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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 354 335 224
Rank change year-on-year -19 -111 +83
Contract jobs citing PKI 335 220 429
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.67% 1.09%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.88% 1.92% 3.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 234 169 312
10th Percentile £417 £364 £363
25th Percentile £463 £463 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £540
Median % change year-on-year - +1.85% -4.64%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £608
90th Percentile £705 £688 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 0 4
10th Percentile £64.80 - -
25th Percentile £72.54 - -
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

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 17,779 11,464 11,963
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.42% 34.84% 30.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,824 7,077 7,676
10th Percentile £320 £303 £300
25th Percentile £421 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £640 £675
90th Percentile £750 £771 £820
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 966 549 619
10th Percentile £15.61 £15.13 £12.30
25th Percentile £19.50 £18.87 £18.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £29.50 £44.74
Median % change year-on-year +49.02% -34.06% +11.85%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £65.88
90th Percentile £85.00 £76.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +46.53% -33.33% +1.12%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -66 277 £575 +2.91% 98
UK excluding London -18 229 £550 - 63
South East +1 109 £590 +2.61% 21
Work from Home -42 81 £550 - 35
London -41 80 £600 +2.56% 33
North of England -26 45 £500 +1.63% 18
Scotland +10 29 £481 -10.09% 1
South West -69 26 £670 +16.52% 15
North West -38 24 £418 -15.04% 9
Yorkshire - 21 £500 - 9
Midlands -68 12 £463 +8.82% 3
West Midlands -69 11 £450 +5.88% 1
Wales - 6 £463 -
East of England -15 4 £400 -23.81% 5
East Midlands -9 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 5 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 13 (3.88%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.30%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 106 (31.64%) Azure
2 82 (24.48%) AWS
3 60 (17.91%) Entra ID
4 28 (8.36%) GCP
5 27 (8.06%) Microsoft 365
6 20 (5.97%) 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 7 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (2.09%) SaaS
11 6 (1.79%) GitHub
12 5 (1.49%) Amazon EKS
12 5 (1.49%) AWS KMS
13 4 (1.19%) OCI
14 3 (0.90%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 2 (0.60%) Azure Monitor
15 2 (0.60%) Azure Sentinel
15 2 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 110 (32.84%) DNS
2 88 (26.27%) Firewall
3 82 (24.48%) DHCP
4 37 (11.04%) VPN
5 36 (10.75%) BGP
6 35 (10.45%) LAN
6 35 (10.45%) WAN
7 31 (9.25%) OSPF
8 30 (8.96%) TCP/IP
9 29 (8.66%) SSL
10 24 (7.16%) Ethernet VPN
10 24 (7.16%) VXLAN
11 23 (6.87%) BIG-IP
11 23 (6.87%) Junos
12 22 (6.57%) Cisco ISE
12 22 (6.57%) Network Security
13 17 (5.07%) VSAN
14 16 (4.78%) IPsec
15 14 (4.18%) VLAN
15 14 (4.18%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (8.36%) SQL Server
2 15 (4.48%) Power BI
3 9 (2.69%) 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 52 (15.52%) Social Skills
2 39 (11.64%) Finance
3 31 (9.25%) Public Sector
4 24 (7.16%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.99%) Banking
6 9 (2.69%) 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%) Law
13 1 (0.30%) Local Government
13 1 (0.30%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.30%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 75 (22.39%) Senior
2 53 (15.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 37 (11.04%) Architect
4 33 (9.85%) Network Engineer
5 24 (7.16%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 24 (7.16%) Senior Network Engineer
6 21 (6.27%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 19 (5.67%) Lead
7 19 (5.67%) Support Engineer
8 17 (5.07%) Platform Engineer
8 17 (5.07%) Storage Engineer
9 14 (4.18%) Firewall Specialist
9 14 (4.18%) Network Specialist
10 12 (3.58%) DevOps Engineer
11 11 (3.28%) Solutions Architect
12 10 (2.99%) Senior Architect
13 9 (2.69%) Linux Engineer
14 8 (2.39%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
14 8 (2.39%) VMware Engineer
15 7 (2.09%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (10.75%) 802.1X
2 28 (8.36%) OpenID
3 27 (8.06%) SAML
4 25 (7.46%) LDAP
5 21 (6.27%) OAuth
6 17 (5.07%) REST
7 11 (3.28%) OAuth2
8 9 (2.69%) .NET
9 7 (2.09%) .NET Framework
9 7 (2.09%) JSON
9 7 (2.09%) Kafka
9 7 (2.09%) RabbitMQ
9 7 (2.09%) XML
10 6 (1.79%) Keycloak
10 6 (1.79%) SailPoint
11 5 (1.49%) Web Services
12 4 (1.19%) Middleware
13 3 (0.90%) RESTful
13 3 (0.90%) Ruby on Rails
13 3 (0.90%) SPIFFE
Miscellaneous
