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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 272 226 233
Rank change year-on-year -46 +7 -12
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 500 402 402
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.22% 1.05%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.86% 10.56% 8.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 262 221 221
10th Percentile £197 £200 £203
25th Percentile £295 £300 £260
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £463 £463
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% - +2.78%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £575
90th Percentile £675 £660 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £447 £450 £425
% change year-on-year -0.67% +5.88% +6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 34 29
10th Percentile £26.37 £28.30 £28.25
25th Percentile £31.86 £42.53 -
Median hourly rate £63.48 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.34% - +30.00%
75th Percentile £70.25 - -
90th Percentile £96.93 £78.28 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - - +30.00%

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 5,069 3,807 4,537
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.34% 11.56% 11.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,937 2,354 2,642
10th Percentile £231 £225 £225
25th Percentile £389 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £476 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.04% -4.80% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £675 £677 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £452 £500
% change year-on-year +5.20% -9.70% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 414 198 255
10th Percentile £14.46 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £21.37
Median hourly rate £29.50 £43.00 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.40% -14.85% -10.60%
75th Percentile £67.49 £64.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.67 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -38.49% -25.89% -0.26%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 -63 456 £465 -2.11% 794
UK excluding London -41 272 £447 -0.67% 503
London -49 204 £465 -15.45% 378
Work from Home -74 119 £500 - 286
South East -50 73 £527 +40.60% 138
North of England -68 71 £419 -21.73% 98
South West -6 48 £638 +15.91% 61
Midlands -32 42 £400 -0.50% 67
North West -32 40 £235 -56.68% 52
West Midlands -45 35 £400 -0.50% 38
East of England -21 31 £425 -10.53% 70
Yorkshire -50 27 £500 -4.76% 31
Scotland -22 15 £210 -49.94% 44
Wales -4 8 £390 +116.67% 13
East Midlands -5 7 £326 -8.81% 29
North East -38 4 £438 +75.00% 18

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 52 (10.40%) SharePoint
2 35 (7.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (2.40%) Confluence
3 12 (2.40%) OpenStack
4 6 (1.20%) nginx
5 4 (0.80%) FactoryTalk
6 3 (0.60%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.40%) CICS
7 2 (0.40%) IIS
7 2 (0.40%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.20%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.20%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 1 (0.20%) Traefik
8 1 (0.20%) WebSphere Application Server
8 1 (0.20%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 18 (3.60%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (3.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (1.20%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.40%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.40%) Houdini
5 2 (0.40%) NUKE
6 1 (0.20%) Weka
Business Applications
1 8 (1.60%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 168 (33.60%) Azure
2 132 (26.40%) Microsoft 365
3 107 (21.40%) AWS
4 80 (16.00%) Entra ID
5 36 (7.20%) OneDrive
6 29 (5.80%) GCP
7 22 (4.40%) GitHub
8 21 (4.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 16 (3.20%) OpenShift
10 13 (2.60%) Azure Monitor
10 13 (2.60%) Google Workspace
11 12 (2.40%) AWS CloudFormation
11 12 (2.40%) Route 53
12 11 (2.20%) Amazon EC2
12 11 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
13 9 (1.80%) Azure Sentinel
14 8 (1.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 8 (1.60%) Amazon EKS
