SSL Contracts

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring SSL skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SSL over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 358 383 472
Rank change year-on-year +25 +89 +49
Contract jobs citing SSL 164 223 244
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.56% 0.51% 0.41%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.39% 3.95% 3.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 96 122 180
10th Percentile £350 £378 £363
25th Percentile £424 £433 £457
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.57% +4.55% +1.38%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £742 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £585 £600 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% +20.00% +4.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 6 7
10th Percentile £80.34 £41.32 £57.75
25th Percentile £80.59 - £62.00
Median hourly rate £81.35 £45.88 £63.23
Median % change year-on-year +77.31% -27.44% +23.93%
75th Percentile £81.91 £61.16 £69.61
90th Percentile £83.05 £66.88 £78.79
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.35 £45.88 £62.62
% change year-on-year +77.31% -26.73% +16.99%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

SSL 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 3,739 5,643 7,361
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 12.79% 12.94% 12.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,297 3,382 4,789
10th Percentile £213 £205 £235
25th Percentile £363 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £495 £519
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -4.53% +3.70%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -2.63% - +8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 423 478
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.57 £9.80
25th Percentile £17.30 £17.35 £10.63
Median hourly rate £32.50 £38.50 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.58% +102.63% -31.84%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.40 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.59 £45.88 £18.50
% change year-on-year -46.41% +148.00% -13.95%

SSL
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for SSL in the UK

SSL
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SSL.

Daily rate trend for SSL in the UK

SSL
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SSL over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SSL in the UK

SSL
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SSL.

Hourly rate trend for SSL in the UK

SSL
Top 15 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SSL within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 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 +9 134 £525 -8.70% 80
UK excluding London -1 74 £585 -2.50% 46
Work from Home +30 63 £488 -22.00% 55
London +28 62 £483 -16.09% 31
East of England +48 19 £600 +106.90% 5
South East -26 17 £600 -4.00% 12
North of England +30 16 £590 +36.89% 11
Midlands +25 8 - - 5
West Midlands +17 8 - - 3
Yorkshire +14 8 £413 -4.29% 3
South West +51 7 £585 - 10
North East - 6 £590 -
Scotland -2 5 £544 -7.64% 3
North West +8 2 £600 - 8
Wales - 2 - -

