £363 £410 £363
25th Percentile £485 £501 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £626 £625
90th Percentile £725 £725 £675
UK median daily rate £575 £558 £550
% change year-on-year +3.14% +1.36% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 2
10th Percentile £61.41 - £38.93
25th Percentile £70.50 - £42.19
Median hourly rate £79.50 - £50.75
75th Percentile £96.25 - £60.69
90th Percentile £101.65 - £64.78
UK median hourly rate £79.50 - £50.75
% change year-on-year - - -14.71%

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 6,860 4,209 6,288
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 30.64% 33.15% 29.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,273 2,628 3,737
10th Percentile £213 £205 £205
25th Percentile £366 £363 £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 £680
UK median daily rate £503 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.29% -1.41% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 548 287 692
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.95 £12.15
25th Percentile £18.98 £22.11 £14.36
Median hourly rate £45.46 £31.76 £25.39
Median % change year-on-year +43.14% +25.10% +15.40%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.40 £84.40 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £42.22 £32.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year +29.91% +18.18% +22.22%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 +23 105 £600 - 20
West Midlands -52 23 £400 -5.88% 2
Midlands -63 23 £400 -5.88% 5
South West -58 19 £606 +5.43% 6
North of England -60 18 £482 -32.35% 7
Yorkshire -56 10 £482 -33.52% 4
North West -38 8 £444 -11.25% 3
Scotland -25 5 £550 +2.90% 1
East of England -26 5 £550 - 5
Wales -10 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 14 (8.09%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (1.73%) Exchange Server 2010
2 3 (1.73%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.16%) Confluence
3 2 (1.16%) IIS
4 1 (0.58%) Apache
4 1 (0.58%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.58%) SharePoint Server
4 1 (0.58%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.58%) WebSphere
Applications
1 5 (2.89%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (2.89%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.58%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 31 (17.92%) Azure
2 27 (15.61%) AWS
3 16 (9.25%) Entra ID
4 11 (6.36%) Microsoft 365
5 10 (5.78%) Power Platform
6 9 (5.20%) OpenShift
7 4 (2.31%) AWS CloudFormation
7 4 (2.31%) GCP
7 4 (2.31%) SaaS
8 3 (1.73%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (1.73%) Azure Key Vault
8 3 (1.73%) GitHub
8 3 (1.73%) Power Automate
9 2 (1.16%) AWS KMS
9 2 (1.16%) Google Workspace
9 2 (1.16%) OneDrive
10 1 (0.58%) Anthos
10 1 (0.58%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 49 (28.32%) Firewall
2 45 (26.01%) DNS
3 37 (21.39%) BGP
4 31 (17.92%) DHCP
4 31 (17.92%) WAN
5 24 (13.87%) Junos
6 22 (12.72%) OSPF
6 22 (12.72%) VPN
7 21 (12.14%) Cisco ISE
7 21 (12.14%) LAN
8 20 (11.56%) BIG-IP
8 20 (11.56%) Ethernet VPN
8 20 (11.56%) VXLAN
9 15 (8.67%) MPLS
10 12 (6.94%) SSL
11 11 (6.36%) IPsec
12 10 (5.78%) Cisco IOS
13 9 (5.20%) TCP/IP
14 8 (4.62%) Network Security
15 6 (3.47%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (4.62%) SQL Server
2 5 (2.89%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 7 (4.05%) JIRA
2 6 (3.47%) Robot Framework
3 4 (2.31%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.16%) GitLab
5 1 (0.58%) Git
5 1 (0.58%) Jenkins
General
1 27 (15.61%) Social Skills
2 20 (11.56%) Public Sector
3 11 (6.36%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (4.05%) Finance
5 5 (2.89%) Military
6 3 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (1.16%) Banking
7 2 (1.16%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.16%) Legal
8 1 (0.58%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.58%) Back Office
8 1 (0.58%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 47 (27.17%) Architect
2 34 (19.65%) Senior
3 28 (16.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 15 (8.67%) Network Engineer
5 14 (8.09%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 12 (6.94%) Support Engineer
7 11 (6.36%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 11 (6.36%) Firewall Specialist
7 11 (6.36%) Network Specialist
7 11 (6.36%) Security Engineer
8 9 (5.20%) Cloud Engineer
8 9 (5.20%) Senior Network Engineer
9 8 (4.62%) 3rd Line Support
9 8 (4.62%) Senior Architect
10 7 (4.05%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
11 6 (3.47%) 2nd Line Engineer
11 6 (3.47%) Wintel Engineer
12 5 (2.89%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 5 (2.89%) Infrastructure Support
