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

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 390 339 218
Rank change year-on-year -51 -121 +108
Contract jobs citing PKI 263 191 474
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.53% 0.65% 1.09%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.62% 1.90% 3.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 177 151 334
10th Percentile £413 £413 £363
25th Percentile £463 £500 £441
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -5.98%
75th Percentile £638 £626 £622
90th Percentile £720 £685 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 4
10th Percentile £47.22 - -
25th Percentile £56.01 - -
Median hourly rate £71.33 - £23.80
75th Percentile £72.27 - £27.91
90th Percentile £72.43 - £35.32
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 16,187 10,071 13,093
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.44% 34.29% 30.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,944 6,340 8,370
10th Percentile £314 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £650 £660
90th Percentile £750 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.21% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 812 430 937
10th Percentile £16.00 £15.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.87 £20.09 £15.39
Median hourly rate £41.97 £33.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.18% -5.71% +56.70%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.68 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.40 £82.25 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year +38.41% -9.26% +59.09%

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 11 June 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 11 June 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 11 June 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 -58 229 £550 -4.35% 58
UK excluding London -49 172 £550 -4.35% 54
South East -2 99 £600 +4.35% 31
London -56 69 £550 -5.17% 12
Work from Home -53 59 £560 +1.82% 24
North of England -55 30 £425 -13.62% 1
North West -29 21 £422 -14.33%
Scotland -2 18 £540 +0.93% 2
South West -54 13 £538 -8.12% 10
West Midlands -69 10 £400 -8.57% 2
Midlands -75 10 £400 -8.57% 4
Yorkshire - 9 £650 - 1
East of England -24 4 £400 -23.81% 3

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 11 (4.18%) SharePoint
2 10 (3.80%) Confluence
3 6 (2.28%) IIS
4 5 (1.90%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (1.14%) Apache
5 3 (1.14%) Tomcat
5 3 (1.14%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.38%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 4 (1.52%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 10 (3.80%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.38%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.38%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 80 (30.42%) Azure
2 59 (22.43%) AWS
3 41 (15.59%) Entra ID
4 21 (7.98%) Microsoft 365
5 18 (6.84%) GCP
6 17 (6.46%) Power Platform
7 10 (3.80%) Azure Key Vault
8 9 (3.42%) IaaS
9 8 (3.04%) PaaS
10 6 (2.28%) AWS KMS
10 6 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (1.52%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (1.52%) GitHub
11 4 (1.52%) OpenShift
11 4 (1.52%) SaaS
12 2 (0.76%) Azure Monitor
12 2 (0.76%) Azure Sentinel
12 2 (0.76%) GitHub Actions
12 2 (0.76%) OneDrive
12 2 (0.76%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 69 (26.24%) DNS
2 60 (22.81%) Firewall
3 49 (18.63%) DHCP
4 41 (15.59%) BGP
5 38 (14.45%) WAN
6 34 (12.93%) LAN
7 32 (12.17%) VPN
8 31 (11.79%) OSPF
9 28 (10.65%) Network Security
10 26 (9.89%) Ethernet VPN
10 26 (9.89%) VXLAN
11 25 (9.51%) BIG-IP
12 24 (9.13%) Cisco ISE
13 23 (8.75%) Junos
14 19 (7.22%) SSL
