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 29 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 183 204 208
Rank change year-on-year +21 +4 +166
Contract jobs citing NIST 464 496 697
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.52% 1.14% 1.25%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 9.29% 8.33% 9.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 298 339 473
10th Percentile £438 £475 £450
25th Percentile £513 £525 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £635
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -1.57% +1.60%
75th Percentile £700 £738 £725
90th Percentile £800 £790 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £570 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 5 9
10th Percentile £29.73 £45.09 -
25th Percentile £51.25 £62.50 £39.60
Median hourly rate £84.50 £67.50 £64.15
Median % change year-on-year +25.19% +5.23% -9.76%
75th Percentile £91.50 £78.00 £72.98
90th Percentile £98.30 £79.20 £77.94
UK excluding London median hourly rate £84.50 £67.50 £64.15
% change year-on-year +25.19% +5.23% -11.43%

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 4,995 5,952 7,583
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.32% 13.70% 13.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,204 3,694 5,172
10th Percentile £280 £282 £300
25th Percentile £400 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
75th Percentile £613 £625 £645
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £475 £495
% change year-on-year -1.05% -4.04% +7.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 431 254
10th Percentile £14.78 £11.07 £13.79
25th Percentile £18.50 £13.50 £19.07
Median hourly rate £31.49 £23.80 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +32.31% -36.53% +37.61%
75th Percentile £64.38 £49.38 £63.05
90th Percentile £84.15 £70.00 £79.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.59 £20.46 £36.50
% change year-on-year +39.74% -43.95% +63.75%

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 29 June 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 29 June 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 29 June 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 +25 392 £600 -4.00% 669
London +53 205 £635 -3.05% 317
UK excluding London -1 180 £570 -5.00% 410
Work from Home +44 163 £600 -4.00% 434
South East +47 54 £600 -7.69% 133
Midlands +2 34 £550 - 53
North of England -39 30 £599 -4.92% 83
East of England +51 27 £500 +25.00% 54
South West -19 26 £625 +4.17% 44
West Midlands +4 23 £575 +4.55% 37
North West -18 18 £663 +1.92% 45
East Midlands +7 11 £445 -38.41% 15
Yorkshire -14 11 £599 -0.17% 26
Scotland -4 7 £509 -7.55% 28
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 5
Wales +9 1 £190 -75.68% 15
North East -2 1 £534 -7.13% 12

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 11 (2.37%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.72%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.43%) Confluence
3 2 (0.43%) TPMS
Applications
1 7 (1.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.65%) Chatbot
3 3 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.22%) GNU Octave
4 1 (0.22%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.22%) Oracle CRM
2 1 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 167 (35.99%) Azure
2 124 (26.72%) AWS
3 79 (17.03%) GCP
4 31 (6.68%) Entra ID
5 24 (5.17%) Azure Sentinel
5 24 (5.17%) Microsoft 365
6 11 (2.37%) Serverless
7 10 (2.16%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 10 (2.16%) Microsoft Purview
7 10 (2.16%) OCI
7 10 (2.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 8 (1.72%) AWS KMS
9 7 (1.51%) AWS Lambda
9 7 (1.51%) OneDrive
9 7 (1.51%) Power Platform
