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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 452 346 380
Rank change year-on-year -106 +34 +75
Contract jobs citing SSL 174 177 224
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.39% 0.61% 0.51%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 3.90% 4.70% 3.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 106 114 117
10th Percentile £328 £350 £393
25th Percentile £363 £449 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -9.13% +4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £638
90th Percentile £688 £651 £715
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -13.04% -4.17% +20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 5 6
10th Percentile £52.15 - £41.32
25th Percentile £55.00 £80.34 -
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.35 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -20.10% +77.31% -27.44%
75th Percentile £75.00 £82.10 £61.16
90th Percentile £80.25 £83.24 £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 4,466 3,766 5,915
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.00% 12.97% 13.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,866 2,332 3,562
10th Percentile £224 £213 £205
25th Percentile £380 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% +3.16% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £473 £475
% change year-on-year +0.53% -0.53% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 148 408
10th Percentile £15.56 £14.99 £13.96
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.46 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.94 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.83% +7.69% +71.05%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.38 £62.50
90th Percentile £76.50 £75.00 £67.84
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 £31.79 £44.00
% change year-on-year +53.26% -27.75% +137.84%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -103 144 £500 -9.09% 27
UK excluding London -71 113 £500 -13.04% 25
North of England -26 63 £643 +16.91% 4
Work from Home -54 56 £470 -1.16% 17
North West -8 39 £610 +12.96% 4
West Midlands -24 39 £340 -25.68% 4
Midlands -37 39 £340 -25.68% 4
London -91 33 £514 +9.31% 4
Yorkshire -39 24 £675 +35.00%
South East -66 12 £428 -31.60% 6
East of England -34 10 £452 -24.67% 11
Scotland +2 8 £600 +16.50% 1
North East -16 1 - -
South West -32 1 £500 -7.83%

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 (10.34%) Confluence
2 12 (6.90%) TPMS
3 3 (1.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.15%) IBM HTTP Server
4 2 (1.15%) Oracle HTTP Server
4 2 (1.15%) WebSphere
4 2 (1.15%) WebSphere Application Server
4 2 (1.15%) WebSphere Portal
5 1 (0.57%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.57%) CMS
5 1 (0.57%) Drupal
5 1 (0.57%) IIS
5 1 (0.57%) Umbraco
Applications
1 8 (4.60%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 40 (22.99%) Azure
2 39 (22.41%) AWS
3 14 (8.05%) GCP
3 14 (8.05%) GitHub
4 13 (7.47%) SaaS
5 12 (6.90%) Entra ID
6 11 (6.32%) Amazon EKS
7 10 (5.75%) Serverless
8 7 (4.02%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 6 (3.45%) IaaS
10 5 (2.87%) OpenShift
10 5 (2.87%) PaaS
11 4 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
12 3 (1.72%) AWS CloudFormation
12 3 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
12 3 (1.72%) Kong
12 3 (1.72%) Microsoft 365
13 2 (1.15%) Amazon ECS
13 2 (1.15%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 85 (48.85%) DNS
2 64 (36.78%) TCP/IP
3 62 (35.63%) HTTP
4 57 (32.76%) Firewall
5 45 (25.86%) BIG-IP
6 36 (20.69%) Wireshark
7 31 (17.82%) VPN
8 28 (16.09%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 27 (15.52%) Network Security
