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 17 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
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 323 340 267
Rank change year-on-year +17 -73 +126
Contract jobs citing F5 381 209 371
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 0.64% 0.88%
As % of the Vendors category 1.75% 1.35% 2.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 168 124 255
10th Percentile £380 £391 £375
25th Percentile £413 £417 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -3.38%
75th Percentile £582 £585 £584
90th Percentile £670 £638 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £490 £515
% change year-on-year +6.23% -4.95% +3.00%
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 21,743 15,464 18,209
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.29% 47.54% 43.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,516 9,461 11,390
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £403 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £715 £728
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £478 £500
% change year-on-year +4.60% -4.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,096 756 1,049
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.75 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £17.24 £15.10
Median hourly rate £34.91 £25.15 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.79% -3.27% -35.80%
75th Percentile £65.00 £50.67 £61.30
90th Percentile £84.38 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £22.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year +51.04% -10.00% -19.35%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -6 331 £503 +2.87% 33
UK excluding London +25 263 £520 +6.23% 18
North of England +18 129 £542 +14.06% 3
Work from Home -12 95 £550 +22.22% 8
North West +24 90 £575 +21.05% 1
Midlands +2 76 £565 +4.92% 4
West Midlands +1 76 £565 +5.21% 3
London -83 74 £500 +8.11% 22
South East -22 68 £520 -5.45% 6
Yorkshire -27 32 £478 +6.11%
Scotland +3 22 £419 -6.94% 1
South West -51 17 £495 -9.09% 2
North East - 13 £650 - 2
East of England -21 5 £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 9 (2.36%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.31%) Confluence
2 5 (1.31%) nginx
2 5 (1.31%) OpenStack
3 3 (0.79%) Apache
3 3 (0.79%) IIS
3 3 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.79%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.26%) CMS
Applications
1 11 (2.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 11 (2.89%) MS Visio
2 9 (2.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 60 (15.75%) Azure
2 52 (13.65%) AWS
3 22 (5.77%) OCI
4 19 (4.99%) GitHub
5 15 (3.94%) SaaS
6 10 (2.62%) IaaS
7 7 (1.84%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 7 (1.84%) GCP
7 7 (1.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 6 (1.57%) Cloudflare
8 6 (1.57%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (1.57%) OpenShift
9 4 (1.05%) Entra ID
9 4 (1.05%) Mimecast
10 3 (0.79%) Nutanix
10 3 (0.79%) OneDrive
11 2 (0.52%) Amazon S3
12 1 (0.26%) AWS CloudFormation
12 1 (0.26%) CloudBees
12 1 (0.26%) Google Ads
Communications & Networking
1 208 (54.59%) Firewall
2 168 (44.09%) BGP
3 156 (40.94%) DNS
4 141 (37.01%) BIG-IP
5 126 (33.07%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 121 (31.76%) WAN
7 117 (30.71%) OSPF
8 107 (28.08%) VPN
9 91 (23.88%) LAN
10 87 (22.83%) Network Security
11 78 (20.47%) VXLAN
12 70 (18.37%) TCP/IP
13 68 (17.85%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 62 (16.27%) Multicast
15 57 (14.96%) Ethernet VPN
16 51 (13.39%) Cisco Nexus
17 50 (13.12%) SSL
18 49 (12.86%) DHCP
18 49 (12.86%) SD-WAN
19 46 (12.07%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.05%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.79%) MySQL
3 1 (0.26%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (0.26%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 32 (8.40%) JIRA
2 21 (5.51%) GitLab
3 20 (5.25%) Fiddler
4 12 (3.15%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.57%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.05%) Git
7 1 (0.26%) MSI
7 1 (0.26%) Visual Studio
General
1 51 (13.39%) Social Skills
2 49 (12.86%) Banking
3 46 (12.07%) Finance
4 34 (8.92%) Investment Banking
5 27 (7.09%) Public Sector
6 24 (6.30%) Analytical Skills
7 20 (5.25%) Telecoms
8 12 (3.15%) Financial Institution
9 7 (1.84%) Retail
10 6 (1.57%) Military
11 4 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.05%) Legal
12 3 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.26%) Law
13 1 (0.26%) Police
13 1 (0.26%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 191 (50.13%) Network Engineer
2 66 (17.32%) Senior
3 63 (16.54%) Security Engineer
4 57 (14.96%) Network Security Engineer
5 43 (11.29%) Cisco Engineer
6 41 (10.76%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 40 (10.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 39 (10.24%) Architect
9 38 (9.97%) Data Network Engineer
10 36 (9.45%) Web Engineer
11 34 (8.92%) Data Engineer
