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 10 October 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
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 397 308 246
Rank change year-on-year -89 -62 +120
Contract jobs citing F5 304 264 376
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.56% 0.80% 0.99%
As % of the Vendors category 1.34% 1.67% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 158 147 238
10th Percentile £379 £380 £400
25th Percentile £425 £420 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £490 £525
Median % change year-on-year +12.36% -6.76% -
75th Percentile £638 £613 £588
90th Percentile £688 £700 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £490 £525
% change year-on-year +12.36% -6.76% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 4
10th Percentile - - £22.02
25th Percentile £61.00 £65.75 £23.16
Median hourly rate £62.00 £66.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -6.77% +179.41% -67.17%
75th Percentile £63.00 £67.25 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £66.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year - +195.56% -68.97%

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 22,765 15,787 16,878
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.70% 47.66% 44.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,737 9,715 9,930
10th Percentile £310 £275 £288
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £620 £613 £625
90th Percentile £711 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,403 805 601
10th Percentile £13.84 £14.84 £14.84
25th Percentile £16.11 £17.79 £16.00
Median hourly rate £24.19 £25.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.24% -23.08% -25.50%
75th Percentile £57.00 £38.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.40 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.18 £21.27 £30.00
% change year-on-year +9.01% -29.12% -29.41%

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 10 October 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
Top 15 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 10 October 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 -90 271 £550 +12.36% 93
UK excluding London -55 209 £550 +12.36% 47
North of England -40 116 £588 +18.45% 14
Work from Home -46 85 £575 +15.00% 39
North West -14 84 £600 +20.00% 11
London -89 68 £525 +10.53% 44
Midlands -33 63 £581 +32.05% 6
West Midlands -37 62 £581 +32.05% 4
South East -56 37 £413 -21.05% 13
Yorkshire -48 25 £490 - 3
Scotland -21 18 £515 +3.00% 7
South West -27 15 £495 -13.91% 4
North East -30 13 £650 +18.18%
East of England -34 4 £450 -13.46% 3
East Midlands - 1 - - 2

