TCP/IP Contract Job Trends

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring TCP/IP skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 270 223 271
Rank change year-on-year -47 +48 -35
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 416 356 366
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.90% 1.21% 0.84%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.27% 9.40% 6.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 234 253 261
10th Percentile £213 £225 £188
25th Percentile £351 £383 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +2.56% -4.65%
75th Percentile £550 £630 £563
90th Percentile £638 £750 £667
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £481
% change year-on-year -10.00% +3.90% -0.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 10 16
10th Percentile £21.25 £18.18 £16.00
25th Percentile £22.38 £28.81 £20.00
Median hourly rate £52.22 £52.25 £47.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.06% +11.18% -24.87%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.55 £65.00 £68.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £47.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +31.58% -26.92% -

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

TCP/IP 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 4,488 3,789 5,730
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.73% 12.88% 13.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,816 2,345 3,442
10th Percentile £238 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% - -5.80%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.15% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 168 421
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.85
25th Percentile £20.75 £21.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £47.50 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.67% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.69 £62.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £28.00 £46.39
% change year-on-year +96.43% -39.64% +150.76%

TCP/IP
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing TCP/IP relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

TCP/IP job vacancy trend in the UK

TCP/IP
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing TCP/IP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing TCP/IP

TCP/IP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing TCP/IP over the 6 months to 18 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for TCP/IP in the UK

TCP/IP
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing TCP/IP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing TCP/IP

TCP/IP
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing TCP/IP over the 6 months to 18 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for TCP/IP in the UK

TCP/IP
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing TCP/IP within the UK over the 6 months to 18 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 -49 354 £463 -7.50% 177
UK excluding London -20 266 £450 -10.00% 154
London -52 114 £470 -1.05% 45
Work from Home -81 92 £425 -22.73% 73
North of England -20 90 £450 +3.09% 43
South East -21 60 £523 -5.00% 41
North West -7 55 £559 +78.80% 18
East of England -6 50 £280 -34.88% 22
Midlands -45 35 £300 -40.00% 18
West Midlands -39 32 £225 +7.14% 13
Yorkshire -43 32 £447 -22.35% 19
Scotland +13 26 £425 -4.97% 4
South West -33 20 £575 -6.50% 26
Wales -10 6 £335 -21.18% 8
North East -16 3 £200 -20.00% 8
East Midlands -38 3 £625 +13.64% 4

