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 14 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 232 198 197
Rank change year-on-year -34 -1 +44
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 421 459 567
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.16% 1.33% 1.27%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 10.63% 10.51% 9.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 270 349
10th Percentile £185 £206 £185
25th Percentile £300 £322 £288
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.63% +5.56% -14.05%
75th Percentile £588 £611 £588
90th Percentile £713 £738 £683
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £439 £400
% change year-on-year -3.08% +9.63% -15.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 16 53
10th Percentile £15.50 £25.63 £21.25
25th Percentile £33.00 £54.69 £36.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year - +30.00% -23.08%
75th Percentile - - £56.49
90th Percentile £82.10 £66.25 £69.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year - +30.00% -23.08%

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 3,962 4,367 6,132
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.87% 12.63% 13.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,579 2,551 3,788
10th Percentile £206 £220 £210
25th Percentile £356 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £582 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £680 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 155 341
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.64 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.34 £22.45 £22.00
Median hourly rate £36.00 £39.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.86% -28.18% +32.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.38 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.25 £76.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £41.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year +3.66% -27.42% +25.53%

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 14 December 2025.

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 14 December 2025.

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 14 December 2025. 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 -33 382 £475 -1.55% 250
UK excluding London -32 252 £425 -3.08% 242
London -22 137 £538 +7.50% 56
Work from Home -15 128 £454 -11.41% 100
North of England -28 70 £450 -10.89% 49
South East -1 59 £425 -5.56% 89
East of England -2 53 £346 -38.44% 41
North West -5 43 £505 +3.86% 25
West Midlands -13 36 £225 - 17
Midlands -32 36 £225 -40.00% 21
South West -13 28 £700 +47.37% 30
Yorkshire -53 24 £331 -52.68% 17
Scotland +9 17 £440 +10.00% 19
Wales -7 4 £250 -20.00% 1
North East -15 3 £400 +166.67% 8
Northern Ireland -14 1 - - 2

