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 3 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 595 524 527
Rank change year-on-year -71 +3 +88
Contract jobs citing BIG-IP 107 29 42
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.088% 0.11%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.11% 0.76% 0.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 13 34
10th Percentile £447 £310 £222
25th Percentile £495 £360 £370
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £400 £513
Median % change year-on-year +50.00% -21.95% -13.68%
75th Percentile £650 £450 £589
90th Percentile £700 £536 £633
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £520 £550
% change year-on-year +15.38% -5.45% -9.28%

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 5,073 3,796 4,532
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.25% 11.45% 11.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,929 2,382 2,616
10th Percentile £234 £220 £225
25th Percentile £390 £362 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £607
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £453 £485
% change year-on-year +4.86% -6.60% +6.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 429 206 202
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £20.94 £23.80
Median hourly rate £33.00 £41.72 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.90% -16.56% -11.49%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £92.19 £74.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £42.22 £57.35
% change year-on-year -35.20% -26.38% -0.26%

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 3 October 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
Top 12 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 3 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
England -55 95 £600 +50.00% 20
UK excluding London -46 89 £600 +15.38% 18
North of England -18 63 £600 - 11
North West -21 36 £613 - 9
Work from Home -49 31 £575 +27.78% 12
Yorkshire - 20 £519 - 2
West Midlands -32 18 £500 +25.00%
Midlands -41 18 £500 +25.00%
South East - 15 £625 - 3
North East - 13 £650 -
London -72 11 £550 +58.27% 8
Scotland - 7 £600 - 4

