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 February 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 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 344 319 341
Rank change year-on-year -25 +22 +37
Contract jobs citing F5 274 215 285
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.70% 0.69% 0.63%
As % of the Vendors category 1.55% 1.49% 1.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 126 121 190
10th Percentile £335 £400 £378
25th Percentile £403 £450 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.19% +5.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £600
90th Percentile £700 £651 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £490
% change year-on-year -4.76% +7.14% -3.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 7
10th Percentile £46.95 - £64.65
25th Percentile £50.08 £21.25 £68.75
Median hourly rate £57.61 £22.50 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +156.04% -68.97% +271.79%
75th Percentile £63.58 £23.75 £76.88
90th Percentile £65.78 - £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.61 £22.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year +156.04% -68.97% -7.88%

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 17,654 14,393 19,748
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 45.13% 46.29% 43.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,376 8,550 12,462
10th Percentile £300 £275 £255
25th Percentile £412 £406 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.21%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £631
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 851 420 926
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £12.93
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.30 £15.50
Median hourly rate £23.83 £29.00 £28.75
Median % change year-on-year -17.84% +0.87% -2.54%
75th Percentile £55.00 £62.69 £58.94
90th Percentile £73.75 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £26.50 £26.39
% change year-on-year -16.98% +0.42% -0.34%

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 February 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 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for F5 in the UK

