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 28 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 358 315 258
Rank change year-on-year -43 -57 +141
Contract jobs citing PKI 232 265 450
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.68% 0.72% 0.95%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.91% 2.36% 2.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 180 146 286
10th Percentile £350 £419 £400
25th Percentile £450 £469 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £579
Median % change year-on-year - -5.01% -3.50%
75th Percentile £638 £612 £675
90th Percentile £701 £675 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £538 £598
% change year-on-year +2.33% -10.04% +7.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 4
10th Percentile - - £44.94
25th Percentile - - £51.41
Median hourly rate - £23.80 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - -56.73% -14.73%
75th Percentile - - £55.35
90th Percentile - - £55.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £55.00
% change year-on-year - - -27.87%

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 12,125 11,246 15,165
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.75% 30.73% 32.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,458 6,680 10,280
10th Percentile £285 £277 £287
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £663 £673
90th Percentile £750 £800 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 656 355 493
10th Percentile £13.72 £16.94 £16.71
25th Percentile £18.00 £22.50 £21.00
Median hourly rate £26.64 £42.50 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year -37.32% -3.06% +64.38%
75th Percentile £51.25 £70.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.16 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £45.88
% change year-on-year -45.54% +0.65% +103.08%

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 28 October 2025.

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
Top 14 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 28 October 2025. 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 -11 217 £550 - 59
UK excluding London -85 141 £550 +2.33% 46
London +53 72 £585 +1.52% 23
Work from Home +9 63 £606 +4.92% 25
South West -18 50 £550 +2.33% 8
Midlands -9 37 £400 -27.27% 8
West Midlands -3 36 £400 -27.27% 7
South East -27 34 £600 +7.14% 22
North of England -31 11 £500 +5.26% 3
North West -16 10 £444 -6.58% 3
Scotland -33 8 £538 +2.38% 3
East of England -14 1 - - 2
Yorkshire - 1 £600 -
East Midlands - 1 - - 1

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 29 (12.50%) Microsoft Exchange
2 19 (8.19%) Confluence
3 13 (5.60%) SharePoint
4 12 (5.17%) Apache
5 10 (4.31%) IIS
6 7 (3.02%) Skype for Business
7 4 (1.72%) JBoss
7 4 (1.72%) SharePoint Server
8 2 (0.86%) Alfresco
8 2 (0.86%) Camunda
9 1 (0.43%) Tomcat
Applications
1 22 (9.48%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.29%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.86%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.86%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 45 (19.40%) Azure
2 39 (16.81%) AWS
3 21 (9.05%) Entra ID
4 17 (7.33%) Microsoft 365
5 13 (5.60%) GitHub
6 8 (3.45%) Amazon ECS
6 8 (3.45%) AWS CloudFormation
6 8 (3.45%) Azure Sentinel
6 8 (3.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 7 (3.02%) AWS Fargate
7 7 (3.02%) IaaS
8 5 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (2.16%) GCP
8 5 (2.16%) Serverless
9 4 (1.72%) Amazon S3
9 4 (1.72%) AWS KMS
9 4 (1.72%) Power Platform
10 3 (1.29%) Azure Key Vault
10 3 (1.29%) Nutanix
10 3 (1.29%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 53 (22.84%) DNS
2 41 (17.67%) BGP
2 41 (17.67%) Firewall
3 40 (17.24%) IPsec
4 39 (16.81%) VPN
5 31 (13.36%) MPLS
6 27 (11.64%) WAN
7 22 (9.48%) SSL
8 21 (9.05%) Network Security
