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

6 months to
11 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 522 504 578
Rank change year-on-year -18 +74 +73
Contract jobs citing BIG-IP 108 19 17
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.24% 0.065% 0.039%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.39% 0.50% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 34 13 12
10th Percentile £263 £376 £353
25th Percentile £336 £381 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £500 £563
Median % change year-on-year -6.75% -11.11% +2.27%
75th Percentile £536 £588 £631
90th Percentile £710 £600 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £580 £650
% change year-on-year -13.79% -10.77% +18.18%
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 4,519 3,771 5,852
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.87% 12.90% 13.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,852 2,341 3,526
10th Percentile £231 £213 £205
25th Percentile £398 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £485
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% +1.14% -6.74%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £468 £475
% change year-on-year +1.60% -1.58% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 203 164 421
10th Percentile £15.62 £14.99 £13.85
25th Percentile £20.41 £21.35 £17.72
Median hourly rate £42.71 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.88% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £62.50 £61.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.00 £28.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year +92.86% -38.97% +148.00%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -17 99 £473 -10.00% 8
UK excluding London -19 86 £500 -13.79% 7
North of England -26 41 £480 -17.24% 1
North West +4 33 £650 +12.07%
South East -26 31 £550 -8.33% 4
Midlands - 31 £308 - 2
West Midlands - 31 £308 - 2
Work from Home -22 16 £540 +20.00% 1
London -70 11 £365 -25.13% 1
Yorkshire - 8 £478 - 1
Scotland - 2 - -
South West -32 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 12 (11.11%) 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 81 (75.00%) DNS
2 56 (51.85%) Firewall
3 51 (47.22%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 51 (47.22%) TCP/IP
4 48 (44.44%) SSL
5 47 (43.52%) HTTP
6 41 (37.96%) LAN
6 41 (37.96%) WAN
7 38 (35.19%) BGP
7 38 (35.19%) OSPF
8 37 (34.26%) Wireshark
9 36 (33.33%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 32 (29.63%) DHCP
11 28 (25.93%) VXLAN
12 26 (24.07%) Ethernet VPN
13 23 (21.30%) Cisco ISE
14 22 (20.37%) Junos
15 19 (17.59%) Network Security
16 14 (12.96%) Wireless
17 13 (12.04%) IPsec
Development Applications
1 30 (27.78%) Fiddler
2 11 (10.19%) JIRA
3 1 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 25 (23.15%) Banking
2 20 (18.52%) 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 62 (57.41%) Network Engineer
2 31 (28.70%) Web Engineer
3 22 (20.37%) IP Network Engineer
4 20 (18.52%) Blue Coat Engineer
5 19 (17.59%) Architect
6 17 (15.74%) Senior
7 15 (13.89%) Network Specialist
7 15 (13.89%) Senior Network Engineer
8 12 (11.11%) Firewall Specialist
9 11 (10.19%) Junior
10 10 (9.26%) Junior Network Engineer
11 6 (5.56%) Lead
12 5 (4.63%) Network Architect
13 4 (3.70%) Infrastructure Architect
13 4 (3.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 4 (3.70%) Lead Architect
13 4 (3.70%) Migration Engineer
13 4 (3.70%) Network Security Engineer
13 4 (3.70%) Security Engineer
14 3 (2.78%) Telecoms Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (22.22%) 802.1X
2 7 (6.48%) LDAP
2 7 (6.48%) SAML
3 6 (5.56%) JSON
4 1 (0.93%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 23 (21.30%) Data Centre
1 23 (21.30%) PKI
2 22 (20.37%) Clustering
3 20 (18.52%) 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%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.93%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.93%) RSA SecurID
7 1 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 27 (25.00%) 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 68 (62.96%) Load Balancing
2 37 (34.26%) High Availability
3 30 (27.78%) Data Loss Prevention
3 30 (27.78%) Malware Detection/Protection
4 22 (20.37%) Identity Access Management
5 21 (19.44%) 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
12 8 (7.41%) Change Management
12 8 (7.41%) Cybersecurity
12 8 (7.41%) Project Delivery
12 8 (7.41%) Risk Management
13 7 (6.48%) Security Architecture
13 7 (6.48%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 21 (19.44%) Python
2 5 (4.63%) JavaScript
2 5 (4.63%) VBA
3 1 (0.93%) ActionScript
3 1 (0.93%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 34 (31.48%) Security Cleared
2 30 (27.78%) 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 37 (34.26%) VMware Infrastructure
2 21 (19.44%) VMware NSX
3 20 (18.52%) Firmware
4 11 (10.19%) Active Directory
5 3 (2.78%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (1.85%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.93%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 30 (27.78%) FortiGate
2 22 (20.37%) Ansible
3 10 (9.26%) 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 52 (48.15%) Cisco
3 47 (43.52%) VMware
4 31 (28.70%) Blue Coat
4 31 (28.70%) McAfee
5 28 (25.93%) Juniper
6 25 (23.15%) SolarWinds
7 22 (20.37%) Palo Alto
7 22 (20.37%) Splunk
8 21 (19.44%) NetApp
9 20 (18.52%) Extreme Networks
10 14 (12.96%) Microsoft
11 13 (12.04%) CheckPoint
12 10 (9.26%) ServiceNow
13 8 (7.41%) Infoblox
14 7 (6.48%) Zscaler
15 6 (5.56%) Fortinet
16 4 (3.70%) Arista
16 4 (3.70%) Remedy
17 2 (1.85%) Red Hat