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

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 276 225 281
Rank change year-on-year -51 +56 -42
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 425 357 368
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.93% 1.22% 0.84%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.41% 9.46% 6.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 241 252 266
10th Percentile £213 £225 £188
25th Percentile £355 £382 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £503 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.45% +5.79% -7.09%
75th Percentile £550 £630 £559
90th Percentile £638 £750 £665
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 10 13
10th Percentile £20.85 £18.18 £16.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £28.81 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £52.25 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.73% +113.27% -60.83%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.69 £56.49
90th Percentile £67.27 £65.00 £69.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £47.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year +31.58% -15.91% -13.09%

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 4,517 3,775 5,815
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.85% 12.90% 13.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,848 2,337 3,497
10th Percentile £231 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £480
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% +2.08% -7.34%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £468 £475
% change year-on-year +1.60% -1.58% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 204 166 420
10th Percentile £15.62 £14.99 £13.82
25th Percentile £20.46 £21.12 £17.71
Median hourly rate £43.85 £37.50 £39.25
Median % change year-on-year +16.94% -4.46% +106.58%
75th Percentile £70.00 £62.44 £61.56
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.07
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.50 £28.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year +94.64% -38.97% +148.00%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -55 363 £460 -8.00% 149
UK excluding London -20 272 £450 -10.00% 131
London -73 117 £470 -1.05% 41
Work from Home -70 96 £425 -22.73% 61
North of England -25 93 £450 +3.04% 32
South East -32 60 £523 -5.00% 39
North West +8 59 £540 +72.80% 14
East of England -12 51 £280 -34.88% 22
Midlands -42 36 £300 -40.00% 11
West Midlands -38 33 £225 +7.14% 9
Yorkshire -45 31 £447 -22.35% 14
Scotland +16 26 £425 -4.97% 4
South West -27 22 £575 -6.50% 19
Wales -12 6 £335 -21.18% 6
North East -22 3 £200 -20.00% 6
East Midlands -38 3 £625 +13.64% 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 18 (4.24%) Confluence
2 11 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (2.59%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.35%) nginx
4 6 (1.41%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.94%) Skype for Business
6 3 (0.71%) Apache
7 2 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
7 2 (0.47%) IIS
7 2 (0.47%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 2 (0.47%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Portal
7 2 (0.47%) WordPress
8 1 (0.24%) Traefik
Applications
1 36 (8.47%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.35%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.18%) Acrobat
3 5 (1.18%) Weka
4 4 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 1 (0.24%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 96 (22.59%) Azure
2 90 (21.18%) AWS
3 72 (16.94%) Microsoft 365
4 28 (6.59%) GCP
5 25 (5.88%) Entra ID
6 20 (4.71%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 14 (3.29%) Amazon S3
7 14 (3.29%) Route 53
8 13 (3.06%) Amazon EC2
9 12 (2.82%) Amazon EKS
9 12 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
9 12 (2.82%) OneDrive
9 12 (2.82%) Serverless
10 9 (2.12%) AWS CloudFormation
