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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 383 341 204
Rank change year-on-year -42 -137 +104
Contract jobs citing PKI 262 187 485
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.54% 0.64% 1.14%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.70% 1.89% 3.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 178 143 342
10th Percentile £414 £421 £363
25th Percentile £463 £506 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £568 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.08% +3.18% -4.35%
75th Percentile £642 £617 £625
90th Percentile £725 £700 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -2.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 3
10th Percentile £47.22 - -
25th Percentile £56.01 - -
Median hourly rate £71.33 - £23.80
75th Percentile £72.27 - £32.03
90th Percentile £72.43 - £36.96
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 15,414 9,893 12,931
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.95% 33.99% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,564 6,299 8,335
10th Percentile £313 £300 £268
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £663
90th Percentile £743 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.11% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 729 396 900
10th Percentile £16.00 £16.24 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.64 £20.45 £15.17
Median hourly rate £41.94 £31.76 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +32.05% +0.83% +41.51%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.40 £82.85 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.00 £30.39 £30.00
% change year-on-year +51.37% +1.30% +36.36%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 21 May 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 -50 222 £550 -4.35% 63
UK excluding London -45 172 £550 - 52
South East +5 97 £600 +4.35% 30
London -46 61 £550 -5.98% 20
Work from Home -52 55 £555 +1.83% 26
North of England -49 29 £482 -2.03% 4
Scotland +12 18 £540 +0.93% 2
North West -28 17 £422 -14.33% 2
South West -57 15 £540 -6.09% 2
Midlands -63 13 £450 +5.88% 9
West Midlands -63 13 £450 +5.88% 4
Yorkshire -41 12 £482 -33.52% 2
East of England -24 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 8 (3.05%) SharePoint
2 7 (2.67%) Confluence
2 7 (2.67%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (2.29%) IIS
4 3 (1.15%) Apache
4 3 (1.15%) nginx
4 3 (1.15%) Tomcat
4 3 (1.15%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.38%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 3 (1.15%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 9 (3.44%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.38%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.38%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 72 (27.48%) Azure
2 62 (23.66%) AWS
3 34 (12.98%) Entra ID
4 25 (9.54%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (5.73%) GCP
6 14 (5.34%) Power Platform
7 10 (3.82%) OpenShift
8 9 (3.44%) Azure Key Vault
9 8 (3.05%) AWS KMS
10 7 (2.67%) IaaS
10 7 (2.67%) PaaS
11 6 (2.29%) Amazon EKS
12 5 (1.91%) Azure DevOps
13 4 (1.53%) SaaS
13 4 (1.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 3 (1.15%) GitHub
14 3 (1.15%) Route 53
15 2 (0.76%) OneDrive
16 1 (0.38%) Google Workspace
16 1 (0.38%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 65 (24.81%) DNS
2 60 (22.90%) Firewall
3 40 (15.27%) DHCP
4 39 (14.89%) BGP
5 33 (12.60%) WAN
6 31 (11.83%) VPN
7 29 (11.07%) LAN
7 29 (11.07%) OSPF
8 26 (9.92%) Ethernet VPN
8 26 (9.92%) Network Security
8 26 (9.92%) VXLAN
9 25 (9.54%) BIG-IP
9 25 (9.54%) Cisco ISE
10 24 (9.16%) Junos
11 20 (7.63%) SSL
12 10 (3.82%) MPLS
13 8 (3.05%) SMTP
13 8 (3.05%) TACACS
14 7 (2.67%) IPsec
