NIST Contracts

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring NIST skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited NIST over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 196 208 239
Rank change year-on-year +12 +31 +161
Contract jobs citing NIST 401 502 665
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.37% 1.15% 1.11%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 8.80% 8.03% 8.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 253 339 439
10th Percentile £500 £406 £475
25th Percentile £534 £513 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £628 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -3.85% +4.00%
75th Percentile £700 £738 £713
90th Percentile £800 £825 £803
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £600 £625
% change year-on-year - -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 7 9
10th Percentile £51.25 £33.48 £39.53
25th Percentile £60.03 £47.99 £51.25
Median hourly rate £83.20 £67.50 £64.15
Median % change year-on-year +23.26% +5.23% -2.50%
75th Percentile £87.85 £79.00 £72.98
90th Percentile £93.50 £81.36 £74.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.85 £67.50 £64.15
% change year-on-year +0.52% +5.23% -6.47%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

NIST falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 4,558 6,250 7,982
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.59% 14.34% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,921 3,951 5,482
10th Percentile £265 £295 £275
25th Percentile £400 £402 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +2.44%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £475
% change year-on-year -2.56% +2.63% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 383 225
10th Percentile £18.04 £10.95 £13.21
25th Percentile £22.21 £13.18 £18.70
Median hourly rate £34.50 £21.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.29% -44.00% +33.93%
75th Percentile £65.00 £45.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £83.01 £67.38 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.78 £18.00 £36.25
% change year-on-year +126.53% -50.34% +72.21%

NIST
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing NIST as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for NIST in the UK

NIST
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing NIST.

Daily rate trend for NIST in the UK

NIST
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NIST over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for NIST in the UK

NIST
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing NIST.

Hourly rate trend for NIST in the UK

NIST
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing NIST over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for NIST in the UK

NIST
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NIST within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 2025. 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 +3 337 £625 - 420
London +17 187 £650 - 187
UK excluding London +1 154 £600 - 264
Work from Home +29 150 £600 -4.76% 307
South East +57 66 £600 -2.04% 57
Midlands +15 25 £600 +9.09% 36
West Midlands +4 20 £600 +9.09% 29
South West -16 20 £625 +7.39% 46
North of England -19 20 £663 +1.92% 74
North West -17 12 £675 +3.85% 40
Scotland 0 11 £534 -15.24% 28
East of England +36 8 £522 -21.15% 19
Yorkshire -2 7 £600 +1.52% 27
East Midlands +13 5 - - 7
Wales - 3 £488 - 3
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 6
North East -3 1 £534 -7.13% 7