10 9 (2.12%) Google Workspace
11 8 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (1.88%) GitHub
12 7 (1.65%) Nutanix
12 7 (1.65%) SaaS
13 6 (1.41%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 235 (55.29%) DNS
2 151 (35.53%) Firewall
3 104 (24.47%) VPN
4 99 (23.29%) DHCP
5 87 (20.47%) WAN
6 79 (18.59%) LAN
7 70 (16.47%) HTTP
8 67 (15.76%) SSL
9 63 (14.82%) VLAN
10 60 (14.12%) Network Security
11 51 (12.00%) BGP
11 51 (12.00%) BIG-IP
12 44 (10.35%) OSPF
13 41 (9.65%) Wi-Fi
14 36 (8.47%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 35 (8.24%) Wireshark
16 34 (8.00%) Ethernet
17 29 (6.82%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
18 20 (4.71%) Wireless
19 19 (4.47%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (3.06%) SQL Server
2 12 (2.82%) Elasticsearch
3 9 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.18%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.47%) 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 (9.41%) JIRA
2 30 (7.06%) Fiddler
3 17 (4.00%) GitLab
4 14 (3.29%) Eclipse
4 14 (3.29%) Visual Studio
5 13 (3.06%) Git
6 10 (2.35%) Jenkins
7 9 (2.12%) Browser DevTools
8 7 (1.65%) Bitbucket
8 7 (1.65%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.94%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.47%) Introscope
11 2 (0.47%) Subversion
12 1 (0.24%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.24%) Travis CI
General
1 147 (34.59%) Social Skills
2 49 (11.53%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (10.59%) Finance
4 40 (9.41%) Banking
5 29 (6.82%) Public Sector
6 26 (6.12%) Investment Banking
6 26 (6.12%) Presentation Skills
7 24 (5.65%) Military
8 18 (4.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (2.59%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.65%) Front Office
12 5 (1.18%) Law
12 5 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (0.94%) Legal
14 3 (0.71%) French Language
14 3 (0.71%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.71%) Marketing
15 2 (0.47%) Games
15 2 (0.47%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 109 (25.65%) Network Engineer
2 52 (12.24%) Analyst
3 42 (9.88%) Support Engineer
4 39 (9.18%) Web Engineer
5 33 (7.76%) Senior
6 28 (6.59%) Architect
7 24 (5.65%) IT Engineer
7 24 (5.65%) IT Support
8 23 (5.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 22 (5.18%) IP Network Engineer
10 21 (4.94%) SOC Analyst
11 20 (4.71%) Blue Coat Engineer
11 20 (4.71%) Technical Engineer
12 19 (4.47%) Security Engineer
13 18 (4.24%) IT Support Engineer
14 17 (4.00%) Systems Engineer
15 16 (3.76%) Integration Engineer
16 15 (3.53%) Lead
17 14 (3.29%) Junior
18 13 (3.06%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (4.47%) LDAP
2 17 (4.00%) Web Services
3 14 (3.29%) Node.js
4 12 (2.82%) SAML
5 10 (2.35%) 802.1X
5 10 (2.35%) JSON
5 10 (2.35%) OpenID
6 7 (1.65%) REST
7 5 (1.18%) Kafka
8 4 (0.94%) Middleware
8 4 (0.94%) NETCONF
8 4 (0.94%) OAuth
8 4 (0.94%) OpenConfig
8 4 (0.94%) RESTCONF
8 4 (0.94%) YANG
9 3 (0.71%) .NET
9 3 (0.71%) ARM Templates
9 3 (0.71%) HTML
10 2 (0.47%) JDBC
10 2 (0.47%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 31 (7.29%) Data Centre
2 30 (7.06%) Management Information System
3 22 (5.18%) Security Operations Centre
4 21 (4.94%) Cyberattack
4 21 (4.94%) Onboarding
5 15 (3.53%) Industry 4.0
5 15 (3.53%) Robotics
6 13 (3.06%) Enterprise Software
6 13 (3.06%) Public Cloud
6 13 (3.06%) Security Posture
7 12 (2.82%) Driving Licence
7 12 (2.82%) PKI
8 10 (2.35%) Cyber Threat
8 10 (2.35%) Private Cloud
9 9 (2.12%) NHS
10 8 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
10 8 (1.88%) CMDB
10 8 (1.88%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
12 6 (1.41%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 187 (44.00%) Windows
2 107 (25.18%) Linux
3 53 (12.47%) Windows Server
4 23 (5.41%) Windows 10
5 16 (3.76%) Android
6 14 (3.29%) Mac OS
7 13 (3.06%) Unix
8 9 (2.12%) Apple iOS
