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 3 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 276 226 285
Rank change year-on-year -50 +59 -45
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 442 361 351
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.86% 1.15% 0.81%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.99% 9.40% 6.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 240 224 232
10th Percentile £204 £213 £193
25th Percentile £313 £355 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -0.84%
75th Percentile £550 £623 £575
90th Percentile £639 £775 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year -0.11% -5.26% +8.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 18 32
10th Percentile £21.25 £18.96 £18.65
25th Percentile £24.44 £31.36 £53.93
Median hourly rate £32.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.00% -3.85% +16.26%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 -
90th Percentile - - £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -50.00% - +13.38%

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 4,914 3,841 5,433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.54% 12.28% 12.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,989 2,342 3,208
10th Percentile £240 £230 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -1.19%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +2.77% -4.08% +3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 305 182 428
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.50 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.44 £44.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -40.58% -1.11% +114.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £79.50 £73.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.22 £35.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -25.09% -26.32% +115.91%

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 3 July 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 3 July 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 3 July 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 -35 392 £470 +1.62% 280
UK excluding London -43 251 £450 -0.11% 239
London -60 156 £470 -1.05% 66
Work from Home -62 108 £500 -11.11% 90
North of England -28 89 £447 -0.67% 41
South East -30 66 £530 +17.67% 85
North West +3 57 £475 +68.05% 18
Midlands -42 38 £402 -26.91% 36
East of England -11 36 £168 -60.59% 33
West Midlands -42 31 £400 -20.00% 21
Yorkshire -55 28 £447 -10.60% 22
South West -19 21 £425 -30.89% 41
Scotland -6 16 £301 -33.06% 6
East Midlands -15 7 £451 -18.00% 15
Wales -15 7 £408 - 3
North East -35 4 £306 +6.52% 5

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 26 (5.88%) SharePoint
2 16 (3.62%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.94%) Confluence
4 10 (2.26%) nginx
5 5 (1.13%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.90%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.68%) IIS
8 2 (0.45%) CICS
8 2 (0.45%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.45%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.45%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.45%) WebSphere Portal
9 1 (0.23%) Traefik
Applications
1 33 (7.47%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.81%) MS Visio
4 7 (1.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.23%) Houdini
5 1 (0.23%) NUKE
5 1 (0.23%) Weka
Business Applications
1 2 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 112 (25.34%) Azure
2 96 (21.72%) AWS
3 87 (19.68%) Microsoft 365
4 42 (9.50%) Entra ID
5 32 (7.24%) GCP
6 29 (6.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 24 (5.43%) OneDrive
8 21 (4.75%) Route 53
9 16 (3.62%) Amazon EC2
10 15 (3.39%) Amazon EKS
10 15 (3.39%) Amazon S3
11 13 (2.94%) AWS Lambda
11 13 (2.94%) GitHub
11 13 (2.94%) Serverless
12 11 (2.49%) AWS CloudFormation
13 10 (2.26%) Google Workspace
14 7 (1.58%) Azure DevOps
14 7 (1.58%) IaaS
15 6 (1.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 6 (1.36%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 251 (56.79%) DNS
