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 29 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 450 366 378
Rank change year-on-year -84 +12 +97
Contract jobs citing SSL 172 165 221
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.57% 0.51%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.78% 4.43% 3.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 103 98 121
10th Percentile £325 £350 £375
25th Percentile £360 £431 £436
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.35% -9.57% +4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £638
90th Percentile £688 £666 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £585 £600
% change year-on-year -16.50% -2.50% +20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 6 6
10th Percentile £52.15 £80.34 £41.32
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 £61.16
90th Percentile £80.25 £83.05 £66.88
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 4,545 3,726 5,610
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.65% 12.77% 12.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,834 2,295 3,363
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -0.51% -5.41%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 224 173 420
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.75 £20.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £40.54 £37.50 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% -1.32% +100.00%
75th Percentile £67.81 £61.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 £27.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year +77.16% -40.06% +148.00%

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 29 April 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 29 April 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 29 April 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 -77 146 £500 -4.76% 19
UK excluding London -46 117 £489 -16.50% 18
North of England -30 59 £639 +8.31% 3
Work from Home -52 48 £485 +2.11% 12
West Midlands -24 43 £340 -25.68%
Midlands -29 43 £340 -25.68%
North West +3 38 £610 +1.67% 1
London -102 33 £513 +6.22% 7
Yorkshire -48 20 £675 +63.64% 1
South East -59 15 £475 -20.83% 9
East of England -45 10 £454 -24.33% 3
Scotland +5 8 £600 +10.34%
North East -19 2 £413 -30.08% 1
South West -38 1 £500 -14.53% 1

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 18 (10.47%) Confluence
2 10 (5.81%) TPMS
3 3 (1.74%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.16%) IBM HTTP Server
4 2 (1.16%) IIS
4 2 (1.16%) Oracle HTTP Server
4 2 (1.16%) WebSphere
4 2 (1.16%) WebSphere Application Server
4 2 (1.16%) WebSphere Portal
5 1 (0.58%) Apache
5 1 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.58%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.58%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.58%) CMS
5 1 (0.58%) Drupal
5 1 (0.58%) Umbraco
Applications
1 9 (5.23%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 41 (23.84%) Azure
2 37 (21.51%) AWS
3 15 (8.72%) Entra ID
4 13 (7.56%) GCP
5 12 (6.98%) GitHub
5 12 (6.98%) SaaS
6 11 (6.40%) Amazon EKS
7 7 (4.07%) OpenShift
7 7 (4.07%) Serverless
7 7 (4.07%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 6 (3.49%) IaaS
9 5 (2.91%) Microsoft 365
9 5 (2.91%) PaaS
10 4 (2.33%) Azure Logic Apps
11 3 (1.74%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.74%) Kong
12 2 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 2 (1.16%) AWS Control Tower
12 2 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
12 2 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 93 (54.07%) DNS
2 64 (37.21%) TCP/IP
3 61 (35.47%) HTTP
4 59 (34.30%) Firewall
5 49 (28.49%) BIG-IP
6 37 (21.51%) VPN
6 37 (21.51%) Wireshark
