PKI Contract Job Trends

Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI)
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term PKI in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited PKI over the 6 months leading up to 19 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 340 283 264
Rank change year-on-year -57 -19 +139
Contract jobs citing PKI 223 306 459
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.68% 0.79% 0.93%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.90% 2.61% 2.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 177 207 293
10th Percentile £350 £400 £412
25th Percentile £463 £461 £470
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £545 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.92% -5.22% -4.17%
75th Percentile £625 £608 £675
90th Percentile £694 £671 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £543 £575
% change year-on-year +1.38% -5.65% +2.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 5
10th Percentile - - £46.38
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate - £23.80 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - -56.73% -14.73%
75th Percentile - £27.91 £66.00
90th Percentile - £35.32 £76.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £38.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year - -30.00% -27.87%

All Generic Skills
UK

PKI falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 11,715 11,730 16,032
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.55% 30.44% 32.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,170 7,174 10,973
10th Percentile £300 £294 £300
25th Percentile £406 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.63% -1.82% -
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £753 £807 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 585 472 449
10th Percentile £15.13 £14.41 £16.81
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £21.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £50.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.00% +12.36% +71.15%
75th Percentile £55.00 £70.00 £66.44
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £57.35 £48.37
% change year-on-year -47.69% +18.58% +122.06%

PKI
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for PKI in the UK

PKI
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

PKI
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PKI over the 6 months to 19 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PKI in the UK

PKI
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

PKI
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing PKI within the UK over the 6 months to 19 September 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 -50 210 £550 +1.48% 49
UK excluding London -71 135 £550 +1.38% 43
London +21 72 £585 +8.14% 15
Work from Home +12 61 £550 -8.33% 33
South West -24 49 £550 - 7
South East -43 35 £575 +12.48% 16
Midlands -14 28 £365 +8.15% 1
West Midlands -8 27 £365 +8.15% 1
North of England -16 14 £492 -18.00% 10
North West +1 13 £492 -18.00% 4
Scotland -9 6 £550 -4.35% 5
East of England +3 3 £525 - 4
East Midlands - 1 - -
Yorkshire - 1 £600 - 3