10 25 (14.37%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 24 (13.79%) IPsec
12 22 (12.64%) WAN
13 20 (11.49%) SSH
14 16 (9.20%) HTTPS
14 16 (9.20%) LAN
14 16 (9.20%) SNMP
15 14 (8.05%) Internet
16 11 (6.32%) DHCP
16 11 (6.32%) Wireless
17 10 (5.75%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (7.47%) MongoDB
2 10 (5.75%) DocumentDB
2 10 (5.75%) NoSQL
3 5 (2.87%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (2.30%) Metadata
4 4 (2.30%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.72%) MariaDB
5 3 (1.72%) Redis
6 1 (0.57%) Amazon QuickSight
6 1 (0.57%) SQLite
6 1 (0.57%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 29 (16.67%) Fiddler
2 24 (13.79%) JIRA
3 9 (5.17%) Git
4 6 (3.45%) Jenkins
5 4 (2.30%) GitLab
6 2 (1.15%) Browser DevTools
6 2 (1.15%) git-flow
6 2 (1.15%) Introscope
6 2 (1.15%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.57%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.57%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.57%) Crashlytics
7 1 (0.57%) fastlane
7 1 (0.57%) JUnit
7 1 (0.57%) Xcode
7 1 (0.57%) XCTest
7 1 (0.57%) XCUITest
General
1 31 (17.82%) Finance
2 25 (14.37%) Analytical Skills
3 24 (13.79%) Banking
4 23 (13.22%) Social Skills
5 19 (10.92%) Investment Banking
6 17 (9.77%) Public Sector
7 15 (8.62%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (3.45%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.15%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.15%) Legal
9 2 (1.15%) Retail
10 1 (0.57%) Billing
10 1 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.57%) Marketing
10 1 (0.57%) Military
10 1 (0.57%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 53 (30.46%) Network Engineer
2 31 (17.82%) Web Engineer
3 21 (12.07%) Blue Coat Engineer
4 20 (11.49%) IP Network Engineer
5 17 (9.77%) Senior
6 15 (8.62%) Architect
7 13 (7.47%) Developer
8 12 (6.90%) Cryptography Engineer
8 12 (6.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 12 (6.90%) Security Engineer
9 11 (6.32%) Junior
10 10 (5.75%) Junior Network Engineer
11 9 (5.17%) Full-Stack Developer
12 8 (4.60%) Analyst
12 8 (4.60%) Consultant
13 6 (3.45%) Technical Architect
14 5 (2.87%) Network Architect
14 5 (2.87%) Senior Architect
14 5 (2.87%) Senior Technical Architect
14 5 (2.87%) SOC Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (15.52%) LDAP
2 25 (14.37%) SAML
3 14 (8.05%) OAuth
3 14 (8.05%) OpenID
4 12 (6.90%) Kafka
4 12 (6.90%) OAuth2
5 11 (6.32%) HTML
5 11 (6.32%) RESTful
6 10 (5.75%) REST
6 10 (5.75%) Spring
6 10 (5.75%) Spring Boot
7 9 (5.17%) Node.js
8 6 (3.45%) Web Services
9 5 (2.87%) XACML
10 3 (1.72%) 802.1X
10 3 (1.72%) GraphQL
10 3 (1.72%) SignalR
11 2 (1.15%) .NET Core
11 2 (1.15%) Core Data
11 2 (1.15%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 25 (14.37%) Management Information System
2 19 (10.92%) PKI
3 12 (6.90%) Security Posture
4 11 (6.32%) Cloud Security Posture
5 9 (5.17%) Analytical Mindset
5 9 (5.17%) Clustering
5 9 (5.17%) Data Centre
6 8 (4.60%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 7 (4.02%) Cyber Threat
8 5 (2.87%) Algorithms
8 5 (2.87%) CSOC
8 5 (2.87%) Cyberattack
8 5 (2.87%) Security Operations Centre
9 4 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (2.30%) SCADA
10 3 (1.72%) Enterprise Storage
11 2 (1.15%) Cyber Defence
11 2 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (1.15%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 40 (22.99%) Windows
2 33 (18.97%) Linux
3 16 (9.20%) Windows Server
4 6 (3.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 6 (3.45%) Unix
5 4 (2.30%) CatOS
6 2 (1.15%) Apple iOS
6 2 (1.15%) Mac OS
