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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 270 218 290
Rank change year-on-year -52 +72 -39
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 417 353 336
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.87% 1.21% 0.79%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.16% 9.56% 6.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 251 228
10th Percentile £223 £225 £188
25th Percentile £363 £363 £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 £750 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £488 £494
% change year-on-year -7.69% -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% +3.92%
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% -

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 4,553 3,694 5,417
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.55% 12.71% 12.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,819 2,276 3,232
10th Percentile £263 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £362 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £490
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -0.51% -5.41%
75th Percentile £588 £591 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £694
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +2.70% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 244 164 416
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £39.02 £31.79 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +22.74% -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 £45.88
% change year-on-year +71.33% -46.25% +151.88%

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 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 15 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 15 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 -60 354 £470 -6.00% 228
UK excluding London -14 258 £450 -7.69% 186
London -72 124 £473 -0.53% 66
Work from Home -64 92 £450 -18.27% 81
North of England -9 89 £450 +20.00% 37
South East -32 64 £500 +2.56% 67
North West +6 57 £540 +116.00% 20
East of England -15 40 £228 -47.09% 28
Midlands -51 32 £400 -27.27% 20
West Midlands -42 29 £388 +0.65% 14
Scotland +16 27 £425 -3.95% 5
Yorkshire -43 27 £447 -12.78% 14
South West -33 19 £500 -18.70% 29
Wales -7 7 £408 -9.44% 7
North East -17 5 £306 +22.50% 4
East Midlands -32 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 (4.32%) Confluence
2 13 (3.12%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.40%) nginx
4 8 (1.92%) 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 (6.71%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.16%) 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 92 (22.06%) AWS
2 91 (21.82%) Azure
3 62 (14.87%) Microsoft 365
4 26 (6.24%) Entra ID
5 25 (6.00%) GCP
5 25 (6.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 17 (4.08%) Amazon EC2
7 16 (3.84%) Amazon EKS
8 15 (3.60%) Amazon S3
9 14 (3.36%) Route 53
10 13 (3.12%) AWS Lambda
10 13 (3.12%) OneDrive
10 13 (3.12%) Serverless
11 10 (2.40%) AWS CloudFormation
12 9 (2.16%) GitHub
13 7 (1.68%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (1.68%) Google Workspace
13 7 (1.68%) Nutanix
13 7 (1.68%) SaaS
14 6 (1.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 233 (55.88%) DNS
2 146 (35.01%) Firewall
3 99 (23.74%) DHCP
3 99 (23.74%) VPN
4 76 (18.23%) WAN
5 69 (16.55%) HTTP
5 69 (16.55%) LAN
6 66 (15.83%) SSL
7 64 (15.35%) Network Security
8 57 (13.67%) VLAN
9 54 (12.95%) BGP
10 50 (11.99%) BIG-IP
11 44 (10.55%) OSPF
12 34 (8.15%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 34 (8.15%) Wi-Fi
13 31 (7.43%) Ethernet
13 31 (7.43%) Wireshark
14 27 (6.47%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
15 18 (4.32%) Wireless
16 15 (3.60%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.88%) Elasticsearch
2 11 (2.64%) SQL Server
3 7 (1.68%) 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 (10.31%) JIRA
2 27 (6.47%) Fiddler
3 21 (5.04%) GitLab
4 19 (4.56%) Git
5 13 (3.12%) Eclipse
5 13 (3.12%) Visual Studio
6 12 (2.88%) Jenkins
7 9 (2.16%) Browser DevTools
8 7 (1.68%) Bitbucket
8 7 (1.68%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.96%) CircleCI
9 4 (0.96%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.72%) Artifactory
11 2 (0.48%) Introscope
11 2 (0.48%) Subversion
12 1 (0.24%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.24%) Postman
12 1 (0.24%) Travis CI
General
1 141 (33.81%) Social Skills
2 53 (12.71%) Finance
3 49 (11.75%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (9.35%) Banking
5 29 (6.95%) Public Sector
6 23 (5.52%) Investment Banking
6 23 (5.52%) Military
6 23 (5.52%) Presentation Skills
7 18 (4.32%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (4.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 10 (2.40%) 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%) Aviation
12 2 (0.48%) Japanese Language
