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

6 months to
27 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 279 226 273
Rank change year-on-year -53 +47 -45
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 406 350 363
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.87% 1.19% 0.83%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.01% 9.36% 6.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 251 253
10th Percentile £213 £225 £188
25th Percentile £364 £380 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -12.20% +2.50% -
75th Percentile £550 £638 £563
90th Percentile £638 £750 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £506 £488
% change year-on-year -11.11% +3.85% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 9 18
10th Percentile £21.25 £17.87 £16.00
25th Percentile £24.50 £28.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £62.50 £54.50 £47.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.68% +15.97% -24.87%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.84 - £66.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -

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 4,504 3,740 5,652
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.62% 12.74% 12.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,814 2,310 3,383
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £489 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.30% -0.26% -5.72%
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 211 172 423
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.57
25th Percentile £20.79 £20.22 £17.35
Median hourly rate £42.25 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.67% -6.25% +110.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.31 £62.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £67.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £27.72 £45.88
% change year-on-year +89.39% -39.58% +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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -49 341 £468 -6.50% 184
UK excluding London -14 263 £450 -11.11% 162
London -84 107 £470 -1.47% 52
North of England -17 90 £450 +3.09% 39
Work from Home -66 89 £430 -21.82% 151
South East -39 60 £523 -5.00% 51
North West +2 56 £559 +78.80% 18
East of England -10 46 £350 -18.60% 24
Midlands -37 35 £300 -45.45% 11
West Midlands -32 32 £225 +7.14% 8
Yorkshire -53 29 £447 -22.26% 14
Scotland +20 27 £425 -3.95% 7
South West -35 18 £550 -10.57% 27
Wales -8 8 £390 -8.24% 9
North East -19 5 £306 +22.50% 8
East Midlands -41 3 £625 +13.64% 3

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 (4.43%) Confluence
2 10 (2.46%) nginx
3 7 (1.72%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (1.48%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.74%) Apache
5 3 (0.74%) IIS
6 2 (0.49%) IBM HTTP Server
6 2 (0.49%) Oracle HTTP Server
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 (0.25%) Traefik
Applications
1 32 (7.88%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.46%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.23%) Acrobat
3 5 (1.23%) Weka
4 4 (0.99%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 88 (21.67%) AWS
1 88 (21.67%) Azure
2 63 (15.52%) Microsoft 365
3 28 (6.90%) GCP
4 24 (5.91%) Entra ID
5 21 (5.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 15 (3.69%) Amazon S3
7 14 (3.45%) Route 53
8 13 (3.20%) Amazon EC2
8 13 (3.20%) AWS Lambda
8 13 (3.20%) Serverless
9 12 (2.96%) Amazon EKS
10 10 (2.46%) Google Workspace
11 9 (2.22%) AWS CloudFormation
11 9 (2.22%) GitHub
11 9 (2.22%) OneDrive
12 8 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (1.72%) Nutanix
13 7 (1.72%) SaaS
14 5 (1.23%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 225 (55.42%) DNS
2 146 (35.96%) Firewall
3 98 (24.14%) VPN
4 91 (22.41%) DHCP
5 82 (20.20%) WAN
6 73 (17.98%) LAN
