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

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 321 333 232
Rank change year-on-year +12 -101 +93
Contract jobs citing PKI 285 208 471
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 0.68% 1.05%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.14% 2.06% 3.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 212 118 290
10th Percentile £400 £413 £402
25th Percentile £482 £492 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £590
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -2.54% -1.67%
75th Percentile £678 £649 £675
90th Percentile £838 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £560 £563
% change year-on-year -1.79% -0.44% +0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 5
10th Percentile £71.27 - £46.38
25th Percentile £74.91 - -
Median hourly rate £87.00 - £55.00
75th Percentile £98.75 - £56.40
90th Percentile £102.75 - £63.06
UK excluding London median hourly rate £87.00 - £55.00

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 13,332 10,080 13,785
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.87% 32.84% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,443 5,993 8,931
10th Percentile £269 £263 £256
25th Percentile £402 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £527
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.28% -4.27%
75th Percentile £625 £651 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 648 305 817
10th Percentile £15.24 £19.98 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £24.18 £16.54
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £32.12
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +8.98% +42.83%
75th Percentile £63.43 £66.00 £58.70
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.82 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £34.21
% change year-on-year -7.69% -5.00% +58.49%

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 10 February 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 10 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for PKI in the UK

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 10 February 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 +22 263 £550 -4.35% 67
UK excluding London -53 162 £550 -1.79% 54
London +30 96 £600 - 20
Work from Home -6 79 £700 +19.66% 22
South East +14 68 £600 - 32
South West -36 39 £550 - 6
West Midlands -28 31 £400 -16.67% 4
Midlands -36 31 £400 -16.67% 8
North of England -63 16 £482 -33.52% 5
Yorkshire -52 9 £485 -33.17% 4
North West -24 7 £379 -22.31% 1
Scotland -18 6 £650 +48.57% 1
East of England - 3 £550 - 3
Wales -5 1 £550 +20.22%

