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 17 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 287 227 293
Rank change year-on-year -60 +66 -60
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 421 356 329
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 1.20% 0.75%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.81% 9.60% 6.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 237 219
10th Percentile £206 £223 £188
25th Percentile £347 £362 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +2.56% +1.56%
75th Percentile £550 £625 £575
90th Percentile £638 £785 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £473 £475
% change year-on-year -4.81% -0.53% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 13 27
10th Percentile £21.25 £18.12 £17.50
25th Percentile £25.63 £28.00 £34.75
Median hourly rate £32.50 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.00% -3.85% +15.40%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 -
90th Percentile - - £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.86 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -47.91% - +10.35%

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 4,781 3,710 5,390
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.50% 12.50% 12.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,931 2,279 3,184
10th Percentile £258 £222 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.95% -3.80% -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £470 £488
% change year-on-year +2.26% -3.59% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 291 174 422
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £19.81 £17.69
Median hourly rate £27.88 £42.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.78% +6.88% +110.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.97 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.50 £71.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.00 £31.08 £47.50
% change year-on-year -6.69% -34.57% +150.46%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 17 June 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 -54 364 £465 -7.00% 297
UK excluding London -37 240 £450 -4.81% 323
London -55 145 £475 +2.70% 47
Work from Home -71 102 £450 -21.74% 187
North of England -26 90 £450 +3.09% 67
North West +1 53 £515 +37.33% 33
South East -42 51 £500 +11.11% 84
East of England -14 35 £263 -38.95% 39
Midlands -41 34 £406 -26.14% 46
Yorkshire -54 32 £450 -11.11% 22
West Midlands -34 30 £388 -29.55% 29
South West -26 22 £500 -18.70% 32
Scotland -3 21 £425 +2.41% 27
Wales -10 7 £408 +30.40% 13
North East -30 5 £306 +22.50% 15
East Midlands -24 4 £563 +2.27% 17

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 18 (4.28%) SharePoint
2 17 (4.04%) Confluence
3 11 (2.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (2.38%) nginx
5 4 (0.95%) WebSphere
6 3 (0.71%) IIS
6 3 (0.71%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.48%) CICS
7 2 (0.48%) IBM HTTP Server
7 2 (0.48%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 2 (0.48%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.48%) WebSphere Portal
8 1 (0.24%) Traefik
Applications
1 30 (7.13%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.66%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.95%) Acrobat
4 3 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.24%) Weka
Business Applications
1 2 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 99 (23.52%) Azure
2 89 (21.14%) AWS
3 80 (19.00%) Microsoft 365
4 33 (7.84%) Entra ID
5 28 (6.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 27 (6.41%) GCP
7 20 (4.75%) OneDrive
8 16 (3.80%) Amazon EC2
9 15 (3.56%) Amazon EKS
9 15 (3.56%) Amazon S3
9 15 (3.56%) GitHub
10 14 (3.33%) Route 53
11 13 (3.09%) AWS Lambda
11 13 (3.09%) Serverless
12 11 (2.61%) Google Workspace
13 7 (1.66%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (1.66%) SaaS
14 6 (1.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 6 (1.43%) IaaS
