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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 275 241 279
Rank change year-on-year -34 +38 -59
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 479 362 338
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.91% 1.10% 0.85%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.71% 9.17% 6.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 261 211 225
10th Percentile £205 £200 £201
25th Percentile £325 £350 £262
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -5.01%
75th Percentile £560 £600 £575
90th Percentile £658 £653 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +5.56% - +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 25 31
10th Percentile £25.17 £19.98 £20.00
25th Percentile £31.25 £45.75 £62.50
Median hourly rate £47.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.69% - +28.92%
75th Percentile £65.00 - -
90th Percentile £97.56 £86.98 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £49.75 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -23.46% - +50.39%

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 4,935 3,947 4,876
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.39% 12.03% 12.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,949 2,411 2,952
10th Percentile £250 £235 £213
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 338 196 342
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £18.01
Median hourly rate £26.22 £48.75 £45.44
Median % change year-on-year -46.22% +7.28% -9.12%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £83.50 £74.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.66 £44.00 £51.50
% change year-on-year -39.41% -14.56% -10.30%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -12 443 £483 -3.50% 283
UK excluding London -16 275 £475 +5.56% 213
London -37 179 £475 -8.43% 104
Work from Home -66 113 £500 -9.09% 100
North of England -39 89 £475 -5.00% 46
South East -27 80 £527 +26.44% 70
North West -11 58 £475 -0.05% 24
South West -6 38 £594 -4.04% 36
Midlands -42 38 £402 -19.60% 30
East of England -11 33 £250 -52.38% 22
West Midlands -43 30 £406 +1.06% 18
Yorkshire -49 28 £475 -6.17% 15
Scotland -21 11 £178 -60.11% 9
East Midlands -11 8 £402 -26.91% 12
Wales -11 7 £408 +126.39% 4
North East -44 3 £413 +65.00% 9

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 42 (8.77%) SharePoint
2 22 (4.59%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.71%) Confluence
4 9 (1.88%) nginx
5 7 (1.46%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.84%) FactoryTalk
6 4 (0.84%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.63%) IIS
8 2 (0.42%) CICS
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 (7.31%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (2.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (1.46%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.42%) Houdini
5 2 (0.42%) NUKE
6 1 (0.21%) Weka
Business Applications
1 7 (1.46%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 156 (32.57%) Azure
2 113 (23.59%) AWS
3 105 (21.92%) Microsoft 365
4 64 (13.36%) Entra ID
5 36 (7.52%) GCP
6 32 (6.68%) OneDrive
7 28 (5.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 19 (3.97%) GitHub
9 16 (3.34%) Route 53
10 15 (3.13%) Amazon EC2
11 11 (2.30%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (2.30%) Azure Monitor
11 11 (2.30%) Google Workspace
12 10 (2.09%) Amazon EKS
13 9 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (1.88%) Azure Sentinel
13 9 (1.88%) OpenShift
14 8 (1.67%) Akamai
14 8 (1.67%) Amazon S3
14 8 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 279 (58.25%) DNS
2 204 (42.59%) Firewall
3 160 (33.40%) DHCP
4 136 (28.39%) VPN
5 91 (19.00%) Network Security
6 87 (18.16%) WAN
7 76 (15.87%) LAN
8 74 (15.45%) VLAN
9 72 (15.03%) BGP
10 68 (14.20%) HTTP
11 59 (12.32%) SSL
12 48 (10.02%) BIG-IP
13 44 (9.19%) OSPF
14 43 (8.98%) Wi-Fi
15 39 (8.14%) Ethernet
