F5 Contract Job Trends

F5
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of F5 products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited F5 over the 6 months leading up to 31 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within F5 Networks, Inc.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 376 329 254
Rank change year-on-year -47 -75 +133
Contract jobs citing F5 330 248 371
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 0.75% 0.96%
As % of the Vendors category 1.47% 1.59% 2.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 156 137 251
10th Percentile £380 £378 £375
25th Percentile £418 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £504 £488 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% -7.14% -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £588
90th Percentile £681 £650 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £490 £550
% change year-on-year +6.13% -11.00% +12.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 3
Median hourly rate - £66.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year - +179.41% -67.17%
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £66.50 -

All Vendors
UK

F5 falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 22,440 15,554 16,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.75% 47.20% 44.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,821 9,526 10,400
10th Percentile £313 £275 £287
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,170 794 740
10th Percentile £14.35 £14.69 £13.69
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £29.29 £25.15 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.44% -13.28% -31.76%
75th Percentile £65.00 £44.01 £62.51
90th Percentile £81.36 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £21.24 £27.50
% change year-on-year +31.83% -22.76% -30.51%

F5
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing F5 relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

F5 job vacancy trend in the UK

F5
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing F5.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing F5

F5
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing F5 over the 6 months to 31 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for F5 in the UK

F5
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing F5.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing F5

F5
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing F5 within the UK over the 6 months to 31 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 -48 292 £523 +6.96% 35
UK excluding London -12 227 £520 +6.13% 23
North of England -12 118 £534 +10.65% 7
Work from Home -14 92 £550 +17.90% 8
North West +5 87 £575 +21.05% 6
West Midlands -6 75 £581 +32.05% 2
Midlands -10 75 £581 +32.05% 2
London -86 68 £525 +10.53% 16
South East -46 47 £450 -16.28% 7
Yorkshire -51 24 £475 -2.96% 1
Scotland -13 19 £425 -19.05% 2
South West -42 19 £495 -13.91% 5
North East -24 13 £650 +18.18%
East of England -14 5 £530 +24.71%