SSL
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 8 (4.88%) nginx
2 5 (3.05%) Apache
2 5 (3.05%) IIS
2 5 (3.05%) Tomcat
3 3 (1.83%) CMS
3 3 (1.83%) Confluence
4 2 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.22%) WebSphere
5 1 (0.61%) JBoss
5 1 (0.61%) Oracle Service Bus
5 1 (0.61%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.61%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.61%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.61%) WebLogic Portal
5 1 (0.61%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 5 (3.05%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (2.44%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.22%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.61%) Dynamics GP
2 1 (0.61%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.61%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 52 (31.71%) AWS
2 39 (23.78%) Azure
3 12 (7.32%) GCP
4 11 (6.71%) Azure DevOps
4 11 (6.71%) SaaS
5 9 (5.49%) AWS KMS
5 9 (5.49%) Microsoft 365
6 8 (4.88%) Entra ID
7 7 (4.27%) Amazon EC2
7 7 (4.27%) Amazon ECS
7 7 (4.27%) Azure Monitor
7 7 (4.27%) Azure Sentinel
7 7 (4.27%) GitHub
7 7 (4.27%) PaaS
7 7 (4.27%) Serverless
8 6 (3.66%) AWS CloudFormation
9 5 (3.05%) IaaS
9 5 (3.05%) OpenShift
9 5 (3.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 4 (2.44%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 57 (34.76%) DNS
2 50 (30.49%) Network Security
3 43 (26.22%) Firewall
4 42 (25.61%) VPN
5 37 (22.56%) HTTP
6 30 (18.29%) BGP
7 29 (17.68%) IPsec
8 28 (17.07%) OSPF
8 28 (17.07%) SMTP
9 25 (15.24%) TCP/IP
10 24 (14.63%) FTP
11 19 (11.59%) WAN
12 18 (10.98%) VLAN
13 17 (10.37%) Wireless
14 14 (8.54%) HTTPS
15 13 (7.93%) DHCP
16 12 (7.32%) LAN
17 11 (6.71%) MPLS
17 11 (6.71%) S/MIME
18 10 (6.10%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.05%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (2.44%) MongoDB
2 4 (2.44%) NoSQL
2 4 (2.44%) RDBMS
2 4 (2.44%) Relational Database
3 3 (1.83%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (1.83%) Power BI
3 3 (1.83%) Redis
4 2 (1.22%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.61%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.61%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 9 (5.49%) GitLab
2 7 (4.27%) Git
3 6 (3.66%) Jenkins
3 6 (3.66%) JIRA
4 5 (3.05%) Maven
5 2 (1.22%) Bitbucket
5 2 (1.22%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.61%) Mockito
6 1 (0.61%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.61%) Toad
General
1 57 (34.76%) Social Skills
2 27 (16.46%) Analytical Skills
3 20 (12.20%) Finance
4 16 (9.76%) Banking
5 11 (6.71%) Public Sector
6 6 (3.66%) Telecoms
7 5 (3.05%) Presentation Skills
8 4 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (2.44%) Law
9 3 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.61%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.61%) Aviation
10 1 (0.61%) Dutch Language
10 1 (0.61%) Front Office
10 1 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.61%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.61%) Retail
10 1 (0.61%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 28 (17.07%) Architect
2 19 (11.59%) Analyst
2 19 (11.59%) Network Engineer
3 14 (8.54%) SOC Analyst
4 13 (7.93%) Lead
5 9 (5.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 8 (4.88%) Administrator
6 8 (4.88%) Developer
7 7 (4.27%) Consultant
7 7 (4.27%) Security Architect
7 7 (4.27%) Security Engineer
7 7 (4.27%) Senior
8 5 (3.05%) DevOps Engineer
8 5 (3.05%) Infrastructure Architect
8 5 (3.05%) Network Security Engineer
8 5 (3.05%) Support Specialist
9 4 (2.44%) Check Point Expert
9 4 (2.44%) Cisco Engineer
9 4 (2.44%) Senior Developer
9 4 (2.44%) Site Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (17.68%) LDAP
2 19 (11.59%) REST
3 14 (8.54%) SAML
4 13 (7.93%) Web Services
5 11 (6.71%) SOAP
6 10 (6.10%) Middleware
6 10 (6.10%) OAuth
7 9 (5.49%) .NET
7 9 (5.49%) 802.1X
7 9 (5.49%) JSON
7 9 (5.49%) XML
8 7 (4.27%) YAML
9 6 (3.66%) Kafka
9 6 (3.66%) OpenID
10 5 (3.05%) HTML
10 5 (3.05%) Node.js
10 5 (3.05%) OAuth2
10 5 (3.05%) RESTful
11 4 (2.44%) CSS
11 4 (2.44%) ODBC
Miscellaneous
1 27 (16.46%) PKI
2 15 (9.15%) Data Centre
2 15 (9.15%) Management Information System
