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

6 months to
18 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 325 307 245
Rank change year-on-year -18 -62 +128
Contract jobs citing PKI 269 273 470
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.76% 0.76% 1.01%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.12% 2.44% 3.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 151 292
10th Percentile £358 £413 £395
25th Percentile £463 £475 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -6.20%
75th Percentile £675 £629 £675
90th Percentile £838 £725 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £575
% change year-on-year - -4.35% +0.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 5
10th Percentile - - £46.38
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate - £23.80 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - -56.73% -10.57%
75th Percentile - - £56.40
90th Percentile - - £63.06
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £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 12,670 11,187 14,974
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.80% 31.03% 32.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,846 6,590 10,069
10th Percentile £275 £285 £275
25th Percentile £406 £409 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £531 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.63% -3.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £663 £665
90th Percentile £749 £788 £768
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 679 359 500
10th Percentile £13.50 £17.08 £16.74
25th Percentile £17.89 £22.50 £20.84
Median hourly rate £26.50 £37.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.33% -15.73% +50.29%
75th Percentile £51.13 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.16 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.50 £37.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -29.33% -18.80% +84.72%

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 18 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
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 18 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 -9 252 £550 - 95
UK excluding London -62 156 £550 - 79
London +54 94 £675 +18.42% 22
Work from Home +15 87 £650 +8.33% 28
South West -26 51 £550 +0.55% 9
South East -12 46 £600 -0.41% 56
Midlands -14 36 £400 -27.27% 2
West Midlands -10 35 £400 -27.27% 2
North of England -39 11 £500 -29.82% 5
North West -13 10 £444 -6.58% 5
Scotland -26 8 £538 +4.88% 2
East of England -15 3 £550 - 4
Wales +2 1 £550 - 1
Yorkshire -41 1 £600 -18.64%
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 35 (13.01%) Microsoft Exchange
2 18 (6.69%) Confluence
3 14 (5.20%) SharePoint
4 12 (4.46%) Apache
5 10 (3.72%) IIS
6 6 (2.23%) Skype for Business
7 4 (1.49%) JBoss
7 4 (1.49%) SharePoint Server
8 2 (0.74%) Alfresco
8 2 (0.74%) Camunda
8 2 (0.74%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 24 (8.92%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.74%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (0.74%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 48 (17.84%) Azure
2 39 (14.50%) AWS
3 26 (9.67%) IaaS
4 22 (8.18%) Microsoft 365
5 21 (7.81%) Entra ID
6 14 (5.20%) GitHub
7 8 (2.97%) AWS CloudFormation
7 8 (2.97%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 7 (2.60%) Amazon ECS
8 7 (2.60%) AWS Fargate
9 6 (2.23%) GCP
9 6 (2.23%) SaaS
10 5 (1.86%) Azure Sentinel
11 4 (1.49%) Amazon S3
11 4 (1.49%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (1.49%) Power Platform
12 3 (1.12%) Amazon EC2
12 3 (1.12%) Nutanix
12 3 (1.12%) PaaS
12 3 (1.12%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 59 (21.93%) DNS
2 49 (18.22%) Firewall
3 41 (15.24%) BGP
4 40 (14.87%) IPsec
5 39 (14.50%) VPN
6 31 (11.52%) MPLS
7 27 (10.04%) WAN
8 23 (8.55%) SSL