15 12 (4.56%) MPLS
16 10 (3.80%) Cisco ASA
16 10 (3.80%) IPsec
16 10 (3.80%) SSH
17 9 (3.42%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (5.32%) SQL Server
2 12 (4.56%) Power BI
3 8 (3.04%) Elasticsearch
4 5 (1.90%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (1.52%) MongoDB
5 4 (1.52%) MySQL
6 3 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.76%) Big Data
7 2 (0.76%) Metadata
7 2 (0.76%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.38%) Amazon QuickSight
8 1 (0.38%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.38%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 12 (4.56%) JIRA
2 9 (3.42%) GitLab
3 5 (1.90%) Git
3 5 (1.90%) Jenkins
3 5 (1.90%) Robot Framework
4 4 (1.52%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (1.14%) 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 32 (12.17%) Social Skills
2 31 (11.79%) Finance
3 29 (11.03%) Public Sector
4 11 (4.18%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (3.04%) Banking
5 8 (3.04%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (1.52%) Legal
6 4 (1.52%) Military
6 4 (1.52%) Retail
7 3 (1.14%) Local Government
8 2 (0.76%) Corporate Banking
8 2 (0.76%) Financial Institution
8 2 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.76%) Investment Banking
8 2 (0.76%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.38%) Back Office
9 1 (0.38%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.38%) Law
9 1 (0.38%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.38%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 47 (17.87%) Senior
2 39 (14.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 34 (12.93%) Architect
4 24 (9.13%) Network Engineer
5 19 (7.22%) 3rd Line Engineer
6 14 (5.32%) Firewall Specialist
6 14 (5.32%) Network Specialist
6 14 (5.32%) Storage Engineer
7 13 (4.94%) Senior Network Engineer
8 12 (4.56%) Security Engineer
8 12 (4.56%) Support Engineer
9 10 (3.80%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
9 10 (3.80%) DevOps Engineer
9 10 (3.80%) Senior Architect
9 10 (3.80%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 9 (3.42%) Lead
10 9 (3.42%) Linux Engineer
11 8 (3.04%) Analyst
12 7 (2.66%) VMware Engineer
13 6 (2.28%) NetApp Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (12.93%) 802.1X
2 18 (6.84%) OpenID
3 16 (6.08%) SAML
4 14 (5.32%) REST
5 13 (4.94%) LDAP
5 13 (4.94%) OAuth
6 7 (2.66%) JSON
6 7 (2.66%) RabbitMQ
7 6 (2.28%) OAuth2
8 4 (1.52%) Kafka
8 4 (1.52%) SailPoint
9 3 (1.14%) Keycloak
9 3 (1.14%) Microsoft Graph
9 3 (1.14%) SPIFFE
10 2 (0.76%) .NET Core
10 2 (0.76%) Blazor
10 2 (0.76%) CSS
10 2 (0.76%) eBPF
10 2 (0.76%) Loki
10 2 (0.76%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 44 (16.73%) Clustering
2 29 (11.03%) Data Centre
3 10 (3.80%) Algorithms
3 10 (3.80%) Enterprise Storage
3 10 (3.80%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (3.80%) Onboarding
4 9 (3.42%) Cloud Native
5 8 (3.04%) Linux Command Line
5 8 (3.04%) Public Cloud
6 7 (2.66%) Management Information System
7 6 (2.28%) Operational Technology
8 5 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.90%) Private Cloud
9 4 (1.52%) Enterprise Cloud
9 4 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.52%) Smartcard
10 3 (1.14%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.14%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.14%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 126 (47.91%) Windows
2 68 (25.86%) Linux
3 63 (23.95%) Windows Server
4 9 (3.42%) Ubuntu
5 7 (2.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (2.66%) Windows Server 2003
6 6 (2.28%) Debian
7 5 (1.90%) Windows Server 2019
8 4 (1.52%) Unix
8 4 (1.52%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (1.14%) Android
