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

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 315 314 225
Rank change year-on-year -1 -89 +126
Contract jobs citing PKI 281 241 468
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.76% 0.73% 1.08%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.19% 2.29% 3.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 142 280
10th Percentile £400 £413 £392
25th Percentile £469 £470 £465
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £560 £569
Median % change year-on-year -1.79% -1.54% -8.12%
75th Percentile £688 £638 £675
90th Percentile £838 £736 £746
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £551 £563
% change year-on-year -0.18% -2.04% -2.17%
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

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 12,809 10,530 13,531
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.54% 32.06% 31.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,055 6,258 8,986
10th Percentile £280 £264 £263
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £526 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.85% -4.45% -
75th Percentile £630 £656 £663
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 619 325 525
10th Percentile £13.84 £18.07 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.22 £23.30 £19.99
Median hourly rate £27.21 £33.54 £42.19
Median % change year-on-year -18.87% -20.50% +31.84%
75th Percentile £61.25 £64.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £77.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% -27.78% +74.35%

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 January 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 January 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 2 January 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 +13 260 £550 -1.79% 98
UK excluding London -64 162 £550 -0.18% 76
London +32 93 £615 +7.89% 28
Work from Home +7 80 £700 +20.27% 52
South East +4 62 £600 - 28
South West -38 39 £550 - 17
Midlands -11 36 £400 -17.95% 9
West Midlands -11 36 £400 -17.95% 6
North of England -36 17 £489 -32.62% 16
North West -25 9 £500 +2.56% 8
Yorkshire -47 8 £487 -32.83% 8
Scotland -19 6 £650 +48.57%
East of England -16 3 £550 - 11
Wales -2 1 £550 +20.22% 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 37 (13.17%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (4.98%) SharePoint
3 9 (3.20%) Confluence
4 7 (2.49%) IIS
5 6 (2.14%) Skype for Business
6 4 (1.42%) SharePoint Server
7 3 (1.07%) Exchange Server 2010
7 3 (1.07%) nginx
8 1 (0.36%) Apache
8 1 (0.36%) JBoss
Applications
1 17 (6.05%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.71%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 50 (17.79%) AWS
2 49 (17.44%) Azure
3 28 (9.96%) IaaS
4 22 (7.83%) Microsoft 365
5 21 (7.47%) Entra ID
6 13 (4.63%) GitHub
7 11 (3.91%) AWS CloudFormation
8 10 (3.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 9 (3.20%) OpenShift
10 7 (2.49%) GCP
10 7 (2.49%) SaaS
11 6 (2.14%) Amazon ECS
11 6 (2.14%) AWS Fargate
12 5 (1.78%) AWS KMS
12 5 (1.78%) PaaS
13 4 (1.42%) Amazon EKS
13 4 (1.42%) Power Platform
14 3 (1.07%) Azure DevOps
14 3 (1.07%) Azure Key Vault
14 3 (1.07%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 57 (20.28%) DNS
2 55 (19.57%) Firewall
3 36 (12.81%) VPN
4 35 (12.46%) BGP
5 31 (11.03%) IPsec
6 27 (9.61%) WAN
7 24 (8.54%) DHCP
7 24 (8.54%) SSL
8 23 (8.19%) MPLS
9 22 (7.83%) Network Security
10 16 (5.69%) Skype
11 10 (3.56%) OSPF
11 10 (3.56%) TCP/IP
12 9 (3.20%) Junos
13 8 (2.85%) HTTPS
13 8 (2.85%) S/MIME
14 6 (2.14%) Kerberos
15 5 (1.78%) Internet
15 5 (1.78%) LAN
