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 19 June 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
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 310 352 281
Rank change year-on-year +42 -71 +83
Contract jobs citing F5 361 186 357
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.71% 0.62% 0.81%
As % of the Vendors category 1.76% 1.31% 1.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 159 103 239
10th Percentile £373 £400 £400
25th Percentile £407 £425 £433
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -1.96%
75th Percentile £581 £583 £576
90th Percentile £664 £625 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £510 £500
% change year-on-year +1.96% +2.00% -
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 20,567 14,197 18,573
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.70% 47.60% 42.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,899 8,734 11,515
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,054 655 1,156
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.84 £12.19
25th Percentile £18.90 £17.30 £14.50
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.15 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +35.13% +5.67% -45.13%
75th Percentile £60.00 £53.85 £59.50
90th Percentile £80.08 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 £22.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year +42.22% - -43.75%

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 19 June 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 19 June 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 19 June 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 +10 314 £509 -4.01% 18
UK excluding London +26 257 £520 +1.96% 15
North of England +28 124 £575 +21.05% 5
North West +43 88 £575 +21.05% 5
Work from Home -6 88 £550 +17.33% 15
West Midlands -2 77 £525 -4.72% 1
Midlands -3 77 £525 -4.72% 1
South East -18 67 £525 -8.70% 4
London -66 63 £475 - 7
Yorkshire -43 29 £478 -2.45%
Scotland +4 22 £413 -7.04% 2
South West -31 17 £495 -8.29% 1
North East -23 13 £650 +18.18%
East of England -30 3 £530 +1.92% 1

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 12 (3.32%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.66%) Confluence
3 4 (1.11%) nginx
4 3 (0.83%) Apache
4 3 (0.83%) IIS
4 3 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.83%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.28%) CMS
Applications
1 14 (3.88%) MS Visio
2 8 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 54 (14.96%) Azure
2 49 (13.57%) AWS
3 22 (6.09%) OCI
4 15 (4.16%) SaaS
5 14 (3.88%) GitHub
6 10 (2.77%) IaaS
7 8 (2.22%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (1.66%) Entra ID
9 5 (1.39%) GCP
10 4 (1.11%) Mimecast
11 3 (0.83%) Amazon S3
11 3 (0.83%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 3 (0.83%) Cloudflare
11 3 (0.83%) Nutanix
11 3 (0.83%) OneDrive
11 3 (0.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 2 (0.55%) Amazon OpenSearch
12 2 (0.55%) OpenShift
13 1 (0.28%) AWS CloudFormation
13 1 (0.28%) CloudBees
Communications & Networking
1 191 (52.91%) Firewall
2 156 (43.21%) DNS
3 149 (41.27%) BIG-IP
4 144 (39.89%) BGP
5 115 (31.86%) WAN
6 114 (31.58%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 103 (28.53%) OSPF
8 92 (25.48%) VPN
9 91 (25.21%) LAN
10 79 (21.88%) VXLAN
11 77 (21.33%) Network Security
12 69 (19.11%) TCP/IP
13 64 (17.73%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 59 (16.34%) Multicast
15 58 (16.07%) Ethernet VPN
16 53 (14.68%) SSL
17 51 (14.13%) DHCP
18 50 (13.85%) SD-WAN
19 48 (13.30%) Cisco Nexus
20 40 (11.08%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.11%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.83%) MySQL
3 2 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 34 (9.42%) JIRA
2 24 (6.65%) Fiddler
3 22 (6.09%) GitLab
4 12 (3.32%) Jenkins
5 4 (1.11%) Git
6 3 (0.83%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.28%) MSI
7 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio
General
1 49 (13.57%) Banking
2 46 (12.74%) Social Skills
3 45 (12.47%) Finance
4 36 (9.97%) Investment Banking
5 28 (7.76%) Public Sector
6 16 (4.43%) Analytical Skills
7 12 (3.32%) Financial Institution
8 10 (2.77%) Telecoms
9 6 (1.66%) Military
10 4 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (0.83%) Legal
11 3 (0.83%) Retail
12 1 (0.28%) Billing
12 1 (0.28%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.28%) Law
12 1 (0.28%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.28%) Police
12 1 (0.28%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 177 (49.03%) Network Engineer
2 64 (17.73%) Senior
3 54 (14.96%) Security Engineer
4 50 (13.85%) Network Security Engineer
5 44 (12.19%) Cisco Engineer
6 42 (11.63%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 40 (11.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 39 (10.80%) Web Engineer
9 37 (10.25%) Data Network Engineer
10 35 (9.70%) Architect
11 34 (9.42%) Data Engineer
