SSH Contract Job Trends

Secure Shell (SSH)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs citing SSH skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 25 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 613 484 520
Rank change year-on-year -129 +36 +50
Contract jobs citing SSH 70 91 44
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.13% 0.27% 0.12%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.38% 2.36% 0.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 37 62 26
10th Percentile £384 £162 £370
25th Percentile £460 £350 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £458 £500
Median % change year-on-year +17.42% -8.45% +11.11%
75th Percentile £625 £488 £560
90th Percentile £714 £600 £663
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £475 £411
% change year-on-year +26.32% +15.50% -4.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 0
10th Percentile £53.70 - -
25th Percentile £60.75 - -
Median hourly rate £75.00 - -
75th Percentile £77.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.00 - -

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 citing communications or computer networking skills.

6 months to
25 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing communications or computer networking skills 5,055 3,853 4,467
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 9.22% 11.46% 12.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,907 2,486 2,560
10th Percentile £231 £213 £223
25th Percentile £385 £356 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £594 £588 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £454 £475
% change year-on-year +7.83% -4.53% +2.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 448 192 168
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £15.59
25th Percentile £19.33 £20.13 £26.25
Median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £48.03
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% -27.13% -14.84%
75th Percentile £68.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £95.30 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £42.22 £50.00
% change year-on-year -38.42% -15.56% -11.49%

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 25 October 2026.

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 Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution for jobs citing SSH over the 6 months to 25 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SSH in the UK

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 25 October 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
Job Ads
Past 6 Months
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -132 64 £538 +13.16% 48
London -78 36 £538 +19.44% 19
UK excluding London -121 32 £600 +26.32% 25
Work from Home -59 24 £506 +26.56% 24
South East -43 14 £615 +60.15% 8
North of England -82 8 £364 -23.37% 3
North West -49 7 £364 -19.38% 3
Scotland - 5 £640 -
East of England - 4 £425 - 3
Yorkshire -45 1 - -
South West - 1 - - 5

SSH Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Communications & Networking

RankSkillShareJob Ads
1DNS38.6%27
2TCP/IP31.4%22
3Firewall21.4%15
4HTTPS20.0%14
5DHCP17.1%12
6SSL14.3%10
6VPN14.3%10
8HTTP12.9%9
8Network Security12.9%9
105G8.6%6
114G7.1%5
12Kerberos5.7%4
12OpenVPN5.7%4
14FTP2.9%2
14IMAP2.9%2
14OpenLDAP2.9%2
14SMTP2.9%2
14SNMP2.9%2
14X.5092.9%2
20BGP1.4%1