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 8 (2.63%) IIS
1 8 (2.63%) nginx
2 6 (1.97%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.64%) OpenStack
4 3 (0.99%) Apache
4 3 (0.99%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.99%) Tomcat
4 3 (0.99%) Traefik
5 2 (0.66%) Confluence
Applications
1 7 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (2.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 6 (1.97%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 60 (19.74%) Azure
2 47 (15.46%) AWS
3 28 (9.21%) GitHub
4 23 (7.57%) OCI
5 19 (6.25%) IaaS
6 16 (5.26%) SaaS
7 13 (4.28%) GCP
8 8 (2.63%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 7 (2.30%) Cloudflare
10 6 (1.97%) Entra ID
10 6 (1.97%) OpenShift
11 4 (1.32%) Microsoft 365
11 4 (1.32%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 3 (0.99%) OneDrive
13 2 (0.66%) Mimecast
14 1 (0.33%) Akamai
14 1 (0.33%) AWS CloudFormation
14 1 (0.33%) Azure DevOps
14 1 (0.33%) Google Ads
14 1 (0.33%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 164 (53.95%) Firewall
2 123 (40.46%) DNS
3 118 (38.82%) BGP
4 108 (35.53%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 106 (34.87%) BIG-IP
6 96 (31.58%) VPN
7 83 (27.30%) Network Security
7 83 (27.30%) WAN
8 81 (26.64%) OSPF
9 73 (24.01%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 55 (18.09%) TCP/IP
11 51 (16.78%) VLAN
11 51 (16.78%) VXLAN
12 49 (16.12%) SSL
13 45 (14.80%) LAN
13 45 (14.80%) Wireless
14 41 (13.49%) Cisco Nexus
14 41 (13.49%) SD-WAN
15 40 (13.16%) Multicast
16 34 (11.18%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.32%) MySQL
2 3 (0.99%) SQL Server
3 2 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (0.66%) DynamoDB
3 2 (0.66%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (0.66%) Redis
4 1 (0.33%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.33%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 24 (7.89%) JIRA
2 21 (6.91%) GitLab
2 21 (6.91%) Jenkins
3 12 (3.95%) Fiddler
4 9 (2.96%) Git
5 6 (1.97%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.33%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.33%) MSI
6 1 (0.33%) REST Assured
6 1 (0.33%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.33%) Selenium
6 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio
General
1 52 (17.11%) Finance
2 48 (15.79%) Social Skills
3 42 (13.82%) Banking
4 32 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (7.89%) Investment Banking
6 18 (5.92%) Public Sector
7 14 (4.61%) Telecoms
8 8 (2.63%) Legal
9 6 (1.97%) Retail
10 4 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (0.66%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.66%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.66%) Local Government
11 2 (0.66%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.33%) Law
12 1 (0.33%) Military
12 1 (0.33%) Police
12 1 (0.33%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 140 (46.05%) Network Engineer
2 48 (15.79%) Security Engineer
3 43 (14.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 41 (13.49%) Senior
5 34 (11.18%) Network Security Engineer
6 31 (10.20%) Architect
7 30 (9.87%) Cisco Engineer
8 28 (9.21%) Cisco Network Engineer
9 21 (6.91%) Data Network Engineer
10 20 (6.58%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 20 (6.58%) Data Engineer
10 20 (6.58%) Web Engineer
11 18 (5.92%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 16 (5.26%) Consultant
12 16 (5.26%) Network Architect
13 13 (4.28%) Automation Engineer
13 13 (4.28%) Senior Network Engineer
14 12 (3.95%) IP Network Engineer
15 11 (3.62%) Blue Coat Engineer
15 11 (3.62%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (13.16%) Terraform
2 20 (6.58%) 802.1X
3 9 (2.96%) YAML
4 8 (2.63%) JSON
5 7 (2.30%) SAML
6 6 (1.97%) NETCONF
6 6 (1.97%) REST
6 6 (1.97%) RESTCONF
7 4 (1.32%) gRPC
7 4 (1.32%) JWT
7 4 (1.32%) LDAP
7 4 (1.32%) OpenConfig
7 4 (1.32%) OpenID
7 4 (1.32%) YANG
8 3 (0.99%) LAMP
8 3 (0.99%) LEMP Stack
8 3 (0.99%) OAuth
8 3 (0.99%) OAuth2
9 2 (0.66%) OpenTelemetry
9 2 (0.66%) React
Miscellaneous
1 109 (35.86%) Data Centre
2 36 (11.84%) Hybrid Cloud
3 24 (7.89%) Management Information System
4 22 (7.24%) Cloud Native
5 20 (6.58%) Public Cloud
6 16 (5.26%) Onboarding
7 12 (3.95%) Data Protection Act
8 8 (2.63%) Private Cloud
9 7 (2.30%) Distributed Applications
10 6 (1.97%) Digital Signage
10 6 (1.97%) PKI
10 6 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (1.64%) Embedded Systems
11 5 (1.64%) Mobile Payment
11 5 (1.64%) Smartcard
12 4 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (1.32%) Clustering
12 4 (1.32%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 3 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
13 3 (0.99%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 40 (13.16%) Linux
2 37 (12.17%) Windows
3 9 (2.96%) Unix
3 9 (2.96%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.99%) CentOS
4 3 (0.99%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.66%) Windows 10
5 2 (0.66%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.66%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.33%) CatOS
6 1 (0.33%) Check Point GAiA
6 1 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (41.78%) Load Balancing
2 64 (21.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 61 (20.07%) CI/CD
4 49 (16.12%) Zero Trust
5 40 (13.16%) Project Delivery
6 38 (12.50%) High Availability
6 38 (12.50%) Migration
6 38 (12.50%) Network Design
7 35 (11.51%) Problem-Solving
8 33 (10.86%) Agile
8 33 (10.86%) Change Management
9 31 (10.20%) Infrastructure as Code
10 27 (8.88%) Network Architecture
11 26 (8.55%) Stakeholder Management
12 25 (8.22%) DevOps
13 24 (7.89%) ITIL
14 22 (7.24%) Roadmaps
15 21 (6.91%) Site Reliability Engineering
16 19 (6.25%) Cybersecurity
17 18 (5.92%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 92 (30.26%) Python
2 20 (6.58%) ActionScript
3 11 (3.62%) SQL
4 10 (3.29%) PowerShell
5 8 (2.63%) JavaScript
5 8 (2.63%) Perl
6 6 (1.97%) Bash
7 5 (1.64%) Shell Script
8 4 (1.32%) VBA
9 3 (0.99%) Lisp
10 2 (0.66%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.33%) C++
11 1 (0.33%) Go
Qualifications
1 64 (21.05%) Security Cleared
2 50 (16.45%) Cisco Certification
3 48 (15.79%) SC Cleared
4 27 (8.88%) CCNP
5 20 (6.58%) CCIE
6 15 (4.93%) Degree
7 9 (2.96%) DV Cleared
8 8 (2.63%) CISSP
9 7 (2.30%) CCNA
10 6 (1.97%) CCSP
10 6 (1.97%) JNCIE
11 5 (1.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 5 (1.64%) CISA
11 5 (1.64%) CISM
11 5 (1.64%) CLAS
11 5 (1.64%) CREST Certified
11 5 (1.64%) IISP
12 4 (1.32%) CCIE Security
13 3 (0.99%) CEH
13 3 (0.99%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 8 (2.63%) QA
2 7 (2.30%) GDPR
2 7 (2.30%) NIST
3 6 (1.97%) GRC
4 5 (1.64%) ISO 31000
4 5 (1.64%) ISO 9001
4 5 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 27005
4 5 (1.64%) PCI DSS
5 4 (1.32%) Disclosure Scotland
5 4 (1.32%) NCSC
6 2 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 35 (11.51%) VMware Infrastructure
2 18 (5.92%) VMware NSX
3 16 (5.26%) Active Directory
4 14 (4.61%) Firmware
5 5 (1.64%) Docker
5 5 (1.64%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.99%) Dovecot
6 3 (0.99%) Postfix
6 3 (0.99%) vSphere
7 2 (0.66%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.33%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.33%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 69 (22.70%) Ansible
2 25 (8.22%) FortiGate
3 12 (3.95%) Cisco Prime
4 8 (2.63%) Kubernetes
4 8 (2.63%) WMI
5 6 (1.97%) HAProxy
5 6 (1.97%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (1.64%) CASB
7 4 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.99%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.66%) Avamar
9 2 (0.66%) Grafana
9 2 (0.66%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.33%) Istio
10 1 (0.33%) Network Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.33%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.33%) Puppet
10 1 (0.33%) SCCM
10 1 (0.33%) vRealize
Vendors
1 172 (56.58%) Cisco
2 113 (37.17%) Palo Alto
3 68 (22.37%) Fortinet
4 52 (17.11%) VMware
5 45 (14.80%) Juniper
6 41 (13.49%) Arista
7 37 (12.17%) CheckPoint
8 32 (10.53%) Aruba
9 30 (9.87%) Microsoft
10 28 (9.21%) SolarWinds
11 25 (8.22%) Blue Coat
12 24 (7.89%) Splunk
13 18 (5.92%) Zscaler
14 15 (4.93%) ServiceNow
15 14 (4.61%) Infoblox
16 11 (3.62%) McAfee
16 11 (3.62%) NetApp
17 10 (3.29%) Meraki
18 8 (2.63%) Citrix
19 7 (2.30%) Google