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 1 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 239 196 188
Rank change year-on-year -43 -8 +50
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 436 454 553
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.18% 1.37% 1.29%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 10.98% 10.74% 9.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 247 273 344
10th Percentile £200 £210 £181
25th Percentile £314 £363 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -13.46%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £580
90th Percentile £657 £738 £680
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £400
% change year-on-year - +12.50% -14.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 9 49
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.70 £24.85
25th Percentile £31.00 £30.00 £40.85
Median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £50.39
Median % change year-on-year -2.87% +28.99% -22.48%
75th Percentile £65.00 - £56.49
90th Percentile £82.40 £66.75 £69.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £50.39
% change year-on-year - +28.99% -22.48%

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 3,970 4,228 5,851
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.70% 12.75% 13.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,600 2,480 3,605
10th Percentile £206 £220 £209
25th Percentile £356 £368 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £473
% change year-on-year -5.26% +0.53% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 138 329
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.86 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.88 £23.00
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -38.04% +68.63%
75th Percentile £65.50 £57.81 £65.98
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.38 £75.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £32.50 £57.99
% change year-on-year +30.77% -43.96% +50.62%

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 1 January 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 1 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for TCP/IP in the UK

TCP/IP
Top 15 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 1 January 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 -26 394 £477 -4.70% 302
UK excluding London -29 279 £450 - 238
London -35 127 £538 +7.50% 93
Work from Home -38 125 £450 -17.05% 107
North of England -30 86 £450 -4.76% 49
South East -3 64 £460 +2.22% 82
East of England +4 52 £350 -30.00% 42
North West -7 51 £475 +1.60% 25
West Midlands -4 38 £213 -5.56% 22
Midlands -26 38 £213 -29.17% 29
South West -16 31 £700 +16.67% 28
Yorkshire -50 31 £449 -35.93% 19
Scotland +21 22 £454 +13.50% 16
Wales -7 4 £250 -23.08% 3
North East -12 4 £400 +166.67% 6

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 33 (7.57%) SharePoint
2 23 (5.28%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (3.21%) Skype for Business
4 11 (2.52%) Confluence
5 8 (1.83%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.69%) Apache
7 3 (0.69%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.69%) IIS
8 2 (0.46%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.46%) WordPress
9 1 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2010
9 1 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
9 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
Applications
1 38 (8.72%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.38%) Weka
3 5 (1.15%) Acrobat
3 5 (1.15%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.92%) Microsoft Excel
5 2 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.23%) Eikon
1 1 (0.23%) Eze OMS
1 1 (0.23%) Fidessa
1 1 (0.23%) Finacle
1 1 (0.23%) Pegasus Opera
1 1 (0.23%) RMDS
1 1 (0.23%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 108 (24.77%) AWS
2 102 (23.39%) Azure
3 83 (19.04%) Microsoft 365
4 28 (6.42%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 27 (6.19%) Amazon EC2
6 26 (5.96%) Amazon S3
6 26 (5.96%) GCP
7 22 (5.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 22 (5.05%) Amazon ELB
7 22 (5.05%) Entra ID
8 16 (3.67%) GitHub
9 12 (2.75%) AWS CloudFormation
10 10 (2.29%) Cloud Computing
10 10 (2.29%) SaaS
11 7 (1.61%) OneDrive