TCP/IP
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 (4.33%) Confluence
2 10 (2.40%) nginx
3 9 (2.16%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (2.16%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.44%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.72%) Apache
6 2 (0.48%) IBM HTTP Server
6 2 (0.48%) IIS
6 2 (0.48%) Oracle HTTP Server
6 2 (0.48%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.48%) WebSphere
6 2 (0.48%) WebSphere Application Server
6 2 (0.48%) WebSphere Portal
6 2 (0.48%) WordPress
7 1 (0.24%) Traefik
Applications
1 34 (8.17%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.40%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.20%) Acrobat
3 5 (1.20%) Weka
4 4 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 1 (0.24%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 95 (22.84%) Azure
2 89 (21.39%) AWS
3 71 (17.07%) Microsoft 365
4 28 (6.73%) GCP
5 27 (6.49%) Entra ID
6 20 (4.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 14 (3.37%) Amazon S3
7 14 (3.37%) Route 53
8 13 (3.13%) Amazon EC2
9 12 (2.88%) Amazon EKS
9 12 (2.88%) AWS Lambda
9 12 (2.88%) Serverless
10 11 (2.64%) Google Workspace
10 11 (2.64%) OneDrive
11 9 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
11 9 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
12 8 (1.92%) GitHub
13 7 (1.68%) Nutanix
13 7 (1.68%) SaaS
14 5 (1.20%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 230 (55.29%) DNS
2 149 (35.82%) Firewall
3 100 (24.04%) VPN
4 96 (23.08%) DHCP
5 85 (20.43%) WAN
6 77 (18.51%) LAN
7 65 (15.63%) HTTP
8 63 (15.14%) VLAN
9 62 (14.90%) SSL
10 59 (14.18%) Network Security
11 50 (12.02%) BGP
12 48 (11.54%) BIG-IP
13 43 (10.34%) OSPF
14 40 (9.62%) Wi-Fi
15 34 (8.17%) Ethernet
15 34 (8.17%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 33 (7.93%) Wireshark
17 27 (6.49%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
18 19 (4.57%) SD-WAN
18 19 (4.57%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (3.13%) SQL Server
2 12 (2.88%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (1.92%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.20%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.48%) MySQL
6 1 (0.24%) Amazon Aurora
6 1 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.24%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 40 (9.62%) JIRA
2 28 (6.73%) Fiddler
3 18 (4.33%) GitLab
4 14 (3.37%) Eclipse
4 14 (3.37%) Git
4 14 (3.37%) Visual Studio
5 11 (2.64%) Jenkins
6 9 (2.16%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (1.68%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.68%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.96%) CircleCI
9 3 (0.72%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.48%) Introscope
10 2 (0.48%) Subversion
11 1 (0.24%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.24%) Postman
11 1 (0.24%) Travis CI
General
1 145 (34.86%) Social Skills
2 48 (11.54%) Analytical Skills
3 47 (11.30%) Finance
4 40 (9.62%) Banking
5 28 (6.73%) Public Sector
6 26 (6.25%) Investment Banking
6 26 (6.25%) Presentation Skills
7 24 (5.77%) Military
8 18 (4.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (2.64%) Telecoms
11 8 (1.92%) Front Office
12 5 (1.20%) Law
13 4 (0.96%) Legal
13 4 (0.96%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.72%) French Language
14 3 (0.72%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.72%) Marketing
15 2 (0.48%) Aerospace
15 2 (0.48%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 102 (24.52%) Network Engineer
2 52 (12.50%) Analyst
3 38 (9.13%) Support Engineer
4 36 (8.65%) Web Engineer
5 34 (8.17%) Senior
6 27 (6.49%) Architect
7 24 (5.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 24 (5.77%) IT Support
8 23 (5.53%) IT Engineer
9 21 (5.05%) IP Network Engineer
9 21 (5.05%) SOC Analyst
10 19 (4.57%) Blue Coat Engineer
10 19 (4.57%) Technical Engineer
11 18 (4.33%) Security Engineer
12 17 (4.09%) IT Support Engineer
12 17 (4.09%) Systems Engineer
13 15 (3.61%) Integration Engineer
13 15 (3.61%) Lead
14 12 (2.88%) Junior
14 12 (2.88%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.81%) LDAP
2 17 (4.09%) Web Services
3 14 (3.37%) Node.js
4 13 (3.13%) SAML
5 11 (2.64%) OpenID
6 10 (2.40%) 802.1X
6 10 (2.40%) JSON
7 8 (1.92%) REST
8 5 (1.20%) Kafka
8 5 (1.20%) OAuth
9 4 (0.96%) Middleware
9 4 (0.96%) NETCONF
9 4 (0.96%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.96%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.96%) YANG
10 3 (0.72%) .NET
10 3 (0.72%) ARM Templates
10 3 (0.72%) HTML
10 3 (0.72%) XML
11 2 (0.48%) eBPF
Miscellaneous
1 27 (6.49%) Management Information System
2 26 (6.25%) Data Centre
3 23 (5.53%) Onboarding
4 22 (5.29%) Security Operations Centre
