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 27 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 318 307 238
Rank change year-on-year -11 -69 +143
Contract jobs citing PKI 277 277 469
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.77% 0.76% 1.03%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.15% 2.42% 3.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 208 155 293
10th Percentile £358 £418 £394
25th Percentile £463 £475 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £675 £627 £675
90th Percentile £838 £725 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -1.82% -4.35% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 5
10th Percentile £74.80 - £46.38
25th Percentile £82.00 - -
Median hourly rate £90.00 £23.80 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +278.15% -56.73% -10.57%
75th Percentile £100.00 - £56.40
90th Percentile £103.30 - £63.06
UK excluding London median hourly rate £90.00 - £55.00
% change year-on-year - - -8.33%

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 12,900 11,448 14,378
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.71% 31.20% 31.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,984 6,743 9,634
10th Percentile £275 £285 £270
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.05% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £632 £663 £667
90th Percentile £738 £787 £766
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 677 383 494
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.77 £16.87
25th Percentile £18.25 £22.50 £21.00
Median hourly rate £27.21 £35.00 £44.25
Median % change year-on-year -22.26% -20.90% +26.43%
75th Percentile £56.00 £66.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.16 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £33.74 £46.18
% change year-on-year -18.91% -26.95% +56.54%

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 27 November 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing PKI over the 6 months to 27 November 2025.

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 27 November 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 +14 257 £550 - 73
UK excluding London -73 163 £540 -1.82% 72
London +41 92 £675 +18.42% 7
Work from Home +10 87 £694 +19.20% 29
South East -8 53 £594 -1.04% 45
South West -29 50 £550 +0.36% 7
Midlands -4 36 £400 -27.27% 5
West Midlands -8 35 £400 -27.27% 5
North of England -38 12 £444 -37.72% 6
North West -13 11 £388 -18.42% 2
Scotland -31 8 £538 +4.88% 2
East of England -12 3 £550 - 5
Wales -1 1 £550 - 1
Yorkshire -42 1 £600 -18.64% 4
East Midlands - 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 40 (14.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (5.05%) Confluence
2 14 (5.05%) SharePoint
3 10 (3.61%) Apache
4 9 (3.25%) IIS
5 6 (2.17%) Skype for Business
6 4 (1.44%) JBoss
6 4 (1.44%) SharePoint Server
7 3 (1.08%) Exchange Server 2010
8 2 (0.72%) Alfresco
8 2 (0.72%) Camunda
9 1 (0.36%) nginx
Applications
1 21 (7.58%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.72%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.72%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 50 (18.05%) Azure
2 45 (16.25%) AWS
3 26 (9.39%) IaaS
4 25 (9.03%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (7.22%) Entra ID
6 14 (5.05%) GitHub
7 12 (4.33%) AWS CloudFormation
8 8 (2.89%) SaaS
8 8 (2.89%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 7 (2.53%) Amazon ECS
9 7 (2.53%) AWS Fargate
9 7 (2.53%) Power Platform
10 6 (2.17%) GCP
11 5 (1.81%) Azure Sentinel
12 4 (1.44%) Azure DevOps
13 3 (1.08%) Amazon S3
13 3 (1.08%) GitHub Actions
13 3 (1.08%) Nutanix
13 3 (1.08%) Power Automate
13 3 (1.08%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 61 (22.02%) DNS
2 54 (19.49%) Firewall
3 38 (13.72%) BGP
4 37 (13.36%) IPsec
5 36 (13.00%) VPN
6 28 (10.11%) MPLS
7 27 (9.75%) WAN
8 24 (8.66%) DHCP
9 23 (8.30%) SSL
10 18 (6.50%) Network Security
