IPv4 Contract Job Trends

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring IPv4 skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 567 490 515
Rank change year-on-year -77 +25 +171
Contract jobs citing IPv4 17 29 82
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.045% 0.092% 0.19%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.43% 0.71% 1.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 12 69
10th Percentile £392 £403 £385
25th Percentile £470 £447 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £588
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -17.02% -2.08%
75th Percentile £528 £518 £613
90th Percentile £581 - £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £505 £550
% change year-on-year -0.99% -8.18% +0.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £20.82 - £36.25
Median hourly rate £22.27 £50.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -55.47% +33.33% -
75th Percentile £23.71 - £38.75
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £50.00 -

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

IPv4 falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 3,974 4,058 6,031
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.46% 12.84% 13.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,606 2,359 3,677
10th Percentile £204 £213 £208
25th Percentile £355 £363 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -2.91%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £686 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £466 £475
% change year-on-year -3.43% -1.89% +2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 139 377
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.05 £16.97
25th Percentile £18.97 £21.46 £23.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £53.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -33.96% +155.98%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £74.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £32.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year +24.74% -42.47% +202.73%

IPv4
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing IPv4 relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

IPv4 job vacancy trend in the UK

IPv4
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing IPv4.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing IPv4

IPv4
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IPv4 over the 6 months to 24 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for IPv4 in the UK

IPv4
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing IPv4.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing IPv4

IPv4
Top 10 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing IPv4 within the UK over the 6 months to 24 January 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 -73 16 £500 - 46
UK excluding London -76 11 £500 -0.99% 46
London -10 6 £550 +15.79% 3
Midlands -46 5 £525 - 9
West Midlands - 5 £525 - 3
South East -27 4 £500 -0.99% 10
Work from Home -31 2 £425 -10.53% 2
Yorkshire -62 1 £213 - 4
North of England -71 1 £213 -57.92% 6
Scotland - 1 £425 - 1

IPv4
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:

Applications
1 4 (23.53%) MS Visio
2 1 (5.88%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 10 (58.82%) Azure
2 5 (29.41%) AWS
2 5 (29.41%) GCP
3 4 (23.53%) Azure ExpressRoute
3 4 (23.53%) SaaS
3 4 (23.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 2 (11.76%) AWS Direct Connect
4 2 (11.76%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (5.88%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 14 (82.35%) Firewall
2 10 (58.82%) IPv6
3 9 (52.94%) DHCP
3 9 (52.94%) DNS
3 9 (52.94%) VLAN
3 9 (52.94%) VPN
4 7 (41.18%) WAN
5 6 (35.29%) BGP
5 6 (35.29%) LAN
5 6 (35.29%) MPLS
5 6 (35.29%) Network Security
5 6 (35.29%) OSPF
5 6 (35.29%) TCP/IP
5 6 (35.29%) VXLAN
5 6 (35.29%) Wireless
6 5 (29.41%) Cisco ASA
6 5 (29.41%) SD-WAN
6 5 (29.41%) WLAN
7 4 (23.53%) EIGRP
7 4 (23.53%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
General
1 13 (76.47%) Social Skills
2 6 (35.29%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (29.41%) Documentation Skills
4 3 (17.65%) Influencing Skills
4 3 (17.65%) Public Sector
5 2 (11.76%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 5 (29.41%) Architect
1 5 (29.41%) Network Architect
2 4 (23.53%) Platform Engineer
2 4 (23.53%) Solutions Architect
3 3 (17.65%) Designer
3 3 (17.65%) Network Designer
3 3 (17.65%) Senior
3 3 (17.65%) Senior Designer
3 3 (17.65%) Senior Network Designer
4 1 (5.88%) Cisco Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) Design Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) Desktop Support
4 1 (5.88%) Network Design Engineer
4 1 (5.88%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (5.88%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 13 (76.47%) Data Centre
2 4 (23.53%) Replication
3 1 (5.88%) CMDB
3 1 (5.88%) Onboarding
3 1 (5.88%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 7 (41.18%) Windows
2 4 (23.53%) Windows Server
3 1 (5.88%) Mac OS
3 1 (5.88%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (52.94%) ITIL
2 8 (47.06%) Load Balancing
2 8 (47.06%) Network Design
3 7 (41.18%) Computer Science
4 5 (29.41%) Capacity Management
4 5 (29.41%) ITSM
4 5 (29.41%) Mentoring
4 5 (29.41%) Network Management
4 5 (29.41%) Roadmaps
4 5 (29.41%) Zero Trust
5 4 (23.53%) Analytical Thinking
5 4 (23.53%) Cybersecurity
5 4 (23.53%) Data Protection
5 4 (23.53%) Network Architecture
5 4 (23.53%) Performance Monitoring
5 4 (23.53%) Performance Testing
5 4 (23.53%) Security Architecture
5 4 (23.53%) Service Management
5 4 (23.53%) Strategic Thinking
5 4 (23.53%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 4 (23.53%) PowerShell
1 4 (23.53%) Python
Qualifications
1 8 (47.06%) CCNP
1 8 (47.06%) Cisco Certification
1 8 (47.06%) Degree
2 6 (35.29%) Security Cleared
3 4 (23.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
3 4 (23.53%) AWS Certification
3 4 (23.53%) CCIE
3 4 (23.53%) CCNA
3 4 (23.53%) CCSP
3 4 (23.53%) CISSP
3 4 (23.53%) JNCIS
4 3 (17.65%) Azure Certification
4 3 (17.65%) CCIE Security
5 2 (11.76%) DV Cleared
5 2 (11.76%) JNCIE
5 2 (11.76%) JNCIP
5 2 (11.76%) SC Cleared
6 1 (5.88%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (29.41%) GDPR
1 5 (29.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 5 (29.41%) NIST
1 5 (29.41%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 6 (35.29%) Active Directory
2 5 (29.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (23.53%) VMware NSX
4 1 (5.88%) KVM
4 1 (5.88%) RHEV
4 1 (5.88%) Xen
Systems Management
1 5 (29.41%) Ansible
1 5 (29.41%) SCCM
1 5 (29.41%) Terraform
2 4 (23.53%) Nagios
2 4 (23.53%) SCOM
3 1 (5.88%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 10 (58.82%) Cisco
1 10 (58.82%) F5
2 9 (52.94%) SolarWinds
3 6 (35.29%) Juniper
3 6 (35.29%) Meraki
3 6 (35.29%) Microsoft
4 5 (29.41%) Fortinet
4 5 (29.41%) Palo Alto
4 5 (29.41%) VMware
5 2 (11.76%) Forcepoint
6 1 (5.88%) Apple
6 1 (5.88%) CheckPoint
6 1 (5.88%) Citrix
6 1 (5.88%) Dell
6 1 (5.88%) Isilon
6 1 (5.88%) QNAP
6 1 (5.88%) ServiceNow