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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 261 240 278
Rank change year-on-year -21 +38 -42
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 483 360 359
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.11% 0.84%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.66% 9.10% 6.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 264 216 232
10th Percentile £201 £211 £200
25th Percentile £313 £357 £273
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £500 £469
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +6.67% -1.32%
75th Percentile £550 £612 £575
90th Percentile £650 £681 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £447 £450 £475
% change year-on-year -0.67% -5.26% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 22 34
10th Percentile £21.25 £19.59 £20.00
25th Percentile £26.66 £42.53 £56.49
Median hourly rate £38.72 £63.75 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -39.26% -1.92% +28.92%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 -
90th Percentile £91.02 - £66.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.86 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -34.06% - +14.22%

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 5,000 3,956 5,360
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.50% 12.19% 12.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,037 2,407 3,158
10th Percentile £239 £235 £213
25th Percentile £400 £364 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.63% -3.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.16% -3.06% +5.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 325 193 425
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.64
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.44 £47.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year -44.34% +10.47% +39.84%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £81.35 £73.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.22 £42.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -38.31% -10.53% +5.56%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -25 435 £475 - 326
UK excluding London -33 277 £447 -0.67% 304
London -41 173 £475 - 74
Work from Home -62 116 £500 -9.09% 177
North of England -30 93 £447 -10.60% 59
South East -31 72 £530 +17.67% 107
North West -1 59 £450 -2.81% 25
Midlands -36 40 £401 -19.80% 39
East of England -12 37 £250 -41.18% 32
South West -10 33 £475 -24.00% 45
West Midlands -45 32 £400 -6.10% 20
Yorkshire -56 30 £447 -11.70% 29
Scotland -9 16 £301 -33.06% 17
East Midlands -12 8 £402 -26.91% 19
Wales -8 7 £408 - 11
North East -36 4 £306 +22.50% 9

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 34 (7.04%) SharePoint
2 17 (3.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (3.11%) Confluence
4 13 (2.69%) nginx
5 7 (1.45%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.83%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.62%) IIS
8 2 (0.41%) CICS
8 2 (0.41%) FactoryTalk
8 2 (0.41%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.41%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.41%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.41%) WebSphere Portal
9 1 (0.21%) Traefik
Applications
1 35 (7.25%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (2.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (1.86%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 1 (0.21%) Houdini
4 1 (0.21%) NUKE
4 1 (0.21%) Weka
Business Applications
1 4 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 133 (27.54%) Azure
2 113 (23.40%) AWS
3 99 (20.50%) Microsoft 365
4 51 (10.56%) Entra ID
5 34 (7.04%) GCP
6 32 (6.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 27 (5.59%) OneDrive
8 21 (4.35%) Route 53
9 19 (3.93%) Amazon EC2
10 16 (3.31%) GitHub
11 15 (3.11%) Amazon EKS
11 15 (3.11%) Amazon S3
12 13 (2.69%) AWS Lambda
12 13 (2.69%) Serverless
13 11 (2.28%) AWS CloudFormation
13 11 (2.28%) Google Workspace
14 9 (1.86%) OpenShift
15 8 (1.66%) Azure DevOps
16 7 (1.45%) IaaS
17 6 (1.24%) Akamai
Communications & Networking
