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 4 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
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 351 328 261
Rank change year-on-year -23 -67 +113
Contract jobs citing F5 356 229 362
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.67% 0.70% 0.92%
As % of the Vendors category 1.63% 1.48% 2.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 159 133 248
10th Percentile £381 £380 £367
25th Percentile £416 £406 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -4.88% -2.38%
75th Percentile £585 £605 £584
90th Percentile £678 £650 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £489 £550
% change year-on-year +6.45% -11.18% +10.00%
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 21,875 15,518 17,130
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.39% 47.16% 43.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,551 9,508 10,703
10th Percentile £313 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £605 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +4.38% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,112 786 855
10th Percentile £15.81 £14.48 £13.57
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.13 £15.62
Median hourly rate £35.00 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.17% -10.18% -33.85%
75th Percentile £65.58 £50.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £22.32 £27.25
% change year-on-year +52.32% -18.11% -23.24%

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 4 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing F5 over the 6 months to 4 August 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 4 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 -33 312 £520 +6.56% 48
UK excluding London +7 243 £520 +6.45% 36
North of England +15 112 £542 +14.06% 15
Work from Home -16 92 £550 +22.22% 20
North West +7 79 £575 +21.05% 13
Midlands 0 75 £573 +27.33% 5
West Midlands -5 75 £573 +34.82% 5
London -71 74 £500 +8.11% 20
South East -30 65 £520 -0.48% 5
Yorkshire -37 26 £488 +8.33% 2
Scotland -1 21 £419 -15.40% 6
South West -52 17 £495 -9.55% 6
North East - 13 £650 -
East of England -15 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 7 (1.97%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.40%) OpenStack
3 4 (1.12%) nginx
4 3 (0.84%) Apache
4 3 (0.84%) IIS
4 3 (0.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.84%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.56%) Confluence
6 1 (0.28%) CMS
Applications
1 9 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
1 9 (2.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 9 (2.53%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 60 (16.85%) Azure
2 51 (14.33%) AWS
3 23 (6.46%) OCI
4 20 (5.62%) GitHub
5 15 (4.21%) SaaS
6 10 (2.81%) IaaS
7 9 (2.53%) GCP
8 8 (2.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 7 (1.97%) OpenShift
9 7 (1.97%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (1.69%) Cloudflare
11 4 (1.12%) Entra ID
11 4 (1.12%) Microsoft 365
12 3 (0.84%) Mimecast
12 3 (0.84%) OneDrive
13 1 (0.28%) Amazon GuardDuty
13 1 (0.28%) AWS CloudFormation
13 1 (0.28%) AWS Direct Connect
13 1 (0.28%) CloudBees
13 1 (0.28%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 197 (55.34%) Firewall
2 165 (46.35%) BGP
3 139 (39.04%) DNS
4 130 (36.52%) BIG-IP
5 120 (33.71%) WAN
6 116 (32.58%) OSPF
7 111 (31.18%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 108 (30.34%) VPN
9 89 (25.00%) LAN
10 82 (23.03%) VXLAN
11 78 (21.91%) Network Security
12 61 (17.13%) TCP/IP
13 59 (16.57%) Ethernet VPN
13 59 (16.57%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 59 (16.57%) Multicast
14 54 (15.17%) Cisco Nexus
15 49 (13.76%) DHCP
16 48 (13.48%) SD-WAN
17 47 (13.20%) SSL
18 46 (12.92%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.12%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.84%) MySQL
3 1 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 25 (7.02%) JIRA
2 20 (5.62%) GitLab
3 17 (4.78%) Fiddler
4 13 (3.65%) Jenkins
5 8 (2.25%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (1.40%) Git
7 1 (0.28%) MSI
7 1 (0.28%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio
General
1 47 (13.20%) Social Skills
2 43 (12.08%) Banking
3 41 (11.52%) Finance
4 31 (8.71%) Investment Banking
5 24 (6.74%) Public Sector
6 23 (6.46%) Analytical Skills
7 19 (5.34%) Telecoms
8 11 (3.09%) Financial Institution
9 7 (1.97%) Retail
10 6 (1.69%) Military
11 5 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (1.12%) Legal
13 3 (0.84%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.56%) Organisational Skills
15 1 (0.28%) Law
15 1 (0.28%) Police
15 1 (0.28%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 187 (52.53%) Network Engineer
2 64 (17.98%) Senior
3 59 (16.57%) Security Engineer
4 53 (14.89%) Network Security Engineer
5 42 (11.80%) Cisco Engineer
6 40 (11.24%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 36 (10.11%) Data Network Engineer
8 32 (8.99%) Architect
8 32 (8.99%) Data Engineer
