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 2 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 360 349 272
Rank change year-on-year -11 -77 +7
Contract jobs citing PKI 344 221 353
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 0.68% 0.91%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.90% 1.92% 3.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 249 171 241
10th Percentile £424 £358 £385
25th Percentile £463 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year - +2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £632 £608
90th Percentile £705 £695 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £545 £538
% change year-on-year +0.92% +1.40% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 0 4
10th Percentile £93.80 - -
25th Percentile £96.00 - -
Median hourly rate £98.82 - £23.80
75th Percentile - - £27.91
90th Percentile £100.00 - £35.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £98.82 - £38.50
% change year-on-year - - -30.00%

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 18,083 11,515 11,709
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.74% 35.40% 30.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,920 7,085 7,339
10th Percentile £320 £300 £300
25th Percentile £422 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £518 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.45% -5.91% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,089 565 544
10th Percentile £14.57 £15.13 £13.23
25th Percentile £18.75 £18.87 £19.28
Median hourly rate £38.72 £29.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.25% -34.44% +4.65%
75th Percentile £67.89 £57.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +46.53% -42.86% +15.61%

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 2 September 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 2 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for PKI in the UK

PKI
Top 15 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 2 September 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 -52 281 £575 +4.55% 174
UK excluding London -23 230 £550 +0.92% 107
South East -15 89 £583 +1.30% 30
Work from Home -40 83 £555 +0.91% 62
London -54 83 £550 -8.33% 84
North of England -35 56 £519 +5.49% 23
North West -28 34 £525 +6.71% 11
Scotland +5 32 £481 -1.33% 4
South West -62 31 £670 +21.82% 28
Yorkshire -18 22 £500 -16.67% 12
East of England -18 9 £500 -4.76% 6
Midlands -76 9 £475 +18.75% 9
West Midlands -68 8 £475 +18.75% 5
Wales - 6 £463 - 2
East Midlands -15 1 £475 - 4

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 18 (5.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (3.49%) Confluence
3 11 (3.20%) SharePoint
4 7 (2.03%) IIS
5 4 (1.16%) Apache
6 3 (0.87%) Exchange Server 2010
6 3 (0.87%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.87%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.29%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.29%) nginx
Applications
1 4 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 10 (2.91%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.29%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 117 (34.01%) Azure
2 85 (24.71%) AWS
3 67 (19.48%) Entra ID
4 34 (9.88%) GCP
5 24 (6.98%) Microsoft 365
6 17 (4.94%) Power Platform
7 14 (4.07%) Azure Key Vault
8 11 (3.20%) IaaS
9 10 (2.91%) OpenShift
9 10 (2.91%) PaaS
10 8 (2.33%) GitHub
10 8 (2.33%) SaaS
11 7 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
12 6 (1.74%) Amazon EKS
12 6 (1.74%) AWS KMS
12 6 (1.74%) OCI
13 5 (1.45%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 4 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
15 3 (0.87%) Azure Monitor
15 3 (0.87%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 107 (31.10%) DNS
2 79 (22.97%) Firewall
3 77 (22.38%) DHCP
4 42 (12.21%) VPN
5 33 (9.59%) TCP/IP
6 29 (8.43%) SSL
7 26 (7.56%) Network Security
8 21 (6.10%) LAN
9 20 (5.81%) WAN
10 18 (5.23%) BGP
11 17 (4.94%) IPsec
11 17 (4.94%) VLAN
12 16 (4.65%) OSPF
12 16 (4.65%) VSAN
13 15 (4.36%) Wireless
14 14 (4.07%) SSH
15 13 (3.78%) Cisco ASA
15 13 (3.78%) Cisco Firepower
15 13 (3.78%) Cisco Nexus
16 12 (3.49%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (8.43%) SQL Server
