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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 373 343 222
Rank change year-on-year -30 -121 +89
Contract jobs citing PKI 315 217 449
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.67% 1.09%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.80% 1.92% 3.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 220 169 321
10th Percentile £413 £358 £363
25th Percentile £463 £463 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £613 £608
90th Percentile £700 £686 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £548 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -0.45% - -0.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 4
10th Percentile £58.94 - -
25th Percentile £71.60 - -
Median hourly rate £85.00 - £23.80
75th Percentile £99.41 - £27.91
90th Percentile £100.00 - £35.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.00 - £38.50

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 17,495 11,285 12,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.19% 34.63% 30.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,701 6,971 8,109
10th Percentile £318 £300 £300
25th Percentile £417 £406 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year - -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £630 £645 £666
90th Percentile £749 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 886 539 761
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.29 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.89 £18.87 £15.92
Median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.53% -22.08% +10.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £87.50 £77.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +46.53% -25.00% -12.70%

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 21 July 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 21 July 2026.

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 21 July 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 -34 256 £560 +1.82% 64
UK excluding London -39 211 £548 -0.45% 57
South East -7 106 £590 +2.61% 21
Work from Home -49 76 £550 +0.46% 25
London -49 76 £600 +4.35% 10
North of England -48 36 £471 -4.22% 9
Scotland +4 28 £481 -10.09% 3
North West -35 22 £418 -15.14% 4
South West -63 22 £550 -4.35% 15
Yorkshire - 14 £500 - 5
Midlands -59 11 £450 +9.09% 6
West Midlands -65 10 £450 +9.09% 3
Wales - 6 £463 - 1
East of England -22 4 £400 -23.81% 2
East Midlands -12 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 12 (3.81%) Microsoft Exchange
1 12 (3.81%) SharePoint
2 10 (3.17%) Confluence
3 7 (2.22%) IIS
4 4 (1.27%) Apache
5 3 (0.95%) Exchange Server 2010
5 3 (0.95%) Tomcat
5 3 (0.95%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.32%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 5 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 12 (3.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.32%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.32%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 99 (31.43%) Azure
2 74 (23.49%) AWS
3 60 (19.05%) Entra ID
4 26 (8.25%) Microsoft 365
5 19 (6.03%) Power Platform
6 18 (5.71%) GCP
7 12 (3.81%) IaaS
8 11 (3.49%) OpenShift
8 11 (3.49%) PaaS
9 10 (3.17%) Azure Key Vault
10 8 (2.54%) SaaS
11 7 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
12 5 (1.59%) AWS KMS
12 5 (1.59%) GitHub
13 4 (1.27%) Amazon EKS
14 3 (0.95%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 3 (0.95%) OCI
15 2 (0.63%) Azure Sentinel
15 2 (0.63%) GitHub Actions
15 2 (0.63%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 102 (32.38%) DNS
2 80 (25.40%) Firewall
3 74 (23.49%) DHCP
4 38 (12.06%) VPN
5 37 (11.75%) BGP
6 35 (11.11%) LAN
6 35 (11.11%) WAN
7 31 (9.84%) OSPF
8 25 (7.94%) SSL
9 24 (7.62%) Ethernet VPN
9 24 (7.62%) VXLAN
10 23 (7.30%) BIG-IP
10 23 (7.30%) Junos
10 23 (7.30%) TCP/IP
11 22 (6.98%) Cisco ISE
11 22 (6.98%) Network Security
12 16 (5.08%) IPsec
13 15 (4.76%) Cisco ASA
