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 19 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 260 204 247
Rank change year-on-year -56 +43 -13
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 429 389 419
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.99% 1.33% 0.94%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.81% 9.99% 7.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 247 277 296
10th Percentile £213 £213 £188
25th Percentile £363 £400 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £525 £475
Median % change year-on-year -12.38% +10.53% -9.52%
75th Percentile £576 £656 £569
90th Percentile £650 £800 £672
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £513 £450
% change year-on-year -10.24% +13.89% -6.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 8 17
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.55 £16.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £28.06 £23.25
Median hourly rate £40.72 £52.25 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -22.07% -7.51% -9.69%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.06 -
90th Percentile - £65.00 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £47.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -11.71% -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 4,375 3,894 5,939
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.09% 13.30% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,827 2,392 3,579
10th Percentile £213 £210 £205
25th Percentile £375 £364 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £495 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.21% +4.21% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £473 £475
% change year-on-year +0.53% -0.53% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 142 394
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.01 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.69 £21.46 £18.00
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% +7.69% +71.05%
75th Percentile £65.50 £63.06 £63.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £32.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year +29.05% -29.16% +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 19 March 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 19 March 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 19 March 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 -38 373 £475 -9.52% 214
UK excluding London -11 284 £460 -10.24% 190
London -63 115 £475 -7.32% 45
Work from Home -78 95 £424 -30.09% 84
North of England -26 94 £448 +2.69% 59
North West +9 60 £540 +44.00% 30
South East -36 59 £525 -4.55% 50
East of England +4 55 £350 -24.73% 24
South West -13 33 £700 +13.82% 25
Midlands -48 32 £200 -60.00% 23
West Midlands -33 31 £200 -4.76% 15
Yorkshire -47 31 £443 -23.04% 22
Scotland +19 28 £388 -14.84% 6
Wales -14 5 £293 -26.88% 4
North East -12 3 £200 +6.67% 10
East Midlands -41 1 £625 +13.64% 8

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 20 (4.66%) Confluence
1 20 (4.66%) Microsoft Exchange
2 18 (4.20%) SharePoint
3 14 (3.26%) Skype for Business
4 9 (2.10%) nginx
5 7 (1.63%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.70%) Apache
7 2 (0.47%) IIS
7 2 (0.47%) WordPress
8 1 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.23%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 1 (0.23%) Traefik
8 1 (0.23%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.23%) WebSphere Application Server
8 1 (0.23%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 40 (9.32%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.33%) MS Visio
3 6 (1.40%) Weka
4 5 (1.17%) Acrobat
5 4 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 1 (0.23%) RMDS
1 1 (0.23%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 93 (21.68%) Azure
2 91 (21.21%) AWS
3 75 (17.48%) Microsoft 365
4 29 (6.76%) GCP
5 20 (4.66%) Entra ID
5 20 (4.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 14 (3.26%) Amazon S3
7 13 (3.03%) Amazon EC2
8 12 (2.80%) Route 53
9 10 (2.33%) Amazon EKS
9 10 (2.33%) OneDrive
10 9 (2.10%) AWS CloudFormation
10 9 (2.10%) AWS Lambda
10 9 (2.10%) GitHub
10 9 (2.10%) Serverless
11 8 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
