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

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 250 184 224
Rank change year-on-year -66 +40 +3
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 440 435 462
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.07% 1.44% 1.04%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 10.49% 10.83% 7.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 251 283 310
10th Percentile £200 £220 £187
25th Percentile £315 £400 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £525 £488
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £575 £675 £575
90th Percentile £653 £775 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -6.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 8 26
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.55 £19.63
25th Percentile £21.25 £20.56 £35.31
Median hourly rate £34.00 £43.50 £55.75
Median % change year-on-year -21.84% -21.97% -14.24%
75th Percentile £64.69 £64.06 £57.25
90th Percentile £65.00 £67.63 £69.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.50 £32.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year -21.54% -42.47% -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 4,195 4,017 5,946
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.24% 13.30% 13.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,741 2,407 3,555
10th Percentile £204 £209 £205
25th Percentile £358 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £486
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.88% -6.09%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £470 £475
% change year-on-year -1.60% -1.05% +1.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 131 388
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.44 £14.27
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.46 £19.99
Median hourly rate £28.38 £32.50 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -12.68% -29.16% +130.78%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £74.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £30.04 £50.00
% change year-on-year +34.95% -39.92% +151.51%

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 24 February 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 24 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for TCP/IP in the UK

TCP/IP
Top 15 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 24 February 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 -31 384 £458 -11.71% 232
UK excluding London -20 285 £450 -10.00% 204
London -62 119 £492 -1.60% 55
Work from Home -58 112 £425 -29.98% 83
North of England -30 91 £443 -9.00% 54
South East -17 60 £500 -10.31% 60
East of England +4 56 £350 -30.00% 30
North West -5 51 £575 +53.33% 29
Yorkshire -41 37 £443 -23.04% 16
West Midlands -27 36 £173 -18.34% 14
Midlands -40 36 £173 -61.67% 19
South West -24 32 £638 +3.66% 29
Scotland +21 28 £388 -13.36% 12
Wales -10 4 £250 -37.50% 6
North East -19 3 £200 +6.67% 12

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 24 (5.45%) SharePoint
2 22 (5.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 19 (4.32%) Confluence
4 14 (3.18%) Skype for Business
5 8 (1.82%) nginx
6 7 (1.59%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.68%) Apache
8 2 (0.45%) WordPress
9 1 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
9 1 (0.23%) IIS
9 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.23%) Traefik
Applications
1 45 (10.23%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.82%) MS Visio
3 6 (1.36%) Weka
4 5 (1.14%) Acrobat
5 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
5 2 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.23%) RMDS
1 1 (0.23%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 106 (24.09%) AWS
2 98 (22.27%) Azure
3 83 (18.86%) Microsoft 365
4 25 (5.68%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 23 (5.23%) Amazon S3
5 23 (5.23%) GCP
6 22 (5.00%) Amazon EC2
7 21 (4.77%) Entra ID
8 13 (2.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 13 (2.95%) Amazon ELB
9 11 (2.50%) GitHub
9 11 (2.50%) OneDrive
9 11 (2.50%) Route 53
10 9 (2.05%) Amazon EKS
10 9 (2.05%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (1.82%) AWS Lambda
11 8 (1.82%) Serverless
12 7 (1.59%) Cloud Computing
13 6 (1.36%) Google Workspace
