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 12 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 598 494 553
Rank change year-on-year -104 +59 +103
Contract jobs citing SSH 52 31 42
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.10% 0.11% 0.096%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 1.09% 0.84% 0.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 27 24 27
10th Percentile £363 £354 £263
25th Percentile £400 £415 £511
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -11.21% +7.00%
75th Percentile £688 £555 £590
90th Percentile - £599 £790
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £475 £225
% change year-on-year +36.84% +111.11% -56.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 0
10th Percentile £23.02 - -
25th Percentile £26.26 - -
Median hourly rate £40.19 - -
75th Percentile £67.84 - -
90th Percentile £75.02 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.19 - -

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 4,779 3,681 5,433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.56% 12.51% 12.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,930 2,266 3,221
10th Percentile £263 £220 £208
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £482 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.73% -2.63% -3.41%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £469 £481
% change year-on-year +2.27% -2.47% +1.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 287 165 420
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £27.50 £44.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.50% +10.00% +113.73%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.13 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £80.61 £71.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £31.79 £47.50
% change year-on-year +2.23% -33.07% +156.76%

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 12 June 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 of jobs citing SSH over the 6 months to 12 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SSH in the UK

SSH
Top 12 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 12 June 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 -114 33 £575 +21.05% 10
UK excluding London -64 31 £650 +36.84% 13
Work from Home -45 18 £463 -15.91% 5
North of England -62 12 £675 +92.86%
London -80 9 £563 +12.50% 5
South East - 8 £450 - 6
Yorkshire -47 7 £675 +92.86%
Scotland - 7 £670 - 2
North West -27 5 £353 -
South West -22 2 - - 1
West Midlands -59 2 £375 -21.05%
Midlands -64 2 £375 -21.05% 1

