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 16 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 286 219 282
Rank change year-on-year -67 +63 -38
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 418 355 331
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.87% 1.22% 0.78%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.11% 9.60% 6.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 236 250 224
10th Percentile £223 £225 £188
25th Percentile £364 £365 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - +2.56%
75th Percentile £550 £625 £575
90th Percentile £638 £753 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £494
% change year-on-year -10.00% +1.27% +9.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 9 21
10th Percentile £21.25 £17.87 £16.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £28.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £54.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.05% -16.15% +7.04%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -32.90% -3.85% +3.92%

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 4,587 3,698 5,394
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.55% 12.69% 12.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,836 2,280 3,215
10th Percentile £263 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £360 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -0.51% -5.68%
75th Percentile £588 £591 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £694
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £458 £475
% change year-on-year +3.83% -3.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 247 164 417
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.04 £17.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £37.50 £31.79 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.96% -20.53% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.88 £57.80 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £24.66 £46.14
% change year-on-year +71.33% -46.55% +156.31%

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 16 May 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 16 May 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 16 May 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 -55 355 £470 -6.00% 227
UK excluding London -21 259 £450 -10.00% 185
London -72 124 £473 -0.53% 65
Work from Home -62 92 £450 -18.27% 86
North of England -12 89 £450 +20.00% 40
South East -43 64 £500 +2.56% 67
North West +5 57 £540 +116.00% 22
East of England -14 40 £228 -47.09% 28
Midlands -51 32 £400 -27.27% 20
West Midlands -42 29 £388 -29.55% 13
Scotland +11 27 £425 -3.95% 5
Yorkshire -44 27 £447 -12.78% 15
South West -40 20 £500 -18.70% 26
Wales -11 7 £408 -9.44% 6
North East -19 5 £306 +22.50% 4
East Midlands -29 3 £625 +13.64% 7

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 (4.31%) Confluence
2 13 (3.11%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.39%) nginx
4 8 (1.91%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (0.96%) WebSphere
6 3 (0.72%) Apache
6 3 (0.72%) IIS
7 2 (0.48%) CICS
7 2 (0.48%) IBM HTTP Server
7 2 (0.48%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.48%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 2 (0.48%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.48%) WebSphere Portal
7 2 (0.48%) WordPress
8 1 (0.24%) Traefik
Applications
1 28 (6.70%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.15%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.96%) Acrobat
4 3 (0.72%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.24%) Weka
Business Applications
1 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 93 (22.25%) AWS
2 92 (22.01%) Azure
3 62 (14.83%) Microsoft 365
4 26 (6.22%) Entra ID
4 26 (6.22%) GCP
5 25 (5.98%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 17 (4.07%) Amazon EC2
7 16 (3.83%) Amazon EKS
8 15 (3.59%) Amazon S3
9 14 (3.35%) Route 53
10 13 (3.11%) AWS Lambda
10 13 (3.11%) OneDrive
10 13 (3.11%) Serverless
11 10 (2.39%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (2.39%) GitHub
