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 11 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 232 180 159
Rank change year-on-year -52 -21 +98
Contract jobs citing PKI 172 200 310
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.96% 1.26% 1.53%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.86% 4.13% 4.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 128 110 174
10th Percentile £309 £413 £400
25th Percentile £413 £477 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £529 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -3.86% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £600 £623 £650
90th Percentile £689 £725 £700
UK median daily rate £550 £551 £575
% change year-on-year -0.18% -4.17% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 5
10th Percentile £74.80 - £46.38
25th Percentile £82.00 - -
Median hourly rate £90.00 - £55.00
75th Percentile £100.00 - £56.40
90th Percentile £103.30 - £63.06
UK median hourly rate £90.00 - £55.00
% change year-on-year - - -8.33%

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 6,009 4,846 6,372
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 33.65% 30.58% 31.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,715 2,684 4,085
10th Percentile £204 £205 £213
25th Percentile £358 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £503 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.51% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 473 280 380
10th Percentile £12.97 £15.72 £16.48
25th Percentile £16.85 £22.50 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.00 £32.50 £45.21
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -28.11% +53.25%
75th Percentile £58.00 £66.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £78.04
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £34.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.06% -20.00% +21.43%

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 11 December 2025.

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 11 December 2025.

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 11 December 2025. 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 -7 59 £594 +0.42% 33
South West -35 44 £550 +0.36% 4
Midlands -2 40 £400 -27.27% 5
West Midlands +3 39 £400 -27.27% 4
North of England -37 19 £482 -33.52% 8
North West -7 12 £379 -22.31% 2
Scotland -24 8 £538 +19.44% 1
Yorkshire -39 7 £485 -33.17% 4
East of England -11 3 £550 - 10
Wales +1 1 £550 - 1
East Midlands - 1 - - 1
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 28 (16.28%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (6.40%) SharePoint
3 8 (4.65%) Apache
4 6 (3.49%) Skype for Business
5 4 (2.33%) Confluence
5 4 (2.33%) JBoss
5 4 (2.33%) SharePoint Server
6 3 (1.74%) Exchange Server 2010
6 3 (1.74%) IIS
Applications
1 9 (5.23%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (1.16%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 30 (17.44%) Azure
2 24 (13.95%) AWS
3 12 (6.98%) Microsoft 365
4 9 (5.23%) OpenShift
5 7 (4.07%) Entra ID
6 6 (3.49%) Power Platform
7 5 (2.91%) AWS CloudFormation
7 5 (2.91%) Azure Sentinel
7 5 (2.91%) GitHub
8 4 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (1.74%) Power Automate
9 3 (1.74%) SaaS
10 2 (1.16%) AWS KMS
10 2 (1.16%) Datadog
10 2 (1.16%) GCP
10 2 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (1.16%) Google Workspace
11 1 (0.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 1 (0.58%) OneDrive
11 1 (0.58%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 43 (25.00%) Firewall
2 33 (19.19%) DNS
3 27 (15.70%) VPN
4 25 (14.53%) BGP
4 25 (14.53%) IPsec
4 25 (14.53%) WAN
5 24 (13.95%) MPLS
6 17 (9.88%) DHCP
7 16 (9.30%) Skype
7 16 (9.30%) SSL
8 10 (5.81%) Junos
8 10 (5.81%) Network Security
9 9 (5.23%) TCP/IP
10 6 (3.49%) VSAN
11 5 (2.91%) Unified Communications
12 4 (2.33%) Cisco Firepower
12 4 (2.33%) Cisco IOS
12 4 (2.33%) Cisco ISE
12 4 (2.33%) Internet
12 4 (2.33%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (8.14%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.74%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 8 (4.65%) JIRA
2 3 (1.74%) GitLab
2 3 (1.74%) Robot Framework
2 3 (1.74%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (1.16%) Artifactory
3 2 (1.16%) MSI
3 2 (1.16%) SpecFlow
4 1 (0.58%) CircleCI
4 1 (0.58%) Jenkins
General
1 43 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 25 (14.53%) Public Sector
3 20 (11.63%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (3.49%) Military
5 4 (2.33%) Finance
6 3 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (0.58%) Aerospace
7 1 (0.58%) Banking
7 1 (0.58%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.58%) Legal
7 1 (0.58%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.58%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 37 (21.51%) Architect
2 26 (15.12%) 3rd Line Engineer
3 25 (14.53%) Support Engineer
4 20 (11.63%) 3rd Line Support
5 19 (11.05%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
6 17 (9.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 15 (8.72%) Senior
8 11 (6.40%) WAN Engineer
9 10 (5.81%) 2nd Line Engineer
9 10 (5.81%) Network Engineer
10 9 (5.23%) Administrator
10 9 (5.23%) Platform Manager
