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 23 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 381 342 222
Rank change year-on-year -39 -120 +108
Contract jobs citing PKI 272 197 467
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.54% 0.66% 1.07%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.64% 1.90% 3.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 184 154 328
10th Percentile £414 £358 £363
25th Percentile £463 £490 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £617 £625
90th Percentile £700 £682 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 4
10th Percentile £47.22 - -
25th Percentile £56.01 - -
Median hourly rate £71.33 - £23.80
75th Percentile £72.27 - £27.91
90th Percentile £72.43 - £35.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.33 - £38.50
% change year-on-year - - +156.67%

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 16,578 10,358 13,062
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.65% 34.57% 29.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,168 6,475 8,281
10th Percentile £313 £300 £278
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £630 £650 £663
90th Percentile £750 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 855 461 944
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £21.00 £19.97 £15.35
Median hourly rate £42.50 £32.05 £35.65
Median % change year-on-year +32.61% -10.10% +58.55%
75th Percentile £70.00 £58.75 £61.63
90th Percentile £85.80 £81.01 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £31.63 £35.25
% change year-on-year +39.00% -10.28% +60.23%

PKI
Job Vacancy Trend

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

PKI job vacancy trend 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 23 June 2026.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing PKI over the 6 months to 23 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for PKI in the UK

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 23 June 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 -74 231 £560 -2.65% 52
UK excluding London -47 176 £550 - 56
South East +4 99 £590 +2.61% 18
London -60 71 £550 -3.72% 10
Work from Home -42 64 £550 - 24
North of England -55 30 £425 -13.62% 11
Scotland -1 21 £509 -4.95% 7
North West -30 21 £422 -14.33% 6
South West -62 13 £538 -6.52% 10
Midlands -58 11 £450 - 2
West Midlands -64 10 £400 -11.11% 1
Yorkshire - 9 £565 - 4
East of England -27 4 £400 -23.81% 2
East Midlands -17 1 £475 - 1