12 5 (2.89%) WAN Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (11.56%) 802.1X
2 7 (4.05%) LDAP
2 7 (4.05%) REST
3 5 (2.89%) OpenID
4 4 (2.31%) OAuth
4 4 (2.31%) SAML
5 3 (1.73%) OAuth2
5 3 (1.73%) SailPoint
6 2 (1.16%) JSON
7 1 (0.58%) OpenTelemetry
7 1 (0.58%) Web Services
7 1 (0.58%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 22 (12.72%) Clustering
2 21 (12.14%) Data Centre
3 9 (5.20%) Public Cloud
4 8 (4.62%) Fat Client
4 8 (4.62%) Thin Client
5 6 (3.47%) Algorithms
5 6 (3.47%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (2.89%) Operational Technology
6 5 (2.89%) Smartcard
7 4 (2.31%) Onboarding
7 4 (2.31%) Security Operations Centre
8 3 (1.73%) Security Posture
9 2 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (1.16%) Management Information System
9 2 (1.16%) SCADA
9 2 (1.16%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 1 (0.58%) CMDB
10 1 (0.58%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.58%) Replication
10 1 (0.58%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 69 (39.88%) Windows
2 36 (20.81%) Linux
3 31 (17.92%) Windows Server
4 8 (4.62%) Windows 7
5 7 (4.05%) Windows Server 2012
6 6 (3.47%) Ubuntu
7 5 (2.89%) CentOS
8 4 (2.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (2.31%) Windows 10
9 2 (1.16%) VMS
9 2 (1.16%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (1.16%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.58%) Debian
10 1 (0.58%) Solaris
10 1 (0.58%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (27.75%) Agile
2 43 (24.86%) Identity Access Management
3 32 (18.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 30 (17.34%) Problem-Solving
5 25 (14.45%) ITIL
5 25 (14.45%) Load Balancing
6 23 (13.29%) CI/CD
6 23 (13.29%) High Availability
6 23 (13.29%) Observability
7 22 (12.72%) Key Management
8 20 (11.56%) Cybersecurity
9 19 (10.98%) ITSM
9 19 (10.98%) Service Management
10 18 (10.40%) DevOps
10 18 (10.40%) Infrastructure as Code
11 16 (9.25%) Change Management
11 16 (9.25%) Platform Engineering
12 15 (8.67%) Continuous Improvement
13 14 (8.09%) Cloud Security
13 14 (8.09%) Prototyping
Programming Languages
1 37 (21.39%) PowerShell
2 36 (20.81%) Python
3 12 (6.94%) SQL
4 11 (6.36%) Bash
5 5 (2.89%) JavaScript
6 4 (2.31%) C#
6 4 (2.31%) PHP
7 1 (0.58%) Go
7 1 (0.58%) Java
7 1 (0.58%) Perl
7 1 (0.58%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 126 (72.83%) Security Cleared
2 82 (47.40%) DV Cleared
3 41 (23.70%) SC Cleared
4 18 (10.40%) Cisco Certification
5 14 (8.09%) CISM
5 14 (8.09%) CISSP
6 13 (7.51%) Degree
7 8 (4.62%) GIAC
7 8 (4.62%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (4.05%) JNCIA
8 7 (4.05%) JNCIP
8 7 (4.05%) JNCIS
9 6 (3.47%) MCSE
10 4 (2.31%) APMG
10 4 (2.31%) AWS Certification
10 4 (2.31%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (2.31%) SSCP
10 4 (2.31%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (1.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (9.25%) NIST
2 14 (8.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (5.78%) Cyber Essentials
4 9 (5.20%) NCSC
5 6 (3.47%) PCI DSS
6 5 (2.89%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 4 (2.31%) GDPR
7 4 (2.31%) SLA
8 2 (1.16%) ISA99
8 2 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.58%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.58%) SOC 2
System Software
1 52 (30.06%) Active Directory
2 32 (18.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (6.36%) VMware NSX
4 7 (4.05%) Docker
4 7 (4.05%) Firmware
4 7 (4.05%) Hyper-V
4 7 (4.05%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (1.73%) Sendmail
5 3 (1.73%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (1.16%) KVM
6 2 (1.16%) vSphere
7 1 (0.58%) NFS
Systems Management
1 25 (14.45%) Ansible
1 25 (14.45%) Terraform
2 20 (11.56%) FortiGate
3 16 (9.25%) Kubernetes
4 14 (8.09%) vCenter Server
5 13 (7.51%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (4.62%) Microsoft Intune
6 8 (4.62%) WMI
7 5 (2.89%) SCOM
8 4 (2.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 4 (2.31%) Prometheus
8 4 (2.31%) QRadar
8 4 (2.31%) SCCM
8 4 (2.31%) WSUS
9 3 (1.73%) Grafana
9 3 (1.73%) Podman
9 3 (1.73%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.58%) CASB
10 1 (0.58%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.58%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 57 (32.95%) Microsoft
2 53 (30.64%) VMware
3 43 (24.86%) Cisco
4 34 (19.65%) Juniper
5 26 (15.03%) SolarWinds
6 24 (13.87%) Splunk
7 22 (12.72%) F5
8 19 (10.98%) Extreme Networks
9 9 (5.20%) ServiceNow
9 9 (5.20%) Thales
10 7 (4.05%) Google
11 6 (3.47%) Palo Alto
12 5 (2.89%) BMC
12 5 (2.89%) Broadcom
12 5 (2.89%) Remedy
13 4 (2.31%) Citrix
13 4 (2.31%) Red Hat
14 3 (1.73%) IBM
14 3 (1.73%) Veeam
14 3 (1.73%) Zscaler