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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 248 241 170
Rank change year-on-year -7 -71 +17
Contract jobs citing PKI 241 138 222
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.86% 0.88% 1.27%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.72% 2.53% 4.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 172 112 143
10th Percentile £417 £325 £410
25th Percentile £463 £413 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £545 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.92% +1.40% -8.90%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £608
90th Percentile £700 £649 £650
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £548
% change year-on-year - +0.46% -4.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 0 0
10th Percentile £85.00 - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £96.00 - -
75th Percentile £98.82 - -
90th Percentile £100.00 - -
UK median hourly rate £96.00 - £23.80
% change year-on-year - - -56.73%

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 8,863 5,447 5,087
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 31.57% 34.71% 29.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,988 3,264 2,826
10th Percentile £275 £225 £205
25th Percentile £402 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £580 £600
90th Percentile £690 £667 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £527
% change year-on-year +0.96% -1.28% -4.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,022 447 336
10th Percentile £13.51 £13.69 £14.80
25th Percentile £17.17 £17.65 £22.47
Median hourly rate £35.91 £29.27 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +22.69% -48.96% +13.09%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.70 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £28.13 £49.75
% change year-on-year +28.00% -43.47% +11.17%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 -12 78 £575 - 33
North of England -17 67 £525 +6.71% 25
Scotland +20 41 £481 -12.55% 15
South West -51 36 £670 +21.82% 35
North West -23 34 £522 +6.10% 12
Yorkshire -4 31 £570 -5.00% 9
East of England -17 8 £610 +1.67% 9
Midlands -66 8 £475 +18.75% 15
West Midlands -72 7 £475 +18.75% 12
Wales - 6 £463 - 6
North East - 2 £426 - 4
East Midlands -10 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 13 (5.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (4.98%) Confluence
3 8 (3.32%) SharePoint
4 4 (1.66%) IIS
5 3 (1.24%) Exchange Server 2010
6 2 (0.83%) Apache
6 2 (0.83%) nginx
6 2 (0.83%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.83%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.41%) Traefik
Applications
1 4 (1.66%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 7 (2.90%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.41%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 61 (25.31%) Azure
2 48 (19.92%) Entra ID
3 40 (16.60%) AWS
4 22 (9.13%) GCP
5 10 (4.15%) Microsoft 365
5 10 (4.15%) Power Platform
6 5 (2.07%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (2.07%) Azure Monitor
6 5 (2.07%) GitHub
7 4 (1.66%) Azure Key Vault
7 4 (1.66%) OpenShift
8 3 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (0.83%) AWS KMS
9 2 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
9 2 (0.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 1 (0.41%) Amazon ECS
10 1 (0.41%) AWS Fargate
10 1 (0.41%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 1 (0.41%) Kong
10 1 (0.41%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 73 (30.29%) DNS
2 54 (22.41%) Firewall
3 49 (20.33%) DHCP
4 27 (11.20%) TCP/IP
5 25 (10.37%) VPN
6 16 (6.64%) LAN
