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 11 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 476 358 414
Rank change year-on-year -118 +56 -12
Contract jobs citing SSL 220 200 156
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.40% 0.60% 0.41%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 4.36% 5.32% 3.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 105 123 87
10th Percentile £380 £369 £393
25th Percentile £469 £413 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% +10.00%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £650
90th Percentile £650 £700 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £555 £425 £549
% change year-on-year +30.59% -22.63% +13.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 8 1
10th Percentile £61.00 - -
25th Percentile £66.81 £45.00 £46.25
Median hourly rate £68.75 £65.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.77% +36.84% -28.01%
75th Percentile £72.81 £82.26 £48.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £85.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.75 £65.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +5.77% +36.84% -28.01%

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 5,043 3,759 4,557
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.24% 11.35% 12.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,917 2,389 2,618
10th Percentile £236 £213 £224
25th Percentile £390 £356 £365
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £606
90th Percentile £678 £676 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £485
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.22% +4.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 434 189 187
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £14.40
25th Percentile £19.50 £20.18 £24.18
Median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% -27.92% -14.04%
75th Percentile £68.69 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £92.38 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £41.94 £55.00
% change year-on-year -37.67% -23.75% -4.21%

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 11 October 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 11 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SSL in the UK

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 11 October 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 -112 191 £550 -4.35% 92
UK excluding London -55 132 £555 +30.59% 53
London -108 68 £550 -8.33% 43
Work from Home -56 64 £550 -4.35% 38
North of England -53 55 £600 +4.35% 10
North West -31 37 £600 -0.58% 8
Midlands -47 27 £469 +24.24% 7
South East -56 24 £538 +43.33% 12
West Midlands -53 22 £450 +18.42% 5
East of England -21 18 £400 -41.18% 9
Scotland -12 17 £600 +14.29% 4
Yorkshire -25 16 £600 - 2
East Midlands -8 5 £525 +46.65% 2
South West -27 4 £350 -37.16% 10
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 12 (5.45%) Confluence
2 5 (2.27%) Apache
3 4 (1.82%) IIS
4 3 (1.36%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.91%) nginx
6 1 (0.45%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.45%) JBoss
6 1 (0.45%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.45%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 3 (1.36%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.91%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (0.91%) Houdini
2 2 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.91%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 3 (1.36%) Infor LN
2 2 (0.91%) Dynamics GP
3 1 (0.45%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.45%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.45%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.45%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 68 (30.91%) Azure
2 44 (20.00%) AWS
3 26 (11.82%) Entra ID
4 19 (8.64%) GCP
5 17 (7.73%) GitHub
6 16 (7.27%) Azure DevOps
7 14 (6.36%) Microsoft 365
8 13 (5.91%) Power Platform
9 12 (5.45%) Azure Monitor
10 11 (5.00%) Datadog
11 8 (3.64%) Azure Key Vault
11 8 (3.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 7 (3.18%) AWS CloudFormation
12 7 (3.18%) AWS Lambda
