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 30 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 406 331 388
Rank change year-on-year -75 +57 +60
Contract jobs citing SSL 193 195 222
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 0.62% 0.50%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.75% 4.77% 3.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 115 117 113
10th Percentile £350 £381 £350
25th Percentile £380 £465 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £680 £638 £626
90th Percentile £700 £663 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £563 £438
% change year-on-year -13.42% +28.57% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 12
10th Percentile £52.15 - £45.88
25th Percentile £55.00 - £55.35
Median hourly rate £65.00 - £65.98
75th Percentile £75.00 - -
90th Percentile £80.25 - £66.22
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 - £65.98
% change year-on-year - - +4.35%

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 4,059 4,085 6,075
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.50% 12.99% 13.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,674 2,378 3,682
10th Percentile £204 £213 £208
25th Percentile £356 £363 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £493
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +1.42% -4.83%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £468 £475
% change year-on-year -3.74% -1.58% +2.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 137 395
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.38 £15.65
25th Percentile £18.94 £21.46 £21.25
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -30.00% +141.49%
75th Percentile £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £69.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £31.79 £56.40
% change year-on-year +27.52% -43.63% +196.84%

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 30 January 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 30 January 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 30 January 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 -52 166 £525 -4.55% 30
UK excluding London -55 101 £487 -13.42% 32
Work from Home -28 62 £525 -4.55% 14
North of England -26 60 £670 +21.82% 6
London -32 56 £600 +15.38% 6
West Midlands -3 41 £375 -18.03% 2
Midlands -22 41 £375 -18.03% 3
North West 0 35 £520 +49.64% 4
Yorkshire -40 24 £675 +22.73% 2
East of England -21 8 £427 -28.83% 7
South East -49 7 £465 -25.60% 7
South West -24 3 £500 +17.65% 6
Scotland -7 2 £325 -36.89% 3
North East -17 1 £550 -6.78%

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 13 (6.74%) Confluence
1 13 (6.74%) TPMS
2 3 (1.55%) Apache
2 3 (1.55%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.04%) Oracle HTTP Server
3 2 (1.04%) Tomcat
3 2 (1.04%) WebLogic
4 1 (0.52%) CMS
4 1 (0.52%) Drupal
4 1 (0.52%) IIS
4 1 (0.52%) JBoss
4 1 (0.52%) Umbraco
Applications
1 6 (3.11%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.52%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 61 (31.61%) AWS
2 28 (14.51%) Azure
3 26 (13.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 22 (11.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 22 (11.40%) Amazon EC2
4 22 (11.40%) Amazon ELB
4 22 (11.40%) Amazon S3
5 16 (8.29%) GCP
5 16 (8.29%) GitHub
6 11 (5.70%) Amazon EKS
7 9 (4.66%) Serverless
8 5 (2.59%) Amazon ECS
8 5 (2.59%) AWS CloudFormation
8 5 (2.59%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (2.59%) OpenShift
9 4 (2.07%) Entra ID
9 4 (2.07%) GitHub Actions
10 3 (1.55%) Kong
10 3 (1.55%) SaaS
11 2 (1.04%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 96 (49.74%) DNS
2 83 (43.01%) TCP/IP
3 78 (40.41%) Firewall
4 66 (34.20%) VPN
