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 20 March 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
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 348 329 317
Rank change year-on-year -19 -12 +63
Contract jobs citing F5 289 199 285
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.68% 0.64%
As % of the Vendors category 1.52% 1.44% 1.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 116 180
10th Percentile £315 £386 £378
25th Percentile £400 £425 £429
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £531 £494
Median % change year-on-year -6.78% +7.54% -5.95%
75th Percentile £550 £601 £588
90th Percentile £675 £656 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £547 £494
% change year-on-year -8.63% +10.84% -1.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 3
10th Percentile £42.05 - £60.55
25th Percentile £43.11 - £63.63
Median hourly rate £48.72 - £72.50
75th Percentile £62.29 - £76.25
90th Percentile £68.11 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 - £72.50
% change year-on-year - - -7.88%

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 18,995 13,794 19,003
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.67% 47.14% 42.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,168 8,632 11,856
10th Percentile £310 £290 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% +0.49% -2.83%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £625
90th Percentile £700 £710 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 967 461 1,025
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% +18.37% -31.94%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £55.00
90th Percentile £75.91 £82.96 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £27.43 £22.58
% change year-on-year -14.31% +21.46% -32.09%

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 20 March 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 20 March 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 20 March 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 -15 261 £500 -9.09% 18
UK excluding London 0 194 £500 -8.63% 14
North of England +10 102 £525 -4.55% 1
North West +40 87 £500 +2.04% 1
Midlands -19 68 £350 -40.17% 3
West Midlands -7 67 £350 -36.48% 3
London -41 66 £443 -7.81% 4
Work from Home -33 64 £500 +6.67% 5
South East -31 56 £525 +5.00% 8
Yorkshire -41 22 £550 -
Scotland +7 11 £419 -4.29%
South West -45 6 £525 +9.09%
East of England -23 2 - - 2
East Midlands -48 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 7 (2.42%) Confluence
1 7 (2.42%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.38%) OpenStack
3 1 (0.35%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (6.92%) MS Visio
2 8 (2.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.73%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 40 (13.84%) AWS
2 39 (13.49%) Azure
3 18 (6.23%) GCP
4 8 (2.77%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 7 (2.42%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (1.73%) Amazon S3
6 5 (1.73%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 5 (1.73%) Nutanix
6 5 (1.73%) OpenShift
7 4 (1.38%) Akamai
7 4 (1.38%) Mimecast
8 3 (1.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 3 (1.04%) Amazon EC2
8 3 (1.04%) Amazon ELB
8 3 (1.04%) Entra ID
9 2 (0.69%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 2 (0.69%) AWS Direct Connect
9 2 (0.69%) Cloudflare
9 2 (0.69%) GitHub
10 1 (0.35%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 146 (50.52%) Firewall
2 142 (49.13%) DNS
3 101 (34.95%) BGP
4 94 (32.53%) BIG-IP
5 86 (29.76%) WAN
6 82 (28.37%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 80 (27.68%) Network Security
8 71 (24.57%) VPN
9 70 (24.22%) LAN
10 68 (23.53%) OSPF
11 67 (23.18%) TCP/IP
12 61 (21.11%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 56 (19.38%) SSL
14 46 (15.92%) HTTP
15 44 (15.22%) Wireshark
16 41 (14.19%) DMZ
17 40 (13.84%) Multicast
18 38 (13.15%) Cisco ASA
18 38 (13.15%) DHCP
19 36 (12.46%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
1 2 (0.69%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 30 (10.38%) Fiddler
2 17 (5.88%) JIRA
3 11 (3.81%) Git
4 7 (2.42%) GitLab
5 5 (1.73%) Jenkins
6 3 (1.04%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.69%) Rational DOORS
General
1 48 (16.61%) Social Skills
2 47 (16.26%) Banking
3 45 (15.57%) Finance
4 38 (13.15%) Investment Banking
5 22 (7.61%) Analytical Skills
6 20 (6.92%) Public Sector
7 15 (5.19%) Financial Institution
8 12 (4.15%) Telecoms
9 7 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (2.42%) Military
10 6 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (1.73%) Retail
12 2 (0.69%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.35%) Billing
13 1 (0.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.35%) Legal
13 1 (0.35%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 145 (50.17%) Network Engineer
2 42 (14.53%) Web Engineer
3 40 (13.84%) Senior
4 37 (12.80%) Architect
4 37 (12.80%) Security Engineer
5 32 (11.07%) Network Security Engineer
6 27 (9.34%) Cisco Engineer
