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 26 July 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
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 342 345 265
Rank change year-on-year +3 -80 +136
Contract jobs citing F5 370 209 370
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.70% 0.63% 0.92%
As % of the Vendors category 1.69% 1.34% 2.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 164 126 256
10th Percentile £382 £382 £372
25th Percentile £418 £413 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -7.32% -2.38%
75th Percentile £583 £575 £584
90th Percentile £675 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £490 £531
% change year-on-year +6.13% -7.86% +6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 3
10th Percentile £44.28 - -
25th Percentile £48.68 - -
Median hourly rate £57.02 - £23.80
75th Percentile £65.01 - -
90th Percentile £69.20 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.02 - -

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 21,946 15,612 17,568
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.35% 47.42% 43.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,634 9,558 11,043
10th Percentile £313 £280 £280
25th Percentile £413 £401 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,090 773 927
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.65 £13.25
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.08 £15.62
Median hourly rate £35.11 £25.15 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.60% -6.85% -35.41%
75th Percentile £65.00 £50.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.00 £22.32 £25.00
% change year-on-year +52.36% -10.74% -24.24%

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 26 July 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing F5 over the 6 months to 26 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for F5 in the UK

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 26 July 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 +5 323 £509 +4.36% 36
UK excluding London +17 258 £520 +6.13% 19
North of England +13 125 £542 +14.06% 6
Work from Home -12 92 £550 +22.22% 13
North West +21 86 £575 +21.05% 5
Midlands +8 75 £565 +4.92% 3
West Midlands +5 75 £565 +5.21% 3
London -75 72 £500 +11.11% 24
South East -34 67 £520 -0.95% 7
Yorkshire -30 32 £478 +6.11% 1
Scotland -3 22 £419 -6.94% 2
South West -45 17 £495 -9.09% 1
North East - 13 £650 -
East of England -24 5 £530 +1.92%

