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 7 November 2025, 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
7 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 319 256 383
Rank change year-on-year -63 +127 -1
Contract jobs citing F5 289 345 260
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.94% 0.56%
As % of the Vendors category 1.74% 2.09% 1.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 223 178
10th Percentile £380 £370 £386
25th Percentile £421 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £621 £588 £600
90th Percentile £705 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -6.29% +5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 7
10th Percentile - £21.51 £64.65
25th Percentile £65.75 £21.89 £68.75
Median hourly rate £66.50 £23.15 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +187.26% -68.07% +34.26%
75th Percentile £67.25 £23.79 £76.88
90th Percentile - £23.80 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £22.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year +195.56% -68.97% +34.26%

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 16,625 16,492 21,165
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.56% 44.90% 45.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,418 9,726 13,628
10th Percentile £283 £300 £260
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.41%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £717 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +2.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 849 510 673
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £14.59
25th Percentile £17.96 £17.00 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.00 £32.00 £43.86
Median % change year-on-year -21.88% -27.04% +75.44%
75th Percentile £39.50 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £69.72 £71.45 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.32 £29.00 £42.75
% change year-on-year -23.05% -32.16% +94.32%

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 7 November 2025.

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 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 7 November 2025. 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 -51 262 £500 -2.44% 77
UK excluding London -41 194 £492 -6.29% 69
North of England -2 96 £500 +2.04% 5
London -22 77 £500 +5.26% 29
Work from Home -32 75 £500 +2.04% 27
West Midlands +32 67 £445 -11.00% 7
Midlands +25 67 £445 -36.43% 7
North West -16 57 £500 +2.04%
Yorkshire +1 51 £491 -1.85%
South East -64 25 £520 -5.45% 33
Scotland +21 20 £500 -6.98% 8
South West -13 12 £550 +18.92% 3
East of England -20 4 £520 -6.31% 15
North East -11 1 £550 - 5

