PKI Contracts

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 6 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 343 217 315
Rank change year-on-year -126 +98 +117
Contract jobs citing PKI 208 471 443
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.65% 1.09% 0.78%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.89% 3.59% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 164 331 318
10th Percentile £358 £363 £440
25th Percentile £472 £445 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £583
Median % change year-on-year - -5.66% +1.39%
75th Percentile £613 £608 £675
90th Percentile £687 £675 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 4
10th Percentile - - £29.10
25th Percentile - - £50.25
Median hourly rate - £23.80 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -63.38% -1.52%
75th Percentile - £27.91 £70.25
90th Percentile - £35.32 £77.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £38.50 £15.00
% change year-on-year - +156.67% -74.47%

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 11,019 13,114 18,625
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.60% 30.28% 32.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,823 8,318 12,820
10th Percentile £300 £281 £310
25th Percentile £406 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.42% -2.18% -
75th Percentile £650 £663 £678
90th Percentile £775 £800 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 510 908 571
10th Percentile £15.48 £12.25 £10.63
25th Percentile £18.87 £15.39 £12.56
Median hourly rate £30.25 £36.02 £25.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.02% +41.26% -5.49%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.00 £63.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £72.50 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £35.83 £27.00
% change year-on-year -16.26% +32.69% +25.58%

PKI
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing PKI as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for PKI in the UK

PKI
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing PKI.

Daily rate trend for PKI in the UK

PKI
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PKI over the 6 months to 6 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PKI in the UK

PKI
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing PKI.

Hourly rate trend for PKI in the UK

PKI
Top 14 Contract 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 6 July 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 -115 189 £550 - 92
UK excluding London -115 125 £550 - 74
Work from Home +6 65 £545 -9.92% 40
London +22 63 £575 +6.48% 25
South West -10 47 £575 +4.55% 15
South East -67 37 £575 -4.96% 21
Midlands -49 19 £383 +2.00% 9
West Midlands -53 18 £383 +2.00% 7
North of England +8 11 £492 -18.00% 12
North West +12 10 £492 -18.00% 8
Scotland 0 8 £535 -6.96% 8
East of England +27 4 £525 -19.23% 8
East Midlands - 1 - - 2
North East - 1 £350 - 1