9 21 (7.81%) DHCP
10 18 (6.69%) Network Security
11 16 (5.95%) Skype
12 12 (4.46%) Unified Communications
13 9 (3.35%) HTTPS
13 9 (3.35%) Junos
14 8 (2.97%) OSPF
15 6 (2.23%) EIGRP
15 6 (2.23%) Kerberos
15 6 (2.23%) S/MIME
15 6 (2.23%) VSAN
16 5 (1.86%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (5.58%) SQL Server
2 9 (3.35%) MongoDB
3 5 (1.86%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (1.86%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.74%) MySQL
4 2 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.37%) Power BI
5 1 (0.37%) Redis
Development Applications
1 18 (6.69%) JIRA
2 12 (4.46%) GitLab
3 9 (3.35%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.86%) MSI
5 4 (1.49%) Git
5 4 (1.49%) Robot Framework
5 4 (1.49%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (1.49%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.74%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.74%) JUnit
6 2 (0.74%) SpecFlow
7 1 (0.37%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.37%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.37%) Postman
General
1 59 (21.93%) Social Skills
2 56 (20.82%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (14.13%) Public Sector
4 18 (6.69%) Finance
4 18 (6.69%) Military
5 6 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
7 3 (1.12%) Banking
8 1 (0.37%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.37%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.37%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.37%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 71 (26.39%) Architect
2 27 (10.04%) Senior
3 26 (9.67%) 3rd Line Engineer
4 23 (8.55%) Network Engineer
4 23 (8.55%) Support Engineer
5 19 (7.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 18 (6.69%) 3rd Line Support
7 17 (6.32%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
7 17 (6.32%) Lead
7 17 (6.32%) Security Architect
8 15 (5.58%) Administrator
9 14 (5.20%) Platform Manager
9 14 (5.20%) Systems Administrator
9 14 (5.20%) Systems Manager
9 14 (5.20%) Wintel Administrator
9 14 (5.20%) Wintel Engineer
9 14 (5.20%) Wintel Systems Administrator
10 11 (4.09%) WAN Engineer
11 10 (3.72%) 2nd Line Engineer
11 10 (3.72%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (12.27%) REST
2 28 (10.41%) JSON
3 14 (5.20%) OpenID
4 13 (4.83%) Kafka
5 11 (4.09%) SAML
6 10 (3.72%) OAuth
6 10 (3.72%) OAuth2
7 9 (3.35%) Keycloak
8 7 (2.60%) cloud-init
8 7 (2.60%) NETCONF
8 7 (2.60%) RESTCONF
9 4 (1.49%) .NET
9 4 (1.49%) AngularJS
9 4 (1.49%) AWS CDK
9 4 (1.49%) LDAP
9 4 (1.49%) YAML
10 3 (1.12%) HTML
10 3 (1.12%) JDBC
10 3 (1.12%) SOAP
11 2 (0.74%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 30 (11.15%) Self-Motivation
2 11 (4.09%) Data Centre
2 11 (4.09%) Management Information System
3 10 (3.72%) Fat Client
3 10 (3.72%) Thin Client
4 8 (2.97%) Algorithms
4 8 (2.97%) Private Cloud
4 8 (2.97%) Replication
5 6 (2.23%) Security Operations Centre
6 5 (1.86%) Legacy Applications
7 4 (1.49%) Cloud Native
7 4 (1.49%) Cyber Defence
7 4 (1.49%) Onboarding
7 4 (1.49%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.12%) Taxonomies
9 2 (0.74%) CMDB
9 2 (0.74%) CSOC
9 2 (0.74%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (0.74%) Public Cloud
9 2 (0.74%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 87 (32.34%) Windows
2 46 (17.10%) Linux
3 44 (16.36%) Windows Server
4 14 (5.20%) CentOS
5 13 (4.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 13 (4.83%) Windows 10
6 9 (3.35%) Unix
6 9 (3.35%) Windows Server 2019
7 8 (2.97%) Windows 7
7 8 (2.97%) Windows Server 2012
8 5 (1.86%) Windows Server 2008
8 5 (1.86%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (1.12%) VMS
10 2 (0.74%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.37%) Android
11 1 (0.37%) Apple iOS
