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 20 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 341 313 216
Rank change year-on-year -28 -97 +103
Contract jobs citing PKI 302 219 483
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 0.75% 1.09%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.09% 2.22% 3.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 210 134 319
10th Percentile £401 £413 £363
25th Percentile £488 £470 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £564 £570 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.10% +3.64% -8.33%
75th Percentile £694 £638 £638
90th Percentile £838 £734 £739
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -3.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 2
10th Percentile £61.41 - £56.61
25th Percentile £70.50 - £56.93
Median hourly rate £79.50 - £59.70
75th Percentile £96.25 - £64.73
90th Percentile £101.65 - £66.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £79.50 - £59.70
% change year-on-year - - +8.55%

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 14,428 9,863 13,430
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.17% 33.71% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,080 6,264 8,612
10th Percentile £300 £287 £255
25th Percentile £408 £409 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.71% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 675 368 862
10th Percentile £15.54 £16.95 £12.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.26 £15.45
Median hourly rate £36.70 £32.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.92% +18.18% +22.22%
75th Percentile £68.75 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £83.20 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £31.08 £26.00
% change year-on-year +34.94% +19.54% +16.80%

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 20 March 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 20 March 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 20 March 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 +5 276 £600 +4.35% 58
UK excluding London -53 179 £550 -4.35% 48
South East +17 101 £600 -0.41% 21
London +5 93 £625 +19.05% 14
Work from Home -15 78 £643 +11.83% 29
South West -49 26 £594 +3.26% 5
Midlands -57 25 £400 -25.23% 6
West Midlands -57 25 £400 -25.23% 3
North of England -72 18 £482 -32.35% 10
Yorkshire -55 10 £482 -33.52% 6
North West -30 8 £444 -11.25% 4
Scotland -24 6 £550 +2.90% 1
East of England -16 5 £550 - 5
Wales -9 1 £550 +20.22% 3

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 26 (8.61%) Microsoft Exchange
2 8 (2.65%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.66%) Confluence
4 3 (0.99%) Exchange Server 2010
4 3 (0.99%) nginx
5 2 (0.66%) IIS
5 2 (0.66%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.33%) Apache
6 1 (0.33%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.33%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.33%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.33%) WebSphere
Applications
1 6 (1.99%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (1.32%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.33%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 64 (21.19%) Azure
2 56 (18.54%) AWS
3 32 (10.60%) IaaS
4 31 (10.26%) Microsoft 365
5 29 (9.60%) Entra ID
6 9 (2.98%) GCP
6 9 (2.98%) OpenShift
6 9 (2.98%) PaaS
6 9 (2.98%) Power Platform
7 8 (2.65%) SaaS
8 7 (2.32%) GitHub
9 6 (1.99%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (1.99%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 4 (1.32%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.32%) AWS KMS
10 4 (1.32%) Azure Key Vault
10 4 (1.32%) Power Automate
11 3 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (0.99%) OneDrive
11 3 (0.99%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 76 (25.17%) Firewall
2 72 (23.84%) DNS
3 46 (15.23%) BGP
4 44 (14.57%) DHCP
5 37 (12.25%) VPN
5 37 (12.25%) WAN