2 168 (38.01%) Firewall
3 121 (27.38%) DHCP
4 113 (25.57%) VPN
5 82 (18.55%) WAN
6 80 (18.10%) Network Security
7 73 (16.52%) LAN
8 67 (15.16%) HTTP
9 66 (14.93%) BGP
10 63 (14.25%) SSL
10 63 (14.25%) VLAN
11 55 (12.44%) BIG-IP
12 44 (9.95%) OSPF
13 41 (9.28%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 39 (8.82%) Ethernet
15 35 (7.92%) Wi-Fi
16 30 (6.79%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
17 29 (6.56%) Wireshark
18 28 (6.33%) Wireless
19 23 (5.20%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.49%) Elasticsearch
1 11 (2.49%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.90%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.45%) MySQL
4 2 (0.45%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.23%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.23%) KDB
5 1 (0.23%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 46 (10.41%) JIRA
2 22 (4.98%) Fiddler
3 16 (3.62%) GitLab
4 14 (3.17%) Visual Studio
5 13 (2.94%) Eclipse
5 13 (2.94%) Git
5 13 (2.94%) Jenkins
6 9 (2.04%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (1.58%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.58%) SonarQube
8 6 (1.36%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.68%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.45%) Introscope
10 2 (0.45%) Subversion
11 1 (0.23%) MSI
11 1 (0.23%) Postman
General
1 173 (39.14%) Social Skills
2 60 (13.57%) Finance
3 54 (12.22%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (9.05%) Banking
5 25 (5.66%) Public Sector
6 24 (5.43%) Investment Banking
7 22 (4.98%) Presentation Skills
8 21 (4.75%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (4.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 18 (4.07%) Military
10 13 (2.94%) Telecoms
11 8 (1.81%) Front Office
12 6 (1.36%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (1.13%) Legal
14 3 (0.68%) French Language
14 3 (0.68%) Marketing
14 3 (0.68%) Police
14 3 (0.68%) Retail
15 2 (0.45%) Aviation
15 2 (0.45%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 104 (23.53%) Network Engineer
2 47 (10.63%) Architect
3 45 (10.18%) Support Engineer
4 39 (8.82%) Analyst
5 34 (7.69%) IT Support
6 29 (6.56%) Web Engineer
7 27 (6.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 25 (5.66%) Security Engineer
8 25 (5.66%) Senior
9 24 (5.43%) IT Engineer
10 22 (4.98%) Technical Engineer
11 20 (4.52%) Systems Engineer
12 19 (4.30%) IP Network Engineer
13 18 (4.07%) IT Support Engineer
14 17 (3.85%) Blue Coat Engineer
15 14 (3.17%) Network Architect
15 14 (3.17%) Software Engineer
16 13 (2.94%) C# Software Engineer
16 13 (2.94%) Junior
16 13 (2.94%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.52%) LDAP
2 19 (4.30%) SAML
3 13 (2.94%) JSON
3 13 (2.94%) Node.js
3 13 (2.94%) Web Services
4 12 (2.71%) OpenID
4 12 (2.71%) REST
5 8 (1.81%) 802.1X
6 6 (1.36%) .NET
6 6 (1.36%) XML
7 5 (1.13%) OAuth
8 4 (0.90%) ARM Templates
8 4 (0.90%) NETCONF
8 4 (0.90%) OpenConfig
8 4 (0.90%) RESTCONF
8 4 (0.90%) YANG
9 3 (0.68%) HTML
9 3 (0.68%) Kafka
9 3 (0.68%) Middleware
9 3 (0.68%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 59 (13.35%) Data Centre
2 39 (8.82%) Onboarding
3 23 (5.20%) Management Information System
4 21 (4.75%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 19 (4.30%) Security Posture
6 15 (3.39%) Industry 4.0
6 15 (3.39%) Robotics
7 13 (2.94%) Driving Licence
7 13 (2.94%) Security Operations Centre
8 12 (2.71%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (2.49%) Cloud Native
9 11 (2.49%) Cyber Threat
10 10 (2.26%) Private Cloud
11 9 (2.04%) Cyberattack
11 9 (2.04%) PKI
11 9 (2.04%) Public Cloud
11 9 (2.04%) Self-Motivation
12 8 (1.81%) Analytical Mindset
12 8 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
13 7 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 179 (40.50%) Windows
2 79 (17.87%) Linux
3 47 (10.63%) Windows Server
4 36 (8.14%) Mac OS
5 25 (5.66%) Windows 10
6 17 (3.85%) Apple iOS
6 17 (3.85%) Unix
7 11 (2.49%) Android
8 7 (1.58%) Ubuntu
