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

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 357 341 305
Rank change year-on-year -16 -36 -33
Contract jobs citing PKI 377 222 278
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 0.67% 0.73%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.00% 1.86% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 271 178 171
10th Percentile £425 £353 £410
25th Percentile £463 £463 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £558 £550 £545
Median % change year-on-year +1.36% +0.92% -5.22%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £608
90th Percentile £700 £700 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £540 £538
% change year-on-year +1.85% +0.47% -9.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 0 3
10th Percentile £85.00 - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £96.00 - £23.80
75th Percentile £98.82 - -
90th Percentile £100.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £96.00 - -

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 18,838 11,921 11,534
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.54% 36.06% 30.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,246 7,303 6,908
10th Percentile £322 £297 £275
25th Percentile £425 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £518 £526
Median % change year-on-year +1.32% -1.49% -4.36%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £668
90th Percentile £750 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,308 618 413
10th Percentile £13.93 £14.75 £15.62
25th Percentile £17.50 £18.82 £22.50
Median hourly rate £36.00 £27.54 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +30.74% -42.03% +6.15%
75th Percentile £67.50 £52.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.56 £72.50 £75.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.51 £27.54 £55.75
% change year-on-year +28.94% -50.60% +9.94%

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 8 October 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 8 October 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 8 October 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 -22 310 £575 +4.55% 210
UK excluding London -11 243 £550 +1.85% 104
London -45 106 £599 +2.31% 101
Work from Home -34 95 £570 +3.64% 92
South East -17 77 £575 - 25
North of England -4 70 £525 +6.71% 18
Scotland +16 40 £481 -12.55% 9
North West -21 36 £522 +6.10% 7
South West -53 36 £670 +21.82% 25
Yorkshire -3 32 £570 -5.00% 8
Midlands -72 9 £475 +18.75% 12
East of England -28 8 £610 +1.67% 10
West Midlands -68 7 £475 +18.75% 10
Wales - 6 £463 - 4
East Midlands -11 2 £525 - 2
North East - 2 £426 - 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 (4.77%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (3.71%) Confluence
3 8 (2.12%) SharePoint
4 7 (1.86%) IIS
5 3 (0.80%) Exchange Server 2010
5 3 (0.80%) nginx
6 2 (0.53%) Apache
7 1 (0.27%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.27%) Traefik
7 1 (0.27%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.27%) Gliffy
Business Applications
1 7 (1.86%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.27%) Dynamics GP
2 1 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 130 (34.48%) Azure
2 95 (25.20%) AWS
3 88 (23.34%) Entra ID
4 45 (11.94%) GCP
5 13 (3.45%) Microsoft 365
6 12 (3.18%) Power Platform
6 12 (3.18%) SaaS
7 11 (2.92%) Azure Key Vault
7 11 (2.92%) GitHub
7 11 (2.92%) OpenShift
8 9 (2.39%) Amazon EKS
8 9 (2.39%) IaaS
9 8 (2.12%) Azure Monitor
9 8 (2.12%) PaaS
10 7 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.86%) OCI
11 6 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (1.59%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 5 (1.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 4 (1.06%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 109 (28.91%) DNS
2 76 (20.16%) Firewall
3 75 (19.89%) DHCP
4 41 (10.88%) VPN
5 34 (9.02%) SSL
5 34 (9.02%) TCP/IP
6 27 (7.16%) Network Security
7 16 (4.24%) LAN
7 16 (4.24%) VLAN
8 15 (3.98%) IPsec
8 15 (3.98%) WAN
9 14 (3.71%) VSAN
9 14 (3.71%) Wireless
10 13 (3.45%) BGP
