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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 340 336 292
Rank change year-on-year -4 -44 -19
Contract jobs citing PKI 374 223 279
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 0.68% 0.73%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.00% 1.88% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 264 177 176
10th Percentile £422 £352 £411
25th Percentile £463 £463 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £548
Median % change year-on-year - +0.46% -4.78%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £608
90th Percentile £700 £700 £674
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £545 £538
% change year-on-year +0.92% +1.40% -8.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 0 3
10th Percentile £85.00 - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £96.00 - £23.80
75th Percentile £98.82 - -
90th Percentile £100.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £96.00 - -

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 18,736 11,873 11,592
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.45% 35.97% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,178 7,277 6,954
10th Percentile £320 £299 £275
25th Percentile £425 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £527
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -1.28% -4.23%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £670
90th Percentile £750 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,289 615 422
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.78 £15.51
25th Percentile £17.72 £18.82 £22.50
Median hourly rate £36.00 £28.13 £49.75
Median % change year-on-year +28.00% -43.47% +11.17%
75th Percentile £67.50 £52.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £72.50 £75.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.91 £29.27 £57.35
% change year-on-year +22.69% -48.96% +13.09%

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 October 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 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for PKI in the UK

PKI
Top 16 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 October 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 -42 305 £575 +4.55% 233
UK excluding London -7 241 £550 +0.92% 120
London -49 104 £597 +2.05% 114
Work from Home -38 92 £570 +3.64% 97
South East -12 78 £575 - 36
North of England -17 67 £525 +6.71% 21
Scotland +20 41 £481 -12.55% 8
South West -51 36 £670 +21.82% 30
North West -23 34 £522 +6.10% 9
Yorkshire -4 31 £570 -5.00% 9
East of England -17 8 £610 +1.67% 8
Midlands -66 8 £475 +18.75% 13
West Midlands -72 7 £475 +18.75% 11
Wales - 6 £463 - 3
North East - 2 £426 - 3
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 18 (4.81%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (3.74%) Confluence
3 9 (2.41%) SharePoint
4 8 (2.14%) IIS
5 3 (0.80%) Apache
5 3 (0.80%) Exchange Server 2010
5 3 (0.80%) nginx
6 2 (0.53%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.53%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.27%) Traefik
Applications
1 4 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.27%) Gliffy
Business Applications
1 7 (1.87%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.27%) Dynamics GP
2 1 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 129 (34.49%) Azure
2 94 (25.13%) AWS
3 84 (22.46%) Entra ID
4 42 (11.23%) GCP
5 14 (3.74%) Microsoft 365
6 12 (3.21%) Azure Key Vault
6 12 (3.21%) Power Platform
7 11 (2.94%) GitHub
7 11 (2.94%) OpenShift
7 11 (2.94%) SaaS
8 9 (2.41%) Amazon EKS
8 9 (2.41%) IaaS
9 8 (2.14%) PaaS
10 7 (1.87%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.87%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (1.60%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (1.60%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 6 (1.60%) OCI
12 5 (1.34%) AWS KMS
12 5 (1.34%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 110 (29.41%) DNS
2 76 (20.32%) Firewall
3 75 (20.05%) DHCP
4 41 (10.96%) VPN
5 35 (9.36%) TCP/IP
6 33 (8.82%) SSL
7 27 (7.22%) Network Security
8 16 (4.28%) LAN
8 16 (4.28%) VLAN
9 15 (4.01%) IPsec
9 15 (4.01%) SSH
9 15 (4.01%) WAN
10 14 (3.74%) VSAN
10 14 (3.74%) Wireless
