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

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 367 333 278
Rank change year-on-year -34 -55 +8
Contract jobs citing PKI 345 223 327
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 0.69% 0.86%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.89% 1.93% 2.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 172 222
10th Percentile £425 £354 £388
25th Percentile £463 £463 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year - +2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £608
90th Percentile £705 £695 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £545 £538
% change year-on-year +0.92% +1.40% -3.15%
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 18,242 11,531 11,511
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.81% 35.45% 30.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,027 7,069 7,183
10th Percentile £320 £300 £300
25th Percentile £423 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -6.36% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £823
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,094 568 518
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.13 £13.80
25th Percentile £18.53 £18.87 £20.74
Median hourly rate £38.72 £30.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.07% -36.84% +10.14%
75th Percentile £67.88 £57.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.33 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +46.53% -45.45% +22.22%

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 5 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 5 September 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 5 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 -71 283 £575 +4.45% 172
UK excluding London -17 231 £550 +0.92% 106
South East -19 87 £590 +2.61% 27
Work from Home -36 84 £560 +1.82% 69
London -66 83 £550 -7.17% 86
North of England -22 59 £525 +6.71% 22
North West -36 35 £525 +6.71% 11
Scotland -4 33 £481 -1.33% 7
South West -56 31 £670 +21.82% 28
Yorkshire -21 24 £500 -16.67% 8
East of England -17 9 £500 -4.76% 7
Midlands -77 9 £475 +18.75% 9
West Midlands -70 8 £475 +18.75% 5
Wales - 6 £463 - 2
East Midlands -18 1 £475 - 4

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 (5.22%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (3.48%) Confluence
3 10 (2.90%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.74%) IIS
5 3 (0.87%) Apache
5 3 (0.87%) Exchange Server 2010
6 2 (0.58%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.58%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.29%) nginx
Applications
1 4 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 10 (2.90%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.29%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 119 (34.49%) Azure
2 88 (25.51%) AWS
3 69 (20.00%) Entra ID
4 37 (10.72%) GCP
5 23 (6.67%) Microsoft 365
6 17 (4.93%) Power Platform
7 14 (4.06%) Azure Key Vault
8 11 (3.19%) IaaS
9 10 (2.90%) OpenShift
9 10 (2.90%) PaaS
10 8 (2.32%) GitHub
10 8 (2.32%) SaaS
11 7 (2.03%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (2.03%) OCI
12 6 (1.74%) Amazon EKS
12 6 (1.74%) AWS KMS
13 5 (1.45%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 4 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
14 4 (1.16%) Rubrik
15 3 (0.87%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 105 (30.43%) DNS
2 78 (22.61%) Firewall
3 76 (22.03%) DHCP
4 43 (12.46%) VPN
5 33 (9.57%) TCP/IP
6 28 (8.12%) SSL
7 26 (7.54%) Network Security
8 20 (5.80%) LAN
9 19 (5.51%) WAN
10 17 (4.93%) BGP
10 17 (4.93%) IPsec
10 17 (4.93%) VLAN
11 16 (4.64%) VSAN
12 15 (4.35%) OSPF
12 15 (4.35%) Wireless
13 14 (4.06%) SSH
14 13 (3.77%) Cisco ASA
14 13 (3.77%) Cisco Firepower
14 13 (3.77%) Cisco Nexus
15 12 (3.48%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (8.41%) SQL Server
2 12 (3.48%) Power BI
3 8 (2.32%) MySQL
3 8 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (2.03%) Elasticsearch