10 13 (3.45%) Cisco ASA
10 13 (3.45%) Cisco Firepower
10 13 (3.45%) SAN
10 13 (3.45%) SSH
10 13 (3.45%) X.509
11 12 (3.18%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.43%) SQL Server
2 10 (2.65%) MySQL
2 10 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (2.39%) Amazon RDS
3 9 (2.39%) Power BI
4 8 (2.12%) MongoDB
4 8 (2.12%) Relational Database
5 5 (1.33%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (1.06%) Db2
7 3 (0.80%) Big Data
7 3 (0.80%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.53%) MariaDB
8 2 (0.53%) Metadata
8 2 (0.53%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.27%) Amazon Aurora
9 1 (0.27%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.27%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 26 (6.90%) Git
2 19 (5.04%) GitLab
3 18 (4.77%) Jenkins
4 17 (4.51%) JIRA
5 5 (1.33%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.06%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 3 (0.80%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.53%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.53%) Burp Suite
8 2 (0.53%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.53%) Gatling
8 2 (0.53%) Gradle
8 2 (0.53%) LoadRunner
8 2 (0.53%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.53%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.27%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.27%) MSI
9 1 (0.27%) Robot Framework
General
1 90 (23.87%) Social Skills
2 50 (13.26%) Finance
3 37 (9.81%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (7.96%) Public Sector
5 19 (5.04%) Banking
5 19 (5.04%) Documentation Skills
6 8 (2.12%) Legal
7 7 (1.86%) Military
7 7 (1.86%) Police
8 5 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (1.06%) Automotive
9 4 (1.06%) Law
10 3 (0.80%) Aerospace
10 3 (0.80%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.80%) Retail
11 2 (0.53%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.53%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.53%) Retail Banking
12 1 (0.27%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 69 (18.30%) Senior
2 52 (13.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 45 (11.94%) Architect
4 26 (6.90%) Network Engineer
5 25 (6.63%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 24 (6.37%) Platform Engineer
7 21 (5.57%) DevOps Engineer
8 20 (5.31%) Support Engineer
9 18 (4.77%) Senior Network Engineer
10 17 (4.51%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 16 (4.24%) Consultant
11 16 (4.24%) Lead
11 16 (4.24%) Solutions Architect
12 14 (3.71%) Security Engineer
12 14 (3.71%) Storage Engineer
13 12 (3.18%) Security Architect
14 11 (2.92%) Active Directory Engineer
15 10 (2.65%) Cloud Engineer
16 8 (2.12%) Analyst
16 8 (2.12%) Integration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (19.10%) Terraform
2 33 (8.75%) OpenID
3 29 (7.69%) LDAP
3 29 (7.69%) SAML
4 26 (6.90%) OAuth
5 22 (5.84%) 802.1X
6 21 (5.57%) REST
7 16 (4.24%) Kafka
8 15 (3.98%) OAuth2
9 13 (3.45%) Keycloak
10 10 (2.65%) .NET
11 9 (2.39%) FIDO
12 8 (2.12%) .NET Framework
12 8 (2.12%) WebAuthn
12 8 (2.12%) XML
13 7 (1.86%) RabbitMQ
14 5 (1.33%) Middleware
14 5 (1.33%) RESTful
14 5 (1.33%) SailPoint
14 5 (1.33%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 30 (7.96%) Data Centre
2 26 (6.90%) Cloud Native
2 26 (6.90%) Clustering
3 24 (6.37%) Onboarding
4 17 (4.51%) Enterprise Software
5 15 (3.98%) Distributed Systems
5 15 (3.98%) Public Cloud
6 13 (3.45%) Linux Command Line
6 13 (3.45%) Security Posture
7 12 (3.18%) Management Information System
7 12 (3.18%) Replication
8 10 (2.65%) Legacy Systems
9 8 (2.12%) Hybrid Cloud
9 8 (2.12%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (1.86%) Smartcard
11 6 (1.59%) Enterprise Storage
11 6 (1.59%) Operational Technology
12 5 (1.33%) Distributed Architecture
12 5 (1.33%) Mainframe
12 5 (1.33%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 165 (43.77%) Windows
2 113 (29.97%) Linux
3 95 (25.20%) Windows Server
4 15 (3.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 15 (3.98%) Windows Server 2016
5 13 (3.45%) Ubuntu
5 13 (3.45%) Unix
6 9 (2.39%) Windows Server 2012