7 31 (18.02%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 29 (16.86%) Network Security
9 27 (15.70%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
9 27 (15.70%) IPsec
9 27 (15.70%) WAN
10 20 (11.63%) LAN
11 18 (10.47%) SSH
12 17 (9.88%) DHCP
12 17 (9.88%) HTTPS
12 17 (9.88%) Internet
13 15 (8.72%) SNMP
14 14 (8.14%) Wireless
15 13 (7.56%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (7.56%) MongoDB
2 10 (5.81%) DocumentDB
2 10 (5.81%) NoSQL
3 4 (2.33%) Metadata
4 3 (1.74%) MariaDB
4 3 (1.74%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (1.74%) Redis
5 2 (1.16%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.58%) Amazon QuickSight
6 1 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.58%) SQLite
6 1 (0.58%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 28 (16.28%) Fiddler
2 26 (15.12%) JIRA
3 7 (4.07%) Git
4 4 (2.33%) Browser DevTools
4 4 (2.33%) GitLab
4 4 (2.33%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (1.74%) Jenkins
6 2 (1.16%) git-flow
6 2 (1.16%) Introscope
7 1 (0.58%) Crashlytics
7 1 (0.58%) fastlane
7 1 (0.58%) JUnit
7 1 (0.58%) Xcode
7 1 (0.58%) XCTest
7 1 (0.58%) XCUITest
General
1 28 (16.28%) Finance
2 25 (14.53%) Social Skills
3 24 (13.95%) Banking
4 20 (11.63%) Investment Banking
5 19 (11.05%) Analytical Skills
6 17 (9.88%) Public Sector
7 15 (8.72%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (4.65%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.16%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.16%) Legal
9 2 (1.16%) Retail
10 1 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.58%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.58%) Marketing
10 1 (0.58%) Military
10 1 (0.58%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 56 (32.56%) Network Engineer
2 29 (16.86%) Web Engineer
3 22 (12.79%) IP Network Engineer
4 21 (12.21%) Senior
5 19 (11.05%) Blue Coat Engineer
5 19 (11.05%) Security Engineer
6 14 (8.14%) Architect
7 10 (5.81%) Cryptography Engineer
7 10 (5.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 10 (5.81%) Junior
8 9 (5.23%) Developer
8 9 (5.23%) Junior Network Engineer
8 9 (5.23%) Network Security Engineer
9 8 (4.65%) Analyst
10 7 (4.07%) Full-Stack Developer
11 6 (3.49%) Linux Engineer
11 6 (3.49%) Technical Architect
12 5 (2.91%) Senior Network Engineer
12 5 (2.91%) Senior Technical Architect
12 5 (2.91%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (16.28%) SAML
2 24 (13.95%) LDAP
3 13 (7.56%) Kafka
3 13 (7.56%) OpenID
4 12 (6.98%) HTML
5 11 (6.40%) OAuth
6 10 (5.81%) OAuth2
6 10 (5.81%) RESTful
6 10 (5.81%) Spring
6 10 (5.81%) Spring Boot
7 9 (5.23%) Node.js
8 7 (4.07%) REST
9 6 (3.49%) 802.1X
9 6 (3.49%) Web Services
10 5 (2.91%) XACML
11 3 (1.74%) SignalR
12 2 (1.16%) JMS
12 2 (1.16%) Middleware
12 2 (1.16%) RabbitMQ
12 2 (1.16%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 25 (14.53%) Management Information System
2 21 (12.21%) PKI
3 12 (6.98%) Security Posture
4 11 (6.40%) Cloud Security Posture
5 10 (5.81%) Clustering
5 10 (5.81%) Data Centre
6 8 (4.65%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 7 (4.07%) Analytical Mindset
7 7 (4.07%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (3.49%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (2.91%) Algorithms
9 5 (2.91%) CSOC
9 5 (2.91%) Cyberattack
9 5 (2.91%) Security Operations Centre
10 3 (1.74%) Enterprise Storage
10 3 (1.74%) SCADA
10 3 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (1.16%) Cyber Defence
11 2 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (1.16%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 38 (22.09%) Windows
2 32 (18.60%) Linux
3 14 (8.14%) Windows Server
4 8 (4.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (4.07%) Unix