NIST
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 4 (1.00%) Confluence
2 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.50%) TPMS
3 1 (0.25%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (1.00%) MS Visio
2 3 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 134 (33.42%) Azure
2 96 (23.94%) AWS
3 51 (12.72%) GCP
4 18 (4.49%) Entra ID
5 17 (4.24%) Microsoft 365
6 13 (3.24%) Azure Sentinel
7 9 (2.24%) IaaS
7 9 (2.24%) PaaS
7 9 (2.24%) SaaS
8 8 (2.00%) OCI
9 7 (1.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (1.25%) Amazon EC2
10 5 (1.25%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 5 (1.25%) AWS KMS
10 5 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (1.25%) Azure Monitor
10 5 (1.25%) Serverless
11 4 (1.00%) Cloudflare
11 4 (1.00%) Microsoft Purview
11 4 (1.00%) SonarCloud
Communications & Networking
1 57 (14.21%) Network Security
2 53 (13.22%) Firewall
3 25 (6.23%) VPN
4 13 (3.24%) WAN
5 11 (2.74%) DNS
5 11 (2.74%) VSAN
6 9 (2.24%) SD-WAN
7 8 (2.00%) MPLS
7 8 (2.00%) TCP/IP
8 7 (1.75%) SSL
9 6 (1.50%) Radio Access Network
10 5 (1.25%) Intrusion Detection
10 5 (1.25%) VLAN
11 4 (1.00%) BGP
11 4 (1.00%) Cisco ASA
11 4 (1.00%) Cisco Nexus
11 4 (1.00%) NetScaler
11 4 (1.00%) NGFW
11 4 (1.00%) OSPF
12 3 (0.75%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.00%) GIS
2 1 (0.25%) Amazon Aurora
2 1 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.25%) Data Mining
2 1 (0.25%) MariaDB
2 1 (0.25%) MySQL
2 1 (0.25%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.25%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.25%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 6 (1.50%) JIRA
2 5 (1.25%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.75%) GitLab
3 3 (0.75%) Snyk
4 2 (0.50%) Eclipse
4 2 (0.50%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.25%) Git
5 1 (0.25%) JMeter
5 1 (0.25%) Postman
5 1 (0.25%) Selenium
General
1 141 (35.16%) Social Skills
2 80 (19.95%) Finance
3 57 (14.21%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (8.48%) Legal
5 33 (8.23%) Public Sector
6 22 (5.49%) Banking
7 15 (3.74%) Presentation Skills
8 11 (2.74%) Manufacturing
9 9 (2.24%) Telecoms
10 8 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.50%) Marketing
11 6 (1.50%) Retail
12 5 (1.25%) Law
12 5 (1.25%) Military
13 4 (1.00%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.75%) Public Speaking
15 2 (0.50%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.50%) Police
Job Titles
1 137 (34.16%) Architect
2 102 (25.44%) Security Architect
3 64 (15.96%) Consultant
4 49 (12.22%) Security Consultant
5 30 (7.48%) Senior
6 29 (7.23%) Analyst
7 28 (6.98%) Security Manager
8 25 (6.23%) Lead
8 25 (6.23%) Security Engineer
9 20 (4.99%) Senior Architect
10 13 (3.24%) Business Analyst
10 13 (3.24%) Cybersecurity Architect
10 13 (3.24%) Enterprise Architect
10 13 (3.24%) Project Manager
10 13 (3.24%) Security Analyst
11 12 (2.99%) Technical Architect
12 11 (2.74%) Cybersecurity Analyst
12 11 (2.74%) Information Security Consultant
12 11 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
13 10 (2.49%) Enterprise Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (3.99%) SAML
2 12 (2.99%) LDAP
2 12 (2.99%) OAuth
3 11 (2.74%) OpenID
4 6 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
5 4 (1.00%) SailPoint
6 3 (0.75%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.50%) 802.1X
7 2 (0.50%) Node.js
8 1 (0.25%) ADO
8 1 (0.25%) Leaflet
8 1 (0.25%) OAuth2
8 1 (0.25%) PyTorch
8 1 (0.25%) REST
8 1 (0.25%) RESTful
8 1 (0.25%) TensorFlow
8 1 (0.25%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 68 (16.96%) Security Posture
2 40 (9.98%) Management Information System
3 33 (8.23%) Operational Technology
4 28 (6.98%) Hybrid Cloud
5 18 (4.49%) Cyber Threat
5 18 (4.49%) PKI
5 18 (4.49%) Public Cloud
6 12 (2.99%) Data Centre
7 10 (2.49%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (2.49%) Security Operations Centre