9 8 (1.88%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (1.41%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (1.41%) zOS
11 5 (1.18%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.94%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.71%) Debian
13 3 (0.71%) VMS
13 3 (0.71%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.71%) Windows Server 2003
14 2 (0.47%) AIX
14 2 (0.47%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (28.94%) Problem-Solving
2 67 (15.76%) ITIL
3 56 (13.18%) Cybersecurity
4 54 (12.71%) Agile
5 52 (12.24%) SIEM
6 51 (12.00%) Load Balancing
7 48 (11.29%) Incident Response
8 39 (9.18%) DevOps
8 39 (9.18%) Migration
8 39 (9.18%) Security Operations
9 37 (8.71%) Validation
10 36 (8.47%) Customer Service
11 34 (8.00%) CI/CD
12 32 (7.53%) Root Cause Analysis
13 31 (7.29%) Data Loss Prevention
13 31 (7.29%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 30 (7.06%) Malware Detection/Protection
15 29 (6.82%) Computer Science
15 29 (6.82%) Decision-Making
16 28 (6.59%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 94 (22.12%) Python
2 62 (14.59%) PowerShell
3 46 (10.82%) Bash
4 27 (6.35%) JavaScript
5 19 (4.47%) C++
5 19 (4.47%) SQL
6 17 (4.00%) C#
7 8 (1.88%) Java
7 8 (1.88%) Perl
8 7 (1.65%) C
9 6 (1.41%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.18%) Go
10 5 (1.18%) VBA
11 2 (0.47%) Jython
11 2 (0.47%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.47%) VBScript
12 1 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.24%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 129 (30.35%) Security Cleared
2 108 (25.41%) SC Cleared
3 63 (14.82%) Degree
4 48 (11.29%) Cisco Certification
5 39 (9.18%) CCNP
6 32 (7.53%) CompTIA Security+
7 31 (7.29%) DV Cleared
8 27 (6.35%) Computer Science Degree
9 26 (6.12%) CCNA
10 19 (4.47%) CISSP
10 19 (4.47%) CompTIA CySA+
11 12 (2.82%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (2.59%) Network+ Certification
13 9 (2.12%) Azure Certification
14 8 (1.88%) CCIE
14 8 (1.88%) JNCIS
14 8 (1.88%) MCSA
14 8 (1.88%) MCSE
15 6 (1.41%) GCIH
16 5 (1.18%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (2.12%) NIST
2 9 (2.12%) SLA
3 8 (1.88%) GDPR
4 4 (0.94%) NCSC
5 2 (0.47%) HIPAA
5 2 (0.47%) QA
5 2 (0.47%) RMADS
5 2 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.24%) GRC
System Software
1 88 (20.71%) Active Directory
2 52 (12.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (6.59%) Docker
4 20 (4.71%) Firmware
5 10 (2.35%) VMware NSX
6 9 (2.12%) Hyper-V
6 9 (2.12%) Squid
7 8 (1.88%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (1.88%) vSphere
8 6 (1.41%) Lustre
8 6 (1.41%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 5 (1.18%) GPFS
10 4 (0.94%) KVM
10 4 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.71%) NFS
11 3 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.47%) Ceph
12 2 (0.47%) iptables
12 2 (0.47%) NDS
12 2 (0.47%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 61 (14.35%) Ansible
2 39 (9.18%) Kubernetes
3 34 (8.00%) Terraform
4 30 (7.06%) SCCM
5 23 (5.41%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (5.18%) FortiGate
7 21 (4.94%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (4.24%) Grafana
9 15 (3.53%) Prometheus
10 10 (2.35%) WSUS
11 9 (2.12%) Nagios
11 9 (2.12%) QRadar
12 7 (1.65%) Consul
13 6 (1.41%) Tivoli NetView
14 5 (1.18%) CASB
14 5 (1.18%) Nessus
14 5 (1.18%) Puppet
15 4 (0.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 3 (0.71%) Red Hat Satellite
17 2 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 111 (26.12%) Microsoft
2 71 (16.71%) VMware
3 69 (16.24%) F5
4 67 (15.76%) Cisco
5 40 (9.41%) Splunk
6 34 (8.00%) Blue Coat
7 31 (7.29%) McAfee
7 31 (7.29%) Palo Alto
8 28 (6.59%) ServiceNow
9 27 (6.35%) Fortinet
10 26 (6.12%) Juniper
11 23 (5.41%) NetApp
12 20 (4.71%) Citrix
12 20 (4.71%) Red Hat
13 16 (3.76%) CheckPoint
13 16 (3.76%) Siemens
14 13 (3.06%) SolarWinds
14 13 (3.06%) Zscaler
15 12 (2.82%) Meraki
15 12 (2.82%) Oracle