15 7 (1.40%) IaaS
15 7 (1.40%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 299 (59.80%) DNS
2 210 (42.00%) Firewall
3 199 (39.80%) DHCP
4 154 (30.80%) VPN
5 89 (17.80%) Network Security
6 85 (17.00%) WAN
7 74 (14.80%) LAN
8 72 (14.40%) VLAN
9 67 (13.40%) HTTP
10 62 (12.40%) BGP
11 53 (10.60%) SSL
12 47 (9.40%) Wi-Fi
13 45 (9.00%) Wireless
14 37 (7.40%) OSPF
15 36 (7.20%) BIG-IP
16 33 (6.60%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 26 (5.20%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
18 24 (4.80%) SD-WAN
19 23 (4.60%) Ethernet
20 19 (3.80%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (3.80%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (3.40%) SQL Server
3 9 (1.80%) MySQL
4 8 (1.60%) MongoDB
4 8 (1.60%) NoSQL
4 8 (1.60%) SQLite
5 6 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (1.20%) Redis
6 3 (0.60%) KDB
7 2 (0.40%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.20%) Cloud Spanner
8 1 (0.20%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.20%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 47 (9.40%) JIRA
2 41 (8.20%) Git
3 34 (6.80%) Jenkins
4 25 (5.00%) GitLab
5 14 (2.80%) Fiddler
6 13 (2.60%) Visual Studio
7 12 (2.40%) Eclipse
8 8 (1.60%) Sonatype Nexus
9 5 (1.00%) Artifactory
9 5 (1.00%) Selenium
10 4 (0.80%) Browser DevTools
11 2 (0.40%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.40%) Subversion
12 1 (0.20%) Introscope
12 1 (0.20%) MSI
12 1 (0.20%) Postman
General
1 207 (41.40%) Social Skills
2 74 (14.80%) Analytical Skills
3 62 (12.40%) Finance
4 40 (8.00%) Banking
5 31 (6.20%) Public Sector
6 28 (5.60%) Telecoms
7 19 (3.80%) Investment Banking
8 16 (3.20%) Military
9 15 (3.00%) Front Office
10 13 (2.60%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (1.60%) Aerospace
12 7 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 6 (1.20%) Legal
13 6 (1.20%) Manufacturing
13 6 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (1.00%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (1.00%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (1.00%) Police
15 4 (0.80%) Automotive
15 4 (0.80%) Multimedia
Job Titles
1 99 (19.80%) Network Engineer
2 69 (13.80%) Support Engineer
3 59 (11.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 59 (11.80%) Senior
4 55 (11.00%) IT Support
5 43 (8.60%) IT Engineer
6 37 (7.40%) Analyst
6 37 (7.40%) IT Support Engineer
7 36 (7.20%) Architect
8 23 (4.60%) Platform Engineer
8 23 (4.60%) Senior Network Engineer
9 22 (4.40%) Security Engineer
10 20 (4.00%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 19 (3.80%) Linux Engineer
12 17 (3.40%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
12 17 (3.40%) Support Analyst
12 17 (3.40%) Web Engineer
13 16 (3.20%) Cloud Engineer
14 15 (3.00%) IP Network Engineer
15 14 (2.80%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (17.60%) Terraform
2 16 (3.20%) REST
3 14 (2.80%) SAML
4 12 (2.40%) ARM Templates
4 12 (2.40%) JSON
4 12 (2.40%) Node.js
4 12 (2.40%) Web Services
5 9 (1.80%) .NET
5 9 (1.80%) Kafka
5 9 (1.80%) LDAP
6 8 (1.60%) 802.1X
6 8 (1.60%) HTML
6 8 (1.60%) SPNEGO
7 7 (1.40%) Elastic Stack
7 7 (1.40%) Jinja
8 6 (1.20%) FastAPI
8 6 (1.20%) Flask
8 6 (1.20%) Pandas
8 6 (1.20%) RabbitMQ
8 6 (1.20%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 84 (16.80%) Data Centre
2 61 (12.20%) Onboarding
3 34 (6.80%) PKI
4 31 (6.20%) Hybrid Cloud
5 26 (5.20%) Management Information System
6 22 (4.40%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 21 (4.20%) Linux Command Line
8 17 (3.40%) Operational Technology
8 17 (3.40%) Public Cloud
9 16 (3.20%) Driving Licence
10 14 (2.80%) Cloud Native
10 14 (2.80%) Self-Motivation
10 14 (2.80%) Video Conferencing
11 13 (2.60%) SCADA
12 11 (2.20%) Cyber Threat
13 10 (2.00%) Enterprise Storage
13 10 (2.00%) Security Posture
14 9 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
14 9 (1.80%) Private Cloud
15 8 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 245 (49.00%) Windows
2 154 (30.80%) Linux
3 74 (14.80%) Windows Server
4 53 (10.60%) Windows 10
5 43 (8.60%) Mac OS
6 28 (5.60%) Unix
7 25 (5.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 19 (3.80%) Apple iOS
9 16 (3.20%) Ubuntu
10 15 (3.00%) Android
