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 12 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 495 508 574
Rank change year-on-year +13 +66 +80
Contract jobs citing BIG-IP 133 18 16
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.062% 0.037%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.93% 0.48% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 11 9
10th Percentile £273 £381 £375
25th Percentile £351 £403 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £575
Median % change year-on-year +4.44% -21.74% -4.17%
75th Percentile £571 £581 £622
90th Percentile £650 £600 £628
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £611
% change year-on-year +2.00% -18.17% +13.67%
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 4,536 3,727 5,473
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.55% 12.76% 12.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,807 2,290 3,273
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £495
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -1.52% -4.16%
75th Percentile £588 £595 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.15% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 168 418
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.92 £16.44
Median hourly rate £41.94 £31.79 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.93% -20.53% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.88 £57.80 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 £24.66 £46.14
% change year-on-year +97.57% -46.55% +153.28%

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 12 May 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 12 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for BIG-IP in the UK

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 12 May 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 -20 122 £475 -5.00% 12
UK excluding London -6 106 £510 +2.00% 11
North of England - 55 £575 - 10
North West - 39 £625 - 4
South East -24 34 £550 - 1
Midlands - 34 £340 -
West Midlands - 34 £340 -
Work from Home -24 25 £575 +27.78% 6
London -50 13 £470 -3.59% 2
Yorkshire - 10 £460 -
North East - 8 £650 - 6
Scotland - 2 - -
South West -34 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 (5.26%) SharePoint
2 5 (3.76%) Confluence
Applications
1 13 (9.77%) MS Visio
2 4 (3.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 22 (16.54%) Azure
2 20 (15.04%) AWS
3 15 (11.28%) OCI
4 7 (5.26%) SaaS
5 3 (2.26%) Entra ID
5 3 (2.26%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (0.75%) Amazon EC2
6 1 (0.75%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 1 (0.75%) Amazon S3
6 1 (0.75%) GCP
6 1 (0.75%) Nutanix
6 1 (0.75%) Route 53
6 1 (0.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 86 (64.66%) DNS
2 80 (60.15%) Firewall
3 67 (50.38%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 57 (42.86%) WAN
5 56 (42.11%) BGP
5 56 (42.11%) OSPF
6 50 (37.59%) TCP/IP
7 49 (36.84%) SSL
8 47 (35.34%) HTTP
9 46 (34.59%) LAN
9 46 (34.59%) VXLAN
10 43 (32.33%) Ethernet VPN
11 37 (27.82%) DHCP
11 37 (27.82%) Wireshark
12 35 (26.32%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 24 (18.05%) Cisco ISE
13 24 (18.05%) Junos
14 20 (15.04%) Network Security
14 20 (15.04%) SD-WAN
15 17 (12.78%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 28 (21.05%) Fiddler
2 13 (9.77%) JIRA
3 12 (9.02%) GitLab
4 1 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 24 (18.05%) Banking
2 20 (15.04%) Investment Banking
3 16 (12.03%) Public Sector
4 15 (11.28%) Social Skills
5 8 (6.02%) Finance
6 7 (5.26%) Military
7 5 (3.76%) Telecoms
8 3 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.75%) Analytical Skills
9 1 (0.75%) Billing
9 1 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 68 (51.13%) Network Engineer
2 31 (23.31%) Senior
3 28 (21.05%) Web Engineer
4 21 (15.79%) Architect
4 21 (15.79%) IP Network Engineer
5 19 (14.29%) Blue Coat Engineer
6 18 (13.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 17 (12.78%) Network Specialist
