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 8 July 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
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 326 346 278
Rank change year-on-year +20 -68 +104
Contract jobs citing F5 379 203 381
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.73% 0.64% 0.88%
As % of the Vendors category 1.76% 1.34% 2.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 118 261
10th Percentile £380 £386 £378
25th Percentile £413 £419 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £586 £575 £584
90th Percentile £675 £627 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £492 £506
% change year-on-year +5.69% -2.81% +1.25%
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 21,481 15,195 18,590
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.17% 47.56% 43.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,367 9,316 11,552
10th Percentile £313 £281 £270
25th Percentile £413 £402 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,099 719 1,147
10th Percentile £15.75 £14.84 £12.40
25th Percentile £19.23 £17.33 £15.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.15 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.15% +0.60% -38.27%
75th Percentile £63.75 £53.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.63 £24.18
% change year-on-year +43.61% -6.41% -22.00%

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 8 July 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 8 July 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 8 July 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 +18 331 £505 +3.17% 40
UK excluding London +22 267 £520 +5.69% 17
North of England +20 132 £542 +14.06% 4
North West +29 94 £575 +21.05% 2
Work from Home -4 94 £550 +22.22% 25
West Midlands +7 82 £565 +5.21% 2
Midlands +7 82 £565 +4.92% 2
South East -19 68 £523 -5.00% 4
London -76 68 £475 +2.70% 29
Yorkshire -23 31 £478 +1.65%
Scotland -2 21 £419 -6.94% 3
South West -45 17 £495 -9.09% 3
North East -25 13 £650 +18.18% 2
East of England -26 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 (2.90%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.58%) Confluence
3 4 (1.06%) nginx
4 3 (0.79%) Apache
4 3 (0.79%) IIS
4 3 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.79%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.53%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.26%) CMS
Applications
1 15 (3.96%) MS Visio
2 10 (2.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 58 (15.30%) Azure
2 53 (13.98%) AWS
3 22 (5.80%) OCI
4 16 (4.22%) GitHub
5 15 (3.96%) SaaS
6 10 (2.64%) IaaS
7 7 (1.85%) GCP
7 7 (1.85%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (1.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 5 (1.32%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 5 (1.32%) Cloudflare
8 5 (1.32%) Entra ID
9 4 (1.06%) Mimecast
9 4 (1.06%) OpenShift
10 3 (0.79%) Amazon S3
10 3 (0.79%) Nutanix
10 3 (0.79%) OneDrive
11 2 (0.53%) Amazon OpenSearch
12 1 (0.26%) AWS CloudFormation
12 1 (0.26%) CloudBees
Communications & Networking
1 201 (53.03%) Firewall
2 162 (42.74%) BGP
3 159 (41.95%) DNS
4 150 (39.58%) BIG-IP
5 122 (32.19%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 122 (32.19%) WAN
6 115 (30.34%) OSPF
7 106 (27.97%) VPN
8 95 (25.07%) LAN
9 84 (22.16%) Network Security
10 79 (20.84%) VXLAN
11 70 (18.47%) TCP/IP
12 67 (17.68%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 62 (16.36%) Multicast
14 58 (15.30%) Ethernet VPN
15 54 (14.25%) Cisco Nexus
16 52 (13.72%) SD-WAN
17 50 (13.19%) DHCP
17 50 (13.19%) SSL
18 44 (11.61%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.06%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.79%) MySQL
3 2 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.26%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 34 (8.97%) JIRA
2 22 (5.80%) Fiddler
2 22 (5.80%) GitLab
3 12 (3.17%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.58%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (1.06%) Git
6 1 (0.26%) MSI
6 1 (0.26%) Visual Studio
General
1 50 (13.19%) Social Skills
2 49 (12.93%) Banking
3 46 (12.14%) Finance
4 36 (9.50%) Investment Banking
5 27 (7.12%) Public Sector
6 20 (5.28%) Analytical Skills
7 15 (3.96%) Telecoms
8 12 (3.17%) Financial Institution
9 6 (1.58%) Military
10 5 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.06%) Legal
11 4 (1.06%) Retail
12 3 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.26%) Billing
13 1 (0.26%) Law
13 1 (0.26%) Police
13 1 (0.26%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 188 (49.60%) Network Engineer
2 67 (17.68%) Senior
3 61 (16.09%) Security Engineer
4 56 (14.78%) Network Security Engineer
5 43 (11.35%) Cisco Engineer
6 41 (10.82%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 40 (10.55%) Data Network Engineer
7 40 (10.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 39 (10.29%) Architect
8 39 (10.29%) Web Engineer
9 36 (9.50%) Data Engineer
10 34 (8.97%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 29 (7.65%) Senior Network Engineer