13 6 (1.36%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 259 (58.86%) DNS
2 146 (33.18%) Firewall
3 124 (28.18%) DHCP
4 122 (27.73%) VPN
5 78 (17.73%) WAN
6 77 (17.50%) SSL
7 74 (16.82%) LAN
8 64 (14.55%) VLAN
9 61 (13.86%) Network Security
10 57 (12.95%) HTTP
11 43 (9.77%) Wireshark
12 40 (9.09%) BIG-IP
13 35 (7.95%) BGP
13 35 (7.95%) Wi-Fi
14 31 (7.05%) OSPF
15 27 (6.14%) Ethernet
16 26 (5.91%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
16 26 (5.91%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 17 (3.86%) Wireless
18 15 (3.41%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (3.86%) SQL Server
2 11 (2.50%) Elasticsearch
2 11 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (0.91%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.23%) Amazon Aurora
4 1 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.23%) Apache Cassandra
4 1 (0.23%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.23%) Big Data
4 1 (0.23%) Electronic Patient Records
4 1 (0.23%) Impala
4 1 (0.23%) MySQL
4 1 (0.23%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle Reports
4 1 (0.23%) Power BI
4 1 (0.23%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.23%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 32 (7.27%) JIRA
2 31 (7.05%) GitLab
3 30 (6.82%) Fiddler
4 27 (6.14%) Git
5 23 (5.23%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.82%) Eclipse
6 8 (1.82%) Visual Studio
7 6 (1.36%) Bitbucket
7 6 (1.36%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.91%) CircleCI
9 3 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.68%) Subversion
10 2 (0.45%) Maven
10 2 (0.45%) TeamCity
11 1 (0.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.23%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.23%) GCC
11 1 (0.23%) IntelliJ
11 1 (0.23%) MSI
11 1 (0.23%) Travis CI
General
1 153 (34.77%) Social Skills
2 67 (15.23%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (8.41%) Public Sector
4 35 (7.95%) Finance
5 32 (7.27%) Banking
6 27 (6.14%) Presentation Skills
7 24 (5.45%) Investment Banking
8 21 (4.77%) Military
9 18 (4.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 13 (2.95%) Documentation Skills
11 11 (2.50%) Telecoms
12 9 (2.05%) Front Office
13 7 (1.59%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (1.14%) Legal
15 4 (0.91%) Law
15 4 (0.91%) Local Government
16 3 (0.68%) French Language
16 3 (0.68%) Manufacturing
16 3 (0.68%) Marketing
17 2 (0.45%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 102 (23.18%) Network Engineer
2 62 (14.09%) Analyst
3 58 (13.18%) Support Engineer
4 41 (9.32%) Senior
5 35 (7.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 31 (7.05%) IT Support
7 29 (6.59%) Web Engineer
8 26 (5.91%) Architect
8 26 (5.91%) IT Engineer
9 21 (4.77%) SOC Analyst
10 20 (4.55%) Technical Engineer
11 19 (4.32%) 2nd Line Support
11 19 (4.32%) Junior
11 19 (4.32%) Technical Analyst
12 18 (4.09%) IT Support Engineer
12 18 (4.09%) Security Engineer
12 18 (4.09%) Technical Support
13 17 (3.86%) DevOps Engineer
13 17 (3.86%) Systems Engineer
14 16 (3.64%) Blue Coat Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (3.64%) LDAP
2 12 (2.73%) Web Services
3 10 (2.27%) Middleware
4 9 (2.05%) OpenID
5 8 (1.82%) Node.js
6 7 (1.59%) REST
7 6 (1.36%) JSON
8 5 (1.14%) FIX Protocol
8 5 (1.14%) SAML
9 4 (0.91%) .NET
9 4 (0.91%) React
9 4 (0.91%) SOAP
9 4 (0.91%) Ultra Messaging
10 3 (0.68%) 802.1X
10 3 (0.68%) AngularJS
10 3 (0.68%) ASP.NET Web API
10 3 (0.68%) Bootstrap
10 3 (0.68%) Express.js
10 3 (0.68%) Kafka
10 3 (0.68%) WCF
Miscellaneous
1 33 (7.50%) Management Information System
2 25 (5.68%) Data Centre
3 22 (5.00%) Onboarding
4 20 (4.55%) Security Operations Centre
5 19 (4.32%) Cyberattack
6 18 (4.09%) Analytical Mindset
7 16 (3.64%) Public Cloud
8 15 (3.41%) Industry 4.0
8 15 (3.41%) Robotics
9 13 (2.95%) CMDB
9 13 (2.95%) NHS
10 12 (2.73%) PKI
11 11 (2.50%) Cyber Threat
11 11 (2.50%) Driving Licence
11 11 (2.50%) Private Cloud
11 11 (2.50%) Security Posture
12 8 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
12 8 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
13 6 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
13 6 (1.36%) Grid Computing
Operating Systems
1 201 (45.68%) Windows
2 126 (28.64%) Linux
3 52 (11.82%) Windows Server
