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 7 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 316 302 232
Rank change year-on-year -14 -70 +141
Contract jobs citing PKI 283 269 478
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.78% 0.75% 1.05%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.20% 2.39% 3.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 214 154 292
10th Percentile £358 £416 £372
25th Percentile £463 £477 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £551 £575
Median % change year-on-year -0.18% -4.17% -4.17%
75th Percentile £675 £630 £675
90th Percentile £838 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £529 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -3.86% -4.35% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 5
10th Percentile £74.80 - £46.38
25th Percentile £82.00 - -
Median hourly rate £90.00 - £55.00
75th Percentile £100.00 - £56.40
90th Percentile £103.30 - £63.06
UK excluding London median hourly rate £90.00 - £55.00
% change year-on-year - - -8.33%

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 12,839 11,268 14,386
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.39% 31.55% 31.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,002 6,687 9,627
10th Percentile £275 £275 £270
25th Percentile £406 £410 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.51% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £630 £663 £669
90th Percentile £738 £775 £772
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 652 367 497
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.81 £16.67
25th Percentile £17.98 £22.50 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.50 £34.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.06% -20.00% +21.43%
75th Percentile £56.06 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.19 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £32.50 £45.21
% change year-on-year -20.00% -28.11% +53.25%

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 7 December 2025.

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 7 December 2025.

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 7 December 2025. 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 +6 263 £550 -0.18% 74
UK excluding London -52 172 £529 -3.86% 70
London +36 89 £675 +16.56% 14
Work from Home -4 80 £700 +20.27% 40
South East -7 59 £594 +0.42% 42
South West -35 44 £550 +0.36% 10
Midlands -2 40 £400 -27.27%
West Midlands +3 39 £400 -27.27%
North of England -37 19 £482 -33.52% 7
North West -7 12 £379 -22.31%
Scotland -24 8 £538 +19.44% 4
Yorkshire -39 7 £485 -33.17% 5
East of England -11 3 £550 - 4
Wales +1 1 £550 - 2
East Midlands - 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 39 (13.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (4.95%) SharePoint
3 10 (3.53%) Confluence
4 9 (3.18%) IIS
5 8 (2.83%) Apache
6 6 (2.12%) Skype for Business
7 4 (1.41%) JBoss
7 4 (1.41%) SharePoint Server
8 3 (1.06%) Exchange Server 2010
9 1 (0.35%) nginx
Applications
1 17 (6.01%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.71%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.71%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 53 (18.73%) Azure
2 44 (15.55%) AWS
3 26 (9.19%) IaaS
4 25 (8.83%) Microsoft 365
5 21 (7.42%) Entra ID
6 14 (4.95%) GitHub
7 12 (4.24%) AWS CloudFormation
8 9 (3.18%) OpenShift
9 8 (2.83%) SaaS
9 8 (2.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 7 (2.47%) Amazon ECS
10 7 (2.47%) AWS Fargate
10 7 (2.47%) Power Platform
11 5 (1.77%) Azure Sentinel
11 5 (1.77%) GCP
12 4 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
13 3 (1.06%) Amazon S3
13 3 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
13 3 (1.06%) Nutanix
13 3 (1.06%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 58 (20.49%) DNS
2 54 (19.08%) Firewall
3 34 (12.01%) BGP
4 33 (11.66%) IPsec
4 33 (11.66%) VPN
5 28 (9.89%) SSL
6 27 (9.54%) WAN
7 25 (8.83%) DHCP
