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 21 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 507 499 572
Rank change year-on-year -8 +73 +81
Contract jobs citing BIG-IP 108 18 11
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.23% 0.061% 0.025%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.41% 0.48% 0.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 36 12 7
10th Percentile £263 £376 £369
25th Percentile £335 £381 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.84% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £532 £591 £601
90th Percentile £700 £600 £619
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -10.91% -4.35% +5.75%
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 4,480 3,782 5,676
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.68% 12.84% 13.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,806 2,345 3,403
10th Percentile £246 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £489
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -0.31% -5.96%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £464 £475
% change year-on-year +2.43% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 171 425
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.79 £21.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £48.72 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.92% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.38 £62.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.50 £28.00 £46.14
% change year-on-year +98.21% -39.31% +149.38%

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 21 April 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 21 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for BIG-IP in the UK

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 21 April 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 -25 99 £470 -8.29% 20
UK excluding London -21 86 £490 -10.91% 19
North of England - 38 £480 - 14
South East -25 33 £550 -8.33% 3
West Midlands - 30 £300 - 1
Midlands - 30 £300 - 1
North West - 30 £650 - 7
Work from Home -18 16 £540 +20.00% 7
London -59 11 £418 -14.36% 2
Yorkshire - 8 £478 - 1
Scotland - 2 - - 1
South West -31 1 £450 -10.00%

