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 11 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 367 348 230
Rank change year-on-year -19 -118 +72
Contract jobs citing PKI 335 226 418
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.69% 1.07%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.88% 1.96% 3.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 237 173 300
10th Percentile £417 £359 £363
25th Percentile £463 £463 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £539
Median % change year-on-year - +2.09% -2.05%
75th Percentile £640 £638 £608
90th Percentile £725 £688 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 4
10th Percentile £61.87 - -
25th Percentile £81.42 - -
Median hourly rate £98.82 - £23.80
75th Percentile £99.12 - £27.91
90th Percentile £100.00 - £35.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £98.82 - £38.50

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 17,859 11,513 11,824
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.44% 34.97% 30.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,838 7,095 7,573
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £425 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £770 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 996 555 606
10th Percentile £15.10 £15.13 £12.44
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.87 £18.27
Median hourly rate £43.76 £29.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.34% -34.44% +20.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £56.75 £66.88
90th Percentile £85.00 £77.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £29.33 £45.00
% change year-on-year +49.88% -34.82% +11.23%

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 11 August 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 11 August 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 11 August 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 -55 276 £575 +4.55% 103
UK excluding London -11 230 £550 - 67
South East -1 110 £590 +2.61% 20
London -75 79 £600 +2.56% 34
Work from Home -48 78 £550 - 34
North of England -40 48 £500 +1.63% 21
Scotland +10 30 £481 -10.09% 1
North West -24 27 £446 -9.30% 11
South West -61 25 £697 +21.13% 14
Yorkshire - 21 £500 - 8
Midlands -72 8 £475 +18.75% 4
West Midlands -73 7 £463 +15.63% 2
Wales - 6 £463 -
East of England -19 5 £400 -23.81% 4
East Midlands -10 1 £475 - 2

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 13 (3.88%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (3.28%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.99%) Confluence
4 7 (2.09%) IIS
5 4 (1.19%) Apache
6 3 (0.90%) Exchange Server 2010
6 3 (0.90%) Tomcat
6 3 (0.90%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.30%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 4 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 12 (3.58%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.30%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 107 (31.94%) Azure
2 82 (24.48%) AWS
3 61 (18.21%) Entra ID
4 28 (8.36%) GCP
5 27 (8.06%) Microsoft 365
6 19 (5.67%) Power Platform
7 12 (3.58%) IaaS
8 11 (3.28%) OpenShift
8 11 (3.28%) PaaS
9 10 (2.99%) Azure Key Vault
10 8 (2.39%) SaaS
11 7 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
12 6 (1.79%) GitHub
13 5 (1.49%) Amazon EKS
13 5 (1.49%) AWS KMS
14 4 (1.19%) OCI
15 3 (0.90%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 2 (0.60%) Azure Monitor
16 2 (0.60%) Azure Sentinel
16 2 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 110 (32.84%) DNS
2 89 (26.57%) Firewall
3 83 (24.78%) DHCP
4 35 (10.45%) LAN
4 35 (10.45%) VPN
5 34 (10.15%) BGP
5 34 (10.15%) WAN
6 30 (8.96%) OSPF
6 30 (8.96%) TCP/IP
7 29 (8.66%) SSL
8 24 (7.16%) Ethernet VPN
8 24 (7.16%) VXLAN
9 23 (6.87%) BIG-IP
9 23 (6.87%) Junos
10 22 (6.57%) Cisco ISE
10 22 (6.57%) Network Security
11 18 (5.37%) VSAN
12 15 (4.48%) IPsec
13 14 (4.18%) VLAN
13 14 (4.18%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (8.66%) SQL Server
2 14 (4.18%) Power BI
3 8 (2.39%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (2.09%) MySQL