PKI
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 32 (15.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 18 (8.65%) Confluence
3 17 (8.17%) Apache
4 10 (4.81%) IIS
5 8 (3.85%) Camunda
6 7 (3.37%) Skype for Business
7 6 (2.88%) Alfresco
7 6 (2.88%) SharePoint
8 5 (2.40%) JBoss
9 1 (0.48%) CMS
9 1 (0.48%) Tomcat
Applications
1 16 (7.69%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.44%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (1.92%) Dynamics GP
2 1 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 70 (33.65%) AWS
2 64 (30.77%) Azure
3 25 (12.02%) Entra ID
4 18 (8.65%) GCP
5 16 (7.69%) Microsoft 365
6 15 (7.21%) IaaS
6 15 (7.21%) PaaS
7 12 (5.77%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (4.33%) AWS KMS
8 9 (4.33%) OpenShift
9 8 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (3.85%) Azure Monitor
9 8 (3.85%) SaaS
10 7 (3.37%) Amazon EC2
11 6 (2.88%) Serverless
12 5 (2.40%) Cloud Computing
12 5 (2.40%) Power Platform
13 4 (1.92%) Route 53
13 4 (1.92%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 3 (1.44%) AWS CloudTrail
Communications & Networking
1 63 (30.29%) DNS
2 48 (23.08%) Firewall
3 42 (20.19%) VPN
4 36 (17.31%) DHCP
5 25 (12.02%) SSL
6 21 (10.10%) SMTP
7 20 (9.62%) Network Security
8 19 (9.13%) BGP
9 18 (8.65%) IPsec
10 16 (7.69%) MPLS
11 14 (6.73%) WAN
12 13 (6.25%) Unified Communications
13 12 (5.77%) Skype
14 8 (3.85%) TCP/IP
15 7 (3.37%) HTTPS
15 7 (3.37%) Wireless
16 6 (2.88%) Kerberos
17 5 (2.40%) NetScaler
17 5 (2.40%) Radio Access Network
18 4 (1.92%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (9.13%) MongoDB
2 15 (7.21%) MySQL
3 14 (6.73%) Amazon RDS
4 13 (6.25%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (5.29%) Relational Database
6 9 (4.33%) Big Data
6 9 (4.33%) Elasticsearch
6 9 (4.33%) SQL Server
7 5 (2.40%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.92%) GIS
9 3 (1.44%) Redis
10 2 (0.96%) Hadoop
11 1 (0.48%) Azure SQL Database
11 1 (0.48%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 18 (8.65%) JIRA
2 13 (6.25%) GitLab
3 12 (5.77%) JUnit
4 6 (2.88%) Jenkins
5 5 (2.40%) Gradle
5 5 (2.40%) Maven
6 4 (1.92%) Bitbucket
6 4 (1.92%) Git
6 4 (1.92%) MSI
6 4 (1.92%) Robot Framework
6 4 (1.92%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.48%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.48%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.48%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.48%) Postman
7 1 (0.48%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.48%) Terragrunt
General
1 44 (21.15%) Social Skills
2 39 (18.75%) Public Sector
3 25 (12.02%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (6.25%) Military
5 7 (3.37%) Finance
6 5 (2.40%) Telecoms
7 4 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (1.44%) Aerospace
8 3 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.48%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.48%) Legal
9 1 (0.48%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.48%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 28 (13.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 27 (12.98%) Architect
3 20 (9.62%) Senior
3 20 (9.62%) Support Engineer
4 19 (9.13%) Developer
5 17 (8.17%) Network Engineer
6 16 (7.69%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 11 (5.29%) Security Architect
8 10 (4.81%) 3rd Line Support
8 10 (4.81%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
8 10 (4.81%) Consultant
8 10 (4.81%) Lead
9 8 (3.85%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
9 8 (3.85%) Administrator
9 8 (3.85%) DevOps Engineer
9 8 (3.85%) ForgeRock Engineer
9 8 (3.85%) Full-Stack Developer
9 8 (3.85%) Wintel Engineer
10 7 (3.37%) 2nd Line Support
10 7 (3.37%) Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (7.21%) HTML
1 15 (7.21%) Kafka
1 15 (7.21%) Spring Boot
2 14 (6.73%) OAuth
2 14 (6.73%) Spring
3 13 (6.25%) OpenID
4 11 (5.29%) AngularJS
5 10 (4.81%) .NET
5 10 (4.81%) Keycloak
5 10 (4.81%) OAuth2
5 10 (4.81%) XML
6 9 (4.33%) SOAP
7 8 (3.85%) SAML
8 7 (3.37%) Hibernate
8 7 (3.37%) JPA
8 7 (3.37%) NETCONF
8 7 (3.37%) REST
8 7 (3.37%) RESTCONF
9 6 (2.88%) LDAP
9 6 (2.88%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 22 (10.58%) Data Centre
2 16 (7.69%) Clustering
3 9 (4.33%) Management Information System
3 9 (4.33%) Security Posture
4 8 (3.85%) Cyber Threat
5 7 (3.37%) Algorithms
5 7 (3.37%) Replication
5 7 (3.37%) Taxonomies
6 4 (1.92%) Cloud Native
6 4 (1.92%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.44%) Cyber Defence
8 2 (0.96%) CSOC
8 2 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (0.96%) N-Tier
8 2 (0.96%) Security Operations Centre
