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 23 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 429 347 372
Rank change year-on-year -82 +25 +83
Contract jobs citing SSL 181 187 232
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.45% 0.61% 0.52%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.36% 4.62% 3.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 115 116
10th Percentile £335 £387 £350
25th Percentile £371 £465 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.59% +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £682 £638 £638
90th Percentile £700 £657 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £575 £477
% change year-on-year -13.04% +20.67% +7.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 2 11
10th Percentile £52.15 £80.46 -
25th Percentile £55.00 £80.65 £45.88
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.26 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.01% +28.99% +0.61%
75th Percentile £75.00 £81.83 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.25 £81.99 £66.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £81.26 £63.00
% change year-on-year -20.01% +28.99% +0.61%

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 4,152 4,049 5,963
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.21% 13.27% 13.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,708 2,422 3,561
10th Percentile £204 £209 £205
25th Percentile £356 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.56% -6.25%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £471 £475
% change year-on-year -2.39% -0.79% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 131 390
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.44 £14.27
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.46 £19.99
Median hourly rate £28.38 £32.50 £46.95
Median % change year-on-year -12.68% -30.77% +136.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £74.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £30.04 £51.65
% change year-on-year +34.95% -41.84% +159.04%

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 23 February 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 23 February 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 23 February 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 -66 153 £514 -6.59% 36
UK excluding London -62 107 £500 -13.04% 35
North of England -10 68 £664 +20.71% 6
Work from Home -29 55 £485 -7.71% 19
North West 0 42 £598 +71.94% 4
London -43 41 £575 +12.75% 7
Midlands -22 39 £375 -18.03% 4
West Midlands -23 39 £375 -18.03% 4
Yorkshire -41 26 £675 +22.89% 1
South East -49 10 £465 -25.60% 8
East of England -35 8 £427 -28.83% 10
Scotland -2 3 £325 -36.89% 2
North East -21 1 - - 1
South West -24 1 £500 +42.86% 5

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 (7.18%) TPMS
2 12 (6.63%) Confluence
3 3 (1.66%) Apache
3 3 (1.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.10%) Oracle HTTP Server
4 2 (1.10%) Tomcat
4 2 (1.10%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.55%) CMS
5 1 (0.55%) Drupal
5 1 (0.55%) IIS
5 1 (0.55%) JBoss
5 1 (0.55%) Umbraco
Applications
1 6 (3.31%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.55%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 54 (29.83%) AWS
2 36 (19.89%) Azure
3 17 (9.39%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 16 (8.84%) GCP
5 14 (7.73%) GitHub
6 13 (7.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 13 (7.18%) Amazon EC2
6 13 (7.18%) Amazon ELB
6 13 (7.18%) Amazon S3
7 11 (6.08%) Amazon EKS
7 11 (6.08%) Serverless
8 7 (3.87%) Entra ID
9 6 (3.31%) IaaS
9 6 (3.31%) SaaS
10 5 (2.76%) OpenShift
10 5 (2.76%) PaaS
11 4 (2.21%) Amazon ECS
11 4 (2.21%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (2.21%) AWS Lambda