14 14 (4.44%) Wireless
15 13 (4.13%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (7.94%) SQL Server
2 14 (4.44%) Power BI
3 9 (2.86%) Elasticsearch
4 6 (1.90%) MongoDB
4 6 (1.90%) MySQL
4 6 (1.90%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.59%) Relational Database
6 4 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (1.27%) Db2
7 3 (0.95%) Big Data
7 3 (0.95%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.95%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.63%) Metadata
9 1 (0.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 13 (4.13%) JIRA
2 12 (3.81%) Git
3 8 (2.54%) GitLab
4 7 (2.22%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.95%) Robot Framework
5 3 (0.95%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.95%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.63%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.63%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.63%) Gatling
6 2 (0.63%) Gradle
6 2 (0.63%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.63%) MSI
6 2 (0.63%) REST Assured
6 2 (0.63%) SonarQube
General
1 50 (15.87%) Social Skills
2 35 (11.11%) Finance
3 33 (10.48%) Public Sector
4 19 (6.03%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (2.86%) Banking
7 7 (2.22%) Legal
8 6 (1.90%) Military
9 5 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.59%) Retail
10 4 (1.27%) Police
11 3 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.63%) Automotive
12 2 (0.63%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.63%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.63%) Retail Banking
13 1 (0.32%) Back Office
13 1 (0.32%) Law
13 1 (0.32%) Local Government
13 1 (0.32%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 71 (22.54%) Senior
2 52 (16.51%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 31 (9.84%) Architect
3 31 (9.84%) Network Engineer
4 22 (6.98%) Senior Network Engineer
5 21 (6.67%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 20 (6.35%) 3rd Line Engineer
7 19 (6.03%) Lead
8 16 (5.08%) Storage Engineer
8 16 (5.08%) Support Engineer
9 14 (4.44%) DevOps Engineer
9 14 (4.44%) Firewall Specialist
9 14 (4.44%) Network Specialist
10 10 (3.17%) Analyst
10 10 (3.17%) Senior Architect
11 9 (2.86%) Linux Engineer
12 8 (2.54%) 3rd Line Infrastructure Engineer
12 8 (2.54%) Consultant
13 7 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
13 7 (2.22%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (10.79%) 802.1X
2 26 (8.25%) LDAP
3 23 (7.30%) OpenID
4 22 (6.98%) SAML
5 16 (5.08%) OAuth
5 16 (5.08%) REST
6 8 (2.54%) .NET
7 7 (2.22%) JSON
7 7 (2.22%) Kafka
7 7 (2.22%) OAuth2
7 7 (2.22%) RabbitMQ
8 6 (1.90%) .NET Framework
8 6 (1.90%) XML
9 5 (1.59%) Keycloak
9 5 (1.59%) SailPoint
10 4 (1.27%) Middleware
10 4 (1.27%) Web Services
11 3 (0.95%) FIDO
11 3 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
11 3 (0.95%) SPIFFE
Miscellaneous
1 49 (15.56%) Clustering
2 43 (13.65%) Data Centre
3 14 (4.44%) Onboarding
4 12 (3.81%) Distributed Systems
4 12 (3.81%) Hybrid Cloud
5 11 (3.49%) Linux Command Line
5 11 (3.49%) Public Cloud
6 10 (3.17%) Cloud Native
7 8 (2.54%) Enterprise Storage
7 8 (2.54%) Management Information System
8 7 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (2.22%) Security Posture
9 6 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.90%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.59%) Mainframe
10 5 (1.59%) Private Cloud
10 5 (1.59%) Smartcard
11 4 (1.27%) Enterprise Cloud
11 4 (1.27%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 156 (49.52%) Windows
2 87 (27.62%) Linux
3 79 (25.08%) Windows Server
4 12 (3.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (3.49%) Unix
6 8 (2.54%) Ubuntu
6 8 (2.54%) Windows Server 2016
7 7 (2.22%) Windows Server 2012
7 7 (2.22%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (1.90%) Debian
9 5 (1.59%) Windows Server 2003
10 4 (1.27%) Android
11 3 (0.95%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.95%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.63%) CentOS