14 6 (1.43%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 230 (54.63%) DNS
2 149 (35.39%) Firewall
3 102 (24.23%) DHCP
4 99 (23.52%) VPN
5 72 (17.10%) WAN
6 68 (16.15%) HTTP
6 68 (16.15%) Network Security
7 67 (15.91%) SSL
8 64 (15.20%) LAN
9 56 (13.30%) BGP
10 55 (13.06%) VLAN
11 53 (12.59%) BIG-IP
12 39 (9.26%) OSPF
13 38 (9.03%) Wi-Fi
14 37 (8.79%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 35 (8.31%) Ethernet
16 30 (7.13%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
17 29 (6.89%) Wireshark
18 24 (5.70%) Wireless
19 17 (4.04%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.61%) Elasticsearch
1 11 (2.61%) SQL Server
2 6 (1.43%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.71%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.48%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.24%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.24%) MySQL
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (0.24%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 45 (10.69%) JIRA
2 23 (5.46%) Fiddler
3 19 (4.51%) GitLab
4 15 (3.56%) Jenkins
5 14 (3.33%) Git
6 13 (3.09%) Eclipse
6 13 (3.09%) Visual Studio
7 9 (2.14%) Browser DevTools
8 7 (1.66%) Bitbucket
8 7 (1.66%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.95%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.71%) Artifactory
11 2 (0.48%) Introscope
11 2 (0.48%) Subversion
12 1 (0.24%) CircleCI
12 1 (0.24%) Postman
General
1 162 (38.48%) Social Skills
2 60 (14.25%) Finance
3 46 (10.93%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (9.26%) Banking
5 26 (6.18%) Public Sector
6 25 (5.94%) Investment Banking
7 22 (5.23%) Presentation Skills
8 21 (4.99%) Military
9 20 (4.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 17 (4.04%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (1.90%) Front Office
11 8 (1.90%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.95%) Legal
13 3 (0.71%) French Language
13 3 (0.71%) Law
13 3 (0.71%) Marketing
13 3 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.48%) Aviation
14 2 (0.48%) Japanese Language
14 2 (0.48%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 104 (24.70%) Network Engineer
2 46 (10.93%) Analyst
3 39 (9.26%) Support Engineer
4 32 (7.60%) Architect
5 31 (7.36%) IT Support
5 31 (7.36%) Web Engineer
6 26 (6.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 26 (6.18%) Security Engineer
6 26 (6.18%) Senior
7 22 (5.23%) Technical Engineer
8 20 (4.75%) Systems Engineer
9 19 (4.51%) IP Network Engineer
9 19 (4.51%) IT Engineer
10 17 (4.04%) Blue Coat Engineer
11 15 (3.56%) IT Support Engineer
11 15 (3.56%) Junior
12 14 (3.33%) SOC Analyst
12 14 (3.33%) Software Engineer
13 13 (3.09%) Network Security Engineer
13 13 (3.09%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.75%) LDAP
2 18 (4.28%) SAML
3 13 (3.09%) Node.js
3 13 (3.09%) Web Services
4 12 (2.85%) OpenID
5 11 (2.61%) 802.1X
5 11 (2.61%) JSON
6 9 (2.14%) REST
7 5 (1.19%) .NET
7 5 (1.19%) OAuth
8 4 (0.95%) XML
9 3 (0.71%) ARM Templates
9 3 (0.71%) HTML
9 3 (0.71%) Kafka
9 3 (0.71%) Middleware
9 3 (0.71%) WinForms
10 2 (0.48%) eBPF
10 2 (0.48%) NETCONF
10 2 (0.48%) RESTCONF
10 2 (0.48%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 49 (11.64%) Data Centre
2 44 (10.45%) Onboarding
3 22 (5.23%) Management Information System
4 19 (4.51%) Security Operations Centre
5 16 (3.80%) Cyber Threat
5 16 (3.80%) Cyberattack
5 16 (3.80%) Security Posture
6 15 (3.56%) Industry 4.0
6 15 (3.56%) Robotics
7 10 (2.38%) Driving Licence
7 10 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (2.14%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 7 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.66%) PKI
9 7 (1.66%) Public Cloud
10 6 (1.43%) Cloud Native
10 6 (1.43%) Mainframe
10 6 (1.43%) NHS
10 6 (1.43%) Operational Technology
10 6 (1.43%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 179 (42.52%) Windows
2 86 (20.43%) Linux
3 45 (10.69%) Windows Server
4 34 (8.08%) Mac OS
5 21 (4.99%) Windows 10