PKI
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 34 (15.25%) Microsoft Exchange
2 20 (8.97%) Confluence
3 12 (5.38%) Apache
4 10 (4.48%) IIS
5 9 (4.04%) SharePoint
6 7 (3.14%) Skype for Business
7 4 (1.79%) JBoss
8 2 (0.90%) Alfresco
8 2 (0.90%) Camunda
8 2 (0.90%) SharePoint Server
9 1 (0.45%) CMS
9 1 (0.45%) Tomcat
Applications
1 20 (8.97%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.35%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.90%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 55 (24.66%) AWS
2 45 (20.18%) Azure
3 24 (10.76%) Entra ID
4 16 (7.17%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (6.73%) GCP
6 10 (4.48%) OpenShift
7 9 (4.04%) IaaS
7 9 (4.04%) PaaS
8 8 (3.59%) AWS KMS
8 8 (3.59%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 7 (3.14%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (3.14%) GitHub
10 6 (2.69%) Amazon ECS
10 6 (2.69%) AWS CloudFormation
11 5 (2.24%) Amazon EC2
11 5 (2.24%) AWS Fargate
11 5 (2.24%) Azure Monitor
12 4 (1.79%) Serverless
13 3 (1.35%) AWS CloudTrail
13 3 (1.35%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 59 (26.46%) DNS
2 49 (21.97%) VPN
3 46 (20.63%) Firewall
4 35 (15.70%) BGP
5 34 (15.25%) IPsec
6 32 (14.35%) DHCP
7 26 (11.66%) MPLS
7 26 (11.66%) SSL
8 22 (9.87%) Network Security
9 21 (9.42%) WAN
10 15 (6.73%) HTTPS
11 14 (6.28%) SMTP
12 13 (5.83%) Unified Communications
13 12 (5.38%) Skype
14 9 (4.04%) Wireless
15 7 (3.14%) OSPF
16 6 (2.69%) EIGRP
16 6 (2.69%) Junos
16 6 (2.69%) TCP/IP
16 6 (2.69%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (6.73%) Amazon RDS
2 13 (5.83%) SQL Server
3 10 (4.48%) MongoDB
4 9 (4.04%) Big Data
4 9 (4.04%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (2.69%) Relational Database
6 5 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.90%) Hadoop
7 2 (0.90%) MySQL
7 2 (0.90%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.45%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 20 (8.97%) JIRA
2 12 (5.38%) GitLab
3 6 (2.69%) Jenkins
4 5 (2.24%) MSI
5 4 (1.79%) Git
5 4 (1.79%) Robot Framework
5 4 (1.79%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (1.35%) JUnit
6 3 (1.35%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.90%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.90%) SpecFlow
8 1 (0.45%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.45%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.45%) Fiddler
8 1 (0.45%) Jaeger
8 1 (0.45%) Postman
General
1 49 (21.97%) Public Sector
2 46 (20.63%) Social Skills
3 22 (9.87%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (8.52%) Military
5 17 (7.62%) Finance
6 5 (2.24%) Telecoms
7 4 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.45%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 31 (13.90%) Support Engineer
2 27 (12.11%) 3rd Line Engineer
3 25 (11.21%) Architect
3 25 (11.21%) Network Engineer
4 24 (10.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 21 (9.42%) 3rd Line Support
5 21 (9.42%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
6 18 (8.07%) Senior
7 15 (6.73%) Security Architect
8 14 (6.28%) Administrator
9 13 (5.83%) Lead
9 13 (5.83%) Platform Manager
9 13 (5.83%) Systems Administrator
9 13 (5.83%) Systems Manager
9 13 (5.83%) Wintel Administrator
9 13 (5.83%) Wintel Systems Administrator
10 11 (4.93%) Consultant
11 9 (4.04%) 2nd Line Engineer
11 9 (4.04%) ForgeRock Engineer
11 9 (4.04%) Network Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (6.28%) OAuth
1 14 (6.28%) OpenID
2 13 (5.83%) OAuth2
3 12 (5.38%) Kafka
4 9 (4.04%) JDBC
4 9 (4.04%) SOAP
5 7 (3.14%) Keycloak
5 7 (3.14%) NETCONF
5 7 (3.14%) RESTCONF
6 5 (2.24%) .NET
6 5 (2.24%) AngularJS
6 5 (2.24%) cloud-init
6 5 (2.24%) Web Services
7 4 (1.79%) REST
7 4 (1.79%) SAML
7 4 (1.79%) YAML
8 3 (1.35%) Hibernate
8 3 (1.35%) JPA
8 3 (1.35%) ModSecurity
8 3 (1.35%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 23 (10.31%) Data Centre
2 11 (4.93%) Algorithms
3 10 (4.48%) Clustering
3 10 (4.48%) Taxonomies
4 7 (3.14%) Management Information System
4 7 (3.14%) Self-Motivation
5 5 (2.24%) Cyber Defence
5 5 (2.24%) Cyber Threat
6 4 (1.79%) Cloud Native
6 4 (1.79%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.79%) Private Cloud
6 4 (1.79%) Replication
7 3 (1.35%) Fat Client
7 3 (1.35%) Legacy Applications
7 3 (1.35%) Thin Client
8 2 (0.90%) CSOC
8 2 (0.90%) Security Operations Centre
8 2 (0.90%) Smart Meter
