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 7 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 458 353 429
Rank change year-on-year -105 +76 -16
Contract jobs citing SSL 226 204 140
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.42% 0.62% 0.36%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.44% 5.33% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 122 126 78
10th Percentile £380 £350 £376
25th Percentile £463 £383 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £544 £556 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.20% +1.09% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £647
90th Percentile £650 £706 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% +10.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 8 2
10th Percentile - - £37.70
25th Percentile - £45.00 £39.13
Median hourly rate - £65.00 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year - +51.16% -34.83%
75th Percentile - £82.26 £46.63
90th Percentile - £85.00 £47.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £65.00 £43.00
% change year-on-year - +51.16% -34.83%

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 5,090 3,824 4,589
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.40% 11.68% 11.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,998 2,347 2,711
10th Percentile £234 £235 £230
25th Percentile £397 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £609
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £466 £500
% change year-on-year +3.11% -6.90% +10.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 383 200 276
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.11 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.11 £21.37
Median hourly rate £26.00 £43.00 £51.00
Median % change year-on-year -39.53% -15.69% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £73.20 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.84 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -39.20% -25.89% +1.52%

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 7 September 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
Top 15 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 7 September 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 -101 193 £544 -5.43% 84
UK excluding London -48 139 £525 +5.00% 46
London -105 68 £550 -8.33% 47
Work from Home -57 66 £550 -2.83% 38
North of England -31 62 £600 +12.15% 7
North West -25 41 £600 -0.29% 3
Midlands -46 35 £375 +0.27% 1
West Midlands -36 32 £350 -7.89% 1
South East -57 30 £500 +33.33% 21
Scotland -12 20 £600 +14.29% 3
Yorkshire -31 19 £600 +20.00% 4
East of England -28 5 £450 -25.31% 16
East Midlands -17 3 £475 +32.68%
South West -47 3 £350 -40.17% 1
North East -39 2 £438 -18.22%

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 16 (7.08%) Confluence
2 4 (1.77%) Apache
3 2 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.88%) IBM HTTP Server
3 2 (0.88%) IIS
3 2 (0.88%) Oracle HTTP Server
3 2 (0.88%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.88%) WebSphere
3 2 (0.88%) WebSphere Application Server
3 2 (0.88%) WebSphere Portal
4 1 (0.44%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.44%) JBoss
4 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.44%) nginx
Applications
1 4 (1.77%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.88%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (0.88%) Houdini
2 2 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.88%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 3 (1.33%) Infor LN
2 2 (0.88%) Dynamics GP
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.44%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 75 (33.19%) Azure
2 47 (20.80%) AWS
3 33 (14.60%) Entra ID
4 22 (9.73%) GCP
5 19 (8.41%) Azure DevOps
6 15 (6.64%) GitHub
6 15 (6.64%) Microsoft 365
7 13 (5.75%) Power Platform
8 12 (5.31%) Azure Monitor
8 12 (5.31%) Datadog
9 11 (4.87%) SaaS
10 9 (3.98%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 8 (3.54%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (3.54%) AWS Lambda