6 9 (2.39%) Windows Server 2019
7 6 (1.59%) Android
8 5 (1.33%) Apple iOS
8 5 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 5 (1.33%) Windows 10
9 4 (1.06%) CentOS
9 4 (1.06%) Debian
10 2 (0.53%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.27%) VMS
11 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.27%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (26.26%) Identity Access Management
2 74 (19.63%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 71 (18.83%) Cybersecurity
4 69 (18.30%) Infrastructure as Code
5 67 (17.77%) DevOps
6 65 (17.24%) CI/CD
7 59 (15.65%) ITIL
7 59 (15.65%) Problem-Solving
8 57 (15.12%) Stakeholder Management
9 54 (14.32%) Zero Trust
10 50 (13.26%) Technical Leadership
11 49 (13.00%) High Availability
11 49 (13.00%) Key Management
12 46 (12.20%) Continuous Improvement
13 45 (11.94%) Agile
14 44 (11.67%) Mentoring
15 43 (11.41%) Platform Engineering
15 43 (11.41%) Secrets Management
16 41 (10.88%) Change Management
17 39 (10.34%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 112 (29.71%) PowerShell
2 85 (22.55%) Python
3 46 (12.20%) Bash
4 18 (4.77%) SQL
5 11 (2.92%) C#
6 10 (2.65%) JavaScript
7 8 (2.12%) Go
7 8 (2.12%) Java
8 3 (0.80%) C++
8 3 (0.80%) Ruby
9 2 (0.53%) Bicep
9 2 (0.53%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 183 (48.54%) Security Cleared
2 100 (26.53%) DV Cleared
3 96 (25.46%) SC Cleared
4 23 (6.10%) Cisco Certification
4 23 (6.10%) Microsoft Certification
5 21 (5.57%) CISSP
5 21 (5.57%) Degree
6 18 (4.77%) Azure Certification
6 18 (4.77%) CCNP
7 14 (3.71%) AWS Certification
8 13 (3.45%) MCSE
9 12 (3.18%) VCAP
10 11 (2.92%) CISM
11 7 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (1.59%) GIAC
12 6 (1.59%) MCSA
13 5 (1.33%) ISTQB
13 5 (1.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 5 (1.33%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 5 (1.33%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (9.28%) NIST
2 27 (7.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (5.57%) NCSC
4 15 (3.98%) SLA
5 8 (2.12%) JSP 440
6 7 (1.86%) GRC
7 6 (1.59%) QA
8 5 (1.33%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.80%) GDPR
9 3 (0.80%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.53%) ITGC
10 2 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.27%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.27%) PSD2
System Software
1 189 (50.13%) Active Directory
2 75 (19.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 46 (12.20%) Docker
4 33 (8.75%) Hyper-V
5 27 (7.16%) VMware NSX
6 24 (6.37%) vSphere
7 15 (3.98%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (2.39%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (1.86%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (1.33%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (1.06%) NFS
12 3 (0.80%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.80%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.80%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.80%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.80%) UAG
13 2 (0.53%) DFS Replication
13 2 (0.53%) OpenSSH
13 2 (0.53%) XenApp
13 2 (0.53%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 85 (22.55%) Kubernetes
2 61 (16.18%) Ansible
3 40 (10.61%) Single Sign-On
4 23 (6.10%) vCenter Server
5 21 (5.57%) Microsoft Intune
6 19 (5.04%) VxRail
7 16 (4.24%) SCOM
8 15 (3.98%) Grafana
8 15 (3.98%) Prometheus
9 14 (3.71%) Avamar
9 14 (3.71%) SCCM
10 10 (2.65%) Istio
10 10 (2.65%) Puppet
10 10 (2.65%) WSUS
11 8 (2.12%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (1.59%) Kibana
13 5 (1.33%) McAfee ePO
13 5 (1.33%) Nessus
14 4 (1.06%) CA Single Sign-On
14 4 (1.06%) WMI
Vendors
1 168 (44.56%) Microsoft
2 91 (24.14%) VMware
3 39 (10.34%) Cisco
4 30 (7.96%) Thales
5 25 (6.63%) Okta
5 25 (6.63%) ServiceNow
6 21 (5.57%) BeyondTrust
7 20 (5.31%) Dell
8 16 (4.24%) CyberArk
9 15 (3.98%) Google
10 14 (3.71%) Citrix
11 11 (2.92%) Fortinet
11 11 (2.92%) Palo Alto
12 10 (2.65%) CheckPoint
12 10 (2.65%) Juniper
13 9 (2.39%) SolarWinds
14 8 (2.12%) McAfee
14 8 (2.12%) NetApp
15 7 (1.86%) BMC
15 7 (1.86%) Remedy