9 17 (7.33%) DHCP
10 15 (6.47%) Skype
11 12 (5.17%) Unified Communications
12 9 (3.88%) HTTPS
13 8 (3.45%) OSPF
14 6 (2.59%) EIGRP
14 6 (2.59%) Junos
14 6 (2.59%) Kerberos
14 6 (2.59%) S/MIME
14 6 (2.59%) VSAN
15 5 (2.16%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (6.47%) SQL Server
2 10 (4.31%) MongoDB
3 5 (2.16%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (2.16%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.86%) MySQL
6 1 (0.43%) Power BI
6 1 (0.43%) Redis
Development Applications
1 19 (8.19%) JIRA
2 13 (5.60%) GitLab
3 8 (3.45%) Jenkins
4 5 (2.16%) MSI
4 5 (2.16%) Terragrunt
5 4 (1.72%) Git
5 4 (1.72%) Robot Framework
5 4 (1.72%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.86%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.86%) JUnit
6 2 (0.86%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.43%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.43%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.43%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.43%) Postman
General
1 51 (21.98%) Social Skills
2 39 (16.81%) Public Sector
3 34 (14.66%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (8.62%) Military
5 18 (7.76%) Finance
6 5 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.86%) Banking
9 1 (0.43%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.43%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.43%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.43%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 41 (17.67%) Architect
2 23 (9.91%) Senior
2 23 (9.91%) Support Engineer
3 22 (9.48%) 3rd Line Engineer
4 21 (9.05%) Network Engineer
5 17 (7.33%) 3rd Line Support
5 17 (7.33%) Lead
6 16 (6.90%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
6 16 (6.90%) Administrator
7 15 (6.47%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 15 (6.47%) Platform Manager
7 15 (6.47%) Security Architect
7 15 (6.47%) Systems Administrator
7 15 (6.47%) Systems Manager
7 15 (6.47%) Wintel Administrator
7 15 (6.47%) Wintel Systems Administrator
8 12 (5.17%) Wintel Engineer
9 10 (4.31%) 2nd Line Engineer
9 10 (4.31%) Consultant
9 10 (4.31%) WAN Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (5.60%) Kafka
1 13 (5.60%) REST
2 11 (4.74%) OAuth
2 11 (4.74%) OpenID
3 10 (4.31%) OAuth2
4 9 (3.88%) JSON
4 9 (3.88%) Keycloak
5 7 (3.02%) cloud-init
5 7 (3.02%) NETCONF
5 7 (3.02%) RESTCONF
5 7 (3.02%) SAML
6 5 (2.16%) LDAP
7 4 (1.72%) .NET
7 4 (1.72%) AngularJS
7 4 (1.72%) AWS CDK
7 4 (1.72%) YAML
8 3 (1.29%) HTML
8 3 (1.29%) JDBC
8 3 (1.29%) SOAP
8 3 (1.29%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 11 (4.74%) Data Centre
1 11 (4.74%) Self-Motivation
2 8 (3.45%) Algorithms
2 8 (3.45%) Fat Client
2 8 (3.45%) Management Information System
2 8 (3.45%) Thin Client
3 7 (3.02%) Replication
4 6 (2.59%) Security Operations Centre
5 5 (2.16%) Legacy Applications
5 5 (2.16%) Private Cloud
6 4 (1.72%) Cloud Native
6 4 (1.72%) Cyber Defence
6 4 (1.72%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.72%) Security Posture
7 3 (1.29%) Taxonomies
8 2 (0.86%) CSOC
8 2 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
8 2 (0.86%) Product Ownership
8 2 (0.86%) Smart Meter
8 2 (0.86%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 80 (34.48%) Windows
2 44 (18.97%) Linux
3 38 (16.38%) Windows Server
4 13 (5.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 13 (5.60%) Windows 10
5 12 (5.17%) CentOS
6 9 (3.88%) Unix
6 9 (3.88%) Windows Server 2019
7 7 (3.02%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (2.59%) Windows 7
9 5 (2.16%) Windows Server 2008
9 5 (2.16%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.86%) Solaris
10 2 (0.86%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.86%) VMS
11 1 (0.43%) Android
