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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 355 339 228
Rank change year-on-year -16 -111 +79
Contract jobs citing PKI 341 218 402
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 0.66% 1.04%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.90% 1.89% 3.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 246 170 289
10th Percentile £422 £358 £363
25th Percentile £463 £463 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £559 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.57% +3.95% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £608
90th Percentile £725 £694 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £540
% change year-on-year - +1.85% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 4
10th Percentile £91.60 - -
25th Percentile £97.41 - -
Median hourly rate £98.82 - £23.80
75th Percentile £99.41 - £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 17,986 11,532 11,788
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.61% 35.12% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,908 7,096 7,535
10th Percentile £322 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -5.45% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,025 568 588
10th Percentile £14.85 £15.13 £12.30
25th Percentile £19.33 £18.87 £18.33
Median hourly rate £41.00 £29.75 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.82% -33.89% +10.31%
75th Percentile £68.75 £57.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £76.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +46.53% -36.84% +13.77%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -64 281 £575 - 61
UK excluding London -28 232 £550 - 44
South East +4 98 £590 +2.61% 14
London -63 81 £600 - 17
Work from Home -47 79 £560 +1.82% 27
North of England -13 57 £500 +0.81% 12
North West -16 33 £525 +6.71% 6
Scotland +13 31 £481 -1.33% 1
South West -62 26 £697 +21.13% 10
Yorkshire -17 24 £500 -16.67% 5
Midlands -74 9 £475 +18.75% 4
West Midlands -73 8 £475 +18.75% 1
East of England -16 7 £500 -4.76% 3
Wales - 6 £463 -
East Midlands -17 1 £475 - 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 15 (4.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (3.23%) Confluence
2 11 (3.23%) SharePoint
3 7 (2.05%) IIS
4 4 (1.17%) Apache
5 3 (0.88%) Exchange Server 2010
5 3 (0.88%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.88%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.29%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.29%) nginx
Applications
1 4 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 12 (3.52%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.29%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 114 (33.43%) Azure
2 84 (24.63%) AWS
3 63 (18.48%) Entra ID
4 31 (9.09%) GCP
5 25 (7.33%) Microsoft 365
6 19 (5.57%) Power Platform
7 14 (4.11%) Azure Key Vault
8 12 (3.52%) IaaS
9 11 (3.23%) OpenShift
9 11 (3.23%) PaaS
10 8 (2.35%) SaaS
11 7 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
12 6 (1.76%) AWS KMS
12 6 (1.76%) GitHub
13 5 (1.47%) Amazon EKS
14 4 (1.17%) OCI
15 3 (0.88%) Azure Monitor
15 3 (0.88%) Azure Sentinel
15 3 (0.88%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 2 (0.59%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 106 (31.09%) DNS
2 85 (24.93%) Firewall
3 78 (22.87%) DHCP
4 41 (12.02%) VPN
5 34 (9.97%) TCP/IP
6 29 (8.50%) SSL
7 25 (7.33%) LAN
7 25 (7.33%) Network Security
8 24 (7.04%) BGP
8 24 (7.04%) WAN
9 20 (5.87%) OSPF
10 18 (5.28%) VSAN
11 17 (4.99%) IPsec
11 17 (4.99%) VLAN
12 15 (4.40%) Wireless
13 14 (4.11%) SSH
14 13 (3.81%) Cisco ASA
14 13 (3.81%) Cisco Firepower
15 12 (3.52%) Cisco ISE
15 12 (3.52%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (9.09%) SQL Server
2 14 (4.11%) Power BI
3 8 (2.35%) Elasticsearch
4 7 (2.05%) MySQL
4 7 (2.05%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.47%) Amazon RDS
5 5 (1.47%) MongoDB
