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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 273 241 280
Rank change year-on-year -32 +39 -36
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 471 367 358
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.89% 1.13% 0.83%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.36% 9.27% 6.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 255 223 234
10th Percentile £191 £211 £200
25th Percentile £313 £353 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +11.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £550 £613 £571
90th Percentile £647 £745 £649
UK excluding London median daily rate £447 £450 £463
% change year-on-year -0.67% -2.70% +7.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 21 34
10th Percentile £21.25 £19.46 £20.00
25th Percentile £26.35 £41.45 £56.49
Median hourly rate £36.97 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -40.85% -3.85% +28.92%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 -
90th Percentile £79.45 - £66.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -40.43% - +11.84%

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 5,034 3,957 5,419
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.52% 12.19% 12.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,061 2,422 3,200
10th Percentile £238 £234 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.06% -3.90% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £471 £488
% change year-on-year +2.55% -3.53% +3.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 316 190 424
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £19.34 £24.33 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.22 £46.25 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -43.31% +11.45% +50.91%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £81.05 £73.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.00 £41.48 £47.50
% change year-on-year -37.31% -12.68% +5.56%

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 11 July 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 11 July 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 11 July 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 -25 423 £470 -1.05% 273
UK excluding London -32 274 £447 -0.67% 235
London -43 164 £470 -1.05% 74
Work from Home -61 112 £500 -9.09% 110
North of England -33 92 £447 -10.60% 45
South East -28 72 £530 +17.67% 86
North West -8 59 £475 +2.65% 18
Midlands -38 41 £401 -19.80% 34
East of England -15 37 £175 -58.82% 27
West Midlands -45 33 £400 -6.10% 21
South West -14 31 £475 -24.00% 37
Yorkshire -53 29 £447 -11.70% 23
Scotland -7 16 £301 -33.06% 6
East Midlands -20 8 £402 -26.91% 13
Wales -11 7 £408 - 5
North East -30 4 £306 +6.52% 8

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 30 (6.37%) SharePoint
2 17 (3.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (2.55%) Confluence
4 10 (2.12%) nginx
5 7 (1.49%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.85%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.64%) IIS
8 2 (0.42%) CICS
8 2 (0.42%) FactoryTalk
8 2 (0.42%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.42%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.42%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.42%) WebSphere Portal
9 1 (0.21%) Traefik
Applications
1 35 (7.43%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (2.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (1.91%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 1 (0.21%) Houdini
4 1 (0.21%) NUKE
4 1 (0.21%) Weka
Business Applications
1 4 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 129 (27.39%) Azure
2 108 (22.93%) AWS
3 97 (20.59%) Microsoft 365
4 51 (10.83%) Entra ID
5 33 (7.01%) GCP
6 29 (6.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 27 (5.73%) OneDrive
8 21 (4.46%) Route 53
9 16 (3.40%) Amazon EC2
10 15 (3.18%) Amazon EKS
10 15 (3.18%) Amazon S3
11 13 (2.76%) AWS Lambda
11 13 (2.76%) GitHub
11 13 (2.76%) Serverless
12 11 (2.34%) AWS CloudFormation
12 11 (2.34%) Google Workspace
13 8 (1.70%) Azure DevOps
13 8 (1.70%) OpenShift