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 7 (1.89%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.35%) OpenStack
3 4 (1.08%) nginx
4 3 (0.81%) Apache
4 3 (0.81%) Confluence
4 3 (0.81%) IIS
4 3 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.81%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.27%) CMS
Applications
1 9 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
1 9 (2.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 9 (2.43%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 61 (16.49%) Azure
2 52 (14.05%) AWS
3 23 (6.22%) OCI
4 20 (5.41%) GitHub
5 15 (4.05%) SaaS
6 10 (2.70%) IaaS
7 9 (2.43%) GCP
8 8 (2.16%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 7 (1.89%) OpenShift
9 7 (1.89%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (1.62%) Cloudflare
11 5 (1.35%) Microsoft 365
12 4 (1.08%) Entra ID
13 3 (0.81%) Mimecast
13 3 (0.81%) OneDrive
14 2 (0.54%) Nutanix
15 1 (0.27%) Amazon GuardDuty
15 1 (0.27%) AWS Direct Connect
15 1 (0.27%) GitHub Actions
15 1 (0.27%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 202 (54.59%) Firewall
2 167 (45.14%) BGP
3 152 (41.08%) DNS
4 136 (36.76%) BIG-IP
5 121 (32.70%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 120 (32.43%) WAN
7 117 (31.62%) OSPF
8 109 (29.46%) VPN
9 89 (24.05%) LAN
10 82 (22.16%) Network Security
11 81 (21.89%) VXLAN
12 67 (18.11%) TCP/IP
13 63 (17.03%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 61 (16.49%) Multicast
15 58 (15.68%) Ethernet VPN
16 53 (14.32%) Cisco Nexus
17 51 (13.78%) DHCP
18 49 (13.24%) SSL
19 48 (12.97%) SD-WAN
20 47 (12.70%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.08%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.81%) MySQL
3 1 (0.27%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 30 (8.11%) JIRA
2 20 (5.41%) GitLab
3 19 (5.14%) Fiddler
4 13 (3.51%) Jenkins
5 7 (1.89%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.08%) Git
7 1 (0.27%) MSI
7 1 (0.27%) Visual Studio
General
1 51 (13.78%) Social Skills
2 49 (13.24%) Banking
3 45 (12.16%) Finance
4 34 (9.19%) Investment Banking
5 25 (6.76%) Public Sector
6 23 (6.22%) Analytical Skills
7 19 (5.14%) Telecoms
8 11 (2.97%) Financial Institution
9 7 (1.89%) Retail
10 6 (1.62%) Military
11 4 (1.08%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.08%) Legal
12 3 (0.81%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
14 1 (0.27%) Law
14 1 (0.27%) Police
14 1 (0.27%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 190 (51.35%) Network Engineer
2 64 (17.30%) Senior
3 60 (16.22%) Security Engineer
4 54 (14.59%) Network Security Engineer
5 42 (11.35%) Cisco Engineer
6 40 (10.81%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 38 (10.27%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 37 (10.00%) Architect
8 37 (10.00%) Data Network Engineer
9 34 (9.19%) Web Engineer
10 33 (8.92%) Data Engineer
11 31 (8.38%) Cisco Security Engineer
12 29 (7.84%) Senior Network Engineer
13 21 (5.68%) IP Network Engineer
14 20 (5.41%) Network Architect
15 19 (5.14%) Network Specialist
15 19 (5.14%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 16 (4.32%) Blue Coat Engineer
17 14 (3.78%) Firewall Specialist
18 13 (3.51%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (10.27%) 802.1X
2 11 (2.97%) JSON
3 7 (1.89%) SAML
3 7 (1.89%) YAML
4 6 (1.62%) NETCONF
4 6 (1.62%) OpenConfig
4 6 (1.62%) RESTCONF
4 6 (1.62%) YANG
5 5 (1.35%) REST
6 4 (1.08%) LDAP
7 3 (0.81%) LAMP
7 3 (0.81%) LEMP Stack
8 2 (0.54%) eBPF
9 1 (0.27%) .NET
9 1 (0.27%) .NET Framework
9 1 (0.27%) Bun
9 1 (0.27%) Elastic Stack
9 1 (0.27%) React
Miscellaneous
1 122 (32.97%) Data Centre
2 42 (11.35%) Hybrid Cloud
3 26 (7.03%) PKI
4 25 (6.76%) Clustering
5 21 (5.68%) Cloud Native
6 19 (5.14%) Management Information System
7 16 (4.32%) Public Cloud
8 13 (3.51%) Onboarding
9 12 (3.24%) Data Protection Act
10 9 (2.43%) Private Cloud
11 6 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
11 6 (1.62%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 4 (1.08%) Digital Signage
13 3 (0.81%) Algorithms
13 3 (0.81%) Distributed Applications
13 3 (0.81%) Legacy Systems
13 3 (0.81%) Linux Command Line
13 3 (0.81%) Self-Motivation
13 3 (0.81%) Virtual Team
14 2 (0.54%) iSeries
Operating Systems
1 57 (15.41%) Windows
2 39 (10.54%) Linux
3 10 (2.70%) Unix
4 5 (1.35%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.08%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (1.08%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (0.81%) CentOS
6 3 (0.81%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.27%) CatOS
7 1 (0.27%) Check Point GAiA
7 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (47.30%) Load Balancing
2 77 (20.81%) High Availability
3 53 (14.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 48 (12.97%) Project Delivery
5 47 (12.70%) Migration
6 44 (11.89%) CI/CD
6 44 (11.89%) Problem-Solving
6 44 (11.89%) Zero Trust
7 41 (11.08%) Network Design
8 35 (9.46%) Agile
9 33 (8.92%) Observability
10 32 (8.65%) Change Management
11 30 (8.11%) Stakeholder Management
12 29 (7.84%) Infrastructure as Code
12 29 (7.84%) ITIL
13 27 (7.30%) Network Architecture
14 26 (7.03%) Identity Access Management
15 25 (6.76%) Network Management
15 25 (6.76%) Roadmaps
16 22 (5.95%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 93 (25.14%) Python
2 13 (3.51%) ActionScript
3 11 (2.97%) SQL
4 10 (2.70%) JavaScript
5 9 (2.43%) Bash
5 9 (2.43%) VBA
6 8 (2.16%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.81%) C++
7 3 (0.81%) Lisp
7 3 (0.81%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.54%) Perl
9 1 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.27%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 97 (26.22%) Security Cleared
2 71 (19.19%) Cisco Certification
3 55 (14.86%) SC Cleared
4 37 (10.00%) CCNP
5 28 (7.57%) DV Cleared
6 19 (5.14%) CCIE
7 15 (4.05%) Degree
8 7 (1.89%) CCNA
8 7 (1.89%) JNCIA
8 7 (1.89%) JNCIP
8 7 (1.89%) JNCIS
9 6 (1.62%) JNCIE
10 4 (1.08%) CCIE Security
10 4 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.81%) CISSP
11 3 (0.81%) GIAC
11 3 (0.81%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 2 (0.54%) AWS Certification
12 2 (0.54%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (0.54%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.43%) QA
2 6 (1.62%) Disclosure Scotland
3 5 (1.35%) NCSC
4 3 (0.81%) SLA
5 2 (0.54%) GDPR
5 2 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.54%) JSP 440
5 2 (0.54%) NIST
6 1 (0.27%) GRC
System Software
1 39 (10.54%) VMware Infrastructure
2 21 (5.68%) VMware NSX
3 18 (4.86%) Firmware
4 13 (3.51%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.35%) Virtual Servers
6 4 (1.08%) Docker
6 4 (1.08%) vSphere
7 3 (0.81%) Dovecot
7 3 (0.81%) Postfix
8 1 (0.27%) IAG
8 1 (0.27%) KVM
8 1 (0.27%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 84 (22.70%) Ansible
2 52 (14.05%) FortiGate
3 43 (11.62%) Terraform
4 9 (2.43%) Grafana
5 8 (2.16%) Prometheus
5 8 (2.16%) WMI
6 7 (1.89%) Cisco Prime
7 6 (1.62%) Kubernetes
8 5 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (1.35%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (1.08%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 3 (0.81%) HAProxy
10 3 (0.81%) Salt
11 2 (0.54%) Avamar
11 2 (0.54%) Puppet
11 2 (0.54%) SCCM
11 2 (0.54%) vCenter Server
12 1 (0.27%) NetBackup
12 1 (0.27%) Progress Chef
12 1 (0.27%) vRealize
Vendors
1 230 (62.16%) Cisco
2 139 (37.57%) Palo Alto
3 73 (19.73%) Juniper
4 72 (19.46%) Fortinet
5 54 (14.59%) VMware
6 52 (14.05%) CheckPoint
7 50 (13.51%) Arista
8 47 (12.70%) SolarWinds
9 40 (10.81%) Splunk
10 34 (9.19%) Aruba
11 29 (7.84%) Microsoft
12 27 (7.30%) Blue Coat
13 26 (7.03%) Infoblox
14 23 (6.22%) Extreme Networks
15 21 (5.68%) ServiceNow
16 19 (5.14%) McAfee
17 16 (4.32%) NetApp
18 14 (3.78%) Zscaler
19 8 (2.16%) Citrix
19 8 (2.16%) Meraki