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 36 (12.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 15 (5.26%) SharePoint
3 8 (2.81%) Confluence
4 6 (2.11%) Skype for Business
5 4 (1.40%) SharePoint Server
6 3 (1.05%) Exchange Server 2010
6 3 (1.05%) nginx
7 1 (0.35%) Apache
7 1 (0.35%) IIS
7 1 (0.35%) JBoss
Applications
1 11 (3.86%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.70%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.35%) Cloudability
1 1 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 49 (17.19%) Azure
2 47 (16.49%) AWS
3 30 (10.53%) IaaS
4 25 (8.77%) Entra ID
5 22 (7.72%) Microsoft 365
6 11 (3.86%) GitHub
7 9 (3.16%) AWS CloudFormation
7 9 (3.16%) GCP
7 9 (3.16%) OpenShift
8 8 (2.81%) SaaS
8 8 (2.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 7 (2.46%) PaaS
10 5 (1.75%) AWS KMS
10 5 (1.75%) Power Platform
11 4 (1.40%) Amazon ECS
11 4 (1.40%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (1.40%) AWS Fargate
12 3 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
12 3 (1.05%) Power Automate
12 3 (1.05%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 59 (20.70%) DNS
1 59 (20.70%) Firewall
2 40 (14.04%) VPN
3 38 (13.33%) BGP
4 31 (10.88%) Network Security
5 27 (9.47%) IPsec
6 26 (9.12%) DHCP
6 26 (9.12%) MPLS
6 26 (9.12%) WAN
7 24 (8.42%) SSL
8 14 (4.91%) Skype
9 12 (4.21%) OSPF
9 12 (4.21%) TCP/IP
10 11 (3.86%) Cisco IOS
11 9 (3.16%) S/MIME
12 8 (2.81%) Cisco ASA
12 8 (2.81%) TACACS
13 7 (2.46%) HTTPS
13 7 (2.46%) LAN
14 6 (2.11%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (4.21%) SQL Server
2 7 (2.46%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (1.75%) MongoDB
4 4 (1.40%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.35%) Amazon QuickSight
5 1 (0.35%) MySQL
5 1 (0.35%) Power BI
5 1 (0.35%) RDBMS
5 1 (0.35%) Redis
5 1 (0.35%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 13 (4.56%) JIRA
2 12 (4.21%) GitLab
3 6 (2.11%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.40%) Robot Framework
4 4 (1.40%) Sonatype Nexus
4 4 (1.40%) Terragrunt
5 2 (0.70%) Git
6 1 (0.35%) CircleCI
6 1 (0.35%) JUnit
6 1 (0.35%) MSI
General
1 47 (16.49%) Analytical Skills
2 46 (16.14%) Social Skills
3 32 (11.23%) Public Sector
4 16 (5.61%) Finance
5 7 (2.46%) Banking
6 6 (2.11%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (2.11%) Military
7 4 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.70%) Financial Institution
8 2 (0.70%) Legal
8 2 (0.70%) Local Government
9 1 (0.35%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.35%) Back Office
9 1 (0.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.35%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.35%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 87 (30.53%) Architect
2 33 (11.58%) Senior
3 28 (9.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 24 (8.42%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 23 (8.07%) Support Engineer
6 17 (5.96%) 3rd Line Support
6 17 (5.96%) Wintel Engineer
7 16 (5.61%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
7 16 (5.61%) Network Engineer
8 13 (4.56%) Administrator
8 13 (4.56%) Platform Manager
8 13 (4.56%) Systems Administrator
8 13 (4.56%) Systems Manager
8 13 (4.56%) Wintel Administrator
8 13 (4.56%) Wintel Systems Administrator
9 12 (4.21%) Security Architect
9 12 (4.21%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 10 (3.51%) 2nd Line Engineer
10 10 (3.51%) Lead
10 10 (3.51%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (11.23%) REST
2 28 (9.82%) JSON
3 15 (5.26%) OpenID
4 12 (4.21%) LDAP
5 10 (3.51%) OAuth
5 10 (3.51%) SAML
6 9 (3.16%) OAuth2
7 6 (2.11%) Elastic Stack
7 6 (2.11%) Kafka
8 4 (1.40%) AWS CDK
8 4 (1.40%) cloud-init
8 4 (1.40%) Keycloak
9 3 (1.05%) CSS
9 3 (1.05%) HTML
9 3 (1.05%) JDBC
9 3 (1.05%) SOAP
10 2 (0.70%) .NET
10 2 (0.70%) 802.1X
10 2 (0.70%) eBPF
10 2 (0.70%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 28 (9.82%) Self-Motivation
2 13 (4.56%) Fat Client
2 13 (4.56%) Thin Client
3 11 (3.86%) Algorithms
4 9 (3.16%) Management Information System
5 7 (2.46%) Data Centre
5 7 (2.46%) Enterprise Storage
6 6 (2.11%) Private Cloud
7 5 (1.75%) Cloud Native
7 5 (1.75%) Clustering
7 5 (1.75%) Public Cloud
7 5 (1.75%) Replication
7 5 (1.75%) Smartcard
8 4 (1.40%) Legacy Applications
8 4 (1.40%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.40%) Security Operations Centre
