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 29 May 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
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 313 348 289
Rank change year-on-year +35 -59 +90
Contract jobs citing F5 363 176 336
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.74% 0.61% 0.78%
As % of the Vendors category 1.81% 1.28% 1.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 97 221
10th Percentile £340 £395 £400
25th Percentile £400 £425 £433
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.62% +5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £573 £600 £584
90th Percentile £668 £650 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £535 £500
% change year-on-year -6.54% +7.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 2
10th Percentile £42.05 - -
25th Percentile £43.11 - -
Median hourly rate £48.72 - £23.80
75th Percentile £62.29 - -
90th Percentile £68.11 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 - -

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 20,015 13,731 18,117
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.92% 47.75% 42.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,616 8,533 11,332
10th Percentile £313 £281 £263
25th Percentile £413 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £514
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.73% -2.14%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +0.66% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 582 1,113
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.04
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.77 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +26.12% +14.53% -47.06%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £76.06 £70.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.50 £22.50 £21.48
% change year-on-year +31.11% +4.75% -45.69%

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 29 May 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 29 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for F5 in the UK

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 29 May 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 +19 316 £500 -8.63% 21
UK excluding London +39 259 £500 -6.54% 19
North of England +36 123 £550 +15.79% 7
North West +47 92 £575 +21.05% 3
Work from Home -8 81 £550 +17.33% 9
West Midlands -3 77 £415 -24.68% 1
Midlands -7 77 £415 -25.89% 1
South East -3 68 £523 -0.48% 6
London -69 62 £470 -2.08% 8
Yorkshire -33 24 £478 -
Scotland +9 22 £413 -7.04% 3
South West -35 18 £495 -6.60% 1
North East -17 11 £650 +18.18% 4
East of England -28 3 £530 +13.98% 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 10 (2.75%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.65%) Confluence
3 4 (1.10%) nginx
4 3 (0.83%) Apache
4 3 (0.83%) IIS
4 3 (0.83%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.28%) CMS
Applications
1 20 (5.51%) MS Visio
2 6 (1.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 53 (14.60%) Azure
2 50 (13.77%) AWS
3 20 (5.51%) OCI
4 10 (2.75%) GitHub
4 10 (2.75%) SaaS
5 7 (1.93%) IaaS
5 7 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
6 5 (1.38%) GCP
6 5 (1.38%) Nutanix
7 4 (1.10%) Mimecast
7 4 (1.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 3 (0.83%) Amazon S3
8 3 (0.83%) Cloudflare
8 3 (0.83%) Entra ID
9 2 (0.55%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 2 (0.55%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (0.55%) OpenShift
10 1 (0.28%) AWS CloudFormation
10 1 (0.28%) CloudBees
10 1 (0.28%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 189 (52.07%) Firewall
2 159 (43.80%) DNS
3 148 (40.77%) BIG-IP
4 144 (39.67%) BGP
5 113 (31.13%) WAN
6 112 (30.85%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 102 (28.10%) OSPF
8 93 (25.62%) VPN
9 92 (25.34%) LAN
10 78 (21.49%) Network Security
11 76 (20.94%) VXLAN
12 69 (19.01%) TCP/IP
13 64 (17.63%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 59 (16.25%) Multicast
15 57 (15.70%) SSL
16 56 (15.43%) Ethernet VPN
17 51 (14.05%) Cisco Nexus
18 50 (13.77%) DHCP
19 48 (13.22%) SD-WAN
20 47 (12.95%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.38%) SQL Server
2 3 (0.83%) MySQL
3 2 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 30 (8.26%) JIRA
2 26 (7.16%) Fiddler
3 20 (5.51%) GitLab
4 9 (2.48%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.65%) Git
6 4 (1.10%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 51 (14.05%) Social Skills
2 50 (13.77%) Banking
3 46 (12.67%) Finance
4 37 (10.19%) Investment Banking
5 29 (7.99%) Public Sector
6 14 (3.86%) Analytical Skills
7 12 (3.31%) Financial Institution
8 10 (2.75%) Telecoms
9 7 (1.93%) Military
10 5 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.10%) Retail
12 2 (0.55%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.28%) Billing
13 1 (0.28%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.28%) Police
13 1 (0.28%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 185 (50.96%) Network Engineer
2 66 (18.18%) Senior
3 54 (14.88%) Security Engineer
4 51 (14.05%) Network Security Engineer
5 44 (12.12%) Cisco Engineer
6 42 (11.57%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 42 (11.57%) Web Engineer