9 7 (1.51%) SaaS
10 6 (1.29%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.29%) GitHub
11 5 (1.08%) Amazon EC2
11 5 (1.08%) AWS CloudTrail
Communications & Networking
1 57 (12.28%) Firewall
2 55 (11.85%) Network Security
3 20 (4.31%) VPN
4 10 (2.16%) DNS
5 9 (1.94%) SSL
6 7 (1.51%) WAN
7 6 (1.29%) SD-WAN
8 5 (1.08%) Modbus
8 5 (1.08%) TCP/IP
9 3 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
9 3 (0.65%) Kerberos
9 3 (0.65%) NAS
10 2 (0.43%) Cisco ASA
10 2 (0.43%) HTTP
10 2 (0.43%) LAN
10 2 (0.43%) MPLS
10 2 (0.43%) SMTP
10 2 (0.43%) X.509
11 1 (0.22%) Cisco Nexus
11 1 (0.22%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.94%) Oracle BI Publisher
1 9 (1.94%) Oracle Reports
2 7 (1.51%) Power BI
3 6 (1.29%) GIS
3 6 (1.29%) Tableau
4 3 (0.65%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.43%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.43%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.22%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.22%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.22%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (0.22%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 13 (2.80%) JIRA
2 4 (0.86%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.65%) GitLab
3 3 (0.65%) Snyk
4 2 (0.43%) Eclipse
4 2 (0.43%) Git
4 2 (0.43%) MLflow
5 1 (0.22%) JMeter
5 1 (0.22%) Postman
5 1 (0.22%) Selenium
General
1 169 (36.42%) Social Skills
2 102 (21.98%) Finance
3 49 (10.56%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (7.54%) Legal
5 33 (7.11%) Public Sector
6 19 (4.09%) Banking
7 13 (2.80%) Telecoms
8 12 (2.59%) Manufacturing
9 11 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
10 10 (2.16%) Military
10 10 (2.16%) Presentation Skills
11 9 (1.94%) Marketing
12 5 (1.08%) Electronics
12 5 (1.08%) Law
13 4 (0.86%) Aerospace
13 4 (0.86%) Financial Institution
13 4 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.65%) Police
14 3 (0.65%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 137 (29.53%) Architect
2 109 (23.49%) Security Architect
3 71 (15.30%) Consultant
4 53 (11.42%) Security Consultant
5 41 (8.84%) Security Engineer
6 38 (8.19%) Lead
7 37 (7.97%) Analyst
7 37 (7.97%) Security Manager
8 25 (5.39%) Senior
9 19 (4.09%) Enterprise Architect
10 16 (3.45%) Project Manager
11 14 (3.02%) Business Analyst
11 14 (3.02%) Security Analyst
11 14 (3.02%) Security Project Manager
12 13 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
13 12 (2.59%) Cybersecurity Consultant
13 12 (2.59%) Cybersecurity Manager
13 12 (2.59%) Information Security Consultant
14 11 (2.37%) Cloud Architect
14 11 (2.37%) Enterprise Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (3.88%) SAML
2 16 (3.45%) Oracle Fusion
2 16 (3.45%) SailPoint
3 15 (3.23%) OAuth
3 15 (3.23%) OpenID
4 12 (2.59%) LDAP
5 6 (1.29%) Elastic Stack
6 4 (0.86%) FIDO
7 3 (0.65%) Node.js
7 3 (0.65%) OAuth2
8 2 (0.43%) PyTorch
8 2 (0.43%) TensorFlow
9 1 (0.22%) ADO
9 1 (0.22%) Kafka
9 1 (0.22%) REST
9 1 (0.22%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 83 (17.89%) Security Posture
2 37 (7.97%) Management Information System
3 31 (6.68%) Operational Technology
4 18 (3.88%) Cyber Threat
5 17 (3.66%) Security Operations Centre
6 15 (3.23%) PKI
6 15 (3.23%) SCADA
7 13 (2.80%) Hybrid Cloud
8 12 (2.59%) Data Centre
9 11 (2.37%) Cloud Native
10 10 (2.16%) Algorithms
11 9 (1.94%) Onboarding
12 8 (1.72%) Cyber Kill Chain
12 8 (1.72%) Public Cloud
13 7 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
13 7 (1.51%) Product Ownership
14 6 (1.29%) Cyber Defence
14 6 (1.29%) Legacy Applications
15 5 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
15 5 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 26 (5.60%) Windows
2 20 (4.31%) Linux