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 35 (8.31%) SharePoint
2 25 (5.94%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (3.33%) Skype for Business
4 8 (1.90%) OpenStack
5 7 (1.66%) Confluence
6 4 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.71%) Apache
7 3 (0.71%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.71%) IIS
8 2 (0.48%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.48%) WordPress
9 1 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2010
9 1 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2013
9 1 (0.24%) Jupyter
Applications
1 39 (9.26%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.43%) Weka
3 4 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.95%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.24%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.24%) Eikon
1 1 (0.24%) Eze OMS
1 1 (0.24%) Fidessa
1 1 (0.24%) Finacle
1 1 (0.24%) Pegasus Opera
1 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.24%) RMDS
1 1 (0.24%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 99 (23.52%) AWS
2 92 (21.85%) Azure
3 83 (19.71%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (6.41%) Amazon EC2
5 26 (6.18%) Amazon S3
6 25 (5.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 24 (5.70%) Entra ID
8 22 (5.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 22 (5.23%) Amazon ELB
9 21 (4.99%) GCP
10 13 (3.09%) GitHub
11 9 (2.14%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (1.90%) Cloud Computing
12 8 (1.90%) OneDrive
13 7 (1.66%) SaaS
14 5 (1.19%) Apigee
14 5 (1.19%) Google Workspace
15 4 (0.95%) Azure DevOps
15 4 (0.95%) GitHub Actions
15 4 (0.95%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 237 (56.29%) DNS
2 153 (36.34%) Firewall
3 129 (30.64%) DHCP
4 125 (29.69%) VPN
5 83 (19.71%) SSL
6 65 (15.44%) WAN
7 64 (15.20%) LAN
8 63 (14.96%) Network Security
9 60 (14.25%) VLAN
10 57 (13.54%) HTTP
11 30 (7.13%) Wireshark
12 29 (6.89%) BGP
13 23 (5.46%) Ethernet
13 23 (5.46%) Internet
14 22 (5.23%) OSPF
14 22 (5.23%) SAN
15 21 (4.99%) Wireless
16 20 (4.75%) Wi-Fi
17 19 (4.51%) BIG-IP
18 14 (3.33%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (5.70%) SQL Server
2 9 (2.14%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (1.19%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (1.19%) NoSQL
3 5 (1.19%) Oracle Database
4 4 (0.95%) Amazon Aurora
4 4 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.95%) Big Data
5 3 (0.71%) Apache Cassandra
5 3 (0.71%) Delta Lake
5 3 (0.71%) Hadoop
5 3 (0.71%) Parquet
6 2 (0.48%) MySQL
7 1 (0.24%) Apache Hive
7 1 (0.24%) DB2
7 1 (0.24%) Impala
7 1 (0.24%) Power BI
7 1 (0.24%) Redis
7 1 (0.24%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.24%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 43 (10.21%) Git
2 40 (9.50%) Jenkins
3 29 (6.89%) GitLab
4 20 (4.75%) JIRA
5 19 (4.51%) Eclipse
5 19 (4.51%) Visual Studio
6 17 (4.04%) Fiddler
7 8 (1.90%) Subversion
8 4 (0.95%) Robot Framework
8 4 (0.95%) TeamCity
9 3 (0.71%) MLflow
9 3 (0.71%) Postman
9 3 (0.71%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.48%) Maven
10 2 (0.48%) Mercurial
10 2 (0.48%) Poetry
10 2 (0.48%) PyCharm
10 2 (0.48%) Visual Studio Code
11 1 (0.24%) Cucumber
General
1 149 (35.39%) Social Skills
2 75 (17.81%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (10.21%) Finance
4 34 (8.08%) Public Sector
5 26 (6.18%) Military
6 25 (5.94%) Banking
7 24 (5.70%) Presentation Skills
8 20 (4.75%) Investment Banking
9 12 (2.85%) Legal
10 11 (2.61%) Telecoms
11 10 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (2.14%) Front Office
13 7 (1.66%) Documentation Skills
13 7 (1.66%) Law
13 7 (1.66%) Local Government
14 6 (1.43%) Financial Institution
15 5 (1.19%) Manufacturing
16 3 (0.71%) Aerospace
17 2 (0.48%) Advertising
17 2 (0.48%) Retail
Job Titles
1 78 (18.53%) Network Engineer
2 69 (16.39%) Support Engineer
3 53 (12.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 50 (11.88%) Senior
5 46 (10.93%) Analyst
6 33 (7.84%) IT Support
7 29 (6.89%) IT Engineer
8 24 (5.70%) Developer
8 24 (5.70%) Support Analyst
9 23 (5.46%) Technical Support
10 21 (4.99%) 2nd Line Support
11 20 (4.75%) DevOps Engineer
12 17 (4.04%) C# Software Engineer
12 17 (4.04%) Senior DevOps
12 17 (4.04%) Software Engineer
13 16 (3.80%) Senior DevOps Engineer
13 16 (3.80%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 16 (3.80%) Web Engineer
14 15 (3.56%) Automation Engineer
14 15 (3.56%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (5.46%) Web Services
2 22 (5.23%) Node.js
3 17 (4.04%) REST
4 16 (3.80%) Middleware
5 11 (2.61%) SOAP
6 10 (2.38%) Elastic Stack
7 9 (2.14%) LDAP
8 7 (1.66%) AngularJS
8 7 (1.66%) FIX Protocol
9 5 (1.19%) Ultra Messaging
10 4 (0.95%) .NET
10 4 (0.95%) JSON
10 4 (0.95%) React
10 4 (0.95%) RESTful
10 4 (0.95%) SAML
11 3 (0.71%) ASP.NET Web API
11 3 (0.71%) Flask
11 3 (0.71%) Pandas
11 3 (0.71%) WCF
11 3 (0.71%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 30 (7.13%) Data Centre
