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 16 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
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 377 322 245
Rank change year-on-year -55 -77 +131
Contract jobs citing F5 323 248 376
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.75% 0.98%
As % of the Vendors category 1.42% 1.59% 2.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 136 249
10th Percentile £380 £380 £375
25th Percentile £424 £420 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £490 £525
Median % change year-on-year +6.64% -6.76% -
75th Percentile £625 £614 £588
90th Percentile £688 £706 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £530 £490 £550
% change year-on-year +8.27% -11.00% +12.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 4
10th Percentile - - £22.02
25th Percentile £61.00 £65.75 £23.16
Median hourly rate £62.00 £66.50 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -6.77% +179.41% -67.17%
75th Percentile £63.00 £67.25 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £66.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year - +195.56% -68.97%

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 22,712 15,566 16,911
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.85% 47.26% 44.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,926 9,545 10,148
10th Percentile £313 £275 £285
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 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,251 789 677
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.69 £14.26
25th Percentile £16.72 £17.44 £15.62
Median hourly rate £27.00 £25.15 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.36% -16.17% -31.56%
75th Percentile £63.00 £43.25 £63.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £21.19 £30.00
% change year-on-year +23.36% -29.37% -27.71%

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 16 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 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 16 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 -82 287 £528 +7.76% 109
UK excluding London -43 220 £530 +8.27% 73
North of England -31 116 £575 +17.47% 28
Work from Home -23 90 £550 +10.00% 36
North West +1 82 £575 +21.05% 16
Midlands -18 71 £581 +38.33% 9
West Midlands -30 70 £581 +38.33% 7
London -96 70 £525 +10.53% 45
South East -50 41 £415 -20.95% 17
Yorkshire -56 27 £488 -0.41% 12
South West -43 19 £480 -16.52% 7
Scotland -19 18 £513 -2.38% 9
North East -27 13 £650 +18.18%
East of England -19 5 £530 +1.92% 1
East Midlands - 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 6 (1.86%) IIS
1 6 (1.86%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.55%) nginx
2 5 (1.55%) OpenStack
3 3 (0.93%) Apache
3 3 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.93%) Tomcat
4 2 (0.62%) Confluence
5 1 (0.31%) CMS
Applications
1 7 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (2.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 6 (1.86%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 60 (18.58%) Azure
2 48 (14.86%) AWS
3 25 (7.74%) GitHub
4 23 (7.12%) OCI
5 16 (4.95%) IaaS
5 16 (4.95%) SaaS
6 10 (3.10%) GCP
7 9 (2.79%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 7 (2.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 6 (1.86%) Cloudflare
9 6 (1.86%) Entra ID
9 6 (1.86%) OpenShift
10 4 (1.24%) Microsoft 365
11 3 (0.93%) Mimecast
11 3 (0.93%) OneDrive
12 1 (0.31%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 1 (0.31%) AWS Direct Connect
12 1 (0.31%) Azure DevOps
12 1 (0.31%) Google Ads
12 1 (0.31%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 177 (54.80%) Firewall
2 133 (41.18%) DNS
3 129 (39.94%) BGP
4 120 (37.15%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 117 (36.22%) BIG-IP
6 106 (32.82%) VPN
7 92 (28.48%) WAN
8 86 (26.63%) OSPF
9 84 (26.01%) Network Security
10 75 (23.22%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 59 (18.27%) TCP/IP
12 58 (17.96%) VXLAN
13 55 (17.03%) LAN
13 55 (17.03%) SSL
14 50 (15.48%) VLAN
15 49 (15.17%) Cisco Nexus
16 47 (14.55%) Wireless
17 45 (13.93%) Multicast
18 43 (13.31%) SD-WAN
19 37 (11.46%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.93%) MySQL
1 3 (0.93%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 28 (8.67%) JIRA
2 20 (6.19%) GitLab
3 17 (5.26%) Jenkins
4 14 (4.33%) Fiddler
5 7 (2.17%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.24%) Git
7 1 (0.31%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.31%) MSI
7 1 (0.31%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.31%) Selenium
7 1 (0.31%) Visual Studio
General
1 56 (17.34%) Social Skills
2 45 (13.93%) Banking
3 42 (13.00%) Finance
4 29 (8.98%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (8.67%) Investment Banking
6 22 (6.81%) Public Sector
7 19 (5.88%) Telecoms
8 8 (2.48%) Legal
9 7 (2.17%) Retail
10 5 (1.55%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.62%) Financial Institution
12 2 (0.62%) Local Government
12 2 (0.62%) Military
12 2 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.31%) Law
13 1 (0.31%) Police
13 1 (0.31%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 159 (49.23%) Network Engineer