5 59 (30.57%) HTTP
6 48 (24.87%) Network Security
7 37 (19.17%) BIG-IP
8 36 (18.65%) Wireshark
9 28 (14.51%) WAN
10 27 (13.99%) IPsec
11 22 (11.40%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 22 (11.40%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 20 (10.36%) SSH
13 19 (9.84%) SNMP
14 18 (9.33%) HTTPS
14 18 (9.33%) Wireless
15 15 (7.77%) LAN
16 11 (5.70%) BGP
16 11 (5.70%) Cisco IPT
16 11 (5.70%) DMVPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.18%) DocumentDB
1 10 (5.18%) MongoDB
1 10 (5.18%) NoSQL
2 8 (4.15%) Apache Cassandra
2 8 (4.15%) SQL Server
3 5 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.55%) Redis
5 1 (0.52%) Amazon QuickSight
5 1 (0.52%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 30 (15.54%) Git
2 26 (13.47%) Fiddler
3 25 (12.95%) Jenkins
4 20 (10.36%) GitLab
5 15 (7.77%) JIRA
6 2 (1.04%) Bitbucket
6 2 (1.04%) git-flow
7 1 (0.52%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.52%) Crashlytics
7 1 (0.52%) fastlane
7 1 (0.52%) JUnit
7 1 (0.52%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.52%) Subversion
7 1 (0.52%) Xcode
7 1 (0.52%) XCTest
7 1 (0.52%) XCUITest
General
1 31 (16.06%) Social Skills
2 28 (14.51%) Analytical Skills
3 24 (12.44%) Finance
4 22 (11.40%) Banking
5 20 (10.36%) Public Sector
6 17 (8.81%) Investment Banking
7 15 (7.77%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (4.15%) Telecoms
9 4 (2.07%) Military
10 2 (1.04%) Financial Institution
10 2 (1.04%) Legal
10 2 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.52%) Billing
11 1 (0.52%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.52%) Marketing
11 1 (0.52%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 62 (32.12%) Network Engineer
2 31 (16.06%) Senior
3 27 (13.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 24 (12.44%) Developer
4 24 (12.44%) Web Engineer
5 16 (8.29%) Architect
6 15 (7.77%) Blue Coat Engineer
6 15 (7.77%) Cryptography Engineer
7 14 (7.25%) Security Engineer
8 13 (6.74%) DevOps Engineer
8 13 (6.74%) IP Network Engineer
8 13 (6.74%) Junior
9 12 (6.22%) Consultant
9 12 (6.22%) Junior Network Engineer
9 12 (6.22%) Senior DevOps
9 12 (6.22%) Senior DevOps Engineer
10 11 (5.70%) Full-Stack Developer
11 9 (4.66%) Network Security Engineer
11 9 (4.66%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 6 (3.11%) Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (9.84%) REST
2 17 (8.81%) LDAP
2 17 (8.81%) OAuth
2 17 (8.81%) SAML
3 12 (6.22%) Kafka
4 11 (5.70%) 802.1X
4 11 (5.70%) HTML
4 11 (5.70%) RESTful
5 10 (5.18%) JSON
5 10 (5.18%) SOAP
5 10 (5.18%) Spring
5 10 (5.18%) Spring Boot
5 10 (5.18%) XML
6 9 (4.66%) Node.js
7 8 (4.15%) OpenID
8 7 (3.63%) OAuth2
9 4 (2.07%) .NET
9 4 (2.07%) Middleware
10 3 (1.55%) GraphQL
10 3 (1.55%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 25 (12.95%) Management Information System
2 24 (12.44%) PKI
3 16 (8.29%) Data Centre
4 9 (4.66%) Analytical Mindset
5 6 (3.11%) Cyber Threat
5 6 (3.11%) Onboarding
6 5 (2.59%) CSOC
6 5 (2.59%) Cyberattack
6 5 (2.59%) Security Operations Centre
7 4 (2.07%) Linux Command Line
8 3 (1.55%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.55%) Cloud Native
8 3 (1.55%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (1.55%) Private Cloud
9 2 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
10 1 (0.52%) CESG
10 1 (0.52%) Clustering
10 1 (0.52%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.52%) Replication
10 1 (0.52%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 46 (23.83%) Linux
2 34 (17.62%) Windows
3 10 (5.18%) Windows Server
4 7 (3.63%) Unix
5 5 (2.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (2.07%) CatOS
7 2 (1.04%) Apple iOS
7 2 (1.04%) CentOS