12 7 (3.18%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (3.18%) Serverless
13 6 (2.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 6 (2.73%) Amazon S3
13 6 (2.73%) AWS KMS
13 6 (2.73%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 98 (44.55%) DNS
2 73 (33.18%) Firewall
3 60 (27.27%) VPN
4 58 (26.36%) Network Security
5 55 (25.00%) TCP/IP
6 54 (24.55%) HTTP
7 40 (18.18%) WAN
8 35 (15.91%) IPsec
9 30 (13.64%) BGP
10 27 (12.27%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 26 (11.82%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
12 25 (11.36%) BIG-IP
13 23 (10.45%) DHCP
14 22 (10.00%) LAN
14 22 (10.00%) OSPF
14 22 (10.00%) Wireless
15 16 (7.27%) HTTPS
15 16 (7.27%) Wireshark
16 14 (6.36%) SD-WAN
17 12 (5.45%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (8.64%) SQL Server
2 16 (7.27%) MySQL
3 11 (5.00%) Power BI
3 11 (5.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 5 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (1.82%) MariaDB
5 4 (1.82%) Relational Database
6 2 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.91%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.91%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 2 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
6 2 (0.91%) RDBMS
6 2 (0.91%) SQLPlus
7 1 (0.45%) InfluxDB
7 1 (0.45%) Neo4j
7 1 (0.45%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.45%) SAP HANA
7 1 (0.45%) SQLite
7 1 (0.45%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 19 (8.64%) Jenkins
2 17 (7.73%) Git
2 17 (7.73%) JIRA
3 11 (5.00%) Fiddler
3 11 (5.00%) GitLab
4 6 (2.73%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (1.36%) Artifactory
5 3 (1.36%) Maven
6 2 (0.91%) git-flow
7 1 (0.45%) Ant
7 1 (0.45%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.45%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.45%) Gerrit
7 1 (0.45%) Mockito
7 1 (0.45%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.45%) Tricentis qTest
General
1 39 (17.73%) Finance
2 38 (17.27%) Social Skills
3 31 (14.09%) Banking
4 25 (11.36%) Legal
5 24 (10.91%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (5.45%) Investment Banking
7 11 (5.00%) Public Sector
8 7 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (2.73%) Publishing
10 5 (2.27%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.82%) Manufacturing
12 3 (1.36%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.45%) Law
13 1 (0.45%) Local Government
13 1 (0.45%) Marketing
13 1 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.45%) Police
13 1 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 53 (24.09%) Network Engineer
2 26 (11.82%) Security Engineer
3 25 (11.36%) Administrator
4 23 (10.45%) Senior
5 14 (6.36%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 14 (6.36%) Lead
6 13 (5.91%) DBA
7 12 (5.45%) Architect
7 12 (5.45%) SQL DBA
8 11 (5.00%) Blue Coat Engineer
8 11 (5.00%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
8 11 (5.00%) IP Network Engineer
8 11 (5.00%) Web Engineer
9 10 (4.55%) Network Security Engineer
9 10 (4.55%) Senior Network Engineer
10 9 (4.09%) Developer
11 8 (3.64%) DevOps Engineer
11 8 (3.64%) Linux Engineer
12 7 (3.18%) Network Architect
13 6 (2.73%) Infrastructure Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (12.73%) Terraform
2 22 (10.00%) SAML
3 21 (9.55%) Middleware
4 18 (8.18%) 802.1X
5 17 (7.73%) ISPF
6 14 (6.36%) REST
7 12 (5.45%) OAuth
8 10 (4.55%) Web Services
9 9 (4.09%) LDAP
9 9 (4.09%) SOAP
10 8 (3.64%) JSON
10 8 (3.64%) OpenID
11 7 (3.18%) Kafka
11 7 (3.18%) XML
12 5 (2.27%) OAuth2
13 4 (1.82%) Apache NiFi
13 4 (1.82%) CSS
13 4 (1.82%) EDI
13 4 (1.82%) YAML
14 3 (1.36%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 34 (15.45%) PKI
2 30 (13.64%) Clustering
3 24 (10.91%) Onboarding
4 18 (8.18%) Mainframe
5 16 (7.27%) Management Information System
6 15 (6.82%) Replication
7 14 (6.36%) Data Centre
7 14 (6.36%) Self-Motivation
8 13 (5.91%) Cyber Threat
9 9 (4.09%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 9 (4.09%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (3.64%) Hybrid Cloud
11 6 (2.73%) Distributed Applications
12 5 (2.27%) Analytical Mindset
12 5 (2.27%) Linux Command Line