11 13 (3.48%) BGP
11 13 (3.48%) Cisco ASA
11 13 (3.48%) Cisco Firepower
11 13 (3.48%) SAN
11 13 (3.48%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (3.48%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.49%) SQL Server
2 10 (2.67%) MySQL
2 10 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (2.41%) Amazon RDS
3 9 (2.41%) Power BI
4 8 (2.14%) MongoDB
4 8 (2.14%) Relational Database
5 5 (1.34%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (1.07%) Db2
7 3 (0.80%) Big Data
7 3 (0.80%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.53%) MariaDB
8 2 (0.53%) Metadata
8 2 (0.53%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.27%) Amazon Aurora
9 1 (0.27%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.27%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 23 (6.15%) Git
2 20 (5.35%) GitLab
3 17 (4.55%) JIRA
4 16 (4.28%) Jenkins
5 5 (1.34%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.80%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.53%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.53%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.53%) Burp Suite
7 2 (0.53%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.53%) Gatling
7 2 (0.53%) Gradle
7 2 (0.53%) LoadRunner
7 2 (0.53%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.53%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.27%) MSI
8 1 (0.27%) Robot Framework
General
1 86 (22.99%) Social Skills
2 47 (12.57%) Finance
3 37 (9.89%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (7.75%) Public Sector
5 20 (5.35%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (4.81%) Banking
7 7 (1.87%) Military
8 6 (1.60%) Legal
8 6 (1.60%) Police
9 5 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.07%) Automotive
10 4 (1.07%) Law
11 3 (0.80%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.80%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.80%) Retail
12 2 (0.53%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.53%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.53%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.27%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 69 (18.45%) Senior
2 52 (13.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 43 (11.50%) Architect
4 27 (7.22%) Network Engineer
5 25 (6.68%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 24 (6.42%) Platform Engineer
7 20 (5.35%) Support Engineer
8 19 (5.08%) DevOps Engineer
9 18 (4.81%) Senior Network Engineer
10 17 (4.55%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 16 (4.28%) Consultant
12 15 (4.01%) Lead
12 15 (4.01%) Solutions Architect
13 14 (3.74%) Storage Engineer
14 12 (3.21%) Security Engineer
15 11 (2.94%) Active Directory Engineer
15 11 (2.94%) Security Architect
16 10 (2.67%) Cloud Engineer
17 8 (2.14%) Analyst
17 8 (2.14%) Integration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (19.52%) Terraform
2 32 (8.56%) OpenID
3 28 (7.49%) SAML
4 27 (7.22%) LDAP
5 24 (6.42%) OAuth
6 22 (5.88%) 802.1X
7 20 (5.35%) REST
8 16 (4.28%) Kafka
9 13 (3.48%) Keycloak
9 13 (3.48%) OAuth2
10 10 (2.67%) .NET
11 8 (2.14%) .NET Framework
11 8 (2.14%) FIDO
11 8 (2.14%) XML
12 7 (1.87%) RabbitMQ
12 7 (1.87%) WebAuthn
13 6 (1.60%) JSON
14 5 (1.34%) RESTful
14 5 (1.34%) SailPoint
14 5 (1.34%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 30 (8.02%) Data Centre
2 26 (6.95%) Clustering
3 25 (6.68%) Cloud Native
4 22 (5.88%) Onboarding
5 15 (4.01%) Distributed Systems
5 15 (4.01%) Public Cloud
6 14 (3.74%) Enterprise Software
7 13 (3.48%) Linux Command Line
7 13 (3.48%) Security Posture
8 11 (2.94%) Management Information System
8 11 (2.94%) Replication
9 10 (2.67%) Hybrid Cloud
9 10 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
10 8 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
11 6 (1.60%) Enterprise Storage
11 6 (1.60%) Operational Technology
11 6 (1.60%) Smartcard
12 5 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
12 5 (1.34%) Private Cloud
12 5 (1.34%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 163 (43.58%) Windows
2 113 (30.21%) Linux
3 93 (24.87%) Windows Server
4 15 (4.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (3.74%) Windows Server 2016
6 13 (3.48%) Ubuntu
6 13 (3.48%) Unix