5 6 (1.74%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (1.74%) MongoDB
5 6 (1.74%) Relational Database
6 4 (1.16%) Db2
7 3 (0.87%) Big Data
7 3 (0.87%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.58%) Metadata
8 2 (0.58%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.29%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.29%) MariaDB
9 1 (0.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 16 (4.64%) Git
2 15 (4.35%) JIRA
3 13 (3.77%) GitLab
4 9 (2.61%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.87%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.87%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.58%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.58%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.58%) Gatling
6 2 (0.58%) Gradle
6 2 (0.58%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.58%) MSI
6 2 (0.58%) REST Assured
6 2 (0.58%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.29%) Robot Framework
General
1 72 (20.87%) Social Skills
2 43 (12.46%) Finance
3 32 (9.28%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (8.41%) Public Sector
5 17 (4.93%) Documentation Skills
6 15 (4.35%) Banking
7 6 (1.74%) Legal
8 5 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.45%) Police
8 5 (1.45%) Retail
9 4 (1.16%) Automotive
9 4 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.87%) Aerospace
10 3 (0.87%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.87%) Law
10 3 (0.87%) Military
11 2 (0.58%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.58%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.58%) Retail Banking
12 1 (0.29%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 70 (20.29%) Senior
2 56 (16.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 33 (9.57%) Architect
4 28 (8.12%) Network Engineer
5 27 (7.83%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 23 (6.67%) Platform Engineer
7 20 (5.80%) Support Engineer
8 19 (5.51%) 3rd Line Engineer
8 19 (5.51%) Senior Network Engineer
9 17 (4.93%) Consultant
10 15 (4.35%) Storage Engineer
11 14 (4.06%) DevOps Engineer
12 13 (3.77%) Lead
13 10 (2.90%) Active Directory Engineer
14 9 (2.61%) Cloud Engineer
14 9 (2.61%) Linux Engineer
15 8 (2.32%) Solutions Architect
15 8 (2.32%) VMware Engineer
16 7 (2.03%) Analyst
16 7 (2.03%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (17.97%) Terraform
2 28 (8.12%) LDAP
3 27 (7.83%) OpenID
4 26 (7.54%) SAML
5 24 (6.96%) 802.1X
6 19 (5.51%) OAuth
7 14 (4.06%) REST
8 11 (3.19%) OAuth2
9 10 (2.90%) .NET
9 10 (2.90%) Kafka
10 8 (2.32%) .NET Framework
10 8 (2.32%) Keycloak
10 8 (2.32%) XML
11 7 (2.03%) RabbitMQ
12 5 (1.45%) FIDO
12 5 (1.45%) JSON
12 5 (1.45%) Middleware
12 5 (1.45%) SailPoint
13 4 (1.16%) Web Services
13 4 (1.16%) WebAuthn
Miscellaneous
1 35 (10.14%) Data Centre
2 33 (9.57%) Clustering
3 20 (5.80%) Cloud Native
4 17 (4.93%) Onboarding
4 17 (4.93%) Public Cloud
5 14 (4.06%) Distributed Systems
6 13 (3.77%) Linux Command Line
7 11 (3.19%) Hybrid Cloud
8 9 (2.61%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (2.61%) Enterprise Storage
8 9 (2.61%) Security Posture
9 8 (2.32%) Management Information System
9 8 (2.32%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (2.03%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (2.03%) Replication
11 5 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
11 5 (1.45%) Mainframe
11 5 (1.45%) Private Cloud
11 5 (1.45%) Robotics
11 5 (1.45%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 159 (46.09%) Windows
2 106 (30.72%) Linux
3 90 (26.09%) Windows Server
4 13 (3.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 13 (3.77%) Windows Server 2016
5 12 (3.48%) Ubuntu
5 12 (3.48%) Unix
6 10 (2.90%) Windows Server 2012
7 7 (2.03%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (1.74%) Debian
9 4 (1.16%) Android
10 3 (0.87%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.87%) CentOS
10 3 (0.87%) Data ONTAP