7 2 (1.04%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.52%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.52%) Solaris
8 1 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (26.94%) DevOps
2 43 (22.28%) CI/CD
3 39 (20.21%) Load Balancing
4 34 (17.62%) Cybersecurity
4 34 (17.62%) High Availability
5 32 (16.58%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 31 (16.06%) Infrastructure as Code
7 27 (13.99%) Incident Response
8 26 (13.47%) Change Management
9 25 (12.95%) Identity Access Management
10 24 (12.44%) Data Loss Prevention
10 24 (12.44%) Problem-Solving
10 24 (12.44%) Root Cause Analysis
10 24 (12.44%) Test Automation
11 23 (11.92%) Key Management
11 23 (11.92%) Stakeholder Management
12 22 (11.40%) API Management
12 22 (11.40%) Infrastructure Automation
12 22 (11.40%) Malware Detection/Protection
13 21 (10.88%) DevSecOps
Programming Languages
1 61 (31.61%) Python
2 29 (15.03%) Bash
3 19 (9.84%) JavaScript
4 14 (7.25%) SQL
5 11 (5.70%) Java
5 11 (5.70%) PowerShell
6 5 (2.59%) Perl
7 3 (1.55%) C#
8 2 (1.04%) C
8 2 (1.04%) PHP
8 2 (1.04%) Shell Script
8 2 (1.04%) Swift
9 1 (0.52%) C++
9 1 (0.52%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 73 (37.82%) Security Cleared
2 61 (31.61%) SC Cleared
3 14 (7.25%) Degree
4 13 (6.74%) DV Cleared
4 13 (6.74%) FFIEC
5 12 (6.22%) CISSP
6 10 (5.18%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (3.63%) CCNP
7 7 (3.63%) CISM
8 6 (3.11%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (1.55%) RHCE
11 2 (1.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 2 (1.04%) AWS Certification
11 2 (1.04%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (1.04%) CCIE
11 2 (1.04%) CCSP
11 2 (1.04%) CEH
11 2 (1.04%) Master's Degree
11 2 (1.04%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (11.92%) GDPR
2 19 (9.84%) PCI DSS
3 14 (7.25%) NIST
4 13 (6.74%) GLBA
5 6 (3.11%) HIPAA
6 4 (2.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (1.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (1.04%) Accessibility
8 2 (1.04%) Data Quality
8 2 (1.04%) FIPS 140-2
9 1 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.52%) NCSC
9 1 (0.52%) RMADS
9 1 (0.52%) SOC 2
System Software
1 42 (21.76%) Docker
2 23 (11.92%) Active Directory
3 22 (11.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (7.77%) VMware NSX
5 14 (7.25%) Firmware
6 5 (2.59%) NDS
6 5 (2.59%) NetIQ eDirectory
7 4 (2.07%) ProxySG
8 2 (1.04%) RACF
9 1 (0.52%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.52%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.52%) Squid
9 1 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.52%) vSphere
9 1 (0.52%) XenApp
9 1 (0.52%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 51 (26.42%) Ansible
2 37 (19.17%) Terraform
3 30 (15.54%) Kubernetes
4 15 (7.77%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (2.59%) FortiGate
6 3 (1.55%) Nagios
6 3 (1.55%) Prometheus
7 2 (1.04%) CASB
7 2 (1.04%) SCCM
8 1 (0.52%) BladeLogic
8 1 (0.52%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.52%) Grafana
8 1 (0.52%) Host Intrusion Detection System
8 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.52%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.52%) Red Hat Satellite
8 1 (0.52%) SCOM
8 1 (0.52%) SCOrch
8 1 (0.52%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 82 (42.49%) F5
2 46 (23.83%) CheckPoint
3 43 (22.28%) Blue Coat
4 38 (19.69%) Palo Alto
5 36 (18.65%) Cisco
6 33 (17.10%) VMware
7 30 (15.54%) McAfee
8 25 (12.95%) Microsoft
9 22 (11.40%) Splunk
10 18 (9.33%) NetApp
11 17 (8.81%) Thales
12 16 (8.29%) Juniper
13 10 (5.18%) Axway
13 10 (5.18%) Oracle
13 10 (5.18%) Zscaler
14 9 (4.66%) OpenText
15 6 (3.11%) Fortinet
16 5 (2.59%) Google
16 5 (2.59%) Micro Focus
16 5 (2.59%) NetIQ