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 4 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
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 386 311 248
Rank change year-on-year -75 -63 +141
Contract jobs citing F5 323 246 370
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.76% 0.97%
As % of the Vendors category 1.44% 1.61% 2.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 158 137 250
10th Percentile £380 £380 £398
25th Percentile £414 £420 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £490 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.60% -6.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £621 £588
90th Percentile £679 £713 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £490 £550
% change year-on-year +6.23% -11.00% +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 22,422 15,261 16,767
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.80% 47.23% 44.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,829 9,339 10,233
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
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 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £726
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,171 780 716
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.54 £14.06
25th Percentile £17.15 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £29.07 £25.15 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.59% -16.17% -29.41%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.84 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.75 £21.30 £29.00
% change year-on-year +30.28% -26.55% -27.50%

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 4 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 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 4 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 -56 287 £525 +7.20% 68
UK excluding London -25 222 £520 +6.23% 37
North of England -26 114 £534 +9.01% 8
Work from Home -27 91 £550 +11.90% 16
North West +6 83 £575 +21.05% 6
West Midlands -13 72 £581 +32.05% 5
Midlands -16 72 £581 +32.05% 5
London -107 67 £525 -0.94% 38
South East -48 47 £450 -14.29% 12
Yorkshire -51 24 £475 -2.96% 2
South West -42 19 £495 -17.50% 5
Scotland -16 18 £425 -19.05% 6
North East -25 13 £650 +18.18%
East of England -16 5 £530 +24.71%

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 (1.86%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.55%) nginx
2 5 (1.55%) OpenStack
3 4 (1.24%) IIS
4 3 (0.93%) Apache
4 3 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.93%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.62%) Confluence
6 1 (0.31%) CMS
Applications
1 7 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (2.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 7 (2.17%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 60 (18.58%) Azure
2 51 (15.79%) AWS
3 23 (7.12%) OCI
4 19 (5.88%) GitHub
5 15 (4.64%) SaaS
6 10 (3.10%) IaaS
7 9 (2.79%) GCP
8 8 (2.48%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 7 (2.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (1.86%) Cloudflare
10 6 (1.86%) OpenShift
11 4 (1.24%) Entra ID
12 3 (0.93%) Microsoft 365
12 3 (0.93%) Mimecast
12 3 (0.93%) OneDrive
13 1 (0.31%) Akamai
13 1 (0.31%) AWS CloudFormation
13 1 (0.31%) Azure DevOps
13 1 (0.31%) Google Ads
13 1 (0.31%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 176 (54.49%) Firewall
2 138 (42.72%) BGP
3 127 (39.32%) DNS
4 119 (36.84%) BIG-IP
5 118 (36.53%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 107 (33.13%) VPN
7 99 (30.65%) WAN
8 92 (28.48%) OSPF
9 81 (25.08%) Network Security
10 69 (21.36%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 62 (19.20%) LAN
11 62 (19.20%) VXLAN
12 60 (18.58%) TCP/IP
13 53 (16.41%) SSL
14 51 (15.79%) Cisco Nexus
14 51 (15.79%) Wireless
15 50 (15.48%) VLAN
16 48 (14.86%) Multicast
17 45 (13.93%) SD-WAN
18 40 (12.38%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.93%) MySQL
1 3 (0.93%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 23 (7.12%) JIRA
2 20 (6.19%) GitLab
3 15 (4.64%) Fiddler
4 11 (3.41%) Jenkins
5 7 (2.17%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.24%) Git
7 1 (0.31%) MSI
7 1 (0.31%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.31%) Visual Studio
General
1 52 (16.10%) Social Skills
2 43 (13.31%) Banking
3 40 (12.38%) Finance
4 30 (9.29%) Investment Banking
5 27 (8.36%) Analytical Skills
6 20 (6.19%) Public Sector
7 19 (5.88%) Telecoms
8 8 (2.48%) Legal
9 7 (2.17%) Retail
10 6 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (0.93%) Financial Institution
11 3 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.62%) Military
12 2 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.31%) Law
13 1 (0.31%) Police
13 1 (0.31%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 168 (52.01%) Network Engineer
2 60 (18.58%) Security Engineer
3 55 (17.03%) Senior
4 50 (15.48%) Network Security Engineer
5 40 (12.38%) Cisco Engineer