4 7 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.49%) Amazon RDS
5 5 (1.49%) MongoDB
5 5 (1.49%) Relational Database
6 4 (1.19%) Db2
7 3 (0.90%) Big Data
7 3 (0.90%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.60%) Metadata
8 2 (0.60%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.30%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.30%) MariaDB
9 1 (0.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 16 (4.78%) Git
2 13 (3.88%) JIRA
3 9 (2.69%) GitLab
4 8 (2.39%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.90%) Robot Framework
5 3 (0.90%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.90%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.60%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.60%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.60%) Gatling
6 2 (0.60%) Gradle
6 2 (0.60%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.60%) MSI
6 2 (0.60%) REST Assured
6 2 (0.60%) SonarQube
General
1 55 (16.42%) Social Skills
2 42 (12.54%) Finance
3 30 (8.96%) Public Sector
4 24 (7.16%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (3.28%) Banking
6 10 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (2.09%) Legal
7 7 (2.09%) Military
8 6 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.49%) Retail
10 4 (1.19%) Automotive
10 4 (1.19%) Police
11 3 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.60%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.60%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.60%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.30%) Local Government
13 1 (0.30%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.30%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.30%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 73 (21.79%) Senior
2 52 (15.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 36 (10.75%) Architect
4 31 (9.25%) Network Engineer
5 24 (7.16%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 23 (6.87%) Senior Network Engineer
7 20 (5.97%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 20 (5.97%) Support Engineer
8 19 (5.67%) Lead
9 18 (5.37%) Platform Engineer
10 16 (4.78%) Storage Engineer
11 14 (4.18%) Firewall Specialist
11 14 (4.18%) Network Specialist
12 12 (3.58%) DevOps Engineer
13 11 (3.28%) Solutions Architect
14 9 (2.69%) Linux Engineer
14 9 (2.69%) Senior Architect
15 8 (2.39%) VMware Engineer
16 7 (2.09%) Cloud Engineer
16 7 (2.09%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (10.75%) 802.1X
2 27 (8.06%) OpenID
3 26 (7.76%) LDAP
3 26 (7.76%) SAML
4 20 (5.97%) OAuth
5 16 (4.78%) REST
6 10 (2.99%) .NET
6 10 (2.99%) OAuth2
7 8 (2.39%) .NET Framework
7 8 (2.39%) XML
8 7 (2.09%) JSON
8 7 (2.09%) Kafka
8 7 (2.09%) RabbitMQ
9 6 (1.79%) Keycloak
10 5 (1.49%) Middleware
10 5 (1.49%) Web Services
11 4 (1.19%) SailPoint
12 3 (0.90%) FIDO
12 3 (0.90%) Microsoft Graph
12 3 (0.90%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 50 (14.93%) Data Centre
2 49 (14.63%) Clustering
3 17 (5.07%) Cloud Native
3 17 (5.07%) Public Cloud
4 16 (4.78%) Onboarding
5 15 (4.48%) Hybrid Cloud
6 13 (3.88%) Linux Command Line
7 12 (3.58%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (2.39%) Security Posture
9 7 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
9 7 (2.09%) Management Information System
10 6 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
10 6 (1.79%) Enterprise Storage
10 6 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
11 5 (1.49%) Mainframe
11 5 (1.49%) Private Cloud
11 5 (1.49%) Robotics
11 5 (1.49%) Smartcard
12 4 (1.19%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 166 (49.55%) Windows
2 97 (28.96%) Linux
3 83 (24.78%) Windows Server
4 12 (3.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 12 (3.58%) Unix
5 9 (2.69%) Windows Server 2016
6 8 (2.39%) Ubuntu
6 8 (2.39%) Windows Server 2012
7 7 (2.09%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (1.79%) Debian
9 4 (1.19%) Android
9 4 (1.19%) Windows Server 2003
10 3 (0.90%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.90%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.60%) CentOS