12 6 (1.38%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (1.38%) Google Workspace
13 4 (0.92%) Amazon EKS
13 4 (0.92%) AWS KMS
13 4 (0.92%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 251 (57.57%) DNS
2 161 (36.93%) Firewall
3 123 (28.21%) DHCP
4 122 (27.98%) VPN
5 89 (20.41%) SSL
6 73 (16.74%) WAN
7 72 (16.51%) LAN
8 62 (14.22%) Network Security
9 60 (13.76%) HTTP
9 60 (13.76%) VLAN
10 35 (8.03%) Wireshark
11 30 (6.88%) Wi-Fi
12 28 (6.42%) BGP
13 25 (5.73%) BIG-IP
14 24 (5.50%) Wireless
15 22 (5.05%) OSPF
16 20 (4.59%) Ethernet
16 20 (4.59%) SAN
17 19 (4.36%) Internet
18 17 (3.90%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (5.28%) SQL Server
2 14 (3.21%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (1.15%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (1.15%) Oracle Database
4 4 (0.92%) Amazon Aurora
4 4 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.92%) Big Data
4 4 (0.92%) MongoDB
4 4 (0.92%) NoSQL
5 3 (0.69%) Apache Cassandra
5 3 (0.69%) Delta Lake
5 3 (0.69%) Hadoop
5 3 (0.69%) Parquet
6 1 (0.23%) Apache Hive
6 1 (0.23%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (0.23%) Impala
6 1 (0.23%) Power BI
6 1 (0.23%) Redis
6 1 (0.23%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.23%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 42 (9.63%) Git
1 42 (9.63%) Jenkins
2 33 (7.57%) GitLab
3 26 (5.96%) JIRA
4 22 (5.05%) Fiddler
5 16 (3.67%) Eclipse
5 16 (3.67%) Visual Studio
6 5 (1.15%) Subversion
7 4 (0.92%) CircleCI
7 4 (0.92%) Robot Framework
7 4 (0.92%) TeamCity
8 3 (0.69%) MLflow
8 3 (0.69%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.69%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.46%) Maven
9 2 (0.46%) Poetry
9 2 (0.46%) Postman
9 2 (0.46%) PyCharm
9 2 (0.46%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.23%) Cucumber
General
1 154 (35.32%) Social Skills
2 77 (17.66%) Analytical Skills
3 41 (9.40%) Finance
4 39 (8.94%) Public Sector
5 31 (7.11%) Banking
6 26 (5.96%) Military
7 21 (4.82%) Investment Banking
8 19 (4.36%) Presentation Skills
9 11 (2.52%) Legal
10 10 (2.29%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (2.06%) Front Office
11 9 (2.06%) Law
12 8 (1.83%) Telecoms
13 6 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
13 6 (1.38%) Financial Institution
13 6 (1.38%) Local Government
14 3 (0.69%) Aerospace
14 3 (0.69%) Manufacturing
15 2 (0.46%) Advertising
16 1 (0.23%) Games
Job Titles
1 89 (20.41%) Network Engineer
2 64 (14.68%) Support Engineer
3 57 (13.07%) Analyst
4 55 (12.61%) Senior
5 52 (11.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 31 (7.11%) IT Support
7 28 (6.42%) IT Engineer
8 21 (4.82%) 2nd Line Support
8 21 (4.82%) Web Engineer
9 20 (4.59%) Developer
9 20 (4.59%) DevOps Engineer
9 20 (4.59%) Support Analyst
10 19 (4.36%) Technical Support
11 18 (4.13%) SOC Analyst
12 17 (3.90%) Senior DevOps
13 16 (3.67%) Security Engineer
13 16 (3.67%) Senior DevOps Engineer
13 16 (3.67%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 16 (3.67%) Technical Analyst
14 15 (3.44%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.59%) Web Services
2 17 (3.90%) Node.js
3 15 (3.44%) Middleware
4 12 (2.75%) REST
5 9 (2.06%) Elastic Stack
5 9 (2.06%) LDAP
5 9 (2.06%) SOAP
6 6 (1.38%) FIX Protocol
7 5 (1.15%) AngularJS
7 5 (1.15%) Kafka
7 5 (1.15%) Ultra Messaging
8 4 (0.92%) .NET
8 4 (0.92%) 802.1X
8 4 (0.92%) JSON
8 4 (0.92%) React
8 4 (0.92%) SAML
9 3 (0.69%) Apache Avro
9 3 (0.69%) Express.js
9 3 (0.69%) WCF
9 3 (0.69%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 29 (6.65%) Management Information System
2 25 (5.73%) Data Centre
2 25 (5.73%) Onboarding
3 18 (4.13%) Analytical Mindset
4 16 (3.67%) Security Operations Centre
5 13 (2.98%) CMDB
5 13 (2.98%) Cyberattack
5 13 (2.98%) Driving Licence
5 13 (2.98%) NHS
5 13 (2.98%) Private Cloud
6 11 (2.52%) Public Cloud
6 11 (2.52%) Replication
7 10 (2.29%) PKI
7 10 (2.29%) Security Posture
8 9 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.83%) Clustering
9 8 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
9 8 (1.83%) SCADA
10 7 (1.61%) Cyber Threat
11 6 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 207 (47.48%) Windows
2 149 (34.17%) Linux
3 54 (12.39%) Windows Server
4 38 (8.72%) Windows 10
5 30 (6.88%) Unix
6 13 (2.98%) Android