7 26 (9.00%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 24 (8.30%) Data Network Engineer
9 22 (7.61%) Data Engineer
9 22 (7.61%) IP Network Engineer
10 21 (7.27%) Senior Network Engineer
11 20 (6.92%) Cisco Security Engineer
12 19 (6.57%) Blue Coat Engineer
12 19 (6.57%) Network Architect
13 13 (4.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 12 (4.15%) Junior
15 11 (3.81%) Junior Network Engineer
15 11 (3.81%) Network Specialist
15 11 (3.81%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (8.65%) 802.1X
2 8 (2.77%) LDAP
3 7 (2.42%) JSON
3 7 (2.42%) SAML
4 6 (2.08%) NETCONF
4 6 (2.08%) YANG
5 5 (1.73%) OpenConfig
6 4 (1.38%) REST
6 4 (1.38%) RESTCONF
6 4 (1.38%) VML
7 3 (1.04%) XML
8 2 (0.69%) YAML
9 1 (0.35%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 66 (22.84%) Data Centre
2 26 (9.00%) Management Information System
3 24 (8.30%) PKI
4 20 (6.92%) Clustering
5 14 (4.84%) Public Cloud
6 10 (3.46%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (2.08%) Private Cloud
7 6 (2.08%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (1.73%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (1.38%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.38%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.04%) Algorithms
10 3 (1.04%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (1.04%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 3 (1.04%) iSeries
10 3 (1.04%) Virtual Team
11 2 (0.69%) CESG
11 2 (0.69%) Cyber Threat
11 2 (0.69%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 38 (13.15%) Windows
2 21 (7.27%) Linux
3 8 (2.77%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.42%) Unix
4 7 (2.42%) Windows Server 2012
4 7 (2.42%) Windows Server 2019
5 4 (1.38%) CatOS
6 3 (1.04%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 153 (52.94%) Load Balancing
2 48 (16.61%) High Availability
2 48 (16.61%) Problem-Solving
3 37 (12.80%) Migration
4 32 (11.07%) Observability
5 31 (10.73%) Change Management
5 31 (10.73%) Data Loss Prevention
6 30 (10.38%) Malware Detection/Protection
7 28 (9.69%) ITIL
8 27 (9.34%) Stakeholder Management
9 24 (8.30%) Network Design
9 24 (8.30%) Roadmaps
10 23 (7.96%) DevOps
11 22 (7.61%) Identity Access Management
11 22 (7.61%) Incident Response
12 19 (6.57%) Business Strategy
13 18 (6.23%) Data Protection
13 18 (6.23%) Mentoring
14 17 (5.88%) Cybersecurity
14 17 (5.88%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 61 (21.11%) Python
2 15 (5.19%) Bash
3 5 (1.73%) PowerShell
4 4 (1.38%) ActionScript
4 4 (1.38%) SQL
5 2 (0.69%) C++
5 2 (0.69%) JavaScript
5 2 (0.69%) VBA
6 1 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.35%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 73 (25.26%) Security Cleared
2 57 (19.72%) Cisco Certification
3 38 (13.15%) SC Cleared
4 32 (11.07%) CCNP
5 27 (9.34%) DV Cleared
6 22 (7.61%) CCIE
7 12 (4.15%) JNCIP
8 11 (3.81%) JNCIS
9 9 (3.11%) Degree
9 9 (3.11%) JNCIE
10 8 (2.77%) CCNA
10 8 (2.77%) JNCIA
11 5 (1.73%) CCIE Security
11 5 (1.73%) CISSP
12 4 (1.38%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (1.38%) AWS Certification
12 4 (1.38%) CCSP
13 3 (1.04%) Azure Certification
13 3 (1.04%) CCSE
13 3 (1.04%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.77%) NIST
2 6 (2.08%) PCI DSS
3 5 (1.73%) GDPR
3 5 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (1.73%) JSP 440
3 5 (1.73%) SLA
4 3 (1.04%) NCSC
5 2 (0.69%) RMADS
6 1 (0.35%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.35%) COBIT
6 1 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.35%) QA
System Software
1 64 (22.15%) VMware Infrastructure
2 34 (11.76%) VMware NSX
3 20 (6.92%) Firmware
4 16 (5.54%) Active Directory
5 13 (4.50%) Docker
6 11 (3.81%) vSphere
7 4 (1.38%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (1.38%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (1.04%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.69%) KVM
9 2 (0.69%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.35%) IAG
10 1 (0.35%) RHEV
10 1 (0.35%) Xen
10 1 (0.35%) XenApp
10 1 (0.35%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 59 (20.42%) Ansible
2 41 (14.19%) FortiGate
3 28 (9.69%) Terraform
4 12 (4.15%) Prometheus
5 11 (3.81%) Kubernetes
6 10 (3.46%) Grafana
6 10 (3.46%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (2.42%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (2.42%) SCCM
8 5 (1.73%) Salt
9 4 (1.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (1.38%) Nagios
10 2 (0.69%) Argo
10 2 (0.69%) CSIRT
10 2 (0.69%) Red Hat Satellite
11 1 (0.35%) Backup Exec
11 1 (0.35%) NetBackup
11 1 (0.35%) Norton AntiVirus
11 1 (0.35%) SCOM
11 1 (0.35%) WSUS
Vendors
1 158 (54.67%) Cisco
2 88 (30.45%) VMware
3 86 (29.76%) Palo Alto
4 62 (21.45%) Juniper
5 53 (18.34%) CheckPoint
6 44 (15.22%) Blue Coat
7 42 (14.53%) McAfee
8 33 (11.42%) SolarWinds
9 32 (11.07%) Fortinet
10 29 (10.03%) Splunk
11 21 (7.27%) NetApp
12 20 (6.92%) Extreme Networks
13 19 (6.57%) Arista
14 18 (6.23%) Microsoft
15 17 (5.88%) ServiceNow
16 16 (5.54%) Aruba
16 16 (5.54%) Meraki
17 12 (4.15%) Infoblox
17 12 (4.15%) Zscaler
18 7 (2.42%) Nokia