11 4 (2.21%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 94 (51.93%) DNS
2 77 (42.54%) TCP/IP
3 69 (38.12%) Firewall
4 58 (32.04%) HTTP
5 50 (27.62%) VPN
6 41 (22.65%) BIG-IP
6 41 (22.65%) Network Security
7 40 (22.10%) Wireshark
8 27 (14.92%) IPsec
9 24 (13.26%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
9 24 (13.26%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 24 (13.26%) WAN
10 18 (9.94%) SSH
11 17 (9.39%) SNMP
12 15 (8.29%) HTTPS
12 15 (8.29%) LAN
13 13 (7.18%) Wireless
14 12 (6.63%) BGP
14 12 (6.63%) OSPF
15 11 (6.08%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.52%) DocumentDB
1 10 (5.52%) MongoDB
1 10 (5.52%) NoSQL
2 9 (4.97%) SQL Server
3 6 (3.31%) Apache Cassandra
4 5 (2.76%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.66%) Redis
6 1 (0.55%) Amazon QuickSight
6 1 (0.55%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 30 (16.57%) Fiddler
2 18 (9.94%) Git
3 16 (8.84%) Jenkins
4 14 (7.73%) GitLab
4 14 (7.73%) JIRA
5 2 (1.10%) git-flow
6 1 (0.55%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.55%) CircleCI
6 1 (0.55%) Crashlytics
6 1 (0.55%) fastlane
6 1 (0.55%) JUnit
6 1 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.55%) Subversion
6 1 (0.55%) Xcode
6 1 (0.55%) XCTest
6 1 (0.55%) XCUITest
General
1 30 (16.57%) Social Skills
2 28 (15.47%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (14.36%) Finance
4 23 (12.71%) Banking
5 19 (10.50%) Investment Banking
6 17 (9.39%) Public Sector
7 16 (8.84%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (3.31%) Telecoms
9 4 (2.21%) Military
10 2 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (1.10%) Legal
10 2 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.55%) Billing
11 1 (0.55%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.55%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 63 (34.81%) Network Engineer
2 28 (15.47%) Web Engineer
3 27 (14.92%) Senior
4 20 (11.05%) Developer
5 19 (10.50%) Architect
6 18 (9.94%) Blue Coat Engineer
7 17 (9.39%) IP Network Engineer
8 14 (7.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 14 (7.73%) Junior
8 14 (7.73%) Security Engineer
9 13 (7.18%) Cryptography Engineer
9 13 (7.18%) DevOps Engineer
9 13 (7.18%) Junior Network Engineer
10 12 (6.63%) Senior DevOps
10 12 (6.63%) Senior DevOps Engineer
11 10 (5.52%) Consultant
11 10 (5.52%) Full-Stack Developer
12 9 (4.97%) Network Security Engineer
13 6 (3.31%) Analyst
13 6 (3.31%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (11.60%) LDAP
2 20 (11.05%) SAML
3 17 (9.39%) OAuth
4 16 (8.84%) REST
5 11 (6.08%) HTML
5 11 (6.08%) Kafka
5 11 (6.08%) OpenID
5 11 (6.08%) RESTful
6 10 (5.52%) OAuth2
6 10 (5.52%) Spring
6 10 (5.52%) Spring Boot
7 9 (4.97%) Node.js
8 7 (3.87%) 802.1X
8 7 (3.87%) JSON
8 7 (3.87%) SOAP
8 7 (3.87%) XML
9 6 (3.31%) Web Services
10 5 (2.76%) XACML
11 4 (2.21%) .NET
12 3 (1.66%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 26 (14.36%) Management Information System
2 20 (11.05%) PKI
3 13 (7.18%) Data Centre
4 10 (5.52%) Analytical Mindset
5 7 (3.87%) Cyber Threat
6 6 (3.31%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 5 (2.76%) CSOC
7 5 (2.76%) Cyberattack
7 5 (2.76%) Onboarding
7 5 (2.76%) Security Operations Centre
7 5 (2.76%) Security Posture
8 4 (2.21%) Cloud Security Posture
9 3 (1.66%) Cloud Native
9 3 (1.66%) Enterprise Storage
10 2 (1.10%) Clustering
10 2 (1.10%) Linux Command Line
11 1 (0.55%) Anti-Spyware
11 1 (0.55%) CESG
11 1 (0.55%) Self-Motivation
11 1 (0.55%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 42 (23.20%) Linux
2 39 (21.55%) Windows
3 12 (6.63%) Windows Server
4 6 (3.31%) Unix
5 4 (2.21%) CatOS
5 4 (2.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (1.10%) Apple iOS
6 2 (1.10%) CentOS