11 16 (5.78%) Skype
12 9 (3.25%) HTTPS
12 9 (3.25%) Junos
12 9 (3.25%) Unified Communications
13 8 (2.89%) OSPF
13 8 (2.89%) TCP/IP
14 7 (2.53%) VSAN
15 6 (2.17%) EIGRP
15 6 (2.17%) Kerberos
15 6 (2.17%) S/MIME
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (5.42%) SQL Server
2 9 (3.25%) MongoDB
3 5 (1.81%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (1.81%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.72%) MySQL
4 2 (0.72%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.36%) Power BI
5 1 (0.36%) Redis
Development Applications
1 17 (6.14%) JIRA
2 13 (4.69%) GitLab
3 9 (3.25%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.44%) MSI
4 4 (1.44%) Terragrunt
5 3 (1.08%) Git
5 3 (1.08%) Robot Framework
5 3 (1.08%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.72%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.72%) JUnit
6 2 (0.72%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.36%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.36%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.36%) Postman
General
1 58 (20.94%) Social Skills
2 53 (19.13%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (13.00%) Public Sector
4 20 (7.22%) Finance
5 17 (6.14%) Military
6 5 (1.81%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.08%) Banking
9 1 (0.36%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.36%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.36%) Legal
9 1 (0.36%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.36%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.36%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 74 (26.71%) Architect
2 33 (11.91%) Senior
3 25 (9.03%) 3rd Line Engineer
4 24 (8.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 23 (8.30%) Support Engineer
6 20 (7.22%) Network Engineer
7 18 (6.50%) 3rd Line Support
8 17 (6.14%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
9 16 (5.78%) Lead
9 16 (5.78%) Security Architect
10 15 (5.42%) Administrator
11 14 (5.05%) Platform Manager
11 14 (5.05%) Systems Administrator
11 14 (5.05%) Systems Manager
11 14 (5.05%) Wintel Administrator
11 14 (5.05%) Wintel Engineer
11 14 (5.05%) Wintel Systems Administrator
12 12 (4.33%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 11 (3.97%) Consultant
13 11 (3.97%) WAN Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (11.91%) REST
2 28 (10.11%) JSON
3 14 (5.05%) OpenID
4 13 (4.69%) Kafka
5 11 (3.97%) SAML
6 10 (3.61%) OAuth
6 10 (3.61%) OAuth2
7 9 (3.25%) Keycloak
8 7 (2.53%) cloud-init
9 5 (1.81%) LDAP
10 4 (1.44%) .NET
10 4 (1.44%) AngularJS
10 4 (1.44%) AWS CDK
10 4 (1.44%) NETCONF
10 4 (1.44%) RESTCONF
11 3 (1.08%) Elastic Stack
11 3 (1.08%) HTML
11 3 (1.08%) JDBC
11 3 (1.08%) SOAP
11 3 (1.08%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 30 (10.83%) Self-Motivation
2 11 (3.97%) Data Centre
2 11 (3.97%) Fat Client
2 11 (3.97%) Thin Client
3 9 (3.25%) Management Information System
4 8 (2.89%) Private Cloud
5 7 (2.53%) Algorithms
5 7 (2.53%) Replication
6 6 (2.17%) Onboarding
7 5 (1.81%) Legacy Applications
7 5 (1.81%) Security Operations Centre
8 4 (1.44%) Cloud Native
8 4 (1.44%) Cyber Defence
8 4 (1.44%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.44%) Security Posture
9 3 (1.08%) Taxonomies
10 2 (0.72%) CMDB
10 2 (0.72%) Cyber Threat
10 2 (0.72%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.72%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 93 (33.57%) Windows
2 52 (18.77%) Linux
3 44 (15.88%) Windows Server
4 13 (4.69%) CentOS
4 13 (4.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 13 (4.69%) Windows 10
5 9 (3.25%) Unix
5 9 (3.25%) Windows 7
5 9 (3.25%) Windows Server 2012
6 8 (2.89%) Windows Server 2019
7 5 (1.81%) Windows Server 2008
7 5 (1.81%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (1.08%) VMS
9 2 (0.72%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.36%) Android