9 1 (0.45%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.45%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 85 (38.12%) Windows
2 51 (22.87%) Windows Server
3 45 (20.18%) Linux
4 13 (5.83%) Windows 10
5 11 (4.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (4.04%) CentOS
6 9 (4.04%) Windows Server 2019
7 8 (3.59%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (2.69%) Unix
8 6 (2.69%) Windows Server 2012
9 5 (2.24%) Windows Server 2003
10 4 (1.79%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (1.35%) Solaris
12 2 (0.90%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.90%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.45%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.45%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.45%) SUSE
13 1 (0.45%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (23.77%) Agile
2 40 (17.94%) DevOps
3 33 (14.80%) Problem-Solving
4 28 (12.56%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 25 (11.21%) Cybersecurity
5 25 (11.21%) ITIL
6 23 (10.31%) Cryptography
6 23 (10.31%) Service Management
7 22 (9.87%) Identity Access Management
8 20 (8.97%) Cloud Security
8 20 (8.97%) Kalman Filter
8 20 (8.97%) Key Management
9 19 (8.52%) Change Management
9 19 (8.52%) DevSecOps
9 19 (8.52%) Mentoring
10 18 (8.07%) Information Security
10 18 (8.07%) Migration
11 17 (7.62%) CI/CD
12 16 (7.17%) Load Balancing
13 15 (6.73%) Security Patching
Programming Languages
1 48 (21.52%) PowerShell
2 39 (17.49%) Python
3 18 (8.07%) Java
3 18 (8.07%) SQL
4 17 (7.62%) JavaScript
5 15 (6.73%) Bash
6 6 (2.69%) C++
6 6 (2.69%) Perl
7 5 (2.24%) C#
7 5 (2.24%) Go
8 4 (1.79%) PHP
8 4 (1.79%) Shell Script
9 3 (1.35%) VB
10 2 (0.90%) Bicep
10 2 (0.90%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.45%) C
11 1 (0.45%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 133 (59.64%) Security Cleared
2 67 (30.04%) SC Cleared
3 64 (28.70%) DV Cleared
4 42 (18.83%) Degree
5 27 (12.11%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (8.52%) CCNP
7 17 (7.62%) Microsoft Certification
8 11 (4.93%) CISSP
9 7 (3.14%) MCSE
10 6 (2.69%) AWS Certification
10 6 (2.69%) CCNA
10 6 (2.69%) CISM
10 6 (2.69%) IISP
10 6 (2.69%) ISACA
10 6 (2.69%) ITIL Certification
10 6 (2.69%) JNCIA
10 6 (2.69%) JNCIS
11 5 (2.24%) CCIE
11 5 (2.24%) Master's Degree
12 4 (1.79%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (8.07%) NIST
2 16 (7.17%) NCSC
3 12 (5.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (3.59%) PCI DSS
5 7 (3.14%) FIPS 140-2
6 6 (2.69%) GDPR
7 5 (2.24%) SOC 2
8 2 (0.90%) COBIT
8 2 (0.90%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.90%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.90%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 2 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (0.90%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.90%) QA
8 2 (0.90%) SOC 1
9 1 (0.45%) GxP
9 1 (0.45%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.45%) PSD2
9 1 (0.45%) RMADS
9 1 (0.45%) SLA
System Software
1 72 (32.29%) Active Directory
2 47 (21.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 26 (11.66%) VMware ESXi
4 20 (8.97%) Hyper-V
5 17 (7.62%) Docker
6 10 (4.48%) BitLocker
6 10 (4.48%) Microsoft App-V
6 10 (4.48%) Terminal Services
7 8 (3.59%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (3.14%) Firmware
9 6 (2.69%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (2.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (2.24%) vSphere
11 4 (1.79%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 33 (14.80%) Ansible
2 28 (12.56%) Kubernetes
3 19 (8.52%) Single Sign-On
4 18 (8.07%) Terraform
5 17 (7.62%) vCenter Server
6 12 (5.38%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (4.93%) SCCM
8 10 (4.48%) Nagios
8 10 (4.48%) Puppet
8 10 (4.48%) vMotion
9 8 (3.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 7 (3.14%) WMI
10 7 (3.14%) WSUS
11 6 (2.69%) OPNET
11 6 (2.69%) SCOM
12 5 (2.24%) Grafana
12 5 (2.24%) Jamf Pro
12 5 (2.24%) Packer
12 5 (2.24%) Progress Chef
12 5 (2.24%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 88 (39.46%) Microsoft
2 60 (26.91%) VMware
3 35 (15.70%) Cisco
4 29 (13.00%) Juniper
5 18 (8.07%) Splunk
6 13 (5.83%) ForgeRock
7 12 (5.38%) Fortinet
7 12 (5.38%) Google
8 11 (4.93%) Atlassian
8 11 (4.93%) Citrix
8 11 (4.93%) Veeam
9 9 (4.04%) HP
9 9 (4.04%) Symantec
10 7 (3.14%) Oracle
10 7 (3.14%) Ping Identity
10 7 (3.14%) SolarWinds
11 6 (2.69%) IBM
11 6 (2.69%) Okta
11 6 (2.69%) Thales
12 5 (2.24%) Ericsson