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

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 277 220 289
Rank change year-on-year -57 +69 -45
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 430 358 337
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 1.20% 0.77%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 8.91% 9.64% 6.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 234 235 225
10th Percentile £206 £222 £188
25th Percentile £338 £362 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -0.94%
75th Percentile £550 £625 £575
90th Percentile £638 £790 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £464 £475
% change year-on-year -3.02% -2.37% +6.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 14 27
10th Percentile £21.25 £18.29 £17.50
25th Percentile £25.31 £32.44 £34.75
Median hourly rate £33.86 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.82% -3.85% +17.49%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 -
90th Percentile - - £66.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.22 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -45.82% - +11.84%

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 4,827 3,712 5,433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.53% 12.43% 12.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,970 2,280 3,213
10th Percentile £250 £225 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £484 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.31% -3.20% -1.48%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £471 £488
% change year-on-year +1.91% -3.38% +2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 296 171 425
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.69 £20.93 £17.69
Median hourly rate £27.94 £45.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.91% +12.50% +110.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.69 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.13 £80.00 £72.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.72 £32.77 £47.50
% change year-on-year -18.46% -31.01% +150.00%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -42 376 £470 -6.00% 189
UK excluding London -45 247 £450 -3.02% 188
London -61 148 £475 +2.70% 35
Work from Home -66 105 £488 -15.22% 68
North of England -32 92 £450 - 37
North West -2 56 £508 +35.33% 22
South East -42 56 £500 +11.11% 60
East of England -19 37 £263 -38.95% 26
Midlands -42 34 £406 -26.14% 28
Yorkshire -58 32 £450 -10.00% 11
West Midlands -39 30 £388 -29.55% 19
South West -28 22 £500 -18.70% 23
Scotland -2 19 £425 +2.41% 2
Wales -11 7 £408 -9.44% 3
East Midlands -21 4 £563 +2.27% 9
North East -34 4 £306 +22.50% 7

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 22 (5.12%) SharePoint
2 17 (3.95%) Confluence
3 14 (3.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 10 (2.33%) nginx
5 4 (0.93%) WebSphere
6 3 (0.70%) IIS
6 3 (0.70%) OpenStack
7 2 (0.47%) CICS
7 2 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
7 2 (0.47%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Portal
8 1 (0.23%) Traefik
Applications
1 29 (6.74%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.63%) MS Visio
4 5 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.93%) Acrobat
6 1 (0.23%) Weka
Business Applications
1 2 (0.47%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 101 (23.49%) Azure
2 89 (20.70%) AWS
3 84 (19.53%) Microsoft 365
4 38 (8.84%) Entra ID
5 29 (6.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 27 (6.28%) GCP
7 22 (5.12%) OneDrive
8 16 (3.72%) Amazon EC2
8 16 (3.72%) Route 53
9 15 (3.49%) Amazon EKS
9 15 (3.49%) Amazon S3
9 15 (3.49%) GitHub
10 13 (3.02%) AWS Lambda
10 13 (3.02%) Serverless
11 11 (2.56%) Google Workspace
12 9 (2.09%) SaaS
13 7 (1.63%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (1.63%) IaaS
14 6 (1.40%) Akamai