6 16 (6.64%) SSL
7 15 (6.22%) IPsec
7 15 (6.22%) Network Security
7 15 (6.22%) WAN
8 14 (5.81%) VSAN
9 13 (5.39%) BGP
9 13 (5.39%) Cisco ASA
9 13 (5.39%) Cisco Firepower
10 12 (4.98%) Cisco Nexus
11 11 (4.56%) OSPF
11 11 (4.56%) VLAN
11 11 (4.56%) Wireless
12 10 (4.15%) VoIP
13 9 (3.73%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (8.30%) SQL Server
2 7 (2.90%) Power BI
3 2 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.83%) Metadata
4 1 (0.41%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.41%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.41%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 15 (6.22%) JIRA
2 6 (2.49%) Jenkins
3 5 (2.07%) Git
3 5 (2.07%) GitLab
4 3 (1.24%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.83%) Burp Suite
5 2 (0.83%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.83%) Gatling
5 2 (0.83%) Gradle
5 2 (0.83%) LoadRunner
5 2 (0.83%) REST Assured
5 2 (0.83%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.41%) MSI
6 1 (0.41%) Robot Framework
General
1 50 (20.75%) Social Skills
2 24 (9.96%) Finance
3 23 (9.54%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (8.30%) Public Sector
5 14 (5.81%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (4.15%) Banking
7 6 (2.49%) Military
7 6 (2.49%) Police
8 3 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.24%) Investment Banking
8 3 (1.24%) Retail
9 2 (0.83%) Aerospace
9 2 (0.83%) Corporate Banking
9 2 (0.83%) Legal
9 2 (0.83%) Retail Banking
10 1 (0.41%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.41%) Law
10 1 (0.41%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.41%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 51 (21.16%) Senior
2 38 (15.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 23 (9.54%) Architect
4 20 (8.30%) Network Engineer
5 18 (7.47%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 17 (7.05%) Platform Engineer
6 17 (7.05%) Support Engineer
7 14 (5.81%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 14 (5.81%) Consultant
7 14 (5.81%) Senior Network Engineer
7 14 (5.81%) Storage Engineer
8 11 (4.56%) Solutions Architect
9 8 (3.32%) Lead
10 7 (2.90%) Integration Engineer
10 7 (2.90%) Principal Engineer
11 6 (2.49%) Security Engineer
11 6 (2.49%) VMware Engineer
12 5 (2.07%) Cybersecurity Specialist
12 5 (2.07%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 5 (2.07%) Wintel Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (16.18%) Terraform
2 20 (8.30%) LDAP
3 17 (7.05%) OpenID
4 16 (6.64%) SAML
5 15 (6.22%) 802.1X
5 15 (6.22%) OAuth
6 14 (5.81%) REST
7 10 (4.15%) OAuth2
8 8 (3.32%) .NET
8 8 (3.32%) .NET Framework
8 8 (3.32%) XML
9 5 (2.07%) FIDO
9 5 (2.07%) RabbitMQ
10 4 (1.66%) WebAuthn
11 2 (0.83%) A2A Protocol
11 2 (0.83%) JSON
11 2 (0.83%) Model Context Protocol
11 2 (0.83%) Node.js
11 2 (0.83%) Playwright
11 2 (0.83%) Quarkus
Miscellaneous
1 23 (9.54%) Data Centre
2 19 (7.88%) Clustering
3 10 (4.15%) Public Cloud
4 9 (3.73%) Legacy Systems
4 9 (3.73%) Onboarding
5 8 (3.32%) Cloud Native
5 8 (3.32%) Management Information System
5 8 (3.32%) Self-Motivation
6 7 (2.90%) Linux Command Line
7 6 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
7 6 (2.49%) Replication
7 6 (2.49%) Security Posture
8 5 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.66%) Enterprise Storage
9 4 (1.66%) Fibre Optics
9 4 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (1.66%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.66%) Private Cloud
9 4 (1.66%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 121 (50.21%) Windows
2 73 (30.29%) Windows Server
3 65 (26.97%) Linux
4 12 (4.98%) Windows Server 2016
5 8 (3.32%) Unix