2 59 (18.27%) Security Engineer
3 49 (15.17%) Senior
4 47 (14.55%) Network Security Engineer
5 36 (11.15%) Cisco Engineer
6 35 (10.84%) Architect
6 35 (10.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 34 (10.53%) Cisco Network Engineer
8 27 (8.36%) Data Network Engineer
9 25 (7.74%) Cisco Security Engineer
9 25 (7.74%) Data Engineer
9 25 (7.74%) Web Engineer
10 19 (5.88%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 19 (5.88%) Senior Network Engineer
11 18 (5.57%) Network Architect
12 16 (4.95%) Consultant
13 15 (4.64%) IP Network Engineer
14 13 (4.02%) Blue Coat Engineer
15 12 (3.72%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 10 (3.10%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (12.69%) 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
10 2 (0.62%) Software Packaging
11 1 (0.31%) .NET Framework
11 1 (0.31%) JWT
11 1 (0.31%) Playwright
11 1 (0.31%) React
Miscellaneous
1 112 (34.67%) Data Centre
2 40 (12.38%) Hybrid Cloud
3 23 (7.12%) Management Information System
4 21 (6.50%) Cloud Native
5 17 (5.26%) Public Cloud
6 14 (4.33%) Data Protection Act
7 12 (3.72%) Onboarding
8 8 (2.48%) PKI
8 8 (2.48%) Private Cloud
9 7 (2.17%) Distributed Applications
9 7 (2.17%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 6 (1.86%) Clustering
10 6 (1.86%) Digital Signage
11 4 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
12 3 (0.93%) Algorithms
12 3 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
12 3 (0.93%) Linux Command Line
12 3 (0.93%) Mobile Payment
12 3 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 40 (12.38%) Linux
2 39 (12.07%) Windows
3 9 (2.79%) Unix
4 7 (2.17%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.93%) CentOS
5 3 (0.93%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.62%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.31%) CatOS
7 1 (0.31%) Check Point GAiA
7 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (44.89%) Load Balancing
2 58 (17.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 53 (16.41%) CI/CD
4 49 (15.17%) Zero Trust
5 46 (14.24%) High Availability
5 46 (14.24%) Project Delivery
6 42 (13.00%) Migration
7 37 (11.46%) Network Design
8 35 (10.84%) Agile
9 33 (10.22%) Change Management
10 31 (9.60%) Problem-Solving
11 30 (9.29%) Infrastructure as Code
12 29 (8.98%) Stakeholder Management
13 28 (8.67%) Network Architecture
14 25 (7.74%) Roadmaps
15 24 (7.43%) DevOps
15 24 (7.43%) ITIL
16 20 (6.19%) Cloud Security
16 20 (6.19%) Network Management
16 20 (6.19%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 92 (28.48%) Python
2 16 (4.95%) ActionScript
3 11 (3.41%) SQL
4 10 (3.10%) JavaScript
4 10 (3.10%) PowerShell
5 8 (2.48%) Perl
6 7 (2.17%) VBA
7 5 (1.55%) Bash
8 4 (1.24%) Shell Script
9 3 (0.93%) Lisp
10 1 (0.31%) C++
10 1 (0.31%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 75 (23.22%) Security Cleared
2 56 (17.34%) Cisco Certification
2 56 (17.34%) SC Cleared
3 33 (10.22%) CCNP
4 21 (6.50%) CCIE
5 16 (4.95%) Degree
6 10 (3.10%) DV Cleared
7 7 (2.17%) CCNA
8 6 (1.86%) CISSP
8 6 (1.86%) JNCIE
9 4 (1.24%) CCIE Security
9 4 (1.24%) CCSP
10 3 (0.93%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 3 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.93%) CISA
10 3 (0.93%) CISM
10 3 (0.93%) CLAS
10 3 (0.93%) CREST Certified
10 3 (0.93%) GIAC
10 3 (0.93%) IISP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.48%) QA
2 7 (2.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (1.55%) Disclosure Scotland
3 5 (1.55%) GDPR
3 5 (1.55%) NIST
4 4 (1.24%) GRC
4 4 (1.24%) NCSC
5 3 (0.93%) ISO 31000
5 3 (0.93%) ISO 9001
5 3 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27005
5 3 (0.93%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 39 (12.07%) VMware Infrastructure
2 21 (6.50%) VMware NSX
3 17 (5.26%) Active Directory
4 16 (4.95%) Firmware
5 4 (1.24%) Docker
5 4 (1.24%) Virtual Servers
6 3 (0.93%) Dovecot
6 3 (0.93%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.93%) Postfix
6 3 (0.93%) vSphere
7 1 (0.31%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.31%) ProxySG
7 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 71 (21.98%) Ansible
2 32 (9.91%) FortiGate
3 9 (2.79%) Cisco Prime
4 8 (2.48%) WMI
5 6 (1.86%) Microsoft Intune
6 5 (1.55%) Kubernetes
7 4 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.93%) CASB
8 3 (0.93%) HAProxy
8 3 (0.93%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.62%) Avamar
10 1 (0.31%) Grafana
10 1 (0.31%) Istio
10 1 (0.31%) Network Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.31%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.31%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.31%) Puppet
10 1 (0.31%) SCCM
10 1 (0.31%) vRealize
Vendors
1 190 (58.82%) Cisco
2 124 (38.39%) Palo Alto
3 70 (21.67%) Fortinet
4 55 (17.03%) VMware
5 48 (14.86%) Juniper
6 42 (13.00%) CheckPoint
7 38 (11.76%) Arista
8 31 (9.60%) Aruba
8 31 (9.60%) Microsoft
9 30 (9.29%) SolarWinds
10 28 (8.67%) Blue Coat
11 21 (6.50%) Infoblox
12 20 (6.19%) Zscaler
13 19 (5.88%) Splunk
14 13 (4.02%) McAfee
14 13 (4.02%) NetApp
14 13 (4.02%) ServiceNow
15 11 (3.41%) Meraki
16 8 (2.48%) Citrix
17 5 (1.55%) Google