11 2 (0.60%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.30%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.30%) VMS
12 1 (0.30%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (32.54%) Identity Access Management
2 60 (17.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 59 (17.61%) High Availability
4 58 (17.31%) ITIL
5 57 (17.01%) Problem-Solving
6 56 (16.72%) Infrastructure as Code
7 49 (14.63%) Cybersecurity
8 47 (14.03%) CI/CD
8 47 (14.03%) DevOps
9 43 (12.84%) Zero Trust
10 42 (12.54%) Agile
11 40 (11.94%) Observability
12 36 (10.75%) Cryptography
12 36 (10.75%) ITSM
13 35 (10.45%) Continuous Improvement
13 35 (10.45%) Stakeholder Management
14 34 (10.15%) Service Management
14 34 (10.15%) Technical Leadership
15 32 (9.55%) DevSecOps
16 31 (9.25%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 90 (26.87%) PowerShell
2 61 (18.21%) Python
3 29 (8.66%) Bash
4 16 (4.78%) SQL
5 13 (3.88%) C#
5 13 (3.88%) JavaScript
6 10 (2.99%) Java
7 3 (0.90%) Ruby
8 2 (0.60%) Go
8 2 (0.60%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.30%) C++
Qualifications
1 169 (50.45%) Security Cleared
2 103 (30.75%) DV Cleared
3 69 (20.60%) SC Cleared
4 37 (11.04%) Cisco Certification
5 19 (5.67%) Degree
6 18 (5.37%) Microsoft Certification
7 16 (4.78%) CCNP
8 14 (4.18%) CISSP
9 12 (3.58%) Azure Certification
10 11 (3.28%) JNCIP
10 11 (3.28%) JNCIS
10 11 (3.28%) MCSE
10 11 (3.28%) VCAP
11 7 (2.09%) AWS Certification
11 7 (2.09%) JNCIA
12 6 (1.79%) CISM
13 5 (1.49%) GIAC
13 5 (1.49%) ISTQB
13 5 (1.49%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 5 (1.49%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (8.66%) NIST
2 19 (5.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (5.07%) NCSC
4 14 (4.18%) SLA
5 10 (2.99%) QA
6 6 (1.79%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (1.49%) GDPR
8 3 (0.90%) JSP 440
8 3 (0.90%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.90%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.60%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.60%) ISA99
9 2 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 2 (0.60%) ITGC
9 2 (0.60%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.30%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.30%) GRC
10 1 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.30%) PSD2
System Software
1 143 (42.69%) Active Directory
2 70 (20.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 40 (11.94%) Docker
4 34 (10.15%) VMware NSX
5 33 (9.85%) Hyper-V
6 16 (4.78%) vSphere
7 9 (2.69%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (2.39%) BitLocker
8 8 (2.39%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (2.09%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (1.19%) Firmware
10 4 (1.19%) NFS
10 4 (1.19%) OpenSSH
10 4 (1.19%) Terminal Services
10 4 (1.19%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.90%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.60%) KVM
12 2 (0.60%) XenApp
12 2 (0.60%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.30%) iptables
Systems Management
1 65 (19.40%) Kubernetes
2 61 (18.21%) Ansible
3 59 (17.61%) Terraform
4 30 (8.96%) Single Sign-On
5 23 (6.87%) FortiGate
5 23 (6.87%) vCenter Server
6 15 (4.48%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (4.18%) VxRail
8 13 (3.88%) Avamar
8 13 (3.88%) SCOM
9 11 (3.28%) Puppet
10 8 (2.39%) Grafana
10 8 (2.39%) Prometheus
11 7 (2.09%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (2.09%) CA Single Sign-On
11 7 (2.09%) SCCM
11 7 (2.09%) vMotion
12 6 (1.79%) Istio
12 6 (1.79%) Kibana
13 5 (1.49%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 127 (37.91%) Microsoft
2 88 (26.27%) VMware
3 60 (17.91%) Cisco
4 35 (10.45%) Splunk
5 32 (9.55%) Juniper
6 30 (8.96%) SolarWinds
7 27 (8.06%) ServiceNow
8 26 (7.76%) F5
9 24 (7.16%) Thales
10 23 (6.87%) Okta
11 22 (6.57%) Extreme Networks
12 18 (5.37%) BeyondTrust
13 17 (5.07%) Citrix
14 15 (4.48%) Dell
15 13 (3.88%) CyberArk
15 13 (3.88%) Palo Alto
16 12 (3.58%) BMC
16 12 (3.58%) Google
16 12 (3.58%) Remedy
17 9 (2.69%) NetApp