6 2 (1.10%) Ubuntu
6 2 (1.10%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.55%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.55%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.55%) Solaris
7 1 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (22.10%) CI/CD
1 40 (22.10%) DevOps
2 38 (20.99%) Load Balancing
3 34 (18.78%) Cybersecurity
4 30 (16.57%) High Availability
5 29 (16.02%) Data Loss Prevention
6 27 (14.92%) Malware Detection/Protection
7 25 (13.81%) Identity Access Management
7 25 (13.81%) Infrastructure as Code
8 23 (12.71%) Change Management
8 23 (12.71%) Problem-Solving
8 23 (12.71%) Stakeholder Management
9 22 (12.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 21 (11.60%) Incident Response
10 21 (11.60%) Key Management
10 21 (11.60%) Observability
10 21 (11.60%) Roadmaps
10 21 (11.60%) Root Cause Analysis
11 20 (11.05%) Cloud Security
11 20 (11.05%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 50 (27.62%) Python
2 21 (11.60%) Bash
3 18 (9.94%) JavaScript
3 18 (9.94%) SQL
4 13 (7.18%) PowerShell
5 11 (6.08%) Java
6 3 (1.66%) C#
7 2 (1.10%) PHP
7 2 (1.10%) Swift
8 1 (0.55%) C
8 1 (0.55%) Objective-C
8 1 (0.55%) Perl
Qualifications
1 61 (33.70%) Security Cleared
2 48 (26.52%) SC Cleared
3 17 (9.39%) Degree
4 15 (8.29%) CISSP
5 13 (7.18%) DV Cleared
5 13 (7.18%) FFIEC
6 11 (6.08%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (4.97%) Microsoft Certification
8 8 (4.42%) CCNP
9 7 (3.87%) CISM
10 5 (2.76%) CompTIA Security+
11 4 (2.21%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (2.21%) MCSA
11 4 (2.21%) MCSE
12 3 (1.66%) TOGAF Certification
13 2 (1.10%) AWS Certification
13 2 (1.10%) CCIE
13 2 (1.10%) CCSP
13 2 (1.10%) Master's Degree
13 2 (1.10%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (12.71%) GDPR
2 17 (9.39%) PCI DSS
3 14 (7.73%) NIST
4 13 (7.18%) GLBA
5 6 (3.31%) HIPAA
6 4 (2.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (1.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (1.10%) Accessibility
8 2 (1.10%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.55%) NCSC
9 1 (0.55%) RMADS
9 1 (0.55%) SOC 2
System Software
1 33 (18.23%) Docker
2 30 (16.57%) Active Directory
3 28 (15.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (9.39%) VMware NSX
5 16 (8.84%) Firmware
6 5 (2.76%) NDS
6 5 (2.76%) NetIQ eDirectory
6 5 (2.76%) RACF
7 4 (2.21%) ProxySG
7 4 (2.21%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (1.66%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (1.10%) Hyper-V
9 2 (1.10%) vSphere
10 1 (0.55%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.55%) Squid
10 1 (0.55%) XenApp
10 1 (0.55%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 40 (22.10%) Ansible
2 29 (16.02%) Kubernetes
3 26 (14.36%) Terraform
4 18 (9.94%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (2.76%) FortiGate
6 4 (2.21%) CASB
6 4 (2.21%) Nessus
7 3 (1.66%) Prometheus
8 2 (1.10%) Nagios
8 2 (1.10%) SCCM
8 2 (1.10%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.55%) BladeLogic
9 1 (0.55%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.55%) Grafana
9 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.55%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.55%) QRadar
9 1 (0.55%) Red Hat Satellite
9 1 (0.55%) SCOM
9 1 (0.55%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 68 (37.57%) F5
2 43 (23.76%) Blue Coat
3 41 (22.65%) VMware
4 35 (19.34%) CheckPoint
5 33 (18.23%) McAfee
6 31 (17.13%) Cisco
7 30 (16.57%) Microsoft
7 30 (16.57%) Palo Alto
8 25 (13.81%) Splunk
9 21 (11.60%) NetApp
10 15 (8.29%) Thales
11 13 (7.18%) Juniper
12 10 (5.52%) Oracle
13 9 (4.97%) OpenText
14 8 (4.42%) Zscaler
15 7 (3.87%) Axway
15 7 (3.87%) Fortinet
16 5 (2.76%) CyberArk
16 5 (2.76%) Micro Focus
16 5 (2.76%) NetIQ