14 7 (1.49%) IaaS
15 6 (1.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 273 (57.96%) DNS
2 186 (39.49%) Firewall
3 136 (28.87%) DHCP
4 125 (26.54%) VPN
5 86 (18.26%) WAN
6 84 (17.83%) Network Security
7 77 (16.35%) LAN
8 73 (15.50%) BGP
9 69 (14.65%) VLAN
10 68 (14.44%) HTTP
11 63 (13.38%) SSL
12 54 (11.46%) BIG-IP
13 47 (9.98%) OSPF
14 40 (8.49%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 39 (8.28%) Ethernet
16 37 (7.86%) Wi-Fi
17 30 (6.37%) Wireless
18 29 (6.16%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
18 29 (6.16%) Wireshark
19 24 (5.10%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.34%) Elasticsearch
1 11 (2.34%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.85%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.42%) MySQL
4 2 (0.42%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.21%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.21%) KDB
5 1 (0.21%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 49 (10.40%) JIRA
2 22 (4.67%) Fiddler
3 16 (3.40%) GitLab
4 14 (2.97%) Git
4 14 (2.97%) Visual Studio
5 13 (2.76%) Eclipse
5 13 (2.76%) Jenkins
6 10 (2.12%) Browser DevTools
7 7 (1.49%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.49%) SonarQube
8 6 (1.27%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.64%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.42%) Introscope
10 2 (0.42%) Subversion
11 1 (0.21%) MSI
11 1 (0.21%) Postman
General
1 184 (39.07%) Social Skills
2 63 (13.38%) Finance
3 61 (12.95%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (8.70%) Banking
5 29 (6.16%) Public Sector
6 24 (5.10%) Investment Banking
7 22 (4.67%) Presentation Skills
8 21 (4.46%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (4.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (3.61%) Military
10 15 (3.18%) Telecoms
11 8 (1.70%) Front Office
12 6 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (1.06%) Legal
14 4 (0.85%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.85%) Pharmaceutical
15 3 (0.64%) French Language
15 3 (0.64%) Marketing
15 3 (0.64%) Retail
16 2 (0.42%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 109 (23.14%) Network Engineer
2 51 (10.83%) Architect
2 51 (10.83%) Support Engineer
3 42 (8.92%) Analyst
4 38 (8.07%) IT Support
5 31 (6.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 31 (6.58%) Senior
6 29 (6.16%) Web Engineer
7 28 (5.94%) IT Engineer
8 25 (5.31%) Security Engineer
9 22 (4.67%) IT Support Engineer
9 22 (4.67%) Technical Engineer
10 20 (4.25%) Systems Engineer
11 19 (4.03%) IP Network Engineer
12 17 (3.61%) Blue Coat Engineer
13 15 (3.18%) Network Architect
14 14 (2.97%) Cloud Engineer
14 14 (2.97%) Software Engineer
15 13 (2.76%) C# Software Engineer
15 13 (2.76%) Junior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.25%) LDAP
1 20 (4.25%) SAML
2 14 (2.97%) JSON
3 13 (2.76%) Node.js
3 13 (2.76%) Web Services
4 12 (2.55%) OpenID
4 12 (2.55%) REST
5 8 (1.70%) 802.1X
6 6 (1.27%) .NET
6 6 (1.27%) NETCONF
6 6 (1.27%) OpenConfig
6 6 (1.27%) RESTCONF
6 6 (1.27%) XML
6 6 (1.27%) YANG
7 5 (1.06%) OAuth
8 4 (0.85%) ARM Templates
9 3 (0.64%) eBPF
9 3 (0.64%) Kafka
9 3 (0.64%) Middleware
9 3 (0.64%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 64 (13.59%) Data Centre
2 42 (8.92%) Onboarding
3 24 (5.10%) Management Information System
4 22 (4.67%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 20 (4.25%) Security Posture
6 15 (3.18%) Industry 4.0
6 15 (3.18%) Robotics
7 14 (2.97%) Driving Licence
7 14 (2.97%) Hybrid Cloud
7 14 (2.97%) PKI
7 14 (2.97%) Security Operations Centre
8 12 (2.55%) Cyber Threat
8 12 (2.55%) Private Cloud
8 12 (2.55%) Public Cloud
9 11 (2.34%) Cloud Native
9 11 (2.34%) Operational Technology
10 10 (2.12%) Analytical Mindset
10 10 (2.12%) SCADA
10 10 (2.12%) Self-Motivation
11 9 (1.91%) Cyberattack
Operating Systems
1 195 (41.40%) Windows
2 90 (19.11%) Linux
3 49 (10.40%) Windows Server
4 38 (8.07%) Mac OS
5 29 (6.16%) Windows 10
6 17 (3.61%) Apple iOS
6 17 (3.61%) Unix
7 13 (2.76%) Android
8 9 (1.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 9 (1.91%) Ubuntu
