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 25 August 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
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 361 315 261
Rank change year-on-year -46 -54 +109
Contract jobs citing F5 336 248 358
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.76% 0.92%
As % of the Vendors category 1.50% 1.60% 2.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 155 139 242
10th Percentile £381 £379 £369
25th Percentile £416 £409 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £488 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.59% -7.14% -
75th Percentile £600 £603 £588
90th Percentile £688 £650 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £488 £550
% change year-on-year +6.67% -11.36% +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 22,372 15,460 16,980
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.71% 47.22% 43.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,803 9,448 10,476
10th Percentile £313 £275 £286
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £611 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £728
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,160 806 783
10th Percentile £14.36 £14.67 £13.30
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £29.73 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.21% -10.18% -36.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £46.30 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.03 £67.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £21.24 £26.13
% change year-on-year +31.83% -18.70% -34.03%

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 25 August 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 25 August 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 -53 297 £525 +7.69% 51
UK excluding London -26 231 £520 +6.67% 25
North of England -3 120 £563 +18.42% 6
Work from Home -27 93 £550 +22.22% 12
North West +16 88 £575 +21.05% 4
West Midlands -2 76 £581 +32.05% 3
Midlands -19 76 £581 +32.05% 3
London -87 71 £525 +13.51% 30
South East -44 48 £433 -17.62% 6
Yorkshire -42 25 £488 -0.41% 2
Scotland -4 21 £419 -20.24% 3
South West -47 18 £495 -10.00% 3
North East -27 13 £650 +18.18%
East of England -19 5 £530 +24.71% 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 7 (2.08%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.49%) nginx
2 5 (1.49%) OpenStack
3 3 (0.89%) Apache
3 3 (0.89%) Confluence
3 3 (0.89%) IIS
3 3 (0.89%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.89%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.30%) CMS
Applications
1 9 (2.68%) Microsoft Excel
1 9 (2.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 9 (2.68%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 61 (18.15%) Azure
2 51 (15.18%) AWS
3 23 (6.85%) OCI
4 20 (5.95%) GitHub
5 15 (4.46%) SaaS
6 10 (2.98%) IaaS
7 9 (2.68%) GCP
8 8 (2.38%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 7 (2.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 6 (1.79%) Cloudflare
10 6 (1.79%) OpenShift
11 5 (1.49%) Entra ID
12 4 (1.19%) Microsoft 365
13 3 (0.89%) Mimecast
13 3 (0.89%) OneDrive
14 1 (0.30%) AWS CloudFormation
14 1 (0.30%) Azure DevOps
14 1 (0.30%) CloudBees
14 1 (0.30%) Google Ads
14 1 (0.30%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 178 (52.98%) Firewall
2 147 (43.75%) BGP
3 134 (39.88%) DNS
4 122 (36.31%) BIG-IP
5 119 (35.42%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 109 (32.44%) VPN
7 104 (30.95%) WAN
8 96 (28.57%) OSPF
9 80 (23.81%) Network Security
10 70 (20.83%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 70 (20.83%) LAN
11 65 (19.35%) VXLAN
12 63 (18.75%) TCP/IP
13 54 (16.07%) Cisco Nexus
13 54 (16.07%) Multicast
14 49 (14.58%) SSL
15 46 (13.69%) SD-WAN
16 45 (13.39%) VLAN
16 45 (13.39%) Wireless
17 44 (13.10%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.89%) MySQL
1 3 (0.89%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 24 (7.14%) JIRA
2 20 (5.95%) GitLab
3 17 (5.06%) Fiddler
4 12 (3.57%) Jenkins
5 7 (2.08%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.19%) Git
7 1 (0.30%) MSI
7 1 (0.30%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.30%) Visual Studio
General
1 52 (15.48%) Social Skills
2 48 (14.29%) Banking
3 42 (12.50%) Finance
4 34 (10.12%) Investment Banking
5 28 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
6 21 (6.25%) Public Sector
7 19 (5.65%) Telecoms
8 7 (2.08%) Legal
8 7 (2.08%) Retail
9 6 (1.79%) Financial Institution
10 5 (1.49%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.60%) Military
12 2 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.30%) Law
13 1 (0.30%) Police
13 1 (0.30%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 180 (53.57%) Network Engineer
2 61 (18.15%) Security Engineer
3 57 (16.96%) Senior
4 54 (16.07%) Network Security Engineer
5 44 (13.10%) Cisco Engineer
6 42 (12.50%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 36 (10.71%) Data Network Engineer
8 34 (10.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 32 (9.52%) Data Engineer