7 12 (2.75%) Windows Server 2016
7 12 (2.75%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (2.29%) Mac OS
9 8 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (1.83%) Windows Server 2012
10 7 (1.61%) VMS
11 6 (1.38%) Apple iOS
11 6 (1.38%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.92%) CentOS
12 4 (0.92%) Solaris
12 4 (0.92%) Windows Server 2003
13 3 (0.69%) Debian
14 2 (0.46%) Mac OS X
14 2 (0.46%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (28.21%) Problem-Solving
2 70 (16.06%) CI/CD
3 68 (15.60%) ITIL
4 63 (14.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 60 (13.76%) DevOps
6 58 (13.30%) Agile
7 54 (12.39%) Cybersecurity
8 53 (12.16%) Incident Response
9 52 (11.93%) Infrastructure as Code
10 50 (11.47%) SIEM
11 43 (9.86%) High Availability
11 43 (9.86%) Load Balancing
12 38 (8.72%) Infrastructure Automation
13 35 (8.03%) Root Cause Analysis
14 33 (7.57%) Knowledge Transfer
15 32 (7.34%) Security Operations
15 32 (7.34%) Validation
16 31 (7.11%) Migration
17 30 (6.88%) Disaster Recovery
18 29 (6.65%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 129 (29.59%) Python
2 80 (18.35%) PowerShell
3 75 (17.20%) Bash
4 27 (6.19%) SQL
5 25 (5.73%) Perl
6 22 (5.05%) JavaScript
7 21 (4.82%) C#
7 21 (4.82%) C++
8 16 (3.67%) Java
9 13 (2.98%) Shell Script
10 8 (1.83%) Go
11 4 (0.92%) C
11 4 (0.92%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.69%) Groovy
12 3 (0.69%) Search Processing Language
12 3 (0.69%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.46%) Ruby
14 1 (0.23%) Bicep
14 1 (0.23%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.23%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 137 (31.42%) Security Cleared
2 102 (23.39%) SC Cleared
3 41 (9.40%) Degree
4 40 (9.17%) Cisco Certification
5 37 (8.49%) DV Cleared
6 34 (7.80%) Microsoft Certification
7 27 (6.19%) CCNP
8 22 (5.05%) CompTIA Security+
9 20 (4.59%) Network+ Certification
10 19 (4.36%) CCNA
11 16 (3.67%) Azure Certification
12 14 (3.21%) CISSP
13 13 (2.98%) Computer Science Degree
13 13 (2.98%) MCP
14 12 (2.75%) CompTIA CySA+
14 12 (2.75%) MCSE
15 11 (2.52%) Server+ Certification
16 8 (1.83%) MCSA
17 7 (1.61%) JNCIS
18 6 (1.38%) ECDL
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (5.50%) GDPR
2 9 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 8 (1.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 8 (1.83%) SLA
4 6 (1.38%) NIST
5 4 (0.92%) HIPAA
6 3 (0.69%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.46%) NCSC
8 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.23%) QA
8 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 95 (21.79%) Active Directory
2 67 (15.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 56 (12.84%) Docker
4 32 (7.34%) Hyper-V
5 13 (2.98%) Firmware
6 9 (2.06%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (2.06%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (1.83%) vSphere
8 7 (1.61%) Lustre
8 7 (1.61%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 7 (1.61%) VMware NSX
9 6 (1.38%) GPFS
9 6 (1.38%) Terminal Services
10 5 (1.15%) KVM
10 5 (1.15%) NDS
10 5 (1.15%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 5 (1.15%) NFS
11 4 (0.92%) Veritas File System
11 4 (0.92%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 4 (0.92%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 89 (20.41%) Ansible
2 60 (13.76%) Terraform
3 38 (8.72%) SCCM
4 34 (7.80%) Kubernetes
5 30 (6.88%) Microsoft Intune
6 19 (4.36%) Grafana
7 14 (3.21%) Prometheus
8 12 (2.75%) Puppet
9 11 (2.52%) FortiGate
10 9 (2.06%) Single Sign-On
11 8 (1.83%) QRadar
11 8 (1.83%) WSUS
12 7 (1.61%) Nessus
12 7 (1.61%) Progress Chef
13 6 (1.38%) Nagios
13 6 (1.38%) vCenter Server
14 5 (1.15%) CASB
14 5 (1.15%) ITRS Geneos
14 5 (1.15%) Red Hat Satellite
15 4 (0.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 140 (32.11%) Microsoft
2 90 (20.64%) VMware
3 71 (16.28%) F5
4 65 (14.91%) Cisco
5 56 (12.84%) Palo Alto
6 42 (9.63%) Splunk
7 41 (9.40%) CheckPoint
8 29 (6.65%) Blue Coat
9 24 (5.50%) McAfee
10 23 (5.28%) Fortinet
10 23 (5.28%) ServiceNow
11 21 (4.82%) NetApp
11 21 (4.82%) Oracle
11 21 (4.82%) SolarWinds
12 20 (4.59%) Citrix
13 18 (4.13%) Juniper
13 18 (4.13%) Red Hat
14 16 (3.67%) Meraki
15 14 (3.21%) Veeam
16 11 (2.52%) CyberArk