SSH Contract Job Trends

Secure Shell (SSH)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring SSH skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 477 526 528
Rank change year-on-year +49 +2 +182
Contract jobs citing SSH 101 35 76
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.097% 0.17%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 2.54% 0.79% 1.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 71 19 51
10th Percentile £250 £373 £285
25th Percentile £362 £404 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -5.56% -18.18%
75th Percentile £488 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £677 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £420 £405
% change year-on-year +13.10% +3.70% -19.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 2
Median hourly rate - - £78.00
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 3,977 4,447 6,239
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.90% 12.31% 13.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,585 2,567 3,866
10th Percentile £206 £220 £211
25th Percentile £356 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £584 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £686 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 167 348
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.06 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.13 £22.75 £22.69
Median hourly rate £34.00 £41.00 £55.70
Median % change year-on-year -17.07% -26.39% +26.02%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.05
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £47.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -10.53% -15.91% +25.53%

SSH
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SSH relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

SSH job vacancy trend 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 5 December 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 5 December 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 +23 84 £475 +13.10% 13
UK excluding London -5 59 £475 +13.10% 12
London +27 34 £458 -40.55% 1
Midlands +4 33 £475 +11.76% 2
West Midlands +3 30 £475 +11.76% 2
North of England -29 25 £475 +16.56% 2
Work from Home +14 22 £400 -17.95% 5
North West -9 13 £430 -5.51% 2
Yorkshire -28 12 £675 +65.64%
East Midlands - 3 £134 -
South East -10 1 £384 -25.07% 7