12 5 (2.27%) Video Conferencing
13 4 (1.82%) Cyberattack
13 4 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
13 4 (1.82%) Data Structures
13 4 (1.82%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 56 (25.45%) Linux
2 52 (23.64%) Windows
3 33 (15.00%) Windows Server
4 22 (10.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (9.09%) zOS
6 9 (4.09%) Unix
7 3 (1.36%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.91%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.45%) Amazon Linux
9 1 (0.45%) Android
9 1 (0.45%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.45%) macOS
9 1 (0.45%) Rocky
9 1 (0.45%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (24.55%) DevOps
2 49 (22.27%) Load Balancing
3 47 (21.36%) ITIL
4 37 (16.82%) CI/CD
5 32 (14.55%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 29 (13.18%) High Availability
7 25 (11.36%) Problem-Solving
8 24 (10.91%) Migration
8 24 (10.91%) Performance Optimisation
8 24 (10.91%) Performance Tuning
8 24 (10.91%) SIEM
9 23 (10.45%) Infrastructure as Code
10 22 (10.00%) Change Management
10 22 (10.00%) Zero Trust
11 21 (9.55%) Cybersecurity
12 19 (8.64%) Agile
13 18 (8.18%) Containerisation
14 17 (7.73%) Incident Response
14 17 (7.73%) Observability
14 17 (7.73%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 58 (26.36%) Python
2 33 (15.00%) PowerShell
3 32 (14.55%) SQL
4 21 (9.55%) Bash
5 12 (5.45%) T-SQL
6 11 (5.00%) Shell Script
7 10 (4.55%) Java
8 9 (4.09%) Groovy
8 9 (4.09%) Perl
9 7 (3.18%) JavaScript
10 6 (2.73%) ActionScript
11 3 (1.36%) C#
11 3 (1.36%) C++
12 2 (0.91%) Go
13 1 (0.45%) ABAP
13 1 (0.45%) ActionScript 2.0
13 1 (0.45%) Cypher
13 1 (0.45%) MATLAB
13 1 (0.45%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.45%) R
Qualifications
1 66 (30.00%) Security Cleared
2 42 (19.09%) SC Cleared
3 25 (11.36%) DV Cleared
4 20 (9.09%) Degree
5 18 (8.18%) Azure Certification
6 15 (6.82%) Cisco Certification
7 13 (5.91%) BPSS Clearance
7 13 (5.91%) CCNP
8 12 (5.45%) Microsoft Certification
9 10 (4.55%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 6 (2.73%) CCNA
11 5 (2.27%) CCIE
11 5 (2.27%) CISSP
11 5 (2.27%) RHCSA
12 4 (1.82%) RHCE
13 2 (0.91%) JNCIE
13 2 (0.91%) MCSE
13 2 (0.91%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.91%) PMP
13 2 (0.91%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (4.55%) NIST
2 6 (2.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (2.73%) SLA
3 4 (1.82%) GDPR
4 2 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 2 (0.91%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.45%) DICOM
5 1 (0.45%) HL7
5 1 (0.45%) QA
System Software
1 45 (20.45%) Active Directory
2 39 (17.73%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (8.18%) Docker
4 17 (7.73%) RACF
4 17 (7.73%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (6.82%) vSphere
6 13 (5.91%) Firmware
6 13 (5.91%) Hyper-V
7 9 (4.09%) VMware NSX
8 4 (1.82%) Ceph
8 4 (1.82%) Squid
9 3 (1.36%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 2 (0.91%) Apache ZooKeeper
10 2 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.45%) KVM
11 1 (0.45%) OpenSSH
11 1 (0.45%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 48 (21.82%) Ansible
2 20 (9.09%) Kubernetes
3 18 (8.18%) Grafana
4 17 (7.73%) OMEGAMON
5 16 (7.27%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (5.91%) Prometheus
7 11 (5.00%) SCOM
8 10 (4.55%) Puppet
9 8 (3.64%) Nagios
10 5 (2.27%) Argo
10 5 (2.27%) FortiGate
10 5 (2.27%) Packer
11 4 (1.82%) Cisco CUCM
11 4 (1.82%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (1.82%) systemd
12 3 (1.36%) Progress Chef
12 3 (1.36%) yum
13 2 (0.91%) Consul
13 2 (0.91%) HAProxy
13 2 (0.91%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 51 (23.18%) VMware
2 49 (22.27%) Cisco
2 49 (22.27%) F5
3 43 (19.55%) Microsoft
4 32 (14.55%) Palo Alto
5 27 (12.27%) ServiceNow
6 26 (11.82%) Blue Coat
7 25 (11.36%) Zscaler
8 21 (9.55%) IBM
9 18 (8.18%) Juniper
10 17 (7.73%) SolarWinds
11 15 (6.82%) Fortinet
12 14 (6.36%) CheckPoint
12 14 (6.36%) McAfee
13 11 (5.00%) NetApp
13 11 (5.00%) Red Hat
13 11 (5.00%) Splunk
14 7 (3.18%) Dynatrace
15 6 (2.73%) Oracle
16 5 (2.27%) Aruba