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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 342 319 215
Rank change year-on-year -23 -104 +93
Contract jobs citing PKI 298 207 503
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.70% 0.70% 1.12%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.12% 2.09% 3.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 209 128 333
10th Percentile £401 £411 £363
25th Percentile £490 £469 £465
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £558 £568
Median % change year-on-year +0.45% -1.76% -5.42%
75th Percentile £700 £638 £644
90th Percentile £838 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £565 £550
% change year-on-year -2.65% +2.73% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 2
10th Percentile £61.41 - £56.61
25th Percentile £70.50 - £56.93
Median hourly rate £79.50 - £59.70
75th Percentile £96.25 - £64.73
90th Percentile £101.65 - £66.39
UK excluding London median hourly rate £79.50 - £59.70
% change year-on-year - - +8.55%

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 14,065 9,902 13,575
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.15% 33.49% 30.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,857 6,207 8,679
10th Percentile £288 £281 £255
25th Percentile £406 £409 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 655 345 883
10th Percentile £15.28 £16.95 £12.64
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.27 £15.89
Median hourly rate £35.00 £32.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% +8.33% +33.42%
75th Percentile £66.50 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £82.40 £83.20 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.50 £31.76 £27.50
% change year-on-year +8.63% +15.49% +25.00%

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 March 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 March 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 March 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 +14 272 £575 - 64
UK excluding London -56 173 £550 -2.65% 46
South East +24 96 £600 -0.83% 27
London +21 95 £625 +19.05% 18
Work from Home -7 78 £650 +13.04% 23
South West -44 28 £556 +1.14% 4
West Midlands -49 24 £400 -5.88% 5
Midlands -55 24 £400 -5.88% 9
North of England -60 18 £482 -32.35% 2
Yorkshire -52 10 £482 -33.52% 1
North West -30 8 £444 -11.25% 1
Scotland -24 6 £625 +16.93%
East of England - 3 £550 - 3
Wales -2 1 £550 +20.22% 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 28 (9.40%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (3.36%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.68%) Confluence
4 3 (1.01%) Exchange Server 2010
4 3 (1.01%) nginx
4 3 (1.01%) SharePoint Server
5 2 (0.67%) IIS
5 2 (0.67%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.34%) Apache
6 1 (0.34%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.34%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.34%) WebSphere
Applications
1 7 (2.35%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.01%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.34%) Cloudability
Cloud Services
1 59 (19.80%) Azure
2 55 (18.46%) AWS
3 31 (10.40%) IaaS
4 30 (10.07%) Microsoft 365
5 28 (9.40%) Entra ID
6 9 (3.02%) OpenShift
7 8 (2.68%) AWS CloudFormation
7 8 (2.68%) GCP
7 8 (2.68%) GitHub
7 8 (2.68%) PaaS
7 8 (2.68%) SaaS
8 7 (2.35%) Power Platform
8 7 (2.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 4 (1.34%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (1.34%) AWS KMS
10 3 (1.01%) Amazon ECS
10 3 (1.01%) AWS Fargate
10 3 (1.01%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (1.01%) Azure Key Vault
10 3 (1.01%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 71 (23.83%) DNS
1 71 (23.83%) Firewall
2 46 (15.44%) BGP
3 42 (14.09%) DHCP
4 37 (12.42%) WAN
5 33 (11.07%) VPN