4 32 (7.27%) Windows 10
5 14 (3.18%) Android
6 13 (2.95%) Unix
7 11 (2.50%) Mac OS
8 10 (2.27%) Windows Server 2019
9 8 (1.82%) Apple iOS
9 8 (1.82%) Windows Server 2012
10 7 (1.59%) Windows Server 2016
11 5 (1.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 5 (1.14%) Ubuntu
11 5 (1.14%) VMS
12 4 (0.91%) Windows Server 2003
12 4 (0.91%) zOS
13 3 (0.68%) Debian
13 3 (0.68%) Windows 7
14 2 (0.45%) AIX
14 2 (0.45%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 134 (30.45%) Problem-Solving
2 70 (15.91%) ITIL
3 55 (12.50%) Incident Response
4 53 (12.05%) DevOps
4 53 (12.05%) SIEM
5 52 (11.82%) Cybersecurity
6 48 (10.91%) Agile
6 48 (10.91%) CI/CD
6 48 (10.91%) Load Balancing
7 45 (10.23%) Infrastructure as Code
8 44 (10.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 42 (9.55%) Customer Service
10 41 (9.32%) Root Cause Analysis
11 33 (7.50%) Migration
11 33 (7.50%) Security Operations
12 30 (6.82%) Data Loss Prevention
12 30 (6.82%) Decision-Making
12 30 (6.82%) Knowledge Transfer
13 29 (6.59%) Continuous Improvement
13 29 (6.59%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 113 (25.68%) Python
2 77 (17.50%) PowerShell
3 64 (14.55%) Bash
4 21 (4.77%) SQL
5 15 (3.41%) JavaScript
6 14 (3.18%) Java
7 13 (2.95%) C#
7 13 (2.95%) C++
8 11 (2.50%) Perl
9 8 (1.82%) Go
10 7 (1.59%) Shell Script
11 6 (1.36%) C
12 3 (0.68%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.45%) Ruby
13 2 (0.45%) VBA
13 2 (0.45%) VBScript
14 1 (0.23%) Bicep
14 1 (0.23%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 139 (31.59%) Security Cleared
2 105 (23.86%) SC Cleared
3 61 (13.86%) Degree
4 40 (9.09%) DV Cleared
5 37 (8.41%) Cisco Certification
6 31 (7.05%) CompTIA Security+
7 30 (6.82%) CCNP
8 28 (6.36%) Microsoft Certification
9 21 (4.77%) Network+ Certification
10 20 (4.55%) Computer Science Degree
11 19 (4.32%) CISSP
12 17 (3.86%) Azure Certification
13 16 (3.64%) CCNA
13 16 (3.64%) CompTIA CySA+
14 11 (2.50%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 11 (2.50%) Server+ Certification
15 10 (2.27%) JNCIS
16 9 (2.05%) MCSE
17 8 (1.82%) CCIE
18 7 (1.59%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.18%) GDPR
2 11 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 8 (1.82%) NIST
3 8 (1.82%) SLA
4 6 (1.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 5 (1.14%) NCSC
6 4 (0.91%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.45%) QA
8 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.23%) GRC
8 1 (0.23%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.23%) RMADS
8 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 96 (21.82%) Active Directory
2 59 (13.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 46 (10.45%) Docker
4 23 (5.23%) Hyper-V
5 18 (4.09%) Firmware
6 11 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (2.50%) VMware NSX
7 10 (2.27%) vSphere
8 7 (1.59%) Lustre
8 7 (1.59%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 7 (1.59%) Squid
9 6 (1.36%) GPFS
9 6 (1.36%) KVM
9 6 (1.36%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (1.14%) NDS
10 5 (1.14%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 5 (1.14%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.91%) NFS
12 2 (0.45%) Ceph
12 2 (0.45%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 85 (19.32%) Ansible
2 50 (11.36%) Terraform
3 41 (9.32%) Kubernetes
4 35 (7.95%) SCCM
5 30 (6.82%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (5.00%) Grafana
7 19 (4.32%) Prometheus
8 16 (3.64%) FortiGate
8 16 (3.64%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (2.50%) QRadar
10 9 (2.05%) Nagios
10 9 (2.05%) WSUS
11 8 (1.82%) Puppet
12 7 (1.59%) Consul
13 5 (1.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (1.14%) CASB
13 5 (1.14%) Nessus
13 5 (1.14%) Red Hat Satellite
13 5 (1.14%) Tivoli NetView
14 4 (0.91%) Nmap
Vendors
1 124 (28.18%) Microsoft
2 83 (18.86%) VMware
3 71 (16.14%) F5
4 56 (12.73%) Cisco
5 45 (10.23%) Splunk
6 42 (9.55%) Palo Alto
7 35 (7.95%) Blue Coat
8 32 (7.27%) McAfee
9 29 (6.59%) CheckPoint
10 28 (6.36%) ServiceNow
11 23 (5.23%) Juniper
12 22 (5.00%) NetApp
13 21 (4.77%) Fortinet
14 19 (4.32%) Red Hat
15 16 (3.64%) SolarWinds
16 15 (3.41%) Oracle
16 15 (3.41%) Siemens
17 13 (2.95%) Citrix
17 13 (2.95%) Zscaler
18 12 (2.73%) Meraki