SSL Contract Job Trends

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring SSL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 454 376 367
Rank change year-on-year -78 -9 +93
Contract jobs citing SSL 182 150 212
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.52% 0.50%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.89% 4.14% 3.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 107 84 124
10th Percentile £325 £350 £400
25th Percentile £371 £400 £452
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.44% -9.00% +4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £638
90th Percentile £688 £700 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £550 £600
% change year-on-year -10.00% -8.33% +22.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 6 5
10th Percentile £52.15 £80.34 £40.40
25th Percentile £55.00 £80.59 -
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.35 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -20.10% +77.31% -27.44%
75th Percentile £75.00 £81.91 -
90th Percentile £80.25 £83.05 £58.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £81.35 £45.88
% change year-on-year -20.10% +77.31% -26.73%

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 4,676 3,625 5,399
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.63% 12.67% 12.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,874 2,244 3,232
10th Percentile £263 £213 £206
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £490
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -1.02% -4.39%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 269 156 414
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.82 £17.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £28.88 £38.41 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.81% -3.98% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.00 £59.09 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.41 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.52 £28.00 £46.14
% change year-on-year +26.86% -39.31% +156.31%

SSL
Job Vacancy Trend

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

SSL job vacancy trend in the UK

SSL
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

SSL
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SSL over the 6 months to 26 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SSL in the UK

SSL
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

SSL
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SSL over the 6 months to 26 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SSL in the UK

SSL
Top 14 Contract Job 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 26 May 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 -92 155 £501 -4.67% 42
UK excluding London -69 120 £495 -10.00% 37
North of England -29 60 £630 +21.06% 9
Work from Home -50 50 £550 +4.76% 19
West Midlands -31 42 £340 -
Midlands -35 42 £340 -5.03% 2
London -77 40 £525 +0.33% 13
North West -1 37 £620 +3.33% 7
Yorkshire -45 22 £663 +32.50% 1
South East -66 14 £475 -5.00% 19
Scotland +6 11 £600 +1.05%
East of England -43 10 £450 -25.00% 1
North East -23 2 £413 -25.00% 1
South West -33 1 £500 -14.53% 4