3 6 (1.29%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.43%) AIX
5 2 (0.43%) Solaris
5 2 (0.43%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.22%) Unix
6 1 (0.22%) VMS
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (47.20%) Cybersecurity
2 139 (29.96%) Cloud Security
3 127 (27.37%) Risk Management
4 113 (24.35%) Information Security
5 105 (22.63%) Incident Response
5 105 (22.63%) Security Architecture
6 82 (17.67%) Identity Access Management
7 78 (16.81%) Security Operations
8 73 (15.73%) SIEM
8 73 (15.73%) Vulnerability Management
9 67 (14.44%) Stakeholder Management
10 66 (14.22%) Problem-Solving
11 61 (13.15%) Agile
12 57 (12.28%) Threat Modelling
13 56 (12.07%) Zero Trust
14 53 (11.42%) MITRE ATT&CK
15 52 (11.21%) Risk Assessment
16 49 (10.56%) DevOps
17 47 (10.13%) Roadmaps
18 43 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 69 (14.87%) Python
2 49 (10.56%) PowerShell
3 16 (3.45%) Bash
4 12 (2.59%) SQL
5 10 (2.16%) Java
6 7 (1.51%) Kusto Query Language
7 2 (0.43%) C++
7 2 (0.43%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.22%) BeanShell
8 1 (0.22%) C
8 1 (0.22%) Perl
8 1 (0.22%) R
Qualifications
1 155 (33.41%) CISSP
2 99 (21.34%) Security Cleared
3 90 (19.40%) CISM
4 70 (15.09%) SC Cleared
5 64 (13.79%) Degree
6 33 (7.11%) GIAC
7 32 (6.90%) CISA
8 29 (6.25%) DV Cleared
9 28 (6.03%) CRISC
10 25 (5.39%) Cisco Certification
11 24 (5.17%) Computer Science Degree
11 24 (5.17%) SANS
12 21 (4.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 20 (4.31%) CEH
14 17 (3.66%) AWS Certification
15 14 (3.02%) GCIH
15 14 (3.02%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
16 13 (2.80%) CCSP
17 12 (2.59%) Azure Certification
18 9 (1.94%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 275 (59.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 119 (25.65%) GDPR
3 66 (14.22%) PCI DSS
4 64 (13.79%) NIST 800
5 47 (10.13%) GRC
6 42 (9.05%) HIPAA
7 30 (6.47%) NCSC
8 27 (5.82%) COBIT
9 26 (5.60%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 24 (5.17%) SOC 2
11 22 (4.74%) Cyber Essentials
12 17 (3.66%) JSP 440
13 16 (3.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 10 (2.16%) RMADS
14 10 (2.16%) SLA
15 9 (1.94%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 8 (1.72%) California Consumer Privacy Act
17 6 (1.29%) Actionable Recommendations
17 6 (1.29%) QA
18 5 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 34 (7.33%) Active Directory
2 6 (1.29%) Firmware
3 5 (1.08%) Docker
3 5 (1.08%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.43%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.43%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.22%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 22 (4.74%) Terraform
2 17 (3.66%) Single Sign-On
3 16 (3.45%) Kubernetes
4 8 (1.72%) Ansible
5 7 (1.51%) Grafana
5 7 (1.51%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (1.29%) QRadar
6 6 (1.29%) RSA Archer
7 4 (0.86%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.86%) SELinux
8 3 (0.65%) CASB
8 3 (0.65%) Nessus
9 2 (0.43%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 2 (0.43%) CSIRT
9 2 (0.43%) Kustomize
9 2 (0.43%) Puppet
10 1 (0.22%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.22%) OPNET
10 1 (0.22%) SCCM
10 1 (0.22%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 76 (16.38%) Microsoft
2 23 (4.96%) Splunk
3 22 (4.74%) Palo Alto
4 21 (4.53%) CyberArk
5 18 (3.88%) Oracle
6 16 (3.45%) Cisco
7 13 (2.80%) ServiceNow
8 12 (2.59%) Okta
9 11 (2.37%) Google
10 10 (2.16%) CrowdStrike
10 10 (2.16%) Rapid7
11 9 (1.94%) Zscaler
12 8 (1.72%) BeyondTrust
12 8 (1.72%) Tenable
13 7 (1.51%) Fortinet
13 7 (1.51%) SAP
14 6 (1.29%) ESRI
14 6 (1.29%) Qualys
15 5 (1.08%) Alteryx
15 5 (1.08%) VMware