14 7 (2.67%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (3.82%) Elasticsearch
1 10 (3.82%) SQL Server
2 9 (3.44%) Power BI
3 3 (1.15%) MongoDB
3 3 (1.15%) MySQL
4 2 (0.76%) Metadata
4 2 (0.76%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.38%) Amazon QuickSight
5 1 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.38%) RDBMS
5 1 (0.38%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 10 (3.82%) GitLab
1 10 (3.82%) JIRA
2 7 (2.67%) Robot Framework
3 6 (2.29%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (1.53%) Git
4 4 (1.53%) Jenkins
5 3 (1.15%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.76%) MSI
7 1 (0.38%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.38%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.38%) Gatling
7 1 (0.38%) Gradle
7 1 (0.38%) JUnit
7 1 (0.38%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.38%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.38%) SonarQube
General
1 30 (11.45%) Social Skills
2 29 (11.07%) Finance
3 27 (10.31%) Public Sector
4 10 (3.82%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (2.29%) Banking
5 6 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (1.53%) Military
6 4 (1.53%) Retail
7 2 (0.76%) Financial Institution
7 2 (0.76%) Legal
7 2 (0.76%) Local Government
8 1 (0.38%) Back Office
8 1 (0.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.38%) Law
8 1 (0.38%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.38%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 43 (16.41%) Architect
2 41 (15.65%) Senior
3 36 (13.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 20 (7.63%) Network Engineer
5 18 (6.87%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 14 (5.34%) Firewall Specialist
6 14 (5.34%) Network Specialist
7 12 (4.58%) Security Engineer
7 12 (4.58%) Storage Engineer
7 12 (4.58%) Support Engineer
8 10 (3.82%) Senior Architect
8 10 (3.82%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 10 (3.82%) Senior Network Engineer
9 9 (3.44%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
9 9 (3.44%) DevOps Engineer
10 8 (3.05%) Lead
11 7 (2.67%) Administrator
11 7 (2.67%) Analyst
11 7 (2.67%) Linux Engineer
11 7 (2.67%) NetApp Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (12.21%) 802.1X
2 15 (5.73%) OpenID
3 14 (5.34%) LDAP
3 14 (5.34%) OAuth
3 14 (5.34%) SAML
4 13 (4.96%) REST
5 7 (2.67%) JSON
5 7 (2.67%) OAuth2
6 5 (1.91%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (1.53%) Elastic Stack
7 4 (1.53%) SailPoint
8 3 (1.15%) Kafka
9 2 (0.76%) CSS
9 2 (0.76%) eBPF
9 2 (0.76%) HTML
9 2 (0.76%) Keycloak
9 2 (0.76%) Loki
9 2 (0.76%) Microsoft Graph
9 2 (0.76%) SPIFFE
9 2 (0.76%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 41 (15.65%) Clustering
2 28 (10.69%) Data Centre
3 12 (4.58%) Enterprise Storage
4 11 (4.20%) Hybrid Cloud
5 10 (3.82%) Algorithms
5 10 (3.82%) Public Cloud
6 9 (3.44%) Onboarding
7 8 (3.05%) Cloud Native
8 6 (2.29%) Linux Command Line
8 6 (2.29%) Management Information System
8 6 (2.29%) Operational Technology
9 5 (1.91%) Smartcard
10 4 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
10 4 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
10 4 (1.53%) Private Cloud
11 3 (1.15%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (1.15%) Enterprise Cloud
11 3 (1.15%) Fat Client
11 3 (1.15%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 113 (43.13%) Windows
2 59 (22.52%) Linux
3 56 (21.37%) Windows Server
4 8 (3.05%) Ubuntu
5 7 (2.67%) Windows Server 2003
6 6 (2.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (2.29%) Windows Server 2019
7 5 (1.91%) Debian
8 4 (1.53%) Windows Server 2012
8 4 (1.53%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (1.15%) Unix
9 3 (1.15%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.76%) CentOS
11 1 (0.38%) Android