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 (3.81%) Confluence
2 10 (3.46%) OpenStack
3 6 (2.08%) WebSphere
4 3 (1.04%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.69%) CICS
5 2 (0.69%) nginx
5 2 (0.69%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.35%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 3 (1.04%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 107 (37.02%) AWS
2 61 (21.11%) Azure
3 56 (19.38%) GCP
4 38 (13.15%) Akamai
5 28 (9.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 25 (8.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 24 (8.30%) Amazon ELB
8 23 (7.96%) Amazon EC2
8 23 (7.96%) Amazon S3
9 9 (3.11%) OpenShift
10 8 (2.77%) SaaS
11 6 (2.08%) OCI
11 6 (2.08%) PaaS
12 5 (1.73%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 5 (1.73%) IaaS
13 4 (1.38%) Apigee
13 4 (1.38%) Cloudflare
13 4 (1.38%) GitHub
14 3 (1.04%) Mimecast
15 2 (0.69%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 169 (58.48%) Firewall
2 107 (37.02%) DNS
3 97 (33.56%) Network Security
4 66 (22.84%) SSL
5 64 (22.15%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 61 (21.11%) VPN
7 56 (19.38%) TCP/IP
7 56 (19.38%) WAN
8 52 (17.99%) Wireless
9 49 (16.96%) BGP
10 44 (15.22%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 41 (14.19%) OSPF
12 39 (13.49%) LAN
12 39 (13.49%) Wireshark
13 36 (12.46%) Cisco ISE
14 35 (12.11%) BIG-IP
15 30 (10.38%) Cisco Nexus
15 30 (10.38%) DMZ
15 30 (10.38%) SD-WAN
16 29 (10.03%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.69%) NoSQL
1 2 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.35%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 38 (13.15%) Jenkins
2 37 (12.80%) Git
3 24 (8.30%) GitLab
4 18 (6.23%) JIRA
5 12 (4.15%) Fiddler
6 7 (2.42%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (1.38%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.69%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.69%) Rational DOORS
General
1 74 (25.61%) Social Skills
2 43 (14.88%) Banking
3 37 (12.80%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (12.46%) Finance
5 30 (10.38%) Public Sector
6 26 (9.00%) Investment Banking
7 22 (7.61%) Documentation Skills
8 17 (5.88%) Telecoms
9 8 (2.77%) Legal
10 6 (2.08%) Financial Institution
10 6 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (2.08%) Military
10 6 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
10 6 (2.08%) Retail
11 4 (1.38%) Retail Banking
12 3 (1.04%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.35%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 102 (35.29%) Network Engineer
2 37 (12.80%) Architect
3 36 (12.46%) Senior
4 24 (8.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 24 (8.30%) Security Engineer
5 20 (6.92%) Network Architect
6 15 (5.19%) Operations Engineer
7 14 (4.84%) Network Security Engineer
8 13 (4.50%) Consultant
8 13 (4.50%) Designer
8 13 (4.50%) Solutions Architect
9 12 (4.15%) Automation Engineer
9 12 (4.15%) DevOps Engineer
9 12 (4.15%) Senior DevOps
9 12 (4.15%) Senior DevOps Engineer
9 12 (4.15%) Web Engineer
10 11 (3.81%) Cisco Engineer
10 11 (3.81%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 10 (3.46%) Analyst
11 10 (3.46%) Cisco Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (4.15%) 802.1X
2 9 (3.11%) Middleware
2 9 (3.11%) REST
3 5 (1.73%) SOAP
4 4 (1.38%) AngularJS
4 4 (1.38%) JSON
4 4 (1.38%) XML
5 3 (1.04%) RESTful
6 2 (0.69%) LDAP
6 2 (0.69%) Regular Expression
6 2 (0.69%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.35%) NETCONF
7 1 (0.35%) OpenConfig
7 1 (0.35%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 64 (22.15%) Data Centre
2 30 (10.38%) Management Information System
3 21 (7.27%) Security Posture
4 13 (4.50%) Private Cloud
5 12 (4.15%) Onboarding
6 11 (3.81%) Data Protection Act
7 10 (3.46%) Cloud Native
7 10 (3.46%) Hybrid Cloud
8 6 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.38%) Legacy Applications
10 3 (1.04%) Public Cloud
11 2 (0.69%) Clustering
11 2 (0.69%) Distributed Architecture
11 2 (0.69%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 2 (0.69%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (0.69%) Mainframe
11 2 (0.69%) Product Ownership
11 2 (0.69%) Replication
11 2 (0.69%) Video\Live Streaming
11 2 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 31 (10.73%) Linux
2 25 (8.65%) Windows
3 16 (5.54%) Unix
4 8 (2.77%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.04%) VMS
6 2 (0.69%) Solaris
6 2 (0.69%) zOS
7 1 (0.35%) MVS
7 1 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (29.41%) Load Balancing
2 46 (15.92%) DevOps
2 46 (15.92%) High Availability
3 44 (15.22%) Incident Response
4 42 (14.53%) CI/CD
5 39 (13.49%) DevSecOps
6 38 (13.15%) Migration
7 34 (11.76%) Infrastructure Automation
7 34 (11.76%) Problem-Solving
8 33 (11.42%) Agile
8 33 (11.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 28 (9.69%) ITIL
10 27 (9.34%) Business Strategy
10 27 (9.34%) Infrastructure as Code
11 25 (8.65%) Stakeholder Management
12 24 (8.30%) Application Security
12 24 (8.30%) Change Management
13 23 (7.96%) Cybersecurity
13 23 (7.96%) OWASP
13 23 (7.96%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 83 (28.72%) Python
2 33 (11.42%) Bash
3 15 (5.19%) Perl
4 13 (4.50%) PowerShell
5 8 (2.77%) SQL
6 7 (2.42%) Java
7 4 (1.38%) JavaScript
7 4 (1.38%) Shell Script
7 4 (1.38%) VB
Qualifications
1 70 (24.22%) Security Cleared
2 55 (19.03%) SC Cleared
3 52 (17.99%) Cisco Certification
4 36 (12.46%) CCNP
5 24 (8.30%) CCIE
6 14 (4.84%) Degree
7 13 (4.50%) JNCIE
8 11 (3.81%) AWS Certification
9 9 (3.11%) DV Cleared
10 8 (2.77%) CCNA
11 5 (1.73%) CCSA
11 5 (1.73%) CISSP
11 5 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.73%) JNCIP
12 4 (1.38%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (1.38%) CCIE Routing and Switching
12 4 (1.38%) CCIE Security
12 4 (1.38%) CCSE
12 4 (1.38%) CCSP
13 3 (1.04%) CCDP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (2.42%) SLA
2 6 (2.08%) COBIT
2 6 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (2.08%) PCI DSS
3 5 (1.73%) GDPR
3 5 (1.73%) NIST
4 3 (1.04%) Disclosure Scotland
5 2 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
5 2 (0.69%) GRC
6 1 (0.35%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.35%) QA
System Software
1 57 (19.72%) VMware Infrastructure
2 28 (9.69%) Docker
3 24 (8.30%) VMware NSX
4 13 (4.50%) Firmware
5 11 (3.81%) vSphere
6 10 (3.46%) Active Directory
7 3 (1.04%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (1.04%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.69%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.69%) KVM
8 2 (0.69%) Snort
9 1 (0.35%) NFS
9 1 (0.35%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.35%) SRDF
9 1 (0.35%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 1 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.35%) Xen
Systems Management
1 88 (30.45%) Ansible
2 70 (24.22%) Terraform
3 20 (6.92%) CSIRT
4 19 (6.57%) FortiGate
5 7 (2.42%) Kubernetes
6 6 (2.08%) vCenter Server
7 4 (1.38%) CA Spectrum
7 4 (1.38%) OpenView
8 3 (1.04%) HAProxy
8 3 (1.04%) vRealize
9 2 (0.69%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.35%) Argo
10 1 (0.35%) Network Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.35%) Podman
10 1 (0.35%) Puppet
Vendors
1 122 (42.21%) Cisco
2 74 (25.61%) Palo Alto
3 72 (24.91%) VMware
4 65 (22.49%) CheckPoint
5 55 (19.03%) Juniper
6 43 (14.88%) Fortinet
7 36 (12.46%) SolarWinds
8 32 (11.07%) Blue Coat
9 22 (7.61%) Splunk
10 21 (7.27%) McAfee
10 21 (7.27%) Meraki
11 16 (5.54%) NetApp
11 16 (5.54%) Zscaler
12 15 (5.19%) Microsoft
13 13 (4.50%) Infoblox
13 13 (4.50%) Oracle
14 11 (3.81%) HP
15 10 (3.46%) Citrix
16 9 (3.11%) LogicMonitor
16 9 (3.11%) ServiceNow