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 11 (21.15%) Confluence
2 6 (11.54%) TPMS
3 5 (9.62%) SharePoint
4 3 (5.77%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (1.92%) Apache
5 1 (1.92%) JBoss
5 1 (1.92%) OpenStack
5 1 (1.92%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (5.77%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 11 (21.15%) Azure
2 9 (17.31%) AWS
2 9 (17.31%) Entra ID
3 5 (9.62%) GCP
4 3 (5.77%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (5.77%) SaaS
5 2 (3.85%) AWS KMS
5 2 (3.85%) Azure Key Vault
5 2 (3.85%) OCI
5 2 (3.85%) Sentry
6 1 (1.92%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (1.92%) Azure Stack
6 1 (1.92%) Nutanix
6 1 (1.92%) OpenShift
6 1 (1.92%) PaaS
6 1 (1.92%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 14 (26.92%) SSL
2 10 (19.23%) SNMP
3 8 (15.38%) DNS
4 6 (11.54%) HTTPS
5 4 (7.69%) DHCP
5 4 (7.69%) TCP/IP
6 3 (5.77%) Firewall
6 3 (5.77%) FTP
6 3 (5.77%) HTTP
6 3 (5.77%) SMTP
6 3 (5.77%) Telnet
6 3 (5.77%) X.509
7 2 (3.85%) Network Security
8 1 (1.92%) IPsec
8 1 (1.92%) NAS
8 1 (1.92%) Reverse Proxy
8 1 (1.92%) SAN
8 1 (1.92%) Software-Defined Networking
8 1 (1.92%) VLAN
8 1 (1.92%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (11.54%) SQL Server
2 5 (9.62%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (7.69%) MariaDB
3 4 (7.69%) MongoDB
4 2 (3.85%) SQLPlus
5 1 (1.92%) OpenStack Swift
5 1 (1.92%) Oracle Database
5 1 (1.92%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 11 (21.15%) JIRA
2 4 (7.69%) Git
3 1 (1.92%) GitLab
General
1 13 (25.00%) Documentation Skills
2 12 (23.08%) Finance
3 11 (21.15%) Social Skills
4 9 (17.31%) Public Sector
5 3 (5.77%) Military
6 2 (3.85%) Banking
6 2 (3.85%) Corporate Banking
6 2 (3.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (3.85%) Investment Banking
6 2 (3.85%) Retail Banking
7 1 (1.92%) Analytical Skills
7 1 (1.92%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 9 (17.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 7 (13.46%) Developer
2 7 (13.46%) Java Developer
3 6 (11.54%) Cryptography Engineer
4 5 (9.62%) Linux Engineer
5 4 (7.69%) Senior
6 2 (3.85%) Analyst
6 2 (3.85%) Consultant
6 2 (3.85%) CyberArk Engineer
6 2 (3.85%) Network Engineer
6 2 (3.85%) Python Engineer
6 2 (3.85%) Senior Linux Engineer
6 2 (3.85%) Senior Network Engineer
6 2 (3.85%) Server Engineer
6 2 (3.85%) Vulnerability Analyst
6 2 (3.85%) Windows Engineer
7 1 (1.92%) Security Architect
7 1 (1.92%) Solutions Designer
7 1 (1.92%) Technical Consultant
7 1 (1.92%) Technical Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (13.46%) Node.js
2 3 (5.77%) JSON
2 3 (5.77%) LDAP
2 3 (5.77%) REST
2 3 (5.77%) SPIFFE
3 1 (1.92%) Elastic Stack
3 1 (1.92%) OAuth
3 1 (1.92%) OAuth2
3 1 (1.92%) OpenID
3 1 (1.92%) RabbitMQ
3 1 (1.92%) SailPoint
3 1 (1.92%) SAML
3 1 (1.92%) X-Windows
3 1 (1.92%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 10 (19.23%) Onboarding
1 10 (19.23%) PKI
2 9 (17.31%) Management Information System
3 4 (7.69%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (7.69%) Legacy Systems
4 3 (5.77%) Tandem
5 2 (3.85%) Cloud Native
5 2 (3.85%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.92%) CMDB
6 1 (1.92%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (1.92%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 33 (63.46%) Linux
2 24 (46.15%) Windows
3 12 (23.08%) Windows Server
4 11 (21.15%) Unix
5 4 (7.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (5.77%) Ubuntu
7 2 (3.85%) CentOS
7 2 (3.85%) Rocky
8 1 (1.92%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (30.77%) Cybersecurity
2 13 (25.00%) Computer Science
3 12 (23.08%) CI/CD
3 12 (23.08%) Cryptography
4 11 (21.15%) Information Security
4 11 (21.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 11 (21.15%) Privileged Access Management
4 11 (21.15%) Runbook
4 11 (21.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 10 (19.23%) Agile
6 9 (17.31%) Key Management
7 8 (15.38%) DevOps
7 8 (15.38%) Problem-Solving
7 8 (15.38%) Project Delivery
7 8 (15.38%) Roadmaps
7 8 (15.38%) Security Operations
7 8 (15.38%) SIEM
8 7 (13.46%) SDLC
8 7 (13.46%) Security Monitoring
8 7 (13.46%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 21 (40.38%) Python
2 9 (17.31%) Bash
3 8 (15.38%) Java
3 8 (15.38%) PowerShell
3 8 (15.38%) Shell Script
4 7 (13.46%) JavaScript
4 7 (13.46%) TypeScript
5 4 (7.69%) SQL
6 2 (3.85%) Go
Qualifications
1 17 (32.69%) Security Cleared
2 14 (26.92%) Degree
3 12 (23.08%) SC Cleared
4 9 (17.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (11.54%) FFIEC
6 5 (9.62%) DV Cleared
7 4 (7.69%) CISM
7 4 (7.69%) CISSP
8 3 (5.77%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (3.85%) Azure Certification
9 2 (3.85%) Master's Degree
10 1 (1.92%) AWS Certification
10 1 (1.92%) CompTIA Security+
10 1 (1.92%) CRISC
10 1 (1.92%) MOS
10 1 (1.92%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (28.85%) NIST
2 7 (13.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (13.46%) PCI DSS
3 6 (11.54%) GDPR
3 6 (11.54%) GLBA
4 1 (1.92%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.92%) SOC 2
System Software
1 15 (28.85%) Active Directory
2 6 (11.54%) Hyper-V
3 5 (9.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (7.69%) Ceph
4 4 (7.69%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (5.77%) Squid
6 2 (3.85%) Docker
6 2 (3.85%) KVM
6 2 (3.85%) NFS
6 2 (3.85%) OpenSSH
7 1 (1.92%) IAG
7 1 (1.92%) iptables
7 1 (1.92%) Samba
Systems Management
1 10 (19.23%) Ansible
2 5 (9.62%) Kubernetes
2 5 (9.62%) Terraform
3 2 (3.85%) Grafana
3 2 (3.85%) ZABBIX
4 1 (1.92%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (1.92%) Nagios
4 1 (1.92%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.92%) Rundeck
4 1 (1.92%) SELinux
4 1 (1.92%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (1.92%) systemd
Vendors
1 11 (21.15%) Thales
2 9 (17.31%) Microsoft
2 9 (17.31%) Splunk
3 8 (15.38%) BeyondTrust
3 8 (15.38%) CyberArk
4 7 (13.46%) Oracle
5 5 (9.62%) VMware
6 4 (7.69%) ServiceNow
7 3 (5.77%) BiZZdesign
7 3 (5.77%) Gemalto
7 3 (5.77%) IBM
8 2 (3.85%) CrowdStrike
8 2 (3.85%) Okta
8 2 (3.85%) Tenable
9 1 (1.92%) Arista
9 1 (1.92%) F5
9 1 (1.92%) Google
9 1 (1.92%) Palo Alto
9 1 (1.92%) Ping Identity
9 1 (1.92%) SaltStack