12 7 (1.63%) Cloud Computing
12 7 (1.63%) Nutanix
12 7 (1.63%) SaaS
13 6 (1.40%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 240 (55.94%) DNS
2 140 (32.63%) Firewall
3 108 (25.17%) DHCP
4 103 (24.01%) VPN
5 89 (20.75%) WAN
6 80 (18.65%) LAN
7 64 (14.92%) HTTP
7 64 (14.92%) SSL
8 62 (14.45%) VLAN
9 58 (13.52%) Network Security
10 45 (10.49%) BGP
10 45 (10.49%) BIG-IP
11 43 (10.02%) Wi-Fi
12 39 (9.09%) OSPF
12 39 (9.09%) Wireshark
13 33 (7.69%) Ethernet
14 31 (7.23%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 26 (6.06%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
16 24 (5.59%) Wireless
17 19 (4.43%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (3.26%) SQL Server
2 12 (2.80%) Elasticsearch
3 8 (1.86%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (0.93%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.23%) Amazon Aurora
5 1 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.23%) Apache Hive
5 1 (0.23%) Big Data
5 1 (0.23%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.23%) Impala
5 1 (0.23%) MySQL
5 1 (0.23%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (0.23%) Power BI
5 1 (0.23%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.23%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 36 (8.39%) JIRA
2 30 (6.99%) Fiddler
3 22 (5.13%) GitLab
4 14 (3.26%) Eclipse
4 14 (3.26%) Git
4 14 (3.26%) Jenkins
4 14 (3.26%) Visual Studio
5 7 (1.63%) Bitbucket
5 7 (1.63%) SonarQube
6 6 (1.40%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.93%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.23%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.23%) GCC
9 1 (0.23%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.23%) Introscope
9 1 (0.23%) MSI
9 1 (0.23%) Subversion
9 1 (0.23%) Travis CI
General
1 153 (35.66%) Social Skills
2 57 (13.29%) Analytical Skills
3 41 (9.56%) Finance
4 36 (8.39%) Banking
5 33 (7.69%) Public Sector
6 30 (6.99%) Presentation Skills
7 24 (5.59%) Investment Banking
7 24 (5.59%) Military
8 18 (4.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
10 10 (2.33%) Telecoms
11 9 (2.10%) Front Office
12 7 (1.63%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (1.17%) Law
13 5 (1.17%) Legal
14 3 (0.70%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.70%) French Language
14 3 (0.70%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.70%) Marketing
15 2 (0.47%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 110 (25.64%) Network Engineer
2 55 (12.82%) Analyst
3 54 (12.59%) Support Engineer
4 37 (8.62%) Web Engineer
5 34 (7.93%) Senior
6 26 (6.06%) Architect
6 26 (6.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 22 (5.13%) IT Engineer
7 22 (5.13%) IT Support
8 21 (4.90%) SOC Analyst
8 21 (4.90%) Technical Engineer
9 19 (4.43%) Blue Coat Engineer
9 19 (4.43%) IP Network Engineer
9 19 (4.43%) Technical Support
10 18 (4.20%) Technical Analyst
11 17 (3.96%) IT Support Engineer
11 17 (3.96%) Junior
11 17 (3.96%) Systems Engineer
12 15 (3.50%) Lead
13 14 (3.26%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (4.20%) LDAP
2 17 (3.96%) Web Services
3 14 (3.26%) Node.js
4 10 (2.33%) OpenID
5 9 (2.10%) 802.1X
5 9 (2.10%) SAML
6 8 (1.86%) Middleware
7 6 (1.40%) JSON
7 6 (1.40%) REST
8 5 (1.17%) FIX Protocol
9 4 (0.93%) Kafka
9 4 (0.93%) NETCONF
9 4 (0.93%) OAuth
9 4 (0.93%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.93%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.93%) Ultra Messaging
9 4 (0.93%) YANG
10 3 (0.70%) .NET
10 3 (0.70%) ARM Templates
10 3 (0.70%) React
Miscellaneous
1 33 (7.69%) Management Information System
2 31 (7.23%) Data Centre
3 22 (5.13%) Security Operations Centre
4 21 (4.90%) Cyberattack
5 18 (4.20%) Onboarding
6 16 (3.73%) Public Cloud
7 15 (3.50%) Industry 4.0
7 15 (3.50%) Robotics
8 13 (3.03%) CMDB
8 13 (3.03%) NHS
8 13 (3.03%) Security Posture
9 12 (2.80%) Driving Licence
9 12 (2.80%) PKI
10 11 (2.56%) Private Cloud
11 10 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
11 10 (2.33%) Cyber Threat
11 10 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
12 7 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
13 6 (1.40%) Grid Computing
13 6 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 188 (43.82%) Windows
2 111 (25.87%) Linux
