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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 276 223 277
Rank change year-on-year -53 +54 -38
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 412 348 362
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.89% 1.18% 0.83%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.20% 9.20% 6.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 230 248 257
10th Percentile £213 £225 £188
25th Percentile £355 £380 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £511 £488
Median % change year-on-year -11.98% +4.87% -6.69%
75th Percentile £550 £638 £563
90th Percentile £638 £758 £664
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £488
% change year-on-year -10.00% +2.56% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 10 16
10th Percentile £21.25 £18.18 £16.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £28.81 £20.00
Median hourly rate £52.22 £52.25 £47.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.06% +11.18% -27.70%
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 4,480 3,782 5,676
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.68% 12.84% 13.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,806 2,345 3,403
10th Percentile £246 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £489
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -0.31% -5.96%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £464 £475
% change year-on-year +2.43% -2.37% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 171 425
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.79 £21.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £48.72 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.92% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.38 £62.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.50 £28.00 £46.14
% change year-on-year +98.21% -39.31% +149.38%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -42 350 £468 -6.50% 178
UK excluding London -25 264 £450 -10.00% 157
London -70 112 £470 -1.47% 46
Work from Home -68 91 £425 -22.73% 77
North of England -14 90 £450 +3.09% 41
South East -33 60 £523 -5.00% 42
North West -8 55 £559 +78.80% 18
East of England -6 48 £315 -26.74% 18
Midlands -46 34 £300 -40.00% 21
West Midlands -37 31 £225 +7.14% 14
Yorkshire -52 31 £447 -22.30% 17
Scotland +14 26 £425 -3.95% 4
South West -35 20 £575 -6.50% 26
Wales -11 6 £335 -21.18% 8
North East -16 4 £200 -20.00% 8
East Midlands -38 3 £625 +13.64% 6

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 (4.37%) Confluence
2 10 (2.43%) nginx
3 9 (2.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (2.18%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.46%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.73%) Apache
5 3 (0.73%) IIS
6 2 (0.49%) IBM HTTP Server
6 2 (0.49%) Oracle HTTP Server
6 2 (0.49%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.49%) WebSphere
6 2 (0.49%) WebSphere Application Server
6 2 (0.49%) WebSphere Portal
6 2 (0.49%) WordPress
7 1 (0.24%) Traefik
Applications
1 33 (8.01%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.43%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.21%) Acrobat
3 5 (1.21%) Weka
4 4 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 1 (0.24%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 94 (22.82%) Azure
2 89 (21.60%) AWS
3 69 (16.75%) Microsoft 365
4 28 (6.80%) GCP
5 27 (6.55%) Entra ID
6 20 (4.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 14 (3.40%) Amazon S3
7 14 (3.40%) Route 53
8 13 (3.16%) Amazon EC2
9 12 (2.91%) Amazon EKS
9 12 (2.91%) AWS Lambda
9 12 (2.91%) Serverless
10 11 (2.67%) Google Workspace
11 10 (2.43%) OneDrive
12 9 (2.18%) AWS CloudFormation
12 9 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
13 8 (1.94%) GitHub
14 7 (1.70%) Nutanix
14 7 (1.70%) SaaS
15 5 (1.21%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 230 (55.83%) DNS
2 147 (35.68%) Firewall
3 100 (24.27%) VPN
4 97 (23.54%) DHCP
5 84 (20.39%) WAN
6 76 (18.45%) LAN
7 64 (15.53%) HTTP