2 28 (6.65%) Management Information System
3 20 (4.75%) Onboarding
4 18 (4.28%) Analytical Mindset
5 13 (3.09%) Driving Licence
5 13 (3.09%) NHS
5 13 (3.09%) Private Cloud
6 11 (2.61%) Replication
6 11 (2.61%) Security Posture
7 10 (2.38%) PKI
7 10 (2.38%) Public Cloud
8 9 (2.14%) CMDB
8 9 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.90%) Clustering
9 8 (1.90%) SCADA
10 7 (1.66%) Hybrid Cloud
10 7 (1.66%) iPhone
11 6 (1.43%) FPGA
11 6 (1.43%) Grid Computing
11 6 (1.43%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 192 (45.61%) Windows
2 137 (32.54%) Linux
3 55 (13.06%) Windows Server
4 42 (9.98%) Windows 10
5 28 (6.65%) Unix
6 13 (3.09%) Windows Server 2016
7 12 (2.85%) Android
7 12 (2.85%) Mac OS
8 11 (2.61%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (2.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 8 (1.90%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (1.66%) VMS
12 6 (1.43%) Ubuntu
13 5 (1.19%) Apple iOS
14 4 (0.95%) CentOS
14 4 (0.95%) Solaris
14 4 (0.95%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.95%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.71%) Debian
16 2 (0.48%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (25.65%) Problem-Solving
2 76 (18.05%) CI/CD
3 65 (15.44%) Agile
3 65 (15.44%) ITIL
4 63 (14.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 57 (13.54%) DevOps
6 52 (12.35%) Infrastructure as Code
7 45 (10.69%) High Availability
8 40 (9.50%) Load Balancing
9 37 (8.79%) Infrastructure Automation
10 35 (8.31%) Incident Response
11 34 (8.08%) SIEM
12 33 (7.84%) Cybersecurity
13 32 (7.60%) Knowledge Transfer
14 31 (7.36%) Continuous Integration
14 31 (7.36%) Migration
14 31 (7.36%) Validation
15 28 (6.65%) Root Cause Analysis
15 28 (6.65%) Service Management
16 26 (6.18%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 134 (31.83%) Python
2 77 (18.29%) Bash
3 73 (17.34%) PowerShell
4 28 (6.65%) C++
4 28 (6.65%) Perl
5 25 (5.94%) JavaScript
6 24 (5.70%) C#
6 24 (5.70%) SQL
7 16 (3.80%) Java
8 10 (2.38%) Go
8 10 (2.38%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.19%) C
10 4 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.71%) Groovy
11 3 (0.71%) PHP
11 3 (0.71%) Search Processing Language
11 3 (0.71%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.48%) Ruby
13 1 (0.24%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.24%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 117 (27.79%) Security Cleared
2 87 (20.67%) SC Cleared
3 42 (9.98%) Cisco Certification
4 34 (8.08%) Degree
5 33 (7.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 29 (6.89%) CCNP
7 28 (6.65%) DV Cleared
8 23 (5.46%) CCNA
9 20 (4.75%) Network+ Certification
10 16 (3.80%) Azure Certification
11 13 (3.09%) MCP
12 12 (2.85%) CISSP
12 12 (2.85%) MCSE
13 11 (2.61%) CompTIA Security+
13 11 (2.61%) Server+ Certification
14 7 (1.66%) MCSA
15 6 (1.43%) A+ Certification
15 6 (1.43%) CCIE
15 6 (1.43%) HNC
15 6 (1.43%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (6.18%) GDPR
2 9 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 8 (1.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 6 (1.43%) NIST
5 4 (0.95%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (0.95%) HIPAA
6 3 (0.71%) PCI DSS
6 3 (0.71%) SLA
7 2 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.48%) NCSC
7 2 (0.48%) QA
8 1 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 100 (23.75%) Active Directory
2 70 (16.63%) VMware Infrastructure
3 50 (11.88%) Docker
4 34 (8.08%) Hyper-V
5 13 (3.09%) VMware ESXi
6 11 (2.61%) Firmware
7 9 (2.14%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (1.66%) Lustre
8 7 (1.66%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 7 (1.66%) Terminal Services
8 7 (1.66%) vSphere
9 6 (1.43%) GPFS
10 5 (1.19%) KVM
10 5 (1.19%) NDS
10 5 (1.19%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 5 (1.19%) NFS
11 4 (0.95%) Veritas File System
11 4 (0.95%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 4 (0.95%) VMware NSX
12 3 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 85 (20.19%) Ansible
2 62 (14.73%) Terraform
3 39 (9.26%) SCCM
4 28 (6.65%) Kubernetes
5 27 (6.41%) Microsoft Intune
6 17 (4.04%) Grafana
6 17 (4.04%) Prometheus
7 16 (3.80%) Puppet
8 10 (2.38%) FortiGate
9 9 (2.14%) Single Sign-On
9 9 (2.14%) vCenter Server
10 8 (1.90%) QRadar
10 8 (1.90%) WSUS
11 7 (1.66%) Nessus
11 7 (1.66%) Progress Chef
12 5 (1.19%) CASB
12 5 (1.19%) ITRS Geneos
12 5 (1.19%) Nagios
12 5 (1.19%) Red Hat Satellite
13 4 (0.95%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 143 (33.97%) Microsoft
2 91 (21.62%) VMware
3 65 (15.44%) F5
4 60 (14.25%) Cisco
5 50 (11.88%) Palo Alto
6 41 (9.74%) CheckPoint
7 24 (5.70%) Blue Coat
8 23 (5.46%) Splunk
9 22 (5.23%) ServiceNow
10 21 (4.99%) Citrix
11 20 (4.75%) Fortinet
11 20 (4.75%) SolarWinds
12 19 (4.51%) McAfee
12 19 (4.51%) NetApp
13 18 (4.28%) Red Hat
14 17 (4.04%) Oracle
15 16 (3.80%) Juniper
16 11 (2.61%) CyberArk
16 11 (2.61%) Zscaler
17 10 (2.38%) Qualys