11 8 (3.54%) Azure Key Vault
11 8 (3.54%) Serverless
12 7 (3.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 7 (3.10%) Amazon S3
12 7 (3.10%) AWS KMS
12 7 (3.10%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 103 (45.58%) DNS
2 75 (33.19%) Firewall
3 58 (25.66%) VPN
4 55 (24.34%) Network Security
5 53 (23.45%) TCP/IP
6 51 (22.57%) HTTP
7 45 (19.91%) WAN
8 34 (15.04%) BIG-IP
9 33 (14.60%) IPsec
10 32 (14.16%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 28 (12.39%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
12 22 (9.73%) DHCP
12 22 (9.73%) HTTPS
12 22 (9.73%) Wireless
13 21 (9.29%) BGP
13 21 (9.29%) LAN
14 20 (8.85%) Internet
15 19 (8.41%) Wireshark
16 17 (7.52%) SD-WAN
17 13 (5.75%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (7.08%) SQL Server
2 14 (6.19%) MySQL
3 11 (4.87%) Power BI
3 11 (4.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 7 (3.10%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (2.65%) MariaDB
6 5 (2.21%) MongoDB
7 4 (1.77%) Metadata
8 3 (1.33%) SQLPlus
9 2 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.88%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 2 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.88%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.88%) Relational Database
10 1 (0.44%) Neo4j
10 1 (0.44%) NoSQL
10 1 (0.44%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 26 (11.50%) JIRA
2 17 (7.52%) Jenkins
3 14 (6.19%) Fiddler
4 12 (5.31%) Git
5 10 (4.42%) GitLab
6 5 (2.21%) Browser DevTools
6 5 (2.21%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (1.33%) Maven
8 2 (0.88%) git-flow
8 2 (0.88%) Introscope
9 1 (0.44%) Ant
9 1 (0.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.44%) Mockito
General
1 44 (19.47%) Finance
2 33 (14.60%) Banking
2 33 (14.60%) Social Skills
3 25 (11.06%) Analytical Skills
3 25 (11.06%) Legal
4 15 (6.64%) Investment Banking
4 15 (6.64%) Public Sector
5 10 (4.42%) Telecoms
6 8 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (2.65%) Publishing
8 3 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.33%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.88%) Retail
10 1 (0.44%) Local Government
10 1 (0.44%) Marketing
10 1 (0.44%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.44%) Police
10 1 (0.44%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 51 (22.57%) Network Engineer
2 33 (14.60%) Security Engineer
3 25 (11.06%) Senior
4 24 (10.62%) Administrator
5 17 (7.52%) Lead
6 16 (7.08%) IP Network Engineer
7 15 (6.64%) Web Engineer
8 14 (6.19%) Blue Coat Engineer
9 13 (5.75%) Network Security Engineer
10 12 (5.31%) DBA
10 12 (5.31%) Senior Network Engineer
11 11 (4.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 11 (4.87%) SQL DBA
12 10 (4.42%) Architect
12 10 (4.42%) Linux Engineer
13 9 (3.98%) Developer
14 8 (3.54%) Network Architect
15 7 (3.10%) DevOps Engineer
16 6 (2.65%) Infrastructure Specialist
16 6 (2.65%) Senior Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (12.39%) SAML
2 24 (10.62%) Terraform
3 23 (10.18%) Middleware
4 18 (7.96%) 802.1X
5 17 (7.52%) ISPF
6 13 (5.75%) OAuth
7 11 (4.87%) REST
8 9 (3.98%) LDAP
8 9 (3.98%) OAuth2
8 9 (3.98%) OpenID
8 9 (3.98%) SOAP
8 9 (3.98%) Web Services
9 7 (3.10%) Kafka
9 7 (3.10%) XML
10 6 (2.65%) JSON
11 4 (1.77%) CSS
11 4 (1.77%) EDI
12 3 (1.33%) EDIFACT
12 3 (1.33%) JMS
12 3 (1.33%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 37 (16.37%) Clustering
2 28 (12.39%) PKI
3 18 (7.96%) Mainframe
3 18 (7.96%) Onboarding
4 17 (7.52%) Data Centre
5 16 (7.08%) Management Information System
6 14 (6.19%) Replication
7 12 (5.31%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 12 (5.31%) Enterprise Software
8 10 (4.42%) Self-Motivation
9 9 (3.98%) Cyber Threat
10 8 (3.54%) Security Posture
11 7 (3.10%) Cloud Security Posture
11 7 (3.10%) Hybrid Cloud
12 6 (2.65%) Distributed Applications
13 5 (2.21%) Linux Command Line
14 4 (1.77%) Algorithms
14 4 (1.77%) Data Structures
14 4 (1.77%) Fibre Optics
