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

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 274 241 279
Rank change year-on-year -33 +38 -59
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 485 362 338
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.10% 0.85%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.74% 9.17% 6.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 263 211 225
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 £555 £600 £575
90th Percentile £657 £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 4,979 3,947 4,876
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.40% 12.03% 12.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,971 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 340 196 342
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.15 £18.01
Median hourly rate £26.29 £48.75 £45.44
Median % change year-on-year -46.07% +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 30 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 30 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 30 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 -8 446 £490 -2.00% 280
UK excluding London -14 278 £475 +5.56% 209
London -44 180 £475 -8.43% 105
Work from Home -55 116 £500 -9.09% 96
North of England -35 90 £475 -5.00% 46
South East -29 80 £527 +26.44% 70
North West -13 58 £475 -0.05% 24
Midlands -40 39 £402 -19.60% 31
South West -4 38 £594 -4.04% 33
East of England -8 33 £250 -52.38% 20
West Midlands -47 31 £406 +1.06% 18
Yorkshire -51 29 £475 -6.17% 14
Scotland -16 12 £178 -60.11% 9
East Midlands -10 8 £402 -26.91% 13
Wales -12 7 £408 +126.39% 4
North East -43 3 £413 +65.00% 10

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 (8.66%) SharePoint
2 23 (4.74%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.68%) Confluence
4 9 (1.86%) nginx
5 7 (1.44%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.82%) FactoryTalk
6 4 (0.82%) WebSphere
7 3 (0.62%) IIS
8 2 (0.41%) CICS
8 2 (0.41%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.41%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.41%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.41%) WebSphere Portal
9 1 (0.21%) Traefik
Applications
1 36 (7.42%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (3.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.65%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.41%) Houdini
5 2 (0.41%) NUKE
6 1 (0.21%) Weka
Business Applications
1 7 (1.44%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 158 (32.58%) Azure
2 113 (23.30%) AWS
3 107 (22.06%) Microsoft 365
4 65 (13.40%) Entra ID
5 36 (7.42%) GCP
6 33 (6.80%) OneDrive
7 28 (5.77%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 19 (3.92%) GitHub
9 16 (3.30%) Route 53
10 15 (3.09%) Amazon EC2
11 11 (2.27%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (2.27%) Azure Monitor
11 11 (2.27%) Google Workspace
12 10 (2.06%) Amazon EKS
13 9 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (1.86%) Azure Sentinel
13 9 (1.86%) OpenShift
14 8 (1.65%) Akamai
14 8 (1.65%) Amazon S3
14 8 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 284 (58.56%) DNS
2 207 (42.68%) Firewall
3 163 (33.61%) DHCP
4 139 (28.66%) VPN
5 93 (19.18%) Network Security
6 88 (18.14%) WAN
7 77 (15.88%) LAN
8 75 (15.46%) VLAN
9 72 (14.85%) BGP
10 70 (14.43%) HTTP
11 59 (12.16%) SSL
12 48 (9.90%) BIG-IP
13 44 (9.07%) OSPF
14 43 (8.87%) Wi-Fi
15 39 (8.04%) Ethernet
16 37 (7.63%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 34 (7.01%) Wireless
18 26 (5.36%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
19 25 (5.15%) Wireshark
20 24 (4.95%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.89%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.24%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