8 61 (14.81%) SSL
8 61 (14.81%) VLAN
9 58 (14.08%) Network Security
10 50 (12.14%) BGP
11 47 (11.41%) BIG-IP
12 43 (10.44%) OSPF
13 39 (9.47%) Wi-Fi
14 34 (8.25%) Ethernet
15 33 (8.01%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 32 (7.77%) Wireshark
17 26 (6.31%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
18 19 (4.61%) SD-WAN
19 18 (4.37%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.91%) Elasticsearch
1 12 (2.91%) SQL Server
2 8 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (1.21%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.49%) MySQL
5 1 (0.24%) Amazon Aurora
5 1 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.24%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (0.24%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 40 (9.71%) JIRA
2 27 (6.55%) Fiddler
3 18 (4.37%) GitLab
4 14 (3.40%) Eclipse
4 14 (3.40%) Git
4 14 (3.40%) Visual Studio
5 11 (2.67%) Jenkins
6 9 (2.18%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (1.70%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.70%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.97%) CircleCI
9 3 (0.73%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.49%) Introscope
10 2 (0.49%) Subversion
11 1 (0.24%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.24%) Postman
11 1 (0.24%) Travis CI
General
1 144 (34.95%) Social Skills
2 48 (11.65%) Finance
3 47 (11.41%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (9.71%) Banking
5 27 (6.55%) Public Sector
6 26 (6.31%) Presentation Skills
7 25 (6.07%) Investment Banking
8 24 (5.83%) Military
9 18 (4.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 17 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
11 11 (2.67%) Telecoms
12 8 (1.94%) Front Office
13 5 (1.21%) Law
14 4 (0.97%) Legal
14 4 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.73%) French Language
15 3 (0.73%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.73%) Marketing
16 2 (0.49%) Games
16 2 (0.49%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 100 (24.27%) Network Engineer
2 52 (12.62%) Analyst
3 38 (9.22%) Support Engineer
4 35 (8.50%) Web Engineer
5 34 (8.25%) Senior
6 27 (6.55%) Architect
7 23 (5.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 23 (5.58%) IT Support
8 22 (5.34%) IT Engineer
9 21 (5.10%) SOC Analyst
10 20 (4.85%) IP Network Engineer
11 19 (4.61%) Technical Engineer
12 18 (4.37%) Blue Coat Engineer
12 18 (4.37%) Security Engineer
13 17 (4.13%) Systems Engineer
14 16 (3.88%) IT Support Engineer
15 15 (3.64%) Integration Engineer
15 15 (3.64%) Lead
16 12 (2.91%) Junior
17 11 (2.67%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.85%) LDAP
2 16 (3.88%) Web Services
3 14 (3.40%) Node.js
4 13 (3.16%) SAML
5 11 (2.67%) OpenID
6 10 (2.43%) 802.1X
6 10 (2.43%) JSON
7 8 (1.94%) REST
8 5 (1.21%) Kafka
8 5 (1.21%) OAuth
9 4 (0.97%) NETCONF
9 4 (0.97%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.97%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.97%) YANG
10 3 (0.73%) ARM Templates
10 3 (0.73%) HTML
10 3 (0.73%) Middleware
10 3 (0.73%) XML
11 2 (0.49%) .NET
11 2 (0.49%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 26 (6.31%) Data Centre
2 25 (6.07%) Management Information System
3 23 (5.58%) Onboarding
4 22 (5.34%) Security Operations Centre
5 21 (5.10%) Cyberattack
6 15 (3.64%) Industry 4.0
6 15 (3.64%) Robotics
7 13 (3.16%) PKI
7 13 (3.16%) Public Cloud
8 12 (2.91%) Enterprise Software
8 12 (2.91%) Security Posture
9 10 (2.43%) Cyber Threat
9 10 (2.43%) Private Cloud
10 9 (2.18%) Driving Licence
11 8 (1.94%) Data Protection Act
12 7 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
12 7 (1.70%) iPhone
12 7 (1.70%) NHS
12 7 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
13 6 (1.46%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 183 (44.42%) Windows
2 104 (25.24%) Linux
3 53 (12.86%) Windows Server
4 22 (5.34%) Windows 10
5 17 (4.13%) Android
6 14 (3.40%) Mac OS
7 13 (3.16%) Unix
8 9 (2.18%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (1.70%) Apple iOS