6 29 (9.60%) Network Security
7 26 (8.61%) OSPF
8 25 (8.28%) LAN
9 23 (7.62%) Ethernet VPN
9 23 (7.62%) Junos
9 23 (7.62%) VXLAN
10 22 (7.28%) Cisco ISE
11 21 (6.95%) BIG-IP
12 19 (6.29%) MPLS
13 18 (5.96%) SSL
14 16 (5.30%) IPsec
15 12 (3.97%) TCP/IP
16 11 (3.64%) Cisco IOS
17 8 (2.65%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (2.98%) Elasticsearch
1 9 (2.98%) SQL Server
2 4 (1.32%) Power BI
3 3 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.99%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.33%) Amazon QuickSight
4 1 (0.33%) MySQL
4 1 (0.33%) RDBMS
4 1 (0.33%) Redis
4 1 (0.33%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 11 (3.64%) JIRA
2 9 (2.98%) GitLab
3 6 (1.99%) Robot Framework
4 4 (1.32%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.32%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.66%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.33%) Git
6 1 (0.33%) JUnit
General
1 44 (14.57%) Analytical Skills
2 39 (12.91%) Social Skills
3 29 (9.60%) Public Sector
4 19 (6.29%) Finance
5 9 (2.98%) Military
6 7 (2.32%) Banking
7 6 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (0.99%) Legal
10 2 (0.66%) Financial Institution
10 2 (0.66%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.66%) Local Government
11 1 (0.33%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.33%) Back Office
11 1 (0.33%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.33%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.33%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 93 (30.79%) Architect
2 46 (15.23%) Senior
3 37 (12.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 20 (6.62%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 17 (5.63%) Network Engineer
5 17 (5.63%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 14 (4.64%) Support Engineer
7 11 (3.64%) Network Specialist
7 11 (3.64%) Security Engineer
8 10 (3.31%) 3rd Line Support
8 10 (3.31%) Administrator
8 10 (3.31%) Cloud Engineer
8 10 (3.31%) Firewall Specialist
8 10 (3.31%) Lead
8 10 (3.31%) Platform Manager
8 10 (3.31%) Senior Architect
8 10 (3.31%) Systems Manager
8 10 (3.31%) Wintel Administrator
8 10 (3.31%) Wintel Engineer
8 10 (3.31%) Wintel Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (11.59%) REST
2 30 (9.93%) JSON
3 21 (6.95%) 802.1X
4 16 (5.30%) OpenID
5 14 (4.64%) LDAP
5 14 (4.64%) SAML
6 11 (3.64%) OAuth
7 8 (2.65%) OAuth2
8 5 (1.66%) Elastic Stack
9 3 (0.99%) CSS
9 3 (0.99%) HTML
9 3 (0.99%) Kafka
9 3 (0.99%) Microsoft Graph
9 3 (0.99%) SailPoint
10 2 (0.66%) .NET
10 2 (0.66%) cloud-init
10 2 (0.66%) eBPF
10 2 (0.66%) Keycloak
10 2 (0.66%) Loki
10 2 (0.66%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 28 (9.27%) Clustering
2 26 (8.61%) Data Centre
2 26 (8.61%) Self-Motivation
3 10 (3.31%) Fat Client
3 10 (3.31%) Thin Client
4 9 (2.98%) Algorithms
4 9 (2.98%) Enterprise Storage
4 9 (2.98%) Management Information System
5 8 (2.65%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (2.65%) Public Cloud
6 7 (2.32%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.99%) Operational Technology
7 6 (1.99%) Private Cloud
8 5 (1.66%) Smartcard
9 4 (1.32%) Replication
9 4 (1.32%) Security Operations Centre
9 4 (1.32%) Security Posture
10 3 (0.99%) Cloud Native
10 3 (0.99%) Enterprise Software
11 2 (0.66%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 108 (35.76%) Windows
2 57 (18.87%) Linux
3 49 (16.23%) Windows Server
4 10 (3.31%) Windows Server 2012
5 9 (2.98%) Windows 7
6 7 (2.32%) CentOS
6 7 (2.32%) Ubuntu
7 6 (1.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (1.99%) Windows Server 2003
8 5 (1.66%) Windows 10
9 4 (1.32%) Unix
10 3 (0.99%) VMS
10 3 (0.99%) Windows Server 2016
10 3 (0.99%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.66%) Android
12 1 (0.33%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.33%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.33%) Solaris
12 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (26.49%) Agile
