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 28 November 2025, 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
28 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 324 283 363
Rank change year-on-year -41 +80 +20
Contract jobs citing F5 289 310 266
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.80% 0.85% 0.58%
As % of the Vendors category 1.69% 1.88% 1.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 155 195 178
10th Percentile £380 £352 £399
25th Percentile £419 £443 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% +2.38%
75th Percentile £614 £588 £614
90th Percentile £700 £648 £691
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £525 £516
% change year-on-year -6.29% +1.79% +3.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 7
10th Percentile - £21.51 £64.65
25th Percentile £65.75 £21.89 £68.75
Median hourly rate £66.50 £23.15 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +187.26% -68.07% +271.79%
75th Percentile £67.25 £23.79 £76.88
90th Percentile - £23.80 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £22.50 £72.50
% change year-on-year +195.56% -68.97% +51.52%

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 17,140 16,485 20,689
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.48% 45.03% 45.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,833 9,701 13,240
10th Percentile £288 £295 £256
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.59%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £723 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 867 524 675
10th Percentile £15.32 £15.49 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.22 £19.54 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.08 £30.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.42% -32.58% +73.08%
75th Percentile £42.63 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.08 £27.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -19.73% -38.20% +96.97%

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 28 November 2025.

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 28 November 2025. 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 -26 264 £490 -2.00% 33
UK excluding London -24 193 £492 -6.29% 31
North of England -1 100 £500 +2.04% 3
London -8 79 £500 +5.26% 7
Work from Home -18 78 £500 +2.04% 12
Midlands +21 66 £440 -37.14% 7
West Midlands +25 65 £440 -16.19% 5
North West -6 60 £500 +2.04% 2
Yorkshire -2 53 £491 -1.85%
South East -54 25 £520 -5.45% 14
Scotland +6 18 £500 +4.17% 1
South West -13 12 £550 +18.92% 5
East of England -24 4 £520 -6.31% 4
North East -8 1 £550 - 1
East Midlands -27 1 - - 2