14 6 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 233 (54.19%) DNS
2 157 (36.51%) Firewall
3 103 (23.95%) DHCP
3 103 (23.95%) VPN
4 76 (17.67%) WAN
5 74 (17.21%) Network Security
6 68 (15.81%) HTTP
6 68 (15.81%) LAN
7 65 (15.12%) SSL
8 59 (13.72%) BGP
9 58 (13.49%) VLAN
10 56 (13.02%) BIG-IP
11 40 (9.30%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 40 (9.30%) OSPF
12 39 (9.07%) Wi-Fi
13 37 (8.60%) Ethernet
14 31 (7.21%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
15 30 (6.98%) Wireshark
16 23 (5.35%) Wireless
17 19 (4.42%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.56%) Elasticsearch
1 11 (2.56%) SQL Server
2 5 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.47%) MongoDB
4 2 (0.47%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.23%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.23%) MySQL
5 1 (0.23%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 49 (11.40%) JIRA
2 24 (5.58%) Fiddler
3 18 (4.19%) GitLab
4 15 (3.49%) Jenkins
5 14 (3.26%) Visual Studio
6 13 (3.02%) Eclipse
6 13 (3.02%) Git
7 9 (2.09%) Browser DevTools
8 7 (1.63%) Bitbucket
8 7 (1.63%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.70%) Artifactory
11 2 (0.47%) Introscope
11 2 (0.47%) Subversion
12 1 (0.23%) MSI
12 1 (0.23%) Postman
General
1 166 (38.60%) Social Skills
2 59 (13.72%) Finance
3 47 (10.93%) Analytical Skills
4 39 (9.07%) Banking
5 25 (5.81%) Investment Banking
5 25 (5.81%) Public Sector
6 22 (5.12%) Presentation Skills
7 20 (4.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (4.65%) Military
8 19 (4.42%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (2.09%) Telecoms
10 8 (1.86%) Front Office
11 5 (1.16%) Legal
12 3 (0.70%) French Language
12 3 (0.70%) Marketing
12 3 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.47%) Games
13 2 (0.47%) Japanese Language
13 2 (0.47%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.47%) Retail
Job Titles
1 105 (24.42%) Network Engineer
2 42 (9.77%) Analyst
2 42 (9.77%) Support Engineer
3 37 (8.60%) Architect
4 33 (7.67%) IT Support
5 31 (7.21%) Web Engineer
6 26 (6.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 26 (6.05%) Senior
7 24 (5.58%) Security Engineer
8 22 (5.12%) IT Engineer
8 22 (5.12%) Technical Engineer
9 21 (4.88%) Systems Engineer
10 19 (4.42%) IP Network Engineer
11 17 (3.95%) Blue Coat Engineer
11 17 (3.95%) IT Support Engineer
12 15 (3.49%) Junior
13 14 (3.26%) Software Engineer
14 13 (3.02%) C# Software Engineer
14 13 (3.02%) Technical Support
15 12 (2.79%) Integration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.65%) LDAP
2 18 (4.19%) SAML
3 13 (3.02%) Node.js
3 13 (3.02%) Web Services
4 12 (2.79%) OpenID
5 11 (2.56%) JSON
6 10 (2.33%) 802.1X
6 10 (2.33%) REST
7 6 (1.40%) .NET
8 5 (1.16%) OAuth
9 4 (0.93%) XML
10 3 (0.70%) ARM Templates
10 3 (0.70%) HTML
10 3 (0.70%) Middleware
10 3 (0.70%) WinForms
11 2 (0.47%) eBPF
11 2 (0.47%) JMS
11 2 (0.47%) NETCONF
11 2 (0.47%) RESTCONF
11 2 (0.47%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 52 (12.09%) Data Centre
2 45 (10.47%) Onboarding
3 22 (5.12%) Management Information System
4 17 (3.95%) Security Posture
5 16 (3.72%) Security Operations Centre
6 15 (3.49%) Industry 4.0
6 15 (3.49%) Robotics
7 14 (3.26%) Cyber Threat
8 13 (3.02%) Cyberattack
8 13 (3.02%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 11 (2.56%) Driving Licence
10 10 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
11 9 (2.09%) Cloud Native
12 8 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
13 7 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (1.63%) Linux Command Line
13 7 (1.63%) PKI
14 6 (1.40%) NHS
14 6 (1.40%) Operational Technology
14 6 (1.40%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 183 (42.56%) Windows
2 85 (19.77%) Linux
3 44 (10.23%) Windows Server
4 35 (8.14%) Mac OS
5 24 (5.58%) Windows 10
