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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 368 344 246
Rank change year-on-year -24 -98 +34
Contract jobs citing PKI 344 223 359
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 0.68% 0.93%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.89% 1.91% 3.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 173 245
10th Percentile £419 £358 £368
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 £626 £600
90th Percentile £705 £695 £671
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £548 £538
% change year-on-year +0.46% +1.86% -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 - - -12.00%

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 18,177 11,653 11,682
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.72% 35.37% 30.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,979 7,178 7,359
10th Percentile £323 £300 £300
25th Percentile £423 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £519 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.20% -5.68% -
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 1,078 574 546
10th Percentile £14.65 £15.13 £12.98
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.87 £19.09
Median hourly rate £39.00 £29.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.20% -34.44% +3.75%
75th Percentile £68.54 £56.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year +46.53% -42.86% +16.67%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -55 282 £575 +4.55% 160
UK excluding London -19 231 £550 +0.46% 96
South East -11 91 £590 +2.61% 27
Work from Home -40 83 £555 +0.91% 52
London -60 83 £550 -8.33% 79
North of England -25 57 £510 +3.56% 20
North West -37 34 £525 +6.71% 10
Scotland +6 32 £481 -1.33% 2
South West -63 29 £670 +21.82% 25
Yorkshire -21 23 £500 -16.67% 10
East of England -18 9 £500 -4.76% 7
Midlands -68 9 £475 +18.75% 8
West Midlands -59 8 £475 +18.75% 4
Wales - 6 £463 - 2
East Midlands -14 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 16 (4.65%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (3.20%) Confluence
2 11 (3.20%) SharePoint
3 7 (2.03%) IIS
4 4 (1.16%) Apache
5 3 (0.87%) Exchange Server 2010
5 3 (0.87%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.87%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.29%) ArcGIS
6 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
1 116 (33.72%) Azure
2 85 (24.71%) AWS
3 66 (19.19%) Entra ID
4 33 (9.59%) GCP
5 24 (6.98%) Microsoft 365
6 17 (4.94%) Power Platform
7 14 (4.07%) Azure Key Vault
8 12 (3.49%) IaaS
9 11 (3.20%) OpenShift
9 11 (3.20%) 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
13 5 (1.45%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 5 (1.45%) OCI
14 4 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
15 3 (0.87%) Azure Monitor
15 3 (0.87%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 108 (31.40%) DNS
2 81 (23.55%) Firewall
3 77 (22.38%) DHCP
4 43 (12.50%) VPN
5 33 (9.59%) TCP/IP
6 29 (8.43%) SSL
7 26 (7.56%) Network Security
8 22 (6.40%) LAN
9 21 (6.10%) WAN
10 19 (5.52%) BGP
11 17 (4.94%) IPsec
11 17 (4.94%) OSPF
11 17 (4.94%) VLAN
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%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (2.33%) MySQL
3 8 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (1.74%) Amazon RDS
4 6 (1.74%) MongoDB
4 6 (1.74%) Relational Database
5 4 (1.16%) Db2
6 3 (0.87%) Big Data
6 3 (0.87%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.58%) Metadata
7 2 (0.58%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.29%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.29%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 17 (4.94%) Git
2 13 (3.78%) JIRA
3 12 (3.49%) 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%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.58%) SonarQube
General
1 67 (19.48%) Social Skills
2 41 (11.92%) Finance
3 30 (8.72%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (8.43%) Public Sector
5 16 (4.65%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (3.78%) 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%) Local Government
12 1 (0.29%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 72 (20.93%) Senior
2 59 (17.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 32 (9.30%) Architect
4 28 (8.14%) Network Engineer
4 28 (8.14%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 22 (6.40%) Platform Engineer
6 20 (5.81%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 20 (5.81%) Support Engineer
7 19 (5.52%) Senior Network Engineer
8 16 (4.65%) Consultant
8 16 (4.65%) Storage Engineer
9 14 (4.07%) DevOps Engineer
9 14 (4.07%) Lead
10 10 (2.91%) Active Directory Engineer
11 9 (2.62%) Cloud Engineer
11 9 (2.62%) Linux Engineer
11 9 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
12 8 (2.33%) VMware Engineer
13 7 (2.03%) Firewall Specialist
