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

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 280 220 278
Rank change year-on-year -60 +58 -37
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 407 359 353
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.86% 1.23% 0.82%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.91% 9.63% 6.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 231 256 242
10th Percentile £225 £225 £188
25th Percentile £368 £379 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% +2.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £628 £575
90th Percentile £638 £750 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £506 £500
% change year-on-year -11.11% +1.25% +4.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 9 19
10th Percentile £21.25 £17.87 £16.00
25th Percentile £24.50 £28.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -3.67% -3.52% -13.09%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile - - £66.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -8.00% -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 4,566 3,729 5,522
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.60% 12.73% 12.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,845 2,294 3,303
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £488 £495
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -1.52% -4.81%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.15% -2.11% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 175 420
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.32 £16.72
Median hourly rate £41.94 £36.65 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.45% -8.39% +111.30%
75th Percentile £67.13 £58.09 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £49.36 £24.71 £45.88
% change year-on-year +99.76% -46.14% +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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -57 343 £470 -6.00% 202
UK excluding London -22 260 £450 -11.11% 170
London -71 112 £475 - 60
North of England -12 91 £450 +3.09% 39
Work from Home -78 88 £448 -18.50% 77
South East -35 60 £523 -5.00% 53
North West +5 57 £555 +77.60% 17
East of England -23 44 £315 -26.74% 29
Midlands -51 34 £375 -31.82% 16
West Midlands -35 31 £300 +42.86% 14
Yorkshire -37 29 £447 -22.26% 16
Scotland +5 28 £425 -3.95% 4
South West -45 17 £550 -10.57% 29
Wales -13 7 £408 -4.12% 10
North East -19 5 £306 +22.50% 7
East Midlands -37 3 £625 +13.64% 2

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 17 (4.18%) Confluence
2 10 (2.46%) nginx
3 8 (1.97%) SharePoint
4 7 (1.72%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (1.23%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.74%) Apache
6 3 (0.74%) IIS
6 3 (0.74%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.49%) IBM HTTP Server
7 2 (0.49%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 2 (0.49%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.49%) WebSphere Portal
7 2 (0.49%) WordPress
8 1 (0.25%) CICS
8 1 (0.25%) Traefik
Applications
1 31 (7.62%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.46%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.23%) Acrobat
4 4 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.98%) Weka
Business Applications
1 1 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 87 (21.38%) Azure
2 85 (20.88%) AWS
3 61 (14.99%) Microsoft 365
4 27 (6.63%) GCP
5 24 (5.90%) Entra ID
6 21 (5.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 15 (3.69%) Amazon S3
8 14 (3.44%) Route 53
9 13 (3.19%) Amazon EC2
9 13 (3.19%) AWS Lambda
9 13 (3.19%) Serverless
10 12 (2.95%) Amazon EKS
11 9 (2.21%) AWS CloudFormation
11 9 (2.21%) GitHub
11 9 (2.21%) Google Workspace
11 9 (2.21%) OneDrive
12 8 (1.97%) SaaS
13 7 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (1.72%) Nutanix
14 4 (0.98%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 227 (55.77%) DNS