11 6 (1.20%) CentOS
12 5 (1.00%) zOS
13 3 (0.60%) Check Point GAiA
13 3 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
14 2 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.20%) Data ONTAP
15 1 (0.20%) Rocky
15 1 (0.20%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
15 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
15 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (27.40%) Problem-Solving
2 110 (22.00%) ITIL
3 88 (17.60%) CI/CD
4 82 (16.40%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 76 (15.20%) Infrastructure as Code
6 69 (13.80%) DevOps
7 65 (13.00%) Agile
8 63 (12.60%) Customer Service
8 63 (12.60%) Load Balancing
9 62 (12.40%) ITSM
10 59 (11.80%) Cybersecurity
11 53 (10.60%) Continuous Improvement
12 49 (9.80%) Migration
12 49 (9.80%) Platform Engineering
13 46 (9.20%) High Availability
13 46 (9.20%) Incident Response
13 46 (9.20%) Validation
14 45 (9.00%) Service Management
14 45 (9.00%) SIEM
15 43 (8.60%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 150 (30.00%) Python
2 107 (21.40%) PowerShell
3 89 (17.80%) Bash
4 27 (5.40%) C++
5 23 (4.60%) JavaScript
6 21 (4.20%) SQL
7 17 (3.40%) C#
8 14 (2.80%) Perl
8 14 (2.80%) Shell Script
9 12 (2.40%) Java
10 11 (2.20%) Bicep
11 8 (1.60%) Korn
12 7 (1.40%) VBA
13 5 (1.00%) ActionScript
13 5 (1.00%) Go
14 4 (0.80%) C
15 3 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
15 3 (0.60%) VBScript
16 2 (0.40%) Groovy
16 2 (0.40%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 136 (27.20%) Security Cleared
2 81 (16.20%) SC Cleared
3 66 (13.20%) Degree
4 54 (10.80%) Cisco Certification
5 51 (10.20%) DV Cleared
6 43 (8.60%) CCNP
7 26 (5.20%) CCNA
7 26 (5.20%) Microsoft Certification
8 21 (4.20%) Computer Science Degree
9 20 (4.00%) A+ Certification
10 16 (3.20%) Network+ Certification
11 15 (3.00%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 14 (2.80%) CCIE
13 13 (2.60%) CISSP
14 12 (2.40%) AWS Certification
14 12 (2.40%) Azure Certification
14 12 (2.40%) VCAP
15 8 (1.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 5 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
16 5 (1.00%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.80%) SLA
2 15 (3.00%) QA
3 10 (2.00%) NCSC
4 9 (1.80%) NIST
5 8 (1.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.80%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 4 (0.80%) GDPR
6 4 (0.80%) GxP
6 4 (0.80%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.80%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (0.40%) Government Security Classifications
7 2 (0.40%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.20%) ISO 8583
8 1 (0.20%) RMADS
System Software
1 164 (32.80%) Active Directory
2 93 (18.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 42 (8.40%) Hyper-V
4 33 (6.60%) Docker
5 25 (5.00%) vSphere
6 23 (4.60%) VMware NSX
7 19 (3.80%) Firmware
8 14 (2.80%) Virtual Desktop
9 7 (1.40%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (1.20%) NFS
11 5 (1.00%) Squid
12 4 (0.80%) VMware ESXi
13 3 (0.60%) VirtualBox
14 2 (0.40%) KVM
14 2 (0.40%) RACF
14 2 (0.40%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 2 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
15 1 (0.20%) GPFS
15 1 (0.20%) iptables
15 1 (0.20%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 108 (21.60%) Ansible
2 66 (13.20%) Microsoft Intune
3 51 (10.20%) Kubernetes
4 35 (7.00%) SCCM
5 28 (5.60%) Grafana
6 19 (3.80%) Single Sign-On
7 17 (3.40%) FortiGate
7 17 (3.40%) Prometheus
8 16 (3.20%) VxRail
9 15 (3.00%) Jamf Pro
10 8 (1.60%) WSUS
11 6 (1.20%) Istio
11 6 (1.20%) systemd
12 5 (1.00%) Puppet
13 4 (0.80%) Consul
13 4 (0.80%) Suricata
13 4 (0.80%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.80%) ZABBIX
14 3 (0.60%) Packer
14 3 (0.60%) SELinux
Vendors
1 208 (41.60%) Microsoft
2 106 (21.20%) VMware
3 96 (19.20%) Cisco
4 62 (12.40%) ServiceNow
5 59 (11.80%) F5
6 27 (5.40%) Fortinet
7 24 (4.80%) Google
8 23 (4.60%) NetApp
8 23 (4.60%) Zscaler
9 20 (4.00%) Palo Alto
10 19 (3.80%) Infoblox
10 19 (3.80%) Juniper
11 18 (3.60%) Citrix
12 17 (3.40%) Blue Coat
12 17 (3.40%) Red Hat
13 16 (3.20%) McAfee
13 16 (3.20%) Splunk
14 14 (2.80%) Bloomberg
14 14 (2.80%) CheckPoint
15 11 (2.20%) Arista