12 7 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
12 7 (1.67%) Google Workspace
12 7 (1.67%) Nutanix
12 7 (1.67%) SaaS
13 6 (1.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 234 (55.98%) DNS
2 147 (35.17%) Firewall
3 100 (23.92%) DHCP
4 99 (23.68%) VPN
5 76 (18.18%) WAN
6 69 (16.51%) HTTP
6 69 (16.51%) LAN
7 66 (15.79%) SSL
8 64 (15.31%) Network Security
9 58 (13.88%) VLAN
10 54 (12.92%) BGP
11 50 (11.96%) BIG-IP
12 44 (10.53%) OSPF
13 34 (8.13%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 34 (8.13%) Wi-Fi
14 31 (7.42%) Ethernet
14 31 (7.42%) Wireshark
15 27 (6.46%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
16 18 (4.31%) Wireless
17 15 (3.59%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.87%) Elasticsearch
2 11 (2.63%) SQL Server
3 7 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.20%) MongoDB
5 3 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.48%) MySQL
7 1 (0.24%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.24%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 43 (10.29%) JIRA
2 27 (6.46%) Fiddler
3 22 (5.26%) GitLab
4 19 (4.55%) Git
5 13 (3.11%) Eclipse
5 13 (3.11%) Jenkins
5 13 (3.11%) Visual Studio
6 9 (2.15%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (1.67%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.67%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.96%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.72%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.48%) Introscope
10 2 (0.48%) Subversion
11 1 (0.24%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.24%) Postman
11 1 (0.24%) Travis CI
General
1 141 (33.73%) Social Skills
2 53 (12.68%) Finance
3 49 (11.72%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (9.33%) Banking
5 29 (6.94%) Public Sector
6 23 (5.50%) Investment Banking
6 23 (5.50%) Military
6 23 (5.50%) Presentation Skills
7 18 (4.31%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (4.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 10 (2.39%) Telecoms
9 6 (1.44%) Front Office
10 5 (1.20%) Law
11 3 (0.72%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.72%) French Language
11 3 (0.72%) Marketing
11 3 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.48%) Japanese Language
12 2 (0.48%) Retail
12 2 (0.48%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 104 (24.88%) Network Engineer
2 49 (11.72%) Analyst
3 35 (8.37%) Web Engineer
4 34 (8.13%) Senior
5 31 (7.42%) Support Engineer
6 28 (6.70%) Architect
7 24 (5.74%) Security Engineer
8 22 (5.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 22 (5.26%) IT Support
9 21 (5.02%) Technical Engineer
10 20 (4.78%) IP Network Engineer
10 20 (4.78%) SOC Analyst
11 18 (4.31%) Blue Coat Engineer
12 17 (4.07%) IT Engineer
12 17 (4.07%) Systems Engineer
13 16 (3.83%) Junior
14 15 (3.59%) Integration Engineer
14 15 (3.59%) Lead
15 12 (2.87%) Junior Network Engineer
15 12 (2.87%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (5.26%) LDAP
2 15 (3.59%) SAML
2 15 (3.59%) Web Services
3 13 (3.11%) Node.js
4 12 (2.87%) JSON
4 12 (2.87%) OpenID
5 10 (2.39%) 802.1X
6 8 (1.91%) REST
7 5 (1.20%) Kafka
7 5 (1.20%) OAuth
7 5 (1.20%) XML
8 4 (0.96%) Middleware
9 3 (0.72%) ARM Templates
9 3 (0.72%) Elastic Stack
9 3 (0.72%) HTML
9 3 (0.72%) NETCONF
9 3 (0.72%) OpenConfig
9 3 (0.72%) RESTCONF
9 3 (0.72%) YANG
10 2 (0.48%) eBPF
Miscellaneous
1 34 (8.13%) Data Centre
2 29 (6.94%) Onboarding
3 24 (5.74%) Management Information System
4 23 (5.50%) Security Operations Centre
5 21 (5.02%) Cyberattack
6 15 (3.59%) Industry 4.0
6 15 (3.59%) Robotics
7 14 (3.35%) Security Posture
8 13 (3.11%) Cyber Threat
9 11 (2.63%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (2.63%) PKI
10 10 (2.39%) Public Cloud
11 9 (2.15%) Data Protection Act
12 8 (1.91%) Driving Licence
12 8 (1.91%) Mainframe
13 7 (1.67%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 6 (1.44%) NHS
14 6 (1.44%) Private Cloud
14 6 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
