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 23 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 352 343 293
Rank change year-on-year -9 -50 -24
Contract jobs citing PKI 368 218 294
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.67% 0.67% 0.78%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.97% 1.87% 2.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 174 198
10th Percentile £425 £351 £382
25th Percentile £463 £463 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £544
Median % change year-on-year - +1.15% -5.43%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £608
90th Percentile £700 £698 £673
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £540
% change year-on-year - +1.85% -6.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 0 4
10th Percentile £94.90 - -
25th Percentile £96.00 - -
Median hourly rate £97.41 - £23.80
75th Percentile £98.82 - £27.91
90th Percentile £100.00 - £35.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £97.41 - £38.50
% change year-on-year - - -30.00%

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 18,677 11,681 11,486
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.05% 35.73% 30.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,192 7,140 7,001
10th Percentile £322 £294 £294
25th Percentile £425 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £538
Median % change year-on-year +1.92% -4.26% -2.18%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £750 £806
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,219 589 449
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.00 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.99 £18.87 £22.40
Median hourly rate £37.50 £29.33 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.86% -41.34% +12.36%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.27 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.53 £30.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +28.42% -47.69% +14.70%

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 23 September 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 23 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for PKI in the UK

PKI
Top 16 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 23 September 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 -31 303 £570 +3.64% 225
UK excluding London -12 245 £550 - 132
London -61 95 £544 -7.05% 93
Work from Home -37 88 £570 +3.64% 102
South East -13 84 £575 - 36
North of England -24 68 £525 +6.71% 27
Scotland +11 38 £481 -12.55% 9
North West -26 36 £525 +6.71% 16
South West -48 36 £648 +17.73% 35
Yorkshire -16 30 £568 -5.42% 9
East of England -24 8 £500 -4.76% 9
Midlands -68 8 £475 +24.18% 13
West Midlands -59 7 £475 +24.18% 10
Wales - 6 £463 - 1
North East - 2 £426 - 2
East Midlands -19 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 18 (4.89%) Microsoft Exchange
2 16 (4.35%) Confluence
3 10 (2.72%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.63%) IIS
5 3 (0.82%) Apache
5 3 (0.82%) Exchange Server 2010
5 3 (0.82%) nginx
6 2 (0.54%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.54%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.27%) Traefik
Applications
1 4 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.27%) Gliffy
Business Applications
1 9 (2.45%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.27%) Dynamics GP
2 1 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 125 (33.97%) Azure
2 90 (24.46%) AWS
3 79 (21.47%) Entra ID
4 41 (11.14%) GCP
5 15 (4.08%) Power Platform
6 14 (3.80%) Azure Key Vault
6 14 (3.80%) Microsoft 365
7 11 (2.99%) GitHub
7 11 (2.99%) OpenShift
7 11 (2.99%) SaaS
8 10 (2.72%) IaaS
9 9 (2.45%) PaaS
10 7 (1.90%) Amazon EKS
10 7 (1.90%) AWS KMS
10 7 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.90%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (1.63%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (1.63%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 6 (1.63%) OCI
12 4 (1.09%) Rubrik
Communications & Networking
1 109 (29.62%) DNS
2 78 (21.20%) DHCP
2 78 (21.20%) Firewall
3 42 (11.41%) VPN
4 34 (9.24%) TCP/IP
5 31 (8.42%) SSL
6 27 (7.34%) Network Security
7 18 (4.89%) LAN