12 22 (5.80%) IP Network Engineer
13 20 (5.28%) Network Architect
14 19 (5.01%) Network Specialist
14 19 (5.01%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 17 (4.49%) Blue Coat Engineer
16 14 (3.69%) Firewall Specialist
17 10 (2.64%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (9.23%) 802.1X
2 10 (2.64%) JSON
3 9 (2.37%) SAML
4 7 (1.85%) LDAP
5 6 (1.58%) YAML
6 4 (1.06%) NETCONF
6 4 (1.06%) OpenConfig
6 4 (1.06%) REST
6 4 (1.06%) RESTCONF
6 4 (1.06%) YANG
7 3 (0.79%) LAMP
7 3 (0.79%) LEMP Stack
8 1 (0.26%) .NET
8 1 (0.26%) .NET Framework
8 1 (0.26%) Bun
8 1 (0.26%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.26%) React
Miscellaneous
1 119 (31.40%) Data Centre
2 36 (9.50%) Hybrid Cloud
3 28 (7.39%) PKI
4 25 (6.60%) Clustering
5 20 (5.28%) Management Information System
6 19 (5.01%) Cloud Native
7 17 (4.49%) Public Cloud
8 13 (3.43%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (3.43%) Onboarding
9 10 (2.64%) Private Cloud
10 6 (1.58%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 4 (1.06%) Algorithms
11 4 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
12 3 (0.79%) iSeries
12 3 (0.79%) Legacy Systems
12 3 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
12 3 (0.79%) Virtual Team
13 2 (0.53%) Cyber Threat
13 2 (0.53%) Digital Signage
13 2 (0.53%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 59 (15.57%) Windows
2 38 (10.03%) Linux
3 9 (2.37%) Unix
4 6 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 6 (1.58%) Windows Server 2012
4 6 (1.58%) Windows Server 2019
5 3 (0.79%) CatOS
5 3 (0.79%) CentOS
5 3 (0.79%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.26%) Check Point GAiA
Processes & Methodologies
1 176 (46.44%) Load Balancing
2 76 (20.05%) High Availability
3 52 (13.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 52 (13.72%) Migration
4 45 (11.87%) Problem-Solving
5 41 (10.82%) CI/CD
5 41 (10.82%) Project Delivery
6 39 (10.29%) Zero Trust
7 37 (9.76%) Agile
7 37 (9.76%) Network Design
8 33 (8.71%) Change Management
8 33 (8.71%) Observability
9 31 (8.18%) Stakeholder Management
10 30 (7.92%) ITIL
11 28 (7.39%) Roadmaps
12 27 (7.12%) Infrastructure as Code
12 27 (7.12%) Network Architecture
13 26 (6.86%) Identity Access Management
14 25 (6.60%) Network Management
15 24 (6.33%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 92 (24.27%) Python
2 14 (3.69%) ActionScript
3 11 (2.90%) Bash
3 11 (2.90%) SQL
4 10 (2.64%) JavaScript
5 9 (2.37%) VBA
6 8 (2.11%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.79%) C++
7 3 (0.79%) Lisp
8 1 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.26%) Perl
8 1 (0.26%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.26%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 96 (25.33%) Security Cleared
2 73 (19.26%) Cisco Certification
3 54 (14.25%) SC Cleared
4 40 (10.55%) CCNP
5 28 (7.39%) DV Cleared
6 18 (4.75%) CCIE
7 16 (4.22%) Degree
8 9 (2.37%) JNCIP
9 8 (2.11%) CCNA
9 8 (2.11%) JNCIS
10 7 (1.85%) JNCIA
11 6 (1.58%) JNCIE
12 4 (1.06%) CCIE Security
12 4 (1.06%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (0.79%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 2 (0.53%) AWS Certification
14 2 (0.53%) BPSS Clearance
14 2 (0.53%) CCDP
14 2 (0.53%) CCSE
15 1 (0.26%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.37%) QA
2 6 (1.58%) Disclosure Scotland
2 6 (1.58%) NCSC
3 3 (0.79%) JSP 440
3 3 (0.79%) SLA
4 2 (0.53%) GDPR
4 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.53%) NIST
5 1 (0.26%) GRC
5 1 (0.26%) RMADS
System Software
1 43 (11.35%) VMware Infrastructure
2 26 (6.86%) VMware NSX
3 19 (5.01%) Firmware
4 18 (4.75%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.32%) Virtual Servers
6 4 (1.06%) vSphere
7 3 (0.79%) Docker
7 3 (0.79%) Dovecot
7 3 (0.79%) Postfix
8 2 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.26%) IAG
9 1 (0.26%) KVM
9 1 (0.26%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 83 (21.90%) Ansible
2 53 (13.98%) FortiGate
3 40 (10.55%) Terraform
4 11 (2.90%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.64%) Grafana
6 9 (2.37%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (2.11%) WMI
8 7 (1.85%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (1.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (1.06%) Salt
10 4 (1.06%) SCCM
11 3 (0.79%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.79%) HAProxy
11 3 (0.79%) Kubernetes
12 2 (0.53%) Avamar
12 2 (0.53%) Red Hat Satellite
13 1 (0.26%) Argo
13 1 (0.26%) Nagios
13 1 (0.26%) vCenter Server
13 1 (0.26%) vRealize
Vendors
1 229 (60.42%) Cisco
2 133 (35.09%) Palo Alto
3 71 (18.73%) Juniper
4 64 (16.89%) Fortinet
5 61 (16.09%) VMware
6 54 (14.25%) CheckPoint
7 47 (12.40%) SolarWinds
8 46 (12.14%) Arista
9 40 (10.55%) Splunk
10 33 (8.71%) Aruba
11 28 (7.39%) Microsoft
12 27 (7.12%) Blue Coat
13 26 (6.86%) ServiceNow
14 25 (6.60%) Infoblox
15 23 (6.07%) Extreme Networks
16 22 (5.80%) McAfee
17 17 (4.49%) NetApp
18 12 (3.17%) Zscaler
19 8 (2.11%) Meraki
20 7 (1.85%) Citrix