8 2 (0.96%) Smart Meter
9 1 (0.48%) Cyberattack
9 1 (0.48%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 84 (40.38%) Windows
2 63 (30.29%) Windows Server
3 38 (18.27%) Linux
4 13 (6.25%) Windows 10
5 12 (5.77%) Windows Server 2003
5 12 (5.77%) Windows Server 2012
6 11 (5.29%) Windows Server 2016
7 9 (4.33%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (3.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (2.40%) CentOS
10 3 (1.44%) Oracle Linux
10 3 (1.44%) Solaris
11 1 (0.48%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.48%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.48%) SUSE
11 1 (0.48%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.48%) Unix
11 1 (0.48%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (22.12%) Agile
2 45 (21.63%) DevOps
3 33 (15.87%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 30 (14.42%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (12.98%) Cybersecurity
6 26 (12.50%) Mentoring
6 26 (12.50%) Microservices
7 25 (12.02%) CI/CD
8 24 (11.54%) Identity Access Management
9 23 (11.06%) Cloud Security
10 21 (10.10%) Service Management
11 20 (9.62%) Cryptography
11 20 (9.62%) ITIL
12 18 (8.65%) High Availability
13 17 (8.17%) Information Security
14 16 (7.69%) Critical Thinking
15 15 (7.21%) Key Management
15 15 (7.21%) Migration
15 15 (7.21%) TDD
15 15 (7.21%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 57 (27.40%) PowerShell
2 32 (15.38%) Python
3 29 (13.94%) Java
4 23 (11.06%) SQL
5 15 (7.21%) JavaScript
6 7 (3.37%) Shell Script
7 6 (2.88%) C#
8 4 (1.92%) Bash
8 4 (1.92%) PHP
9 3 (1.44%) VB
10 2 (0.96%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.96%) Ruby
10 2 (0.96%) T-SQL
10 2 (0.96%) VBScript
11 1 (0.48%) Bicep
11 1 (0.48%) C++
11 1 (0.48%) Go
11 1 (0.48%) Perl
Qualifications
1 129 (62.02%) Security Cleared
2 81 (38.94%) SC Cleared
3 54 (25.96%) DV Cleared
4 42 (20.19%) Degree
5 19 (9.13%) Cisco Certification
6 14 (6.73%) Microsoft Certification
7 9 (4.33%) AWS Certification
7 9 (4.33%) CCNP
8 7 (3.37%) CISSP
8 7 (3.37%) MCSE
9 6 (2.88%) CISM
10 5 (2.40%) Azure Certification
10 5 (2.40%) CCIE
10 5 (2.40%) CRISC
11 4 (1.92%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 4 (1.92%) GIAC
11 4 (1.92%) SANS
12 3 (1.44%) CISA
12 3 (1.44%) ITIL Certification
12 3 (1.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (7.69%) NIST
2 13 (6.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (5.29%) NCSC
4 7 (3.37%) GDPR
5 5 (2.40%) SOC 2
6 4 (1.92%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (1.44%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.96%) COBIT
8 2 (0.96%) FIPS 140-2
8 2 (0.96%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.96%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 2 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (0.96%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.96%) QA
8 2 (0.96%) SLA
9 1 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.48%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.48%) JSP 440
System Software
1 83 (39.90%) Active Directory
2 40 (19.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (14.90%) Docker
4 28 (13.46%) Hyper-V
5 24 (11.54%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (4.81%) BitLocker
6 10 (4.81%) Microsoft App-V
6 10 (4.81%) Terminal Services
7 8 (3.85%) vSphere
8 7 (3.37%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (3.37%) Virtual Servers
9 6 (2.88%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (2.40%) XenApp
10 5 (2.40%) XenDesktop
11 4 (1.92%) Apache ZooKeeper
12 2 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
13 1 (0.48%) Firmware
13 1 (0.48%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 37 (17.79%) Kubernetes
2 36 (17.31%) Ansible
3 25 (12.02%) Terraform
4 19 (9.13%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (8.17%) Single Sign-On
5 17 (8.17%) WSUS
6 12 (5.77%) vCenter Server
7 11 (5.29%) Puppet
7 11 (5.29%) SCCM
8 10 (4.81%) vMotion
9 9 (4.33%) Nagios
10 6 (2.88%) Microsoft Clustering
11 4 (1.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (1.92%) Istio
11 4 (1.92%) OPNET
11 4 (1.92%) Progress Chef
11 4 (1.92%) WMI
12 3 (1.44%) Check_MK
12 3 (1.44%) Kibana
12 3 (1.44%) SCOM
Vendors
1 87 (41.83%) Microsoft
2 55 (26.44%) VMware
3 19 (9.13%) Cisco
4 16 (7.69%) Citrix
4 16 (7.69%) Google
5 15 (7.21%) HP
6 13 (6.25%) Atlassian
6 13 (6.25%) Juniper
7 10 (4.81%) ForgeRock
7 10 (4.81%) Symantec
8 9 (4.33%) Fortinet
9 8 (3.85%) Oracle
10 7 (3.37%) Dell
10 7 (3.37%) Ping Identity
10 7 (3.37%) Splunk
10 7 (3.37%) Veeam
11 6 (2.88%) Thales
12 5 (2.40%) Ericsson
12 5 (2.40%) IBM
12 5 (2.40%) Palo Alto