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 23 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
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 323 352 275
Rank change year-on-year +29 -77 +105
Contract jobs citing F5 360 187 356
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.71% 0.62% 0.82%
As % of the Vendors category 1.74% 1.31% 1.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 103 239
10th Percentile £378 £400 £400
25th Percentile £413 £425 £433
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -1.96%
75th Percentile £582 £586 £583
90th Percentile £668 £625 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £510 £500
% change year-on-year +2.94% +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 20,692 14,246 18,519
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.75% 47.54% 42.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,970 8,765 11,497
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £403 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £518
Median % change year-on-year - -3.38% -1.43%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £735
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,065 661 1,168
10th Percentile £15.64 £14.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £17.30 £14.50
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.50 £24.05
Median % change year-on-year +33.29% +6.03% -43.18%
75th Percentile £60.75 £53.75 £59.50
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.75 £23.00 £22.56
% change year-on-year +38.04% +1.95% -39.84%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +2 314 £519 -2.08% 15
UK excluding London +29 254 £525 +2.94% 13
North of England +25 123 £575 +19.23% 5
Work from Home -10 89 £550 +17.33% 13
North West +36 87 £575 +21.05% 5
Midlands +4 76 £550 -0.18% 1
West Midlands 0 76 £550 -0.18% 1
South East -13 67 £525 -8.70% 3
London -70 64 £475 -0.52% 6
Yorkshire -36 29 £478 -2.45%
Scotland -3 20 £419 -5.63% 2
South West -40 17 £495 -8.29%
North East -23 13 £650 +18.18%
East of England -28 4 £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 11 (3.06%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.67%) 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
5 1 (0.28%) OpenStack
Applications
1 14 (3.89%) MS Visio
2 9 (2.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (1.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.83%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 55 (15.28%) Azure
2 51 (14.17%) AWS
3 22 (6.11%) OCI
4 15 (4.17%) GitHub
4 15 (4.17%) SaaS
5 10 (2.78%) IaaS
6 7 (1.94%) Microsoft 365
7 5 (1.39%) Entra ID
7 5 (1.39%) GCP
7 5 (1.39%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 4 (1.11%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 4 (1.11%) Mimecast
9 3 (0.83%) Amazon S3
9 3 (0.83%) Cloudflare
9 3 (0.83%) Nutanix
9 3 (0.83%) OneDrive
9 3 (0.83%) OpenShift
10 2 (0.56%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 1 (0.28%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 1 (0.28%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 191 (53.06%) Firewall
2 156 (43.33%) DNS
3 149 (41.39%) BIG-IP
4 147 (40.83%) BGP
5 117 (32.50%) WAN
6 115 (31.94%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 105 (29.17%) OSPF
8 93 (25.83%) VPN
9 91 (25.28%) LAN
10 78 (21.67%) VXLAN
11 76 (21.11%) Network Security
12 71 (19.72%) TCP/IP
13 63 (17.50%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 59 (16.39%) Multicast
15 57 (15.83%) Ethernet VPN
16 53 (14.72%) SSL
17 50 (13.89%) DHCP
17 50 (13.89%) SD-WAN
18 49 (13.61%) Cisco Nexus
19 40 (11.11%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.11%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.83%) MySQL
3 2 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 34 (9.44%) JIRA
2 24 (6.67%) Fiddler
3 22 (6.11%) GitLab
4 12 (3.33%) 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 (13.61%) Banking
2 45 (12.50%) Finance
2 45 (12.50%) Social Skills
3 36 (10.00%) Investment Banking
4 27 (7.50%) Public Sector
5 17 (4.72%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (3.33%) Financial Institution
6 12 (3.33%) Telecoms
7 6 (1.67%) Military
8 4 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.11%) Retail
9 3 (0.83%) Legal
10 1 (0.28%) Billing
10 1 (0.28%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.28%) Law
10 1 (0.28%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.28%) Police
10 1 (0.28%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 177 (49.17%) Network Engineer
2 64 (17.78%) Senior
3 55 (15.28%) Security Engineer
4 51 (14.17%) Network Security Engineer
5 44 (12.22%) Cisco Engineer
6 42 (11.67%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 40 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 39 (10.83%) Web Engineer
9 37 (10.28%) Data Network Engineer
10 36 (10.00%) Architect
11 34 (9.44%) Data Engineer