4 3 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.41%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.41%) MySQL
5 2 (0.41%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.41%) SQLite
6 1 (0.21%) Cloud Spanner
6 1 (0.21%) KDB
6 1 (0.21%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 47 (9.69%) JIRA
2 24 (4.95%) Git
3 19 (3.92%) Fiddler
4 18 (3.71%) Jenkins
5 16 (3.30%) GitLab
6 14 (2.89%) Visual Studio
7 13 (2.68%) Eclipse
8 10 (2.06%) Browser DevTools
9 6 (1.24%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (0.82%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.62%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.41%) Introscope
12 2 (0.41%) SonarQube
12 2 (0.41%) Subversion
13 1 (0.21%) MSI
13 1 (0.21%) Postman
General
1 195 (40.21%) Social Skills
2 69 (14.23%) Analytical Skills
3 65 (13.40%) Finance
4 43 (8.87%) Banking
5 32 (6.60%) Public Sector
6 22 (4.54%) Investment Banking
6 22 (4.54%) Presentation Skills
7 21 (4.33%) Telecoms
8 19 (3.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
10 16 (3.30%) Military
11 9 (1.86%) Front Office
12 6 (1.24%) Manufacturing
12 6 (1.24%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (1.03%) Legal
13 5 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (0.82%) Police
15 3 (0.62%) Automotive
15 3 (0.62%) Retail
16 2 (0.41%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 115 (23.71%) Network Engineer
2 56 (11.55%) Support Engineer
3 51 (10.52%) Senior
4 45 (9.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 44 (9.07%) Architect
6 38 (7.84%) IT Support
7 33 (6.80%) Analyst
8 30 (6.19%) IT Engineer
9 27 (5.57%) Security Engineer
10 26 (5.36%) Web Engineer
11 24 (4.95%) IT Support Engineer
12 22 (4.54%) Technical Engineer
13 21 (4.33%) Systems Engineer
14 19 (3.92%) Senior Network Engineer
15 18 (3.71%) IP Network Engineer
15 18 (3.71%) Platform Engineer
16 16 (3.30%) Blue Coat Engineer
17 15 (3.09%) Cloud Engineer
17 15 (3.09%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
17 15 (3.09%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (3.92%) SAML
2 15 (3.09%) JSON
2 15 (3.09%) LDAP
3 13 (2.68%) Node.js
3 13 (2.68%) REST
3 13 (2.68%) Web Services
4 12 (2.47%) ARM Templates
5 11 (2.27%) 802.1X
6 8 (1.65%) .NET
7 6 (1.24%) NETCONF
7 6 (1.24%) OpenConfig
7 6 (1.24%) OpenID
7 6 (1.24%) RESTCONF
7 6 (1.24%) XML
7 6 (1.24%) YANG
8 5 (1.03%) OAuth
9 4 (0.82%) boto
9 4 (0.82%) WinForms
10 3 (0.62%) Kafka
10 3 (0.62%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 73 (15.05%) Data Centre
2 50 (10.31%) Onboarding
3 27 (5.57%) PKI
4 26 (5.36%) Hybrid Cloud
4 26 (5.36%) Management Information System
5 24 (4.95%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 18 (3.71%) Robotics
6 18 (3.71%) Security Posture
7 17 (3.51%) Driving Licence
8 16 (3.30%) Linux Command Line
9 15 (3.09%) Industry 4.0
10 14 (2.89%) Operational Technology
10 14 (2.89%) Public Cloud
10 14 (2.89%) Self-Motivation
11 13 (2.68%) Cloud Native
12 12 (2.47%) SCADA
13 11 (2.27%) Cyber Threat
14 10 (2.06%) Analytical Mindset
14 10 (2.06%) Private Cloud
15 8 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 212 (43.71%) Windows
2 117 (24.12%) Linux
3 62 (12.78%) Windows Server
4 36 (7.42%) Mac OS
5 35 (7.22%) Windows 10
6 20 (4.12%) Unix
7 15 (3.09%) Apple iOS
7 15 (3.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (2.47%) Ubuntu
9 11 (2.27%) Android
10 5 (1.03%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.82%) zOS
12 3 (0.62%) CentOS
12 3 (0.62%) Check Point GAiA
12 3 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.41%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.41%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 2 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.21%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (28.25%) Problem-Solving