5 21 (5.05%) Cyberattack
6 15 (3.61%) Industry 4.0
6 15 (3.61%) Robotics
7 13 (3.13%) Enterprise Software
7 13 (3.13%) PKI
7 13 (3.13%) Public Cloud
8 12 (2.88%) Security Posture
9 11 (2.64%) Driving Licence
10 10 (2.40%) Cyber Threat
10 10 (2.40%) Private Cloud
11 8 (1.92%) Data Protection Act
11 8 (1.92%) NHS
12 7 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
12 7 (1.68%) CMDB
12 7 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
13 6 (1.44%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 186 (44.71%) Windows
2 104 (25.00%) Linux
3 54 (12.98%) Windows Server
4 22 (5.29%) Windows 10
5 16 (3.85%) Android
6 14 (3.37%) Mac OS
7 13 (3.13%) Unix
8 8 (1.92%) Apple iOS
8 8 (1.92%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (1.44%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.44%) zOS
10 5 (1.20%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.96%) VMS
11 4 (0.96%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.72%) Debian
12 3 (0.72%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.72%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.48%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.48%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (29.57%) Problem-Solving
2 67 (16.11%) ITIL
3 56 (13.46%) Cybersecurity
4 54 (12.98%) Agile
5 51 (12.26%) SIEM
6 48 (11.54%) Incident Response
7 45 (10.82%) Load Balancing
8 41 (9.86%) DevOps
8 41 (9.86%) Migration
9 39 (9.38%) Security Operations
10 37 (8.89%) Validation
11 35 (8.41%) CI/CD
11 35 (8.41%) Customer Service
12 32 (7.69%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 32 (7.69%) Root Cause Analysis
13 29 (6.97%) Computer Science
13 29 (6.97%) Data Loss Prevention
14 28 (6.73%) Decision-Making
14 28 (6.73%) Infrastructure as Code
14 28 (6.73%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 91 (21.88%) Python
2 61 (14.66%) PowerShell
3 43 (10.34%) Bash
4 28 (6.73%) JavaScript
5 20 (4.81%) C++
6 19 (4.57%) SQL
7 17 (4.09%) C#
8 8 (1.92%) Java
9 7 (1.68%) C
10 6 (1.44%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.20%) Go
11 5 (1.20%) Perl
11 5 (1.20%) VBA
12 2 (0.48%) Jython
12 2 (0.48%) Ruby
12 2 (0.48%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.48%) VBScript
13 1 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 124 (29.81%) Security Cleared
2 104 (25.00%) SC Cleared
3 64 (15.38%) Degree
4 47 (11.30%) Cisco Certification
5 38 (9.13%) CCNP
6 32 (7.69%) CompTIA Security+
7 29 (6.97%) DV Cleared
8 28 (6.73%) Computer Science Degree
9 26 (6.25%) CCNA
10 19 (4.57%) CompTIA CySA+
11 17 (4.09%) CISSP
12 13 (3.13%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (2.64%) Network+ Certification
14 9 (2.16%) Azure Certification
14 9 (2.16%) MCSA
15 8 (1.92%) CCIE
15 8 (1.92%) JNCIS
15 8 (1.92%) MCSE
16 6 (1.44%) GCIH
17 5 (1.20%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (2.16%) SLA
3 8 (1.92%) NIST
4 6 (1.44%) GDPR
5 4 (0.96%) NCSC
6 2 (0.48%) QA
6 2 (0.48%) RMADS
7 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.24%) GRC
7 1 (0.24%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 87 (20.91%) Active Directory
2 51 (12.26%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (5.77%) Docker
4 19 (4.57%) Firmware
5 9 (2.16%) Hyper-V
5 9 (2.16%) Squid
5 9 (2.16%) VMware NSX
5 9 (2.16%) vSphere
6 8 (1.92%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (1.44%) Lustre
7 6 (1.44%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 5 (1.20%) GPFS
9 4 (0.96%) KVM
9 4 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.72%) NFS
10 3 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.48%) Ceph
11 2 (0.48%) iptables
12 1 (0.24%) RHEV
12 1 (0.24%) Xen
Systems Management
1 63 (15.14%) Ansible
2 38 (9.13%) Kubernetes
3 36 (8.65%) Terraform
4 31 (7.45%) SCCM
5 24 (5.77%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (5.29%) FortiGate
7 21 (5.05%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (4.33%) Grafana
9 15 (3.61%) Prometheus
10 11 (2.64%) WSUS
11 9 (2.16%) Nagios
11 9 (2.16%) QRadar
12 8 (1.92%) Consul
13 6 (1.44%) Puppet
13 6 (1.44%) Tivoli NetView
14 5 (1.20%) CASB
14 5 (1.20%) Nessus
15 4 (0.96%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 3 (0.72%) Red Hat Satellite
16 3 (0.72%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 111 (26.68%) Microsoft
2 69 (16.59%) VMware
3 65 (15.63%) F5
4 62 (14.90%) Cisco
5 40 (9.62%) Splunk
6 31 (7.45%) Blue Coat
7 30 (7.21%) ServiceNow
8 29 (6.97%) Palo Alto
9 28 (6.73%) McAfee
10 25 (6.01%) Fortinet
11 22 (5.29%) Citrix
11 22 (5.29%) Juniper
12 21 (5.05%) NetApp
12 21 (5.05%) Red Hat
13 16 (3.85%) Siemens
14 14 (3.37%) CheckPoint
15 13 (3.13%) SolarWinds
16 12 (2.88%) Google
16 12 (2.88%) Meraki
16 12 (2.88%) Zscaler