2 62 (20.53%) Key Management
3 56 (18.54%) Identity Access Management
4 44 (14.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 42 (13.91%) Cybersecurity
6 38 (12.58%) CI/CD
7 37 (12.25%) Problem-Solving
8 35 (11.59%) ITIL
9 32 (10.60%) Configuration Management
9 32 (10.60%) Observability
10 31 (10.26%) Change Management
10 31 (10.26%) Load Balancing
11 27 (8.94%) DevOps
12 26 (8.61%) High Availability
12 26 (8.61%) Infrastructure as Code
13 25 (8.28%) Cryptography
13 25 (8.28%) Service Management
14 23 (7.62%) Cloud Security
14 23 (7.62%) Containerisation
14 23 (7.62%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 82 (27.15%) PowerShell
2 46 (15.23%) Python
3 19 (6.29%) SQL
4 14 (4.64%) Bash
5 8 (2.65%) C#
6 7 (2.32%) JavaScript
7 4 (1.32%) PHP
8 3 (0.99%) C++
8 3 (0.99%) Go
8 3 (0.99%) Java
8 3 (0.99%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.33%) Perl
Qualifications
1 211 (69.87%) Security Cleared
2 105 (34.77%) DV Cleared
3 99 (32.78%) SC Cleared
4 27 (8.94%) Degree
5 25 (8.28%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (6.29%) CISSP
7 17 (5.63%) Microsoft Certification
8 16 (5.30%) CISM
9 8 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (2.65%) GIAC
9 8 (2.65%) MCSE
10 7 (2.32%) JNCIA
10 7 (2.32%) JNCIP
10 7 (2.32%) JNCIS
11 6 (1.99%) AWS Certification
11 6 (1.99%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 5 (1.66%) CCNP
12 5 (1.66%) Master's Degree
13 4 (1.32%) ITIL Certification
13 4 (1.32%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (6.29%) NIST
2 18 (5.96%) NCSC
3 16 (5.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (2.98%) Cyber Essentials
5 8 (2.65%) PCI DSS
6 7 (2.32%) GDPR
7 5 (1.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 5 (1.66%) QA
8 4 (1.32%) SLA
9 3 (0.99%) NIST 800
9 3 (0.99%) RMADS
10 2 (0.66%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.66%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 2 (0.66%) ISA99
10 2 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.66%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.33%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.33%) GMP
11 1 (0.33%) GxP
11 1 (0.33%) SOC 2
System Software
1 90 (29.80%) Active Directory
2 48 (15.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (7.95%) Docker
4 16 (5.30%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (4.97%) Hyper-V
6 13 (4.30%) VMware NSX
7 9 (2.98%) BitLocker
7 9 (2.98%) Firmware
8 7 (2.32%) Microsoft App-V
9 5 (1.66%) vSphere
10 4 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.99%) Sendmail
12 2 (0.66%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.66%) KVM
13 1 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
13 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.33%) Squid
13 1 (0.33%) Terminal Services
13 1 (0.33%) Virtual Servers
13 1 (0.33%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 38 (12.58%) Ansible
2 35 (11.59%) Kubernetes
2 35 (11.59%) Terraform
3 23 (7.62%) vCenter Server
4 21 (6.95%) FortiGate
5 17 (5.63%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (4.64%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (2.98%) Prometheus
7 9 (2.98%) WMI
7 9 (2.98%) WSUS
8 8 (2.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 8 (2.65%) Grafana
8 8 (2.65%) Puppet
8 8 (2.65%) SCOM
9 7 (2.32%) SCCM
9 7 (2.32%) vMotion
10 4 (1.32%) QRadar
11 3 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.99%) Podman
11 3 (0.99%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 90 (29.80%) Microsoft
2 72 (23.84%) VMware
3 52 (17.22%) Cisco
4 42 (13.91%) Splunk
5 38 (12.58%) Juniper
6 27 (8.94%) SolarWinds
7 24 (7.95%) F5
8 19 (6.29%) Extreme Networks
9 12 (3.97%) Palo Alto
10 11 (3.64%) Citrix
10 11 (3.64%) Thales
11 8 (2.65%) Google
11 8 (2.65%) ServiceNow
12 7 (2.32%) Broadcom
12 7 (2.32%) NetApp
12 7 (2.32%) Okta
12 7 (2.32%) Veeam
13 6 (1.99%) Dell
13 6 (1.99%) Netskope
14 5 (1.66%) Red Hat