5 5 (1.47%) Relational Database
6 4 (1.17%) Db2
7 3 (0.88%) Big Data
7 3 (0.88%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.59%) Metadata
8 2 (0.59%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.29%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.29%) MariaDB
9 1 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 17 (4.99%) Git
2 13 (3.81%) JIRA
3 9 (2.64%) GitLab
4 8 (2.35%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.88%) Robot Framework
5 3 (0.88%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.88%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.59%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.59%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.59%) Gatling
6 2 (0.59%) Gradle
6 2 (0.59%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.59%) MSI
6 2 (0.59%) REST Assured
6 2 (0.59%) SonarQube
General
1 63 (18.48%) Social Skills
2 44 (12.90%) Finance
3 30 (8.80%) Public Sector
4 28 (8.21%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (4.11%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (3.81%) Banking
7 6 (1.76%) Legal
8 5 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.47%) Police
8 5 (1.47%) Retail
9 4 (1.17%) Automotive
9 4 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.88%) Aerospace
10 3 (0.88%) Military
11 2 (0.59%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.59%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.59%) Law
11 2 (0.59%) Retail Banking
12 1 (0.29%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.29%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 74 (21.70%) Senior
2 56 (16.42%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 33 (9.68%) Architect
4 29 (8.50%) Network Engineer
5 27 (7.92%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 21 (6.16%) Platform Engineer
7 20 (5.87%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 20 (5.87%) Senior Network Engineer
7 20 (5.87%) Support Engineer
8 16 (4.69%) Lead
8 16 (4.69%) Storage Engineer
9 13 (3.81%) Consultant
10 12 (3.52%) DevOps Engineer
11 9 (2.64%) Firewall Specialist
11 9 (2.64%) Linux Engineer
11 9 (2.64%) Network Specialist
11 9 (2.64%) Senior Architect
11 9 (2.64%) Solutions Architect
12 8 (2.35%) Cloud Engineer
12 8 (2.35%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (18.77%) Terraform
2 27 (7.92%) LDAP
2 27 (7.92%) OpenID
3 26 (7.62%) 802.1X
4 25 (7.33%) SAML
5 19 (5.57%) OAuth
6 16 (4.69%) REST
7 10 (2.93%) .NET
8 9 (2.64%) OAuth2
9 8 (2.35%) .NET Framework
9 8 (2.35%) XML
10 7 (2.05%) JSON
10 7 (2.05%) Kafka
10 7 (2.05%) RabbitMQ
11 6 (1.76%) Keycloak
12 5 (1.47%) Middleware
12 5 (1.47%) Web Services
13 3 (0.88%) RESTful
13 3 (0.88%) Ruby on Rails
13 3 (0.88%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 42 (12.32%) Data Centre
2 39 (11.44%) Clustering
3 18 (5.28%) Cloud Native
4 17 (4.99%) Onboarding
5 16 (4.69%) Public Cloud
6 14 (4.11%) Hybrid Cloud
7 13 (3.81%) Distributed Systems
7 13 (3.81%) Linux Command Line
8 9 (2.64%) Enterprise Software
9 8 (2.35%) Enterprise Storage
9 8 (2.35%) Management Information System
9 8 (2.35%) Security Posture
9 8 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (2.05%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
12 5 (1.47%) Mainframe
12 5 (1.47%) Private Cloud
12 5 (1.47%) Robotics
12 5 (1.47%) Smartcard
13 4 (1.17%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 161 (47.21%) Windows
2 104 (30.50%) Linux
3 89 (26.10%) Windows Server
4 15 (4.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (3.52%) Unix
6 11 (3.23%) Ubuntu
7 10 (2.93%) Windows Server 2012
7 10 (2.93%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (2.05%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.76%) Debian
10 5 (1.47%) CentOS
11 4 (1.17%) Android
11 4 (1.17%) Windows Server 2003
12 3 (0.88%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.88%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.59%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.29%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.29%) VMS
