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 18 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 550 520 522
Rank change year-on-year -30 +2 +116
Contract jobs citing BIG-IP 124 25 35
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.23% 0.076% 0.090%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.45% 0.64% 0.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 48 13 27
10th Percentile £418 £310 £213
25th Percentile £461 £360 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year +37.50% - -33.33%
75th Percentile £609 £450 £581
90th Percentile £661 £566 £616
UK excluding London median daily rate £560 £520 £550
% change year-on-year +7.69% -5.45% +2.33%

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 5,052 3,881 4,738
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.43% 11.81% 12.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,987 2,350 2,889
10th Percentile £250 £245 £221
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.58% -5.00% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 363 203 315
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.00
Median hourly rate £26.14 £46.25 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.48% -5.61% -10.91%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.95 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £45.00 £54.88
% change year-on-year -41.91% -18.00% -2.86%

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 18 August 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 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 18 August 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 -43 111 £550 +37.50% 4
UK excluding London -8 104 £560 +7.69% 5
North of England -18 62 £575 - 2
Work from Home -20 37 £575 +59.72%
North West -12 36 £588 - 2
West Midlands -24 27 £475 +18.75%
Midlands -30 27 £475 +18.75%
South East - 26 £538 - 2
Yorkshire - 19 £488 -
London -70 13 £470 +30.56% 1
North East - 13 £650 -
Scotland - 7 £600 - 1
South West -42 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 (2.42%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.61%) Apache
2 2 (1.61%) IIS
2 2 (1.61%) nginx
2 2 (1.61%) Tomcat
3 1 (0.81%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (1.61%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 36 (29.03%) Azure
2 35 (28.23%) AWS
3 22 (17.74%) OCI
4 12 (9.68%) SaaS
5 10 (8.06%) GitHub
5 10 (8.06%) IaaS
6 5 (4.03%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 3 (2.42%) GCP
8 2 (1.61%) Cloudflare
8 2 (1.61%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.81%) Amazon EC2
9 1 (0.81%) Amazon GuardDuty
9 1 (0.81%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.81%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.81%) Nutanix
9 1 (0.81%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 83 (66.94%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
2 82 (66.13%) Firewall
3 73 (58.87%) DNS
4 50 (40.32%) BGP
4 50 (40.32%) OSPF
5 46 (37.10%) WAN
6 45 (36.29%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 43 (34.68%) TCP/IP
8 38 (30.65%) VXLAN
9 35 (28.23%) Ethernet VPN
10 33 (26.61%) SSL
11 28 (22.58%) LAN
12 26 (20.97%) DHCP
13 25 (20.16%) HTTP
13 25 (20.16%) SD-WAN
14 19 (15.32%) Network Security
14 19 (15.32%) Wireshark
15 16 (12.90%) VPN
16 14 (11.29%) Cisco Nexus
16 14 (11.29%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.61%) MySQL
1 2 (1.61%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 20 (16.13%) JIRA
2 19 (15.32%) GitLab
3 16 (12.90%) Fiddler
4 10 (8.06%) Jenkins
5 3 (2.42%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.81%) Git
6 1 (0.81%) Robot Framework
General
1 21 (16.94%) Banking
2 17 (13.71%) Investment Banking
3 16 (12.90%) Social Skills
4 15 (12.10%) Public Sector
5 13 (10.48%) Finance
6 7 (5.65%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (5.65%) Telecoms
7 4 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.61%) Military
8 2 (1.61%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 56 (45.16%) Network Engineer
2 36 (29.03%) Senior