7 64 (15.76%) HTTP
8 62 (15.27%) SSL
9 60 (14.78%) VLAN
10 59 (14.53%) Network Security
11 50 (12.32%) BGP
12 49 (12.07%) BIG-IP
13 43 (10.59%) OSPF
14 37 (9.11%) Wi-Fi
15 34 (8.37%) Ethernet
15 34 (8.37%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 33 (8.13%) Wireshark
17 27 (6.65%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
18 18 (4.43%) SD-WAN
18 18 (4.43%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.96%) Elasticsearch
1 12 (2.96%) SQL Server
2 7 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (1.23%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.49%) MySQL
5 1 (0.25%) Amazon Aurora
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (0.25%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 41 (10.10%) JIRA
2 28 (6.90%) Fiddler
3 18 (4.43%) GitLab
4 14 (3.45%) Eclipse
4 14 (3.45%) Git
4 14 (3.45%) Visual Studio
5 12 (2.96%) Jenkins
6 9 (2.22%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (1.72%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.72%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.99%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.99%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.49%) Introscope
9 2 (0.49%) Subversion
10 1 (0.25%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.25%) Postman
10 1 (0.25%) Travis CI
General
1 141 (34.73%) Social Skills
2 47 (11.58%) Finance
3 46 (11.33%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (10.10%) Banking
5 28 (6.90%) Public Sector
6 26 (6.40%) Investment Banking
6 26 (6.40%) Presentation Skills
7 24 (5.91%) Military
8 19 (4.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (2.71%) Telecoms
11 8 (1.97%) Front Office
12 5 (1.23%) Law
13 3 (0.74%) French Language
13 3 (0.74%) Legal
13 3 (0.74%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.74%) Marketing
13 3 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.49%) Aviation
14 2 (0.49%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 102 (25.12%) Network Engineer
2 50 (12.32%) Analyst
3 36 (8.87%) Web Engineer
4 33 (8.13%) Senior
5 30 (7.39%) Support Engineer
6 27 (6.65%) Architect
7 22 (5.42%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 21 (5.17%) IP Network Engineer
9 20 (4.93%) IT Support
9 20 (4.93%) SOC Analyst
10 19 (4.68%) Blue Coat Engineer
11 18 (4.43%) IT Engineer
11 18 (4.43%) Security Engineer
11 18 (4.43%) Technical Engineer
12 17 (4.19%) Systems Engineer
13 15 (3.69%) Integration Engineer
13 15 (3.69%) Lead
14 12 (2.96%) IT Support Engineer
15 11 (2.71%) Junior
15 11 (2.71%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.93%) LDAP
2 16 (3.94%) Web Services
3 14 (3.45%) Node.js
3 14 (3.45%) SAML
4 12 (2.96%) OpenID
5 11 (2.71%) JSON
6 10 (2.46%) 802.1X
7 7 (1.72%) REST
8 5 (1.23%) Kafka
8 5 (1.23%) OAuth
9 4 (0.99%) NETCONF
9 4 (0.99%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.99%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.99%) YANG
10 3 (0.74%) ARM Templates
10 3 (0.74%) HTML
10 3 (0.74%) Middleware
10 3 (0.74%) XML
11 2 (0.49%) .NET
11 2 (0.49%) JDBC
Miscellaneous
1 27 (6.65%) Data Centre
2 25 (6.16%) Management Information System
3 24 (5.91%) Onboarding
4 22 (5.42%) Security Operations Centre
5 21 (5.17%) Cyberattack
6 15 (3.69%) Industry 4.0
6 15 (3.69%) Robotics
7 13 (3.20%) Public Cloud
7 13 (3.20%) Security Posture
8 12 (2.96%) Enterprise Software
8 12 (2.96%) PKI
9 10 (2.46%) Cyber Threat
9 10 (2.46%) Driving Licence
9 10 (2.46%) Private Cloud
10 9 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (1.72%) Operational Technology
11 7 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
12 6 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
12 6 (1.48%) CMDB
12 6 (1.48%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 177 (43.60%) Windows
2 105 (25.86%) Linux
3 51 (12.56%) Windows Server
4 17 (4.19%) Windows 10
5 15 (3.69%) Android