15 5 (1.78%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (3.91%) SQL Server
2 6 (2.14%) MongoDB
3 5 (1.78%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (1.42%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.36%) Amazon QuickSight
5 1 (0.36%) Redis
Development Applications
1 14 (4.98%) GitLab
1 14 (4.98%) JIRA
2 8 (2.85%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.42%) Terragrunt
4 3 (1.07%) Robot Framework
4 3 (1.07%) Sonatype Nexus
5 2 (0.71%) Git
6 1 (0.36%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.36%) CircleCI
6 1 (0.36%) JUnit
6 1 (0.36%) MSI
6 1 (0.36%) SpecFlow
General
1 53 (18.86%) Social Skills
2 51 (18.15%) Analytical Skills
3 33 (11.74%) Public Sector
4 22 (7.83%) Finance
5 14 (4.98%) Military
6 6 (2.14%) Banking
7 4 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.71%) Financial Institution
8 2 (0.71%) Legal
8 2 (0.71%) Local Government
9 1 (0.36%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.36%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.36%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.36%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.36%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 84 (29.89%) Architect
2 31 (11.03%) Senior
3 26 (9.25%) Support Engineer
4 25 (8.90%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 22 (7.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 20 (7.12%) 3rd Line Support
7 19 (6.76%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 17 (6.05%) Network Engineer
9 16 (5.69%) Wintel Engineer
10 15 (5.34%) Administrator
10 15 (5.34%) Platform Manager
10 15 (5.34%) Security Architect
10 15 (5.34%) Systems Administrator
10 15 (5.34%) Systems Manager
10 15 (5.34%) Wintel Administrator
10 15 (5.34%) Wintel Systems Administrator
11 12 (4.27%) Lead
11 12 (4.27%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 10 (3.56%) 2nd Line Engineer
12 10 (3.56%) WAN Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (11.03%) REST
2 28 (9.96%) JSON
3 16 (5.69%) OpenID
4 11 (3.91%) OAuth
4 11 (3.91%) SAML
5 10 (3.56%) OAuth2
6 7 (2.49%) Kafka
7 6 (2.14%) cloud-init
7 6 (2.14%) Elastic Stack
7 6 (2.14%) Keycloak
7 6 (2.14%) LDAP
8 4 (1.42%) AWS CDK
9 3 (1.07%) .NET
9 3 (1.07%) JDBC
9 3 (1.07%) SOAP
10 2 (0.71%) CSS
10 2 (0.71%) HTML
10 2 (0.71%) Microsoft Graph
10 2 (0.71%) ModSecurity
11 1 (0.36%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 30 (10.68%) Self-Motivation
2 13 (4.63%) Algorithms
3 12 (4.27%) Fat Client
3 12 (4.27%) Thin Client
4 10 (3.56%) Data Centre
5 8 (2.85%) Private Cloud
6 7 (2.49%) Management Information System
7 5 (1.78%) Legacy Applications
7 5 (1.78%) Public Cloud
7 5 (1.78%) Replication
8 4 (1.42%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.42%) Security Operations Centre
8 4 (1.42%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.42%) Smartcard
9 3 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (1.07%) Cloud Native
9 3 (1.07%) Clustering
9 3 (1.07%) Cyber Defence
9 3 (1.07%) Enterprise Storage
9 3 (1.07%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 91 (32.38%) Windows
2 49 (17.44%) Linux
3 43 (15.30%) Windows Server
4 13 (4.63%) Windows 10
5 10 (3.56%) Windows 7
6 9 (3.20%) CentOS
6 9 (3.20%) Windows Server 2012
7 8 (2.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (2.85%) Unix
8 5 (1.78%) Windows Server 2008
8 5 (1.78%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (1.78%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (1.07%) VMS
10 2 (0.71%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.36%) Android
11 1 (0.36%) Solaris
11 1 (0.36%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (29.18%) Agile
2 67 (23.84%) Key Management
3 37 (13.17%) Change Management