9 7 (1.49%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (1.27%) zOS
11 3 (0.64%) CentOS
11 3 (0.64%) Check Point GAiA
11 3 (0.64%) Windows 7
11 3 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.42%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.42%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (28.03%) Problem-Solving
2 92 (19.53%) ITIL
3 59 (12.53%) Agile
4 54 (11.46%) CI/CD
4 54 (11.46%) Load Balancing
5 50 (10.62%) Customer Service
6 49 (10.40%) Incident Response
7 48 (10.19%) Cybersecurity
8 47 (9.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 45 (9.55%) High Availability
9 45 (9.55%) ITSM
9 45 (9.55%) Migration
10 44 (9.34%) DevOps
11 43 (9.13%) Infrastructure as Code
12 42 (8.92%) SIEM
13 33 (7.01%) Root Cause Analysis
14 32 (6.79%) Stakeholder Management
14 32 (6.79%) Validation
15 31 (6.58%) Decision-Making
16 30 (6.37%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 120 (25.48%) Python
2 60 (12.74%) PowerShell
3 53 (11.25%) Bash
4 27 (5.73%) JavaScript
5 23 (4.88%) C++
6 16 (3.40%) C#
7 12 (2.55%) SQL
8 9 (1.91%) VBA
9 6 (1.27%) C
10 5 (1.06%) ActionScript
11 4 (0.85%) Java
11 4 (0.85%) Perl
12 3 (0.64%) Go
13 2 (0.42%) Jython
13 2 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.42%) Objective-C
13 2 (0.42%) Ruby
13 2 (0.42%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.21%) Groovy
14 1 (0.21%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 119 (25.27%) Security Cleared
2 86 (18.26%) SC Cleared
3 81 (17.20%) Degree
4 55 (11.68%) Cisco Certification
5 40 (8.49%) CCNP
6 32 (6.79%) DV Cleared
7 29 (6.16%) CCNA
8 24 (5.10%) Microsoft Certification
9 21 (4.46%) Computer Science Degree
10 20 (4.25%) CISSP
11 17 (3.61%) CCIE
12 16 (3.40%) CompTIA Security+
13 12 (2.55%) Network+ Certification
14 11 (2.34%) Azure Certification
14 11 (2.34%) CompTIA CySA+
15 10 (2.12%) MCSA
15 10 (2.12%) MCSE
16 6 (1.27%) A+ Certification
16 6 (1.27%) JNCIE
17 5 (1.06%) GCIA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (2.55%) NCSC
1 12 (2.55%) NIST
2 11 (2.34%) SLA
3 9 (1.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.49%) QA
5 5 (1.06%) GDPR
6 4 (0.85%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.85%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.42%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 2 (0.42%) Government Security Classifications
7 2 (0.42%) GxP
7 2 (0.42%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.42%) RMADS
8 1 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.21%) GRC
8 1 (0.21%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 115 (24.42%) Active Directory
2 67 (14.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (3.82%) Firmware
3 18 (3.82%) Hyper-V
4 17 (3.61%) Docker
5 15 (3.18%) VMware NSX
5 15 (3.18%) vSphere
6 13 (2.76%) Squid
7 12 (2.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (1.06%) NFS
8 5 (1.06%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.42%) KVM
10 2 (0.42%) RACF
10 2 (0.42%) VirtualBox
11 1 (0.21%) GPFS
11 1 (0.21%) iptables
11 1 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.21%) Snort
11 1 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 81 (17.20%) Ansible
2 54 (11.46%) Terraform
3 37 (7.86%) Kubernetes
4 35 (7.43%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (5.52%) Single Sign-On
6 24 (5.10%) FortiGate
7 23 (4.88%) Grafana
8 21 (4.46%) SCCM
9 18 (3.82%) Prometheus
10 11 (2.34%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (2.12%) WSUS
12 9 (1.91%) Consul
13 6 (1.27%) CASB
14 5 (1.06%) Nessus
14 5 (1.06%) QRadar
14 5 (1.06%) Suricata
14 5 (1.06%) VxRail
15 4 (0.85%) Tivoli NetView
16 3 (0.64%) Nagios
16 3 (0.64%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 160 (33.97%) Microsoft
2 84 (17.83%) Cisco
3 78 (16.56%) VMware
4 71 (15.07%) F5
5 51 (10.83%) ServiceNow
6 30 (6.37%) Fortinet
7 28 (5.94%) Palo Alto
8 27 (5.73%) Blue Coat
9 26 (5.52%) Google
10 23 (4.88%) Citrix
10 23 (4.88%) Splunk
10 23 (4.88%) Zscaler
11 22 (4.67%) Juniper
12 21 (4.46%) Infoblox
12 21 (4.46%) McAfee
13 19 (4.03%) NetApp
14 18 (3.82%) CheckPoint
14 18 (3.82%) Red Hat
15 17 (3.61%) Siemens
16 13 (2.76%) SolarWinds