9 3 (1.14%) Apple iOS
9 3 (1.14%) Mac OS
9 3 (1.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.76%) CentOS
10 2 (0.76%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.38%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.38%) VMS
11 1 (0.38%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (27.00%) Identity Access Management
2 45 (17.11%) ITIL
3 44 (16.73%) Agile
4 43 (16.35%) High Availability
5 42 (15.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 40 (15.21%) Cybersecurity
7 37 (14.07%) Problem-Solving
8 36 (13.69%) Observability
9 32 (12.17%) DevOps
9 32 (12.17%) Load Balancing
10 31 (11.79%) Zero Trust
11 28 (10.65%) Infrastructure as Code
12 27 (10.27%) ITSM
12 27 (10.27%) Key Management
12 27 (10.27%) Service Management
13 26 (9.89%) CI/CD
14 25 (9.51%) RBAC
15 24 (9.13%) Cryptography
16 22 (8.37%) Change Management
17 21 (7.98%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 63 (23.95%) PowerShell
2 40 (15.21%) Python
3 13 (4.94%) SQL
4 12 (4.56%) JavaScript
5 9 (3.42%) Bash
6 8 (3.04%) C#
7 7 (2.66%) Java
8 4 (1.52%) PHP
9 3 (1.14%) C++
9 3 (1.14%) Go
10 2 (0.76%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 148 (56.27%) Security Cleared
2 94 (35.74%) DV Cleared
3 53 (20.15%) SC Cleared
4 32 (12.17%) Cisco Certification
5 19 (7.22%) Degree
6 13 (4.94%) CISSP
7 11 (4.18%) CISM
8 10 (3.80%) GIAC
8 10 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
9 9 (3.42%) CCNP
10 8 (3.04%) Azure Certification
10 8 (3.04%) CompTIA Security+
11 7 (2.66%) JNCIA
11 7 (2.66%) JNCIP
11 7 (2.66%) JNCIS
12 6 (2.28%) MCSE
13 5 (1.90%) CCNA
14 4 (1.52%) APMG
14 4 (1.52%) Network+ Certification
14 4 (1.52%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (11.79%) NIST
2 21 (7.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (4.94%) NCSC
4 10 (3.80%) Cyber Essentials
5 7 (2.66%) QA
6 6 (2.28%) SLA
7 5 (1.90%) PCI DSS
8 4 (1.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 4 (1.52%) GDPR
9 3 (1.14%) RMADS
10 2 (0.76%) Government Security Classifications
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%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.38%) GMP
11 1 (0.38%) GRC
11 1 (0.38%) GxP
11 1 (0.38%) SOC 2
System Software
1 84 (31.94%) Active Directory
2 51 (19.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (8.75%) Docker
4 18 (6.84%) Hyper-V
4 18 (6.84%) VMware NSX
5 16 (6.08%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (3.80%) BitLocker
7 9 (3.42%) Microsoft App-V
8 7 (2.66%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (2.28%) Firmware
10 3 (1.14%) KVM
10 3 (1.14%) Terminal Services
10 3 (1.14%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.76%) OpenSSH
11 2 (0.76%) vSphere
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%) Squid
Systems Management
1 45 (17.11%) Ansible
2 36 (13.69%) Kubernetes
2 36 (13.69%) Terraform
3 25 (9.51%) vCenter Server
4 23 (8.75%) FortiGate
4 23 (8.75%) Single Sign-On
5 17 (6.46%) Microsoft Intune
6 13 (4.94%) Puppet
7 12 (4.56%) SCOM
8 11 (4.18%) Prometheus
9 10 (3.80%) Grafana
10 9 (3.42%) vMotion
11 8 (3.04%) Avamar
11 8 (3.04%) SCCM
12 5 (1.90%) WMI
13 3 (1.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (1.14%) CA Single Sign-On
14 2 (0.76%) Cilium
14 2 (0.76%) Istio
14 2 (0.76%) PingFederate
Vendors
1 85 (32.32%) Microsoft
2 70 (26.62%) VMware
3 57 (21.67%) Cisco
4 36 (13.69%) Splunk
5 31 (11.79%) Juniper
6 29 (11.03%) F5
7 27 (10.27%) SolarWinds
8 22 (8.37%) Extreme Networks
8 22 (8.37%) ServiceNow
9 19 (7.22%) Citrix
9 19 (7.22%) Thales
10 15 (5.70%) Palo Alto
11 14 (5.32%) Okta
12 10 (3.80%) BMC
12 10 (3.80%) Dell
12 10 (3.80%) Remedy
13 9 (3.42%) NetApp
14 8 (3.04%) BeyondTrust
14 8 (3.04%) ForeScout
15 7 (2.66%) IBM