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 September 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 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 372 308 246
Rank change year-on-year -64 -62 +135
Contract jobs citing F5 325 251 372
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.76% 0.97%
As % of the Vendors category 1.43% 1.61% 2.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 139 248
10th Percentile £380 £381 £394
25th Percentile £424 £424 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £588
90th Percentile £676 £718 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £490 £550
% change year-on-year +7.14% -10.91% +12.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 3
Median hourly rate - £66.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year - +179.41% -67.17%
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £66.50 -

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 22,804 15,574 16,904
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.85% 47.21% 44.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,992 9,525 10,215
10th Percentile £313 £275 £289
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £626
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,252 784 693
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.69 £14.18
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.36 £15.62
Median hourly rate £27.34 £25.15 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.71% -18.87% -27.06%
75th Percentile £63.26 £43.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £21.28 £30.00
% change year-on-year +22.84% -29.07% -25.00%

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 10 September 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 September 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 -62 289 £525 +5.00% 46
UK excluding London -48 225 £525 +7.14% 36
North of England -24 116 £575 +17.47% 12
Work from Home -34 90 £550 +2.33% 21
North West -4 84 £575 +21.05% 8
Midlands -21 74 £581 +32.05% 3
West Midlands -10 73 £581 +32.05% 3
London -94 67 £525 -0.94% 20
South East -42 46 £450 -14.29% 10
Yorkshire -56 25 £488 -0.41% 4
South West -40 19 £495 -13.91% 5
Scotland -36 18 £513 -2.38% 6
North East -34 13 £650 +18.18%
East of England -25 5 £530 +1.92%
East Midlands -17 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 6 (1.85%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.54%) IIS
2 5 (1.54%) nginx
2 5 (1.54%) OpenStack
3 3 (0.92%) Apache
3 3 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.92%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.62%) Confluence
5 1 (0.31%) CMS
Applications
1 7 (2.15%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (2.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 6 (1.85%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 61 (18.77%) Azure
2 51 (15.69%) AWS
3 23 (7.08%) OCI
4 22 (6.77%) GitHub
5 15 (4.62%) SaaS
6 13 (4.00%) IaaS
7 10 (3.08%) GCP
8 9 (2.77%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 7 (2.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (1.85%) Cloudflare
10 6 (1.85%) OpenShift
11 4 (1.23%) Entra ID
12 3 (0.92%) Microsoft 365
12 3 (0.92%) Mimecast
12 3 (0.92%) OneDrive
13 1 (0.31%) Akamai
13 1 (0.31%) Amazon EC2
13 1 (0.31%) Amazon S3
13 1 (0.31%) AWS CloudFormation
13 1 (0.31%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 178 (54.77%) Firewall
2 138 (42.46%) BGP
3 130 (40.00%) DNS
4 119 (36.62%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 118 (36.31%) BIG-IP
6 108 (33.23%) VPN
7 98 (30.15%) WAN
8 92 (28.31%) OSPF
9 84 (25.85%) Network Security
10 71 (21.85%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 61 (18.77%) VXLAN
12 60 (18.46%) LAN
13 59 (18.15%) TCP/IP
14 54 (16.62%) SSL
15 51 (15.69%) Cisco Nexus
15 51 (15.69%) VLAN
16 50 (15.38%) Wireless
17 49 (15.08%) Multicast
18 45 (13.85%) SD-WAN
19 40 (12.31%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.92%) MySQL
1 3 (0.92%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 26 (8.00%) JIRA
2 20 (6.15%) GitLab
3 15 (4.62%) Fiddler
4 14 (4.31%) Jenkins
5 7 (2.15%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.23%) Git
7 1 (0.31%) MSI
7 1 (0.31%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.31%) Visual Studio
General
1 53 (16.31%) Social Skills
2 46 (14.15%) Banking
3 41 (12.62%) Finance
4 30 (9.23%) Investment Banking
5 27 (8.31%) Analytical Skills
6 20 (6.15%) Public Sector
7 19 (5.85%) Telecoms
8 8 (2.46%) Legal
9 7 (2.15%) Retail
10 6 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (0.92%) Financial Institution
11 3 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.62%) Military
12 2 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.31%) Law
13 1 (0.31%) Police
13 1 (0.31%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 167 (51.38%) Network Engineer
2 61 (18.77%) Security Engineer
3 54 (16.62%) Senior
4 50 (15.38%) Network Security Engineer
5 39 (12.00%) Cisco Engineer
6 37 (11.38%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 34 (10.46%) Architect