16 37 (7.72%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 33 (6.89%) Wireless
18 26 (5.43%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
19 25 (5.22%) Wireshark
20 24 (5.01%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.92%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.25%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.42%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.42%) MySQL
5 2 (0.42%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.42%) SQLite
6 1 (0.21%) Cloud Spanner
6 1 (0.21%) KDB
6 1 (0.21%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 47 (9.81%) JIRA
2 24 (5.01%) Git
3 19 (3.97%) Fiddler
4 18 (3.76%) Jenkins
5 16 (3.34%) GitLab
6 14 (2.92%) Visual Studio
7 13 (2.71%) Eclipse
8 10 (2.09%) Browser DevTools
9 5 (1.04%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.84%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.63%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.42%) Introscope
12 2 (0.42%) SonarQube
12 2 (0.42%) Subversion
13 1 (0.21%) MSI
13 1 (0.21%) Postman
General
1 191 (39.87%) Social Skills
2 68 (14.20%) Analytical Skills
3 63 (13.15%) Finance
4 42 (8.77%) Banking
5 32 (6.68%) Public Sector
6 22 (4.59%) Investment Banking
6 22 (4.59%) Presentation Skills
7 21 (4.38%) Telecoms
8 19 (3.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (3.55%) Documentation Skills
10 16 (3.34%) Military
11 8 (1.67%) Front Office
12 6 (1.25%) Manufacturing
12 6 (1.25%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (1.04%) Legal
13 5 (1.04%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.84%) Police
15 3 (0.63%) Automotive
15 3 (0.63%) Retail
16 2 (0.42%) Law
Job Titles
1 112 (23.38%) Network Engineer
2 56 (11.69%) Support Engineer
3 51 (10.65%) Senior
4 45 (9.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 44 (9.19%) Architect
6 38 (7.93%) IT Support
7 30 (6.26%) Analyst
7 30 (6.26%) IT Engineer
8 27 (5.64%) Security Engineer
9 26 (5.43%) Web Engineer
10 24 (5.01%) IT Support Engineer
11 22 (4.59%) Technical Engineer
12 21 (4.38%) Systems Engineer
13 19 (3.97%) Senior Network Engineer
14 18 (3.76%) IP Network Engineer
14 18 (3.76%) Platform Engineer
15 16 (3.34%) Blue Coat Engineer
16 15 (3.13%) Cloud Engineer
16 15 (3.13%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
16 15 (3.13%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (3.97%) SAML
2 15 (3.13%) JSON
2 15 (3.13%) LDAP
3 13 (2.71%) Node.js
3 13 (2.71%) REST
3 13 (2.71%) Web Services
4 12 (2.51%) ARM Templates
5 11 (2.30%) 802.1X
6 8 (1.67%) .NET
7 6 (1.25%) NETCONF
7 6 (1.25%) OpenConfig
7 6 (1.25%) OpenID
7 6 (1.25%) RESTCONF
7 6 (1.25%) XML
7 6 (1.25%) YANG
8 5 (1.04%) OAuth
9 4 (0.84%) boto
9 4 (0.84%) WinForms
10 3 (0.63%) eBPF
10 3 (0.63%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 73 (15.24%) Data Centre
2 50 (10.44%) Onboarding
3 27 (5.64%) PKI
4 26 (5.43%) Hybrid Cloud
5 25 (5.22%) Management Information System
6 24 (5.01%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 18 (3.76%) Robotics
7 18 (3.76%) Security Posture
8 16 (3.34%) Driving Licence
8 16 (3.34%) Linux Command Line
9 15 (3.13%) Industry 4.0
10 14 (2.92%) Public Cloud
10 14 (2.92%) Self-Motivation
11 13 (2.71%) Cloud Native
11 13 (2.71%) Operational Technology
12 12 (2.51%) SCADA
13 11 (2.30%) Cyber Threat
14 10 (2.09%) Analytical Mindset
14 10 (2.09%) Private Cloud
15 8 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 208 (43.42%) Windows
2 115 (24.01%) Linux
3 61 (12.73%) Windows Server
4 36 (7.52%) Mac OS
5 33 (6.89%) Windows 10
6 20 (4.18%) Unix
7 15 (3.13%) Apple iOS
7 15 (3.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (2.51%) Ubuntu
9 11 (2.30%) Android
10 5 (1.04%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.84%) zOS
12 3 (0.63%) CentOS
12 3 (0.63%) Check Point GAiA