1 50 (14.93%) Clustering
2 49 (14.63%) Data Centre
3 17 (5.07%) Cloud Native
4 16 (4.78%) Onboarding
5 15 (4.48%) Public Cloud
6 14 (4.18%) Hybrid Cloud
7 13 (3.88%) Linux Command Line
8 11 (3.28%) Distributed Systems
9 8 (2.39%) Security Posture
10 7 (2.09%) Enterprise Storage
10 7 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (2.09%) Management Information System
11 6 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
12 5 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
12 5 (1.49%) Mainframe
12 5 (1.49%) Operational Technology
12 5 (1.49%) Private Cloud
12 5 (1.49%) Robotics
12 5 (1.49%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 164 (48.96%) Windows
2 96 (28.66%) Linux
3 83 (24.78%) Windows Server
4 12 (3.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (2.99%) Unix
6 9 (2.69%) Ubuntu
7 8 (2.39%) Windows Server 2012
7 8 (2.39%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (2.09%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.79%) Debian
10 5 (1.49%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (1.19%) Android
12 3 (0.90%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.90%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.60%) CentOS
13 2 (0.60%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.30%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.30%) VMS
14 1 (0.30%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (31.34%) Identity Access Management
2 59 (17.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 58 (17.31%) High Availability
3 58 (17.31%) ITIL
4 55 (16.42%) Problem-Solving
5 54 (16.12%) Infrastructure as Code
6 52 (15.52%) Cybersecurity
7 47 (14.03%) DevOps
8 46 (13.73%) CI/CD
8 46 (13.73%) Zero Trust
9 43 (12.84%) Agile
10 41 (12.24%) Observability
11 36 (10.75%) ITSM
12 35 (10.45%) Continuous Improvement
13 34 (10.15%) Service Management
14 33 (9.85%) Technical Leadership
15 32 (9.55%) Cryptography
15 32 (9.55%) Load Balancing
16 31 (9.25%) DevSecOps
16 31 (9.25%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 89 (26.57%) PowerShell
2 60 (17.91%) Python
3 28 (8.36%) Bash
4 17 (5.07%) SQL
5 14 (4.18%) JavaScript
6 13 (3.88%) C#
7 10 (2.99%) Java
8 3 (0.90%) Ruby
9 2 (0.60%) Go
9 2 (0.60%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.30%) C++
10 1 (0.30%) PHP
Qualifications
1 170 (50.75%) Security Cleared
2 103 (30.75%) DV Cleared
3 69 (20.60%) SC Cleared
4 37 (11.04%) Cisco Certification
5 20 (5.97%) Degree
6 18 (5.37%) Microsoft Certification
7 16 (4.78%) CCNP
8 12 (3.58%) Azure Certification
9 11 (3.28%) CISSP
9 11 (3.28%) JNCIP
9 11 (3.28%) JNCIS
9 11 (3.28%) MCSE
10 10 (2.99%) VCAP
11 7 (2.09%) JNCIA
12 6 (1.79%) AWS Certification
13 5 (1.49%) CISM
13 5 (1.49%) CompTIA Security+
13 5 (1.49%) GIAC
13 5 (1.49%) Master's Degree
14 4 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (8.96%) NIST
2 19 (5.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 16 (4.78%) NCSC
4 14 (4.18%) SLA
5 10 (2.99%) QA
6 7 (2.09%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (1.49%) GDPR
8 3 (0.90%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.90%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.60%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.60%) HMG Security Policy Framework
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%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.60%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.30%) GRC
10 1 (0.30%) PSD2
System Software
1 140 (41.79%) Active Directory
2 69 (20.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 41 (12.24%) Docker
4 35 (10.45%) Hyper-V
5 33 (9.85%) VMware NSX
6 14 (4.18%) vSphere
7 11 (3.28%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (2.69%) BitLocker
9 8 (2.39%) Microsoft App-V
9 8 (2.39%) Virtual Machines
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%) KVM
11 3 (0.90%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.60%) XenApp
12 2 (0.60%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.30%) iptables
Systems Management
1 66 (19.70%) Kubernetes
2 62 (18.51%) Ansible
3 58 (17.31%) Terraform
4 30 (8.96%) Single Sign-On
5 25 (7.46%) vCenter Server
6 23 (6.87%) FortiGate
7 15 (4.48%) Microsoft Intune
8 13 (3.88%) Avamar
8 13 (3.88%) SCOM
8 13 (3.88%) VxRail
9 12 (3.58%) Puppet
10 9 (2.69%) Grafana
10 9 (2.69%) Prometheus
11 8 (2.39%) vMotion
12 7 (2.09%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (2.09%) CA Single Sign-On
12 7 (2.09%) SCCM
13 6 (1.79%) Istio
13 6 (1.79%) Kibana
14 5 (1.49%) WSUS
Vendors
1 124 (37.01%) Microsoft
2 87 (25.97%) VMware
3 61 (18.21%) Cisco
4 36 (10.75%) Splunk
5 33 (9.85%) Juniper
6 30 (8.96%) SolarWinds
7 28 (8.36%) ServiceNow
8 26 (7.76%) F5
9 23 (6.87%) Thales
10 22 (6.57%) Extreme Networks
10 22 (6.57%) Okta
11 18 (5.37%) Citrix
12 17 (5.07%) BeyondTrust
13 15 (4.48%) Dell
14 13 (3.88%) BMC
14 13 (3.88%) CyberArk
14 13 (3.88%) Palo Alto
14 13 (3.88%) Remedy
15 12 (3.58%) Google
16 10 (2.99%) NetApp