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 29 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 553 516 586
Rank change year-on-year -37 +70 +108
Contract jobs citing BIG-IP 31 45 36
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.086% 0.12% 0.078%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.78% 1.01% 0.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 36 24
10th Percentile £304 £228 £308
25th Percentile £341 £345 £397
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £525 £594
Median % change year-on-year -19.05% -11.58% +7.95%
75th Percentile £510 £588 £626
90th Percentile £556 £613 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £610 £525 £614
% change year-on-year +16.19% -14.46% +11.59%

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 3,971 4,436 6,390
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.02% 12.17% 13.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,578 2,549 3,957
10th Percentile £205 £223 £211
25th Percentile £356 £370 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 169 347
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.16 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.50 £23.10 £22.88
Median hourly rate £34.00 £41.00 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -17.07% -27.30% +35.09%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £48.03 £56.49
% change year-on-year -11.51% -14.98% +25.53%

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 29 November 2025.

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 11 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 29 November 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
England -32 28 £360 -29.76% 7
UK excluding London -28 21 £610 +16.19% 6
North of England -26 18 £700 +18.64% 1
North West -11 16 - - 1
Midlands - 11 - - 4
West Midlands - 11 - - 4
Work from Home +7 8 £405 -28.79% 2
London +6 7 £335 -18.79% 2
East of England -14 2 £520 -16.80%
Yorkshire - 2 £700 -
South West +7 1 - -

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 (9.68%) SharePoint
2 2 (6.45%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (9.68%) MS Visio
2 2 (6.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 2 (6.45%) OpenShift
2 1 (3.23%) AWS
2 1 (3.23%) Azure
2 1 (3.23%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 21 (67.74%) DNS
2 18 (58.06%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 17 (54.84%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
4 16 (51.61%) TCP/IP
5 15 (48.39%) HTTP
5 15 (48.39%) SSL
6 14 (45.16%) Wireshark
7 8 (25.81%) Firewall
8 6 (19.35%) DMZ
8 6 (19.35%) LAN
8 6 (19.35%) Network Security
9 4 (12.90%) BGP
9 4 (12.90%) DHCP
9 4 (12.90%) OSPF
9 4 (12.90%) WAN
10 3 (9.68%) Cisco ASA
10 3 (9.68%) SD-WAN
10 3 (9.68%) VPN
10 3 (9.68%) Wireless
11 2 (6.45%) Cisco Firepower
Development Applications
1 14 (45.16%) Fiddler
2 1 (3.23%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 12 (38.71%) Banking
2 11 (35.48%) Investment Banking
3 5 (16.13%) Social Skills
3 5 (16.13%) Telecoms
4 3 (9.68%) Documentation Skills
4 3 (9.68%) Public Sector
5 1 (3.23%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (3.23%) Military
5 1 (3.23%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 17 (54.84%) Network Engineer
2 12 (38.71%) Web Engineer
3 7 (22.58%) Blue Coat Engineer
3 7 (22.58%) IP Network Engineer
4 6 (19.35%) Junior
4 6 (19.35%) Junior Network Engineer
5 5 (16.13%) Architect
5 5 (16.13%) Consultant
6 4 (12.90%) Automation Engineer
6 4 (12.90%) Python Engineer
7 3 (9.68%) Solutions Architect
8 2 (6.45%) Designer
8 2 (6.45%) Enterprise Architect
8 2 (6.45%) Network Architect
8 2 (6.45%) Network Designer
9 1 (3.23%) Network Security Engineer
9 1 (3.23%) Security Engineer
9 1 (3.23%) Senior
9 1 (3.23%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 1 (3.23%) Technical Solutions Architect
Miscellaneous
1 11 (35.48%) Management Information System
2 6 (19.35%) Onboarding
3 3 (9.68%) Data Centre
4 1 (3.23%) RSA SecurID
Operating Systems
1 2 (6.45%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (64.52%) Load Balancing
2 12 (38.71%) Migration
3 11 (35.48%) Data Loss Prevention
4 10 (32.26%) Malware Detection/Protection
5 5 (16.13%) Network Segmentation
5 5 (16.13%) Project Delivery
6 4 (12.90%) ITIL
6 4 (12.90%) Security Architecture
7 3 (9.68%) Runbook
7 3 (9.68%) TOGAF
8 2 (6.45%) Acceptance Criteria
8 2 (6.45%) Business Intelligence
8 2 (6.45%) Change Management
8 2 (6.45%) Customer Requirements
8 2 (6.45%) Data Protection
8 2 (6.45%) Network Design
8 2 (6.45%) Technical Leadership
8 2 (6.45%) Workshop Facilitation
9 1 (3.23%) Network Architecture
9 1 (3.23%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 12 (38.71%) Python
Qualifications
1 6 (19.35%) Cisco Certification
2 4 (12.90%) CCNP
2 4 (12.90%) SC Cleared
2 4 (12.90%) Security Cleared
3 3 (9.68%) CCIE
3 3 (9.68%) CCSE
3 3 (9.68%) JNCIE
3 3 (9.68%) JNCIP
4 2 (6.45%) CCNA
System Software
1 10 (32.26%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (22.58%) Firmware
3 4 (12.90%) VMware NSX
4 1 (3.23%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 14 (45.16%) Ansible
2 4 (12.90%) Terraform
3 1 (3.23%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 31 (100.00%) F5
2 16 (51.61%) Blue Coat
2 16 (51.61%) McAfee
3 13 (41.94%) VMware
4 12 (38.71%) NetApp
5 8 (25.81%) Cisco
6 5 (16.13%) CheckPoint
7 3 (9.68%) Infoblox
7 3 (9.68%) Juniper
7 3 (9.68%) Remedy
7 3 (9.68%) ServiceNow
7 3 (9.68%) Zscaler
8 2 (6.45%) Meraki
8 2 (6.45%) NetScout
8 2 (6.45%) Red Hat
8 2 (6.45%) SevOne
9 1 (3.23%) AlgoSec
9 1 (3.23%) Arista
9 1 (3.23%) Palo Alto