2 12 (3.49%) Power BI
3 8 (2.33%) MySQL
3 8 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (2.03%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (1.74%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (1.74%) MongoDB
5 6 (1.74%) Relational Database
6 4 (1.16%) Db2
7 3 (0.87%) Big Data
7 3 (0.87%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.58%) Metadata
8 2 (0.58%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.29%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.29%) MariaDB
9 1 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 17 (4.94%) Git
2 14 (4.07%) JIRA
3 13 (3.78%) GitLab
4 9 (2.62%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.87%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.87%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.58%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.58%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.58%) Gatling
6 2 (0.58%) Gradle
6 2 (0.58%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.58%) MSI
6 2 (0.58%) REST Assured
6 2 (0.58%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.29%) Robot Framework
General
1 69 (20.06%) Social Skills
2 42 (12.21%) Finance
3 32 (9.30%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (8.43%) Public Sector
5 16 (4.65%) Documentation Skills
6 14 (4.07%) Banking
7 6 (1.74%) Legal
8 5 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.45%) Police
8 5 (1.45%) Retail
9 4 (1.16%) Automotive
9 4 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.87%) Aerospace
10 3 (0.87%) Law
10 3 (0.87%) Military
11 2 (0.58%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.58%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.58%) Retail Banking
12 1 (0.29%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.29%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 72 (20.93%) Senior
2 57 (16.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 32 (9.30%) Architect
4 28 (8.14%) Network Engineer
4 28 (8.14%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 23 (6.69%) Platform Engineer
6 20 (5.81%) Support Engineer
7 19 (5.52%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 19 (5.52%) Senior Network Engineer
8 16 (4.65%) Consultant
9 15 (4.36%) Storage Engineer
10 14 (4.07%) DevOps Engineer
10 14 (4.07%) Lead
11 10 (2.91%) Active Directory Engineer
12 9 (2.62%) Cloud Engineer
12 9 (2.62%) Linux Engineer
12 9 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
13 8 (2.33%) VMware Engineer
14 7 (2.03%) Analyst
14 7 (2.03%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (18.60%) Terraform
2 29 (8.43%) LDAP
3 27 (7.85%) OpenID
4 26 (7.56%) SAML
5 24 (6.98%) 802.1X
6 19 (5.52%) OAuth
7 14 (4.07%) REST
8 10 (2.91%) .NET
8 10 (2.91%) Kafka
9 9 (2.62%) OAuth2
10 8 (2.33%) .NET Framework
10 8 (2.33%) Keycloak
10 8 (2.33%) XML
11 7 (2.03%) JSON
11 7 (2.03%) RabbitMQ
12 5 (1.45%) Middleware
13 4 (1.16%) SailPoint
13 4 (1.16%) Web Services
14 3 (0.87%) RESTful
14 3 (0.87%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 36 (10.47%) Data Centre
2 34 (9.88%) Clustering
3 20 (5.81%) Cloud Native
4 17 (4.94%) Onboarding
5 16 (4.65%) Public Cloud
6 14 (4.07%) Distributed Systems
7 13 (3.78%) Linux Command Line
8 12 (3.49%) Hybrid Cloud
9 9 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
9 9 (2.62%) Enterprise Storage
9 9 (2.62%) Security Posture
10 8 (2.33%) Management Information System
10 8 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (2.03%) Legacy Systems
11 7 (2.03%) Replication
12 5 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
12 5 (1.45%) Distributed Architecture
12 5 (1.45%) Mainframe
12 5 (1.45%) Robotics
12 5 (1.45%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 161 (46.80%) Windows
2 105 (30.52%) Linux
3 91 (26.45%) Windows Server
4 13 (3.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 13 (3.78%) Windows Server 2016
5 12 (3.49%) Ubuntu
5 12 (3.49%) Unix
6 10 (2.91%) Windows Server 2012
7 7 (2.03%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (1.74%) Debian
9 4 (1.16%) Android
10 3 (0.87%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.87%) CentOS
