NIST Contract Job Trends

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring NIST skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 158 207 193
Rank change year-on-year +49 -14 +42
Contract jobs citing NIST 779 392 512
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.64% 1.34% 1.19%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 9.86% 8.53% 8.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 538 245 351
10th Percentile £425 £500 £406
25th Percentile £501 £534 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £630 £620
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +1.61% -4.62%
75th Percentile £688 £713 £738
90th Percentile £800 £800 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -4.17% - -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 7 7
10th Percentile £31.94 £51.25 £33.48
25th Percentile £49.39 £60.03 £47.99
Median hourly rate £73.60 £83.20 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.54% +23.26% +5.23%
75th Percentile £84.00 £87.85 £79.00
90th Percentile £107.00 £93.50 £81.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £67.85 £67.50
% change year-on-year +20.12% +0.52% +5.23%

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 7,903 4,594 6,155
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.64% 15.73% 14.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,102 2,940 3,909
10th Percentile £340 £265 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £482
% change year-on-year +5.26% -1.35% +0.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 461 172 383
10th Percentile £14.25 £18.10 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.24 £13.18
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £21.12
Median % change year-on-year - +65.76% -39.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.15 £45.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £82.94 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £51.25 £18.27
% change year-on-year -21.95% +180.51% -45.27%

NIST
Job Vacancy Trend

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

NIST job vacancy trend in the UK

NIST
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

NIST
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NIST over the 6 months to 12 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for NIST in the UK

NIST
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

NIST
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing NIST over the 6 months to 12 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for NIST in the UK

NIST
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 NIST within the UK over the 6 months to 12 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 +45 716 £600 -4.00% 212
UK excluding London +69 427 £575 -4.17% 152
London +5 268 £615 -5.38% 93
Work from Home +37 258 £600 - 102
South East +46 221 £575 -4.17% 62
North of England +1 93 £617 -2.30% 28
North West +6 56 £600 -10.28% 21
South West -10 44 £570 -13.96% 19
Midlands -37 43 £500 -16.67% 17
West Midlands -49 35 £538 -10.42% 13
Yorkshire -27 34 £663 +10.42% 4
East of England -20 16 £650 +24.52% 16
Scotland +1 11 £525 -1.69% 10
East Midlands -30 8 £438 - 3
North East -16 3 £545 +2.06% 3