14 1 (0.29%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (28.45%) Identity Access Management
2 66 (19.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 59 (17.30%) Infrastructure as Code
4 56 (16.42%) Cybersecurity
4 56 (16.42%) ITIL
5 55 (16.13%) Problem-Solving
6 53 (15.54%) High Availability
7 47 (13.78%) CI/CD
8 46 (13.49%) DevOps
9 45 (13.20%) Zero Trust
10 42 (12.32%) Technical Leadership
11 41 (12.02%) Agile
12 40 (11.73%) Continuous Improvement
13 39 (11.44%) Key Management
13 39 (11.44%) Stakeholder Management
14 38 (11.14%) Cryptography
15 35 (10.26%) Platform Engineering
16 34 (9.97%) DevSecOps
17 33 (9.68%) Change Management
18 32 (9.38%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 95 (27.86%) PowerShell
2 63 (18.48%) Python
3 33 (9.68%) Bash
4 16 (4.69%) SQL
5 13 (3.81%) C#
5 13 (3.81%) JavaScript
6 10 (2.93%) Java
7 3 (0.88%) Ruby
7 3 (0.88%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.59%) Go
9 1 (0.29%) Bicep
9 1 (0.29%) C++
Qualifications
1 169 (49.56%) Security Cleared
2 100 (29.33%) DV Cleared
3 75 (21.99%) SC Cleared
4 31 (9.09%) Cisco Certification
5 22 (6.45%) Degree
6 20 (5.87%) Microsoft Certification
7 18 (5.28%) CCNP
8 15 (4.40%) CISSP
9 14 (4.11%) Azure Certification
10 12 (3.52%) VCAP
11 11 (3.23%) MCSE
12 9 (2.64%) AWS Certification
13 7 (2.05%) CISM
14 6 (1.76%) GIAC
14 6 (1.76%) JNCIP
14 6 (1.76%) JNCIS
14 6 (1.76%) Master's Degree
15 5 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
15 5 (1.47%) ISTQB
15 5 (1.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (9.68%) NIST
2 22 (6.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 19 (5.57%) NCSC
4 14 (4.11%) SLA
5 9 (2.64%) QA
6 5 (1.47%) Cyber Essentials
6 5 (1.47%) GDPR
6 5 (1.47%) GRC
6 5 (1.47%) JSP 440
7 3 (0.88%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.88%) SOC 2
8 2 (0.59%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.59%) ISA99
8 2 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (0.59%) ITGC
8 2 (0.59%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.29%) GMP
9 1 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.29%) PSD2
System Software
1 157 (46.04%) Active Directory
2 72 (21.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 40 (11.73%) Docker
4 34 (9.97%) VMware NSX
5 33 (9.68%) Hyper-V
6 19 (5.57%) vSphere
7 11 (3.23%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (2.35%) BitLocker
8 8 (2.35%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (2.05%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (1.17%) Firmware
10 4 (1.17%) NFS
10 4 (1.17%) OpenSSH
10 4 (1.17%) Terminal Services
10 4 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.88%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.59%) KVM
12 2 (0.59%) XenApp
12 2 (0.59%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.29%) iptables
Systems Management
1 68 (19.94%) Kubernetes
2 63 (18.48%) Ansible
3 30 (8.80%) Single Sign-On
4 23 (6.74%) vCenter Server
5 20 (5.87%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (4.40%) VxRail
7 13 (3.81%) Avamar
7 13 (3.81%) SCOM
8 11 (3.23%) FortiGate
8 11 (3.23%) Puppet
9 8 (2.35%) Grafana
9 8 (2.35%) Istio
9 8 (2.35%) Prometheus
10 7 (2.05%) SCCM
10 7 (2.05%) vMotion
11 6 (1.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (1.76%) CA Single Sign-On
11 6 (1.76%) Kibana
12 5 (1.47%) Failover Clustering
12 5 (1.47%) WSUS
Vendors
1 138 (40.47%) Microsoft
2 90 (26.39%) VMware
3 52 (15.25%) Cisco
4 29 (8.50%) ServiceNow
4 29 (8.50%) Thales
5 23 (6.74%) Okta
5 23 (6.74%) Splunk
6 20 (5.87%) Juniper
7 18 (5.28%) BeyondTrust
7 18 (5.28%) SolarWinds
8 17 (4.99%) Citrix
9 16 (4.69%) F5
10 15 (4.40%) Dell
11 14 (4.11%) CyberArk
11 14 (4.11%) Palo Alto
12 13 (3.81%) Google
13 12 (3.52%) BMC
13 12 (3.52%) Remedy
14 11 (3.23%) Extreme Networks
14 11 (3.23%) NetApp