6 27 (9.06%) Network Security
7 26 (8.72%) OSPF
8 25 (8.39%) LAN
9 22 (7.38%) Ethernet VPN
9 22 (7.38%) Junos
9 22 (7.38%) VXLAN
10 20 (6.71%) BIG-IP
11 19 (6.38%) Cisco ISE
11 19 (6.38%) MPLS
11 19 (6.38%) SSL
12 15 (5.03%) IPsec
13 12 (4.03%) TCP/IP
14 11 (3.69%) Cisco IOS
15 8 (2.68%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.02%) SQL Server
2 8 (2.68%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (1.34%) MongoDB
4 3 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (1.01%) Power BI
5 1 (0.34%) Amazon QuickSight
5 1 (0.34%) MySQL
5 1 (0.34%) RDBMS
5 1 (0.34%) Redis
5 1 (0.34%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 11 (3.69%) JIRA
2 10 (3.36%) GitLab
3 6 (2.01%) Robot Framework
4 5 (1.68%) Jenkins
5 4 (1.34%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (1.01%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.34%) Git
7 1 (0.34%) JUnit
General
1 44 (14.77%) Analytical Skills
2 39 (13.09%) Social Skills
3 31 (10.40%) Public Sector
4 20 (6.71%) Finance
5 10 (3.36%) Military
6 7 (2.35%) Banking
7 6 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (1.01%) Legal
10 2 (0.67%) Financial Institution
10 2 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.67%) Local Government
11 1 (0.34%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.34%) Back Office
11 1 (0.34%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.34%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.34%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 92 (30.87%) Architect
2 45 (15.10%) Senior
3 34 (11.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 18 (6.04%) 3rd Line Engineer
5 16 (5.37%) Network Engineer
5 16 (5.37%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 14 (4.70%) Support Engineer
7 13 (4.36%) Lead
8 12 (4.03%) Network Specialist
8 12 (4.03%) Wintel Engineer
9 10 (3.36%) 3rd Line Support
9 10 (3.36%) Administrator
9 10 (3.36%) Firewall Specialist
9 10 (3.36%) Platform Manager
9 10 (3.36%) Security Engineer
9 10 (3.36%) Systems Administrator
9 10 (3.36%) Systems Manager
9 10 (3.36%) Wintel Administrator
9 10 (3.36%) Wintel Systems Administrator
10 9 (3.02%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (11.41%) REST
2 30 (10.07%) JSON
3 20 (6.71%) 802.1X
4 17 (5.70%) OpenID
5 14 (4.70%) LDAP
5 14 (4.70%) SAML
6 12 (4.03%) OAuth
7 9 (3.02%) OAuth2
8 5 (1.68%) Elastic Stack
9 4 (1.34%) Kafka
10 3 (1.01%) AWS CDK
10 3 (1.01%) cloud-init
10 3 (1.01%) CSS
10 3 (1.01%) HTML
10 3 (1.01%) Keycloak
10 3 (1.01%) SailPoint
11 2 (0.67%) .NET
11 2 (0.67%) eBPF
11 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Graph
11 2 (0.67%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 26 (8.72%) Self-Motivation
2 25 (8.39%) Clustering
3 24 (8.05%) Data Centre
4 10 (3.36%) Fat Client
4 10 (3.36%) Thin Client
5 9 (3.02%) Algorithms
5 9 (3.02%) Management Information System
6 8 (2.68%) Enterprise Storage
7 7 (2.35%) Hybrid Cloud
7 7 (2.35%) Public Cloud
8 6 (2.01%) Onboarding
8 6 (2.01%) Private Cloud
9 5 (1.68%) Smartcard
10 4 (1.34%) Operational Technology
10 4 (1.34%) Replication
10 4 (1.34%) Security Operations Centre
10 4 (1.34%) Security Posture
11 3 (1.01%) Cloud Native
11 3 (1.01%) Legacy Applications
12 2 (0.67%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 104 (34.90%) Windows
2 55 (18.46%) Linux
3 46 (15.44%) Windows Server
4 9 (3.02%) Windows 7
4 9 (3.02%) Windows Server 2012
5 8 (2.68%) CentOS
6 7 (2.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (2.35%) Ubuntu
7 6 (2.01%) Windows 10
8 5 (1.68%) Unix
8 5 (1.68%) Windows Server 2003
9 4 (1.34%) Windows Server 2016
10 3 (1.01%) VMS
10 3 (1.01%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.34%) Android
11 1 (0.34%) Solaris
11 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (26.51%) Agile
2 64 (21.48%) Key Management