NIST
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 26 (3.34%) Confluence
2 8 (1.03%) TPMS
3 6 (0.77%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
3 6 (0.77%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 6 (0.77%) Microsoft Excel
1 6 (0.77%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.26%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (1.28%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (0.64%) Maximo
3 1 (0.13%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.13%) SAP PP
3 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 264 (33.89%) Azure
2 207 (26.57%) AWS
3 104 (13.35%) GCP
4 78 (10.01%) Entra ID
5 32 (4.11%) Microsoft 365
6 31 (3.98%) Azure Sentinel
7 29 (3.72%) SaaS
8 27 (3.47%) AWS CloudFormation
9 25 (3.21%) OpenShift
10 22 (2.82%) Azure DevOps
11 19 (2.44%) GitHub
12 17 (2.18%) OCI
13 15 (1.93%) Serverless
14 13 (1.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 12 (1.54%) Amazon ECS
16 11 (1.41%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 11 (1.41%) IaaS
16 11 (1.41%) PaaS
17 10 (1.28%) Amazon EKS
17 10 (1.28%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 82 (10.53%) Network Security
2 54 (6.93%) Firewall
3 30 (3.85%) VPN
4 25 (3.21%) DNS
5 15 (1.93%) SSH
6 14 (1.80%) HTTP
7 13 (1.67%) SSL
8 11 (1.41%) SD-WAN
9 10 (1.28%) WAN
10 9 (1.16%) BGP
10 9 (1.16%) IPsec
10 9 (1.16%) NGFW
11 8 (1.03%) Cisco ASA
11 8 (1.03%) Cisco IOS
11 8 (1.03%) DHCP
11 8 (1.03%) SNMP
12 7 (0.90%) LAN
12 7 (0.90%) MPLS
12 7 (0.90%) TCP/IP
13 6 (0.77%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.57%) SQL Server
2 10 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
3 8 (1.03%) Metadata
3 8 (1.03%) NoSQL
4 7 (0.90%) Big Data
4 7 (0.90%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (0.51%) Amazon Aurora
5 4 (0.51%) Data Lake
5 4 (0.51%) DocumentDB
5 4 (0.51%) DynamoDB
5 4 (0.51%) MySQL
5 4 (0.51%) Redis
6 3 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
6 3 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
6 3 (0.39%) Star Schema
7 2 (0.26%) Apache Cassandra
7 2 (0.26%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.26%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.26%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.26%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 31 (3.98%) JIRA
2 23 (2.95%) Jenkins
3 10 (1.28%) GitLab
4 7 (0.90%) Snyk
5 5 (0.64%) Git
6 3 (0.39%) JMeter
7 2 (0.26%) Burp Suite
7 2 (0.26%) Claude Code
7 2 (0.26%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.13%) AppScan
8 1 (0.13%) MLflow
8 1 (0.13%) Postman
8 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.13%) sqlmap
General
1 244 (31.32%) Social Skills
2 156 (20.03%) Finance
3 83 (10.65%) Analytical Skills
4 79 (10.14%) Documentation Skills
5 59 (7.57%) Public Sector
6 40 (5.13%) Legal
7 34 (4.36%) Banking
8 24 (3.08%) Aerospace
8 24 (3.08%) Influencing Skills
9 20 (2.57%) Manufacturing
10 18 (2.31%) Presentation Skills
11 15 (1.93%) Financial Institution
12 9 (1.16%) Telecoms
13 8 (1.03%) Law
14 7 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
15 6 (0.77%) Marketing
15 6 (0.77%) Military
16 5 (0.64%) Retail
17 4 (0.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 3 (0.39%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 190 (24.39%) Architect
2 102 (13.09%) Security Architect
3 82 (10.53%) Analyst
4 80 (10.27%) Consultant
5 70 (8.99%) Lead
6 58 (7.45%) Security Consultant
6 58 (7.45%) Security Engineer
7 48 (6.16%) Project Manager
8 42 (5.39%) Security Manager
9 40 (5.13%) Security Analyst
10 36 (4.62%) Senior
11 31 (3.98%) Cybersecurity Architect
12 30 (3.85%) Security Specialist
13 26 (3.34%) Business Analyst
13 26 (3.34%) Security Project Manager
13 26 (3.34%) Technical Architect
14 24 (3.08%) CyberArk Architect
15 20 (2.57%) Cybersecurity Consultant
15 20 (2.57%) Solutions Architect
16 19 (2.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (6.68%) LDAP
2 37 (4.75%) OpenID
2 37 (4.75%) SAML
3 29 (3.72%) OAuth
4 26 (3.34%) SailPoint
5 18 (2.31%) OAuth2
6 12 (1.54%) Oracle Fusion
7 11 (1.41%) Leaflet
8 10 (1.28%) REST
8 10 (1.28%) RESTful
9 9 (1.16%) Kafka
10 8 (1.03%) Middleware
11 7 (0.90%) OpenTelemetry
12 6 (0.77%) 802.1X
12 6 (0.77%) ARM Templates
13 5 (0.64%) .NET
13 5 (0.64%) Elastic Stack
13 5 (0.64%) JSON
13 5 (0.64%) Spring
13 5 (0.64%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 80 (10.27%) Operational Technology
2 75 (9.63%) Onboarding
3 68 (8.73%) Cloud Native
4 53 (6.80%) Management Information System
5 41 (5.26%) Security Posture
6 30 (3.85%) SCADA
7 29 (3.72%) Hybrid Cloud
8 28 (3.59%) PKI
9 22 (2.82%) Data Centre
10 16 (2.05%) Product Ownership
