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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 394 346 210
Rank change year-on-year -48 -136 +109
Contract jobs citing PKI 268 180 483
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.55% 0.62% 1.13%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.69% 1.82% 3.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 179 143 337
10th Percentile £415 £414 £363
25th Percentile £461 £500 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £639 £632 £625
90th Percentile £725 £683 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £560 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -2.61% +4.55% -
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 15,882 9,890 12,930
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.34% 34.18% 30.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,783 6,246 8,276
10th Percentile £313 £300 £270
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £663
90th Percentile £750 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 786 413 924
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.39 £19.97 £15.21
Median hourly rate £42.12 £33.05 £35.25
Median % change year-on-year +27.44% -6.24% +60.23%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.75 £82.45 £71.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £32.05 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.16% -8.43% +59.09%

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 5 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 5 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for PKI in the UK

PKI
Top 13 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 5 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 -46 230 £561 -2.39% 73
UK excluding London -56 169 £560 -2.61% 54
South East 0 99 £600 +4.35% 25
London -45 72 £550 -5.98% 25
Work from Home -35 61 £560 -2.61% 31
North of England -58 27 £468 -4.98% 1
North West -23 19 £446 -9.30%
Scotland +9 18 £540 +0.93% 2
South West -60 13 £538 -8.12% 11
Midlands -61 10 £400 -8.57% 6
West Midlands -65 10 £400 -8.57% 3
Yorkshire - 8 £650 - 1
East of England -28 4 £400 -23.81% 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 9 (3.36%) SharePoint
2 8 (2.99%) Confluence
3 7 (2.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (2.24%) IIS
5 3 (1.12%) Apache
5 3 (1.12%) Tomcat
5 3 (1.12%) WebSphere
6 2 (0.75%) nginx
7 1 (0.37%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 4 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 10 (3.73%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.37%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 80 (29.85%) Azure
2 67 (25.00%) AWS
3 38 (14.18%) Entra ID
4 25 (9.33%) Microsoft 365
5 18 (6.72%) GCP
6 17 (6.34%) Power Platform
7 10 (3.73%) Azure Key Vault
8 9 (3.36%) IaaS
8 9 (3.36%) PaaS
9 8 (2.99%) AWS KMS
10 7 (2.61%) Amazon EKS
11 6 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
12 4 (1.49%) GitHub
12 4 (1.49%) OpenShift
12 4 (1.49%) SaaS
12 4 (1.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 3 (1.12%) Route 53
14 2 (0.75%) Azure Sentinel
14 2 (0.75%) OneDrive
14 2 (0.75%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 72 (26.87%) DNS
2 66 (24.63%) Firewall
3 48 (17.91%) DHCP
4 41 (15.30%) BGP
5 38 (14.18%) WAN
6 37 (13.81%) VPN
7 34 (12.69%) LAN
8 31 (11.57%) OSPF
9 29 (10.82%) Network Security
10 26 (9.70%) Ethernet VPN
10 26 (9.70%) VXLAN
11 25 (9.33%) BIG-IP
12 24 (8.96%) Cisco ISE
13 23 (8.58%) Junos
14 19 (7.09%) SSL
15 12 (4.48%) MPLS
16 10 (3.73%) Cisco ASA
16 10 (3.73%) IPsec
16 10 (3.73%) SMTP
17 8 (2.99%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (5.22%) SQL Server
2 12 (4.48%) Power BI
3 11 (4.10%) Elasticsearch
4 5 (1.87%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (1.49%) MongoDB
5 4 (1.49%) MySQL