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 (3.81%) Confluence
2 10 (3.46%) OpenStack
3 6 (2.08%) WebSphere
4 3 (1.04%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.69%) CICS
5 2 (0.69%) nginx
5 2 (0.69%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.35%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 5 (1.73%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 105 (36.33%) AWS
2 59 (20.42%) Azure
3 55 (19.03%) GCP
4 38 (13.15%) Akamai
5 28 (9.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 25 (8.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 24 (8.30%) Amazon ELB
8 23 (7.96%) Amazon EC2
8 23 (7.96%) Amazon S3
9 9 (3.11%) OpenShift
10 8 (2.77%) SaaS
11 6 (2.08%) OCI
11 6 (2.08%) PaaS
12 5 (1.73%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 5 (1.73%) GitHub
12 5 (1.73%) IaaS
13 4 (1.38%) Apigee
13 4 (1.38%) Cloudflare
14 3 (1.04%) Mimecast
15 2 (0.69%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 165 (57.09%) Firewall
2 108 (37.37%) DNS
3 94 (32.53%) Network Security
4 71 (24.57%) SSL
5 67 (23.18%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 61 (21.11%) TCP/IP
6 61 (21.11%) VPN
7 58 (20.07%) WAN
8 53 (18.34%) BGP
9 51 (17.65%) Wireless
10 46 (15.92%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 43 (14.88%) OSPF
12 39 (13.49%) Wireshark
13 38 (13.15%) LAN
14 34 (11.76%) BIG-IP
15 33 (11.42%) Cisco ISE
16 32 (11.07%) DMZ
17 31 (10.73%) HTTP
18 28 (9.69%) Cisco Nexus
19 25 (8.65%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.69%) NoSQL
1 2 (0.69%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.35%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 38 (13.15%) Jenkins
2 37 (12.80%) Git
3 24 (8.30%) GitLab
4 16 (5.54%) JIRA
5 14 (4.84%) Fiddler
6 6 (2.08%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (1.38%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.69%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.69%) Rational DOORS
General
1 76 (26.30%) Social Skills
2 45 (15.57%) Banking
3 40 (13.84%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (12.46%) Finance
5 30 (10.38%) Public Sector
6 28 (9.69%) Investment Banking
7 22 (7.61%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (7.27%) Telecoms
9 8 (2.77%) Financial Institution
9 8 (2.77%) Legal
9 8 (2.77%) Retail
10 7 (2.42%) Military
11 6 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (2.08%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (1.38%) Retail Banking
13 3 (1.04%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 99 (34.26%) Network Engineer
2 38 (13.15%) Architect
3 35 (12.11%) Senior
4 25 (8.65%) Security Engineer
5 24 (8.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 20 (6.92%) Network Architect
7 16 (5.54%) Operations Engineer
8 15 (5.19%) Solutions Architect
9 14 (4.84%) Network Security Engineer
9 14 (4.84%) Web Engineer
10 12 (4.15%) Automation Engineer
10 12 (4.15%) Designer
10 12 (4.15%) DevOps Engineer
10 12 (4.15%) Senior DevOps
10 12 (4.15%) Senior DevOps Engineer
11 11 (3.81%) Cisco Engineer
12 10 (3.46%) Analyst
12 10 (3.46%) Cisco Network Engineer
12 10 (3.46%) Consultant
12 10 (3.46%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (4.50%) 802.1X
2 9 (3.11%) Middleware
3 8 (2.77%) REST
4 5 (1.73%) SOAP
5 4 (1.38%) AngularJS
5 4 (1.38%) JSON
5 4 (1.38%) XML
6 3 (1.04%) LDAP
6 3 (1.04%) NETCONF
6 3 (1.04%) OpenConfig
6 3 (1.04%) RESTful
6 3 (1.04%) YANG
7 2 (0.69%) Regular Expression
7 2 (0.69%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.69%) SailPoint
7 2 (0.69%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 64 (22.15%) Data Centre
2 31 (10.73%) Management Information System
3 20 (6.92%) Security Posture
4 13 (4.50%) Data Protection Act
4 13 (4.50%) Private Cloud
5 12 (4.15%) Onboarding
6 10 (3.46%) Cloud Native
6 10 (3.46%) Hybrid Cloud
7 6 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.38%) Legacy Applications
9 3 (1.04%) Public Cloud
9 3 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.69%) Clustering
10 2 (0.69%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.69%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 2 (0.69%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (0.69%) Product Ownership
10 2 (0.69%) Replication
10 2 (0.69%) Video\Live Streaming
10 2 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 30 (10.38%) Linux
2 24 (8.30%) Windows
3 16 (5.54%) Unix
4 8 (2.77%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.04%) VMS
6 2 (0.69%) Solaris
6 2 (0.69%) zOS
7 1 (0.35%) MVS
7 1 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (31.14%) Load Balancing
2 46 (15.92%) DevOps
3 44 (15.22%) Incident Response
4 43 (14.88%) CI/CD
5 42 (14.53%) High Availability
6 39 (13.49%) DevSecOps
7 37 (12.80%) Problem-Solving
8 36 (12.46%) Migration
9 34 (11.76%) Infrastructure Automation
10 33 (11.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 30 (10.38%) Agile
12 29 (10.03%) Business Strategy
13 28 (9.69%) Infrastructure as Code
14 27 (9.34%) Change Management
14 27 (9.34%) Stakeholder Management
15 24 (8.30%) Application Security
16 23 (7.96%) ITIL
16 23 (7.96%) Network Design
16 23 (7.96%) OWASP
17 22 (7.61%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 86 (29.76%) Python
2 34 (11.76%) Bash
3 15 (5.19%) Perl
4 12 (4.15%) PowerShell
5 8 (2.77%) SQL
6 7 (2.42%) Java
7 4 (1.38%) JavaScript
7 4 (1.38%) Shell Script
8 3 (1.04%) VB
Qualifications
1 72 (24.91%) Security Cleared
2 58 (20.07%) SC Cleared
3 46 (15.92%) Cisco Certification
4 31 (10.73%) CCNP
5 23 (7.96%) CCIE
6 14 (4.84%) JNCIE
7 10 (3.46%) AWS Certification
7 10 (3.46%) Degree
8 8 (2.77%) DV Cleared
9 6 (2.08%) CCNA
10 5 (1.73%) CCSA
10 5 (1.73%) CISSP
10 5 (1.73%) JNCIP
11 4 (1.38%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 4 (1.38%) CCSP
11 4 (1.38%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (1.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 3 (1.04%) Azure Certification
12 3 (1.04%) CCIE Security
12 3 (1.04%) GWAPT
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (2.08%) COBIT
1 6 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 6 (2.08%) PCI DSS
2 5 (1.73%) GDPR
2 5 (1.73%) NIST
2 5 (1.73%) SLA
3 2 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
3 2 (0.69%) Disclosure Scotland
3 2 (0.69%) GRC
4 1 (0.35%) Accessibility
System Software
1 61 (21.11%) VMware Infrastructure
2 29 (10.03%) Docker
3 26 (9.00%) VMware NSX
4 14 (4.84%) Firmware
5 12 (4.15%) vSphere
6 10 (3.46%) Active Directory
7 3 (1.04%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (1.04%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.69%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.69%) KVM
8 2 (0.69%) ProxySG
8 2 (0.69%) Snort
9 1 (0.35%) NFS
9 1 (0.35%) SRDF
9 1 (0.35%) Veritas Cluster Server
9 1 (0.35%) Xen
9 1 (0.35%) XenApp
9 1 (0.35%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 85 (29.41%) Ansible
2 71 (24.57%) Terraform
3 20 (6.92%) CSIRT
4 18 (6.23%) FortiGate
5 8 (2.77%) Kubernetes
6 6 (2.08%) vCenter Server
7 4 (1.38%) CA Spectrum
8 3 (1.04%) vRealize
9 2 (0.69%) HAProxy
9 2 (0.69%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.35%) Argo
10 1 (0.35%) OpenView
10 1 (0.35%) Podman
10 1 (0.35%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.35%) Puppet
Vendors
1 116 (40.14%) Cisco
2 77 (26.64%) VMware
3 68 (23.53%) Palo Alto
4 65 (22.49%) CheckPoint
5 58 (20.07%) Juniper
6 40 (13.84%) Fortinet
7 36 (12.46%) Blue Coat
8 34 (11.76%) SolarWinds
9 24 (8.30%) McAfee
10 22 (7.61%) Meraki
10 22 (7.61%) Splunk
11 18 (6.23%) Microsoft
12 17 (5.88%) NetApp
13 15 (5.19%) Zscaler
14 13 (4.50%) Oracle
15 12 (4.15%) Infoblox
16 10 (3.46%) HP
17 9 (3.11%) LogicMonitor
18 8 (2.77%) Citrix
18 8 (2.77%) Dell