SSH
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 40 (39.60%) Confluence
2 13 (12.87%) SharePoint
3 10 (9.90%) nginx
4 7 (6.93%) TPMS
5 3 (2.97%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (2.97%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.99%) Apache
Applications
1 12 (11.88%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (9.90%) Mozilla Thunderbird
3 2 (1.98%) AutoCAD
3 2 (1.98%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.99%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.99%) OmniGraffle
Cloud Services
1 32 (31.68%) AWS
2 24 (23.76%) Amazon S3
3 21 (20.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 21 (20.79%) Amazon EC2
3 21 (20.79%) Amazon ELB
3 21 (20.79%) AWS KMS
3 21 (20.79%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 20 (19.80%) Azure
5 11 (10.89%) Amazon Glacier
6 10 (9.90%) Amazon ECS
6 10 (9.90%) Microsoft 365
6 10 (9.90%) Route 53
7 6 (5.94%) GCP
7 6 (5.94%) Nutanix
8 5 (4.95%) GitHub
9 3 (2.97%) SaaS
10 2 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
11 1 (0.99%) Entra ID
11 1 (0.99%) OCI
11 1 (0.99%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 31 (30.69%) HTTP
2 30 (29.70%) DNS
2 30 (29.70%) Firewall
3 25 (24.75%) FTP
3 25 (24.75%) SMTP
4 13 (12.87%) SNMP
5 12 (11.88%) SSL
6 10 (9.90%) IMAP
6 10 (9.90%) OpenLDAP
7 8 (7.92%) TCP/IP
8 7 (6.93%) Kerberos
9 5 (4.95%) SD-WAN
9 5 (4.95%) Telnet
10 4 (3.96%) Cisco IOS
10 4 (3.96%) Spanning Tree
10 4 (3.96%) WAN
11 3 (2.97%) Ethernet
11 3 (2.97%) PuTTY
11 3 (2.97%) TACACS
11 3 (2.97%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (20.79%) Amazon RDS
2 15 (14.85%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (9.90%) Amazon Aurora
4 5 (4.95%) Hadoop
5 3 (2.97%) Big Data
5 3 (2.97%) Delta Lake
5 3 (2.97%) NoSQL
5 3 (2.97%) Parquet
6 2 (1.98%) Apache Hive
6 2 (1.98%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (1.98%) Impala
6 2 (1.98%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 46 (45.54%) JIRA
2 32 (31.68%) Git
3 26 (25.74%) Jenkins
4 21 (20.79%) Vagrant
5 5 (4.95%) SonarQube
6 3 (2.97%) MLflow
7 2 (1.98%) Poetry
7 2 (1.98%) PyCharm
7 2 (1.98%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (1.98%) TeamCity
7 2 (1.98%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.99%) Bitbucket
General
1 48 (47.52%) Social Skills
2 21 (20.79%) Public Sector
3 20 (19.80%) Finance
4 15 (14.85%) Documentation Skills
4 15 (14.85%) Presentation Skills
5 9 (8.91%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (2.97%) Banking
6 3 (2.97%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 22 (21.78%) DevOps Engineer
2 18 (17.82%) Platform Engineer
3 17 (16.83%) AWS Engineer
3 17 (16.83%) Cloud Platform Engineer
4 15 (14.85%) Analyst
4 15 (14.85%) AWS DevOps
4 15 (14.85%) AWS DevOps Engineer
5 11 (10.89%) Developer
6 10 (9.90%) AWS Platform Engineer
6 10 (9.90%) Consultant
7 9 (8.91%) Cryptography Engineer
7 9 (8.91%) DevOps Platform Engineer
7 9 (8.91%) Java Developer
8 6 (5.94%) Management Consultant
9 5 (4.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 5 (4.95%) Network Engineer
10 3 (2.97%) Audio Visual Engineer
10 3 (2.97%) Data Engineer
10 3 (2.97%) Kafka Developer
10 3 (2.97%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (26.73%) LDAP
2 9 (8.91%) Node.js
3 6 (5.94%) Kafka
4 5 (4.95%) OAuth
4 5 (4.95%) SAML
5 3 (2.97%) Apache Avro
5 3 (2.97%) Elastic Stack
5 3 (2.97%) Flask
5 3 (2.97%) NumPy
5 3 (2.97%) Pandas
6 2 (1.98%) SailPoint
7 1 (0.99%) LAMP
7 1 (0.99%) LAPP Stack
7 1 (0.99%) libvirt
7 1 (0.99%) Middleware
7 1 (0.99%) TIBCO EMS
Miscellaneous
1 23 (22.77%) Replication
2 13 (12.87%) Tandem
3 5 (4.95%) Data Protection Act
3 5 (4.95%) Management Information System
3 5 (4.95%) PKI
4 3 (2.97%) Linux Command Line
5 2 (1.98%) Algorithms
5 2 (1.98%) Cloud Native
5 2 (1.98%) Digital Signage
5 2 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.98%) Machine to Machine
5 2 (1.98%) Market Risk
5 2 (1.98%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.98%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.99%) BYOD
6 1 (0.99%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (0.99%) Virtual Team
6 1 (0.99%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 63 (62.38%) Windows
2 58 (57.43%) Linux
3 21 (20.79%) Amazon Linux
3 21 (20.79%) VMS
4 17 (16.83%) Unix
5 10 (9.90%) Ubuntu
6 7 (6.93%) AIX
6 7 (6.93%) Solaris
7 3 (2.97%) Windows 10
7 3 (2.97%) Windows 7
7 3 (2.97%) Windows 8
7 3 (2.97%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (32.67%) Change Management
2 31 (30.69%) Cryptography
2 31 (30.69%) Key Management
3 30 (29.70%) DevOps
4 25 (24.75%) Problem-Solving
5 23 (22.77%) CI/CD
5 23 (22.77%) Configuration Management
5 23 (22.77%) Patch Management
6 22 (21.78%) Platform Engineering
6 22 (21.78%) Stakeholder Management
7 21 (20.79%) Cloud Security
8 17 (16.83%) Agile
8 17 (16.83%) Information Security
9 16 (15.84%) Incident Response
10 15 (14.85%) Computer Science
10 15 (14.85%) ITIL
10 15 (14.85%) Project Management
11 14 (13.86%) Data Protection
11 14 (13.86%) Roadmaps
11 14 (13.86%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 42 (41.58%) Python
2 28 (27.72%) PowerShell
3 24 (23.76%) Groovy
4 21 (20.79%) Java
5 17 (16.83%) SQL
6 12 (11.88%) Perl
7 11 (10.89%) Bash
8 9 (8.91%) JavaScript
8 9 (8.91%) Shell Script
8 9 (8.91%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 25 (24.75%) Degree
2 24 (23.76%) Security Cleared
3 22 (21.78%) SC Cleared
4 13 (12.87%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (12.87%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (9.90%) AWS Certification
5 10 (9.90%) Azure Certification
6 7 (6.93%) FFIEC
7 6 (5.94%) CISSP
8 5 (4.95%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (2.97%) CEH
9 3 (2.97%) CISM
10 2 (1.98%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.99%) CCNP
11 1 (0.99%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.99%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.99%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (13.86%) NIST
1 14 (13.86%) PCI DSS
2 7 (6.93%) GDPR
2 7 (6.93%) GLBA
3 5 (4.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (3.96%) SOC 2
5 3 (2.97%) FIPS 140-2
6 2 (1.98%) GRC
6 2 (1.98%) SLA
System Software
1 31 (30.69%) Active Directory
2 26 (25.74%) Docker
3 21 (20.79%) DFS Replication
4 10 (9.90%) Dovecot
4 10 (9.90%) Postfix
4 10 (9.90%) Squid
5 7 (6.93%) VMware Infrastructure
6 5 (4.95%) Firmware
7 3 (2.97%) BitLocker
8 2 (1.98%) HDFS
9 1 (0.99%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.99%) Ceph
9 1 (0.99%) iptables
9 1 (0.99%) KVM
9 1 (0.99%) Lustre
9 1 (0.99%) NFS
9 1 (0.99%) Samba
9 1 (0.99%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.99%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.99%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 23 (22.77%) Terraform
2 21 (20.79%) Grafana
2 21 (20.79%) Prometheus
3 12 (11.88%) Ansible
4 10 (9.90%) Nessus
4 10 (9.90%) Proxmox
5 6 (5.94%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (3.96%) Kubernetes
7 3 (2.97%) Argo
7 3 (2.97%) Istio
7 3 (2.97%) SCCM
8 2 (1.98%) Kibana
8 2 (1.98%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.99%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.99%) SELinux
Vendors
1 29 (28.71%) ServiceNow
2 16 (15.84%) Thales
3 13 (12.87%) IBM
3 13 (12.87%) Microsoft
4 11 (10.89%) CyberArk
5 10 (9.90%) Jaspersoft
6 9 (8.91%) Splunk
7 8 (7.92%) Gemalto
8 7 (6.93%) BeyondTrust
8 7 (6.93%) Cisco
8 7 (6.93%) VMware
9 3 (2.97%) BiZZdesign
9 3 (2.97%) Cloudera
9 3 (2.97%) Dell
9 3 (2.97%) Draytek
9 3 (2.97%) McAfee
9 3 (2.97%) Meraki
10 2 (1.98%) Ciena
10 2 (1.98%) Qualys
10 2 (1.98%) Red Hat