1 281 (58.18%) DNS
2 194 (40.17%) Firewall
3 143 (29.61%) DHCP
4 132 (27.33%) VPN
5 86 (17.81%) Network Security
5 86 (17.81%) WAN
6 78 (16.15%) LAN
7 75 (15.53%) BGP
8 70 (14.49%) VLAN
9 68 (14.08%) HTTP
10 63 (13.04%) SSL
11 52 (10.77%) BIG-IP
12 47 (9.73%) OSPF
13 41 (8.49%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 39 (8.07%) Ethernet
14 39 (8.07%) Wi-Fi
15 31 (6.42%) Wireless
16 30 (6.21%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
17 27 (5.59%) Wireshark
18 24 (4.97%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.28%) Elasticsearch
2 10 (2.07%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.41%) MySQL
5 2 (0.41%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.21%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.21%) KDB
6 1 (0.21%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.21%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 50 (10.35%) JIRA
2 20 (4.14%) Fiddler
2 20 (4.14%) Git
3 16 (3.31%) GitLab
4 14 (2.90%) Jenkins
4 14 (2.90%) Visual Studio
5 13 (2.69%) Eclipse
6 10 (2.07%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (1.45%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.45%) SonarQube
8 6 (1.24%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.62%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.41%) Introscope
10 2 (0.41%) Subversion
11 1 (0.21%) MSI
11 1 (0.21%) Postman
General
1 190 (39.34%) Social Skills
2 64 (13.25%) Finance
3 63 (13.04%) Analytical Skills
4 42 (8.70%) Banking
5 33 (6.83%) Public Sector
6 23 (4.76%) Investment Banking
7 22 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (4.55%) Presentation Skills
8 20 (4.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 16 (3.31%) Military
9 16 (3.31%) Telecoms
10 8 (1.66%) Front Office
11 6 (1.24%) Legal
12 5 (1.04%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (0.83%) Manufacturing
13 4 (0.83%) Pharmaceutical
14 3 (0.62%) Police
14 3 (0.62%) Retail
15 2 (0.41%) French Language
15 2 (0.41%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 110 (22.77%) Network Engineer
2 52 (10.77%) Support Engineer
3 51 (10.56%) Architect
4 41 (8.49%) Analyst
5 39 (8.07%) IT Support
6 35 (7.25%) Senior
7 34 (7.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 29 (6.00%) IT Engineer
9 27 (5.59%) Web Engineer
10 26 (5.38%) Security Engineer
11 23 (4.76%) IT Support Engineer
12 22 (4.55%) Technical Engineer
13 20 (4.14%) Systems Engineer
14 18 (3.73%) IP Network Engineer
15 16 (3.31%) Blue Coat Engineer
16 15 (3.11%) Network Architect
16 15 (3.11%) Software Engineer
17 14 (2.90%) C# Software Engineer
17 14 (2.90%) Cloud Engineer
18 13 (2.69%) 2nd Line Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (4.35%) LDAP
2 20 (4.14%) SAML
3 14 (2.90%) JSON
4 13 (2.69%) Node.js
4 13 (2.69%) Web Services
5 12 (2.48%) OpenID
5 12 (2.48%) REST
6 9 (1.86%) 802.1X
7 7 (1.45%) .NET
8 6 (1.24%) NETCONF
8 6 (1.24%) OpenConfig
8 6 (1.24%) RESTCONF
8 6 (1.24%) XML
8 6 (1.24%) YANG
9 5 (1.04%) OAuth
10 4 (0.83%) ARM Templates
10 4 (0.83%) WinForms
11 3 (0.62%) boto
11 3 (0.62%) eBPF
11 3 (0.62%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 67 (13.87%) Data Centre
2 43 (8.90%) Onboarding
3 23 (4.76%) Management Information System
4 22 (4.55%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 20 (4.14%) Security Posture
6 18 (3.73%) PKI
7 16 (3.31%) Robotics
8 15 (3.11%) Driving Licence
8 15 (3.11%) Hybrid Cloud
8 15 (3.11%) Industry 4.0
9 14 (2.90%) Security Operations Centre
10 13 (2.69%) Linux Command Line
10 13 (2.69%) Public Cloud
11 12 (2.48%) Cyber Threat
11 12 (2.48%) Private Cloud
12 11 (2.28%) Cloud Native
12 11 (2.28%) Operational Technology
12 11 (2.28%) Self-Motivation
13 10 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
13 10 (2.07%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 201 (41.61%) Windows
2 100 (20.70%) Linux
3 52 (10.77%) Windows Server
4 39 (8.07%) Mac OS
5 29 (6.00%) Windows 10
6 18 (3.73%) Unix
7 17 (3.52%) Apple iOS
8 13 (2.69%) Android
8 13 (2.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (2.07%) Ubuntu