6 7 (2.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (2.90%) Windows Server 2012
7 6 (2.49%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (2.07%) Debian
9 4 (1.66%) Android
9 4 (1.66%) Apple iOS
9 4 (1.66%) Mac OS
9 4 (1.66%) Windows 10
10 3 (1.24%) CentOS
11 2 (0.83%) Data ONTAP
11 2 (0.83%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.41%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 76 (31.54%) Identity Access Management
2 55 (22.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 47 (19.50%) Cybersecurity
4 43 (17.84%) ITIL
4 43 (17.84%) Technical Leadership
5 42 (17.43%) Problem-Solving
6 36 (14.94%) Agile
7 33 (13.69%) Continuous Improvement
7 33 (13.69%) Zero Trust
8 32 (13.28%) Stakeholder Management
9 31 (12.86%) Infrastructure as Code
9 31 (12.86%) Key Management
10 30 (12.45%) CI/CD
11 29 (12.03%) Platform Engineering
12 28 (11.62%) DevSecOps
12 28 (11.62%) Mentoring
12 28 (11.62%) Service Management
13 27 (11.20%) High Availability
14 26 (10.79%) Change Management
15 25 (10.37%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 79 (32.78%) PowerShell
2 49 (20.33%) Python
3 23 (9.54%) Bash
4 10 (4.15%) SQL
5 8 (3.32%) C#
6 7 (2.90%) JavaScript
7 5 (2.07%) Java
8 3 (1.24%) Go
9 1 (0.41%) Bicep
9 1 (0.41%) Ruby
9 1 (0.41%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 139 (57.68%) Security Cleared
2 88 (36.51%) DV Cleared
3 64 (26.56%) SC Cleared
4 17 (7.05%) Microsoft Certification
5 16 (6.64%) Cisco Certification
5 16 (6.64%) Degree
6 13 (5.39%) CCNP
6 13 (5.39%) CISSP
6 13 (5.39%) MCSE
7 12 (4.98%) VCAP
8 9 (3.73%) AWS Certification
9 6 (2.49%) Azure Certification
9 6 (2.49%) CISM
9 6 (2.49%) MCSA
10 5 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (2.07%) GIAC
10 5 (2.07%) ISTQB
10 5 (2.07%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 4 (1.66%) Master's Degree
12 3 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (8.30%) NIST
2 16 (6.64%) NCSC
3 12 (4.98%) SLA
4 9 (3.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (3.32%) JSP 440
6 6 (2.49%) GRC
7 2 (0.83%) GDPR
7 2 (0.83%) QA
System Software
1 124 (51.45%) Active Directory
2 61 (25.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (11.62%) Hyper-V
3 28 (11.62%) VMware NSX
4 21 (8.71%) Docker
4 21 (8.71%) vSphere
5 10 (4.15%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (2.07%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (1.66%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (1.24%) OpenAM
8 3 (1.24%) UAG
9 2 (0.83%) DFS Replication
9 2 (0.83%) Firmware
9 2 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.83%) XenApp
9 2 (0.83%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.41%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 42 (17.43%) Kubernetes
2 35 (14.52%) Ansible
3 20 (8.30%) Single Sign-On
3 20 (8.30%) vCenter Server
4 18 (7.47%) VxRail
5 15 (6.22%) SCOM
6 14 (5.81%) Avamar
7 12 (4.98%) SCCM
8 10 (4.15%) WSUS
9 9 (3.73%) Microsoft Intune
10 8 (3.32%) Failover Clustering
10 8 (3.32%) Istio
11 4 (1.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (1.66%) Cisco CUCM
11 4 (1.66%) McAfee ePO
11 4 (1.66%) Nessus
11 4 (1.66%) WMI
12 3 (1.24%) OPNET
13 2 (0.83%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.83%) Kibana
Vendors
1 104 (43.15%) Microsoft
2 75 (31.12%) VMware
3 31 (12.86%) Cisco
4 26 (10.79%) Thales
5 23 (9.54%) Okta
6 20 (8.30%) ServiceNow
7 18 (7.47%) Dell
8 17 (7.05%) BeyondTrust
9 11 (4.56%) Citrix
10 9 (3.73%) CheckPoint
10 9 (3.73%) Fortinet
10 9 (3.73%) Palo Alto
10 9 (3.73%) SolarWinds
11 7 (2.90%) BMC
11 7 (2.90%) McAfee
11 7 (2.90%) NetApp
11 7 (2.90%) Remedy
12 6 (2.49%) Google
12 6 (2.49%) IBM
12 6 (2.49%) Juniper