12 3 (0.63%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.42%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.42%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.21%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.21%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 134 (27.97%) Problem-Solving
2 100 (20.88%) ITIL
3 72 (15.03%) CI/CD
4 67 (13.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 61 (12.73%) Agile
6 59 (12.32%) Infrastructure as Code
7 57 (11.90%) Load Balancing
8 56 (11.69%) DevOps
9 55 (11.48%) Customer Service
10 53 (11.06%) Cybersecurity
11 47 (9.81%) Incident Response
11 47 (9.81%) ITSM
11 47 (9.81%) Migration
12 46 (9.60%) High Availability
13 44 (9.19%) SIEM
14 42 (8.77%) Service Management
15 41 (8.56%) Validation
16 40 (8.35%) Continuous Improvement
17 37 (7.72%) Stakeholder Management
18 36 (7.52%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 131 (27.35%) Python
2 84 (17.54%) PowerShell
3 72 (15.03%) Bash
4 27 (5.64%) JavaScript
5 26 (5.43%) C++
6 17 (3.55%) C#
7 16 (3.34%) SQL
8 10 (2.09%) Java
9 9 (1.88%) VBA
10 8 (1.67%) Bicep
11 7 (1.46%) Perl
12 5 (1.04%) ActionScript
12 5 (1.04%) C
13 4 (0.84%) Shell Script
14 3 (0.63%) Go
15 2 (0.42%) Jython
15 2 (0.42%) Korn
15 2 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
15 2 (0.42%) Objective-C
15 2 (0.42%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 129 (26.93%) Security Cleared
2 86 (17.95%) SC Cleared
3 72 (15.03%) Degree
4 59 (12.32%) Cisco Certification
5 43 (8.98%) CCNP
6 42 (8.77%) DV Cleared
7 28 (5.85%) CCNA
8 27 (5.64%) Microsoft Certification
9 21 (4.38%) CISSP
10 16 (3.34%) CCIE
11 14 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (2.92%) Network+ Certification
12 11 (2.30%) Azure Certification
13 10 (2.09%) CompTIA Security+
13 10 (2.09%) MCSA
13 10 (2.09%) MCSE
14 9 (1.88%) A+ Certification
15 8 (1.67%) VCAP
16 7 (1.46%) AWS Certification
17 6 (1.25%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.97%) SLA
2 13 (2.71%) NIST
3 10 (2.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (2.09%) NCSC
4 6 (1.25%) QA
5 5 (1.04%) GDPR
6 4 (0.84%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 4 (0.84%) GxP
6 4 (0.84%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.84%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.42%) Government Security Classifications
7 2 (0.42%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.21%) ISO 8583
8 1 (0.21%) RMADS
System Software
1 130 (27.14%) Active Directory
2 82 (17.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (5.64%) Hyper-V
4 25 (5.22%) Docker
5 22 (4.59%) vSphere
6 21 (4.38%) VMware NSX
7 17 (3.55%) Firmware
8 11 (2.30%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (1.67%) Squid
10 6 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
11 4 (0.84%) NFS
11 4 (0.84%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.42%) KVM
12 2 (0.42%) RACF
12 2 (0.42%) VirtualBox
13 1 (0.21%) Citrix Presentation Server
13 1 (0.21%) GPFS
13 1 (0.21%) Lustre
13 1 (0.21%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 1 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 93 (19.42%) Ansible
2 71 (14.82%) Terraform
3 49 (10.23%) Microsoft Intune
4 41 (8.56%) Kubernetes
5 26 (5.43%) SCCM
6 25 (5.22%) Single Sign-On
7 20 (4.18%) Grafana
8 18 (3.76%) FortiGate
9 12 (2.51%) VxRail
10 11 (2.30%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (2.09%) Prometheus
12 9 (1.88%) WSUS
13 6 (1.25%) CASB
14 5 (1.04%) Nessus
14 5 (1.04%) QRadar
14 5 (1.04%) Suricata
14 5 (1.04%) systemd
15 4 (0.84%) Consul
16 3 (0.63%) Puppet
16 3 (0.63%) SELinux
Vendors
1 175 (36.53%) Microsoft
2 94 (19.62%) VMware
3 90 (18.79%) Cisco
4 65 (13.57%) F5
5 56 (11.69%) ServiceNow
6 29 (6.05%) Fortinet
7 27 (5.64%) Zscaler
8 26 (5.43%) Google
9 24 (5.01%) Blue Coat
9 24 (5.01%) Juniper
10 23 (4.80%) Palo Alto
11 21 (4.38%) Citrix
11 21 (4.38%) Infoblox
12 19 (3.97%) NetApp
13 18 (3.76%) CheckPoint
13 18 (3.76%) McAfee
13 18 (3.76%) Splunk
14 17 (3.55%) Siemens
15 16 (3.34%) Red Hat
16 13 (2.71%) Remedy