6 14 (3.45%) Mac OS
6 14 (3.45%) Unix
7 9 (2.22%) Windows Server 2012
8 7 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (1.48%) Apple iOS
9 6 (1.48%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.48%) zOS
10 5 (1.23%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.99%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.74%) Debian
12 3 (0.74%) VMS
12 3 (0.74%) Windows 7
12 3 (0.74%) Windows Server 2003
13 2 (0.49%) AIX
13 2 (0.49%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (29.56%) Problem-Solving
2 65 (16.01%) ITIL
3 56 (13.79%) Cybersecurity
4 53 (13.05%) Agile
5 50 (12.32%) SIEM
6 47 (11.58%) Incident Response
7 46 (11.33%) Load Balancing
8 41 (10.10%) DevOps
9 39 (9.61%) Migration
10 38 (9.36%) Security Operations
11 37 (9.11%) Validation
12 35 (8.62%) CI/CD
13 32 (7.88%) Customer Service
14 31 (7.64%) Root Cause Analysis
15 29 (7.14%) Data Loss Prevention
15 29 (7.14%) High Availability
15 29 (7.14%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 28 (6.90%) Decision-Making
16 28 (6.90%) Infrastructure as Code
16 28 (6.90%) Malware Detection/Protection
Programming Languages
1 90 (22.17%) Python
2 53 (13.05%) PowerShell
3 43 (10.59%) Bash
4 29 (7.14%) JavaScript
5 21 (5.17%) SQL
6 20 (4.93%) C++
7 16 (3.94%) C#
8 7 (1.72%) C
8 7 (1.72%) Java
8 7 (1.72%) Shell Script
9 6 (1.48%) Go
9 6 (1.48%) VBA
10 5 (1.23%) Perl
11 2 (0.49%) Jython
11 2 (0.49%) Ruby
12 1 (0.25%) Groovy
12 1 (0.25%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 121 (29.80%) Security Cleared
2 103 (25.37%) SC Cleared
3 62 (15.27%) Degree
4 46 (11.33%) Cisco Certification
5 38 (9.36%) CCNP
6 31 (7.64%) CompTIA Security+
7 28 (6.90%) Computer Science Degree
8 25 (6.16%) CCNA
8 25 (6.16%) DV Cleared
9 18 (4.43%) CompTIA CySA+
10 16 (3.94%) CISSP
11 13 (3.20%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (2.71%) Network+ Certification
13 9 (2.22%) Azure Certification
13 9 (2.22%) MCSA
14 8 (1.97%) CCIE
14 8 (1.97%) MCSE
15 7 (1.72%) JNCIS
16 5 (1.23%) AWS Certification
16 5 (1.23%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 10 (2.46%) SLA
2 8 (1.97%) NIST
3 5 (1.23%) GDPR
4 4 (0.99%) NCSC
5 2 (0.49%) QA
5 2 (0.49%) RMADS
6 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.25%) GRC
System Software
1 83 (20.44%) Active Directory
2 50 (12.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (5.91%) Docker
4 19 (4.68%) Firmware
5 9 (2.22%) Hyper-V
5 9 (2.22%) Squid
5 9 (2.22%) VMware NSX
5 9 (2.22%) vSphere
6 8 (1.97%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (1.48%) Lustre
7 6 (1.48%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 5 (1.23%) GPFS
9 4 (0.99%) KVM
9 4 (0.99%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.74%) NFS
11 2 (0.49%) Ceph
11 2 (0.49%) iptables
11 2 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.25%) Citrix Presentation Server
12 1 (0.25%) Xen
Systems Management
1 65 (16.01%) Ansible
2 38 (9.36%) Kubernetes
3 36 (8.87%) Terraform
4 29 (7.14%) SCCM
5 22 (5.42%) FortiGate
6 21 (5.17%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (5.17%) Single Sign-On
7 19 (4.68%) Grafana
8 16 (3.94%) Prometheus
9 11 (2.71%) WSUS
10 9 (2.22%) Consul
10 9 (2.22%) Nagios
10 9 (2.22%) QRadar
11 6 (1.48%) Puppet
11 6 (1.48%) Tivoli NetView
12 5 (1.23%) CASB
12 5 (1.23%) Nessus
13 4 (0.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (0.74%) Red Hat Satellite
15 2 (0.49%) CA Wily
Vendors
1 104 (25.62%) Microsoft
2 67 (16.50%) F5
2 67 (16.50%) VMware
3 65 (16.01%) Cisco
4 41 (10.10%) Splunk
5 31 (7.64%) Blue Coat
5 31 (7.64%) ServiceNow
6 28 (6.90%) McAfee
6 28 (6.90%) Palo Alto
7 24 (5.91%) Fortinet
8 22 (5.42%) Red Hat
9 21 (5.17%) Citrix
9 21 (5.17%) Juniper
9 21 (5.17%) NetApp
10 16 (3.94%) Siemens
11 15 (3.69%) CheckPoint
12 13 (3.20%) Bloomberg
12 13 (3.20%) SolarWinds
13 12 (2.96%) Meraki
13 12 (2.96%) Zscaler