SSL
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 19 (10.44%) Confluence
2 7 (3.85%) TPMS
3 3 (1.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.10%) IBM HTTP Server
4 2 (1.10%) IIS
4 2 (1.10%) Oracle HTTP Server
4 2 (1.10%) WebSphere
4 2 (1.10%) WebSphere Application Server
4 2 (1.10%) WebSphere Portal
5 1 (0.55%) Apache
5 1 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.55%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.55%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.55%) CMS
5 1 (0.55%) Drupal
5 1 (0.55%) Umbraco
Applications
1 9 (4.95%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.55%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 48 (26.37%) Azure
2 39 (21.43%) AWS
3 18 (9.89%) GCP
4 17 (9.34%) Entra ID
5 13 (7.14%) GitHub
6 12 (6.59%) SaaS
7 9 (4.95%) IaaS
8 8 (4.40%) Amazon EKS
8 8 (4.40%) Microsoft 365
8 8 (4.40%) Serverless
8 8 (4.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 7 (3.85%) OpenShift
10 5 (2.75%) Datadog
10 5 (2.75%) PaaS
11 4 (2.20%) Azure Logic Apps
12 3 (1.65%) Akamai
12 3 (1.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 3 (1.65%) Amazon S3
12 3 (1.65%) AWS CloudFormation
12 3 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 101 (55.49%) DNS
2 69 (37.91%) TCP/IP
3 68 (37.36%) Firewall
4 66 (36.26%) HTTP
5 51 (28.02%) BIG-IP
6 40 (21.98%) VPN
7 37 (20.33%) Network Security
8 35 (19.23%) Wireshark
9 34 (18.68%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 31 (17.03%) WAN
11 30 (16.48%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
12 28 (15.38%) IPsec
13 21 (11.54%) LAN
14 18 (9.89%) DHCP
14 18 (9.89%) HTTPS
15 17 (9.34%) Internet
16 16 (8.79%) SSH
17 15 (8.24%) Wireless
18 13 (7.14%) Cisco Nexus
18 13 (7.14%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (6.04%) MongoDB
2 7 (3.85%) DocumentDB
2 7 (3.85%) NoSQL
3 4 (2.20%) MariaDB
3 4 (2.20%) Metadata
3 4 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (1.10%) Redis
4 2 (1.10%) SQL Server
4 2 (1.10%) SQLPlus
5 1 (0.55%) Amazon QuickSight
5 1 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.55%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 28 (15.38%) JIRA
2 26 (14.29%) Fiddler
3 10 (5.49%) Git
4 7 (3.85%) Jenkins
5 4 (2.20%) Browser DevTools
5 4 (2.20%) GitLab
5 4 (2.20%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (1.10%) git-flow
6 2 (1.10%) Introscope
7 1 (0.55%) Crashlytics
7 1 (0.55%) fastlane
7 1 (0.55%) JUnit
7 1 (0.55%) Xcode
7 1 (0.55%) XCTest
7 1 (0.55%) XCUITest
General
1 31 (17.03%) Finance
2 26 (14.29%) Banking
3 25 (13.74%) Social Skills
4 19 (10.44%) Investment Banking
5 18 (9.89%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (9.89%) Public Sector
6 12 (6.59%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (4.40%) Telecoms
8 5 (2.75%) Legal
9 2 (1.10%) Retail
10 1 (0.55%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.55%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.55%) Marketing
10 1 (0.55%) Military
10 1 (0.55%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.55%) Police
10 1 (0.55%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 58 (31.87%) Network Engineer
2 27 (14.84%) Web Engineer
3 26 (14.29%) Security Engineer
4 21 (11.54%) IP Network Engineer
5 19 (10.44%) Senior
6 18 (9.89%) Blue Coat Engineer
7 13 (7.14%) Architect
8 11 (6.04%) Network Security Engineer
9 9 (4.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 9 (4.95%) Junior
10 8 (4.40%) Analyst
10 8 (4.40%) Developer
10 8 (4.40%) Junior Network Engineer
11 7 (3.85%) Cryptography Engineer
12 6 (3.30%) Full-Stack Developer
12 6 (3.30%) Linux Engineer
12 6 (3.30%) Technical Architect
13 5 (2.75%) Senior Network Engineer
13 5 (2.75%) Senior Technical Architect
13 5 (2.75%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (15.93%) SAML
2 24 (13.19%) LDAP
3 13 (7.14%) OpenID
4 11 (6.04%) OAuth
5 10 (5.49%) HTML
5 10 (5.49%) Kafka
5 10 (5.49%) OAuth2
6 7 (3.85%) 802.1X
6 7 (3.85%) RESTful
6 7 (3.85%) Spring
6 7 (3.85%) Spring Boot
6 7 (3.85%) Web Services
7 6 (3.30%) Middleware
7 6 (3.30%) Node.js
8 5 (2.75%) REST
8 5 (2.75%) XACML
9 4 (2.20%) ISPF
10 3 (1.65%) CSS
11 2 (1.10%) JDBC
11 2 (1.10%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (13.19%) Management Information System
2 20 (10.99%) PKI
3 15 (8.24%) Data Centre
4 13 (7.14%) Clustering
4 13 (7.14%) Cyber Threat
4 13 (7.14%) Security Posture