2 103 (21.24%) ITIL
3 72 (14.85%) CI/CD
4 67 (13.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 61 (12.58%) Agile
6 59 (12.16%) Infrastructure as Code
7 58 (11.96%) Load Balancing
8 56 (11.55%) Customer Service
8 56 (11.55%) DevOps
9 54 (11.13%) Cybersecurity
10 49 (10.10%) ITSM
11 48 (9.90%) Migration
12 47 (9.69%) Incident Response
13 46 (9.48%) High Availability
14 45 (9.28%) SIEM
15 42 (8.66%) Service Management
16 41 (8.45%) Continuous Improvement
16 41 (8.45%) Validation
17 37 (7.63%) Stakeholder Management
17 37 (7.63%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 134 (27.63%) Python
2 86 (17.73%) PowerShell
3 73 (15.05%) Bash
4 27 (5.57%) C++
4 27 (5.57%) JavaScript
5 17 (3.51%) C#
5 17 (3.51%) SQL
6 10 (2.06%) Java
7 9 (1.86%) VBA
8 8 (1.65%) Bicep
9 7 (1.44%) Perl
10 5 (1.03%) ActionScript
10 5 (1.03%) C
11 4 (0.82%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.62%) Go
13 2 (0.41%) Jython
13 2 (0.41%) Korn
13 2 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.41%) Objective-C
13 2 (0.41%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 130 (26.80%) Security Cleared
2 87 (17.94%) SC Cleared
3 75 (15.46%) Degree
4 60 (12.37%) Cisco Certification
5 44 (9.07%) CCNP
6 42 (8.66%) DV Cleared
7 29 (5.98%) CCNA
8 28 (5.77%) Microsoft Certification
9 22 (4.54%) CISSP
10 17 (3.51%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (3.30%) CCIE
12 15 (3.09%) Network+ Certification
13 11 (2.27%) Azure Certification
13 11 (2.27%) CompTIA Security+
14 10 (2.06%) A+ Certification
14 10 (2.06%) MCSA
14 10 (2.06%) MCSE
15 8 (1.65%) VCAP
16 7 (1.44%) AWS Certification
17 6 (1.24%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (3.92%) SLA
2 14 (2.89%) NIST
3 11 (2.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (2.06%) NCSC
5 6 (1.24%) QA
6 5 (1.03%) GDPR
7 4 (0.82%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 4 (0.82%) GxP
7 4 (0.82%) NIST 800
7 4 (0.82%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.41%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.41%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.21%) ISO 8583
9 1 (0.21%) RMADS
System Software
1 133 (27.42%) Active Directory
2 82 (16.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (5.57%) Hyper-V
4 25 (5.15%) Docker
5 22 (4.54%) vSphere
6 21 (4.33%) VMware NSX
7 17 (3.51%) Firmware
8 12 (2.47%) Virtual Desktop
9 8 (1.65%) Squid
10 6 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
11 4 (0.82%) NFS
11 4 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.41%) KVM
12 2 (0.41%) RACF
12 2 (0.41%) VirtualBox
13 1 (0.21%) GPFS
13 1 (0.21%) iptables
13 1 (0.21%) NDS
13 1 (0.21%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.21%) Snort
Systems Management
1 94 (19.38%) Ansible
2 72 (14.85%) Terraform
3 51 (10.52%) Microsoft Intune
4 41 (8.45%) Kubernetes
5 28 (5.77%) SCCM
6 25 (5.15%) Single Sign-On
7 20 (4.12%) Grafana
8 18 (3.71%) FortiGate
9 12 (2.47%) VxRail
10 11 (2.27%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (2.06%) Prometheus
12 9 (1.86%) WSUS
13 6 (1.24%) CASB
13 6 (1.24%) QRadar
14 5 (1.03%) Nessus
14 5 (1.03%) Suricata
14 5 (1.03%) systemd
15 4 (0.82%) Consul
16 3 (0.62%) Puppet
16 3 (0.62%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 178 (36.70%) Microsoft
2 94 (19.38%) VMware
3 92 (18.97%) Cisco
4 65 (13.40%) F5
5 56 (11.55%) ServiceNow
6 30 (6.19%) Fortinet
7 27 (5.57%) Zscaler
8 26 (5.36%) Google
9 24 (4.95%) Blue Coat
9 24 (4.95%) Juniper
10 23 (4.74%) Palo Alto
11 21 (4.33%) Citrix
11 21 (4.33%) Infoblox
12 19 (3.92%) McAfee
12 19 (3.92%) NetApp
12 19 (3.92%) Splunk
13 18 (3.71%) CheckPoint
14 17 (3.51%) Siemens
15 16 (3.30%) Red Hat
16 13 (2.68%) Remedy