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 7 (6.48%) SharePoint
2 5 (4.63%) Confluence
Applications
1 13 (12.04%) MS Visio
2 4 (3.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 8 (7.41%) Azure
2 6 (5.56%) AWS
3 3 (2.78%) Entra ID
3 3 (2.78%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (1.85%) OpenShift
5 1 (0.93%) Amazon EC2
5 1 (0.93%) Amazon GuardDuty
5 1 (0.93%) Amazon S3
5 1 (0.93%) GCP
5 1 (0.93%) Nutanix
5 1 (0.93%) Route 53
5 1 (0.93%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 80 (74.07%) DNS
2 59 (54.63%) Firewall
3 50 (46.30%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 47 (43.52%) TCP/IP
5 46 (42.59%) SSL
6 44 (40.74%) HTTP
7 43 (39.81%) LAN
7 43 (39.81%) WAN
8 39 (36.11%) BGP
8 39 (36.11%) OSPF
9 35 (32.41%) Wireshark
10 33 (30.56%) DHCP
10 33 (30.56%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 29 (26.85%) VXLAN
12 27 (25.00%) Ethernet VPN
13 24 (22.22%) Cisco ISE
14 23 (21.30%) Junos
15 19 (17.59%) Network Security
16 15 (13.89%) Wireless
17 14 (12.96%) IPsec
Development Applications
1 27 (25.00%) Fiddler
2 11 (10.19%) JIRA
3 1 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 23 (21.30%) Banking
2 18 (16.67%) Investment Banking
3 13 (12.04%) Social Skills
4 6 (5.56%) Military
4 6 (5.56%) Public Sector
5 5 (4.63%) Finance
5 5 (4.63%) Telecoms
6 3 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.93%) Analytical Skills
7 1 (0.93%) Billing
7 1 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 60 (55.56%) Network Engineer
2 27 (25.00%) Web Engineer
3 20 (18.52%) IP Network Engineer
4 19 (17.59%) Architect
5 18 (16.67%) Blue Coat Engineer
5 18 (16.67%) Senior
6 16 (14.81%) Network Specialist
6 16 (14.81%) Senior Network Engineer
7 13 (12.04%) Firewall Specialist
8 10 (9.26%) Junior
9 9 (8.33%) Junior Network Engineer
10 6 (5.56%) Lead
11 5 (4.63%) Network Architect
12 4 (3.70%) Infrastructure Architect
12 4 (3.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 4 (3.70%) Lead Architect
12 4 (3.70%) Migration Engineer
12 4 (3.70%) Network Security Engineer
12 4 (3.70%) Security Engineer
13 3 (2.78%) Telecoms Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (23.15%) 802.1X
2 8 (7.41%) LDAP
2 8 (7.41%) SAML
3 6 (5.56%) JSON
4 1 (0.93%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 24 (22.22%) Data Centre
1 24 (22.22%) PKI
2 23 (21.30%) Clustering
3 18 (16.67%) Management Information System
4 5 (4.63%) Algorithms
5 3 (2.78%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 2 (1.85%) CESG
6 2 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.85%) Virtual Team
7 1 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.93%) iSeries
7 1 (0.93%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.93%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.93%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.93%) RSA SecurID
7 1 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 28 (25.93%) Windows
2 4 (3.70%) CatOS
3 3 (2.78%) Windows Server
3 3 (2.78%) Windows Server 2012
3 3 (2.78%) Windows Server 2016
3 3 (2.78%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (60.19%) Load Balancing
2 38 (35.19%) High Availability
3 27 (25.00%) Data Loss Prevention
3 27 (25.00%) Malware Detection/Protection
4 23 (21.30%) Identity Access Management
5 22 (20.37%) Observability
6 20 (18.52%) Migration
7 19 (17.59%) ITIL
8 18 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
9 12 (11.11%) Agile
9 12 (11.11%) Service Management
10 10 (9.26%) ITSM
10 10 (9.26%) Stakeholder Management
11 9 (8.33%) Availability Management
11 9 (8.33%) Cybersecurity
11 9 (8.33%) Project Delivery
12 8 (7.41%) Change Management
12 8 (7.41%) Risk Management
13 7 (6.48%) Security Architecture
13 7 (6.48%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 20 (18.52%) Python
2 5 (4.63%) JavaScript
2 5 (4.63%) VBA
3 1 (0.93%) ActionScript
3 1 (0.93%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 35 (32.41%) Security Cleared
2 31 (28.70%) Cisco Certification
3 16 (14.81%) DV Cleared
4 12 (11.11%) SC Cleared
5 10 (9.26%) CCNP
5 10 (9.26%) JNCIP
6 7 (6.48%) JNCIA
6 7 (6.48%) JNCIS
7 6 (5.56%) CCIE
8 3 (2.78%) CCDP
8 3 (2.78%) CCSE
8 3 (2.78%) Degree
8 3 (2.78%) JNCIE
9 2 (1.85%) CCIE Security
9 2 (1.85%) CESG Certified Professional
9 2 (1.85%) CHECK Team Leader
9 2 (1.85%) CREST Certified
10 1 (0.93%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.85%) JSP 440
1 2 (1.85%) NCSC
1 2 (1.85%) RMADS
2 1 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 35 (32.41%) VMware Infrastructure
2 21 (19.44%) VMware NSX
3 18 (16.67%) Firmware
4 12 (11.11%) Active Directory
5 3 (2.78%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (1.85%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.93%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 31 (28.70%) FortiGate
2 21 (19.44%) Ansible
3 11 (10.19%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (4.63%) Terraform
5 3 (2.78%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (2.78%) SCCM
6 1 (0.93%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 108 (100.00%) F5
2 54 (50.00%) Cisco
3 44 (40.74%) VMware
4 29 (26.85%) Juniper
5 27 (25.00%) Blue Coat
5 27 (25.00%) McAfee
5 27 (25.00%) SolarWinds
6 24 (22.22%) Palo Alto
7 23 (21.30%) Splunk
8 21 (19.44%) Extreme Networks
9 18 (16.67%) NetApp
10 15 (13.89%) Microsoft
11 14 (12.96%) CheckPoint
12 10 (9.26%) ServiceNow
13 8 (7.41%) Infoblox
14 7 (6.48%) Fortinet
14 7 (6.48%) Zscaler
15 5 (4.63%) Arista
16 4 (3.70%) Remedy
17 2 (1.85%) Red Hat