8 9 (2.24%) Private Cloud
9 8 (2.00%) Algorithms
9 8 (2.00%) Onboarding
9 8 (2.00%) SCADA
9 8 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (1.75%) Cloud Native
10 7 (1.75%) Product Ownership
11 5 (1.25%) Cyber Defence
12 4 (1.00%) Cyber Kill Chain
12 4 (1.00%) Cyberattack
Operating Systems
1 26 (6.48%) Linux
2 24 (5.99%) Windows
3 8 (2.00%) AIX
4 7 (1.75%) Unix
5 5 (1.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.25%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.50%) CentOS
6 2 (0.50%) Solaris
7 1 (0.25%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.25%) VMS
7 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 198 (49.38%) Cybersecurity
2 117 (29.18%) Risk Management
3 106 (26.43%) Cloud Security
4 99 (24.69%) Information Security
5 94 (23.44%) Security Architecture
6 84 (20.95%) Incident Response
7 76 (18.95%) Problem-Solving
8 59 (14.71%) Identity Access Management
9 57 (14.21%) Vulnerability Management
10 56 (13.97%) SIEM
10 56 (13.97%) Stakeholder Management
11 53 (13.22%) Risk Assessment
12 49 (12.22%) Security Operations
13 48 (11.97%) DevSecOps
14 47 (11.72%) DevOps
15 44 (10.97%) OWASP
16 43 (10.72%) Agile
16 43 (10.72%) Roadmaps
17 40 (9.98%) TOGAF
18 38 (9.48%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 55 (13.72%) Python
2 35 (8.73%) PowerShell
3 14 (3.49%) Bash
4 8 (2.00%) Java
5 5 (1.25%) Kusto Query Language
6 3 (0.75%) SQL
7 2 (0.50%) C++
8 1 (0.25%) BeanShell
8 1 (0.25%) C
8 1 (0.25%) R
Qualifications
1 150 (37.41%) CISSP
2 103 (25.69%) Security Cleared
3 97 (24.19%) CISM
4 80 (19.95%) SC Cleared
5 61 (15.21%) Degree
6 42 (10.47%) CISA
7 39 (9.73%) Cisco Certification
8 37 (9.23%) CEH
9 32 (7.98%) CRISC
10 30 (7.48%) DV Cleared
11 26 (6.48%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (6.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 22 (5.49%) GIAC
14 20 (4.99%) Microsoft Certification
15 19 (4.74%) CompTIA Security+
16 17 (4.24%) CCSP
17 15 (3.74%) OSCP
17 15 (3.74%) SANS
18 14 (3.49%) MCSE
19 13 (3.24%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 213 (53.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 106 (26.43%) GDPR
3 65 (16.21%) PCI DSS
4 48 (11.97%) NIST 800
5 41 (10.22%) GRC
6 35 (8.73%) NCSC
7 30 (7.48%) HIPAA
8 29 (7.23%) Cyber Essentials
9 27 (6.73%) COBIT
10 21 (5.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 17 (4.24%) SOC 2
12 16 (3.99%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 10 (2.49%) JSP 440
14 8 (2.00%) SLA
15 6 (1.50%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 6 (1.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 6 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 5 (1.25%) Actionable Recommendations
16 5 (1.25%) EU AI Act
17 4 (1.00%) COSO
System Software
1 24 (5.99%) Active Directory
2 18 (4.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (3.49%) VMware NSX
4 11 (2.74%) Docker
5 9 (2.24%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.25%) Firmware
7 1 (0.25%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 15 (3.74%) Ansible
2 14 (3.49%) Kubernetes
3 13 (3.24%) Microsoft Intune
3 13 (3.24%) Terraform
4 10 (2.49%) Single Sign-On
5 9 (2.24%) Puppet
5 9 (2.24%) SCCM
6 6 (1.50%) Progress Chef
7 4 (1.00%) Grafana
7 4 (1.00%) QRadar
8 3 (0.75%) CASB
8 3 (0.75%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.75%) OPNET
9 2 (0.50%) Nagios
9 2 (0.50%) Nessus
9 2 (0.50%) SELinux
10 1 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (0.25%) Autotask
10 1 (0.25%) Graylog
10 1 (0.25%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 54 (13.47%) Microsoft
2 31 (7.73%) Cisco
3 28 (6.98%) VMware
4 27 (6.73%) Palo Alto
5 18 (4.49%) CyberArk
6 15 (3.74%) Splunk
7 9 (2.24%) Fortinet
8 8 (2.00%) BeyondTrust
8 8 (2.00%) Okta
8 8 (2.00%) Oracle
8 8 (2.00%) Tenable
9 7 (1.75%) Qualys
9 7 (1.75%) Zscaler
10 6 (1.50%) ServiceNow
11 5 (1.25%) CheckPoint
11 5 (1.25%) F5
11 5 (1.25%) Google
12 4 (1.00%) ESRI
12 4 (1.00%) Red Hat
12 4 (1.00%) SAP