11 1 (0.37%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.37%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (30.11%) Agile
2 49 (18.22%) Key Management
3 34 (12.64%) DevOps
4 31 (11.52%) Change Management
4 31 (11.52%) Configuration Management
4 31 (11.52%) ITIL
5 29 (10.78%) Service Management
6 28 (10.41%) Cybersecurity
7 27 (10.04%) CI/CD
7 27 (10.04%) Cryptography
8 26 (9.67%) Information Security
8 26 (9.67%) Problem-Solving
9 24 (8.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 21 (7.81%) Incident Response
11 19 (7.06%) Containerisation
11 19 (7.06%) Load Balancing
11 19 (7.06%) SIEM
12 18 (6.69%) Infrastructure as Code
12 18 (6.69%) Kalman Filter
12 18 (6.69%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 71 (26.39%) PowerShell
2 45 (16.73%) Python
3 16 (5.95%) Bash
3 16 (5.95%) SQL
4 7 (2.60%) Go
4 7 (2.60%) Java
5 6 (2.23%) C++
5 6 (2.23%) JavaScript
5 6 (2.23%) Perl
5 6 (2.23%) Shell Script
6 4 (1.49%) PHP
7 2 (0.74%) C#
8 1 (0.37%) Bicep
8 1 (0.37%) C
8 1 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 180 (66.91%) Security Cleared
2 104 (38.66%) SC Cleared
3 69 (25.65%) DV Cleared
4 39 (14.50%) Degree
5 25 (9.29%) Cisco Certification
5 25 (9.29%) Microsoft Certification
6 20 (7.43%) CCNP
7 12 (4.46%) CISSP
7 12 (4.46%) MCSE
8 9 (3.35%) ITIL Certification
9 7 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (2.60%) Master's Degree
10 6 (2.23%) CCNA
10 6 (2.23%) IISP
10 6 (2.23%) ISACA
10 6 (2.23%) JNCIA
10 6 (2.23%) JNCIS
11 4 (1.49%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 4 (1.49%) CISM
11 4 (1.49%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.69%) NCSC
2 16 (5.95%) NIST
3 10 (3.72%) PCI DSS
4 9 (3.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (2.23%) GDPR
6 5 (1.86%) FIPS 140-2
7 3 (1.12%) SLA
8 2 (0.74%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.74%) COBIT
8 2 (0.74%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.74%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.74%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.74%) QA
8 2 (0.74%) SOC 1
9 1 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.37%) GxP
9 1 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.37%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.37%) PSD2
9 1 (0.37%) RMADS
System Software
1 74 (27.51%) Active Directory
2 46 (17.10%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (5.95%) VMware ESXi
4 13 (4.83%) Docker
5 11 (4.09%) Firmware
6 10 (3.72%) VMware NSX
7 8 (2.97%) vSphere
8 6 (2.23%) Hyper-V
8 6 (2.23%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (2.23%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (1.86%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 2 (0.74%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 2 (0.74%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.37%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.37%) NFS
11 1 (0.37%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 29 (10.78%) Ansible
2 21 (7.81%) Terraform
3 19 (7.06%) Kubernetes
4 16 (5.95%) Single Sign-On
5 15 (5.58%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (5.58%) vCenter Server
6 14 (5.20%) SCCM
7 13 (4.83%) WMI
8 12 (4.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 11 (4.09%) WSUS
10 8 (2.97%) SCOM
11 7 (2.60%) Jamf Pro
11 7 (2.60%) Packer
12 5 (1.86%) Grafana
12 5 (1.86%) Prometheus
13 4 (1.49%) Podman
13 4 (1.49%) QRadar
14 3 (1.12%) Check_MK
14 3 (1.12%) FortiGate
14 3 (1.12%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 93 (34.57%) Microsoft
2 63 (23.42%) VMware
3 43 (15.99%) Cisco
4 38 (14.13%) Juniper
5 26 (9.67%) Splunk
6 15 (5.58%) Veeam
7 13 (4.83%) SolarWinds
8 9 (3.35%) Atlassian
9 8 (2.97%) Dell
9 8 (2.97%) Fortinet
9 8 (2.97%) Okta
10 7 (2.60%) Thales
11 6 (2.23%) Google
11 6 (2.23%) IBM
12 5 (1.86%) CyberArk
12 5 (1.86%) Palo Alto
13 4 (1.49%) Citrix
13 4 (1.49%) Oracle
13 4 (1.49%) Red Hat
13 4 (1.49%) Zscaler