12 32 (8.86%) Cisco Security Engineer
13 27 (7.48%) Senior Network Engineer
14 22 (6.09%) IP Network Engineer
15 19 (5.26%) Network Specialist
15 19 (5.26%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 17 (4.71%) Blue Coat Engineer
17 16 (4.43%) Network Architect
18 14 (3.88%) Firewall Specialist
19 9 (2.49%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (9.42%) 802.1X
2 10 (2.77%) JSON
3 7 (1.94%) LDAP
3 7 (1.94%) SAML
4 6 (1.66%) YAML
5 4 (1.11%) REST
6 3 (0.83%) LAMP
6 3 (0.83%) LEMP Stack
7 2 (0.55%) NETCONF
7 2 (0.55%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.55%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.55%) YANG
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
1 113 (31.30%) Data Centre
2 29 (8.03%) PKI
3 28 (7.76%) Hybrid Cloud
4 25 (6.93%) Clustering
5 18 (4.99%) Management Information System
6 15 (4.16%) Cloud Native
6 15 (4.16%) Public Cloud
7 12 (3.32%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (2.77%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.39%) Algorithms
10 4 (1.11%) Private Cloud
11 3 (0.83%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 3 (0.83%) iSeries
11 3 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.83%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.55%) Analytical Mindset
12 2 (0.55%) CESG
12 2 (0.55%) Cyber Threat
12 2 (0.55%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 61 (16.90%) Windows
2 39 (10.80%) Linux
3 9 (2.49%) Unix
4 7 (1.94%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.94%) Windows Server 2012
4 7 (1.94%) Windows Server 2019
5 3 (0.83%) CatOS
5 3 (0.83%) CentOS
5 3 (0.83%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.28%) Check Point GAiA
Processes & Methodologies
1 174 (48.20%) Load Balancing
2 79 (21.88%) High Availability
3 49 (13.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 48 (13.30%) Migration
5 44 (12.19%) Problem-Solving
6 37 (10.25%) CI/CD
7 35 (9.70%) Network Design
8 34 (9.42%) Agile
8 34 (9.42%) Zero Trust
9 33 (9.14%) Observability
9 33 (9.14%) Project Delivery
10 29 (8.03%) Change Management
11 27 (7.48%) Infrastructure as Code
11 27 (7.48%) Roadmaps
12 26 (7.20%) Identity Access Management
12 26 (7.20%) Network Management
13 25 (6.93%) Stakeholder Management
14 24 (6.65%) DevOps
15 23 (6.37%) Malware Detection/Protection
15 23 (6.37%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 85 (23.55%) Python
2 14 (3.88%) ActionScript
3 11 (3.05%) Bash
3 11 (3.05%) SQL
4 10 (2.77%) JavaScript
5 9 (2.49%) VBA
6 8 (2.22%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.83%) C++
7 3 (0.83%) Lisp
8 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.28%) Perl
8 1 (0.28%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.28%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 89 (24.65%) Security Cleared
2 71 (19.67%) Cisco Certification
3 50 (13.85%) SC Cleared
4 39 (10.80%) CCNP
5 29 (8.03%) DV Cleared
6 15 (4.16%) CCIE
7 13 (3.60%) Degree
8 9 (2.49%) CCNA
8 9 (2.49%) JNCIP
8 9 (2.49%) JNCIS
9 7 (1.94%) JNCIA
10 5 (1.39%) CCIE Security
11 4 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (1.11%) JNCIE
12 3 (0.83%) CCDP
13 2 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
13 2 (0.55%) CCSE
13 2 (0.55%) CESG Certified Professional
13 2 (0.55%) CHECK Team Leader
13 2 (0.55%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.49%) QA
2 6 (1.66%) Disclosure Scotland
3 4 (1.11%) JSP 440
4 3 (0.83%) NCSC
4 3 (0.83%) SLA
5 2 (0.55%) GDPR
5 2 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.55%) NIST
5 2 (0.55%) RMADS
6 1 (0.28%) GRC
System Software
1 40 (11.08%) VMware Infrastructure
2 25 (6.93%) VMware NSX
3 19 (5.26%) Active Directory
3 19 (5.26%) Firmware
4 4 (1.11%) Virtual Servers
4 4 (1.11%) vSphere
5 3 (0.83%) Docker
5 3 (0.83%) Dovecot
5 3 (0.83%) Postfix
5 3 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.28%) IAG
7 1 (0.28%) KVM
7 1 (0.28%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 76 (21.05%) Ansible
2 53 (14.68%) FortiGate
3 36 (9.97%) Terraform
4 11 (3.05%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.77%) Grafana
5 10 (2.77%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (2.22%) Microsoft Intune
6 8 (2.22%) WMI
7 5 (1.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (1.39%) SCCM
8 4 (1.11%) Salt
9 3 (0.83%) HAProxy
9 3 (0.83%) Kubernetes
10 2 (0.55%) Avamar
10 2 (0.55%) Nagios
10 2 (0.55%) Red Hat Satellite
11 1 (0.28%) Argo
11 1 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
11 1 (0.28%) NetBackup
11 1 (0.28%) Puppet
Vendors
1 213 (59.00%) Cisco
2 124 (34.35%) Palo Alto
3 69 (19.11%) Juniper
4 57 (15.79%) Fortinet
5 55 (15.24%) VMware
6 48 (13.30%) CheckPoint
7 46 (12.74%) Arista
8 42 (11.63%) SolarWinds
9 40 (11.08%) Splunk
10 34 (9.42%) Aruba
11 29 (8.03%) Blue Coat
12 26 (7.20%) ServiceNow
13 25 (6.93%) Infoblox
14 24 (6.65%) McAfee
15 23 (6.37%) Extreme Networks
15 23 (6.37%) Microsoft
16 17 (4.71%) NetApp
17 11 (3.05%) Zscaler
18 6 (1.66%) Meraki
19 5 (1.39%) Red Hat