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 2 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 273 218 266
Rank change year-on-year -55 +48 -29
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 430 354 383
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.96% 1.22% 0.87%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.61% 9.38% 6.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 246 254 273
10th Percentile £213 £225 £188
25th Percentile £358 £400 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £513 £475
Median % change year-on-year -12.20% +7.89% -9.52%
75th Percentile £565 £629 £560
90th Percentile £640 £750 £660
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £513 £450
% change year-on-year -12.20% +13.89% -6.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 9 15
10th Percentile £20.75 £17.87 £16.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £28.00 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £50.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.12% +100.00% -60.03%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £58.25
90th Percentile £66.99 £65.00 £75.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.22 £32.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year +60.68% -42.47% -13.09%

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 4,476 3,775 5,894
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.00% 12.99% 13.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,864 2,340 3,554
10th Percentile £225 £213 £205
25th Percentile £380 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% +3.16% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +1.06% -1.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 148 406
10th Percentile £15.57 £14.99 £13.93
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.46 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.94 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.83% +7.69% +71.05%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.38 £62.50
90th Percentile £77.30 £75.00 £68.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.72 £32.50 £44.00
% change year-on-year +49.91% -26.14% +137.84%

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 2 April 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 2 April 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 2 April 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 -38 371 £470 -7.62% 197
UK excluding London -21 276 £450 -12.20% 174
London -61 121 £475 -0.42% 42
Work from Home -62 97 £425 -22.73% 79
North of England -17 94 £450 -4.81% 49
South East -34 61 £525 -4.55% 50
North West +8 59 £540 +44.00% 26
East of England -4 53 £280 -34.88% 20
Midlands -42 33 £300 -45.45% 25
Yorkshire -44 32 £447 -22.35% 17
West Midlands -37 30 £225 +7.14% 17
Scotland +20 26 £388 -16.67% 5
South West -24 25 £638 +3.66% 25
Wales -13 6 £335 -21.18% 4
North East -16 3 £200 -11.11% 7
East Midlands -38 3 £625 +13.64% 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 19 (4.42%) Confluence
2 14 (3.26%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (3.26%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.33%) nginx
4 7 (1.63%) Skype for Business
5 6 (1.40%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.70%) Apache
7 2 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
7 2 (0.47%) IIS
7 2 (0.47%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 2 (0.47%) WebSphere
7 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Portal
7 2 (0.47%) WordPress
8 1 (0.23%) Traefik
Applications
1 37 (8.60%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (2.33%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.16%) Acrobat
3 5 (1.16%) Weka
4 4 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 1 (0.23%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 98 (22.79%) Azure
2 94 (21.86%) AWS
3 74 (17.21%) Microsoft 365
4 30 (6.98%) GCP
5 22 (5.12%) Entra ID
6 21 (4.88%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 15 (3.49%) Amazon S3
8 14 (3.26%) Amazon EC2
8 14 (3.26%) Route 53
9 12 (2.79%) Amazon EKS
9 12 (2.79%) AWS Lambda
9 12 (2.79%) OneDrive
9 12 (2.79%) Serverless
10 10 (2.33%) AWS CloudFormation