3 37 (13.17%) CI/CD
3 37 (13.17%) ITIL
4 32 (11.39%) Problem-Solving
5 30 (10.68%) Configuration Management
5 30 (10.68%) DevOps
6 29 (10.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 27 (9.61%) Cryptography
7 27 (9.61%) Cybersecurity
8 25 (8.90%) Containerisation
8 25 (8.90%) Service Management
9 24 (8.54%) Incident Response
9 24 (8.54%) Information Security
9 24 (8.54%) Infrastructure as Code
10 23 (8.19%) Identity Access Management
10 23 (8.19%) Platform Engineering
10 23 (8.19%) SIEM
11 22 (7.83%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 73 (25.98%) PowerShell
2 45 (16.01%) Python
3 23 (8.19%) Bash
4 20 (7.12%) SQL
5 6 (2.14%) Go
5 6 (2.14%) JavaScript
5 6 (2.14%) Perl
5 6 (2.14%) Shell Script
6 5 (1.78%) C++
6 5 (1.78%) Java
7 1 (0.36%) Bicep
7 1 (0.36%) C
7 1 (0.36%) C#
7 1 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 194 (69.04%) Security Cleared
2 102 (36.30%) SC Cleared
3 86 (30.60%) DV Cleared
4 35 (12.46%) Degree
5 25 (8.90%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (7.83%) CISSP
7 19 (6.76%) Cisco Certification
8 16 (5.69%) CISM
9 14 (4.98%) CCNP
10 12 (4.27%) MCSE
11 10 (3.56%) Computer Science Degree
12 8 (2.85%) Master's Degree
13 7 (2.49%) ITIL Certification
14 6 (2.14%) AWS Certification
14 6 (2.14%) CCNA
14 6 (2.14%) IISP
14 6 (2.14%) ISACA
14 6 (2.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 5 (1.78%) JNCIA
15 5 (1.78%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.69%) NCSC
2 15 (5.34%) NIST
2 15 (5.34%) PCI DSS
3 11 (3.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (3.56%) GDPR
5 5 (1.78%) FIPS 140-2
6 4 (1.42%) SLA
7 2 (0.71%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.71%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.71%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.71%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.71%) RMADS
7 2 (0.71%) SOC 1
8 1 (0.36%) COBIT
8 1 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.36%) GxP
8 1 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.36%) PMO
8 1 (0.36%) PSD2
System Software
1 83 (29.54%) Active Directory
2 41 (14.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (6.76%) Docker
4 13 (4.63%) Firmware
5 11 (3.91%) VMware NSX
6 10 (3.56%) Hyper-V
7 9 (3.20%) vSphere
8 8 (2.85%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (1.78%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (1.78%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (1.42%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (1.07%) BitLocker
11 3 (1.07%) Sendmail
12 2 (0.71%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 2 (0.71%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.36%) NFS
13 1 (0.36%) Squid
13 1 (0.36%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 30 (10.68%) Kubernetes
1 30 (10.68%) Terraform
2 28 (9.96%) Ansible
3 20 (7.12%) Single Sign-On
4 18 (6.41%) vCenter Server
5 14 (4.98%) WSUS
6 13 (4.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (4.63%) Microsoft Intune
7 12 (4.27%) SCCM
8 11 (3.91%) WMI
9 9 (3.20%) SCOM
10 7 (2.49%) Grafana
10 7 (2.49%) Prometheus
11 6 (2.14%) Jamf Pro
11 6 (2.14%) Packer
12 4 (1.42%) Podman
12 4 (1.42%) QRadar
13 3 (1.07%) FortiGate
13 3 (1.07%) OPNET
13 3 (1.07%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 93 (33.10%) Microsoft
2 62 (22.06%) VMware
3 36 (12.81%) Cisco
4 35 (12.46%) Juniper
5 25 (8.90%) Splunk
6 15 (5.34%) SolarWinds
7 14 (4.98%) Veeam
8 12 (4.27%) Thales
9 8 (2.85%) Palo Alto
10 7 (2.49%) Dell
11 6 (2.14%) Broadcom
11 6 (2.14%) Citrix
11 6 (2.14%) Fortinet
11 6 (2.14%) Google
11 6 (2.14%) Okta
11 6 (2.14%) ServiceNow
12 5 (1.78%) CyberArk
12 5 (1.78%) Red Hat
13 4 (1.42%) Aruba
13 4 (1.42%) CheckPoint