10 3 (0.87%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.87%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.87%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.58%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.29%) VMS
12 1 (0.29%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (27.91%) Identity Access Management
2 70 (20.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 62 (18.02%) Infrastructure as Code
4 58 (16.86%) ITIL
5 55 (15.99%) Cybersecurity
5 55 (15.99%) Problem-Solving
6 53 (15.41%) High Availability
7 49 (14.24%) CI/CD
8 48 (13.95%) DevOps
9 45 (13.08%) Technical Leadership
9 45 (13.08%) Zero Trust
10 43 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
11 42 (12.21%) Key Management
12 41 (11.92%) Stakeholder Management
13 38 (11.05%) Agile
14 37 (10.76%) Platform Engineering
15 35 (10.17%) Cryptography
15 35 (10.17%) DevSecOps
16 34 (9.88%) Change Management
16 34 (9.88%) Secrets Management
Programming Languages
1 95 (27.62%) PowerShell
2 63 (18.31%) Python
3 36 (10.47%) Bash
4 16 (4.65%) SQL
5 11 (3.20%) C#
5 11 (3.20%) JavaScript
6 10 (2.91%) Java
7 5 (1.45%) Go
8 3 (0.87%) Ruby
9 2 (0.58%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.29%) Bicep
10 1 (0.29%) C++
Qualifications
1 172 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 98 (28.49%) DV Cleared
3 81 (23.55%) SC Cleared
4 27 (7.85%) Cisco Certification
5 22 (6.40%) Microsoft Certification
6 21 (6.10%) Degree
7 18 (5.23%) CCNP
8 15 (4.36%) CISSP
9 14 (4.07%) Azure Certification
10 12 (3.49%) MCSE
10 12 (3.49%) VCAP
11 9 (2.62%) AWS Certification
12 7 (2.03%) CISM
13 6 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
13 6 (1.74%) GIAC
14 5 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
14 5 (1.45%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 5 (1.45%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 5 (1.45%) JNCIS
14 5 (1.45%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (9.59%) NIST
2 24 (6.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 20 (5.81%) NCSC
4 14 (4.07%) SLA
5 7 (2.03%) JSP 440
5 7 (2.03%) QA
6 6 (1.74%) GRC
7 5 (1.45%) GDPR
8 4 (1.16%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (1.16%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.58%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.58%) ISA99
9 2 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 2 (0.58%) ITGC
9 2 (0.58%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.29%) GMP
10 1 (0.29%) GxP
10 1 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.29%) NIST 800
System Software
1 165 (47.97%) Active Directory
2 70 (20.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 41 (11.92%) Docker
4 34 (9.88%) Hyper-V
5 31 (9.01%) VMware NSX
6 18 (5.23%) vSphere
7 10 (2.91%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (2.03%) BitLocker
8 7 (2.03%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (1.74%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (1.16%) NFS
10 4 (1.16%) OpenSSH
10 4 (1.16%) Terminal Services
10 4 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.87%) Firmware
11 3 (0.87%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.58%) XenApp
12 2 (0.58%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.29%) KVM
13 1 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 70 (20.35%) Kubernetes
2 61 (17.73%) Ansible
3 32 (9.30%) Single Sign-On
4 22 (6.40%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (6.40%) vCenter Server
5 14 (4.07%) SCOM
5 14 (4.07%) VxRail
6 13 (3.78%) Avamar
7 10 (2.91%) Grafana
7 10 (2.91%) Prometheus
7 10 (2.91%) Puppet
8 8 (2.33%) Istio
8 8 (2.33%) SCCM
8 8 (2.33%) WSUS
9 7 (2.03%) FortiGate
10 6 (1.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 6 (1.74%) CA Single Sign-On
10 6 (1.74%) Kibana
10 6 (1.74%) vMotion
11 5 (1.45%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 146 (42.44%) Microsoft
2 86 (25.00%) VMware
3 50 (14.53%) Cisco
4 28 (8.14%) Thales
5 26 (7.56%) ServiceNow
6 24 (6.98%) Okta
7 19 (5.52%) BeyondTrust
8 18 (5.23%) Splunk
9 16 (4.65%) Citrix
9 16 (4.65%) Juniper
10 15 (4.36%) CyberArk
10 15 (4.36%) Google
11 14 (4.07%) Dell
11 14 (4.07%) SolarWinds
12 12 (3.49%) NetApp
12 12 (3.49%) Palo Alto
13 11 (3.20%) F5
14 10 (2.91%) BMC
14 10 (2.91%) CheckPoint
14 10 (2.91%) Remedy