8 7 (1.58%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (1.36%) zOS
10 3 (0.68%) Check Point GAiA
10 3 (0.68%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.68%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.45%) CentOS
11 2 (0.45%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.45%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 2 (0.45%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.45%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (27.60%) Problem-Solving
2 82 (18.55%) ITIL
3 56 (12.67%) Agile
4 54 (12.22%) Load Balancing
5 47 (10.63%) Incident Response
6 46 (10.41%) Migration
7 45 (10.18%) CI/CD
7 45 (10.18%) Customer Service
8 44 (9.95%) High Availability
9 42 (9.50%) DevOps
10 41 (9.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 40 (9.05%) ITSM
12 37 (8.37%) Infrastructure as Code
13 34 (7.69%) Root Cause Analysis
13 34 (7.69%) SIEM
14 32 (7.24%) Cybersecurity
15 31 (7.01%) Decision-Making
15 31 (7.01%) Validation
16 29 (6.56%) Stakeholder Management
17 28 (6.33%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 106 (23.98%) Python
2 47 (10.63%) PowerShell
3 46 (10.41%) Bash
4 27 (6.11%) JavaScript
5 22 (4.98%) C++
6 16 (3.62%) C#
7 12 (2.71%) SQL
8 9 (2.04%) VBA
9 5 (1.13%) ActionScript
9 5 (1.13%) C
10 4 (0.90%) Java
10 4 (0.90%) Perl
11 3 (0.68%) Go
12 2 (0.45%) Jython
12 2 (0.45%) Ruby
12 2 (0.45%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.23%) Groovy
13 1 (0.23%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 108 (24.43%) Security Cleared
2 84 (19.00%) SC Cleared
3 79 (17.87%) Degree
4 51 (11.54%) Cisco Certification
5 39 (8.82%) CCNP
6 27 (6.11%) CCNA
7 21 (4.75%) Computer Science Degree
7 21 (4.75%) DV Cleared
8 20 (4.52%) CISSP
8 20 (4.52%) Microsoft Certification
9 17 (3.85%) CompTIA Security+
10 14 (3.17%) CCIE
11 10 (2.26%) Azure Certification
11 10 (2.26%) MCSA
11 10 (2.26%) MCSE
12 9 (2.04%) CompTIA CySA+
12 9 (2.04%) Network+ Certification
13 4 (0.90%) GCIA
13 4 (0.90%) GCIH
13 4 (0.90%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.49%) NIST
2 9 (2.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (2.04%) NCSC
3 8 (1.81%) SLA
4 7 (1.58%) QA
5 5 (1.13%) GDPR
6 4 (0.90%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
7 2 (0.45%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.45%) RMADS
8 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.23%) GRC
8 1 (0.23%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 100 (22.62%) Active Directory
2 51 (11.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (4.07%) Firmware
4 13 (2.94%) Squid
5 12 (2.71%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (2.26%) Docker
6 10 (2.26%) Hyper-V
7 8 (1.81%) VMware NSX
7 8 (1.81%) vSphere
8 5 (1.13%) NFS
8 5 (1.13%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.45%) KVM
9 2 (0.45%) RACF
9 2 (0.45%) VirtualBox
10 1 (0.23%) Citrix Presentation Server
10 1 (0.23%) GPFS
10 1 (0.23%) iptables
10 1 (0.23%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.23%) Snort
10 1 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 67 (15.16%) Ansible
2 42 (9.50%) Terraform
3 30 (6.79%) Microsoft Intune
4 28 (6.33%) Kubernetes
5 25 (5.66%) FortiGate
5 25 (5.66%) Single Sign-On
6 21 (4.75%) Grafana
7 20 (4.52%) SCCM
8 16 (3.62%) Prometheus
9 11 (2.49%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (2.26%) WSUS
11 9 (2.04%) Consul
12 6 (1.36%) CASB
12 6 (1.36%) QRadar
13 5 (1.13%) Nessus
13 5 (1.13%) Suricata
14 4 (0.90%) Nagios
14 4 (0.90%) Tivoli NetView
15 3 (0.68%) Puppet
15 3 (0.68%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 150 (33.94%) Microsoft
2 77 (17.42%) Cisco
3 71 (16.06%) F5
4 62 (14.03%) VMware
5 48 (10.86%) ServiceNow
6 28 (6.33%) Fortinet
7 27 (6.11%) Blue Coat
7 27 (6.11%) Palo Alto
8 25 (5.66%) Google
9 24 (5.43%) Splunk
10 22 (4.98%) Citrix
10 22 (4.98%) Zscaler
11 21 (4.75%) Juniper
11 21 (4.75%) McAfee
12 20 (4.52%) Infoblox
13 19 (4.30%) NetApp
14 18 (4.07%) CheckPoint
15 17 (3.85%) Siemens
16 16 (3.62%) Red Hat
17 13 (2.94%) SolarWinds