8 32 (8.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 32 (8.99%) Web Engineer
9 30 (8.43%) Cisco Security Engineer
9 30 (8.43%) Senior Network Engineer
10 20 (5.62%) IP Network Engineer
11 19 (5.34%) Network Architect
11 19 (5.34%) Network Specialist
11 19 (5.34%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 15 (4.21%) Blue Coat Engineer
13 14 (3.93%) Firewall Specialist
14 13 (3.65%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (10.67%) 802.1X
2 8 (2.25%) JSON
2 8 (2.25%) YAML
3 7 (1.97%) SAML
4 6 (1.69%) NETCONF
4 6 (1.69%) OpenConfig
4 6 (1.69%) RESTCONF
4 6 (1.69%) YANG
5 4 (1.12%) LDAP
5 4 (1.12%) REST
6 3 (0.84%) LAMP
6 3 (0.84%) LEMP Stack
7 2 (0.56%) eBPF
8 1 (0.28%) .NET
8 1 (0.28%) .NET Framework
8 1 (0.28%) Bun
8 1 (0.28%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.28%) React
Miscellaneous
1 121 (33.99%) Data Centre
2 42 (11.80%) Hybrid Cloud
3 26 (7.30%) PKI
4 25 (7.02%) Clustering
5 21 (5.90%) Cloud Native
6 19 (5.34%) Management Information System
7 13 (3.65%) Onboarding
8 12 (3.37%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (2.53%) Public Cloud
10 8 (2.25%) Private Cloud
11 6 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
11 6 (1.69%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 4 (1.12%) Digital Signage
13 3 (0.84%) Algorithms
13 3 (0.84%) Distributed Applications
13 3 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
13 3 (0.84%) Linux Command Line
13 3 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
14 2 (0.56%) Operational Technology
15 1 (0.28%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 57 (16.01%) Windows
2 39 (10.96%) Linux
3 10 (2.81%) Unix
4 4 (1.12%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.84%) CentOS
5 3 (0.84%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2012
5 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.28%) CatOS
6 1 (0.28%) Check Point GAiA
6 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (48.03%) Load Balancing
2 73 (20.51%) High Availability
3 48 (13.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 45 (12.64%) CI/CD
4 45 (12.64%) Migration
5 44 (12.36%) Zero Trust
6 42 (11.80%) Network Design
7 40 (11.24%) Project Delivery
8 39 (10.96%) Problem-Solving
9 33 (9.27%) Observability
10 31 (8.71%) Agile
11 30 (8.43%) Change Management
11 30 (8.43%) Stakeholder Management
12 29 (8.15%) ITIL
13 28 (7.87%) Infrastructure as Code
14 26 (7.30%) Identity Access Management
14 26 (7.30%) Network Architecture
15 25 (7.02%) Roadmaps
16 24 (6.74%) Network Management
17 21 (5.90%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 88 (24.72%) Python
2 12 (3.37%) ActionScript
3 11 (3.09%) SQL
4 9 (2.53%) Bash
5 8 (2.25%) JavaScript
6 7 (1.97%) PowerShell
6 7 (1.97%) VBA
7 3 (0.84%) C++
7 3 (0.84%) Lisp
8 2 (0.56%) Perl
8 2 (0.56%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.28%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 97 (27.25%) Security Cleared
2 73 (20.51%) Cisco Certification
3 55 (15.45%) SC Cleared
4 37 (10.39%) CCNP
5 28 (7.87%) DV Cleared
6 21 (5.90%) CCIE
7 15 (4.21%) Degree
8 7 (1.97%) CCNA
8 7 (1.97%) JNCIA
8 7 (1.97%) JNCIP
8 7 (1.97%) JNCIS
9 6 (1.69%) JNCIE
10 4 (1.12%) CCIE Security
10 4 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.84%) CISSP
11 3 (0.84%) GIAC
11 3 (0.84%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 2 (0.56%) AWS Certification
12 2 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (0.56%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.53%) QA
2 6 (1.69%) Disclosure Scotland
3 5 (1.40%) NCSC
4 3 (0.84%) SLA
5 2 (0.56%) GDPR
5 2 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.56%) JSP 440
5 2 (0.56%) NIST
6 1 (0.28%) GRC
System Software
1 40 (11.24%) VMware Infrastructure
2 20 (5.62%) VMware NSX
3 17 (4.78%) Firmware
4 12 (3.37%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.40%) Virtual Servers
6 3 (0.84%) Docker
6 3 (0.84%) Dovecot
6 3 (0.84%) Postfix
6 3 (0.84%) vSphere
7 1 (0.28%) IAG
7 1 (0.28%) KVM
7 1 (0.28%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 80 (22.47%) Ansible
2 50 (14.04%) FortiGate
3 43 (12.08%) Terraform
4 9 (2.53%) Grafana
5 8 (2.25%) Prometheus
5 8 (2.25%) WMI
6 7 (1.97%) Cisco Prime
7 5 (1.40%) Kubernetes
7 5 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (1.12%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 3 (0.84%) HAProxy
9 3 (0.84%) Salt
10 2 (0.56%) Avamar
10 2 (0.56%) Puppet
10 2 (0.56%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.28%) NetBackup
11 1 (0.28%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.28%) SCCM
11 1 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 231 (64.89%) Cisco
2 139 (39.04%) Palo Alto
3 73 (20.51%) Fortinet
3 73 (20.51%) Juniper
4 54 (15.17%) VMware
5 53 (14.89%) CheckPoint
6 50 (14.04%) Arista
7 47 (13.20%) SolarWinds
8 40 (11.24%) Splunk
9 34 (9.55%) Aruba
10 28 (7.87%) Microsoft
11 25 (7.02%) Blue Coat
12 23 (6.46%) Infoblox
13 22 (6.18%) Extreme Networks
14 21 (5.90%) ServiceNow
15 16 (4.49%) McAfee
16 15 (4.21%) NetApp
17 14 (3.93%) Zscaler
18 8 (2.25%) Meraki
19 7 (1.97%) Citrix