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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 330 315 219
Rank change year-on-year -15 -96 +102
Contract jobs citing PKI 302 218 484
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 0.75% 1.09%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.08% 2.21% 3.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 209 135 318
10th Percentile £401 £409 £363
25th Percentile £490 £466 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £565 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.73% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £694 £638 £638
90th Percentile £838 £733 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £570 £550
% change year-on-year -3.51% +3.64% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 1
10th Percentile £61.41 - -
25th Percentile £70.50 - £58.50
Median hourly rate £79.50 - £63.00
75th Percentile £96.25 - £67.50
90th Percentile £101.65 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £79.50 - £63.00
% change year-on-year - - +80.00%

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 14,499 9,845 13,413
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.09% 33.79% 30.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,130 6,287 8,576
10th Percentile £300 £288 £255
25th Percentile £408 £409 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.71% -0.94% -3.64%
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 675 370 877
10th Percentile £15.61 £16.95 £12.44
25th Percentile £18.89 £22.27 £15.39
Median hourly rate £39.00 £32.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% +18.18% +22.22%
75th Percentile £68.75 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.24 £83.20 £67.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.71 £31.76 £25.50
% change year-on-year +34.46% +24.55% +14.84%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -13 276 £600 +5.26% 52
UK excluding London -59 182 £550 -3.51% 44
South East +22 105 £600 - 20
London -3 92 £625 +19.05% 11
Work from Home -19 78 £643 +11.83% 22
West Midlands -53 25 £400 -8.57% 2
South West -53 25 £625 +8.70% 5
Midlands -59 25 £400 -8.57% 5
North of England -69 18 £482 -32.35% 9
Yorkshire -56 10 £482 -33.52% 4
North West -32 8 £444 -11.25% 5
Scotland -26 6 £550 +2.90% 1
East of England -23 5 £550 - 4
Wales -8 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 25 (8.28%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (2.32%) 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%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.33%) WebSphere
Applications
1 5 (1.66%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (1.66%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.33%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 64 (21.19%) Azure
2 55 (18.21%) AWS
3 32 (10.60%) IaaS
3 32 (10.60%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (8.94%) Entra ID
5 10 (3.31%) Power Platform
6 9 (2.98%) GCP
6 9 (2.98%) OpenShift
6 9 (2.98%) PaaS
7 8 (2.65%) SaaS
8 5 (1.66%) AWS CloudFormation
8 5 (1.66%) GitHub
8 5 (1.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 4 (1.32%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (1.32%) AWS KMS
9 4 (1.32%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (1.32%) Power Automate
10 3 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (0.99%) OneDrive
10 3 (0.99%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 76 (25.17%) Firewall
2 70 (23.18%) DNS
3 47 (15.56%) BGP
4 44 (14.57%) DHCP
5 38 (12.58%) WAN
6 37 (12.25%) VPN
7 29 (9.60%) Network Security
8 27 (8.94%) OSPF
9 26 (8.61%) LAN
10 24 (7.95%) Ethernet VPN
10 24 (7.95%) Junos
10 24 (7.95%) VXLAN
11 23 (7.62%) Cisco ISE
12 22 (7.28%) BIG-IP
13 19 (6.29%) MPLS
14 18 (5.96%) SSL
15 16 (5.30%) IPsec
16 11 (3.64%) Cisco IOS
16 11 (3.64%) TCP/IP
17 8 (2.65%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (3.31%) SQL Server
2 9 (2.98%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (1.66%) Power BI
4 2 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.66%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.33%) Amazon QuickSight
5 1 (0.33%) MySQL
5 1 (0.33%) RDBMS
5 1 (0.33%) Redis
5 1 (0.33%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 11 (3.64%) JIRA
2 8 (2.65%) GitLab
3 6 (1.99%) Robot Framework
4 4 (1.32%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.99%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.33%) Git
6 1 (0.33%) JUnit
6 1 (0.33%) Terragrunt
General
1 43 (14.24%) Analytical Skills
2 38 (12.58%) Social Skills
3 28 (9.27%) Public Sector
4 20 (6.62%) Finance
5 9 (2.98%) Military
6 7 (2.32%) Banking
7 6 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (0.99%) Legal
8 3 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.66%) Financial Institution
9 2 (0.66%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (0.66%) Local Government
10 1 (0.33%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.33%) Back Office