13 7 (2.03%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (18.90%) Terraform
2 30 (8.72%) LDAP
3 27 (7.85%) OpenID
4 25 (7.27%) 802.1X
4 25 (7.27%) SAML
5 19 (5.52%) OAuth
6 14 (4.07%) REST
7 10 (2.91%) .NET
7 10 (2.91%) Kafka
8 9 (2.62%) OAuth2
9 8 (2.33%) .NET Framework
9 8 (2.33%) Keycloak
9 8 (2.33%) XML
10 7 (2.03%) JSON
10 7 (2.03%) RabbitMQ
11 5 (1.45%) Middleware
12 4 (1.16%) SailPoint
12 4 (1.16%) Web Services
13 3 (0.87%) Microsoft Graph
13 3 (0.87%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 37 (10.76%) Data Centre
2 36 (10.47%) Clustering
3 19 (5.52%) Cloud Native
4 17 (4.94%) Onboarding
5 16 (4.65%) Public Cloud
6 13 (3.78%) Distributed Systems
6 13 (3.78%) Linux Command Line
7 12 (3.49%) Hybrid Cloud
8 10 (2.91%) Enterprise Storage
9 9 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
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%) Mainframe
12 5 (1.45%) Private Cloud
12 5 (1.45%) Robotics
12 5 (1.45%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 162 (47.09%) Windows
2 107 (31.10%) Linux
3 91 (26.45%) Windows Server
4 15 (4.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 13 (3.78%) Windows Server 2016
6 12 (3.49%) Ubuntu
6 12 (3.49%) Unix
7 10 (2.91%) Windows Server 2012
8 7 (2.03%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.74%) Debian
10 4 (1.16%) Android
10 4 (1.16%) CentOS
10 4 (1.16%) Windows Server 2003
11 3 (0.87%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.87%) Data ONTAP
11 3 (0.87%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.58%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.29%) VMS
13 1 (0.29%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (27.91%) Identity Access Management
2 71 (20.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 62 (18.02%) Infrastructure as Code
4 56 (16.28%) ITIL
4 56 (16.28%) Problem-Solving
5 54 (15.70%) Cybersecurity
6 53 (15.41%) High Availability
7 48 (13.95%) CI/CD
7 48 (13.95%) DevOps
8 45 (13.08%) Technical Leadership
8 45 (13.08%) Zero Trust
9 42 (12.21%) Key Management
10 41 (11.92%) Continuous Improvement
10 41 (11.92%) Stakeholder Management
11 38 (11.05%) Agile
12 37 (10.76%) Platform Engineering
13 35 (10.17%) Cryptography
14 34 (9.88%) Change Management
14 34 (9.88%) DevSecOps
14 34 (9.88%) Secrets Management
Programming Languages
1 95 (27.62%) PowerShell
2 63 (18.31%) Python
3 35 (10.17%) Bash
4 14 (4.07%) SQL
5 11 (3.20%) C#
5 11 (3.20%) JavaScript
6 10 (2.91%) Java
7 4 (1.16%) Go
8 3 (0.87%) Ruby
8 3 (0.87%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.29%) Bicep
9 1 (0.29%) C++
Qualifications
1 174 (50.58%) Security Cleared
2 101 (29.36%) DV Cleared
3 80 (23.26%) SC Cleared
4 28 (8.14%) Cisco Certification
5 22 (6.40%) Degree
6 21 (6.10%) Microsoft Certification
7 18 (5.23%) CCNP
8 15 (4.36%) CISSP
9 14 (4.07%) Azure Certification
10 12 (3.49%) VCAP
11 11 (3.20%) MCSE
12 9 (2.62%) AWS Certification
13 7 (2.03%) CISM
14 6 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
14 6 (1.74%) GIAC
14 6 (1.74%) Master's Degree
15 5 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
15 5 (1.45%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 5 (1.45%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 5 (1.45%) JNCIS
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%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.29%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.29%) PSD2
System Software
1 164 (47.67%) Active Directory
2 71 (20.64%) VMware Infrastructure
3 42 (12.21%) Docker
4 35 (10.17%) Hyper-V
5 31 (9.01%) VMware NSX
6 18 (5.23%) vSphere
7 11 (3.20%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (2.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (2.33%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (2.03%) 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%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 1 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 71 (20.64%) Kubernetes
2 64 (18.60%) Ansible
3 31 (9.01%) Single Sign-On
4 23 (6.69%) vCenter Server
5 22 (6.40%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (4.07%) VxRail
7 13 (3.78%) Avamar
7 13 (3.78%) SCOM
8 11 (3.20%) Grafana
8 11 (3.20%) Prometheus
8 11 (3.20%) Puppet
9 8 (2.33%) FortiGate
9 8 (2.33%) Istio
10 7 (2.03%) SCCM
10 7 (2.03%) vMotion
11 6 (1.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (1.74%) CA Single Sign-On
11 6 (1.74%) Kibana
11 6 (1.74%) WSUS
12 5 (1.45%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 145 (42.15%) Microsoft
2 87 (25.29%) VMware
3 50 (14.53%) Cisco
4 28 (8.14%) Thales
5 27 (7.85%) ServiceNow
6 24 (6.98%) Okta
7 19 (5.52%) BeyondTrust
7 19 (5.52%) Splunk
8 17 (4.94%) Citrix
8 17 (4.94%) Juniper
9 15 (4.36%) CyberArk
9 15 (4.36%) Google
9 15 (4.36%) SolarWinds
10 14 (4.07%) Dell
11 13 (3.78%) NetApp
12 12 (3.49%) F5
12 12 (3.49%) Palo Alto
13 10 (2.91%) BMC
13 10 (2.91%) CheckPoint
13 10 (2.91%) Remedy