10 3 (0.87%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.87%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.58%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.29%) VMS
12 1 (0.29%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (27.83%) Identity Access Management
2 71 (20.58%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 61 (17.68%) Infrastructure as Code
4 58 (16.81%) Cybersecurity
4 58 (16.81%) ITIL
5 56 (16.23%) Problem-Solving
6 52 (15.07%) High Availability
7 49 (14.20%) DevOps
8 48 (13.91%) CI/CD
8 48 (13.91%) Zero Trust
9 46 (13.33%) Technical Leadership
10 45 (13.04%) Key Management
11 44 (12.75%) Stakeholder Management
12 43 (12.46%) Continuous Improvement
13 39 (11.30%) Agile
14 38 (11.01%) Platform Engineering
15 37 (10.72%) Secrets Management
16 36 (10.43%) Change Management
17 35 (10.14%) DevSecOps
18 34 (9.86%) Cryptography
Programming Languages
1 95 (27.54%) PowerShell
2 65 (18.84%) Python
3 36 (10.43%) Bash
4 16 (4.64%) SQL
5 11 (3.19%) C#
5 11 (3.19%) JavaScript
6 9 (2.61%) Java
7 5 (1.45%) Go
8 3 (0.87%) Ruby
9 2 (0.58%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.29%) Bicep
10 1 (0.29%) C++
Qualifications
1 174 (50.43%) Security Cleared
2 99 (28.70%) DV Cleared
3 83 (24.06%) SC Cleared
4 26 (7.54%) Cisco Certification
5 22 (6.38%) Microsoft Certification
6 21 (6.09%) Degree
7 18 (5.22%) CCNP
8 15 (4.35%) CISSP
9 14 (4.06%) Azure Certification
10 12 (3.48%) MCSE
10 12 (3.48%) VCAP
11 9 (2.61%) AWS Certification
12 7 (2.03%) CISM
13 6 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
13 6 (1.74%) GIAC
14 5 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
14 5 (1.45%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 5 (1.45%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 5 (1.45%) JNCIS
14 5 (1.45%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (10.14%) NIST
2 26 (7.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (6.38%) NCSC
4 14 (4.06%) SLA
5 8 (2.32%) JSP 440
6 7 (2.03%) GRC
7 6 (1.74%) QA
8 5 (1.45%) GDPR
8 5 (1.45%) SOC 2
9 4 (1.16%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.58%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.58%) ISA99
10 2 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.58%) ITGC
10 2 (0.58%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.29%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.29%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.29%) PSD2
System Software
1 168 (48.70%) Active Directory
2 71 (20.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 41 (11.88%) Docker
4 34 (9.86%) Hyper-V
5 31 (8.99%) VMware NSX
6 18 (5.22%) vSphere
7 11 (3.19%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (2.03%) BitLocker
9 6 (1.74%) Microsoft App-V
9 6 (1.74%) Virtual Machines
10 4 (1.16%) NFS
10 4 (1.16%) OpenSSH
10 4 (1.16%) Terminal Services
10 4 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.87%) Firmware
11 3 (0.87%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.58%) XenApp
12 2 (0.58%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.29%) KVM
13 1 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 71 (20.58%) Kubernetes
2 59 (17.10%) Ansible
3 34 (9.86%) Single Sign-On
4 22 (6.38%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (6.38%) vCenter Server
5 15 (4.35%) VxRail
6 14 (4.06%) SCOM
7 13 (3.77%) Avamar
8 10 (2.90%) Grafana
8 10 (2.90%) Prometheus
9 9 (2.61%) Puppet
10 8 (2.32%) Istio
10 8 (2.32%) SCCM
10 8 (2.32%) WSUS
11 6 (1.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (1.74%) CA Single Sign-On
11 6 (1.74%) FortiGate
11 6 (1.74%) Kibana
11 6 (1.74%) vMotion
12 5 (1.45%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 150 (43.48%) Microsoft
2 87 (25.22%) VMware
3 49 (14.20%) Cisco
4 28 (8.12%) Thales
5 27 (7.83%) ServiceNow
6 23 (6.67%) Okta
7 19 (5.51%) BeyondTrust
8 16 (4.64%) Citrix
8 16 (4.64%) CyberArk
8 16 (4.64%) Splunk
9 15 (4.35%) Dell
9 15 (4.35%) Google
9 15 (4.35%) Juniper
10 13 (3.77%) SolarWinds
11 12 (3.48%) NetApp
11 12 (3.48%) Palo Alto
12 10 (2.90%) BMC
12 10 (2.90%) CheckPoint
12 10 (2.90%) F5
12 10 (2.90%) Remedy