SSH Contract Job Trends

Secure Shell (SSH)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring SSH skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 479 507 561
Rank change year-on-year +28 +54 +127
Contract jobs citing SSH 78 55 71
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.24% 0.14% 0.14%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.05% 1.20% 1.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 32 43
10th Percentile £255 £398 £326
25th Percentile £361 £413 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% +16.67% -20.00%
75th Percentile £539 £573 £597
90th Percentile £631 £649 £670
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £411 £413
% change year-on-year +15.50% -0.30% -20.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 4
10th Percentile - - £26.43
25th Percentile - - £40.12
Median hourly rate - - £62.87
75th Percentile - - £78.00
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £78.00

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

SSH falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 3,805 4,583 6,569
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.55% 11.89% 13.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,363 2,666 4,180
10th Percentile £225 £225 £228
25th Percentile £363 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £608 £613
90th Percentile £680 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £453
% change year-on-year -10.00% +10.50% +0.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 199 252 305
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.16 £16.95
25th Percentile £25.15 £21.37 £23.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £51.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% -9.72% +36.12%
75th Percentile £64.38 £65.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £75.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £57.35 £57.50
% change year-on-year -25.89% -0.26% +27.78%

SSH
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SSH as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SSH in the UK

SSH
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SSH.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SSH

SSH
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SSH over the 6 months to 19 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SSH in the UK

SSH
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SSH.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing SSH

SSH
Top 11 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SSH within the UK over the 6 months to 19 September 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 +31 72 £475 -9.52% 63
UK excluding London +33 41 £475 +15.50% 66
London +15 40 £475 -11.63% 2
Midlands - 30 £475 - 17
West Midlands - 27 £475 - 10
Work from Home +16 12 £439 -16.48% 10
North of England -28 10 £484 +18.65% 14
Yorkshire -20 6 £625 +53.37% 5
North West -6 4 £470 +109.00% 8
East Midlands - 3 £134 - 6
South East +19 1 £384 -40.92% 10