5 12 (6.59%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 11 (6.04%) Cloud Security Posture
7 7 (3.85%) Analytical Mindset
7 7 (3.85%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (2.75%) Algorithms
8 5 (2.75%) CSOC
8 5 (2.75%) Cyberattack
8 5 (2.75%) Onboarding
8 5 (2.75%) Security Operations Centre
9 4 (2.20%) Mainframe
10 3 (1.65%) Enterprise Storage
10 3 (1.65%) SCADA
10 3 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (1.10%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 36 (19.78%) Windows
2 31 (17.03%) Linux
3 15 (8.24%) Windows Server
4 7 (3.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (3.85%) Unix
5 4 (2.20%) CatOS
5 4 (2.20%) zOS
6 3 (1.65%) Mac OS
7 2 (1.10%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (1.10%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
7 2 (1.10%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.55%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.55%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.55%) VMS
8 1 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (21.43%) Load Balancing
2 38 (20.88%) Cybersecurity
3 36 (19.78%) Data Loss Prevention
4 31 (17.03%) CI/CD
5 29 (15.93%) Change Management
6 28 (15.38%) DevOps
6 28 (15.38%) ITIL
7 26 (14.29%) Malware Detection/Protection
8 25 (13.74%) Cloud Security
8 25 (13.74%) High Availability
8 25 (13.74%) SIEM
9 23 (12.64%) Migration
10 21 (11.54%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 20 (10.99%) Identity Access Management
12 18 (9.89%) Agile
13 17 (9.34%) Runbook
13 17 (9.34%) Zero Trust
14 16 (8.79%) Incident Response
14 16 (8.79%) Observability
14 16 (8.79%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 39 (21.43%) Python
2 18 (9.89%) SQL
3 16 (8.79%) PowerShell
4 15 (8.24%) Bash
5 9 (4.95%) JavaScript
6 4 (2.20%) Java
7 3 (1.65%) ActionScript
7 3 (1.65%) Groovy
7 3 (1.65%) Perl
7 3 (1.65%) PL/SQL
8 2 (1.10%) Jython
9 1 (0.55%) C
9 1 (0.55%) Go
9 1 (0.55%) Ruby
9 1 (0.55%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.55%) Swift
Qualifications
1 51 (28.02%) Security Cleared
2 38 (20.88%) SC Cleared
3 17 (9.34%) CISSP
4 15 (8.24%) DV Cleared
5 13 (7.14%) Cisco Certification
5 13 (7.14%) Degree
6 12 (6.59%) CCNP
7 9 (4.95%) CISM
8 7 (3.85%) CompTIA Security+
8 7 (3.85%) FFIEC
9 5 (2.75%) MCSE
9 5 (2.75%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (2.20%) Azure Certification
10 4 (2.20%) MCSA
11 2 (1.10%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.10%) CCIE
11 2 (1.10%) HND
11 2 (1.10%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.55%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 1 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (7.69%) GDPR
2 12 (6.59%) NIST
3 10 (5.49%) PCI DSS
4 7 (3.85%) GLBA
5 3 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.10%) Accessibility
6 2 (1.10%) SLA
7 1 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.55%) DICOM
7 1 (0.55%) HL7
7 1 (0.55%) NCSC
7 1 (0.55%) RMADS
System Software
1 43 (23.63%) VMware Infrastructure
2 42 (23.08%) Active Directory
3 19 (10.44%) Firmware
4 18 (9.89%) VMware NSX
5 12 (6.59%) Hyper-V
6 11 (6.04%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (5.49%) Docker
8 9 (4.95%) RACF
9 6 (3.30%) Squid
10 4 (2.20%) Ceph
10 4 (2.20%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (2.20%) vSphere
11 3 (1.65%) ProxySG
12 2 (1.10%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 2 (1.10%) Virtual Servers
13 1 (0.55%) KVM
Systems Management
1 30 (16.48%) Ansible
2 26 (14.29%) Single Sign-On
3 16 (8.79%) Kubernetes
3 16 (8.79%) Terraform
4 13 (7.14%) CASB
5 10 (5.49%) FortiGate
6 6 (3.30%) Grafana
7 4 (2.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (2.20%) CA Single Sign-On
7 4 (2.20%) Nessus
7 4 (2.20%) OMEGAMON
7 4 (2.20%) PingFederate
8 3 (1.65%) Packer
8 3 (1.65%) Puppet
9 2 (1.10%) CA Wily
9 2 (1.10%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (1.10%) Prometheus
9 2 (1.10%) SCCM
9 2 (1.10%) Tivoli
10 1 (0.55%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 58 (31.87%) F5
2 54 (29.67%) VMware
3 35 (19.23%) Blue Coat
4 34 (18.68%) Microsoft
5 33 (18.13%) Cisco
6 27 (14.84%) McAfee
7 25 (13.74%) Palo Alto
8 22 (12.09%) CheckPoint
9 19 (10.44%) NetApp
10 18 (9.89%) Zscaler
11 15 (8.24%) ServiceNow
12 14 (7.69%) Splunk
13 10 (5.49%) Juniper
14 9 (4.95%) Fortinet
15 8 (4.40%) Netskope
15 8 (4.40%) SolarWinds
15 8 (4.40%) Thales
16 7 (3.85%) Citrix
16 7 (3.85%) CrowdStrike
17 6 (3.30%) IBM