10 1 (0.33%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.33%) Retail Banking
10 1 (0.33%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 95 (31.46%) Architect
2 47 (15.56%) 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 12 (3.97%) Network Specialist
7 12 (3.97%) Senior Architect
8 11 (3.64%) Firewall Specialist
8 11 (3.64%) Security Engineer
9 10 (3.31%) 3rd Line Support
9 10 (3.31%) Administrator
9 10 (3.31%) Cloud Engineer
9 10 (3.31%) Platform Manager
9 10 (3.31%) Systems Administrator
9 10 (3.31%) Systems Manager
9 10 (3.31%) Technical Architect
9 10 (3.31%) Wintel Administrator
9 10 (3.31%) Wintel Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (11.92%) REST
2 30 (9.93%) JSON
3 22 (7.28%) 802.1X
4 14 (4.64%) OpenID
5 13 (4.30%) LDAP
5 13 (4.30%) SAML
6 9 (2.98%) OAuth
7 6 (1.99%) OAuth2
8 5 (1.66%) Elastic Stack
9 3 (0.99%) SailPoint
10 2 (0.66%) .NET
10 2 (0.66%) CSS
10 2 (0.66%) eBPF
10 2 (0.66%) HTML
10 2 (0.66%) Kafka
10 2 (0.66%) Loki
10 2 (0.66%) Microsoft Graph
10 2 (0.66%) Web Services
11 1 (0.33%) AWS CDK
11 1 (0.33%) Keycloak
Miscellaneous
1 30 (9.93%) Clustering
2 27 (8.94%) Data Centre
3 26 (8.61%) Self-Motivation
4 10 (3.31%) Fat Client
4 10 (3.31%) Thin Client
5 9 (2.98%) Algorithms
5 9 (2.98%) Enterprise Storage
5 9 (2.98%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (2.98%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.98%) 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%) Virtual Team
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%) Ubuntu
7 6 (1.99%) CentOS
7 6 (1.99%) Windows Server 2003
8 5 (1.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (1.66%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.99%) Unix
9 3 (0.99%) VMS
9 3 (0.99%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.99%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.66%) Android
11 1 (0.33%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.33%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.33%) Solaris
11 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (27.15%) Agile
2 62 (20.53%) Key Management
3 57 (18.87%) Identity Access Management
4 44 (14.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 42 (13.91%) Cybersecurity
6 38 (12.58%) CI/CD
7 36 (11.92%) Problem-Solving
8 34 (11.26%) ITIL
9 32 (10.60%) Load Balancing
9 32 (10.60%) Observability
10 31 (10.26%) Configuration Management
11 30 (9.93%) Change Management
12 27 (8.94%) High Availability
13 26 (8.61%) Infrastructure as Code
14 25 (8.28%) Cryptography
14 25 (8.28%) DevOps
14 25 (8.28%) Service Management
15 23 (7.62%) Cloud Security
15 23 (7.62%) Migration
16 22 (7.28%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 81 (26.82%) PowerShell
2 43 (14.24%) Python
3 18 (5.96%) SQL
4 13 (4.30%) 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%) Java
9 2 (0.66%) Go
9 2 (0.66%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.33%) Perl
Qualifications
1 212 (70.20%) Security Cleared
2 107 (35.43%) DV Cleared
3 97 (32.12%) SC Cleared
4 26 (8.61%) Degree
5 25 (8.28%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (6.29%) CISSP
7 16 (5.30%) CISM
7 16 (5.30%) Microsoft Certification
8 8 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (2.65%) GIAC
9 7 (2.32%) JNCIA
9 7 (2.32%) JNCIP
9 7 (2.32%) JNCIS
9 7 (2.32%) MCSE
10 6 (1.99%) AWS Certification
10 6 (1.99%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 4 (1.32%) APMG
11 4 (1.32%) CompTIA Security+
11 4 (1.32%) Master's Degree
11 4 (1.32%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.62%) NIST
2 18 (5.96%) NCSC
3 16 (5.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (3.31%) 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 89 (29.47%) Active Directory
2 48 (15.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (7.62%) Docker
4 16 (5.30%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (4.97%) Hyper-V
6 14 (4.64%) 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%) NFS
13 1 (0.33%) Squid
13 1 (0.33%) Terminal Services
13 1 (0.33%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 37 (12.25%) Ansible
2 34 (11.26%) Kubernetes
3 32 (10.60%) Terraform
4 23 (7.62%) vCenter Server
5 22 (7.28%) FortiGate
6 17 (5.63%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (4.30%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (2.98%) Prometheus
8 9 (2.98%) WMI
9 8 (2.65%) Grafana
9 8 (2.65%) Puppet
9 8 (2.65%) SCOM
9 8 (2.65%) WSUS
10 7 (2.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 7 (2.32%) vMotion
11 6 (1.99%) SCCM
12 4 (1.32%) QRadar
13 3 (0.99%) Podman
13 3 (0.99%) Proxmox
14 2 (0.66%) Cilium
Vendors
1 89 (29.47%) Microsoft
2 72 (23.84%) VMware
3 53 (17.55%) Cisco
4 41 (13.58%) Splunk
5 39 (12.91%) Juniper
6 27 (8.94%) SolarWinds
7 25 (8.28%) F5
8 20 (6.62%) Extreme Networks
9 13 (4.30%) Palo Alto
10 11 (3.64%) Citrix
10 11 (3.64%) Thales
11 9 (2.98%) ServiceNow
12 8 (2.65%) Google
13 7 (2.32%) Broadcom
13 7 (2.32%) NetApp
14 6 (1.99%) Dell
14 6 (1.99%) Netskope
14 6 (1.99%) Okta
14 6 (1.99%) Veeam
15 5 (1.66%) Zscaler