8 24 (8.48%) MPLS
9 17 (6.01%) Network Security
10 16 (5.65%) Skype
11 10 (3.53%) Junos
11 10 (3.53%) TCP/IP
12 9 (3.18%) HTTPS
13 8 (2.83%) OSPF
14 7 (2.47%) VSAN
15 6 (2.12%) EIGRP
15 6 (2.12%) Internet
15 6 (2.12%) S/MIME
16 5 (1.77%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (5.30%) SQL Server
2 7 (2.47%) MongoDB
3 5 (1.77%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (1.06%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.35%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.35%) Power BI
5 1 (0.35%) Redis
Development Applications
1 14 (4.95%) JIRA
2 12 (4.24%) GitLab
3 9 (3.18%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.41%) Terragrunt
5 3 (1.06%) Git
5 3 (1.06%) MSI
5 3 (1.06%) Robot Framework
5 3 (1.06%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.71%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.71%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.35%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.35%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.35%) Postman
General
1 54 (19.08%) Social Skills
2 50 (17.67%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (12.72%) Public Sector
4 20 (7.07%) Finance
5 17 (6.01%) Military
6 5 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.06%) Banking
9 1 (0.35%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.35%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.35%) Legal
9 1 (0.35%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.35%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.35%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 77 (27.21%) Architect
2 31 (10.95%) Senior
3 27 (9.54%) 3rd Line Engineer
4 25 (8.83%) Support Engineer
5 23 (8.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 20 (7.07%) 3rd Line Support
7 19 (6.71%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 17 (6.01%) Network Engineer
9 16 (5.65%) Security Architect
10 15 (5.30%) Lead
10 15 (5.30%) Wintel Engineer
11 14 (4.95%) Administrator
12 13 (4.59%) Platform Manager
12 13 (4.59%) Systems Administrator
12 13 (4.59%) Systems Manager
12 13 (4.59%) Wintel Administrator
12 13 (4.59%) Wintel Systems Administrator
13 12 (4.24%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
14 11 (3.89%) WAN Engineer
15 10 (3.53%) 2nd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (10.95%) REST
2 28 (9.89%) JSON
3 14 (4.95%) OpenID
4 11 (3.89%) Kafka
5 10 (3.53%) SAML
6 9 (3.18%) OAuth
6 9 (3.18%) OAuth2
7 7 (2.47%) cloud-init
7 7 (2.47%) Keycloak
8 4 (1.41%) .NET
8 4 (1.41%) AWS CDK
8 4 (1.41%) LDAP
9 3 (1.06%) Elastic Stack
9 3 (1.06%) JDBC
9 3 (1.06%) SOAP
10 2 (0.71%) AngularJS
10 2 (0.71%) Microsoft Graph
10 2 (0.71%) ModSecurity
10 2 (0.71%) Playwright
10 2 (0.71%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 30 (10.60%) Self-Motivation
2 11 (3.89%) Data Centre
2 11 (3.89%) Fat Client
2 11 (3.89%) Thin Client
3 8 (2.83%) Management Information System
3 8 (2.83%) Private Cloud
4 7 (2.47%) Algorithms
4 7 (2.47%) Replication
5 6 (2.12%) Onboarding
6 5 (1.77%) Legacy Applications
6 5 (1.77%) Public Cloud
6 5 (1.77%) Security Operations Centre
7 4 (1.41%) Cloud Native
7 4 (1.41%) Cyber Defence
7 4 (1.41%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.06%) Taxonomies
9 2 (0.71%) CMDB
9 2 (0.71%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (0.71%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 95 (33.57%) Windows
2 53 (18.73%) Linux
3 47 (16.61%) Windows Server
4 13 (4.59%) Windows 10
5 12 (4.24%) CentOS
5 12 (4.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (3.18%) Unix
6 9 (3.18%) Windows 7
6 9 (3.18%) Windows Server 2012
7 8 (2.83%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (2.12%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (1.77%) Windows Server 2008
10 3 (1.06%) VMS
11 2 (0.71%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.35%) Android