3 54 (18.12%) Identity Access Management
4 41 (13.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 40 (13.42%) Cybersecurity
6 39 (13.09%) CI/CD
7 37 (12.42%) Problem-Solving
8 33 (11.07%) Configuration Management
8 33 (11.07%) ITIL
9 31 (10.40%) Change Management
10 30 (10.07%) Load Balancing
10 30 (10.07%) Observability
11 28 (9.40%) DevOps
12 26 (8.72%) Infrastructure as Code
13 25 (8.39%) High Availability
13 25 (8.39%) Service Management
14 24 (8.05%) Cryptography
14 24 (8.05%) Platform Engineering
15 23 (7.72%) Containerisation
16 22 (7.38%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 76 (25.50%) PowerShell
2 44 (14.77%) Python
3 19 (6.38%) SQL
4 15 (5.03%) Bash
5 7 (2.35%) JavaScript
6 6 (2.01%) C#
7 4 (1.34%) Go
7 4 (1.34%) Java
7 4 (1.34%) PHP
7 4 (1.34%) Shell Script
8 3 (1.01%) C++
9 1 (0.34%) Bicep
9 1 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.34%) Perl
Qualifications
1 206 (69.13%) Security Cleared
2 101 (33.89%) SC Cleared
3 100 (33.56%) DV Cleared
4 27 (9.06%) Degree
5 25 (8.39%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (6.38%) CISSP
7 18 (6.04%) Microsoft Certification
8 16 (5.37%) CISM
9 8 (2.68%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (2.68%) GIAC
9 8 (2.68%) MCSE
10 6 (2.01%) AWS Certification
10 6 (2.01%) CCNP
10 6 (2.01%) JNCIA
10 6 (2.01%) JNCIP
10 6 (2.01%) JNCIS
10 6 (2.01%) Master's Degree
10 6 (2.01%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 4 (1.34%) APMG
11 4 (1.34%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.04%) NIST
2 16 (5.37%) NCSC
3 15 (5.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (2.68%) PCI DSS
5 7 (2.35%) Cyber Essentials
5 7 (2.35%) GDPR
6 5 (1.68%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 5 (1.68%) QA
7 4 (1.34%) SLA
8 3 (1.01%) NIST 800
8 3 (1.01%) RMADS
9 2 (0.67%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.67%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 2 (0.67%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.34%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.34%) GMP
10 1 (0.34%) GxP
10 1 (0.34%) PSD2
10 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 90 (30.20%) Active Directory
2 44 (14.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (7.38%) Docker
4 14 (4.70%) VMware ESXi
5 13 (4.36%) VMware NSX
6 12 (4.03%) Hyper-V
7 8 (2.68%) Firmware
8 6 (2.01%) BitLocker
8 6 (2.01%) vSphere
9 5 (1.68%) Microsoft App-V
9 5 (1.68%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (1.01%) Sendmail
11 2 (0.67%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 2 (0.67%) KVM
11 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 2 (0.67%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.34%) NFS
12 1 (0.34%) Squid
12 1 (0.34%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 38 (12.75%) Ansible
2 37 (12.42%) Terraform
3 34 (11.41%) Kubernetes
4 22 (7.38%) vCenter Server
5 21 (7.05%) FortiGate
6 17 (5.70%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (3.69%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (3.69%) WSUS
8 9 (3.02%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 9 (3.02%) Prometheus
8 9 (3.02%) SCOM
8 9 (3.02%) WMI
9 8 (2.68%) Grafana
9 8 (2.68%) SCCM
10 7 (2.35%) Puppet
11 5 (1.68%) vMotion
12 4 (1.34%) QRadar
13 3 (1.01%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (1.01%) Packer
13 3 (1.01%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 88 (29.53%) Microsoft
2 69 (23.15%) VMware
3 51 (17.11%) Cisco
4 43 (14.43%) Splunk
5 38 (12.75%) Juniper
6 28 (9.40%) SolarWinds
7 23 (7.72%) F5
8 19 (6.38%) Extreme Networks
9 13 (4.36%) Palo Alto
10 11 (3.69%) Thales
11 9 (3.02%) Citrix
11 9 (3.02%) Veeam
12 8 (2.68%) Okta
13 7 (2.35%) Broadcom
13 7 (2.35%) Google
13 7 (2.35%) ServiceNow
14 6 (2.01%) Dell
15 5 (1.68%) Aruba
15 5 (1.68%) CyberArk
15 5 (1.68%) NetApp