11 9 (2.09%) GitHub
11 9 (2.09%) Google Workspace
12 8 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (1.63%) Nutanix
13 7 (1.63%) SaaS
14 6 (1.40%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 238 (55.35%) DNS
2 152 (35.35%) Firewall
3 106 (24.65%) VPN
4 100 (23.26%) DHCP
5 91 (21.16%) WAN
6 80 (18.60%) LAN
7 69 (16.05%) HTTP
8 65 (15.12%) VLAN
9 64 (14.88%) SSL
10 59 (13.72%) Network Security
11 50 (11.63%) BIG-IP
12 49 (11.40%) BGP
13 43 (10.00%) OSPF
13 43 (10.00%) Wi-Fi
14 34 (7.91%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 34 (7.91%) Wireshark
15 33 (7.67%) Ethernet
16 27 (6.28%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
17 21 (4.88%) SD-WAN
18 20 (4.65%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (3.26%) SQL Server
2 12 (2.79%) Elasticsearch
3 9 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.16%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.47%) MySQL
6 1 (0.23%) Amazon Aurora
6 1 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.23%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (0.23%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.23%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 40 (9.30%) JIRA
2 29 (6.74%) Fiddler
3 20 (4.65%) GitLab
4 14 (3.26%) Eclipse
4 14 (3.26%) Git
4 14 (3.26%) Visual Studio
5 13 (3.02%) Jenkins
6 7 (1.63%) Bitbucket
6 7 (1.63%) Browser DevTools
6 7 (1.63%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.93%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.47%) Introscope
8 2 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.47%) Subversion
9 1 (0.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.23%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.23%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.23%) Maven
9 1 (0.23%) Travis CI
General
1 148 (34.42%) Social Skills
2 50 (11.63%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (10.47%) Finance
4 39 (9.07%) Banking
5 30 (6.98%) Public Sector
6 26 (6.05%) Presentation Skills
7 25 (5.81%) Investment Banking
8 24 (5.58%) Military
9 18 (4.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 16 (3.72%) Documentation Skills
11 12 (2.79%) Telecoms
12 8 (1.86%) Front Office
13 6 (1.40%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (1.16%) Law
15 4 (0.93%) Legal
16 3 (0.70%) French Language
16 3 (0.70%) Manufacturing
16 3 (0.70%) Marketing
17 2 (0.47%) Games
17 2 (0.47%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 108 (25.12%) Network Engineer
2 54 (12.56%) Analyst
3 45 (10.47%) Support Engineer
4 39 (9.07%) Web Engineer
5 33 (7.67%) Senior
6 30 (6.98%) Architect
7 24 (5.58%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 23 (5.35%) IT Engineer
9 22 (5.12%) IT Support
10 21 (4.88%) SOC Analyst
10 21 (4.88%) Technical Engineer
11 20 (4.65%) IP Network Engineer
12 19 (4.42%) Blue Coat Engineer
13 17 (3.95%) IT Support Engineer
13 17 (3.95%) Systems Engineer
14 16 (3.72%) Integration Engineer
14 16 (3.72%) Security Engineer
14 16 (3.72%) Technical Support
15 15 (3.49%) Junior
15 15 (3.49%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (4.42%) LDAP
2 17 (3.95%) Web Services
3 14 (3.26%) Node.js
4 10 (2.33%) OpenID
4 10 (2.33%) SAML
5 9 (2.09%) 802.1X
5 9 (2.09%) JSON
6 6 (1.40%) REST
7 5 (1.16%) Kafka
8 4 (0.93%) Middleware
8 4 (0.93%) NETCONF
8 4 (0.93%) OAuth
8 4 (0.93%) OpenConfig
8 4 (0.93%) RESTCONF
8 4 (0.93%) YANG
9 3 (0.70%) .NET
9 3 (0.70%) ARM Templates
9 3 (0.70%) HTML
9 3 (0.70%) React
10 2 (0.47%) eBPF
Miscellaneous
1 31 (7.21%) Data Centre
2 30 (6.98%) Management Information System
3 22 (5.12%) Security Operations Centre
4 21 (4.88%) Cyberattack
4 21 (4.88%) Onboarding
5 15 (3.49%) Industry 4.0
5 15 (3.49%) Public Cloud
5 15 (3.49%) Robotics
6 13 (3.02%) Security Posture
7 12 (2.79%) Driving Licence
8 11 (2.56%) Enterprise Software
8 11 (2.56%) NHS
8 11 (2.56%) PKI
9 10 (2.33%) CMDB
9 10 (2.33%) Cyber Threat
9 10 (2.33%) Private Cloud
10 8 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
11 6 (1.40%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 6 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
11 6 (1.40%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 187 (43.49%) Windows