2 143 (35.14%) Firewall
3 100 (24.57%) VPN
4 92 (22.60%) DHCP
5 80 (19.66%) WAN
6 71 (17.44%) LAN
7 66 (16.22%) HTTP
8 64 (15.72%) SSL
9 60 (14.74%) Network Security
10 58 (14.25%) VLAN
11 52 (12.78%) BGP
12 50 (12.29%) BIG-IP
13 44 (10.81%) OSPF
14 36 (8.85%) Wi-Fi
15 34 (8.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 33 (8.11%) Wireshark
17 32 (7.86%) Ethernet
18 27 (6.63%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
19 19 (4.67%) Wireless
20 16 (3.93%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.95%) Elasticsearch
2 11 (2.70%) SQL Server
3 7 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.23%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.49%) MySQL
6 1 (0.25%) Amazon Aurora
6 1 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.25%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 41 (10.07%) JIRA
2 28 (6.88%) Fiddler
3 17 (4.18%) GitLab
4 14 (3.44%) Eclipse
4 14 (3.44%) Git
4 14 (3.44%) Visual Studio
5 12 (2.95%) Jenkins
6 9 (2.21%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (1.72%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.72%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.98%) CircleCI
8 4 (0.98%) 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
1 142 (34.89%) Social Skills
2 49 (12.04%) Finance
3 47 (11.55%) Analytical Skills
4 42 (10.32%) Banking
5 28 (6.88%) Public Sector
6 26 (6.39%) Investment Banking
6 26 (6.39%) Presentation Skills
7 23 (5.65%) Military
8 18 (4.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (4.18%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (2.70%) Telecoms
11 8 (1.97%) Front Office
12 6 (1.47%) Law
13 3 (0.74%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.74%) French Language
13 3 (0.74%) Legal
13 3 (0.74%) Marketing
14 2 (0.49%) Japanese Language
14 2 (0.49%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.49%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 101 (24.82%) Network Engineer
2 50 (12.29%) Analyst
3 36 (8.85%) Web Engineer
4 34 (8.35%) Senior
5 29 (7.13%) Support Engineer
6 28 (6.88%) Architect
7 22 (5.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 22 (5.41%) Security Engineer
8 21 (5.16%) IP Network Engineer
9 20 (4.91%) SOC Analyst
10 19 (4.67%) Blue Coat Engineer
10 19 (4.67%) IT Support
11 18 (4.42%) Technical Engineer
12 17 (4.18%) Systems Engineer
13 15 (3.69%) Integration Engineer
13 15 (3.69%) IT Engineer
13 15 (3.69%) Lead
14 11 (2.70%) IT Support Engineer
14 11 (2.70%) Junior
14 11 (2.70%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (5.16%) LDAP
2 16 (3.93%) Web Services
3 15 (3.69%) SAML
4 14 (3.44%) Node.js
5 12 (2.95%) JSON
5 12 (2.95%) OpenID
6 10 (2.46%) 802.1X
7 7 (1.72%) REST
8 5 (1.23%) Kafka
8 5 (1.23%) OAuth
9 4 (0.98%) NETCONF
9 4 (0.98%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.98%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.98%) XML
9 4 (0.98%) YANG
10 3 (0.74%) ARM Templates
10 3 (0.74%) HTML
10 3 (0.74%) Middleware
11 2 (0.49%) JMS
11 2 (0.49%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 27 (6.63%) Data Centre
1 27 (6.63%) Onboarding
2 25 (6.14%) Management Information System
3 23 (5.65%) Security Operations Centre
4 21 (5.16%) Cyberattack
5 15 (3.69%) Industry 4.0
5 15 (3.69%) Robotics
6 14 (3.44%) Security Posture
7 12 (2.95%) Enterprise Software
7 12 (2.95%) Public Cloud
8 11 (2.70%) Cyber Threat
8 11 (2.70%) PKI
9 9 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (2.21%) Private Cloud
10 8 (1.97%) Driving Licence
11 7 (1.72%) Mainframe
11 7 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
12 6 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
12 6 (1.47%) CMDB
12 6 (1.47%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 172 (42.26%) Windows
2 101 (24.82%) Linux
3 49 (12.04%) Windows Server
4 14 (3.44%) Mac OS
4 14 (3.44%) Unix
4 14 (3.44%) Windows 10
5 13 (3.19%) Android