3 14 (8.54%) Cyberattack
4 12 (7.32%) Onboarding
4 12 (7.32%) Security Operations Centre
5 11 (6.71%) Algorithms
5 11 (6.71%) Cyber Threat
6 10 (6.10%) Analytical Mindset
7 8 (4.88%) CSOC
8 7 (4.27%) Distributed Systems
9 6 (3.66%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 6 (3.66%) Security Posture
10 5 (3.05%) Cloud Native
11 4 (2.44%) Clustering
11 4 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
12 3 (1.83%) Self-Motivation
13 2 (1.22%) Operational Technology
13 2 (1.22%) YARA
Operating Systems
1 33 (20.12%) Windows
2 20 (12.20%) Linux
3 14 (8.54%) Unix
3 14 (8.54%) Windows Server
4 6 (3.66%) Windows 10
5 4 (2.44%) Check Point GAiA
5 4 (2.44%) Windows 7
5 4 (2.44%) Windows Server 2012
6 3 (1.83%) CentOS
6 3 (1.83%) Ubuntu
7 2 (1.22%) Debian
7 2 (1.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (1.22%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.61%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (21.34%) DevOps
2 34 (20.73%) Agile
3 30 (18.29%) Key Management
4 27 (16.46%) Problem-Solving
5 23 (14.02%) Cybersecurity
5 23 (14.02%) Migration
6 22 (13.41%) Information Security
7 21 (12.80%) SIEM
8 20 (12.20%) Cryptography
9 19 (11.59%) CI/CD
9 19 (11.59%) Microservices
10 17 (10.37%) Data Security
10 17 (10.37%) Security Operations
11 16 (9.76%) Roadmaps
12 15 (9.15%) Threat Detection
13 14 (8.54%) Disaster Recovery
13 14 (8.54%) Incident Response
14 13 (7.93%) Analytics
14 13 (7.93%) High Availability
14 13 (7.93%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 28 (17.07%) Python
2 27 (16.46%) PowerShell
3 13 (7.93%) SQL
4 10 (6.10%) ActionScript
4 10 (6.10%) ActionScript 2.0
5 9 (5.49%) C#
5 9 (5.49%) JavaScript
6 8 (4.88%) Bash
6 8 (4.88%) C
7 6 (3.66%) Java
8 5 (3.05%) Perl
9 4 (2.44%) PHP
9 4 (2.44%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.83%) Bicep
10 3 (1.83%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (1.83%) TypeScript
11 2 (1.22%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 45 (27.44%) Security Cleared
2 26 (15.85%) DV Cleared
3 23 (14.02%) SC Cleared
4 19 (11.59%) Degree
5 13 (7.93%) Cisco Certification
6 11 (6.71%) CCNP
7 9 (5.49%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (4.27%) CISM
8 7 (4.27%) CISSP
9 5 (3.05%) AWS Certification
9 5 (3.05%) Azure Certification
9 5 (3.05%) CCSE
10 4 (2.44%) CCSA
10 4 (2.44%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (2.44%) TOGAF Certification
11 3 (1.83%) CCIE
12 2 (1.22%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 2 (1.22%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
13 1 (0.61%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.27%) NIST
2 6 (3.66%) GDPR
3 5 (3.05%) SOC 2
4 4 (2.44%) PCI DSS
5 3 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.83%) SLA
6 2 (1.22%) FIPS 140-2
6 2 (1.22%) NIST 800
6 2 (1.22%) QA
7 1 (0.61%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.61%) HIPAA
System Software
1 23 (14.02%) Active Directory
2 15 (9.15%) Docker
3 6 (3.66%) Hyper-V
3 6 (3.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (3.05%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 5 (3.05%) Microsoft App-V
5 4 (2.44%) Firmware
6 3 (1.83%) RACF
7 2 (1.22%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.61%) LXC
8 1 (0.61%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 22 (13.41%) Terraform
2 17 (10.37%) Kubernetes
3 13 (7.93%) Ansible
3 13 (7.93%) Grafana
4 10 (6.10%) Prometheus
4 10 (6.10%) Single Sign-On
5 9 (5.49%) SCCM
6 6 (3.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (3.05%) WSUS
8 4 (2.44%) FortiGate
9 3 (1.83%) CA Spectrum
9 3 (1.83%) OPNET
9 3 (1.83%) Packer
9 3 (1.83%) SolarWinds Orion
10 2 (1.22%) Cisco Prime
10 2 (1.22%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (1.22%) Nessus
10 2 (1.22%) Puppet
11 1 (0.61%) McAfee ePO
11 1 (0.61%) Oracle Identity Management
Vendors
1 35 (21.34%) Cisco
2 30 (18.29%) Microsoft
3 28 (17.07%) F5
4 21 (12.80%) Palo Alto
5 16 (9.76%) CheckPoint
6 12 (7.32%) Splunk
7 11 (6.71%) IBM
7 11 (6.71%) Juniper
7 11 (6.71%) VMware
8 8 (4.88%) Fortinet
8 8 (4.88%) Oracle
9 7 (4.27%) IBM Sterling
9 7 (4.27%) Meraki
9 7 (4.27%) SolarWinds
10 6 (3.66%) Arista
11 5 (3.05%) Confluent
11 5 (3.05%) Forcepoint
11 5 (3.05%) HP
11 5 (3.05%) SAP
12 4 (2.44%) Qualtrics