15 5 (1.20%) Cloud Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 175 (41.87%) Windows
2 98 (23.44%) Linux
3 49 (11.72%) Windows Server
4 21 (5.02%) Mac OS
5 15 (3.59%) Unix
5 15 (3.59%) Windows 10
6 13 (3.11%) Android
7 10 (2.39%) Apple iOS
8 9 (2.15%) Windows Server 2012
9 8 (1.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (1.91%) zOS
10 6 (1.44%) Ubuntu
10 6 (1.44%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.96%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.72%) Debian
12 3 (0.72%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.72%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.48%) AIX
13 2 (0.48%) CentOS
13 2 (0.48%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (29.19%) Problem-Solving
2 65 (15.55%) ITIL
3 52 (12.44%) Cybersecurity
4 51 (12.20%) Incident Response
4 51 (12.20%) SIEM
5 50 (11.96%) Agile
6 48 (11.48%) Load Balancing
7 43 (10.29%) DevOps
8 42 (10.05%) Migration
9 40 (9.57%) CI/CD
10 39 (9.33%) Security Operations
11 35 (8.37%) Validation
12 34 (8.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 33 (7.89%) Customer Service
14 31 (7.42%) High Availability
15 29 (6.94%) Computer Science
15 29 (6.94%) Data Loss Prevention
15 29 (6.94%) Decision-Making
15 29 (6.94%) ITSM
15 29 (6.94%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 91 (21.77%) Python
2 47 (11.24%) PowerShell
3 44 (10.53%) Bash
4 28 (6.70%) JavaScript
5 21 (5.02%) SQL
6 18 (4.31%) C++
7 15 (3.59%) C#
8 9 (2.15%) Java
9 7 (1.67%) Shell Script
9 7 (1.67%) VBA
10 6 (1.44%) C
10 6 (1.44%) Go
11 5 (1.20%) Perl
12 2 (0.48%) Jython
12 2 (0.48%) Ruby
13 1 (0.24%) Groovy
13 1 (0.24%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.24%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 127 (30.38%) Security Cleared
2 104 (24.88%) SC Cleared
3 68 (16.27%) Degree
4 44 (10.53%) Cisco Certification
5 37 (8.85%) CCNP
6 30 (7.18%) CompTIA Security+
7 29 (6.94%) Computer Science Degree
8 27 (6.46%) DV Cleared
9 23 (5.50%) CCNA
10 18 (4.31%) CompTIA CySA+
11 17 (4.07%) CISSP
12 13 (3.11%) Microsoft Certification
13 9 (2.15%) Azure Certification
13 9 (2.15%) MCSA
14 8 (1.91%) CCIE
14 8 (1.91%) MCSE
14 8 (1.91%) Network+ Certification
15 7 (1.67%) JNCIS
16 6 (1.44%) AWS Certification
17 5 (1.20%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.63%) SLA
2 9 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.67%) NIST
4 5 (1.20%) GDPR
5 4 (0.96%) NCSC
5 4 (0.96%) QA
6 2 (0.48%) RMADS
7 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.24%) GRC
System Software
1 84 (20.10%) Active Directory
2 51 (12.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (5.26%) Docker
4 18 (4.31%) Firmware
5 13 (3.11%) Squid
6 11 (2.63%) Hyper-V
7 9 (2.15%) VMware NSX
7 9 (2.15%) vSphere
8 8 (1.91%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (1.91%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (1.20%) KVM
10 4 (0.96%) NFS
11 2 (0.48%) Ceph
11 2 (0.48%) iptables
11 2 (0.48%) Lustre
11 2 (0.48%) RACF
11 2 (0.48%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.24%) RHEV
12 1 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 70 (16.75%) Ansible
2 40 (9.57%) Terraform
3 36 (8.61%) Kubernetes
4 26 (6.22%) SCCM
5 25 (5.98%) Grafana
6 24 (5.74%) FortiGate
6 24 (5.74%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (5.26%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (4.07%) Prometheus
9 10 (2.39%) Nagios
9 10 (2.39%) WSUS
10 9 (2.15%) Consul
11 8 (1.91%) QRadar
12 6 (1.44%) CASB
12 6 (1.44%) Tivoli NetView
13 5 (1.20%) Jamf Pro
13 5 (1.20%) Nessus
13 5 (1.20%) Suricata
14 4 (0.96%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 4 (0.96%) Puppet
Vendors
1 104 (24.88%) Microsoft
2 69 (16.51%) VMware
3 68 (16.27%) F5
4 65 (15.55%) Cisco
5 41 (9.81%) Splunk
6 34 (8.13%) ServiceNow
7 31 (7.42%) Blue Coat
8 28 (6.70%) Palo Alto
9 27 (6.46%) McAfee
10 23 (5.50%) Fortinet
11 22 (5.26%) Red Hat
12 21 (5.02%) Citrix
13 20 (4.78%) Juniper
13 20 (4.78%) NetApp
14 16 (3.83%) Siemens
15 15 (3.59%) Zscaler
16 13 (3.11%) Bloomberg
16 13 (3.11%) SolarWinds
17 12 (2.87%) Arista
17 12 (2.87%) CheckPoint