12 2 (0.63%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.32%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.32%) VMS
13 1 (0.32%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (29.84%) Identity Access Management
2 58 (18.41%) ITIL
3 57 (18.10%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 52 (16.51%) High Availability
5 50 (15.87%) Problem-Solving
6 49 (15.56%) Cybersecurity
7 44 (13.97%) DevOps
8 41 (13.02%) Infrastructure as Code
9 40 (12.70%) Agile
10 39 (12.38%) Observability
11 38 (12.06%) Zero Trust
12 35 (11.11%) CI/CD
13 34 (10.79%) ITSM
14 32 (10.16%) Service Management
15 30 (9.52%) Load Balancing
16 28 (8.89%) Continuous Improvement
16 28 (8.89%) Cryptography
16 28 (8.89%) Key Management
16 28 (8.89%) Stakeholder Management
17 27 (8.57%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 81 (25.71%) PowerShell
2 54 (17.14%) Python
3 21 (6.67%) Bash
4 14 (4.44%) C#
4 14 (4.44%) SQL
5 12 (3.81%) JavaScript
6 9 (2.86%) Java
7 3 (0.95%) C++
7 3 (0.95%) Go
7 3 (0.95%) PHP
8 2 (0.63%) Ruby
8 2 (0.63%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 162 (51.43%) Security Cleared
2 94 (29.84%) DV Cleared
3 70 (22.22%) SC Cleared
4 35 (11.11%) Cisco Certification
5 20 (6.35%) Degree
6 18 (5.71%) Microsoft Certification
7 14 (4.44%) CCNP
8 11 (3.49%) Azure Certification
8 11 (3.49%) MCSE
9 10 (3.17%) CISSP
10 9 (2.86%) JNCIP
10 9 (2.86%) JNCIS
11 7 (2.22%) CompTIA Security+
11 7 (2.22%) GIAC
11 7 (2.22%) JNCIA
12 5 (1.59%) CISM
12 5 (1.59%) Master's Degree
12 5 (1.59%) VCAP
13 4 (1.27%) Network+ Certification
13 4 (1.27%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (9.84%) NIST
2 20 (6.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 15 (4.76%) NCSC
4 11 (3.49%) SLA
5 9 (2.86%) Cyber Essentials
5 9 (2.86%) QA
6 5 (1.59%) GDPR
7 3 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 3 (0.95%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.63%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.63%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 2 (0.63%) ISA99
8 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (0.63%) ITGC
8 2 (0.63%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.63%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.32%) GMP
9 1 (0.32%) GxP
9 1 (0.32%) JSP 440
System Software
1 133 (42.22%) Active Directory
2 64 (20.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 38 (12.06%) Docker
4 30 (9.52%) Hyper-V
5 27 (8.57%) VMware NSX
6 13 (4.13%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (2.86%) BitLocker
8 8 (2.54%) Microsoft App-V
8 8 (2.54%) Virtual Machines
8 8 (2.54%) vSphere
9 4 (1.27%) Firmware
9 4 (1.27%) NFS
9 4 (1.27%) OpenSSH
9 4 (1.27%) Terminal Services
9 4 (1.27%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.95%) KVM
10 3 (0.95%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.63%) XenApp
11 2 (0.63%) XenDesktop
12 1 (0.32%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 55 (17.46%) Ansible
2 52 (16.51%) Kubernetes
3 47 (14.92%) Terraform
4 29 (9.21%) Single Sign-On
5 26 (8.25%) vCenter Server
6 23 (7.30%) FortiGate
7 15 (4.76%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (4.76%) SCOM
8 12 (3.81%) Avamar
8 12 (3.81%) Prometheus
8 12 (3.81%) Puppet
9 11 (3.49%) Grafana
10 8 (2.54%) SCCM
10 8 (2.54%) vMotion
11 7 (2.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (2.22%) CA Single Sign-On
11 7 (2.22%) VxRail
12 6 (1.90%) Kibana
13 5 (1.59%) Failover Clustering
13 5 (1.59%) WSUS
Vendors
1 121 (38.41%) Microsoft
2 81 (25.71%) VMware
3 61 (19.37%) Cisco
4 36 (11.43%) Splunk
5 31 (9.84%) Juniper
6 30 (9.52%) SolarWinds
7 27 (8.57%) F5
8 25 (7.94%) ServiceNow
9 24 (7.62%) Okta
10 22 (6.98%) Extreme Networks
11 21 (6.67%) Thales
12 19 (6.03%) BeyondTrust
13 18 (5.71%) Citrix
14 14 (4.44%) Dell
15 13 (4.13%) Palo Alto
16 12 (3.81%) BMC
16 12 (3.81%) Remedy
17 11 (3.49%) CyberArk
18 10 (3.17%) NetApp
19 8 (2.54%) Google