8 4 (1.40%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.05%) Operational Technology
9 3 (1.05%) Taxonomies
10 2 (0.70%) CESG
Operating Systems
1 97 (34.04%) Windows
2 56 (19.65%) Linux
3 47 (16.49%) Windows Server
4 11 (3.86%) Windows 10
4 11 (3.86%) Windows 7
5 9 (3.16%) Windows Server 2012
6 7 (2.46%) CentOS
6 7 (2.46%) Ubuntu
6 7 (2.46%) Unix
7 6 (2.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (1.75%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (1.40%) Windows Server 2003
10 3 (1.05%) VMS
10 3 (1.05%) Windows Server 2008
10 3 (1.05%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.35%) Android
11 1 (0.35%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (27.02%) Agile
2 67 (23.51%) Key Management
3 35 (12.28%) Change Management
3 35 (12.28%) CI/CD
3 35 (12.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 33 (11.58%) Configuration Management
4 33 (11.58%) Cybersecurity
5 31 (10.88%) ITIL
6 30 (10.53%) Identity Access Management
7 29 (10.18%) DevOps
7 29 (10.18%) Problem-Solving
8 27 (9.47%) Incident Response
9 24 (8.42%) Containerisation
9 24 (8.42%) Platform Engineering
9 24 (8.42%) SIEM
10 23 (8.07%) Cryptography
10 23 (8.07%) Infrastructure as Code
10 23 (8.07%) Service Management
11 22 (7.72%) Security Architecture
12 20 (7.02%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 72 (25.26%) PowerShell
2 47 (16.49%) Python
3 20 (7.02%) SQL
4 19 (6.67%) Bash
5 7 (2.46%) C++
5 7 (2.46%) JavaScript
6 5 (1.75%) Go
6 5 (1.75%) Java
6 5 (1.75%) Perl
6 5 (1.75%) Shell Script
7 4 (1.40%) C#
7 4 (1.40%) PHP
8 1 (0.35%) Bicep
8 1 (0.35%) C
8 1 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 196 (68.77%) Security Cleared
2 105 (36.84%) SC Cleared
3 93 (32.63%) DV Cleared
4 30 (10.53%) Degree
5 25 (8.77%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (7.72%) CISSP
7 18 (6.32%) Cisco Certification
8 17 (5.96%) CISM
9 14 (4.91%) CCNP
10 12 (4.21%) MCSE
11 9 (3.16%) Computer Science Degree
12 8 (2.81%) GIAC
12 8 (2.81%) Master's Degree
13 7 (2.46%) ITIL Certification
14 6 (2.11%) AWS Certification
14 6 (2.11%) CCNA
14 6 (2.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 4 (1.40%) CompTIA Security+
15 4 (1.40%) JNCIA
15 4 (1.40%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (5.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 15 (5.26%) NIST
2 14 (4.91%) NCSC
3 9 (3.16%) PCI DSS
4 7 (2.46%) GDPR
5 5 (1.75%) Cyber Essentials
5 5 (1.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (1.40%) RMADS
6 4 (1.40%) SLA
7 3 (1.05%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.70%) FIPS 140-2
8 2 (0.70%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.70%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 2 (0.70%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.35%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.35%) PSD2
9 1 (0.35%) SOC 2
System Software
1 95 (33.33%) Active Directory
2 48 (16.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (7.37%) Docker
4 14 (4.91%) VMware ESXi
5 13 (4.56%) Hyper-V
6 11 (3.86%) Firmware
6 11 (3.86%) VMware NSX
7 9 (3.16%) vSphere
8 5 (1.75%) BitLocker
8 5 (1.75%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 5 (1.75%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (1.40%) Microsoft App-V
9 4 (1.40%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (1.05%) Sendmail
11 2 (0.70%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
12 1 (0.35%) KVM
12 1 (0.35%) NFS
12 1 (0.35%) Squid
12 1 (0.35%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 33 (11.58%) Ansible
1 33 (11.58%) Kubernetes
2 32 (11.23%) Terraform
3 24 (8.42%) vCenter Server
4 19 (6.67%) Single Sign-On
5 14 (4.91%) WSUS
6 13 (4.56%) Microsoft Intune
6 13 (4.56%) SCCM
6 13 (4.56%) SCOM
7 12 (4.21%) WMI
8 11 (3.86%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 9 (3.16%) Prometheus
10 8 (2.81%) Grafana
11 5 (1.75%) Puppet
12 4 (1.40%) Jamf Pro
12 4 (1.40%) Packer
12 4 (1.40%) Podman
12 4 (1.40%) QRadar
12 4 (1.40%) vMotion
13 3 (1.05%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 95 (33.33%) Microsoft
2 74 (25.96%) VMware
3 43 (15.09%) Cisco
4 31 (10.88%) Juniper
5 21 (7.37%) Splunk
6 15 (5.26%) SolarWinds
6 15 (5.26%) Veeam
7 12 (4.21%) Thales
8 10 (3.51%) Palo Alto
9 8 (2.81%) Citrix
9 8 (2.81%) Okta
10 7 (2.46%) Broadcom
10 7 (2.46%) Dell
10 7 (2.46%) Google
11 6 (2.11%) Fortinet
11 6 (2.11%) ServiceNow
12 5 (1.75%) Aruba
12 5 (1.75%) CheckPoint
12 5 (1.75%) CyberArk
12 5 (1.75%) Red Hat