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 31 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 585 497 554
Rank change year-on-year -88 +57 +107
Contract jobs citing IPv4 27 18 49
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.061% 0.062% 0.11%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 0.61% 0.48% 0.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 17 7 44
10th Percentile £443 £425 £385
25th Percentile £480 £440 £454
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £575
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -17.39% +4.55%
75th Percentile £756 £513 £613
90th Percentile £835 £568 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +10.00% -10.00% +25.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 1
10th Percentile £36.03 - -
25th Percentile £58.83 - £36.25
Median hourly rate £74.00 - £37.50
75th Percentile £74.63 - £38.75
90th Percentile £75.75 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.00 - -

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 4,441 3,783 5,918
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.97% 13.01% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,843 2,352 3,561
10th Percentile £223 £213 £205
25th Percentile £380 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £489 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.30% +2.89% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +1.06% -1.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 147 407
10th Percentile £15.52 £14.99 £13.94
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.46 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.24 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +17.83% +7.69% +71.05%
75th Percentile £69.49 £63.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £77.20 £75.00 £67.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.10 £31.79 £43.00
% change year-on-year +41.88% -26.07% +132.43%

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 31 March 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing IPv4 over the 6 months to 31 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for IPv4 in the UK

IPv4
Top 11 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 31 March 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 -103 24 £500 +5.26% 11
UK excluding London -96 17 £495 +10.00% 8
Midlands -58 8 £525 - 4
South East -50 7 £498 - 2
London -60 7 £637 +34.11% 3
West Midlands -51 5 £525 - 2
Work from Home -37 3 £638 +34.21% 1
East Midlands - 3 - - 2
North of England -74 1 £213 -59.52%
Scotland - 1 £425 -
Yorkshire - 1 £213 -

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:

Application Platforms
1 3 (11.11%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (14.81%) MS Visio
2 1 (3.70%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 15 (55.56%) Azure
2 10 (37.04%) AWS
2 10 (37.04%) GCP
3 5 (18.52%) Datadog
4 4 (14.81%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 4 (14.81%) SaaS
4 4 (14.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 2 (7.41%) AWS Direct Connect
5 2 (7.41%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (3.70%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 21 (77.78%) IPv6
2 16 (59.26%) Firewall
3 14 (51.85%) DHCP
3 14 (51.85%) DNS
4 11 (40.74%) VLAN
5 10 (37.04%) WAN
6 9 (33.33%) LAN
6 9 (33.33%) Network Security
6 9 (33.33%) VPN
7 8 (29.63%) BGP
7 8 (29.63%) OSPF
7 8 (29.63%) Wireless
8 6 (22.22%) MPLS
8 6 (22.22%) VXLAN
9 5 (18.52%) Cisco ASA
9 5 (18.52%) SD-WAN
9 5 (18.52%) TCP/IP
9 5 (18.52%) WLAN
10 4 (14.81%) EIGRP
10 4 (14.81%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (18.52%) Big Data
2 3 (11.11%) SQL Server
General
1 20 (74.07%) Social Skills
2 12 (44.44%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (18.52%) Documentation Skills
3 5 (18.52%) Telecoms
4 4 (14.81%) Legal
4 4 (14.81%) Public Sector
5 3 (11.11%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (7.41%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 10 (37.04%) Architect
2 9 (33.33%) Solutions Architect
3 5 (18.52%) Network Architect
4 4 (14.81%) Platform Engineer
5 3 (11.11%) Designer
5 3 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 3 (11.11%) Network Designer
5 3 (11.11%) Network Engineer
5 3 (11.11%) Senior
5 3 (11.11%) Senior Designer
5 3 (11.11%) Senior Network Designer
6 2 (7.41%) IT Engineer
6 2 (7.41%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
7 1 (3.70%) Cisco Engineer
7 1 (3.70%) Design Engineer
7 1 (3.70%) Desktop Support
7 1 (3.70%) Hardware Engineer
7 1 (3.70%) Network Design Engineer
7 1 (3.70%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (14.81%) Elastic Stack
1 4 (14.81%) Middleware
2 1 (3.70%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 17 (62.96%) Data Centre
2 4 (14.81%) Replication
3 3 (11.11%) Onboarding
3 3 (11.11%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (7.41%) Virtual Team
5 1 (3.70%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 9 (33.33%) Windows
2 7 (25.93%) Windows Server
3 3 (11.11%) Windows 10
4 1 (3.70%) Mac OS
4 1 (3.70%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (37.04%) Computer Science
2 9 (33.33%) ITIL
3 8 (29.63%) Continuous Improvement
3 8 (29.63%) Data Protection
3 8 (29.63%) Load Balancing
3 8 (29.63%) Network Design
3 8 (29.63%) Problem-Solving
4 5 (18.52%) Capacity Management
4 5 (18.52%) CI/CD
4 5 (18.52%) Data Governance
4 5 (18.52%) GitOps
4 5 (18.52%) ITSM
4 5 (18.52%) Mentoring
4 5 (18.52%) Network Management
4 5 (18.52%) Performance Optimisation
4 5 (18.52%) Roadmaps
4 5 (18.52%) Software Engineering
4 5 (18.52%) Technical Leadership
4 5 (18.52%) Zero Trust
5 4 (14.81%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 4 (14.81%) PowerShell
1 4 (14.81%) Python
Qualifications
1 15 (55.56%) Security Cleared
2 11 (40.74%) Degree
2 11 (40.74%) SC Cleared
3 8 (29.63%) CCNP
3 8 (29.63%) Cisco Certification
4 7 (25.93%) AWS Certification
5 6 (22.22%) Azure Certification
6 4 (14.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 4 (14.81%) CCIE
6 4 (14.81%) CCNA
6 4 (14.81%) CCSP
6 4 (14.81%) CISSP
6 4 (14.81%) JNCIS
7 3 (11.11%) CCIE Security
7 3 (11.11%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (7.41%) DV Cleared
8 2 (7.41%) JNCIE
8 2 (7.41%) JNCIP
9 1 (3.70%) JNCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (37.04%) GDPR
1 10 (37.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 10 (37.04%) NIST
2 5 (18.52%) PCI DSS
3 1 (3.70%) QA
System Software
1 8 (29.63%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (22.22%) Active Directory
3 5 (18.52%) Docker
4 4 (14.81%) VMware NSX
5 1 (3.70%) KVM
5 1 (3.70%) RHEV
5 1 (3.70%) Xen
Systems Management
1 5 (18.52%) Ansible
1 5 (18.52%) Grafana
1 5 (18.52%) Kubernetes
1 5 (18.52%) Prometheus
1 5 (18.52%) SCCM
1 5 (18.52%) Terraform
2 4 (14.81%) Nagios
2 4 (14.81%) SCOM
3 3 (11.11%) WSUS
4 1 (3.70%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 10 (37.04%) Cisco
1 10 (37.04%) F5
2 9 (33.33%) SolarWinds
3 8 (29.63%) VMware
4 7 (25.93%) Fortinet
4 7 (25.93%) Microsoft
5 6 (22.22%) Juniper
5 6 (22.22%) Meraki
6 5 (18.52%) Google
6 5 (18.52%) Palo Alto
7 4 (14.81%) Citrix
8 2 (7.41%) Forcepoint
8 2 (7.41%) Infoblox
9 1 (3.70%) CheckPoint
9 1 (3.70%) ServiceNow