8 17 (4.62%) VLAN
8 17 (4.62%) WAN
9 15 (4.08%) BGP
9 15 (4.08%) IPsec
9 15 (4.08%) Wireless
10 14 (3.80%) SSH
10 14 (3.80%) VSAN
10 14 (3.80%) Wi-Fi
11 13 (3.53%) Cisco ASA
11 13 (3.53%) Cisco Firepower
11 13 (3.53%) Cisco Nexus
11 13 (3.53%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.61%) SQL Server
2 11 (2.99%) Power BI
3 9 (2.45%) MySQL
3 9 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (1.90%) MongoDB
5 6 (1.63%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (1.63%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.36%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (1.09%) Db2
7 4 (1.09%) Metadata
8 3 (0.82%) Big Data
8 3 (0.82%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.54%) MariaDB
9 2 (0.54%) RDBMS
10 1 (0.27%) Amazon Aurora
10 1 (0.27%) DynamoDB
10 1 (0.27%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 19 (5.16%) JIRA
2 17 (4.62%) Git
2 17 (4.62%) GitLab
3 13 (3.53%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.09%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.82%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.54%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.54%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.54%) Gatling
6 2 (0.54%) Gradle
6 2 (0.54%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.54%) MSI
6 2 (0.54%) REST Assured
6 2 (0.54%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.27%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.27%) Robot Framework
General
1 82 (22.28%) Social Skills
2 46 (12.50%) Finance
3 38 (10.33%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (7.61%) Public Sector
5 20 (5.43%) Documentation Skills
6 17 (4.62%) Banking
7 7 (1.90%) Military
8 6 (1.63%) Legal
8 6 (1.63%) Police
9 5 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.36%) Retail
10 4 (1.09%) Automotive
10 4 (1.09%) Law
11 3 (0.82%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.82%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.54%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.54%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.27%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 69 (18.75%) Senior
2 56 (15.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 44 (11.96%) Architect
4 27 (7.34%) Network Engineer
5 26 (7.07%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 25 (6.79%) Platform Engineer
7 20 (5.43%) Support Engineer
8 18 (4.89%) 3rd Line Engineer
8 18 (4.89%) Senior Network Engineer
9 16 (4.35%) Consultant
10 15 (4.08%) DevOps Engineer
10 15 (4.08%) Solutions Architect
10 15 (4.08%) Storage Engineer
11 14 (3.80%) Lead
12 11 (2.99%) Active Directory Engineer
13 10 (2.72%) Cloud Engineer
13 10 (2.72%) Security Architect
14 9 (2.45%) Linux Engineer
14 9 (2.45%) Security Engineer
15 8 (2.17%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (18.48%) Terraform
2 31 (8.42%) OpenID
3 29 (7.88%) LDAP
4 28 (7.61%) SAML
5 24 (6.52%) 802.1X
6 22 (5.98%) OAuth
7 18 (4.89%) REST
8 14 (3.80%) Kafka
9 13 (3.53%) OAuth2
10 12 (3.26%) Keycloak
11 10 (2.72%) .NET
12 8 (2.17%) .NET Framework
12 8 (2.17%) XML
13 7 (1.90%) RabbitMQ
14 6 (1.63%) FIDO
15 5 (1.36%) JSON
15 5 (1.36%) Middleware
15 5 (1.36%) SailPoint
15 5 (1.36%) WebAuthn
16 4 (1.09%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 32 (8.70%) Data Centre
2 31 (8.42%) Clustering
3 23 (6.25%) Cloud Native
4 19 (5.16%) Onboarding
5 16 (4.35%) Public Cloud
6 15 (4.08%) Distributed Systems
7 13 (3.53%) Linux Command Line
7 13 (3.53%) Security Posture
8 10 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
8 10 (2.72%) Management Information System
9 9 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
9 9 (2.45%) Hybrid Cloud
9 9 (2.45%) Replication
10 8 (2.17%) Enterprise Storage
10 8 (2.17%) Self-Motivation
11 6 (1.63%) Operational Technology
11 6 (1.63%) Private Cloud
11 6 (1.63%) Smartcard
12 5 (1.36%) Distributed Architecture
12 5 (1.36%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 166 (45.11%) Windows
2 111 (30.16%) Linux
3 95 (25.82%) Windows Server
4 14 (3.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 14 (3.80%) Windows Server 2016
5 13 (3.53%) Unix
6 12 (3.26%) Ubuntu
7 9 (2.45%) Windows Server 2012
