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 14 April 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
14 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 343 332 318
Rank change year-on-year -11 -14 +73
Contract jobs citing F5 303 190 293
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.65% 0.67%
As % of the Vendors category 1.55% 1.37% 1.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 113 192
10th Percentile £331 £382 £383
25th Percentile £400 £425 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £538 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.70% +7.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £651 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 1
10th Percentile £42.05 - -
25th Percentile £43.11 - £58.50
Median hourly rate £48.72 - £63.00
75th Percentile £62.29 - £67.50
90th Percentile £68.11 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 - £63.00
% change year-on-year - - -19.95%

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 19,564 13,843 18,542
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.79% 47.28% 42.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,535 8,740 11,568
10th Percentile £313 £294 £262
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.50% -1.89%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £627
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.56% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 978 529 1,060
10th Percentile £15.15 £15.00 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.51 £14.36
Median hourly rate £28.24 £27.99 £22.29
Median % change year-on-year +0.88% +25.59% -47.56%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £56.25
90th Percentile £78.75 £78.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £24.66 £21.46
% change year-on-year +2.92% +14.91% -44.97%

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 14 April 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 14 April 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 14 April 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 -10 272 £500 -9.09% 28
UK excluding London -3 200 £500 -9.09% 29
North of England +13 100 £550 - 1
North West +44 86 £625 +31.58%
Midlands -18 71 £345 -41.03% 5
West Midlands -3 70 £345 -37.39% 5
London -56 70 £475 -1.04% 5
Work from Home -42 62 £500 +5.26% 10
South East -22 58 £525 +6.33% 6
Yorkshire -46 18 £490 -10.91% 1
Scotland +5 12 £413 -5.71% 5
South West -52 6 £444 -11.25% 8
East of England -30 2 £530 +13.98% 4
East Midlands -44 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 (2.31%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.98%) Confluence
3 4 (1.32%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.33%) CMS
4 1 (0.33%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (6.60%) MS Visio
2 8 (2.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 37 (12.21%) Azure
2 35 (11.55%) AWS
3 15 (4.95%) GCP
4 8 (2.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 7 (2.31%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (1.98%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 5 (1.65%) Nutanix
7 5 (1.65%) OpenShift
8 3 (0.99%) Amazon S3
8 3 (0.99%) Entra ID
8 3 (0.99%) GitHub
8 3 (0.99%) Mimecast
9 2 (0.66%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 2 (0.66%) AWS Direct Connect
10 1 (0.33%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 1 (0.33%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.33%) Azure Monitor
10 1 (0.33%) GitHub Actions
10 1 (0.33%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 1 (0.33%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 154 (50.83%) Firewall
2 145 (47.85%) DNS
3 114 (37.62%) BGP
4 107 (35.31%) BIG-IP
5 94 (31.02%) WAN
6 92 (30.36%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 80 (26.40%) LAN
8 79 (26.07%) VPN
9 78 (25.74%) Network Security
10 74 (24.42%) OSPF
11 67 (22.11%) TCP/IP
12 63 (20.79%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 55 (18.15%) SSL
14 49 (16.17%) Multicast
15 47 (15.51%) HTTP
16 42 (13.86%) DMZ
16 42 (13.86%) VXLAN
17 41 (13.53%) DHCP
17 41 (13.53%) Wireshark
18 38 (12.54%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
1 2 (0.66%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 29 (9.57%) Fiddler
2 18 (5.94%) JIRA
3 8 (2.64%) Git
4 4 (1.32%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.99%) GitLab
6 2 (0.66%) Jenkins
General
1 52 (17.16%) Social Skills
2 51 (16.83%) Banking
3 43 (14.19%) Finance
4 38 (12.54%) Investment Banking
5 19 (6.27%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (6.27%) Public Sector
6 15 (4.95%) Financial Institution
7 13 (4.29%) Telecoms
8 8 (2.64%) Military
9 6 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.65%) Retail
11 4 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.66%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.33%) Billing
13 1 (0.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 161 (53.14%) Network Engineer
2 47 (15.51%) Security Engineer
3 44 (14.52%) Network Security Engineer