9 32 (9.52%) Web Engineer
10 31 (9.23%) Architect
10 31 (9.23%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 26 (7.74%) Senior Network Engineer
12 19 (5.65%) IP Network Engineer
12 19 (5.65%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 17 (5.06%) Network Architect
14 16 (4.76%) Blue Coat Engineer
15 14 (4.17%) Consultant
16 13 (3.87%) Network Specialist
17 12 (3.57%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (13.10%) Terraform
2 26 (7.74%) 802.1X
3 8 (2.38%) JSON
3 8 (2.38%) YAML
4 7 (2.08%) SAML
5 6 (1.79%) NETCONF
5 6 (1.79%) OpenConfig
5 6 (1.79%) RESTCONF
5 6 (1.79%) YANG
6 5 (1.49%) REST
7 4 (1.19%) LDAP
8 3 (0.89%) LAMP
8 3 (0.89%) LEMP Stack
9 2 (0.60%) eBPF
10 1 (0.30%) .NET
10 1 (0.30%) .NET Framework
10 1 (0.30%) Bun
10 1 (0.30%) JWT
10 1 (0.30%) OpenID
10 1 (0.30%) React
Miscellaneous
1 104 (30.95%) Data Centre
2 42 (12.50%) Hybrid Cloud
3 23 (6.85%) Management Information System
4 21 (6.25%) Cloud Native
5 15 (4.46%) Data Protection Act
6 14 (4.17%) PKI
7 12 (3.57%) Clustering
7 12 (3.57%) Onboarding
8 8 (2.38%) Private Cloud
8 8 (2.38%) Public Cloud
9 7 (2.08%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 6 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (1.79%) Distributed Applications
11 5 (1.49%) Digital Signage
12 4 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
13 3 (0.89%) Algorithms
13 3 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
13 3 (0.89%) Linux Command Line
14 1 (0.30%) Driving Licence
14 1 (0.30%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 43 (12.80%) Windows
2 37 (11.01%) Linux
3 8 (2.38%) Unix
4 4 (1.19%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.89%) CentOS
5 3 (0.89%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.89%) Windows Server 2012
5 3 (0.89%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.30%) CatOS
6 1 (0.30%) Check Point GAiA
6 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 162 (48.21%) Load Balancing
2 56 (16.67%) High Availability
3 53 (15.77%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 46 (13.69%) CI/CD
4 46 (13.69%) Zero Trust
5 44 (13.10%) Migration
6 42 (12.50%) Project Delivery
7 40 (11.90%) Network Design
8 31 (9.23%) Stakeholder Management
9 29 (8.63%) Agile
9 29 (8.63%) Change Management
10 28 (8.33%) Infrastructure as Code
10 28 (8.33%) Roadmaps
11 27 (8.04%) Network Architecture
11 27 (8.04%) Problem-Solving
12 23 (6.85%) DevOps
12 23 (6.85%) ITIL
13 22 (6.55%) Network Management
14 20 (5.95%) Continuous Improvement
15 19 (5.65%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 87 (25.89%) Python
2 11 (3.27%) ActionScript
2 11 (3.27%) SQL
3 10 (2.98%) JavaScript
4 8 (2.38%) PowerShell
5 7 (2.08%) Perl
5 7 (2.08%) VBA
6 6 (1.79%) Bash
7 3 (0.89%) Lisp
7 3 (0.89%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.30%) C++
8 1 (0.30%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 80 (23.81%) Security Cleared
2 58 (17.26%) Cisco Certification
3 53 (15.77%) SC Cleared
4 32 (9.52%) CCNP
5 20 (5.95%) CCIE
6 17 (5.06%) DV Cleared
7 16 (4.76%) Degree
8 7 (2.08%) CCNA
9 6 (1.79%) JNCIE
10 4 (1.19%) CCIE Security
10 4 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.89%) CEH
11 3 (0.89%) CISSP
11 3 (0.89%) GIAC
11 3 (0.89%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 2 (0.60%) AWS Certification
12 2 (0.60%) JNCIA
12 2 (0.60%) JNCIP
12 2 (0.60%) JNCIS
12 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.68%) QA
2 6 (1.79%) Disclosure Scotland
3 4 (1.19%) NCSC
4 2 (0.60%) GDPR
4 2 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.60%) NIST
5 1 (0.30%) GRC
5 1 (0.30%) SLA
System Software
1 47 (13.99%) VMware Infrastructure
2 23 (6.85%) VMware NSX
3 19 (5.65%) Firmware
4 15 (4.46%) Active Directory
5 4 (1.19%) Virtual Servers
6 3 (0.89%) Docker
6 3 (0.89%) Dovecot
6 3 (0.89%) Postfix
6 3 (0.89%) vSphere
7 1 (0.30%) IAG
7 1 (0.30%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 74 (22.02%) Ansible
2 37 (11.01%) FortiGate
3 8 (2.38%) Cisco Prime
3 8 (2.38%) WMI
4 6 (1.79%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (1.49%) Kubernetes
5 5 (1.49%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.89%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.89%) Grafana
6 3 (0.89%) HAProxy
6 3 (0.89%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.60%) Avamar
7 2 (0.60%) Puppet
7 2 (0.60%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.30%) Istio
8 1 (0.30%) NetBackup
8 1 (0.30%) Network Intrusion Detection System
8 1 (0.30%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.30%) SCCM
8 1 (0.30%) vRealize
Vendors
1 208 (61.90%) Cisco
2 129 (38.39%) Palo Alto
3 71 (21.13%) Fortinet
4 60 (17.86%) VMware
5 54 (16.07%) Juniper
6 43 (12.80%) CheckPoint
7 40 (11.90%) Arista
8 36 (10.71%) SolarWinds
9 30 (8.93%) Aruba
10 29 (8.63%) Microsoft
11 26 (7.74%) Blue Coat
12 24 (7.14%) Infoblox
13 22 (6.55%) Splunk
14 16 (4.76%) McAfee
14 16 (4.76%) NetApp
15 15 (4.46%) ServiceNow
15 15 (4.46%) Zscaler
16 10 (2.98%) Extreme Networks
17 9 (2.68%) Meraki
18 7 (2.08%) Citrix