10 6 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (1.46%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (1.46%) zOS
11 5 (1.21%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.97%) VMS
12 4 (0.97%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.73%) Debian
13 3 (0.73%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.73%) Windows Server 2003
14 2 (0.49%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.49%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (29.61%) Problem-Solving
2 68 (16.50%) ITIL
3 56 (13.59%) Cybersecurity
4 53 (12.86%) Agile
5 51 (12.38%) SIEM
6 48 (11.65%) Incident Response
7 44 (10.68%) Load Balancing
8 41 (9.95%) DevOps
8 41 (9.95%) Migration
9 39 (9.47%) Security Operations
10 37 (8.98%) Validation
11 35 (8.50%) CI/CD
12 34 (8.25%) Customer Service
13 31 (7.52%) Root Cause Analysis
14 30 (7.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 29 (7.04%) Computer Science
16 28 (6.80%) Data Loss Prevention
16 28 (6.80%) Decision-Making
16 28 (6.80%) Infrastructure as Code
16 28 (6.80%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 91 (22.09%) Python
2 61 (14.81%) PowerShell
3 43 (10.44%) Bash
4 28 (6.80%) JavaScript
5 20 (4.85%) C++
5 20 (4.85%) SQL
6 16 (3.88%) C#
7 8 (1.94%) Java
8 7 (1.70%) C
9 6 (1.46%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.21%) Go
10 5 (1.21%) Perl
10 5 (1.21%) VBA
11 2 (0.49%) Jython
11 2 (0.49%) Ruby
11 2 (0.49%) VBScript
12 1 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.24%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 122 (29.61%) Security Cleared
2 103 (25.00%) SC Cleared
3 64 (15.53%) Degree
4 46 (11.17%) Cisco Certification
5 37 (8.98%) CCNP
6 32 (7.77%) CompTIA Security+
7 28 (6.80%) Computer Science Degree
8 27 (6.55%) DV Cleared
9 26 (6.31%) CCNA
10 19 (4.61%) CompTIA CySA+
11 17 (4.13%) CISSP
12 13 (3.16%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (2.67%) Network+ Certification
14 9 (2.18%) Azure Certification
14 9 (2.18%) MCSA
15 8 (1.94%) CCIE
15 8 (1.94%) MCSE
16 7 (1.70%) JNCIS
17 6 (1.46%) GCIH
18 5 (1.21%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 10 (2.43%) SLA
2 8 (1.94%) NIST
3 6 (1.46%) GDPR
4 4 (0.97%) NCSC
5 2 (0.49%) QA
5 2 (0.49%) RMADS
6 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.24%) GRC
6 1 (0.24%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 86 (20.87%) Active Directory
2 50 (12.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (5.83%) Docker
4 18 (4.37%) Firmware
5 9 (2.18%) Hyper-V
5 9 (2.18%) Squid
5 9 (2.18%) VMware NSX
5 9 (2.18%) vSphere
6 8 (1.94%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (1.46%) Lustre
7 6 (1.46%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 5 (1.21%) GPFS
9 4 (0.97%) KVM
9 4 (0.97%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.73%) NFS
11 2 (0.49%) Ceph
11 2 (0.49%) iptables
11 2 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.24%) XenApp
12 1 (0.24%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 63 (15.29%) Ansible
2 38 (9.22%) Kubernetes
3 36 (8.74%) Terraform
4 32 (7.77%) SCCM
5 24 (5.83%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (5.34%) FortiGate
7 21 (5.10%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (4.37%) Grafana
9 15 (3.64%) Prometheus
10 11 (2.67%) WSUS
11 9 (2.18%) Nagios
11 9 (2.18%) QRadar
12 8 (1.94%) Consul
13 6 (1.46%) Puppet
13 6 (1.46%) Tivoli NetView
14 5 (1.21%) CASB
14 5 (1.21%) Nessus
15 4 (0.97%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 3 (0.73%) Red Hat Satellite
16 3 (0.73%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 110 (26.70%) Microsoft
2 67 (16.26%) VMware
3 64 (15.53%) F5
4 62 (15.05%) Cisco
5 40 (9.71%) Splunk
6 31 (7.52%) ServiceNow
7 30 (7.28%) Blue Coat
8 29 (7.04%) Palo Alto
9 27 (6.55%) McAfee
10 25 (6.07%) Fortinet
11 22 (5.34%) Citrix
12 21 (5.10%) Juniper
12 21 (5.10%) Red Hat
13 20 (4.85%) NetApp
14 16 (3.88%) Siemens
15 14 (3.40%) CheckPoint
16 13 (3.16%) Bloomberg
16 13 (3.16%) SolarWinds
17 12 (2.91%) Meraki
17 12 (2.91%) Zscaler