6 17 (4.04%) Apple iOS
7 14 (3.33%) Unix
8 12 (2.85%) Android
9 8 (1.90%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (1.43%) zOS
11 5 (1.19%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.95%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.71%) Windows 7
14 2 (0.48%) AIX
14 2 (0.48%) CentOS
14 2 (0.48%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.48%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2003
14 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (28.50%) Problem-Solving
2 74 (17.58%) ITIL
3 55 (13.06%) Agile
4 52 (12.35%) Incident Response
5 46 (10.93%) Load Balancing
6 45 (10.69%) DevOps
7 44 (10.45%) Customer Service
7 44 (10.45%) Migration
8 43 (10.21%) CI/CD
9 42 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
9 42 (9.98%) ITSM
10 40 (9.50%) SIEM
11 39 (9.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 35 (8.31%) High Availability
12 35 (8.31%) Validation
13 30 (7.13%) Root Cause Analysis
13 30 (7.13%) Security Operations
14 29 (6.89%) Decision-Making
15 27 (6.41%) Infrastructure as Code
15 27 (6.41%) Risk Assessment
Programming Languages
1 89 (21.14%) Python
2 39 (9.26%) Bash
3 38 (9.03%) PowerShell
4 29 (6.89%) JavaScript
5 20 (4.75%) C++
6 16 (3.80%) C#
7 15 (3.56%) SQL
8 9 (2.14%) VBA
9 7 (1.66%) Java
10 5 (1.19%) C
11 4 (0.95%) ActionScript
11 4 (0.95%) Perl
12 3 (0.71%) Go
12 3 (0.71%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.48%) Jython
13 2 (0.48%) Ruby
14 1 (0.24%) Groovy
14 1 (0.24%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 104 (24.70%) Security Cleared
2 84 (19.95%) SC Cleared
3 76 (18.05%) Degree
4 44 (10.45%) Cisco Certification
5 34 (8.08%) CCNP
6 27 (6.41%) CCNA
7 26 (6.18%) Computer Science Degree
8 24 (5.70%) CompTIA Security+
9 21 (4.99%) CISSP
10 20 (4.75%) DV Cleared
11 16 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
12 14 (3.33%) CompTIA CySA+
13 10 (2.38%) MCSA
14 9 (2.14%) Azure Certification
14 9 (2.14%) MCSE
15 8 (1.90%) CCIE
15 8 (1.90%) Network+ Certification
16 5 (1.19%) CISM
16 5 (1.19%) JNCIS
17 4 (0.95%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.61%) SLA
2 9 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (2.14%) NIST
3 6 (1.43%) QA
4 5 (1.19%) GDPR
5 3 (0.71%) NCSC
5 3 (0.71%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.48%) Government Security Classifications
6 2 (0.48%) RMADS
7 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.24%) GRC
System Software
1 91 (21.62%) Active Directory
2 47 (11.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (4.28%) Firmware
4 14 (3.33%) Docker
5 13 (3.09%) Squid
5 13 (3.09%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (2.14%) Hyper-V
7 7 (1.66%) vSphere
8 6 (1.43%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.95%) NFS
9 4 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.48%) KVM
10 2 (0.48%) RACF
10 2 (0.48%) VirtualBox
11 1 (0.24%) GPFS
11 1 (0.24%) iptables
11 1 (0.24%) Lustre
11 1 (0.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 65 (15.44%) Ansible
2 34 (8.08%) Terraform
3 32 (7.60%) Kubernetes
4 29 (6.89%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (5.94%) FortiGate
6 24 (5.70%) Single Sign-On
7 23 (5.46%) Grafana
8 21 (4.99%) SCCM
9 15 (3.56%) Prometheus
10 11 (2.61%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (2.38%) WSUS
12 9 (2.14%) Consul
13 6 (1.43%) CASB
13 6 (1.43%) QRadar
14 5 (1.19%) Nagios
14 5 (1.19%) Nessus
14 5 (1.19%) Suricata
15 4 (0.95%) Tivoli NetView
16 3 (0.71%) Puppet
16 3 (0.71%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 127 (30.17%) Microsoft
2 69 (16.39%) Cisco
3 67 (15.91%) F5
4 56 (13.30%) VMware
5 42 (9.98%) ServiceNow
6 32 (7.60%) Splunk
7 29 (6.89%) Blue Coat
8 28 (6.65%) Palo Alto
9 25 (5.94%) Fortinet
10 23 (5.46%) Citrix
10 23 (5.46%) McAfee
11 19 (4.51%) NetApp
12 18 (4.28%) Juniper
12 18 (4.28%) Zscaler
13 17 (4.04%) Siemens
14 16 (3.80%) Red Hat
15 15 (3.56%) Google
16 13 (3.09%) Bloomberg
16 13 (3.09%) CheckPoint
17 11 (2.61%) Netskope