3 44 (14.52%) Senior
4 43 (14.19%) Web Engineer
5 40 (13.20%) Architect
6 33 (10.89%) Cisco Engineer
6 33 (10.89%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 31 (10.23%) Data Network Engineer
8 28 (9.24%) Data Engineer
9 27 (8.91%) Senior Network Engineer
10 26 (8.58%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 24 (7.92%) IP Network Engineer
12 20 (6.60%) Network Architect
13 19 (6.27%) Blue Coat Engineer
14 16 (5.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 15 (4.95%) Network Specialist
16 12 (3.96%) Firewall Specialist
17 11 (3.63%) Design Engineer
17 11 (3.63%) Junior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (9.24%) 802.1X
2 9 (2.97%) JSON
3 8 (2.64%) LDAP
4 7 (2.31%) SAML
5 6 (1.98%) NETCONF
5 6 (1.98%) YANG
6 5 (1.65%) OpenConfig
7 4 (1.32%) RESTCONF
7 4 (1.32%) VML
8 3 (0.99%) REST
9 2 (0.66%) XML
9 2 (0.66%) YAML
10 1 (0.33%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 70 (23.10%) Data Centre
2 26 (8.58%) PKI
3 23 (7.59%) Management Information System
4 22 (7.26%) Clustering
5 16 (5.28%) Public Cloud
6 12 (3.96%) Data Protection Act
7 9 (2.97%) Hybrid Cloud
8 6 (1.98%) Private Cloud
9 5 (1.65%) Algorithms
9 5 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (0.99%) Distributed Architecture
11 3 (0.99%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 3 (0.99%) iSeries
11 3 (0.99%) Onboarding
11 3 (0.99%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.66%) CESG
12 2 (0.66%) Cyber Threat
12 2 (0.66%) Enterprise Software
12 2 (0.66%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 40 (13.20%) Windows
2 23 (7.59%) Linux
3 8 (2.64%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.31%) Unix
4 7 (2.31%) Windows Server 2012
4 7 (2.31%) Windows Server 2019
5 4 (1.32%) CatOS
6 3 (0.99%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (53.14%) Load Balancing
2 52 (17.16%) High Availability
3 44 (14.52%) Problem-Solving
4 38 (12.54%) Migration
5 33 (10.89%) Change Management
5 33 (10.89%) Observability
6 29 (9.57%) Data Loss Prevention
6 29 (9.57%) Malware Detection/Protection
7 28 (9.24%) Stakeholder Management
8 26 (8.58%) ITIL
8 26 (8.58%) Roadmaps
9 24 (7.92%) Identity Access Management
9 24 (7.92%) Network Design
9 24 (7.92%) Project Delivery
10 20 (6.60%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 19 (6.27%) Data Protection
12 18 (5.94%) Agile
12 18 (5.94%) DevOps
12 18 (5.94%) Technical Leadership
13 17 (5.61%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 60 (19.80%) Python
2 12 (3.96%) Bash
3 5 (1.65%) JavaScript
3 5 (1.65%) PowerShell
3 5 (1.65%) VBA
4 4 (1.32%) ActionScript
5 3 (0.99%) SQL
6 2 (0.66%) C++
7 1 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.33%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 74 (24.42%) Security Cleared
2 64 (21.12%) Cisco Certification
3 38 (12.54%) SC Cleared
4 37 (12.21%) CCNP
5 27 (8.91%) DV Cleared
6 23 (7.59%) CCIE
7 12 (3.96%) JNCIP
8 11 (3.63%) Degree
8 11 (3.63%) JNCIS
9 9 (2.97%) JNCIE
10 8 (2.64%) CCNA
10 8 (2.64%) JNCIA
11 5 (1.65%) CCIE Security
12 4 (1.32%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (1.32%) AWS Certification
12 4 (1.32%) CCSP
12 4 (1.32%) CISSP
12 4 (1.32%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (0.99%) CCDP
13 3 (0.99%) CCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.64%) NIST
2 6 (1.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (1.98%) PCI DSS
3 5 (1.65%) GDPR
3 5 (1.65%) JSP 440
3 5 (1.65%) SLA
4 3 (0.99%) NCSC
5 2 (0.66%) Disclosure Scotland
5 2 (0.66%) QA
5 2 (0.66%) RMADS
System Software
1 63 (20.79%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (11.88%) VMware NSX
3 20 (6.60%) Firmware
4 16 (5.28%) Active Directory
5 11 (3.63%) vSphere
6 10 (3.30%) Docker
7 5 (1.65%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.66%) KVM
9 2 (0.66%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.33%) IAG
10 1 (0.33%) RHEV
10 1 (0.33%) Xen
10 1 (0.33%) XenApp
10 1 (0.33%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 57 (18.81%) Ansible
2 48 (15.84%) FortiGate
3 25 (8.25%) Terraform
4 13 (4.29%) Prometheus
5 11 (3.63%) Grafana
5 11 (3.63%) Kubernetes
6 10 (3.30%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (2.31%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (2.31%) SCCM
8 5 (1.65%) Salt
9 4 (1.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (1.32%) Nagios
10 2 (0.66%) Argo
10 2 (0.66%) Red Hat Satellite
11 1 (0.33%) Backup Exec
11 1 (0.33%) NetBackup
11 1 (0.33%) Norton AntiVirus
11 1 (0.33%) SCOM
11 1 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.33%) WSUS
Vendors
1 175 (57.76%) Cisco
2 89 (29.37%) Palo Alto
3 82 (27.06%) VMware
4 64 (21.12%) Juniper
5 50 (16.50%) CheckPoint
6 38 (12.54%) Blue Coat
6 38 (12.54%) Fortinet
7 36 (11.88%) McAfee
8 34 (11.22%) SolarWinds
9 28 (9.24%) Splunk
10 22 (7.26%) Arista
11 21 (6.93%) Extreme Networks
11 21 (6.93%) Microsoft
11 21 (6.93%) NetApp
12 17 (5.61%) Infoblox
12 17 (5.61%) ServiceNow
13 16 (5.28%) Meraki
14 15 (4.95%) Aruba
15 13 (4.29%) Zscaler
16 6 (1.98%) BigPanda