12 32 (8.89%) Cisco Security Engineer
13 27 (7.50%) Senior Network Engineer
14 22 (6.11%) IP Network Engineer
15 19 (5.28%) Network Specialist
15 19 (5.28%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 17 (4.72%) Blue Coat Engineer
16 17 (4.72%) Network Architect
17 14 (3.89%) Firewall Specialist
18 9 (2.50%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (9.44%) 802.1X
2 10 (2.78%) JSON
3 7 (1.94%) LDAP
3 7 (1.94%) SAML
4 6 (1.67%) YAML
5 4 (1.11%) REST
6 3 (0.83%) LAMP
6 3 (0.83%) LEMP Stack
6 3 (0.83%) NETCONF
6 3 (0.83%) OpenConfig
6 3 (0.83%) RESTCONF
6 3 (0.83%) YANG
7 1 (0.28%) .NET
7 1 (0.28%) .NET Framework
7 1 (0.28%) Bun
7 1 (0.28%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.28%) React
Miscellaneous
1 113 (31.39%) Data Centre
2 32 (8.89%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (7.78%) PKI
4 25 (6.94%) Clustering
5 18 (5.00%) Management Information System
6 17 (4.72%) Cloud Native
7 16 (4.44%) Public Cloud
8 12 (3.33%) Data Protection Act
9 11 (3.06%) Onboarding
10 7 (1.94%) Private Cloud
11 4 (1.11%) Algorithms
11 4 (1.11%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 3 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
12 3 (0.83%) iSeries
12 3 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
12 3 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
12 3 (0.83%) Virtual Team
13 2 (0.56%) Cyber Threat
13 2 (0.56%) Enterprise Storage
13 2 (0.56%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 59 (16.39%) Windows
2 38 (10.56%) Linux
3 9 (2.50%) Unix
4 6 (1.67%) Windows Server
4 6 (1.67%) Windows Server 2012
4 6 (1.67%) Windows Server 2019
5 3 (0.83%) CatOS
5 3 (0.83%) CentOS
5 3 (0.83%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.28%) Check Point GAiA
Processes & Methodologies
1 170 (47.22%) Load Balancing
2 76 (21.11%) High Availability
3 49 (13.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 48 (13.33%) Migration
5 43 (11.94%) Problem-Solving
6 37 (10.28%) CI/CD
7 36 (10.00%) Network Design
7 36 (10.00%) Zero Trust
8 35 (9.72%) Agile
8 35 (9.72%) Project Delivery
9 33 (9.17%) Observability
10 28 (7.78%) Change Management
11 27 (7.50%) Infrastructure as Code
12 26 (7.22%) Identity Access Management
12 26 (7.22%) Roadmaps
13 25 (6.94%) Network Management
13 25 (6.94%) Stakeholder Management
14 24 (6.67%) DevOps
14 24 (6.67%) Network Architecture
15 23 (6.39%) Malware Detection/Protection
Programming Languages
1 87 (24.17%) Python
2 14 (3.89%) ActionScript
3 11 (3.06%) Bash
3 11 (3.06%) SQL
4 10 (2.78%) JavaScript
5 9 (2.50%) 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 (24.72%) Security Cleared
2 70 (19.44%) Cisco Certification
3 48 (13.33%) SC Cleared
4 38 (10.56%) CCNP
5 29 (8.06%) DV Cleared
6 15 (4.17%) CCIE
7 14 (3.89%) Degree
8 9 (2.50%) JNCIP
9 8 (2.22%) CCNA
9 8 (2.22%) JNCIS
10 7 (1.94%) JNCIA
11 5 (1.39%) JNCIE
12 4 (1.11%) CCIE Security
12 4 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
13 2 (0.56%) AWS Certification
13 2 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
13 2 (0.56%) CCDP
13 2 (0.56%) CCSE
14 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Certification
14 1 (0.28%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.50%) QA
2 6 (1.67%) Disclosure Scotland
3 4 (1.11%) NCSC
4 3 (0.83%) JSP 440
4 3 (0.83%) SLA
5 2 (0.56%) GDPR
5 2 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.56%) NIST
6 1 (0.28%) GRC
6 1 (0.28%) RMADS
System Software
1 40 (11.11%) VMware Infrastructure
2 25 (6.94%) VMware NSX
3 19 (5.28%) Firmware
4 18 (5.00%) Active Directory
5 4 (1.11%) Virtual Servers
5 4 (1.11%) vSphere
6 3 (0.83%) Docker
6 3 (0.83%) Dovecot
6 3 (0.83%) Postfix
7 2 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.28%) IAG
8 1 (0.28%) KVM
8 1 (0.28%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 78 (21.67%) Ansible
2 54 (15.00%) FortiGate
3 37 (10.28%) Terraform
4 11 (3.06%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.78%) Grafana
6 9 (2.50%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (2.22%) WMI
8 7 (1.94%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (1.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (1.11%) Salt
10 4 (1.11%) SCCM
11 3 (0.83%) HAProxy
11 3 (0.83%) Kubernetes
12 2 (0.56%) Avamar
12 2 (0.56%) Red Hat Satellite
13 1 (0.28%) Argo
13 1 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
13 1 (0.28%) Nagios
13 1 (0.28%) NetBackup
13 1 (0.28%) Puppet
Vendors
1 213 (59.17%) Cisco
2 124 (34.44%) Palo Alto
3 68 (18.89%) Juniper
4 58 (16.11%) Fortinet
5 56 (15.56%) VMware
6 47 (13.06%) CheckPoint
7 46 (12.78%) Arista
8 43 (11.94%) SolarWinds
9 40 (11.11%) Splunk
10 34 (9.44%) Aruba
11 29 (8.06%) Blue Coat
12 26 (7.22%) ServiceNow
13 25 (6.94%) Infoblox
13 25 (6.94%) Microsoft
14 24 (6.67%) McAfee
15 23 (6.39%) Extreme Networks
16 17 (4.72%) NetApp
17 11 (3.06%) Zscaler
18 6 (1.67%) Meraki
19 5 (1.39%) Red Hat