F5
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 6 (1.82%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.52%) nginx
2 5 (1.52%) OpenStack
3 3 (0.91%) Apache
3 3 (0.91%) IIS
3 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.91%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.61%) Confluence
5 1 (0.30%) CMS
Applications
1 8 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
1 8 (2.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 8 (2.42%) MS Visio
2 5 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 60 (18.18%) Azure
2 51 (15.45%) AWS
3 23 (6.97%) OCI
4 19 (5.76%) GitHub
5 15 (4.55%) SaaS
6 10 (3.03%) IaaS
7 9 (2.73%) GCP
8 8 (2.42%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 7 (2.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (1.82%) Cloudflare
10 6 (1.82%) OpenShift
11 4 (1.21%) Entra ID
12 3 (0.91%) Microsoft 365
12 3 (0.91%) Mimecast
12 3 (0.91%) OneDrive
13 1 (0.30%) Akamai
13 1 (0.30%) Amazon EC2
13 1 (0.30%) Amazon S3
13 1 (0.30%) Google Ads
13 1 (0.30%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 177 (53.64%) Firewall
2 142 (43.03%) BGP
3 131 (39.70%) DNS
4 120 (36.36%) BIG-IP
5 119 (36.06%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 112 (33.94%) VPN
7 101 (30.61%) WAN
8 93 (28.18%) OSPF
9 81 (24.55%) Network Security
10 70 (21.21%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 64 (19.39%) LAN
11 64 (19.39%) VXLAN
12 61 (18.48%) TCP/IP
13 53 (16.06%) SSL
14 52 (15.76%) Cisco Nexus
15 51 (15.45%) Multicast
16 50 (15.15%) Wireless
17 47 (14.24%) VLAN
18 44 (13.33%) SD-WAN
19 42 (12.73%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.91%) MySQL
1 3 (0.91%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (6.97%) JIRA
2 20 (6.06%) GitLab
3 16 (4.85%) Fiddler
4 11 (3.33%) Jenkins
5 7 (2.12%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.21%) Git
7 1 (0.30%) MSI
7 1 (0.30%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.30%) Visual Studio
General
1 52 (15.76%) Social Skills
2 44 (13.33%) Banking
3 41 (12.42%) Finance
4 32 (9.70%) Investment Banking
5 28 (8.48%) Analytical Skills
6 20 (6.06%) Public Sector
7 19 (5.76%) Telecoms
8 8 (2.42%) Legal
9 7 (2.12%) Retail
10 6 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.21%) Financial Institution
12 3 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.61%) Military
13 2 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
14 1 (0.30%) Law
14 1 (0.30%) Police
14 1 (0.30%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 173 (52.42%) Network Engineer
2 62 (18.79%) Security Engineer
3 55 (16.67%) Senior
4 53 (16.06%) Network Security Engineer
5 42 (12.73%) Cisco Engineer
6 40 (12.12%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 34 (10.30%) Data Network Engineer
7 34 (10.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 33 (10.00%) Architect
9 30 (9.09%) Data Engineer
9 30 (9.09%) Web Engineer
10 29 (8.79%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 24 (7.27%) Senior Network Engineer
12 19 (5.76%) Network Architect
12 19 (5.76%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 18 (5.45%) IP Network Engineer
14 15 (4.55%) Blue Coat Engineer
14 15 (4.55%) Consultant
15 14 (4.24%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 11 (3.33%) Network Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (13.33%) Terraform
2 26 (7.88%) 802.1X
3 9 (2.73%) YAML
4 8 (2.42%) JSON
5 7 (2.12%) SAML
6 6 (1.82%) NETCONF
6 6 (1.82%) RESTCONF
7 5 (1.52%) OpenConfig
7 5 (1.52%) YANG
8 4 (1.21%) LDAP
8 4 (1.21%) REST
9 3 (0.91%) LAMP
9 3 (0.91%) LEMP Stack
10 2 (0.61%) eBPF
11 1 (0.30%) .NET Framework
11 1 (0.30%) Bun
11 1 (0.30%) gRPC
11 1 (0.30%) JWT
11 1 (0.30%) OpenID
11 1 (0.30%) React
Miscellaneous
1 105 (31.82%) Data Centre
2 41 (12.42%) Hybrid Cloud
3 22 (6.67%) Management Information System
4 21 (6.36%) Cloud Native
5 14 (4.24%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (3.33%) Onboarding
6 11 (3.33%) PKI
7 9 (2.73%) Clustering
8 8 (2.42%) Private Cloud
8 8 (2.42%) Public Cloud
9 7 (2.12%) Distributed Applications
9 7 (2.12%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 5 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
10 5 (1.52%) Digital Signage
11 3 (0.91%) Algorithms
11 3 (0.91%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.91%) Linux Command Line
11 3 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
12 2 (0.61%) Driving Licence
13 1 (0.30%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 38 (11.52%) Windows
2 37 (11.21%) Linux
3 9 (2.73%) Unix
4 4 (1.21%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.91%) CentOS
5 3 (0.91%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.30%) CatOS
7 1 (0.30%) Check Point GAiA
7 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (47.58%) Load Balancing
2 52 (15.76%) High Availability
2 52 (15.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 46 (13.94%) CI/CD
3 46 (13.94%) Zero Trust
4 44 (13.33%) Migration
5 43 (13.03%) Project Delivery
6 39 (11.82%) Network Design
7 31 (9.39%) Change Management
8 30 (9.09%) Stakeholder Management
9 29 (8.79%) Agile
10 28 (8.48%) Infrastructure as Code
11 27 (8.18%) Network Architecture
12 25 (7.58%) Problem-Solving
13 24 (7.27%) Roadmaps
14 23 (6.97%) DevOps
15 22 (6.67%) ITIL
16 20 (6.06%) Continuous Improvement
16 20 (6.06%) Network Management
16 20 (6.06%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 87 (26.36%) Python
2 11 (3.33%) SQL
3 10 (3.03%) ActionScript
3 10 (3.03%) JavaScript
4 8 (2.42%) Perl
4 8 (2.42%) PowerShell
5 7 (2.12%) VBA
6 5 (1.52%) Bash
7 4 (1.21%) Shell Script
8 3 (0.91%) Lisp
9 1 (0.30%) C++
9 1 (0.30%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 83 (25.15%) Security Cleared
2 59 (17.88%) SC Cleared
3 54 (16.36%) Cisco Certification
4 31 (9.39%) CCNP
5 21 (6.36%) CCIE
6 16 (4.85%) DV Cleared
7 15 (4.55%) Degree
8 6 (1.82%) CCNA
8 6 (1.82%) JNCIE
9 4 (1.21%) CCIE Security
9 4 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.91%) CEH
10 3 (0.91%) CISSP
10 3 (0.91%) GIAC
10 3 (0.91%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 2 (0.61%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.61%) Azure Certification
11 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.30%) CCDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.42%) QA
2 5 (1.52%) Disclosure Scotland
3 4 (1.21%) NCSC
4 2 (0.61%) GDPR
4 2 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.61%) NIST
5 1 (0.30%) GRC
System Software
1 46 (13.94%) VMware Infrastructure
2 23 (6.97%) VMware NSX
3 18 (5.45%) Firmware
4 15 (4.55%) Active Directory
5 3 (0.91%) Docker
5 3 (0.91%) Dovecot
5 3 (0.91%) Postfix
5 3 (0.91%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (0.91%) vSphere
6 1 (0.30%) ProxySG
6 1 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 73 (22.12%) Ansible
2 33 (10.00%) FortiGate
3 8 (2.42%) Cisco Prime
3 8 (2.42%) WMI
4 5 (1.52%) Kubernetes
4 5 (1.52%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (1.21%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.91%) Grafana
6 3 (0.91%) HAProxy
6 3 (0.91%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.91%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.61%) Avamar
8 1 (0.30%) Istio
8 1 (0.30%) Network Intrusion Detection System
8 1 (0.30%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.30%) Puppet
8 1 (0.30%) SCCM
8 1 (0.30%) vRealize
Vendors
1 204 (61.82%) Cisco
2 130 (39.39%) Palo Alto
3 71 (21.52%) Fortinet
4 60 (18.18%) VMware
5 54 (16.36%) Juniper
6 45 (13.64%) CheckPoint
7 40 (12.12%) Arista
8 34 (10.30%) SolarWinds
9 30 (9.09%) Aruba
10 28 (8.48%) Blue Coat
11 27 (8.18%) Microsoft
12 22 (6.67%) Infoblox
13 19 (5.76%) Splunk
14 17 (5.15%) Zscaler
15 15 (4.55%) McAfee
15 15 (4.55%) NetApp
16 14 (4.24%) ServiceNow
17 11 (3.33%) Meraki
18 8 (2.42%) Citrix
19 7 (2.12%) Extreme Networks