6 3 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.75%) Big Data
7 2 (0.75%) Metadata
7 2 (0.75%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.37%) Amazon QuickSight
8 1 (0.37%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.37%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (4.10%) GitLab
2 10 (3.73%) JIRA
3 6 (2.24%) Robot Framework
4 5 (1.87%) Git
4 5 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.87%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (1.12%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.75%) MSI
7 1 (0.37%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.37%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.37%) Gatling
7 1 (0.37%) Gradle
7 1 (0.37%) JUnit
7 1 (0.37%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.37%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.37%) SonarQube
General
1 33 (12.31%) Social Skills
2 29 (10.82%) Finance
2 29 (10.82%) Public Sector
3 13 (4.85%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (2.61%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (2.24%) Banking
6 4 (1.49%) Legal
6 4 (1.49%) Military
6 4 (1.49%) Retail
7 2 (0.75%) Financial Institution
7 2 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (0.75%) Local Government
8 1 (0.37%) Back Office
8 1 (0.37%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.37%) Law
8 1 (0.37%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.37%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 47 (17.54%) Senior
2 39 (14.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 38 (14.18%) Architect
4 24 (8.96%) Network Engineer
5 20 (7.46%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 15 (5.60%) Storage Engineer
7 14 (5.22%) Firewall Specialist
7 14 (5.22%) Network Specialist
8 13 (4.85%) Senior Network Engineer
9 12 (4.48%) Security Engineer
9 12 (4.48%) Support Engineer
10 10 (3.73%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
10 10 (3.73%) DevOps Engineer
10 10 (3.73%) Senior Architect
10 10 (3.73%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 9 (3.36%) Linux Engineer
12 8 (2.99%) Analyst
12 8 (2.99%) Lead
13 7 (2.61%) Administrator
13 7 (2.61%) NetApp Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (12.69%) 802.1X
2 17 (6.34%) OpenID
3 15 (5.60%) LDAP
3 15 (5.60%) SAML
4 14 (5.22%) REST
5 13 (4.85%) OAuth
6 7 (2.61%) JSON
7 6 (2.24%) OAuth2
7 6 (2.24%) RabbitMQ
8 4 (1.49%) Kafka
8 4 (1.49%) SailPoint
9 3 (1.12%) Elastic Stack
9 3 (1.12%) Keycloak
9 3 (1.12%) Microsoft Graph
9 3 (1.12%) SPIFFE
10 2 (0.75%) .NET Core
10 2 (0.75%) Blazor
10 2 (0.75%) CSS
10 2 (0.75%) eBPF
10 2 (0.75%) Loki
Miscellaneous
1 45 (16.79%) Clustering
2 30 (11.19%) Data Centre
3 12 (4.48%) Enterprise Storage
4 11 (4.10%) Hybrid Cloud
5 10 (3.73%) Algorithms
5 10 (3.73%) Onboarding
6 9 (3.36%) Cloud Native
7 8 (2.99%) Management Information System
7 8 (2.99%) Public Cloud
8 7 (2.61%) Linux Command Line
9 6 (2.24%) Operational Technology
10 5 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
10 5 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.87%) Private Cloud
11 4 (1.49%) Enterprise Cloud
11 4 (1.49%) Smartcard
12 3 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
12 3 (1.12%) Cyber Threat
12 3 (1.12%) Security Posture
12 3 (1.12%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 127 (47.39%) Windows
2 70 (26.12%) Linux
3 64 (23.88%) Windows Server
4 9 (3.36%) Ubuntu
5 8 (2.99%) Windows Server 2003
6 7 (2.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (2.24%) Debian
8 5 (1.87%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (1.49%) Unix
10 3 (1.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (1.12%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.75%) CentOS
11 2 (0.75%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.37%) Android