12 1 (0.35%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.35%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.35%) Solaris
12 1 (0.35%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (29.33%) Agile
2 60 (21.20%) Key Management
3 39 (13.78%) Change Management
4 38 (13.43%) ITIL
5 36 (12.72%) CI/CD
6 32 (11.31%) DevOps
6 32 (11.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 31 (10.95%) Configuration Management
8 30 (10.60%) Problem-Solving
9 29 (10.25%) Cybersecurity
10 28 (9.89%) Cryptography
11 27 (9.54%) Information Security
12 26 (9.19%) Incident Response
12 26 (9.19%) Migration
12 26 (9.19%) Service Management
13 23 (8.13%) Containerisation
14 22 (7.77%) Identity Access Management
14 22 (7.77%) SIEM
15 20 (7.07%) Infrastructure as Code
15 20 (7.07%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 74 (26.15%) PowerShell
2 43 (15.19%) Python
3 22 (7.77%) Bash
4 19 (6.71%) SQL
5 7 (2.47%) Go
5 7 (2.47%) Perl
6 6 (2.12%) C++
6 6 (2.12%) JavaScript
6 6 (2.12%) Shell Script
7 5 (1.77%) Java
8 2 (0.71%) C#
8 2 (0.71%) PHP
9 1 (0.35%) Bicep
9 1 (0.35%) C
9 1 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 181 (63.96%) Security Cleared
2 97 (34.28%) SC Cleared
3 77 (27.21%) DV Cleared
4 36 (12.72%) Degree
5 24 (8.48%) Microsoft Certification
6 20 (7.07%) CISSP
7 18 (6.36%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (4.59%) CCNP
8 13 (4.59%) CISM
9 12 (4.24%) MCSE
10 9 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (3.18%) ITIL Certification
11 7 (2.47%) Master's Degree
11 7 (2.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 6 (2.12%) CCNA
12 6 (2.12%) IISP
12 6 (2.12%) ISACA
12 6 (2.12%) JNCIA
12 6 (2.12%) JNCIS
13 5 (1.77%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.36%) NCSC
2 16 (5.65%) NIST
3 13 (4.59%) PCI DSS
4 10 (3.53%) GDPR
4 10 (3.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (1.77%) FIPS 140-2
6 3 (1.06%) SLA
7 2 (0.71%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.71%) COBIT
7 2 (0.71%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.71%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.71%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.71%) SOC 1
8 1 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.35%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.35%) PMO
8 1 (0.35%) PSD2
8 1 (0.35%) RMADS
System Software
1 82 (28.98%) Active Directory
2 42 (14.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (5.30%) Docker
4 12 (4.24%) Firmware
5 11 (3.89%) VMware NSX
6 9 (3.18%) Hyper-V
6 9 (3.18%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (3.18%) vSphere
7 6 (2.12%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (2.12%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (1.77%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 3 (1.06%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.71%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 1 (0.35%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.35%) NFS
11 1 (0.35%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 29 (10.25%) Ansible
1 29 (10.25%) Kubernetes
2 28 (9.89%) Terraform
3 17 (6.01%) vCenter Server
4 16 (5.65%) Microsoft Intune
4 16 (5.65%) SCCM
4 16 (5.65%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (4.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 12 (4.24%) WMI
6 12 (4.24%) WSUS
7 9 (3.18%) SCOM
8 7 (2.47%) Grafana
8 7 (2.47%) Jamf Pro
8 7 (2.47%) Packer
8 7 (2.47%) Prometheus
9 4 (1.41%) Podman
9 4 (1.41%) QRadar
10 3 (1.06%) Check_MK
10 3 (1.06%) FortiGate
10 3 (1.06%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 100 (35.34%) Microsoft
2 62 (21.91%) VMware
3 39 (13.78%) Juniper
4 37 (13.07%) Cisco
5 25 (8.83%) Splunk
6 16 (5.65%) Veeam
7 15 (5.30%) SolarWinds
8 9 (3.18%) Thales
9 8 (2.83%) Dell
9 8 (2.83%) Fortinet
10 7 (2.47%) Okta
11 6 (2.12%) Google
11 6 (2.12%) IBM
11 6 (2.12%) ServiceNow
12 5 (1.77%) Citrix
12 5 (1.77%) CyberArk
12 5 (1.77%) Palo Alto
12 5 (1.77%) Red Hat
13 4 (1.41%) Oracle
13 4 (1.41%) Zscaler