10 1 (0.36%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.36%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.36%) Solaris
10 1 (0.36%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (29.60%) Agile
2 51 (18.41%) Key Management
3 37 (13.36%) ITIL
4 33 (11.91%) DevOps
5 32 (11.55%) CI/CD
6 31 (11.19%) Change Management
6 31 (11.19%) Configuration Management
7 30 (10.83%) Cybersecurity
7 30 (10.83%) Service Management
8 29 (10.47%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 29 (10.47%) Problem-Solving
9 27 (9.75%) Cryptography
9 27 (9.75%) Information Security
10 24 (8.66%) Containerisation
11 23 (8.30%) Incident Response
11 23 (8.30%) SIEM
12 22 (7.94%) Infrastructure as Code
13 19 (6.86%) Load Balancing
14 18 (6.50%) Kalman Filter
14 18 (6.50%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 75 (27.08%) PowerShell
2 46 (16.61%) Python
3 21 (7.58%) Bash
4 18 (6.50%) SQL
5 7 (2.53%) Go
5 7 (2.53%) Java
5 7 (2.53%) Perl
6 6 (2.17%) C++
6 6 (2.17%) JavaScript
6 6 (2.17%) Shell Script
7 3 (1.08%) PHP
8 2 (0.72%) C#
9 1 (0.36%) Bicep
9 1 (0.36%) C
9 1 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 182 (65.70%) Security Cleared
2 103 (37.18%) SC Cleared
3 71 (25.63%) DV Cleared
4 39 (14.08%) Degree
5 25 (9.03%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (7.94%) Cisco Certification
7 17 (6.14%) CCNP
8 12 (4.33%) MCSE
9 11 (3.97%) CISSP
10 9 (3.25%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (3.25%) ITIL Certification
11 7 (2.53%) Master's Degree
11 7 (2.53%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 6 (2.17%) CCNA
12 6 (2.17%) IISP
12 6 (2.17%) ISACA
12 6 (2.17%) JNCIA
12 6 (2.17%) JNCIS
13 5 (1.81%) AWS Certification
14 4 (1.44%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.50%) NCSC
2 16 (5.78%) NIST
3 10 (3.61%) PCI DSS
4 9 (3.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (2.53%) GDPR
6 5 (1.81%) FIPS 140-2
7 3 (1.08%) SLA
8 2 (0.72%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.72%) COBIT
8 2 (0.72%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.72%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.72%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.72%) SOC 1
9 1 (0.36%) GxP
9 1 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.36%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.36%) PSD2
9 1 (0.36%) QA
9 1 (0.36%) RMADS
9 1 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 81 (29.24%) Active Directory
2 46 (16.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (6.50%) Docker
4 13 (4.69%) VMware ESXi
5 11 (3.97%) Firmware
6 10 (3.61%) VMware NSX
7 9 (3.25%) Hyper-V
8 8 (2.89%) vSphere
9 6 (2.17%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (2.17%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (1.81%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (1.08%) Sendmail
12 2 (0.72%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
13 1 (0.36%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.36%) NFS
13 1 (0.36%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 29 (10.47%) Ansible
2 25 (9.03%) Terraform
3 24 (8.66%) Kubernetes
4 16 (5.78%) Single Sign-On
4 16 (5.78%) vCenter Server
5 15 (5.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (5.42%) SCCM
6 13 (4.69%) WMI
7 12 (4.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 12 (4.33%) WSUS
8 9 (3.25%) SCOM
9 7 (2.53%) Jamf Pro
9 7 (2.53%) Packer
10 5 (1.81%) Grafana
10 5 (1.81%) Prometheus
11 4 (1.44%) Podman
11 4 (1.44%) QRadar
12 3 (1.08%) Check_MK
12 3 (1.08%) OPNET
12 3 (1.08%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 99 (35.74%) Microsoft
2 64 (23.10%) VMware
3 40 (14.44%) Cisco
4 38 (13.72%) Juniper
5 25 (9.03%) Splunk
6 16 (5.78%) Veeam
7 13 (4.69%) SolarWinds
8 8 (2.89%) Dell
8 8 (2.89%) Fortinet
8 8 (2.89%) Okta
9 7 (2.53%) Thales
10 6 (2.17%) Atlassian
10 6 (2.17%) Google
10 6 (2.17%) IBM
10 6 (2.17%) ServiceNow
11 5 (1.81%) CyberArk
11 5 (1.81%) Palo Alto
11 5 (1.81%) Red Hat
12 4 (1.44%) Citrix
12 4 (1.44%) Zscaler