PKI
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 11 (4.04%) SharePoint
2 9 (3.31%) Confluence
3 7 (2.57%) IIS
3 7 (2.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (1.10%) Apache
4 3 (1.10%) Tomcat
4 3 (1.10%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.37%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 4 (1.47%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 10 (3.68%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.37%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 86 (31.62%) Azure
2 63 (23.16%) AWS
3 49 (18.01%) Entra ID
4 21 (7.72%) GCP
4 21 (7.72%) Microsoft 365
5 17 (6.25%) Power Platform
6 11 (4.04%) Azure Key Vault
7 10 (3.68%) IaaS
8 9 (3.31%) OpenShift
8 9 (3.31%) PaaS
9 7 (2.57%) Azure DevOps
10 6 (2.21%) AWS KMS
11 5 (1.84%) GitHub
12 4 (1.47%) SaaS
13 3 (1.10%) Amazon EKS
14 2 (0.74%) Azure Monitor
14 2 (0.74%) Azure Sentinel
14 2 (0.74%) GitHub Actions
14 2 (0.74%) OneDrive
14 2 (0.74%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 73 (26.84%) DNS
2 59 (21.69%) Firewall
3 51 (18.75%) DHCP
4 37 (13.60%) BGP
5 36 (13.24%) WAN
6 31 (11.40%) LAN
7 30 (11.03%) VPN
8 28 (10.29%) OSPF
9 27 (9.93%) Network Security
10 25 (9.19%) Ethernet VPN
10 25 (9.19%) VXLAN
11 24 (8.82%) BIG-IP
11 24 (8.82%) Cisco ISE
12 23 (8.46%) Junos
13 19 (6.99%) SSL
14 11 (4.04%) MPLS
15 10 (3.68%) Cisco ASA
15 10 (3.68%) SSH
16 9 (3.31%) IPsec
16 9 (3.31%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (5.51%) SQL Server
2 12 (4.41%) Power BI
3 9 (3.31%) Elasticsearch
4 5 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (1.47%) Amazon RDS
5 4 (1.47%) MongoDB
5 4 (1.47%) MySQL
6 3 (1.10%) Big Data
7 2 (0.74%) Metadata
7 2 (0.74%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.37%) Db2
8 1 (0.37%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.37%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (4.04%) JIRA
2 8 (2.94%) GitLab
3 6 (2.21%) Git
3 6 (2.21%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.47%) Robot Framework
4 4 (1.47%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (1.10%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.74%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.74%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.74%) Gatling
6 2 (0.74%) Gradle
6 2 (0.74%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.74%) MSI
6 2 (0.74%) REST Assured
6 2 (0.74%) SonarQube
General
1 39 (14.34%) Social Skills
2 33 (12.13%) Finance
3 27 (9.93%) Public Sector
4 11 (4.04%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (3.31%) Banking
5 9 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (1.84%) Legal
6 5 (1.84%) Military
6 5 (1.84%) Retail
7 3 (1.10%) Local Government
8 2 (0.74%) Corporate Banking
8 2 (0.74%) Financial Institution
8 2 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (0.74%) Investment Banking
8 2 (0.74%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.37%) Back Office
9 1 (0.37%) Law
9 1 (0.37%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.37%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 47 (17.28%) Senior
2 41 (15.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 32 (11.76%) Architect
4 23 (8.46%) Network Engineer
5 18 (6.62%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 15 (5.51%) Lead
7 14 (5.15%) Firewall Specialist
7 14 (5.15%) Network Specialist
7 14 (5.15%) Support Engineer
8 13 (4.78%) Storage Engineer
9 12 (4.41%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 12 (4.41%) Senior Network Engineer
10 11 (4.04%) DevOps Engineer
10 11 (4.04%) Security Engineer
11 10 (3.68%) Senior Architect
12 9 (3.31%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
12 9 (3.31%) Analyst
12 9 (3.31%) Linux Engineer
13 6 (2.21%) ITSM Architect
13 6 (2.21%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (12.50%) 802.1X
2 21 (7.72%) OpenID
3 18 (6.62%) SAML
4 17 (6.25%) LDAP
5 14 (5.15%) OAuth
5 14 (5.15%) REST
6 7 (2.57%) JSON
6 7 (2.57%) OAuth2
6 7 (2.57%) RabbitMQ
7 5 (1.84%) Kafka
8 4 (1.47%) Keycloak
8 4 (1.47%) SailPoint
9 3 (1.10%) FIDO
9 3 (1.10%) Microsoft Graph
9 3 (1.10%) SPIFFE
10 2 (0.74%) .NET Core
10 2 (0.74%) eBPF
10 2 (0.74%) Loki
10 2 (0.74%) Quarkus
10 2 (0.74%) WebAuthn
Miscellaneous
1 45 (16.54%) Clustering
2 30 (11.03%) Data Centre
3 12 (4.41%) Onboarding
4 10 (3.68%) Cloud Native
4 10 (3.68%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (3.31%) Enterprise Storage
5 9 (3.31%) Linux Command Line
6 8 (2.94%) Public Cloud
7 7 (2.57%) Management Information System
8 6 (2.21%) Algorithms
8 6 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (2.21%) Operational Technology