11 14 (1.80%) Public Cloud
12 13 (1.67%) Virtual Team
13 12 (1.54%) Cyber Threat
14 11 (1.41%) Analytical Mindset
14 11 (1.41%) BYOD
14 11 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
15 10 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
16 9 (1.16%) CMDB
16 9 (1.16%) Cyber Defence
16 9 (1.16%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 82 (10.53%) Linux
2 76 (9.76%) Windows
3 28 (3.59%) Unix
4 20 (2.57%) Windows Server
5 7 (0.90%) Ubuntu
6 4 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.26%) AIX
7 2 (0.26%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.26%) Solaris
8 1 (0.13%) CentOS
8 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.13%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 410 (52.63%) Cybersecurity
2 189 (24.26%) Risk Management
3 166 (21.31%) Stakeholder Management
4 154 (19.77%) Information Security
5 153 (19.64%) SIEM
6 148 (19.00%) Security Architecture
7 138 (17.72%) CI/CD
8 136 (17.46%) Threat Modelling
9 134 (17.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 125 (16.05%) Cloud Security
11 122 (15.66%) DevOps
12 107 (13.74%) Incident Response
13 103 (13.22%) Agile
14 92 (11.81%) Roadmaps
15 90 (11.55%) Vulnerability Management
16 89 (11.42%) Continuous Improvement
17 88 (11.30%) Zero Trust
18 87 (11.17%) Data Protection
19 82 (10.53%) Problem-Solving
20 81 (10.40%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 101 (12.97%) Python
2 83 (10.65%) PowerShell
3 19 (2.44%) Java
3 19 (2.44%) SQL
4 18 (2.31%) Bash
5 13 (1.67%) Bicep
6 6 (0.77%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (0.51%) PHP
8 3 (0.39%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.26%) Go
10 1 (0.13%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.13%) Lisp
10 1 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 295 (37.87%) Security Cleared
2 227 (29.14%) CISSP
3 223 (28.63%) SC Cleared
4 156 (20.03%) CISM
5 107 (13.74%) Degree
6 76 (9.76%) DV Cleared
7 64 (8.22%) Cisco Certification
8 52 (6.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 42 (5.39%) CEH
10 41 (5.26%) CRISC
10 41 (5.26%) PMI Certification
11 38 (4.88%) PMP
12 35 (4.49%) CCSP
13 33 (4.24%) CompTIA Security+
13 33 (4.24%) GIAC
14 32 (4.11%) CISA
15 31 (3.98%) Azure Certification
16 25 (3.21%) AWS Certification
17 20 (2.57%) Microsoft Certification
18 16 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 478 (61.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 164 (21.05%) GDPR
3 98 (12.58%) NCSC
4 83 (10.65%) PCI DSS
5 80 (10.27%) GRC
5 80 (10.27%) NIST 800
6 61 (7.83%) COBIT
7 54 (6.93%) Cyber Essentials
8 40 (5.13%) SOC 2
9 30 (3.85%) JSP 440
10 26 (3.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 21 (2.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 19 (2.44%) Def Stans
13 16 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 16 (2.05%) QA
14 15 (1.93%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 14 (1.80%) ITGC
15 14 (1.80%) RMADS
16 13 (1.67%) EU AI Act
16 13 (1.67%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 98 (12.58%) Active Directory
2 25 (3.21%) Docker
3 19 (2.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.41%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (1.28%) VMware NSX
6 7 (0.90%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.64%) Firmware
8 4 (0.51%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.39%) UAG
10 2 (0.26%) GPFS
10 2 (0.26%) Lustre
10 2 (0.26%) OpenSSH
10 2 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.13%) Varnish
11 1 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 79 (10.14%) Kubernetes
2 53 (6.80%) Terraform
3 21 (2.70%) Single Sign-On
4 15 (1.93%) Ansible
5 9 (1.16%) vCenter Server
6 8 (1.03%) Nessus
7 6 (0.77%) CASB
7 6 (0.77%) Grafana
7 6 (0.77%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.77%) QRadar
8 5 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 5 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.39%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.39%) Network Intrusion Detection System
9 3 (0.39%) OpenVAS
9 3 (0.39%) SCOM
10 2 (0.26%) SELinux
11 1 (0.13%) Kibana
11 1 (0.13%) logstash
11 1 (0.13%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 112 (14.38%) Microsoft
2 91 (11.68%) CyberArk
3 57 (7.32%) Splunk
4 43 (5.52%) BeyondTrust
5 34 (4.36%) VMware
6 30 (3.85%) ServiceNow
7 29 (3.72%) Cisco
8 27 (3.47%) Oracle
9 18 (2.31%) Google
9 18 (2.31%) Palo Alto
10 15 (1.93%) Tenable
11 13 (1.67%) BiZZdesign
11 13 (1.67%) Fortinet
11 13 (1.67%) Qualys
11 13 (1.67%) Rapid7
12 12 (1.54%) CrowdStrike
12 12 (1.54%) Thales
13 9 (1.16%) SAP
14 8 (1.03%) Red Hat
14 8 (1.03%) Zscaler