6 17 (3.95%) Apple iOS
7 15 (3.49%) Unix
8 11 (2.56%) Android
9 7 (1.63%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (1.40%) Ubuntu
10 6 (1.40%) zOS
11 3 (0.70%) Check Point GAiA
11 3 (0.70%) Windows 7
11 3 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.47%) CentOS
12 2 (0.47%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.47%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (27.44%) Problem-Solving
2 79 (18.37%) ITIL
3 56 (13.02%) Agile
4 50 (11.63%) Incident Response
5 48 (11.16%) Load Balancing
6 47 (10.93%) Customer Service
7 46 (10.70%) Migration
8 44 (10.23%) DevOps
9 43 (10.00%) CI/CD
9 43 (10.00%) ITSM
10 39 (9.07%) Cybersecurity
10 39 (9.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 38 (8.84%) High Availability
12 36 (8.37%) SIEM
13 35 (8.14%) Validation
14 32 (7.44%) Root Cause Analysis
15 29 (6.74%) Decision-Making
16 28 (6.51%) Change Management
16 28 (6.51%) Infrastructure as Code
17 27 (6.28%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 94 (21.86%) Python
2 41 (9.53%) PowerShell
3 40 (9.30%) Bash
4 29 (6.74%) JavaScript
5 21 (4.88%) C++
6 16 (3.72%) C#
7 14 (3.26%) SQL
8 9 (2.09%) VBA
9 6 (1.40%) Java
10 5 (1.16%) ActionScript
10 5 (1.16%) C
11 4 (0.93%) Perl
12 2 (0.47%) Go
12 2 (0.47%) Jython
12 2 (0.47%) Ruby
12 2 (0.47%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.23%) Groovy
13 1 (0.23%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 107 (24.88%) Security Cleared
2 86 (20.00%) SC Cleared
3 78 (18.14%) Degree
4 44 (10.23%) Cisco Certification
5 34 (7.91%) CCNP
6 27 (6.28%) CCNA
7 24 (5.58%) Computer Science Degree
8 22 (5.12%) CompTIA Security+
9 21 (4.88%) CISSP
9 21 (4.88%) DV Cleared
10 18 (4.19%) Microsoft Certification
11 12 (2.79%) CompTIA CySA+
12 10 (2.33%) Azure Certification
12 10 (2.33%) MCSA
13 9 (2.09%) MCSE
14 8 (1.86%) CCIE
14 8 (1.86%) Network+ Certification
15 5 (1.16%) CISM
16 4 (0.93%) GCIA
16 4 (0.93%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (2.33%) SLA
2 9 (2.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (2.09%) NIST
3 6 (1.40%) QA
4 5 (1.16%) GDPR
4 5 (1.16%) NCSC
5 3 (0.70%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.47%) Government Security Classifications
6 2 (0.47%) RMADS
7 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.23%) GRC
System Software
1 94 (21.86%) Active Directory
2 47 (10.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (4.19%) Firmware
4 13 (3.02%) Squid
5 12 (2.79%) Docker
5 12 (2.79%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (2.09%) Hyper-V
7 8 (1.86%) VMware NSX
8 6 (1.40%) vSphere
9 4 (0.93%) NFS
9 4 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.47%) KVM
10 2 (0.47%) RACF
10 2 (0.47%) VirtualBox
11 1 (0.23%) Citrix Presentation Server
11 1 (0.23%) GPFS
11 1 (0.23%) Lustre
11 1 (0.23%) Snort
11 1 (0.23%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 63 (14.65%) Ansible
2 34 (7.91%) Terraform
3 32 (7.44%) Microsoft Intune
4 30 (6.98%) Kubernetes
5 25 (5.81%) FortiGate
5 25 (5.81%) Single Sign-On
6 22 (5.12%) Grafana
7 21 (4.88%) SCCM
8 15 (3.49%) Prometheus
9 11 (2.56%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (2.33%) WSUS
11 9 (2.09%) Consul
12 6 (1.40%) CASB
12 6 (1.40%) QRadar
13 5 (1.16%) Nagios
13 5 (1.16%) Nessus
13 5 (1.16%) Suricata
14 4 (0.93%) Tivoli NetView
15 3 (0.70%) Puppet
15 3 (0.70%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 135 (31.40%) Microsoft
2 72 (16.74%) Cisco
3 71 (16.51%) F5
4 57 (13.26%) VMware
5 43 (10.00%) ServiceNow
6 29 (6.74%) Blue Coat
7 27 (6.28%) Palo Alto
7 27 (6.28%) Splunk
8 26 (6.05%) Fortinet
9 23 (5.35%) Citrix
9 23 (5.35%) McAfee
10 19 (4.42%) NetApp
10 19 (4.42%) Zscaler
11 18 (4.19%) Google
11 18 (4.19%) Juniper
12 17 (3.95%) Siemens
13 16 (3.72%) CheckPoint
13 16 (3.72%) Red Hat
14 13 (3.02%) Bloomberg
14 13 (3.02%) Infoblox