12 32 (8.40%) Cisco Security Engineer
13 29 (7.61%) Senior Network Engineer
14 21 (5.51%) IP Network Engineer
14 21 (5.51%) Network Architect
15 19 (4.99%) Network Specialist
15 19 (4.99%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 16 (4.20%) Blue Coat Engineer
17 14 (3.67%) Firewall Specialist
18 13 (3.41%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (9.97%) 802.1X
2 10 (2.62%) JSON
3 7 (1.84%) SAML
4 6 (1.57%) NETCONF
4 6 (1.57%) OpenConfig
4 6 (1.57%) RESTCONF
4 6 (1.57%) YAML
4 6 (1.57%) YANG
5 4 (1.05%) LDAP
5 4 (1.05%) REST
6 3 (0.79%) LAMP
6 3 (0.79%) LEMP Stack
7 1 (0.26%) .NET
7 1 (0.26%) .NET Framework
7 1 (0.26%) Bun
7 1 (0.26%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.26%) React
Miscellaneous
1 123 (32.28%) Data Centre
2 41 (10.76%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (7.09%) PKI
4 25 (6.56%) Clustering
5 19 (4.99%) Cloud Native
5 19 (4.99%) Management Information System
6 18 (4.72%) Public Cloud
7 13 (3.41%) Data Protection Act
7 13 (3.41%) Onboarding
8 12 (3.15%) Private Cloud
9 6 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
9 6 (1.57%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 4 (1.05%) Digital Signage
11 3 (0.79%) Algorithms
11 3 (0.79%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.79%) Linux Command Line
11 3 (0.79%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.52%) Distributed Applications
12 2 (0.52%) iSeries
12 2 (0.52%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 57 (14.96%) Windows
2 39 (10.24%) Linux
3 8 (2.10%) Unix
4 5 (1.31%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.31%) Windows Server 2012
4 5 (1.31%) Windows Server 2019
5 3 (0.79%) CentOS
5 3 (0.79%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.26%) CatOS
6 1 (0.26%) Check Point GAiA
6 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (45.93%) Load Balancing
2 76 (19.95%) High Availability
3 53 (13.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 52 (13.65%) Migration
5 48 (12.60%) Project Delivery
6 45 (11.81%) Problem-Solving
7 44 (11.55%) CI/CD
8 43 (11.29%) Zero Trust
9 40 (10.50%) Network Design
10 35 (9.19%) Agile
11 34 (8.92%) Change Management
12 32 (8.40%) Observability
13 31 (8.14%) Stakeholder Management
14 29 (7.61%) ITIL
15 28 (7.35%) Infrastructure as Code
16 27 (7.09%) Network Architecture
17 26 (6.82%) Identity Access Management
17 26 (6.82%) Roadmaps
18 25 (6.56%) Network Management
19 24 (6.30%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 96 (25.20%) Python
2 14 (3.67%) ActionScript
3 11 (2.89%) SQL
4 10 (2.62%) Bash
4 10 (2.62%) JavaScript
5 9 (2.36%) VBA
6 8 (2.10%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.79%) C++
7 3 (0.79%) Lisp
7 3 (0.79%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.26%) Perl
8 1 (0.26%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 99 (25.98%) Security Cleared
2 71 (18.64%) Cisco Certification
3 57 (14.96%) SC Cleared
4 37 (9.71%) CCNP
5 28 (7.35%) DV Cleared
6 18 (4.72%) CCIE
7 15 (3.94%) Degree
8 8 (2.10%) JNCIP
9 7 (1.84%) CCNA
9 7 (1.84%) JNCIA
9 7 (1.84%) JNCIE
9 7 (1.84%) JNCIS
10 4 (1.05%) CCIE Security
10 4 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.79%) CISSP
11 3 (0.79%) GIAC
11 3 (0.79%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 2 (0.52%) AWS Certification
12 2 (0.52%) CCSE
12 2 (0.52%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.36%) QA
2 6 (1.57%) Disclosure Scotland
3 5 (1.31%) NCSC
4 3 (0.79%) SLA
5 2 (0.52%) GDPR
5 2 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.52%) JSP 440
5 2 (0.52%) NIST
6 1 (0.26%) GRC
System Software
1 39 (10.24%) VMware Infrastructure
2 22 (5.77%) VMware NSX
3 18 (4.72%) Firmware
4 14 (3.67%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.31%) Virtual Servers
5 5 (1.31%) vSphere
6 4 (1.05%) Docker
7 3 (0.79%) Dovecot
7 3 (0.79%) Postfix
8 2 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.26%) IAG
9 1 (0.26%) KVM
9 1 (0.26%) ProxySG
9 1 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 86 (22.57%) Ansible
2 55 (14.44%) FortiGate
3 43 (11.29%) Terraform
4 9 (2.36%) Grafana
4 9 (2.36%) Prometheus
5 8 (2.10%) WMI
6 6 (1.57%) Cisco Prime
6 6 (1.57%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (1.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (1.31%) Kubernetes
7 5 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.79%) HAProxy
8 3 (0.79%) Salt
8 3 (0.79%) SCCM
9 2 (0.52%) Avamar
9 2 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.26%) Argo
10 1 (0.26%) Puppet
10 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Satellite
10 1 (0.26%) vRealize
Vendors
1 233 (61.15%) Cisco
2 137 (35.96%) Palo Alto
3 76 (19.95%) Juniper
4 70 (18.37%) Fortinet
5 57 (14.96%) VMware
6 55 (14.44%) CheckPoint
7 48 (12.60%) Arista
8 46 (12.07%) SolarWinds
9 40 (10.50%) Splunk
10 33 (8.66%) Aruba
11 28 (7.35%) Blue Coat
11 28 (7.35%) Microsoft
12 26 (6.82%) Infoblox
13 23 (6.04%) Extreme Networks
13 23 (6.04%) ServiceNow
14 20 (5.25%) McAfee
15 16 (4.20%) NetApp
15 16 (4.20%) Zscaler
16 8 (2.10%) Citrix
16 8 (2.10%) Meraki