6 9 (2.21%) Windows Server 2012
7 7 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (1.72%) zOS
8 6 (1.47%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (1.23%) Apple iOS
9 5 (1.23%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.98%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.74%) Debian
11 3 (0.74%) Windows 7
11 3 (0.74%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.49%) AIX
12 2 (0.49%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.49%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (29.48%) Problem-Solving
2 64 (15.72%) ITIL
3 54 (13.27%) Cybersecurity
4 52 (12.78%) Agile
5 50 (12.29%) SIEM
6 49 (12.04%) Incident Response
7 48 (11.79%) Load Balancing
8 40 (9.83%) DevOps
9 39 (9.58%) Migration
9 39 (9.58%) Security Operations
10 36 (8.85%) Validation
11 35 (8.60%) CI/CD
12 31 (7.62%) Customer Service
12 31 (7.62%) Root Cause Analysis
13 30 (7.37%) Data Loss Prevention
13 30 (7.37%) High Availability
13 30 (7.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 28 (6.88%) Change Management
14 28 (6.88%) Decision-Making
14 28 (6.88%) Malware Detection/Protection
Programming Languages
1 89 (21.87%) Python
2 49 (12.04%) PowerShell
3 42 (10.32%) Bash
4 29 (7.13%) JavaScript
5 21 (5.16%) SQL
6 19 (4.67%) C++
7 16 (3.93%) C#
8 8 (1.97%) Java
9 7 (1.72%) Shell Script
9 7 (1.72%) VBA
10 6 (1.47%) C
10 6 (1.47%) Go
11 5 (1.23%) Perl
12 2 (0.49%) Jython
12 2 (0.49%) Ruby
13 1 (0.25%) Groovy
13 1 (0.25%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 122 (29.98%) Security Cleared
2 103 (25.31%) SC Cleared
3 62 (15.23%) Degree
4 46 (11.30%) Cisco Certification
5 37 (9.09%) CCNP
6 30 (7.37%) CompTIA Security+
7 28 (6.88%) Computer Science Degree
8 25 (6.14%) CCNA
8 25 (6.14%) DV Cleared
9 18 (4.42%) CompTIA CySA+
10 16 (3.93%) CISSP
11 13 (3.19%) Microsoft Certification
12 9 (2.21%) Azure Certification
12 9 (2.21%) MCSA
12 9 (2.21%) Network+ Certification
13 8 (1.97%) CCIE
13 8 (1.97%) MCSE
14 7 (1.72%) JNCIS
15 5 (1.23%) AWS Certification
15 5 (1.23%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.70%) SLA
2 9 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (1.72%) NIST
4 5 (1.23%) GDPR
5 4 (0.98%) NCSC
6 2 (0.49%) QA
6 2 (0.49%) RMADS
7 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.25%) GRC
System Software
1 81 (19.90%) Active Directory
2 49 (12.04%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (5.65%) Docker
4 19 (4.67%) Firmware
5 9 (2.21%) Hyper-V
5 9 (2.21%) Squid
5 9 (2.21%) VMware NSX
5 9 (2.21%) vSphere
6 8 (1.97%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (1.23%) Lustre
7 5 (1.23%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 4 (0.98%) GPFS
8 4 (0.98%) KVM
8 4 (0.98%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.74%) NFS
10 2 (0.49%) Ceph
10 2 (0.49%) iptables
10 2 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.25%) RHEV
11 1 (0.25%) Xen
Systems Management
1 67 (16.46%) Ansible
2 37 (9.09%) Kubernetes
3 35 (8.60%) Terraform
4 28 (6.88%) SCCM
5 23 (5.65%) FortiGate
5 23 (5.65%) Single Sign-On
6 21 (5.16%) Microsoft Intune
7 19 (4.67%) Grafana
8 16 (3.93%) Prometheus
9 11 (2.70%) WSUS
10 9 (2.21%) Consul
10 9 (2.21%) Nagios
11 8 (1.97%) QRadar
12 6 (1.47%) CASB
12 6 (1.47%) Puppet
12 6 (1.47%) Tivoli NetView
13 5 (1.23%) Nessus
14 4 (0.98%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 3 (0.74%) Red Hat Satellite
16 2 (0.49%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 104 (25.55%) Microsoft
2 68 (16.71%) F5
3 66 (16.22%) VMware
4 65 (15.97%) Cisco
5 40 (9.83%) Splunk
6 32 (7.86%) Blue Coat
7 31 (7.62%) ServiceNow
8 28 (6.88%) McAfee
8 28 (6.88%) Palo Alto
9 24 (5.90%) Fortinet
10 22 (5.41%) Red Hat
11 21 (5.16%) Juniper
11 21 (5.16%) NetApp
12 20 (4.91%) Citrix
13 16 (3.93%) Siemens
14 14 (3.44%) Zscaler
15 13 (3.19%) Bloomberg
15 13 (3.19%) CheckPoint
15 13 (3.19%) SolarWinds
16 12 (2.95%) Meraki