9 5 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.84%) Private Cloud
10 4 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.47%) Enterprise Cloud
11 3 (1.10%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (1.10%) Security Posture
11 3 (1.10%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 127 (46.69%) Windows
2 70 (25.74%) Linux
3 63 (23.16%) Windows Server
4 9 (3.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 9 (3.31%) Ubuntu
5 6 (2.21%) Debian
5 6 (2.21%) Unix
5 6 (2.21%) Windows Server 2003
6 5 (1.84%) Windows Server 2019
7 4 (1.47%) Android
7 4 (1.47%) Windows Server 2012
8 3 (1.10%) Apple iOS
8 3 (1.10%) Mac OS
8 3 (1.10%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.74%) CentOS
9 2 (0.74%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.37%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.37%) VMS
10 1 (0.37%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.37%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 76 (27.94%) Identity Access Management
2 48 (17.65%) ITIL
3 44 (16.18%) High Availability
3 44 (16.18%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 41 (15.07%) Cybersecurity
5 39 (14.34%) Agile
5 39 (14.34%) Problem-Solving
6 36 (13.24%) DevOps
6 36 (13.24%) Observability
6 36 (13.24%) Zero Trust
7 31 (11.40%) Load Balancing
8 28 (10.29%) ITSM
9 27 (9.93%) Infrastructure as Code
9 27 (9.93%) Key Management
9 27 (9.93%) RBAC
9 27 (9.93%) Service Management
10 26 (9.56%) CI/CD
11 25 (9.19%) Cryptography
12 21 (7.72%) Change Management
12 21 (7.72%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 65 (23.90%) PowerShell
2 45 (16.54%) Python
3 13 (4.78%) SQL
4 11 (4.04%) JavaScript
5 10 (3.68%) Bash
6 8 (2.94%) C#
6 8 (2.94%) Java
7 4 (1.47%) PHP
8 3 (1.10%) C++
8 3 (1.10%) Go
9 2 (0.74%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 144 (52.94%) Security Cleared
2 89 (32.72%) DV Cleared
3 55 (20.22%) SC Cleared
4 30 (11.03%) Cisco Certification
5 19 (6.99%) Degree
6 12 (4.41%) CISSP
7 11 (4.04%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (3.68%) Azure Certification
9 9 (3.31%) GIAC
10 8 (2.94%) CCNP
10 8 (2.94%) CISM
10 8 (2.94%) CompTIA Security+
10 8 (2.94%) MCSE
11 7 (2.57%) JNCIA
11 7 (2.57%) JNCIP
11 7 (2.57%) JNCIS
12 5 (1.84%) SSCP
13 4 (1.47%) CCNA
13 4 (1.47%) MCSA
13 4 (1.47%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (10.66%) NIST
2 20 (7.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (5.15%) NCSC
4 10 (3.68%) Cyber Essentials
5 8 (2.94%) SLA
6 7 (2.57%) QA
7 5 (1.84%) PCI DSS
8 4 (1.47%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 4 (1.47%) GDPR
9 2 (0.74%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.74%) ISA99
9 2 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 2 (0.74%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.74%) RMADS
9 2 (0.74%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.37%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.37%) GMP
10 1 (0.37%) GRC
10 1 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.37%) JSP 440
System Software
1 92 (33.82%) Active Directory
2 49 (18.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (9.93%) Docker
4 19 (6.99%) Hyper-V
5 17 (6.25%) VMware NSX
6 16 (5.88%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (3.68%) BitLocker
8 9 (3.31%) Microsoft App-V
9 8 (2.94%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (2.21%) Firmware
11 4 (1.47%) Terminal Services
11 4 (1.47%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (1.10%) KVM
12 3 (1.10%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.74%) vSphere
13 2 (0.74%) XenApp
13 2 (0.74%) XenDesktop
14 1 (0.37%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 1 (0.37%) iptables
14 1 (0.37%) OpenAM
Systems Management
1 45 (16.54%) Ansible
2 41 (15.07%) Kubernetes
3 35 (12.87%) Terraform
4 25 (9.19%) Single Sign-On
4 25 (9.19%) vCenter Server
5 23 (8.46%) FortiGate
6 17 (6.25%) Microsoft Intune
7 13 (4.78%) Puppet
8 12 (4.41%) SCOM
9 10 (3.68%) Prometheus
10 9 (3.31%) Grafana
10 9 (3.31%) vMotion
11 8 (2.94%) Avamar
11 8 (2.94%) SCCM
12 5 (1.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (1.84%) WMI
13 4 (1.47%) CA Single Sign-On
13 4 (1.47%) Kibana
14 3 (1.10%) Istio
14 3 (1.10%) WSUS
Vendors
1 92 (33.82%) Microsoft
2 67 (24.63%) VMware
3 55 (20.22%) Cisco
4 36 (13.24%) Splunk
5 30 (11.03%) Juniper
6 28 (10.29%) F5
7 27 (9.93%) SolarWinds
8 23 (8.46%) ServiceNow
9 22 (8.09%) Extreme Networks
10 19 (6.99%) Citrix
11 17 (6.25%) Okta
11 17 (6.25%) Thales
12 12 (4.41%) Palo Alto
13 10 (3.68%) BeyondTrust
13 10 (3.68%) BMC
13 10 (3.68%) Dell
13 10 (3.68%) Remedy
14 8 (2.94%) ForeScout
14 8 (2.94%) NetApp
15 7 (2.57%) IBM