7 34 (10.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 30 (9.23%) Data Network Engineer
9 27 (8.31%) Cisco Security Engineer
9 27 (8.31%) Data Engineer
9 27 (8.31%) Web Engineer
10 23 (7.08%) Senior Network Engineer
11 19 (5.85%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 18 (5.54%) Network Architect
13 16 (4.92%) IP Network Engineer
14 15 (4.62%) Consultant
15 14 (4.31%) Blue Coat Engineer
16 13 (4.00%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
17 10 (3.08%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (13.23%) Terraform
2 26 (8.00%) 802.1X
3 9 (2.77%) YAML
4 8 (2.46%) JSON
5 6 (1.85%) NETCONF
5 6 (1.85%) RESTCONF
5 6 (1.85%) SAML
6 5 (1.54%) REST
7 4 (1.23%) OpenConfig
7 4 (1.23%) YANG
8 3 (0.92%) LAMP
8 3 (0.92%) LDAP
8 3 (0.92%) LEMP Stack
9 2 (0.62%) eBPF
9 2 (0.62%) gRPC
10 1 (0.31%) .NET
10 1 (0.31%) Bun
10 1 (0.31%) JWT
10 1 (0.31%) OpenID
10 1 (0.31%) React
Miscellaneous
1 110 (33.85%) Data Centre
2 40 (12.31%) Hybrid Cloud
3 23 (7.08%) Management Information System
4 21 (6.46%) Cloud Native
5 14 (4.31%) Data Protection Act
6 13 (4.00%) Public Cloud
7 11 (3.38%) Onboarding
8 9 (2.77%) PKI
9 8 (2.46%) Private Cloud
10 7 (2.15%) Clustering
10 7 (2.15%) Distributed Applications
10 7 (2.15%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 6 (1.85%) Digital Signage
12 4 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
13 3 (0.92%) Algorithms
13 3 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
13 3 (0.92%) Linux Command Line
14 2 (0.62%) Driving Licence
14 2 (0.62%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 38 (11.69%) Linux
2 37 (11.38%) Windows
3 9 (2.77%) Unix
4 6 (1.85%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.92%) CentOS
5 3 (0.92%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.31%) CatOS
7 1 (0.31%) Check Point GAiA
7 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 149 (45.85%) Load Balancing
2 55 (16.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 51 (15.69%) High Availability
4 49 (15.08%) CI/CD
5 46 (14.15%) Zero Trust
6 44 (13.54%) Project Delivery
7 43 (13.23%) Migration
8 38 (11.69%) Network Design
9 32 (9.85%) Agile
10 31 (9.54%) Change Management
11 29 (8.92%) Infrastructure as Code
11 29 (8.92%) Stakeholder Management
12 28 (8.62%) Network Architecture
13 26 (8.00%) ITIL
13 26 (8.00%) Problem-Solving
14 24 (7.38%) Roadmaps
15 23 (7.08%) DevOps
16 20 (6.15%) Continuous Improvement
16 20 (6.15%) Network Management
16 20 (6.15%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 89 (27.38%) Python
2 13 (4.00%) ActionScript
3 11 (3.38%) SQL
4 10 (3.08%) JavaScript
5 8 (2.46%) Perl
5 8 (2.46%) PowerShell
6 7 (2.15%) VBA
7 5 (1.54%) Bash
8 4 (1.23%) Shell Script
9 3 (0.92%) Lisp
10 1 (0.31%) C++
10 1 (0.31%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 80 (24.62%) Security Cleared
2 59 (18.15%) SC Cleared
3 56 (17.23%) Cisco Certification
4 33 (10.15%) CCNP
5 22 (6.77%) CCIE
6 16 (4.92%) Degree
7 13 (4.00%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.85%) CCNA
8 6 (1.85%) JNCIE
9 5 (1.54%) CISSP
10 4 (1.23%) CCIE Security
11 3 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (0.92%) CEH
11 3 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.92%) GIAC
11 3 (0.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 2 (0.62%) CCSP
12 2 (0.62%) CISA
12 2 (0.62%) CISM
12 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.46%) QA
2 5 (1.54%) Disclosure Scotland
3 4 (1.23%) GDPR
3 4 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (1.23%) NCSC
3 4 (1.23%) NIST
4 3 (0.92%) GRC
5 2 (0.62%) ISO 31000
5 2 (0.62%) ISO 9001
5 2 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27005
5 2 (0.62%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 44 (13.54%) VMware Infrastructure
2 22 (6.77%) VMware NSX
3 17 (5.23%) Firmware
4 15 (4.62%) Active Directory
5 4 (1.23%) Virtual Servers
6 3 (0.92%) Docker
6 3 (0.92%) Dovecot
6 3 (0.92%) Postfix
6 3 (0.92%) vSphere
7 2 (0.62%) ISA Server
8 1 (0.31%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.31%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 72 (22.15%) Ansible
2 32 (9.85%) FortiGate
3 9 (2.77%) Cisco Prime
4 8 (2.46%) WMI
5 5 (1.54%) Kubernetes
6 4 (1.23%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.92%) HAProxy
7 3 (0.92%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.62%) Avamar
8 2 (0.62%) CASB
8 2 (0.62%) Grafana
8 2 (0.62%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.31%) Istio
9 1 (0.31%) Network Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.31%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.31%) Puppet
9 1 (0.31%) SCCM
9 1 (0.31%) vRealize
Vendors
1 199 (61.23%) Cisco
2 126 (38.77%) Palo Alto
3 70 (21.54%) Fortinet
4 58 (17.85%) VMware
5 51 (15.69%) Juniper
6 43 (13.23%) CheckPoint
7 39 (12.00%) Arista
8 31 (9.54%) Aruba
8 31 (9.54%) SolarWinds
9 28 (8.62%) Blue Coat
9 28 (8.62%) Microsoft
10 21 (6.46%) Infoblox
11 19 (5.85%) Splunk
12 18 (5.54%) Zscaler
13 15 (4.62%) ServiceNow
14 14 (4.31%) McAfee
14 14 (4.31%) NetApp
15 11 (3.38%) Meraki
16 8 (2.46%) Citrix
17 5 (1.54%) Extreme Networks