6 4 (2.33%) CatOS
6 4 (2.33%) Mac OS
7 2 (1.16%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (1.16%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
7 2 (1.16%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.58%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.58%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.58%) Solaris
8 1 (0.58%) VMS
8 1 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (22.67%) Cybersecurity
2 38 (22.09%) Load Balancing
3 36 (20.93%) Data Loss Prevention
4 29 (16.86%) Change Management
5 28 (16.28%) Malware Detection/Protection
6 26 (15.12%) CI/CD
6 26 (15.12%) High Availability
7 24 (13.95%) ITIL
8 23 (13.37%) Cloud Security
8 23 (13.37%) DevOps
9 21 (12.21%) Identity Access Management
9 21 (12.21%) Migration
10 20 (11.63%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 19 (11.05%) Observability
11 19 (11.05%) Roadmaps
12 17 (9.88%) Key Management
12 17 (9.88%) SIEM
13 16 (9.30%) Stakeholder Management
14 15 (8.72%) Microservices
15 14 (8.14%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 29 (16.86%) Python
2 15 (8.72%) SQL
3 14 (8.14%) PowerShell
4 12 (6.98%) JavaScript
5 11 (6.40%) Bash
6 4 (2.33%) Java
7 3 (1.74%) Perl
7 3 (1.74%) PL/SQL
8 2 (1.16%) Groovy
8 2 (1.16%) Jython
9 1 (0.58%) C
9 1 (0.58%) Go
9 1 (0.58%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.58%) Swift
Qualifications
1 53 (30.81%) Security Cleared
2 38 (22.09%) SC Cleared
3 15 (8.72%) CISSP
4 14 (8.14%) DV Cleared
5 13 (7.56%) Cisco Certification
6 12 (6.98%) CCNP
6 12 (6.98%) Degree
7 10 (5.81%) FFIEC
8 9 (5.23%) CISM
9 7 (4.07%) CompTIA Security+
10 6 (3.49%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (2.33%) MCSA
11 4 (2.33%) MCSE
12 3 (1.74%) Azure Certification
13 2 (1.16%) CCIE
13 2 (1.16%) HND
13 2 (1.16%) Postgraduate
14 1 (0.58%) CCA
14 1 (0.58%) CCIP
14 1 (0.58%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (9.88%) GDPR
2 15 (8.72%) NIST
3 13 (7.56%) PCI DSS
4 10 (5.81%) GLBA
5 3 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.16%) Accessibility
6 2 (1.16%) SLA
7 1 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.58%) DICOM
7 1 (0.58%) HL7
7 1 (0.58%) NCSC
7 1 (0.58%) RMADS
System Software
1 44 (25.58%) VMware Infrastructure
2 42 (24.42%) Active Directory
3 20 (11.63%) Firmware
4 19 (11.05%) VMware NSX
5 12 (6.98%) Docker
6 11 (6.40%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (5.81%) Hyper-V
8 5 (2.91%) RACF
8 5 (2.91%) VMware ESXi
9 4 (2.33%) Squid
10 3 (1.74%) Ceph
10 3 (1.74%) ProxySG
10 3 (1.74%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 3 (1.74%) vSphere
11 2 (1.16%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.58%) KVM
12 1 (0.58%) XenApp
12 1 (0.58%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 27 (15.70%) Ansible
2 26 (15.12%) Single Sign-On
3 18 (10.47%) Kubernetes
4 13 (7.56%) CASB
5 12 (6.98%) Terraform
6 9 (5.23%) FortiGate
7 4 (2.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (2.33%) CA Single Sign-On
7 4 (2.33%) Nessus
7 4 (2.33%) PingFederate
8 3 (1.74%) Grafana
9 2 (1.16%) CA Wily
9 2 (1.16%) Packer
9 2 (1.16%) Prometheus
9 2 (1.16%) SCCM
9 2 (1.16%) Tivoli
9 2 (1.16%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.58%) Puppet
10 1 (0.58%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 57 (33.14%) F5
2 56 (32.56%) VMware
3 35 (20.35%) Blue Coat
3 35 (20.35%) Microsoft
4 31 (18.02%) Cisco
5 30 (17.44%) McAfee
6 21 (12.21%) CheckPoint
6 21 (12.21%) Palo Alto
7 20 (11.63%) NetApp
8 17 (9.88%) Splunk
9 15 (8.72%) ServiceNow
10 14 (8.14%) Zscaler
11 13 (7.56%) Thales
12 9 (5.23%) Juniper
13 8 (4.65%) Citrix
13 8 (4.65%) Fortinet
13 8 (4.65%) SolarWinds
14 7 (4.07%) CrowdStrike
15 6 (3.49%) Netskope
15 6 (3.49%) Symantec