SSH
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 34 (43.59%) Confluence
2 12 (15.38%) nginx
3 7 (8.97%) Apache Spark
4 6 (7.69%) SharePoint
5 4 (5.13%) Apache
5 4 (5.13%) Jupyter
6 3 (3.85%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (1.28%) TPMS
Applications
1 10 (12.82%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 8 (10.26%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (3.85%) AutoCAD
4 2 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (1.28%) MS Visio
5 1 (1.28%) OmniGraffle
Cloud Services
1 34 (43.59%) AWS
2 27 (34.62%) Amazon S3
3 24 (30.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 23 (29.49%) Amazon EC2
5 22 (28.21%) Amazon ELB
5 22 (28.21%) AWS KMS
5 22 (28.21%) Azure
5 22 (28.21%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 12 (15.38%) Amazon Glacier
6 12 (15.38%) Route 53
7 10 (12.82%) Amazon ECS
7 10 (12.82%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (7.69%) GCP
9 5 (6.41%) GitHub
10 4 (5.13%) Nutanix
10 4 (5.13%) Power Platform
11 2 (2.56%) AWS Lambda
11 2 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (2.56%) Serverless
12 1 (1.28%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 32 (41.03%) HTTP
2 29 (37.18%) DNS
3 28 (35.90%) Firewall
3 28 (35.90%) SMTP
4 23 (29.49%) FTP
5 10 (12.82%) IMAP
5 10 (12.82%) OpenLDAP
5 10 (12.82%) TCP/IP
6 8 (10.26%) SSL
7 6 (7.69%) Internet
8 5 (6.41%) Telnet
9 4 (5.13%) HTTPS
9 4 (5.13%) SNMP
10 3 (3.85%) PuTTY
11 2 (2.56%) DMZ
11 2 (2.56%) Kerberos
11 2 (2.56%) Network Security
11 2 (2.56%) SD-WAN
11 2 (2.56%) VLAN
11 2 (2.56%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (28.21%) Amazon RDS
2 14 (17.95%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (12.82%) Amazon Aurora
4 7 (8.97%) Delta Lake
5 6 (7.69%) Apache Hive
6 5 (6.41%) Hadoop
7 4 (5.13%) Azure SQL Database
7 4 (5.13%) Power BI
7 4 (5.13%) SQL Server
8 3 (3.85%) Big Data
8 3 (3.85%) NoSQL
8 3 (3.85%) Parquet
9 2 (2.56%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (2.56%) Impala
9 2 (2.56%) RDBMS
9 2 (2.56%) Relational Database
10 1 (1.28%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 45 (57.69%) JIRA
2 36 (46.15%) Git
3 33 (42.31%) Jenkins
4 22 (28.21%) Vagrant
5 5 (6.41%) SonarQube
6 4 (5.13%) RStudio
7 3 (3.85%) Gradle
7 3 (3.85%) JMeter
7 3 (3.85%) MLflow
7 3 (3.85%) Selenium
8 2 (2.56%) Poetry
8 2 (2.56%) PyCharm
8 2 (2.56%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (2.56%) TeamCity
8 2 (2.56%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (1.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (1.28%) Bitbucket
General
1 36 (46.15%) Social Skills
2 24 (30.77%) Public Sector
3 14 (17.95%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (14.10%) Finance
4 11 (14.10%) Presentation Skills
5 3 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.28%) Banking
Job Titles
1 24 (30.77%) DevOps Engineer
2 19 (24.36%) AWS Engineer
3 18 (23.08%) Platform Engineer
4 17 (21.79%) Cloud Platform Engineer
5 16 (20.51%) AWS DevOps
5 16 (20.51%) AWS DevOps Engineer
6 10 (12.82%) AWS Platform Engineer
7 9 (11.54%) DevOps Platform Engineer
8 7 (8.97%) Analyst
8 7 (8.97%) Data Engineer
9 5 (6.41%) Audio Visual Engineer
9 5 (6.41%) Network Engineer
10 4 (5.13%) Consultant
11 3 (3.85%) Commissioning Engineer
11 3 (3.85%) Cryptography Engineer
11 3 (3.85%) Support Engineer
11 3 (3.85%) Technical Engineer
12 2 (2.56%) Management Consultant
12 2 (2.56%) Network Security Engineer
12 2 (2.56%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (28.21%) LDAP
2 4 (5.13%) JSON
2 4 (5.13%) Kafka
2 4 (5.13%) pydantic
2 4 (5.13%) PySpark
2 4 (5.13%) YAML
3 3 (3.85%) Apache Avro
3 3 (3.85%) Elastic Stack
3 3 (3.85%) Flask
3 3 (3.85%) NumPy
3 3 (3.85%) Pandas
3 3 (3.85%) WireMock
4 1 (1.28%) Middleware
4 1 (1.28%) OAuth