7 37 (10.19%) Data Network Engineer
7 37 (10.19%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 36 (9.92%) Architect
9 34 (9.37%) Data Engineer
10 32 (8.82%) Cisco Security Engineer
11 28 (7.71%) Senior Network Engineer
12 23 (6.34%) IP Network Engineer
13 19 (5.23%) Network Specialist
14 18 (4.96%) Blue Coat Engineer
14 18 (4.96%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
15 16 (4.41%) Network Architect
16 14 (3.86%) Firewall Specialist
17 9 (2.48%) Design Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (9.09%) 802.1X
2 12 (3.31%) JSON
3 10 (2.75%) LDAP
3 10 (2.75%) SAML
4 6 (1.65%) YAML
5 4 (1.10%) REST
6 3 (0.83%) LAMP
6 3 (0.83%) LEMP Stack
6 3 (0.83%) NETCONF
6 3 (0.83%) YANG
7 2 (0.55%) OpenConfig
7 2 (0.55%) RESTCONF
7 2 (0.55%) VML
8 1 (0.28%) Bun
8 1 (0.28%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.28%) React
8 1 (0.28%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 112 (30.85%) Data Centre
2 27 (7.44%) PKI
3 25 (6.89%) Hybrid Cloud
4 24 (6.61%) Clustering
5 18 (4.96%) Management Information System
5 18 (4.96%) Public Cloud
6 11 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
7 10 (2.75%) Cloud Native
8 6 (1.65%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.65%) Private Cloud
9 5 (1.38%) Algorithms
10 3 (0.83%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 3 (0.83%) iSeries
10 3 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.83%) Virtual Team
11 2 (0.55%) CESG
11 2 (0.55%) Cyber Threat
11 2 (0.55%) Enterprise Storage
11 2 (0.55%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 60 (16.53%) Windows
2 37 (10.19%) Linux
3 10 (2.75%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.48%) Unix
4 9 (2.48%) Windows Server 2012
4 9 (2.48%) Windows Server 2019
5 5 (1.38%) CatOS
6 3 (0.83%) CentOS
6 3 (0.83%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 180 (49.59%) Load Balancing
2 73 (20.11%) High Availability
3 48 (13.22%) Migration
4 47 (12.95%) Problem-Solving
5 44 (12.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 33 (9.09%) Observability
7 32 (8.82%) Change Management
7 32 (8.82%) CI/CD
7 32 (8.82%) Network Design
8 31 (8.54%) Agile
8 31 (8.54%) Project Delivery
9 27 (7.44%) Zero Trust
10 26 (7.16%) Data Loss Prevention
10 26 (7.16%) Identity Access Management
10 26 (7.16%) Malware Detection/Protection
11 25 (6.89%) Infrastructure as Code
11 25 (6.89%) Roadmaps
12 24 (6.61%) Stakeholder Management
13 23 (6.34%) DevOps
13 23 (6.34%) Network Management
Programming Languages
1 83 (22.87%) Python
2 11 (3.03%) ActionScript
3 10 (2.75%) Bash
3 10 (2.75%) JavaScript
3 10 (2.75%) SQL
4 9 (2.48%) VBA
5 7 (1.93%) PowerShell
6 3 (0.83%) Lisp
7 2 (0.55%) C++
8 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.28%) Perl
8 1 (0.28%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.28%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 88 (24.24%) Security Cleared
2 75 (20.66%) Cisco Certification
3 49 (13.50%) SC Cleared
4 43 (11.85%) CCNP
5 30 (8.26%) DV Cleared
6 19 (5.23%) CCIE
7 12 (3.31%) CCNA
8 11 (3.03%) JNCIS
9 10 (2.75%) Degree
9 10 (2.75%) JNCIP
10 8 (2.20%) JNCIA
11 5 (1.38%) CCIE Security
11 5 (1.38%) JNCIE
12 4 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (0.83%) CCDP
13 3 (0.83%) CCSE
14 2 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
14 2 (0.55%) CESG Certified Professional
14 2 (0.55%) CHECK Team Leader
14 2 (0.55%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.48%) QA
2 6 (1.65%) Disclosure Scotland
3 5 (1.38%) JSP 440
4 4 (1.10%) NIST
5 3 (0.83%) NCSC
5 3 (0.83%) SLA
6 2 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.55%) RMADS
7 1 (0.28%) GRC
7 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 47 (12.95%) VMware Infrastructure
2 31 (8.54%) VMware NSX
3 25 (6.89%) Active Directory
4 18 (4.96%) Firmware
5 6 (1.65%) vSphere
6 5 (1.38%) Docker
6 5 (1.38%) Virtual Servers
7 4 (1.10%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.83%) Dovecot
8 3 (0.83%) Postfix
8 3 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.55%) KVM
10 1 (0.28%) IAG
10 1 (0.28%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.28%) RHEV
10 1 (0.28%) Xen
Systems Management
1 78 (21.49%) Ansible
2 52 (14.33%) FortiGate
3 34 (9.37%) Terraform
4 13 (3.58%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (3.31%) Prometheus
6 11 (3.03%) Grafana
7 7 (1.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 7 (1.93%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (1.93%) SCCM
8 6 (1.65%) WMI
9 5 (1.38%) Kubernetes
9 5 (1.38%) Salt
10 4 (1.10%) Nagios
11 3 (0.83%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.55%) Avamar
12 2 (0.55%) Red Hat Satellite
13 1 (0.28%) Argo
13 1 (0.28%) Proxmox
13 1 (0.28%) vCenter Server
13 1 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 217 (59.78%) Cisco
2 122 (33.61%) Palo Alto
3 68 (18.73%) Juniper
4 65 (17.91%) VMware
5 56 (15.43%) CheckPoint
6 50 (13.77%) Fortinet
7 44 (12.12%) Arista
8 41 (11.29%) SolarWinds
9 38 (10.47%) Splunk
10 33 (9.09%) Aruba
11 31 (8.54%) Blue Coat
12 28 (7.71%) McAfee
13 25 (6.89%) ServiceNow
14 24 (6.61%) Infoblox
15 23 (6.34%) Extreme Networks
15 23 (6.34%) Microsoft
16 18 (4.96%) NetApp
17 12 (3.31%) Zscaler
18 8 (2.20%) Meraki
19 6 (1.65%) BigPanda