11 1 (0.38%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.38%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.38%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.38%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (28.24%) Identity Access Management
2 48 (18.32%) Agile
3 43 (16.41%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 41 (15.65%) High Availability
5 40 (15.27%) Cybersecurity
6 37 (14.12%) ITIL
6 37 (14.12%) Observability
7 35 (13.36%) Problem-Solving
8 34 (12.98%) Load Balancing
9 33 (12.60%) DevOps
9 33 (12.60%) Key Management
10 32 (12.21%) CI/CD
11 29 (11.07%) Zero Trust
12 26 (9.92%) Infrastructure as Code
13 24 (9.16%) Change Management
13 24 (9.16%) Service Management
14 23 (8.78%) ITSM
15 22 (8.40%) Migration
15 22 (8.40%) RBAC
15 22 (8.40%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 55 (20.99%) PowerShell
2 41 (15.65%) Python
3 15 (5.73%) SQL
4 11 (4.20%) Bash
4 11 (4.20%) JavaScript
5 8 (3.05%) C#
6 7 (2.67%) Java
7 4 (1.53%) PHP
8 3 (1.15%) C++
8 3 (1.15%) Go
9 1 (0.38%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 154 (58.78%) Security Cleared
2 94 (35.88%) DV Cleared
3 58 (22.14%) SC Cleared
4 30 (11.45%) Cisco Certification
5 20 (7.63%) CISSP
6 18 (6.87%) CISM
7 15 (5.73%) Degree
8 11 (4.20%) GIAC
9 8 (3.05%) CompTIA Security+
9 8 (3.05%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (2.67%) Azure Certification
10 7 (2.67%) CCNP
10 7 (2.67%) JNCIA
10 7 (2.67%) JNCIP
10 7 (2.67%) JNCIS
11 5 (1.91%) CCNA
12 4 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (1.53%) MCSE
12 4 (1.53%) Network+ Certification
12 4 (1.53%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (10.69%) NIST
2 21 (8.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (4.96%) NCSC
4 10 (3.82%) Cyber Essentials
5 7 (2.67%) PCI DSS
6 6 (2.29%) SLA
7 5 (1.91%) GDPR
7 5 (1.91%) QA
8 4 (1.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 3 (1.15%) RMADS
10 2 (0.76%) ISA99
10 2 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.76%) JSP 440
10 2 (0.76%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.38%) GMP
11 1 (0.38%) GRC
11 1 (0.38%) GxP
11 1 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.38%) SOC 2
System Software
1 79 (30.15%) Active Directory
2 44 (16.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (8.02%) Docker
4 17 (6.49%) Hyper-V
5 14 (5.34%) VMware ESXi
5 14 (5.34%) VMware NSX
6 9 (3.44%) BitLocker
7 8 (3.05%) Microsoft App-V
8 7 (2.67%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (1.91%) Firmware
10 3 (1.15%) KVM
10 3 (1.15%) vSphere
11 2 (0.76%) OpenSSH
11 2 (0.76%) XenApp
11 2 (0.76%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.38%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.38%) iptables
12 1 (0.38%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.38%) Squid
12 1 (0.38%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 46 (17.56%) Ansible
2 40 (15.27%) Terraform
3 39 (14.89%) Kubernetes
4 23 (8.78%) FortiGate
5 21 (8.02%) vCenter Server
6 19 (7.25%) Single Sign-On
7 13 (4.96%) Microsoft Intune
8 12 (4.58%) Prometheus
9 11 (4.20%) Grafana
9 11 (4.20%) Puppet
10 9 (3.44%) SCOM
11 8 (3.05%) vMotion
12 7 (2.67%) SCCM
13 6 (2.29%) WMI
14 5 (1.91%) Avamar
14 5 (1.91%) WSUS
15 4 (1.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 3 (1.15%) CA Single Sign-On
17 2 (0.76%) Failover Clustering
17 2 (0.76%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 72 (27.48%) Microsoft
2 66 (25.19%) VMware
3 51 (19.47%) Cisco
4 40 (15.27%) Splunk
5 30 (11.45%) Juniper
6 27 (10.31%) F5
7 26 (9.92%) SolarWinds
8 22 (8.40%) Extreme Networks
9 18 (6.87%) Citrix
10 15 (5.73%) Thales
11 14 (5.34%) Okta
11 14 (5.34%) ServiceNow
12 12 (4.58%) Palo Alto
13 10 (3.82%) NetApp
14 9 (3.44%) BeyondTrust
14 9 (3.44%) BMC
14 9 (3.44%) Remedy
15 8 (3.05%) ForeScout
16 7 (2.67%) Aruba
16 7 (2.67%) Dell