4 1 (1.28%) SAML
4 1 (1.28%) TIBCO EMS
Miscellaneous
1 23 (29.49%) Replication
2 7 (8.97%) Linux Command Line
3 6 (7.69%) Tandem
4 4 (5.13%) Data Structures
4 4 (5.13%) Management Information System
4 4 (5.13%) Onboarding
4 4 (5.13%) PKI
4 4 (5.13%) Reference Data
5 3 (3.85%) Digital Signage
6 2 (2.56%) Algorithms
6 2 (2.56%) Cloud Native
6 2 (2.56%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (2.56%) Machine to Machine
6 2 (2.56%) Market Risk
7 1 (1.28%) BYOD
7 1 (1.28%) Data Centre
7 1 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.28%) Virtual Team
7 1 (1.28%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 46 (58.97%) Windows
2 45 (57.69%) Linux
3 24 (30.77%) Amazon Linux
4 22 (28.21%) VMS
5 11 (14.10%) Unix
6 10 (12.82%) Ubuntu
7 3 (3.85%) AIX
7 3 (3.85%) Solaris
7 3 (3.85%) Windows 10
7 3 (3.85%) Windows 7
7 3 (3.85%) Windows 8
7 3 (3.85%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (44.87%) DevOps
2 29 (37.18%) Change Management
3 24 (30.77%) Patch Management
4 23 (29.49%) Configuration Management
4 23 (29.49%) Key Management
4 23 (29.49%) Platform Engineering
5 22 (28.21%) Cloud Security
6 18 (23.08%) Cryptography
7 17 (21.79%) Problem-Solving
8 16 (20.51%) CI/CD
9 13 (16.67%) Agile
10 12 (15.38%) Performance Tuning
10 12 (15.38%) Service Management
11 10 (12.82%) Incident Response
11 10 (12.82%) Project Management
12 8 (10.26%) Computer Science
12 8 (10.26%) Identity Access Management
12 8 (10.26%) Information Security
12 8 (10.26%) Privileged Access Management
12 8 (10.26%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 35 (44.87%) Python
2 25 (32.05%) Groovy
2 25 (32.05%) PowerShell
3 19 (24.36%) SQL
4 16 (20.51%) Java
5 12 (15.38%) Perl
6 10 (12.82%) Bash
7 4 (5.13%) Scala
8 2 (2.56%) ActionScript
8 2 (2.56%) ActionScript 2.0
8 2 (2.56%) C
Qualifications
1 30 (38.46%) Security Cleared
2 29 (37.18%) SC Cleared
3 18 (23.08%) Degree
4 10 (12.82%) AWS Certification
4 10 (12.82%) Azure Certification
5 6 (7.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (6.41%) CISSP
7 3 (3.85%) CEH
8 2 (2.56%) CISM
9 1 (1.28%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (1.28%) CCNP
9 1 (1.28%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (1.28%) FFIEC
9 1 (1.28%) Master's Degree
9 1 (1.28%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (7.69%) NIST
1 6 (7.69%) PCI DSS
2 5 (6.41%) GDPR
3 3 (3.85%) FIPS 140-2
3 3 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (2.56%) GRC
4 2 (2.56%) SLA
4 2 (2.56%) SOC 2
5 1 (1.28%) GLBA
5 1 (1.28%) QA
System Software
1 27 (34.62%) Docker
2 22 (28.21%) Active Directory
2 22 (28.21%) DFS Replication
3 10 (12.82%) Dovecot
3 10 (12.82%) Postfix
3 10 (12.82%) Squid
4 5 (6.41%) Firmware
4 5 (6.41%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (3.85%) BitLocker
6 2 (2.56%) HDFS
7 1 (1.28%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 1 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (1.28%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 26 (33.33%) Terraform
2 22 (28.21%) Grafana
2 22 (28.21%) Prometheus
3 10 (12.82%) Ansible
3 10 (12.82%) Nessus
3 10 (12.82%) Proxmox
4 4 (5.13%) Kibana
4 4 (5.13%) Kubernetes
4 4 (5.13%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (3.85%) Argo
5 3 (3.85%) Istio
5 3 (3.85%) Packer
5 3 (3.85%) SCCM
6 2 (2.56%) FortiGate
6 2 (2.56%) Progress Chef
7 1 (1.28%) yum
Vendors
1 28 (35.90%) ServiceNow
2 11 (14.10%) Microsoft
3 10 (12.82%) Jaspersoft
4 8 (10.26%) IBM
5 5 (6.41%) CyberArk
5 5 (6.41%) VMware
6 4 (5.13%) Cisco
6 4 (5.13%) Databricks
7 3 (3.85%) BeyondTrust
7 3 (3.85%) BiZZdesign
7 3 (3.85%) Cloudera
7 3 (3.85%) Dell
7 3 (3.85%) Draytek
7 3 (3.85%) McAfee
7 3 (3.85%) Splunk
8 2 (2.56%) IBM Sterling
8 2 (2.56%) Qualys
8 2 (2.56%) Red Hat
8 2 (2.56%) Tenable
8 2 (2.56%) Thales