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 8 February 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 -22 242 £500 -4.76% 52
UK excluding London -14 189 £500 -4.76% 46
North of England +4 111 £575 +15.29% 18
North West +23 83 £600 +22.45% 12
Work from Home +2 76 £500 +2.04% 12
Midlands +2 75 £415 -31.97% 5
West Midlands +19 74 £415 -24.68% 5
London -29 56 £488 -4.88% 12
Yorkshire -26 38 £575 +43.75% 6
South East -48 24 £500 - 13
Scotland +11 16 £500 +14.29% 3
South West -30 7 £520 +12.43% 1
East of England -24 2 - - 6
North East -17 1 £550 -
East Midlands -40 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 (3.28%) Confluence
2 8 (2.92%) OpenStack
3 6 (2.19%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.36%) nginx
Applications
1 17 (6.20%) MS Visio
2 6 (2.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.73%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 85 (31.02%) AWS
2 50 (18.25%) Azure
3 43 (15.69%) GCP
4 27 (9.85%) Akamai
5 21 (7.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 17 (6.20%) Amazon S3
7 16 (5.84%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 16 (5.84%) Amazon ELB
8 15 (5.47%) Amazon EC2
9 8 (2.92%) OpenShift
10 6 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
11 5 (1.82%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 4 (1.46%) Cloudflare
12 4 (1.46%) Mimecast
12 4 (1.46%) Nutanix
12 4 (1.46%) OCI
13 2 (0.73%) Amazon OpenSearch
13 2 (0.73%) Entra ID
13 2 (0.73%) PaaS
13 2 (0.73%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 141 (51.46%) Firewall
2 124 (45.26%) DNS
3 81 (29.56%) Network Security
4 78 (28.47%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 71 (25.91%) TCP/IP
6 67 (24.45%) SSL
7 64 (23.36%) VPN
8 63 (22.99%) BIG-IP
9 62 (22.63%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 59 (21.53%) BGP
11 56 (20.44%) WAN
12 53 (19.34%) Wireshark
13 45 (16.42%) HTTP
14 42 (15.33%) LAN
15 39 (14.23%) OSPF
16 38 (13.87%) DMZ
17 32 (11.68%) Wireless
18 29 (10.58%) MPLS
19 22 (8.03%) SD-WAN
20 21 (7.66%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (0.36%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 28 (10.22%) Fiddler
2 22 (8.03%) Git
3 17 (6.20%) GitLab
3 17 (6.20%) Jenkins
4 16 (5.84%) JIRA
5 2 (0.73%) Rational DOORS
6 1 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 66 (24.09%) Social Skills
2 47 (17.15%) Banking
3 37 (13.50%) Finance
4 36 (13.14%) Investment Banking
5 34 (12.41%) Analytical Skills
6 25 (9.12%) Public Sector
7 15 (5.47%) Telecoms
8 14 (5.11%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (2.92%) Retail
10 7 (2.55%) Financial Institution
11 6 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (2.19%) Military
11 6 (2.19%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (1.46%) Legal
12 4 (1.46%) Retail Banking
13 2 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
14 1 (0.36%) Billing
14 1 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 105 (38.32%) Network Engineer
2 33 (12.04%) Architect
3 32 (11.68%) Senior
4 30 (10.95%) Security Engineer
4 30 (10.95%) Web Engineer
5 19 (6.93%) Network Security Engineer
6 16 (5.84%) Network Architect
7 15 (5.47%) Cisco Engineer
7 15 (5.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 14 (5.11%) Blue Coat Engineer
8 14 (5.11%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 14 (5.11%) IP Network Engineer
8 14 (5.11%) Junior
9 13 (4.74%) DevOps Engineer
9 13 (4.74%) Junior Network Engineer
9 13 (4.74%) Operations Engineer
10 12 (4.38%) Senior DevOps
10 12 (4.38%) Senior DevOps Engineer
11 11 (4.01%) Solutions Architect
12 10 (3.65%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (3.28%) JSON
2 7 (2.55%) 802.1X
2 7 (2.55%) LDAP
3 6 (2.19%) SAML
4 5 (1.82%) XML
5 4 (1.46%) NETCONF
5 4 (1.46%) REST
5 4 (1.46%) VML
5 4 (1.46%) YANG
6 3 (1.09%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.73%) RESTCONF
8 1 (0.36%) Regular Expression
Miscellaneous
1 49 (17.88%) Data Centre
2 30 (10.95%) Management Information System
3 20 (7.30%) Security Posture
4 13 (4.74%) Public Cloud
5 10 (3.65%) Cloud Native
6 8 (2.92%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (2.55%) Hybrid Cloud
8 6 (2.19%) Onboarding
8 6 (2.19%) Private Cloud
9 4 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.46%) PKI
9 4 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (1.09%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (1.09%) iSeries
11 2 (0.73%) Algorithms
11 2 (0.73%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (0.73%) CESG
11 2 (0.73%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 2 (0.73%) Enterprise Storage
11 2 (0.73%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 19 (6.93%) Windows
2 12 (4.38%) Linux
3 8 (2.92%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.19%) Windows Server 2012
4 6 (2.19%) Windows Server 2019
5 4 (1.46%) CatOS
6 2 (0.73%) Unix
6 2 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (39.42%) Load Balancing
2 41 (14.96%) DevOps
2 41 (14.96%) Problem-Solving
3 39 (14.23%) Migration
4 37 (13.50%) Incident Response
5 33 (12.04%) DevSecOps
6 32 (11.68%) CI/CD
7 31 (11.31%) Change Management
7 31 (11.31%) High Availability
8 27 (9.85%) Stakeholder Management
9 25 (9.12%) Business Strategy
9 25 (9.12%) Data Loss Prevention
9 25 (9.12%) Mentoring
9 25 (9.12%) OWASP
10 24 (8.76%) Application Security
10 24 (8.76%) Malware Detection/Protection
11 23 (8.39%) Infrastructure as Code
12 22 (8.03%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 22 (8.03%) Network Design
12 22 (8.03%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 72 (26.28%) Python
2 25 (9.12%) Bash
3 6 (2.19%) PowerShell
4 4 (1.46%) SQL
5 3 (1.09%) Perl
6 2 (0.73%) ActionScript
6 2 (0.73%) JavaScript
6 2 (0.73%) VBA
7 1 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 56 (20.44%) Security Cleared
2 40 (14.60%) Cisco Certification
2 40 (14.60%) SC Cleared
3 30 (10.95%) CCNP
4 23 (8.39%) CCIE
5 11 (4.01%) JNCIE
6 10 (3.65%) DV Cleared
7 8 (2.92%) AWS Certification
7 8 (2.92%) CCNA
8 7 (2.55%) Degree
9 5 (1.82%) CCIE Security
9 5 (1.82%) CISSP
9 5 (1.82%) JNCIP
10 4 (1.46%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 4 (1.46%) CCDP
10 4 (1.46%) CCSP
10 4 (1.46%) JNCIS
11 3 (1.09%) CCSE
11 3 (1.09%) CEH
11 3 (1.09%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (2.55%) NIST
2 6 (2.19%) PCI DSS
3 5 (1.82%) GDPR
3 5 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (1.46%) COBIT
5 3 (1.09%) JSP 440
6 2 (0.73%) NCSC
6 2 (0.73%) RMADS
6 2 (0.73%) SLA
7 1 (0.36%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 63 (22.99%) VMware Infrastructure
2 34 (12.41%) VMware NSX
3 25 (9.12%) Docker
4 15 (5.47%) Firmware
5 14 (5.11%) Active Directory
6 11 (4.01%) vSphere
7 4 (1.46%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.73%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.36%) KVM
10 1 (0.36%) RHEV
10 1 (0.36%) Snort
10 1 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.36%) Xen
10 1 (0.36%) XenApp
10 1 (0.36%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 64 (23.36%) Ansible
2 45 (16.42%) Terraform
3 19 (6.93%) CSIRT
4 17 (6.20%) FortiGate
5 11 (4.01%) Kubernetes
6 8 (2.92%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (2.19%) Microsoft Intune
7 6 (2.19%) SCCM
8 5 (1.82%) Prometheus
9 4 (1.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (1.46%) Nagios
10 2 (0.73%) Argo
10 2 (0.73%) Grafana
10 2 (0.73%) Red Hat Satellite
10 2 (0.73%) Salt
11 1 (0.36%) Podman
11 1 (0.36%) Proxmox
11 1 (0.36%) SCOM
11 1 (0.36%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.36%) WhatsUp Gold
Vendors
1 105 (38.32%) Cisco
2 86 (31.39%) VMware
3 71 (25.91%) Palo Alto
4 58 (21.17%) CheckPoint
5 45 (16.42%) Blue Coat
6 40 (14.60%) McAfee
7 39 (14.23%) Juniper
8 30 (10.95%) Fortinet
9 21 (7.66%) Splunk
10 20 (7.30%) NetApp
11 18 (6.57%) Meraki
12 16 (5.84%) Microsoft
12 16 (5.84%) Zscaler
13 15 (5.47%) SolarWinds
14 11 (4.01%) Aruba
15 8 (2.92%) Nokia
15 8 (2.92%) ServiceNow
16 7 (2.55%) Arista
16 7 (2.55%) Dell
16 7 (2.55%) Infoblox