BIG-IP Contract Job Trends

F5 Networks BIG-IP
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring BIG-IP skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 22 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 528 520 541
Rank change year-on-year -8 +21 +116
Contract jobs citing BIG-IP 135 25 35
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.077% 0.085%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.70% 0.63% 0.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 13 27
10th Percentile £393 £344 £213
25th Percentile £450 £381 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year +22.35% +6.25% -38.46%
75th Percentile £588 £530 £581
90th Percentile £655 £595 £616
UK excluding London median daily rate £534 £520 £550
% change year-on-year +2.62% -5.45% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £44.28 - -
25th Percentile £48.68 - -
Median hourly rate £57.02 - -
75th Percentile £65.01 - -
90th Percentile £69.20 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.02 - -

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

BIG-IP falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 4,993 3,967 5,141
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.47% 12.16% 12.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,011 2,422 3,069
10th Percentile £250 £235 £213
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £489 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.25% -2.20% -
75th Percentile £588 £589 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.05% -5.00% +9.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 324 193 383
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £13.90
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £17.66
Median hourly rate £26.00 £46.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.78% +15.63% -16.67%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £83.80 £73.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.55 £42.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -37.53% -10.53% -16.91%

BIG-IP
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing BIG-IP relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

BIG-IP job vacancy trend in the UK

BIG-IP
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BIG-IP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BIG-IP

BIG-IP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BIG-IP over the 6 months to 22 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for BIG-IP in the UK

BIG-IP
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BIG-IP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing BIG-IP

BIG-IP
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing BIG-IP over the 6 months to 22 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for BIG-IP in the UK

BIG-IP
Top 13 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing BIG-IP within the UK over the 6 months to 22 July 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
England -3 122 £520 +18.86% 2
UK excluding London -2 117 £534 +2.62% 2
North of England - 64 £575 - 1
South East - 38 £538 -
Work from Home -24 37 £575 +27.78%
North West - 34 £575 - 1
Midlands -31 27 £450 +12.50% 1
West Midlands -32 27 £450 +12.50% 1
Yorkshire - 23 £475 -
North East - 13 £650 -
London -72 10 £470 +10.59%
Scotland - 6 £600 -
South West -37 1 £450 -25.00%