12 2 (0.48%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 104 (24.94%) Network Engineer
2 49 (11.75%) Analyst
3 35 (8.39%) Web Engineer
4 34 (8.15%) Senior
5 31 (7.43%) Support Engineer
6 28 (6.71%) Architect
7 24 (5.76%) Security Engineer
8 22 (5.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 22 (5.28%) IT Support
9 21 (5.04%) Technical Engineer
10 20 (4.80%) IP Network Engineer
10 20 (4.80%) SOC Analyst
11 18 (4.32%) Blue Coat Engineer
12 17 (4.08%) IT Engineer
12 17 (4.08%) Systems Engineer
13 16 (3.84%) Junior
14 15 (3.60%) Integration Engineer
14 15 (3.60%) Lead
15 12 (2.88%) Junior Network Engineer
15 12 (2.88%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (5.28%) LDAP
2 15 (3.60%) SAML
2 15 (3.60%) Web Services
3 13 (3.12%) Node.js
4 12 (2.88%) JSON
4 12 (2.88%) OpenID
5 10 (2.40%) 802.1X
6 8 (1.92%) 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 (8.15%) Data Centre
2 29 (6.95%) Onboarding
3 24 (5.76%) Management Information System
4 23 (5.52%) Security Operations Centre
5 21 (5.04%) Cyberattack
6 15 (3.60%) Industry 4.0
6 15 (3.60%) Robotics
7 14 (3.36%) Security Posture
8 13 (3.12%) Cyber Threat
9 11 (2.64%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (2.64%) PKI
10 10 (2.40%) Public Cloud
11 9 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
12 8 (1.92%) Driving Licence
12 8 (1.92%) Mainframe
13 7 (1.68%) 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%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 175 (41.97%) Windows
2 97 (23.26%) Linux
3 49 (11.75%) Windows Server
4 21 (5.04%) Mac OS
5 15 (3.60%) Windows 10
6 14 (3.36%) Unix
7 13 (3.12%) Android
8 10 (2.40%) Apple iOS
9 9 (2.16%) Windows Server 2012
10 8 (1.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 8 (1.92%) zOS
11 6 (1.44%) Ubuntu
11 6 (1.44%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.96%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.72%) Debian
13 3 (0.72%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.72%) Windows Server 2003
14 2 (0.48%) AIX
14 2 (0.48%) CentOS
14 2 (0.48%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (29.26%) Problem-Solving
2 65 (15.59%) ITIL
3 52 (12.47%) Cybersecurity
4 51 (12.23%) Incident Response
4 51 (12.23%) SIEM
5 50 (11.99%) Agile
6 48 (11.51%) Load Balancing
7 43 (10.31%) DevOps
8 42 (10.07%) Migration
9 39 (9.35%) CI/CD
9 39 (9.35%) Security Operations
10 34 (8.15%) Validation
11 33 (7.91%) Customer Service
11 33 (7.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 31 (7.43%) High Availability
13 29 (6.95%) Computer Science
13 29 (6.95%) Data Loss Prevention
13 29 (6.95%) ITSM
13 29 (6.95%) Root Cause Analysis
14 28 (6.71%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 91 (21.82%) Python
2 47 (11.27%) PowerShell
3 44 (10.55%) Bash
4 28 (6.71%) JavaScript
5 21 (5.04%) SQL
6 18 (4.32%) C++
7 15 (3.60%) C#
8 9 (2.16%) Java
9 7 (1.68%) Shell Script
9 7 (1.68%) 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
1 126 (30.22%) Security Cleared
2 104 (24.94%) SC Cleared
3 68 (16.31%) Degree
4 44 (10.55%) Cisco Certification
5 37 (8.87%) CCNP
6 30 (7.19%) CompTIA Security+
7 29 (6.95%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (6.24%) DV Cleared
9 23 (5.52%) CCNA
10 18 (4.32%) CompTIA CySA+
11 17 (4.08%) CISSP
12 13 (3.12%) Microsoft Certification
13 9 (2.16%) Azure Certification
13 9 (2.16%) MCSA
14 8 (1.92%) CCIE
14 8 (1.92%) MCSE
14 8 (1.92%) Network+ Certification
15 7 (1.68%) JNCIS
16 6 (1.44%) AWS Certification
17 5 (1.20%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.64%) SLA
2 9 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.68%) NIST
4 5 (1.20%) GDPR
5 4 (0.96%) NCSC
6 3 (0.72%) QA
7 2 (0.48%) RMADS
8 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.24%) GRC
System Software
1 84 (20.14%) Active Directory
2 50 (11.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (5.28%) Docker
4 18 (4.32%) Firmware
5 13 (3.12%) Squid
6 11 (2.64%) Hyper-V
7 9 (2.16%) VMware NSX
7 9 (2.16%) vSphere
8 8 (1.92%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (1.92%) 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%) GPFS
12 1 (0.24%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 69 (16.55%) Ansible
2 39 (9.35%) Terraform
3 35 (8.39%) Kubernetes
4 26 (6.24%) SCCM
5 25 (6.00%) Grafana
6 24 (5.76%) FortiGate
6 24 (5.76%) Microsoft Intune
7 22 (5.28%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (4.08%) Prometheus
9 10 (2.40%) Nagios
9 10 (2.40%) WSUS
10 9 (2.16%) Consul
11 8 (1.92%) 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 (24.94%) Microsoft
2 68 (16.31%) F5
2 68 (16.31%) VMware
3 65 (15.59%) Cisco
4 41 (9.83%) Splunk
5 34 (8.15%) ServiceNow
6 31 (7.43%) Blue Coat
7 28 (6.71%) Palo Alto
8 27 (6.47%) McAfee
9 23 (5.52%) Fortinet
10 22 (5.28%) Red Hat
11 21 (5.04%) Citrix
12 20 (4.80%) Juniper
12 20 (4.80%) NetApp
13 16 (3.84%) Siemens
14 15 (3.60%) Zscaler
15 13 (3.12%) Bloomberg
15 13 (3.12%) SolarWinds
16 12 (2.88%) Arista
16 12 (2.88%) CheckPoint