3 53 (12.35%) Windows Server
4 24 (5.59%) Windows 10
5 15 (3.50%) Android
6 12 (2.80%) Unix
7 11 (2.56%) Mac OS
8 9 (2.10%) Windows Server 2012
9 8 (1.86%) Apple iOS
10 6 (1.40%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (1.40%) zOS
11 4 (0.93%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.93%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.70%) Debian
12 3 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 3 (0.70%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.70%) VMS
12 3 (0.70%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.47%) AIX
14 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (29.60%) Problem-Solving
2 66 (15.38%) ITIL
3 54 (12.59%) Agile
4 52 (12.12%) Cybersecurity
5 51 (11.89%) Incident Response
6 50 (11.66%) SIEM
7 49 (11.42%) Load Balancing
8 44 (10.26%) CI/CD
8 44 (10.26%) DevOps
9 38 (8.86%) Infrastructure as Code
10 37 (8.62%) Customer Service
10 37 (8.62%) Migration
10 37 (8.62%) Root Cause Analysis
11 36 (8.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 36 (8.39%) Security Operations
12 35 (8.16%) Validation
13 31 (7.23%) Data Loss Prevention
13 31 (7.23%) Decision-Making
14 30 (6.99%) Malware Detection/Protection
15 28 (6.53%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 101 (23.54%) Python
2 77 (17.95%) PowerShell
3 52 (12.12%) Bash
4 21 (4.90%) JavaScript
4 21 (4.90%) SQL
5 18 (4.20%) C#
5 18 (4.20%) C++
6 11 (2.56%) Java
7 8 (1.86%) Go
7 8 (1.86%) Perl
8 6 (1.40%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.17%) C
10 2 (0.47%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.47%) Ruby
10 2 (0.47%) T-SQL
10 2 (0.47%) VBA
10 2 (0.47%) VBScript
11 1 (0.23%) Bicep
11 1 (0.23%) Jython
11 1 (0.23%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 137 (31.93%) Security Cleared
2 109 (25.41%) SC Cleared
3 59 (13.75%) Degree
4 46 (10.72%) Cisco Certification
5 43 (10.02%) DV Cleared
6 36 (8.39%) CCNP
7 32 (7.46%) CompTIA Security+
8 25 (5.83%) Computer Science Degree
9 23 (5.36%) CCNA
10 18 (4.20%) CISSP
10 18 (4.20%) CompTIA CySA+
11 15 (3.50%) Microsoft Certification
12 12 (2.80%) Network+ Certification
13 10 (2.33%) JNCIS
14 9 (2.10%) MCSE
15 7 (1.63%) Azure Certification
15 7 (1.63%) CCIE
15 7 (1.63%) MCSA
15 7 (1.63%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 6 (1.40%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (1.86%) GDPR
2 8 (1.86%) NIST
2 8 (1.86%) SLA
3 5 (1.17%) NCSC
4 2 (0.47%) HIPAA
4 2 (0.47%) QA
4 2 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
5 1 (0.23%) GRC
5 1 (0.23%) RMADS
System Software
1 92 (21.45%) Active Directory
2 52 (12.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 31 (7.23%) Docker
4 21 (4.90%) Firmware
5 11 (2.56%) VMware NSX
5 11 (2.56%) vSphere
6 10 (2.33%) Hyper-V
7 8 (1.86%) Squid
8 7 (1.63%) Lustre
8 7 (1.63%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 7 (1.63%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (1.40%) GPFS
10 5 (1.17%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.93%) KVM
12 3 (0.70%) VMware ESXi
13 2 (0.47%) Ceph
13 2 (0.47%) NDS
13 2 (0.47%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 2 (0.47%) NFS
14 1 (0.23%) Citrix Presentation Server
Systems Management
1 67 (15.62%) Ansible
2 41 (9.56%) Terraform
3 37 (8.62%) Kubernetes
4 29 (6.76%) SCCM
5 25 (5.83%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (5.36%) Grafana
7 20 (4.66%) Prometheus
8 19 (4.43%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (3.96%) FortiGate
10 9 (2.10%) Nagios
11 8 (1.86%) Consul
11 8 (1.86%) QRadar
12 7 (1.63%) WSUS
13 6 (1.40%) Puppet
13 6 (1.40%) Tivoli NetView
14 5 (1.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 5 (1.17%) CASB
14 5 (1.17%) Nessus
15 4 (0.93%) ITRS Geneos
16 3 (0.70%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 118 (27.51%) Microsoft
2 74 (17.25%) VMware
3 67 (15.62%) F5
4 60 (13.99%) Cisco
5 41 (9.56%) Splunk
6 36 (8.39%) Palo Alto
7 35 (8.16%) Blue Coat
8 32 (7.46%) McAfee
9 28 (6.53%) ServiceNow
10 26 (6.06%) Juniper
11 23 (5.36%) Fortinet
12 22 (5.13%) NetApp
13 19 (4.43%) CheckPoint
14 17 (3.96%) Red Hat
15 15 (3.50%) Citrix
15 15 (3.50%) Siemens
16 13 (3.03%) Aruba
16 13 (3.03%) SolarWinds
17 12 (2.80%) Oracle
17 12 (2.80%) Zscaler