6 38 (11.76%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 34 (10.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 33 (10.22%) Architect
9 30 (9.29%) Data Network Engineer
10 27 (8.36%) Cisco Security Engineer
10 27 (8.36%) Data Engineer
10 27 (8.36%) Web Engineer
11 24 (7.43%) Senior Network Engineer
12 19 (5.88%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 18 (5.57%) Network Architect
14 16 (4.95%) IP Network Engineer
15 15 (4.64%) Consultant
16 14 (4.33%) Blue Coat Engineer
17 13 (4.02%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
18 10 (3.10%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (13.31%) Terraform
2 25 (7.74%) 802.1X
3 9 (2.79%) YAML
4 8 (2.48%) JSON
5 7 (2.17%) SAML
6 6 (1.86%) NETCONF
6 6 (1.86%) RESTCONF
7 5 (1.55%) REST
8 4 (1.24%) LDAP
8 4 (1.24%) OpenConfig
8 4 (1.24%) YANG
9 3 (0.93%) LAMP
9 3 (0.93%) LEMP Stack
10 2 (0.62%) eBPF
10 2 (0.62%) gRPC
11 1 (0.31%) .NET
11 1 (0.31%) Bun
11 1 (0.31%) JWT
11 1 (0.31%) OpenID
11 1 (0.31%) React
Miscellaneous
1 105 (32.51%) Data Centre
2 40 (12.38%) Hybrid Cloud
3 22 (6.81%) Management Information System
4 21 (6.50%) Cloud Native
5 14 (4.33%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (3.41%) Onboarding
7 10 (3.10%) PKI
8 9 (2.79%) Public Cloud
9 8 (2.48%) Clustering
9 8 (2.48%) Private Cloud
10 7 (2.17%) Distributed Applications
10 7 (2.17%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 6 (1.86%) Digital Signage
12 4 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
13 3 (0.93%) Algorithms
13 3 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
13 3 (0.93%) Linux Command Line
14 2 (0.62%) Driving Licence
14 2 (0.62%) Self-Motivation
15 1 (0.31%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 37 (11.46%) Linux
1 37 (11.46%) Windows
2 9 (2.79%) Unix
3 5 (1.55%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.93%) CentOS
4 3 (0.93%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.31%) CatOS
6 1 (0.31%) Check Point GAiA
6 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (47.06%) Load Balancing
2 53 (16.41%) High Availability
3 52 (16.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 46 (14.24%) CI/CD
4 46 (14.24%) Zero Trust
5 44 (13.62%) Migration
5 44 (13.62%) Project Delivery
6 38 (11.76%) Network Design
7 30 (9.29%) Change Management
7 30 (9.29%) Stakeholder Management
8 29 (8.98%) Agile
9 28 (8.67%) Infrastructure as Code
10 27 (8.36%) Network Architecture
11 24 (7.43%) ITIL
11 24 (7.43%) Problem-Solving
11 24 (7.43%) Roadmaps
12 23 (7.12%) DevOps
13 20 (6.19%) Continuous Improvement
13 20 (6.19%) Network Management
13 20 (6.19%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 86 (26.63%) Python
2 11 (3.41%) SQL
3 10 (3.10%) ActionScript
3 10 (3.10%) JavaScript
4 8 (2.48%) Perl
4 8 (2.48%) PowerShell
5 7 (2.17%) VBA
6 5 (1.55%) Bash
7 4 (1.24%) Shell Script
8 3 (0.93%) Lisp
9 1 (0.31%) C++
9 1 (0.31%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 81 (25.08%) Security Cleared
2 59 (18.27%) SC Cleared
3 54 (16.72%) Cisco Certification
4 32 (9.91%) CCNP
5 21 (6.50%) CCIE
6 15 (4.64%) Degree
6 15 (4.64%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.86%) CCNA
7 6 (1.86%) JNCIE
8 4 (1.24%) CCIE Security
8 4 (1.24%) CISSP
9 3 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.93%) CEH
9 3 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.93%) GIAC
9 3 (0.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 2 (0.62%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.62%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.48%) QA
2 5 (1.55%) Disclosure Scotland
3 4 (1.24%) NCSC
4 3 (0.93%) GDPR
4 3 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.93%) NIST
5 2 (0.62%) GRC
6 1 (0.31%) ISO 31000
6 1 (0.31%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27005
6 1 (0.31%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 45 (13.93%) VMware Infrastructure
2 23 (7.12%) VMware NSX
3 17 (5.26%) Firmware
4 16 (4.95%) Active Directory
5 4 (1.24%) Virtual Servers
6 3 (0.93%) Docker
6 3 (0.93%) Dovecot
6 3 (0.93%) Postfix
6 3 (0.93%) vSphere
7 1 (0.31%) ISA Server
7 1 (0.31%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 72 (22.29%) Ansible
2 33 (10.22%) FortiGate
3 9 (2.79%) Cisco Prime
4 8 (2.48%) WMI
5 5 (1.55%) Kubernetes
5 5 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (1.24%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.93%) HAProxy
7 3 (0.93%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.62%) Avamar
8 2 (0.62%) Grafana
8 2 (0.62%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.31%) CASB
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
1 198 (61.30%) Cisco
2 126 (39.01%) Palo Alto
3 70 (21.67%) Fortinet
4 59 (18.27%) VMware
5 50 (15.48%) Juniper
6 43 (13.31%) CheckPoint
7 39 (12.07%) Arista
8 33 (10.22%) SolarWinds
9 30 (9.29%) Aruba
10 27 (8.36%) Blue Coat
10 27 (8.36%) Microsoft
11 22 (6.81%) Infoblox
12 19 (5.88%) Splunk
13 17 (5.26%) Zscaler
14 15 (4.64%) ServiceNow
15 14 (4.33%) McAfee
15 14 (4.33%) NetApp
16 11 (3.41%) Meraki
17 8 (2.48%) Citrix
18 6 (1.86%) Extreme Networks