14 4 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 50 (22.12%) Linux
2 49 (21.68%) Windows
3 28 (12.39%) Windows Server
4 20 (8.85%) zOS
5 15 (6.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (4.87%) Unix
7 4 (1.77%) Mac OS
8 3 (1.33%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.88%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.88%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 2 (0.88%) VMS
10 1 (0.44%) Amazon Linux
10 1 (0.44%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (24.78%) ITIL
2 53 (23.45%) DevOps
3 46 (20.35%) Load Balancing
4 34 (15.04%) High Availability
5 33 (14.60%) CI/CD
6 30 (13.27%) SIEM
7 29 (12.83%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 28 (12.39%) Change Management
9 27 (11.95%) Performance Tuning
10 26 (11.50%) Zero Trust
11 25 (11.06%) Problem-Solving
12 24 (10.62%) Cybersecurity
12 24 (10.62%) Data Loss Prevention
13 23 (10.18%) Migration
13 23 (10.18%) Performance Optimisation
14 22 (9.73%) Agile
15 18 (7.96%) Project Delivery
16 17 (7.52%) Infrastructure as Code
16 17 (7.52%) Network Virtualisation
16 17 (7.52%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 57 (25.22%) Python
2 33 (14.60%) SQL
3 30 (13.27%) PowerShell
4 24 (10.62%) Bash
5 11 (4.87%) Java
5 11 (4.87%) Perl
5 11 (4.87%) T-SQL
6 10 (4.42%) Shell Script
7 9 (3.98%) Groovy
8 5 (2.21%) ActionScript
8 5 (2.21%) JavaScript
9 4 (1.77%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.88%) Go
10 2 (0.88%) Jython
11 1 (0.44%) ActionScript 2.0
11 1 (0.44%) C
11 1 (0.44%) C#
11 1 (0.44%) Cypher
11 1 (0.44%) R
11 1 (0.44%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 75 (33.19%) Security Cleared
2 55 (24.34%) SC Cleared
3 20 (8.85%) Degree
4 19 (8.41%) Azure Certification
5 18 (7.96%) DV Cleared
6 13 (5.75%) BPSS Clearance
7 12 (5.31%) Microsoft Certification
8 11 (4.87%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (4.42%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 8 (3.54%) CCNP
11 7 (3.10%) CISSP
12 6 (2.65%) CCIE
13 3 (1.33%) RHCSA
14 2 (0.88%) CompTIA Security+
14 2 (0.88%) JNCIE
14 2 (0.88%) LFCS
14 2 (0.88%) MCSE
14 2 (0.88%) PMP
14 2 (0.88%) PRINCE2 Certification
14 2 (0.88%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (4.42%) NIST
2 8 (3.54%) GDPR
3 6 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (2.65%) SLA
4 2 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 2 (0.88%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.44%) DICOM
5 1 (0.44%) HL7
5 1 (0.44%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 47 (20.80%) VMware Infrastructure
2 43 (19.03%) Active Directory
3 22 (9.73%) Virtual Machines
4 19 (8.41%) Hyper-V
5 17 (7.52%) RACF
6 16 (7.08%) Firmware
7 14 (6.19%) Docker
8 10 (4.42%) VMware NSX
9 7 (3.10%) Ceph
9 7 (3.10%) Squid
9 7 (3.10%) vSphere
10 4 (1.77%) VMware ESXi
11 3 (1.33%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.88%) Apache ZooKeeper
12 2 (0.88%) ProxySG
12 2 (0.88%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 2 (0.88%) Virtual Desktop
13 1 (0.44%) KVM
13 1 (0.44%) OpenSSH
Systems Management
1 47 (20.80%) Ansible
2 22 (9.73%) Single Sign-On
3 17 (7.52%) Kubernetes
3 17 (7.52%) OMEGAMON
4 15 (6.64%) Grafana
5 11 (4.87%) SCOM
6 10 (4.42%) Prometheus
7 9 (3.98%) CASB
8 8 (3.54%) FortiGate
9 7 (3.10%) Puppet
10 5 (2.21%) Packer
11 4 (1.77%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (1.77%) CA Single Sign-On
11 4 (1.77%) Cisco CUCM
11 4 (1.77%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (1.77%) PingFederate
11 4 (1.77%) systemd
12 3 (1.33%) Argo
12 3 (1.33%) yum
13 2 (0.88%) Consul
Vendors
1 54 (23.89%) F5
2 52 (23.01%) VMware
3 43 (19.03%) Cisco
4 39 (17.26%) Microsoft
5 36 (15.93%) ServiceNow
6 35 (15.49%) Zscaler
7 31 (13.72%) Palo Alto
8 29 (12.83%) Blue Coat
9 23 (10.18%) IBM
10 18 (7.96%) Juniper
11 17 (7.52%) McAfee
12 16 (7.08%) CheckPoint
13 15 (6.64%) Fortinet
14 14 (6.19%) NetApp
15 11 (4.87%) Oracle
15 11 (4.87%) Red Hat
16 10 (4.42%) SolarWinds
17 8 (3.54%) Splunk
18 7 (3.10%) Dynatrace
18 7 (3.10%) Ping Identity