10 9 (5.23%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 9 (5.23%) Systems Administrator
10 9 (5.23%) Systems Manager
10 9 (5.23%) Wintel Administrator
10 9 (5.23%) Wintel Engineer
10 9 (5.23%) Wintel Systems Administrator
11 8 (4.65%) Cloud Engineer
12 7 (4.07%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (2.33%) Kafka
2 3 (1.74%) REST
3 2 (1.16%) .NET
3 2 (1.16%) AngularJS
3 2 (1.16%) Gherkin
3 2 (1.16%) ModSecurity
3 2 (1.16%) OpenID
3 2 (1.16%) Playwright
3 2 (1.16%) YAML
4 1 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (0.58%) Middleware
4 1 (0.58%) OAuth
4 1 (0.58%) OAuth2
4 1 (0.58%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.23%) Fat Client
1 9 (5.23%) Thin Client
2 5 (2.91%) Public Cloud
3 4 (2.33%) Algorithms
3 4 (2.33%) Data Centre
3 4 (2.33%) Security Operations Centre
3 4 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
4 3 (1.74%) Cloud Native
4 3 (1.74%) Cyber Defence
4 3 (1.74%) Onboarding
4 3 (1.74%) Private Cloud
4 3 (1.74%) Replication
4 3 (1.74%) Security Posture
5 2 (1.16%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.58%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.58%) Cyber Security Posture
6 1 (0.58%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (0.58%) Product Ownership
6 1 (0.58%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 71 (41.28%) Windows
2 40 (23.26%) Linux
3 35 (20.35%) Windows Server
4 13 (7.56%) Windows 10
5 9 (5.23%) Windows 7
6 8 (4.65%) Windows Server 2012
7 7 (4.07%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (3.49%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (2.91%) CentOS
9 5 (2.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (2.33%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (1.16%) VMS
12 1 (0.58%) Solaris
12 1 (0.58%) SUSE
12 1 (0.58%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.58%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (24.42%) Agile
2 29 (16.86%) Change Management
3 22 (12.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 22 (12.79%) ITIL
4 21 (12.21%) CI/CD
4 21 (12.21%) Service Management
5 20 (11.63%) Cryptography
5 20 (11.63%) DevOps
6 19 (11.05%) Migration
6 19 (11.05%) Problem-Solving
7 18 (10.47%) Load Balancing
7 18 (10.47%) Platform Engineering
8 17 (9.88%) Incident Response
8 17 (9.88%) Key Management
9 16 (9.30%) SIEM
10 15 (8.72%) Continuous Improvement
11 14 (8.14%) Cybersecurity
11 14 (8.14%) Identity Access Management
11 14 (8.14%) Prototyping
12 12 (6.98%) Network Design
Programming Languages
1 37 (21.51%) PowerShell
2 24 (13.95%) Python
3 16 (9.30%) SQL
4 8 (4.65%) Bash
5 2 (1.16%) C#
5 2 (1.16%) JavaScript
5 2 (1.16%) PHP
6 1 (0.58%) Bicep
6 1 (0.58%) C
6 1 (0.58%) Perl
6 1 (0.58%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 121 (70.35%) Security Cleared
2 68 (39.53%) DV Cleared
3 53 (30.81%) SC Cleared
4 15 (8.72%) Degree
5 14 (8.14%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (7.56%) CISSP
7 12 (6.98%) CISM
7 12 (6.98%) MCSE
8 7 (4.07%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (4.07%) ITIL Certification
9 6 (3.49%) CCNP
9 6 (3.49%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 5 (2.91%) AWS Certification
10 5 (2.91%) CCNA
10 5 (2.91%) Master's Degree
11 3 (1.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (1.16%) GIAC
12 2 (1.16%) ISTQB
12 2 (1.16%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.40%) NIST
2 9 (5.23%) NCSC
3 8 (4.65%) PCI DSS
4 7 (4.07%) GDPR
5 6 (3.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.74%) FIPS 140-2
7 2 (1.16%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (1.16%) SLA
7 2 (1.16%) SOC 1
8 1 (0.58%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.58%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.58%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.58%) PMO
8 1 (0.58%) RMADS
System Software
1 59 (34.30%) Active Directory
2 36 (20.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 10 (5.81%) Docker
3 10 (5.81%) VMware NSX
4 9 (5.23%) Hyper-V
5 6 (3.49%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (3.49%) Virtual Servers
6 5 (2.91%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 5 (2.91%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (2.33%) Firmware
8 3 (1.74%) Sendmail
8 3 (1.74%) vSphere
9 1 (0.58%) NFS
Systems Management
1 23 (13.37%) Ansible
2 16 (9.30%) Terraform
2 16 (9.30%) vCenter Server
3 15 (8.72%) Kubernetes
4 12 (6.98%) SCCM
5 11 (6.40%) Microsoft Intune
5 11 (6.40%) WMI
5 11 (6.40%) WSUS
6 10 (5.81%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 8 (4.65%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (2.33%) Podman
8 4 (2.33%) QRadar
9 3 (1.74%) Check_MK
9 3 (1.74%) Grafana
9 3 (1.74%) OPNET
9 3 (1.74%) Prometheus
9 3 (1.74%) Proxmox
9 3 (1.74%) SCOM
10 2 (1.16%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.58%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 69 (40.12%) Microsoft
2 50 (29.07%) VMware
3 31 (18.02%) Juniper
4 26 (15.12%) Cisco
5 15 (8.72%) SolarWinds
6 14 (8.14%) Veeam
7 13 (7.56%) Splunk
8 6 (3.49%) Google
9 5 (2.91%) Fortinet
9 5 (2.91%) IBM
9 5 (2.91%) Red Hat
10 4 (2.33%) Broadcom
10 4 (2.33%) Oracle
10 4 (2.33%) Thales
11 3 (1.74%) Citrix
11 3 (1.74%) ServiceNow
11 3 (1.74%) Zscaler
12 2 (1.16%) CheckPoint
12 2 (1.16%) Qualys
12 2 (1.16%) Wyse