8 8 (2.17%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.63%) Android
9 6 (1.63%) Debian
10 5 (1.36%) Apple iOS
10 5 (1.36%) Mac OS
10 5 (1.36%) Windows 10
11 4 (1.09%) CentOS
12 3 (0.82%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.54%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.27%) VMS
14 1 (0.27%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (27.17%) Identity Access Management
2 74 (20.11%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 64 (17.39%) Cybersecurity
3 64 (17.39%) Infrastructure as Code
4 61 (16.58%) Problem-Solving
5 60 (16.30%) ITIL
6 59 (16.03%) DevOps
7 55 (14.95%) High Availability
8 53 (14.40%) CI/CD
9 51 (13.86%) Stakeholder Management
9 51 (13.86%) Zero Trust
10 48 (13.04%) Key Management
10 48 (13.04%) Technical Leadership
11 45 (12.23%) Agile
12 43 (11.68%) Continuous Improvement
13 42 (11.41%) Platform Engineering
14 41 (11.14%) Secrets Management
15 40 (10.87%) Change Management
16 38 (10.33%) Mentoring
16 38 (10.33%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 103 (27.99%) PowerShell
2 72 (19.57%) Python
3 38 (10.33%) Bash
4 15 (4.08%) SQL
5 11 (2.99%) JavaScript
6 10 (2.72%) C#
6 10 (2.72%) Java
7 8 (2.17%) Go
8 3 (0.82%) Ruby
9 2 (0.54%) C++
9 2 (0.54%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.27%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 185 (50.27%) Security Cleared
2 103 (27.99%) DV Cleared
3 92 (25.00%) SC Cleared
4 26 (7.07%) Cisco Certification
5 21 (5.71%) Microsoft Certification
6 20 (5.43%) CISSP
6 20 (5.43%) Degree
7 19 (5.16%) Azure Certification
8 18 (4.89%) CCNP
9 13 (3.53%) AWS Certification
10 12 (3.26%) VCAP
11 11 (2.99%) MCSE
12 10 (2.72%) CISM
13 7 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
14 6 (1.63%) GIAC
14 6 (1.63%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 5 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
15 5 (1.36%) ISTQB
15 5 (1.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 5 (1.36%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (9.78%) NIST
2 28 (7.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (5.71%) NCSC
4 15 (4.08%) SLA
5 8 (2.17%) JSP 440
6 7 (1.90%) GRC
7 6 (1.63%) QA
8 5 (1.36%) GDPR
8 5 (1.36%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.82%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.54%) ITGC
10 2 (0.54%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.27%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.27%) PSD2
System Software
1 181 (49.18%) Active Directory
2 76 (20.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 40 (10.87%) Docker
4 33 (8.97%) Hyper-V
5 29 (7.88%) VMware NSX
6 22 (5.98%) vSphere
7 16 (4.35%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (1.90%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (1.90%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (1.36%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (1.09%) BitLocker
10 4 (1.09%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (1.09%) NFS
10 4 (1.09%) OpenSSH
11 3 (0.82%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.82%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.82%) UAG
12 2 (0.54%) Firmware
12 2 (0.54%) XenApp
12 2 (0.54%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 77 (20.92%) Kubernetes
2 62 (16.85%) Ansible
3 35 (9.51%) Single Sign-On
4 24 (6.52%) vCenter Server
5 23 (6.25%) Microsoft Intune
6 19 (5.16%) VxRail
7 16 (4.35%) SCOM
8 14 (3.80%) Avamar
9 13 (3.53%) Grafana
9 13 (3.53%) Prometheus
10 12 (3.26%) SCCM
11 9 (2.45%) Istio
11 9 (2.45%) Puppet
12 8 (2.17%) WSUS
13 6 (1.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (1.63%) CA Single Sign-On
13 6 (1.63%) Failover Clustering
13 6 (1.63%) Kibana
14 5 (1.36%) McAfee ePO
14 5 (1.36%) Nessus
Vendors
1 158 (42.93%) Microsoft
2 93 (25.27%) VMware
3 43 (11.68%) Cisco
4 30 (8.15%) ServiceNow
5 29 (7.88%) Thales
6 24 (6.52%) Okta
7 20 (5.43%) Dell
8 19 (5.16%) BeyondTrust
9 16 (4.35%) CyberArk
10 15 (4.08%) Citrix
10 15 (4.08%) Google
11 13 (3.53%) Juniper
12 11 (2.99%) Fortinet
12 11 (2.99%) Palo Alto
12 11 (2.99%) SolarWinds
13 10 (2.72%) CheckPoint
13 10 (2.72%) NetApp
14 9 (2.45%) BMC
14 9 (2.45%) Remedy
14 9 (2.45%) Splunk