12 1 (0.37%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.37%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.37%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.37%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (26.87%) Identity Access Management
2 46 (17.16%) Agile
2 46 (17.16%) High Availability
3 45 (16.79%) ITIL
4 43 (16.04%) Cybersecurity
5 42 (15.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 38 (14.18%) Observability
6 38 (14.18%) Problem-Solving
7 35 (13.06%) Load Balancing
8 34 (12.69%) DevOps
9 31 (11.57%) Zero Trust
10 30 (11.19%) Infrastructure as Code
11 28 (10.45%) CI/CD
12 27 (10.07%) ITSM
12 27 (10.07%) Key Management
12 27 (10.07%) Service Management
13 26 (9.70%) RBAC
14 22 (8.21%) Vulnerability Management
15 21 (7.84%) Change Management
15 21 (7.84%) Cryptography
Programming Languages
1 61 (22.76%) PowerShell
2 41 (15.30%) Python
3 15 (5.60%) SQL
4 12 (4.48%) JavaScript
5 9 (3.36%) Bash
6 8 (2.99%) C#
7 7 (2.61%) Java
8 4 (1.49%) PHP
9 3 (1.12%) C++
9 3 (1.12%) Go
10 2 (0.75%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 158 (58.96%) Security Cleared
2 98 (36.57%) DV Cleared
3 60 (22.39%) SC Cleared
4 32 (11.94%) Cisco Certification
5 19 (7.09%) Degree
6 13 (4.85%) CISSP
7 11 (4.10%) CISM
8 10 (3.73%) GIAC
8 10 (3.73%) Microsoft Certification
9 9 (3.36%) CCNP
10 8 (2.99%) Azure Certification
10 8 (2.99%) CompTIA Security+
11 7 (2.61%) JNCIA
11 7 (2.61%) JNCIP
11 7 (2.61%) JNCIS
12 6 (2.24%) MCSE
13 5 (1.87%) CCNA
14 4 (1.49%) APMG
14 4 (1.49%) Network+ Certification
14 4 (1.49%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (11.57%) NIST
2 21 (7.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (4.85%) NCSC
4 10 (3.73%) Cyber Essentials
5 7 (2.61%) QA
6 6 (2.24%) SLA
7 5 (1.87%) PCI DSS
8 4 (1.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 4 (1.49%) GDPR
9 3 (1.12%) RMADS
10 2 (0.75%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.75%) ISA99
10 2 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.75%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.75%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.37%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.37%) GMP
11 1 (0.37%) GRC
11 1 (0.37%) GxP
11 1 (0.37%) SOC 2
System Software
1 90 (33.58%) Active Directory
2 53 (19.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (9.33%) Docker
4 20 (7.46%) Hyper-V
5 18 (6.72%) VMware NSX
6 17 (6.34%) VMware ESXi
7 11 (4.10%) BitLocker
8 10 (3.73%) Microsoft App-V
9 7 (2.61%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (2.24%) Firmware
11 3 (1.12%) KVM
11 3 (1.12%) Terminal Services
12 2 (0.75%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
12 2 (0.75%) vSphere
12 2 (0.75%) XenApp
12 2 (0.75%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.37%) Embedded Firmware
13 1 (0.37%) iptables
13 1 (0.37%) Squid
Systems Management
1 46 (17.16%) Ansible
2 37 (13.81%) Terraform
3 36 (13.43%) Kubernetes
4 26 (9.70%) vCenter Server
5 23 (8.58%) FortiGate
6 21 (7.84%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (5.22%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (5.22%) Puppet
8 12 (4.48%) SCOM
9 11 (4.10%) Prometheus
10 10 (3.73%) Grafana
10 10 (3.73%) vMotion
11 8 (2.99%) Avamar
12 6 (2.24%) SCCM
12 6 (2.24%) WMI
13 4 (1.49%) WSUS
14 3 (1.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (1.12%) CA Single Sign-On
15 2 (0.75%) Cilium
15 2 (0.75%) Istio
Vendors
1 82 (30.60%) Microsoft
2 73 (27.24%) VMware
3 57 (21.27%) Cisco
4 41 (15.30%) Splunk
5 31 (11.57%) Juniper
6 29 (10.82%) F5
7 27 (10.07%) SolarWinds
8 22 (8.21%) Extreme Networks
9 20 (7.46%) Citrix
9 20 (7.46%) ServiceNow
10 17 (6.34%) Thales
11 15 (5.60%) Palo Alto
12 14 (5.22%) Okta
13 10 (3.73%) BMC
13 10 (3.73%) Dell
13 10 (3.73%) NetApp
13 10 (3.73%) Remedy
14 8 (2.99%) BeyondTrust
14 8 (2.99%) ForeScout
15 7 (2.61%) Aruba