2 106 (24.65%) Linux
3 54 (12.56%) Windows Server
4 21 (4.88%) Windows 10
5 16 (3.72%) Android
6 13 (3.02%) Unix
7 11 (2.56%) Mac OS
8 9 (2.09%) Apple iOS
8 9 (2.09%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 6 (1.40%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (1.40%) zOS
10 5 (1.16%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.93%) Windows Server 2003
11 4 (0.93%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.70%) Debian
12 3 (0.70%) VMS
12 3 (0.70%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.47%) AIX
13 2 (0.47%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (28.60%) Problem-Solving
2 65 (15.12%) ITIL
3 58 (13.49%) Agile
4 55 (12.79%) Cybersecurity
5 52 (12.09%) Load Balancing
5 52 (12.09%) SIEM
6 48 (11.16%) Incident Response
7 42 (9.77%) DevOps
8 39 (9.07%) CI/CD
8 39 (9.07%) Migration
8 39 (9.07%) Security Operations
9 36 (8.37%) Customer Service
9 36 (8.37%) Validation
10 35 (8.14%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 35 (8.14%) Root Cause Analysis
11 31 (7.21%) Data Loss Prevention
12 30 (6.98%) Infrastructure as Code
13 29 (6.74%) Computer Science
13 29 (6.74%) Decision-Making
13 29 (6.74%) Malware Detection/Protection
Programming Languages
1 97 (22.56%) Python
2 67 (15.58%) PowerShell
3 48 (11.16%) Bash
4 27 (6.28%) JavaScript
5 19 (4.42%) C++
5 19 (4.42%) SQL
6 17 (3.95%) C#
7 9 (2.09%) Java
8 8 (1.86%) Perl
9 7 (1.63%) C
10 6 (1.40%) Go
10 6 (1.40%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.16%) VBA
12 2 (0.47%) Jython
12 2 (0.47%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.47%) VBScript
13 1 (0.23%) Bicep
13 1 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.23%) Ruby
13 1 (0.23%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 132 (30.70%) Security Cleared
2 109 (25.35%) SC Cleared
3 63 (14.65%) Degree
4 49 (11.40%) Cisco Certification
5 40 (9.30%) CCNP
6 36 (8.37%) DV Cleared
7 32 (7.44%) CompTIA Security+
8 27 (6.28%) Computer Science Degree
9 26 (6.05%) CCNA
10 18 (4.19%) CISSP
10 18 (4.19%) CompTIA CySA+
11 13 (3.02%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (2.33%) JNCIS
12 10 (2.33%) Network+ Certification
13 9 (2.09%) MCSE
14 8 (1.86%) MCSA
15 7 (1.63%) Azure Certification
15 7 (1.63%) CCIE
16 6 (1.40%) GCIH
17 5 (1.16%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (2.09%) NIST
3 8 (1.86%) GDPR
3 8 (1.86%) SLA
4 5 (1.16%) NCSC
5 2 (0.47%) HIPAA
5 2 (0.47%) QA
5 2 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
6 1 (0.23%) GRC
6 1 (0.23%) RMADS
System Software
1 85 (19.77%) Active Directory
2 50 (11.63%) VMware Infrastructure
3 29 (6.74%) Docker
4 19 (4.42%) Firmware
5 10 (2.33%) VMware NSX
6 9 (2.09%) Hyper-V
6 9 (2.09%) Squid
6 9 (2.09%) vSphere
7 8 (1.86%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (1.40%) Lustre
8 6 (1.40%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 5 (1.16%) GPFS
10 4 (0.93%) KVM
10 4 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.70%) NFS
11 3 (0.70%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.47%) Ceph
12 2 (0.47%) NDS
12 2 (0.47%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 1 (0.23%) Citrix Presentation Server
Systems Management
1 64 (14.88%) Ansible
2 39 (9.07%) Kubernetes
3 38 (8.84%) Terraform
4 30 (6.98%) SCCM
5 24 (5.58%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (4.88%) FortiGate
6 21 (4.88%) Single Sign-On
7 20 (4.65%) Grafana
8 17 (3.95%) Prometheus
9 10 (2.33%) WSUS
10 9 (2.09%) Nagios
10 9 (2.09%) QRadar
11 7 (1.63%) Consul
12 6 (1.40%) Tivoli NetView
13 5 (1.16%) CASB
13 5 (1.16%) Nessus
13 5 (1.16%) Puppet
14 4 (0.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 3 (0.70%) Red Hat Satellite
16 2 (0.47%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 114 (26.51%) Microsoft
2 70 (16.28%) VMware
3 69 (16.05%) F5
4 65 (15.12%) Cisco
5 40 (9.30%) Splunk
6 34 (7.91%) Blue Coat
7 33 (7.67%) Palo Alto
8 31 (7.21%) McAfee
9 27 (6.28%) Juniper
9 27 (6.28%) ServiceNow
10 26 (6.05%) Fortinet
11 22 (5.12%) NetApp
12 19 (4.42%) Red Hat
13 18 (4.19%) Citrix
14 17 (3.95%) CheckPoint
15 15 (3.49%) Siemens
16 13 (3.02%) Aruba
16 13 (3.02%) SolarWinds
17 12 (2.79%) Oracle
18 11 (2.56%) Bloomberg