7 17 (12.78%) Senior Network Engineer
8 14 (10.53%) Firewall Specialist
8 14 (10.53%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 10 (7.52%) Junior
10 9 (6.77%) Junior Network Engineer
11 6 (4.51%) Lead
12 5 (3.76%) Network Architect
12 5 (3.76%) Network Security Engineer
12 5 (3.76%) Security Engineer
13 4 (3.01%) Infrastructure Architect
13 4 (3.01%) Lead Architect
13 4 (3.01%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (19.55%) 802.1X
2 10 (7.52%) LDAP
2 10 (7.52%) SAML
3 8 (6.02%) JSON
4 1 (0.75%) REST
4 1 (0.75%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 41 (30.83%) Data Centre
2 25 (18.80%) PKI
3 24 (18.05%) Clustering
4 19 (14.29%) Management Information System
5 12 (9.02%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (3.76%) Algorithms
6 5 (3.76%) Cloud Native
7 3 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (2.26%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 2 (1.50%) CESG
8 2 (1.50%) Virtual Team
9 1 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.75%) iSeries
9 1 (0.75%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.75%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.75%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.75%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.75%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.75%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 29 (21.80%) Windows
2 5 (3.76%) CatOS
3 3 (2.26%) Windows Server
3 3 (2.26%) Windows Server 2012
3 3 (2.26%) Windows Server 2016
3 3 (2.26%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (0.75%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (63.16%) Load Balancing
2 48 (36.09%) High Availability
3 28 (21.05%) Data Loss Prevention
3 28 (21.05%) Malware Detection/Protection
4 24 (18.05%) Identity Access Management
5 23 (17.29%) Observability
6 20 (15.04%) Migration
7 19 (14.29%) ITIL
7 19 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
8 18 (13.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 18 (13.53%) Zero Trust
9 14 (10.53%) Agile
9 14 (10.53%) Infrastructure as Code
10 13 (9.77%) CI/CD
10 13 (9.77%) Project Delivery
11 12 (9.02%) Service Management
12 11 (8.27%) Network Design
13 10 (7.52%) ITSM
13 10 (7.52%) Risk Management
13 10 (7.52%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 38 (28.57%) Python
2 8 (6.02%) JavaScript
3 7 (5.26%) VBA
4 1 (0.75%) ActionScript
4 1 (0.75%) Perl
4 1 (0.75%) Shell Script
4 1 (0.75%) SQL
Qualifications
1 44 (33.08%) Security Cleared
2 34 (25.56%) Cisco Certification
3 19 (14.29%) SC Cleared
4 16 (12.03%) DV Cleared
5 12 (9.02%) CCNP
6 10 (7.52%) JNCIP
7 7 (5.26%) JNCIA
7 7 (5.26%) JNCIS
8 6 (4.51%) CCIE
9 4 (3.01%) Degree
10 3 (2.26%) CCDP
10 3 (2.26%) CCSE
10 3 (2.26%) JNCIE
11 2 (1.50%) CCIE Security
11 2 (1.50%) CESG Certified Professional
11 2 (1.50%) CHECK Team Leader
11 2 (1.50%) CREST Certified
12 1 (0.75%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.50%) JSP 440
1 2 (1.50%) NCSC
1 2 (1.50%) RMADS
2 1 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 34 (25.56%) VMware Infrastructure
2 22 (16.54%) VMware NSX
3 19 (14.29%) Firmware
4 15 (11.28%) Active Directory
5 3 (2.26%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (1.50%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 37 (27.82%) Ansible
2 33 (24.81%) FortiGate
3 16 (12.03%) Terraform
4 13 (9.77%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (2.26%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (2.26%) SCCM
Vendors
1 133 (100.00%) F5
2 58 (43.61%) Cisco
3 45 (33.83%) VMware
4 43 (32.33%) Palo Alto
5 30 (22.56%) Juniper
6 29 (21.80%) Blue Coat
6 29 (21.80%) SolarWinds
7 28 (21.05%) McAfee
8 24 (18.05%) Splunk
9 22 (16.54%) Extreme Networks
10 19 (14.29%) Arista
10 19 (14.29%) NetApp
11 18 (13.53%) CheckPoint
12 15 (11.28%) Microsoft
13 11 (8.27%) Aruba
13 11 (8.27%) Fortinet
13 11 (8.27%) ServiceNow
14 10 (7.52%) Infoblox
15 7 (5.26%) Zscaler
16 4 (3.01%) Remedy