3 30 (24.19%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 19 (15.32%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 18 (14.52%) IP Network Engineer
6 17 (13.71%) Architect
7 16 (12.90%) Blue Coat Engineer
7 16 (12.90%) Senior Network Engineer
7 16 (12.90%) Web Engineer
8 12 (9.68%) Network Specialist
9 9 (7.26%) Firewall Specialist
10 8 (6.45%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
11 5 (4.03%) Security Engineer
12 4 (3.23%) Automation Engineer
12 4 (3.23%) Firewall Engineer
12 4 (3.23%) IP Engineer
12 4 (3.23%) Lead Architect
12 4 (3.23%) Network Architect
12 4 (3.23%) Network Security Engineer
12 4 (3.23%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (11.29%) 802.1X
2 7 (5.65%) JSON
3 5 (4.03%) YAML
4 4 (3.23%) LDAP
4 4 (3.23%) SAML
5 2 (1.61%) LAMP
5 2 (1.61%) LEMP Stack
6 1 (0.81%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 50 (40.32%) Data Centre
2 24 (19.35%) Hybrid Cloud
3 19 (15.32%) Cloud Native
4 16 (12.90%) Management Information System
5 13 (10.48%) Clustering
5 13 (10.48%) PKI
6 6 (4.84%) Data Protection Act
6 6 (4.84%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 6 (4.84%) Onboarding
7 4 (3.23%) Private Cloud
8 3 (2.42%) Algorithms
9 2 (1.61%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.81%) Legacy Systems
10 1 (0.81%) Linux Command Line
10 1 (0.81%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 16 (12.90%) Windows
2 6 (4.84%) Linux
3 2 (1.61%) CentOS
3 2 (1.61%) Ubuntu
3 2 (1.61%) Windows Server
3 2 (1.61%) Windows Server 2012
3 2 (1.61%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (0.81%) CatOS
4 1 (0.81%) Check Point GAiA
4 1 (0.81%) Unix
4 1 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 68 (54.84%) Load Balancing
2 39 (31.45%) High Availability
3 34 (27.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 32 (25.81%) CI/CD
5 27 (21.77%) Zero Trust
6 22 (17.74%) Agile
7 20 (16.13%) Infrastructure as Code
8 18 (14.52%) Network Design
9 17 (13.71%) DevOps
9 17 (13.71%) Network Architecture
10 16 (12.90%) Data Loss Prevention
10 16 (12.90%) Malware Detection/Protection
11 15 (12.10%) Problem-Solving
11 15 (12.10%) Site Reliability Engineering
12 14 (11.29%) ITIL
12 14 (11.29%) Stakeholder Management
13 13 (10.48%) Observability
13 13 (10.48%) Project Delivery
14 12 (9.68%) Identity Access Management
14 12 (9.68%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 52 (41.94%) Python
2 10 (8.06%) ActionScript
2 10 (8.06%) JavaScript
3 7 (5.65%) VBA
4 3 (2.42%) Bash
4 3 (2.42%) Perl
4 3 (2.42%) PowerShell
4 3 (2.42%) SQL
Qualifications
1 36 (29.03%) Security Cleared
2 22 (17.74%) Cisco Certification
3 18 (14.52%) SC Cleared
4 10 (8.06%) CCNP
5 9 (7.26%) DV Cleared
6 6 (4.84%) Degree
7 3 (2.42%) CCIE
7 3 (2.42%) JNCIA
7 3 (2.42%) JNCIP
7 3 (2.42%) JNCIS
7 3 (2.42%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 2 (1.61%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.61%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.81%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.81%) CCDP
9 1 (0.81%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (3.23%) NCSC
2 1 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 30 (24.19%) VMware Infrastructure
2 16 (12.90%) Firmware
3 15 (12.10%) VMware NSX
4 12 (9.68%) Active Directory
5 3 (2.42%) Virtual Servers
6 2 (1.61%) Dovecot
6 2 (1.61%) Postfix
7 1 (0.81%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 36 (29.03%) Ansible
2 24 (19.35%) Terraform
3 17 (13.71%) FortiGate
4 6 (4.84%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (2.42%) Cisco Prime
6 2 (1.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (1.61%) HAProxy
6 2 (1.61%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.81%) SCCM
Vendors
1 124 (100.00%) F5
2 49 (39.52%) Palo Alto
3 43 (34.68%) Cisco
4 35 (28.23%) VMware
5 26 (20.97%) Arista
6 23 (18.55%) SolarWinds
7 21 (16.94%) Aruba
8 18 (14.52%) Blue Coat
9 16 (12.90%) McAfee
9 16 (12.90%) NetApp
10 15 (12.10%) Fortinet
11 14 (11.29%) Juniper
11 14 (11.29%) Splunk
12 12 (9.68%) Extreme Networks
12 12 (9.68%) Infoblox
12 12 (9.68%) Microsoft
13 11 (8.87%) CheckPoint
14 6 (4.84%) ServiceNow
15 2 (1.61%) Google
15 2 (1.61%) Red Hat