7 9 (2.41%) Windows Server 2012
8 8 (2.14%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.60%) Android
10 5 (1.34%) Apple iOS
10 5 (1.34%) Debian
10 5 (1.34%) Mac OS
10 5 (1.34%) Windows 10
11 4 (1.07%) CentOS
12 2 (0.53%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.27%) VMS
13 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.27%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (25.94%) Identity Access Management
2 73 (19.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 69 (18.45%) Cybersecurity
3 69 (18.45%) Infrastructure as Code
4 65 (17.38%) DevOps
5 62 (16.58%) CI/CD
6 59 (15.78%) ITIL
7 58 (15.51%) Problem-Solving
8 53 (14.17%) Stakeholder Management
9 51 (13.64%) Zero Trust
10 49 (13.10%) High Availability
10 49 (13.10%) Key Management
10 49 (13.10%) Technical Leadership
11 45 (12.03%) Agile
12 44 (11.76%) Continuous Improvement
13 43 (11.50%) Platform Engineering
14 42 (11.23%) Mentoring
14 42 (11.23%) Secrets Management
15 40 (10.70%) Change Management
16 38 (10.16%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 109 (29.14%) PowerShell
2 84 (22.46%) Python
3 45 (12.03%) Bash
4 17 (4.55%) SQL
5 11 (2.94%) C#
6 10 (2.67%) Go
6 10 (2.67%) JavaScript
7 9 (2.41%) Java
8 3 (0.80%) C++
8 3 (0.80%) Ruby
9 2 (0.53%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.27%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 180 (48.13%) Security Cleared
2 100 (26.74%) DV Cleared
3 93 (24.87%) SC Cleared
4 23 (6.15%) Cisco Certification
4 23 (6.15%) Microsoft Certification
5 20 (5.35%) CISSP
5 20 (5.35%) Degree
6 18 (4.81%) Azure Certification
6 18 (4.81%) CCNP
7 13 (3.48%) AWS Certification
7 13 (3.48%) MCSE
8 12 (3.21%) VCAP
9 10 (2.67%) CISM
10 7 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (1.60%) GIAC
11 6 (1.60%) MCSA
12 5 (1.34%) ISTQB
12 5 (1.34%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 5 (1.34%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 5 (1.34%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (9.63%) NIST
2 26 (6.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (5.61%) NCSC
4 15 (4.01%) SLA
5 8 (2.14%) JSP 440
6 7 (1.87%) GRC
7 6 (1.60%) QA
8 5 (1.34%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.80%) GDPR
9 3 (0.80%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.53%) ITGC
10 2 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.27%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.27%) PSD2
System Software
1 184 (49.20%) Active Directory
2 75 (20.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 44 (11.76%) Docker
4 33 (8.82%) Hyper-V
5 28 (7.49%) VMware NSX
6 24 (6.42%) vSphere
7 15 (4.01%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (2.41%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (1.87%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (1.34%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (1.07%) NFS
11 4 (1.07%) OpenSSH
12 3 (0.80%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.80%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.80%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.80%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.80%) UAG
13 2 (0.53%) DFS Replication
13 2 (0.53%) Firmware
13 2 (0.53%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 84 (22.46%) Kubernetes
2 64 (17.11%) Ansible
3 37 (9.89%) Single Sign-On
4 23 (6.15%) vCenter Server
5 22 (5.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 19 (5.08%) VxRail
7 16 (4.28%) SCOM
8 15 (4.01%) Prometheus
9 14 (3.74%) Avamar
9 14 (3.74%) Grafana
9 14 (3.74%) SCCM
10 10 (2.67%) Istio
10 10 (2.67%) Puppet
10 10 (2.67%) WSUS
11 8 (2.14%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (1.60%) Kibana
13 5 (1.34%) McAfee ePO
13 5 (1.34%) Nessus
14 4 (1.07%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 4 (1.07%) Argo
Vendors
1 163 (43.58%) Microsoft
2 91 (24.33%) VMware
3 40 (10.70%) Cisco
4 30 (8.02%) Thales
5 25 (6.68%) ServiceNow
6 24 (6.42%) Okta
7 20 (5.35%) Dell
8 19 (5.08%) BeyondTrust
9 16 (4.28%) CyberArk
10 15 (4.01%) Citrix
10 15 (4.01%) Google
11 11 (2.94%) Fortinet
11 11 (2.94%) Palo Alto
12 10 (2.67%) CheckPoint
12 10 (2.67%) Juniper
13 9 (2.41%) SolarWinds
14 8 (2.14%) McAfee
14 8 (2.14%) NetApp
15 7 (1.87%) BMC
15 7 (1.87%) Remedy