10 7 (1.45%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (1.04%) zOS
12 4 (0.83%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.62%) CentOS
13 3 (0.62%) Check Point GAiA
13 3 (0.62%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.62%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.41%) AIX
14 2 (0.41%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (27.95%) Problem-Solving
2 94 (19.46%) ITIL
3 60 (12.42%) Agile
4 58 (12.01%) CI/CD
5 54 (11.18%) Load Balancing
6 51 (10.56%) Customer Service
6 51 (10.56%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 50 (10.35%) Cybersecurity
8 49 (10.14%) DevOps
8 49 (10.14%) Incident Response
9 47 (9.73%) Infrastructure as Code
10 46 (9.52%) High Availability
10 46 (9.52%) ITSM
10 46 (9.52%) Migration
11 44 (9.11%) SIEM
12 34 (7.04%) Stakeholder Management
13 33 (6.83%) Validation
14 32 (6.63%) Root Cause Analysis
14 32 (6.63%) Technical Leadership
15 31 (6.42%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 125 (25.88%) Python
2 65 (13.46%) PowerShell
3 56 (11.59%) Bash
4 27 (5.59%) JavaScript
5 24 (4.97%) C++
6 17 (3.52%) C#
7 13 (2.69%) SQL
8 9 (1.86%) VBA
9 7 (1.45%) Java
10 6 (1.24%) C
11 5 (1.04%) ActionScript
11 5 (1.04%) Perl
12 4 (0.83%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.62%) Go
14 2 (0.41%) Jython
14 2 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
14 2 (0.41%) Objective-C
14 2 (0.41%) Ruby
15 1 (0.21%) Groovy
15 1 (0.21%) Korn
Qualifications
1 127 (26.29%) Security Cleared
2 92 (19.05%) SC Cleared
3 80 (16.56%) Degree
4 57 (11.80%) Cisco Certification
5 42 (8.70%) CCNP
6 35 (7.25%) DV Cleared
7 29 (6.00%) CCNA
8 24 (4.97%) Microsoft Certification
9 21 (4.35%) CISSP
9 21 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (3.52%) CCIE
11 16 (3.31%) CompTIA Security+
12 12 (2.48%) Network+ Certification
13 11 (2.28%) Azure Certification
13 11 (2.28%) CompTIA CySA+
14 10 (2.07%) MCSA
14 10 (2.07%) MCSE
15 6 (1.24%) A+ Certification
15 6 (1.24%) JNCIE
16 5 (1.04%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (2.69%) NIST
2 12 (2.48%) NCSC
3 11 (2.28%) SLA
4 10 (2.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (1.45%) QA
6 5 (1.04%) GDPR
7 4 (0.83%) NIST 800
7 4 (0.83%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.41%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 2 (0.41%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.41%) GxP
8 2 (0.41%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.41%) RMADS
9 1 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.21%) GRC
9 1 (0.21%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 119 (24.64%) Active Directory
2 70 (14.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (4.14%) Docker
3 20 (4.14%) Hyper-V
4 17 (3.52%) Firmware
4 17 (3.52%) vSphere
5 15 (3.11%) VMware NSX
6 13 (2.69%) Squid
7 12 (2.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (1.04%) NFS
10 4 (0.83%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.41%) KVM
11 2 (0.41%) RACF
11 2 (0.41%) VirtualBox
12 1 (0.21%) Citrix Presentation Server
12 1 (0.21%) GPFS
12 1 (0.21%) iptables
12 1 (0.21%) Snort
12 1 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 88 (18.22%) Ansible
2 59 (12.22%) Terraform
3 40 (8.28%) Kubernetes
4 35 (7.25%) Microsoft Intune
5 29 (6.00%) Single Sign-On
6 25 (5.18%) FortiGate
7 23 (4.76%) Grafana
8 22 (4.55%) SCCM
9 18 (3.73%) Prometheus
10 11 (2.28%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (2.07%) WSUS
12 9 (1.86%) Consul
13 6 (1.24%) CASB
13 6 (1.24%) VxRail
14 5 (1.04%) Nessus
14 5 (1.04%) QRadar
14 5 (1.04%) Suricata
15 3 (0.62%) Nagios
15 3 (0.62%) Puppet
15 3 (0.62%) SELinux
Vendors
1 166 (34.37%) Microsoft
2 88 (18.22%) Cisco
3 80 (16.56%) VMware
4 71 (14.70%) F5
5 55 (11.39%) ServiceNow
6 31 (6.42%) Fortinet
7 27 (5.59%) Palo Alto
8 26 (5.38%) Google
9 25 (5.18%) Blue Coat
10 24 (4.97%) Splunk
10 24 (4.97%) Zscaler
11 23 (4.76%) Citrix
11 23 (4.76%) Juniper
12 21 (4.35%) Infoblox
12 21 (4.35%) Red Hat
13 19 (3.93%) CheckPoint
13 19 (3.93%) McAfee
13 19 (3.93%) NetApp
14 17 (3.52%) Siemens
15 13 (2.69%) SolarWinds