BIG-IP
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 3 (2.22%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.48%) Apache
2 2 (1.48%) Confluence
2 2 (1.48%) IIS
2 2 (1.48%) nginx
2 2 (1.48%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (1.48%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 35 (25.93%) AWS
1 35 (25.93%) Azure
2 22 (16.30%) OCI
3 12 (8.89%) SaaS
4 10 (7.41%) GitHub
4 10 (7.41%) IaaS
5 5 (3.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 3 (2.22%) GCP
7 2 (1.48%) Cloudflare
8 1 (0.74%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (0.74%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 1 (0.74%) Amazon S3
8 1 (0.74%) Entra ID
8 1 (0.74%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (0.74%) Nutanix
8 1 (0.74%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 94 (69.63%) Firewall
2 84 (62.22%) DNS
3 79 (58.52%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 61 (45.19%) BGP
4 61 (45.19%) OSPF
5 57 (42.22%) WAN
6 50 (37.04%) VXLAN
7 49 (36.30%) TCP/IP
8 47 (34.81%) Ethernet VPN
9 39 (28.89%) LAN
10 38 (28.15%) DHCP
10 38 (28.15%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 36 (26.67%) SSL
12 28 (20.74%) HTTP
13 25 (18.52%) SD-WAN
14 24 (17.78%) Junos
15 23 (17.04%) Cisco ISE
16 21 (15.56%) Wireshark
17 20 (14.81%) Network Security
18 15 (11.11%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.48%) MySQL
1 2 (1.48%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 25 (18.52%) JIRA
2 19 (14.07%) GitLab
3 18 (13.33%) Fiddler
4 10 (7.41%) Jenkins
5 3 (2.22%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 22 (16.30%) Banking
2 18 (13.33%) Public Sector
2 18 (13.33%) Social Skills
3 17 (12.59%) Investment Banking
4 11 (8.15%) Finance
5 7 (5.19%) Telecoms
6 6 (4.44%) Military
7 4 (2.96%) Analytical Skills
8 2 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.48%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 61 (45.19%) Network Engineer
2 37 (27.41%) Senior
3 30 (22.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 19 (14.07%) Architect
4 19 (14.07%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 18 (13.33%) IP Network Engineer
5 18 (13.33%) Senior Network Engineer
5 18 (13.33%) Web Engineer
6 17 (12.59%) Network Specialist
7 16 (11.85%) Blue Coat Engineer
8 14 (10.37%) Firewall Specialist
9 6 (4.44%) Lead
9 6 (4.44%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
10 5 (3.70%) Lead Architect
10 5 (3.70%) Network Architect
10 5 (3.70%) Security Engineer
11 4 (2.96%) Firewall Engineer
11 4 (2.96%) IP Engineer
11 4 (2.96%) Network Security Engineer
11 4 (2.96%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (19.26%) 802.1X
2 10 (7.41%) JSON
3 4 (2.96%) LDAP
3 4 (2.96%) SAML
4 3 (2.22%) YAML
5 2 (1.48%) LAMP
5 2 (1.48%) LEMP Stack
6 1 (0.74%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 60 (44.44%) Data Centre
2 24 (17.78%) Clustering
2 24 (17.78%) Hybrid Cloud
3 23 (17.04%) PKI
4 19 (14.07%) Cloud Native
5 16 (11.85%) Management Information System
6 6 (4.44%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 6 (4.44%) Onboarding
7 4 (2.96%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (2.96%) Private Cloud
8 3 (2.22%) Algorithms
8 3 (2.22%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.48%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.74%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.74%) Legacy Systems
10 1 (0.74%) Linux Command Line
10 1 (0.74%) Operational Technology
10 1 (0.74%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 27 (20.00%) Windows
2 4 (2.96%) Linux
3 2 (1.48%) CentOS
3 2 (1.48%) Ubuntu
3 2 (1.48%) Windows Server
3 2 (1.48%) Windows Server 2012
3 2 (1.48%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (0.74%) CatOS
4 1 (0.74%) Check Point GAiA
4 1 (0.74%) Unix
4 1 (0.74%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (59.26%) Load Balancing
2 52 (38.52%) High Availability
3 34 (25.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 32 (23.70%) CI/CD
5 27 (20.00%) Agile
5 27 (20.00%) Zero Trust
6 24 (17.78%) Identity Access Management
6 24 (17.78%) Observability
7 21 (15.56%) Infrastructure as Code
7 21 (15.56%) Problem-Solving
8 19 (14.07%) ITIL
9 18 (13.33%) Data Loss Prevention
9 18 (13.33%) Malware Detection/Protection
9 18 (13.33%) Network Design
10 17 (12.59%) DevOps
10 17 (12.59%) Network Architecture
11 15 (11.11%) Project Delivery
11 15 (11.11%) Site Reliability Engineering
12 14 (10.37%) Stakeholder Management
13 12 (8.89%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 54 (40.00%) Python
2 11 (8.15%) ActionScript
3 10 (7.41%) JavaScript
4 9 (6.67%) VBA
5 3 (2.22%) Bash
6 2 (1.48%) PowerShell
7 1 (0.74%) Perl
7 1 (0.74%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.74%) SQL
Qualifications
1 49 (36.30%) Security Cleared
2 31 (22.96%) Cisco Certification
3 18 (13.33%) DV Cleared
3 18 (13.33%) SC Cleared
4 11 (8.15%) CCNP
5 7 (5.19%) Degree
5 7 (5.19%) JNCIA
5 7 (5.19%) JNCIP
5 7 (5.19%) JNCIS
6 3 (2.22%) CCIE
6 3 (2.22%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 1 (0.74%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.74%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.74%) CCDP
7 1 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (2.96%) NCSC
2 1 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 25 (18.52%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (11.85%) Firmware
3 12 (8.89%) VMware NSX
4 9 (6.67%) Active Directory
5 3 (2.22%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (1.48%) Dovecot
6 2 (1.48%) Postfix
7 1 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 39 (28.89%) Ansible
2 30 (22.22%) FortiGate
3 23 (17.04%) Terraform
4 5 (3.70%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (1.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.48%) Cisco Prime
5 2 (1.48%) HAProxy
6 1 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.74%) SCCM
Vendors
1 135 (100.00%) F5
2 53 (39.26%) Cisco
3 49 (36.30%) Palo Alto
4 34 (25.19%) SolarWinds
5 32 (23.70%) VMware
6 26 (19.26%) Arista
6 26 (19.26%) Juniper
6 26 (19.26%) Splunk
7 22 (16.30%) Extreme Networks
8 20 (14.81%) Aruba
8 20 (14.81%) Blue Coat
9 18 (13.33%) McAfee
10 16 (11.85%) NetApp
11 13 (9.63%) Fortinet
11 13 (9.63%) Infoblox
12 12 (8.89%) Microsoft
13 11 (8.15%) CheckPoint
14 7 (5.19%) ServiceNow
15 2 (1.48%) Ekahau
15 2 (1.48%) Google