11 1 (0.43%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.43%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.43%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.43%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (26.29%) Agile
2 36 (15.52%) DevOps
3 29 (12.50%) Key Management
4 28 (12.07%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (11.64%) ITIL
5 27 (11.64%) Service Management
6 26 (11.21%) Cybersecurity
7 24 (10.34%) Change Management
8 23 (9.91%) CI/CD
8 23 (9.91%) Cryptography
9 22 (9.48%) Incident Response
10 21 (9.05%) Information Security
11 20 (8.62%) Containerisation
11 20 (8.62%) Identity Access Management
11 20 (8.62%) SIEM
12 19 (8.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 19 (8.19%) Load Balancing
13 18 (7.76%) Infrastructure as Code
13 18 (7.76%) Kalman Filter
14 17 (7.33%) Security Patching
Programming Languages
1 48 (20.69%) PowerShell
2 45 (19.40%) Python
3 17 (7.33%) Bash
4 16 (6.90%) SQL
5 9 (3.88%) Java
6 7 (3.02%) Go
7 6 (2.59%) C++
7 6 (2.59%) JavaScript
7 6 (2.59%) Perl
7 6 (2.59%) Shell Script
8 4 (1.72%) PHP
9 3 (1.29%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.86%) C#
11 1 (0.43%) Bicep
11 1 (0.43%) C
Qualifications
1 146 (62.93%) Security Cleared
2 83 (35.78%) SC Cleared
3 60 (25.86%) DV Cleared
4 33 (14.22%) Degree
5 25 (10.78%) Cisco Certification
6 20 (8.62%) CCNP
6 20 (8.62%) Microsoft Certification
7 12 (5.17%) CISSP
8 10 (4.31%) MCSE
9 9 (3.88%) ITIL Certification
10 7 (3.02%) Master's Degree
11 6 (2.59%) CCNA
11 6 (2.59%) IISP
11 6 (2.59%) ISACA
11 6 (2.59%) JNCIA
11 6 (2.59%) JNCIS
12 5 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
13 4 (1.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (1.72%) CISM
14 3 (1.29%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (8.19%) NIST
2 17 (7.33%) NCSC
3 11 (4.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (4.31%) PCI DSS
5 7 (3.02%) GDPR
6 5 (2.16%) FIPS 140-2
7 3 (1.29%) SOC 2
8 2 (0.86%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.86%) COBIT
8 2 (0.86%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.86%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (0.86%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.86%) QA
8 2 (0.86%) SLA
8 2 (0.86%) SOC 1
9 1 (0.43%) GxP
9 1 (0.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.43%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.43%) RMADS
System Software
1 64 (27.59%) Active Directory
2 40 (17.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (6.03%) Docker
3 14 (6.03%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (3.45%) Hyper-V
5 7 (3.02%) Firmware
5 7 (3.02%) VMware NSX
5 7 (3.02%) vSphere
6 6 (2.59%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (2.59%) Virtual Servers
7 5 (2.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 2 (0.86%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 1 (0.43%) NFS
Systems Management
1 29 (12.50%) Ansible
2 20 (8.62%) Terraform
3 19 (8.19%) Kubernetes
4 15 (6.47%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (5.60%) SCCM
6 12 (5.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 12 (5.17%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (4.74%) WMI
8 10 (4.31%) vCenter Server
9 9 (3.88%) WSUS
10 7 (3.02%) Jamf Pro
10 7 (3.02%) Packer
10 7 (3.02%) SCOM
11 6 (2.59%) Grafana
11 6 (2.59%) Prometheus
12 4 (1.72%) Podman
12 4 (1.72%) QRadar
13 3 (1.29%) Check_MK
13 3 (1.29%) OPNET
13 3 (1.29%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 82 (35.34%) Microsoft
2 58 (25.00%) VMware
3 40 (17.24%) Cisco
4 35 (15.09%) Juniper
5 26 (11.21%) Splunk
6 14 (6.03%) Veeam
7 10 (4.31%) SolarWinds
8 9 (3.88%) Atlassian
9 8 (3.45%) Fortinet
9 8 (3.45%) Okta
10 7 (3.02%) Dell
10 7 (3.02%) IBM
11 6 (2.59%) Oracle
11 6 (2.59%) Thales
12 5 (2.16%) Google
13 4 (1.72%) Palo Alto
13 4 (1.72%) Red Hat
13 4 (1.72%) Zscaler
14 3 (1.29%) McAfee
14 3 (1.29%) ServiceNow