6 2 (1.15%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (1.15%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
6 2 (1.15%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.57%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.57%) Solaris
7 1 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (23.56%) Load Balancing
2 40 (22.99%) Cybersecurity
3 37 (21.26%) Data Loss Prevention
4 29 (16.67%) CI/CD
4 29 (16.67%) Malware Detection/Protection
5 28 (16.09%) Change Management
6 26 (14.94%) DevOps
7 25 (14.37%) Cloud Security
8 23 (13.22%) High Availability
8 23 (13.22%) Identity Access Management
8 23 (13.22%) ITIL
8 23 (13.22%) Migration
9 21 (12.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 21 (12.07%) Observability
9 21 (12.07%) Roadmaps
9 21 (12.07%) Stakeholder Management
10 18 (10.34%) Agile
10 18 (10.34%) Problem-Solving
11 17 (9.77%) Key Management
11 17 (9.77%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 30 (17.24%) Python
2 20 (11.49%) SQL
3 16 (9.20%) JavaScript
3 16 (9.20%) PowerShell
4 12 (6.90%) Bash
5 8 (4.60%) Java
6 3 (1.72%) Perl
6 3 (1.72%) PL/SQL
7 2 (1.15%) C#
7 2 (1.15%) Jython
7 2 (1.15%) PHP
7 2 (1.15%) Swift
8 1 (0.57%) C
8 1 (0.57%) Groovy
8 1 (0.57%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 54 (31.03%) Security Cleared
2 41 (23.56%) SC Cleared
3 16 (9.20%) CISSP
4 15 (8.62%) DV Cleared
5 14 (8.05%) Degree
6 12 (6.90%) FFIEC
7 10 (5.75%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (5.17%) CCNP
8 9 (5.17%) CISM
9 7 (4.02%) CompTIA Security+
10 6 (3.45%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (2.30%) MCSA
11 4 (2.30%) MCSE
12 2 (1.15%) HND
12 2 (1.15%) Postgraduate
13 1 (0.57%) CCA
13 1 (0.57%) CCIE
13 1 (0.57%) CCIP
13 1 (0.57%) CCNA
13 1 (0.57%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (12.07%) GDPR
2 16 (9.20%) NIST
3 15 (8.62%) PCI DSS
4 12 (6.90%) GLBA
5 3 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.15%) Accessibility
6 2 (1.15%) Data Quality
6 2 (1.15%) HIPAA
6 2 (1.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.57%) NCSC
7 1 (0.57%) RMADS
7 1 (0.57%) SLA
System Software
1 38 (21.84%) VMware Infrastructure
2 36 (20.69%) Active Directory
3 20 (11.49%) Firmware
4 17 (9.77%) VMware NSX
5 14 (8.05%) Docker
6 8 (4.60%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (2.87%) Hyper-V
7 5 (2.87%) ProxySG
7 5 (2.87%) RACF
8 4 (2.30%) Squid
9 3 (1.72%) Ceph
9 3 (1.72%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (1.15%) NDS
10 2 (1.15%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 2 (1.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (1.15%) vSphere
11 1 (0.57%) XenApp
11 1 (0.57%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 25 (14.37%) Ansible
2 20 (11.49%) Kubernetes
2 20 (11.49%) Single Sign-On
3 13 (7.47%) CASB
4 12 (6.90%) Terraform
5 6 (3.45%) FortiGate
6 4 (2.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (2.30%) CA Single Sign-On
6 4 (2.30%) Nessus
6 4 (2.30%) PingFederate
7 2 (1.15%) CA Wily
7 2 (1.15%) Grafana
7 2 (1.15%) SCCM
7 2 (1.15%) Tivoli
7 2 (1.15%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.57%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.57%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.57%) Puppet
8 1 (0.57%) QRadar
8 1 (0.57%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 54 (31.03%) F5
2 50 (28.74%) VMware
3 37 (21.26%) Blue Coat
4 33 (18.97%) Microsoft
5 32 (18.39%) McAfee
6 27 (15.52%) Cisco
7 21 (12.07%) NetApp
8 19 (10.92%) CheckPoint
8 19 (10.92%) Palo Alto
9 17 (9.77%) Splunk
10 15 (8.62%) Thales
11 13 (7.47%) ServiceNow
12 11 (6.32%) Zscaler
13 9 (5.17%) Juniper
14 7 (4.02%) CrowdStrike
14 7 (4.02%) OpenText
14 7 (4.02%) Oracle
15 6 (3.45%) Citrix
15 6 (3.45%) Symantec
16 5 (2.87%) Fortinet