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 2 (1.87%) Apache
1 2 (1.87%) IIS
1 2 (1.87%) nginx
1 2 (1.87%) SharePoint
1 2 (1.87%) Tomcat
2 1 (0.93%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (0.93%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 32 (29.91%) Azure
2 31 (28.97%) AWS
3 22 (20.56%) OCI
4 19 (17.76%) GitHub
5 18 (16.82%) IaaS
6 12 (11.21%) SaaS
7 4 (3.74%) GCP
7 4 (3.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 2 (1.87%) Cloudflare
9 1 (0.93%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.93%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 78 (72.90%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
2 72 (67.29%) Firewall
3 59 (55.14%) DNS
4 49 (45.79%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
5 37 (34.58%) BGP
5 37 (34.58%) OSPF
6 36 (33.64%) WAN
7 29 (27.10%) VXLAN
8 28 (26.17%) TCP/IP
9 27 (25.23%) SD-WAN
9 27 (25.23%) SSL
10 25 (23.36%) Network Security
11 24 (22.43%) Ethernet VPN
12 17 (15.89%) VPN
13 16 (14.95%) HTTP
14 14 (13.08%) LAN
14 14 (13.08%) WLAN
15 13 (12.15%) DHCP
15 13 (12.15%) VLAN
15 13 (12.15%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.87%) MySQL
1 2 (1.87%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 21 (19.63%) JIRA
2 20 (18.69%) GitLab
3 19 (17.76%) Jenkins
4 11 (10.28%) Fiddler
5 3 (2.80%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (1.87%) Git
7 1 (0.93%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.93%) Robot Framework
General
1 18 (16.82%) Finance
2 17 (15.89%) Banking
3 15 (14.02%) Social Skills
4 14 (13.08%) Public Sector
5 13 (12.15%) Investment Banking
6 7 (6.54%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (4.67%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (3.74%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.93%) Military
Job Titles
1 40 (37.38%) Network Engineer
2 35 (32.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 29 (27.10%) Senior
4 18 (16.82%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 16 (14.95%) Architect
6 13 (12.15%) IP Network Engineer
7 11 (10.28%) Blue Coat Engineer
7 11 (10.28%) Web Engineer
8 9 (8.41%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
8 9 (8.41%) Senior Network Engineer
9 7 (6.54%) Network Architect
10 4 (3.74%) Automation Engineer
10 4 (3.74%) Firewall Engineer
10 4 (3.74%) IP Engineer
10 4 (3.74%) Security Engineer
10 4 (3.74%) Senior Firewall Engineer
10 4 (3.74%) Technical Architect
11 3 (2.80%) Network Security Architect
11 3 (2.80%) Network Security Engineer
11 3 (2.80%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (23.36%) Terraform
2 5 (4.67%) YAML
3 4 (3.74%) 802.1X
3 4 (3.74%) JSON
4 3 (2.80%) LDAP
4 3 (2.80%) REST
4 3 (2.80%) SAML
5 2 (1.87%) gRPC
5 2 (1.87%) LAMP
5 2 (1.87%) LEMP Stack
5 2 (1.87%) NETCONF
5 2 (1.87%) RESTCONF
6 1 (0.93%) Jinja
Miscellaneous
1 53 (49.53%) Data Centre
2 24 (22.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 19 (17.76%) Cloud Native
4 11 (10.28%) Management Information System
5 10 (9.35%) Onboarding
5 10 (9.35%) Public Cloud
6 5 (4.67%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (3.74%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (3.74%) Private Cloud
8 3 (2.80%) Clustering
8 3 (2.80%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (2.80%) PKI
8 3 (2.80%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.93%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.93%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.93%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 7 (6.54%) Linux
2 6 (5.61%) Windows
3 2 (1.87%) CentOS
3 2 (1.87%) Ubuntu
3 2 (1.87%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.93%) CatOS
4 1 (0.93%) Check Point GAiA
4 1 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.93%) Unix
4 1 (0.93%) Windows Server 2012
4 1 (0.93%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (47.66%) Load Balancing
2 43 (40.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 41 (38.32%) CI/CD
4 30 (28.04%) Zero Trust
5 26 (24.30%) Agile
6 23 (21.50%) High Availability
7 22 (20.56%) Infrastructure as Code
8 19 (17.76%) Network Architecture
9 18 (16.82%) DevOps
9 18 (16.82%) Network Design
10 16 (14.95%) Problem-Solving
11 15 (14.02%) Site Reliability Engineering
12 11 (10.28%) Data Loss Prevention
12 11 (10.28%) Malware Detection/Protection
13 10 (9.35%) Project Delivery
14 8 (7.48%) Stakeholder Management
15 7 (6.54%) Change Management
15 7 (6.54%) Migration
15 7 (6.54%) Network Segmentation
16 6 (5.61%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 62 (57.94%) Python
2 19 (17.76%) ActionScript
3 7 (6.54%) JavaScript
4 4 (3.74%) Bash
4 4 (3.74%) VBA
5 3 (2.80%) Perl
5 3 (2.80%) PowerShell
5 3 (2.80%) SQL
6 1 (0.93%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 25 (23.36%) Security Cleared
2 16 (14.95%) SC Cleared
3 13 (12.15%) Cisco Certification
4 8 (7.48%) CCNP
5 5 (4.67%) CCIE
5 5 (4.67%) Degree
6 4 (3.74%) DV Cleared
7 3 (2.80%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 2 (1.87%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.87%) JNCIE
8 2 (1.87%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.93%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.93%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.93%) CCDP
9 1 (0.93%) CCNA
9 1 (0.93%) CCSP
9 1 (0.93%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (3.74%) NCSC
System Software
1 20 (18.69%) VMware Infrastructure
2 14 (13.08%) VMware NSX
3 11 (10.28%) Firmware
4 10 (9.35%) Active Directory
5 3 (2.80%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (1.87%) Dovecot
6 2 (1.87%) Postfix
7 1 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 38 (35.51%) Ansible
2 10 (9.35%) FortiGate
3 4 (3.74%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (2.80%) Cisco Prime
5 2 (1.87%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.87%) HAProxy
6 1 (0.93%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.93%) SCCM
6 1 (0.93%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 107 (100.00%) F5
2 41 (38.32%) Palo Alto
3 30 (28.04%) Cisco
4 25 (23.36%) VMware
5 24 (22.43%) Arista
6 21 (19.63%) Aruba
7 17 (15.89%) Fortinet
8 13 (12.15%) Blue Coat
9 12 (11.21%) SolarWinds
10 11 (10.28%) McAfee
10 11 (10.28%) NetApp
11 9 (8.41%) CheckPoint
11 9 (8.41%) Infoblox
12 8 (7.48%) Microsoft
13 7 (6.54%) Juniper
14 5 (4.67%) Splunk
15 3 (2.80%) Red Hat
16 2 (1.87%) Extreme Networks
16 2 (1.87%) Google
16 2 (1.87%) ServiceNow