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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 277 222 269
Rank change year-on-year -55 +47 -33
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 430 354 370
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.94% 1.21% 0.84%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.48% 9.40% 6.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 245 253 269
10th Percentile £213 £225 £188
25th Percentile £355 £399 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £510 £475
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% +7.37% -8.21%
75th Percentile £560 £630 £560
90th Percentile £640 £750 £663
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £513 £450
% change year-on-year -12.20% +13.89% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 10 13
10th Percentile £20.85 £18.18 £16.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £28.81 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £52.25 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.73% +113.27% -60.83%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.69 £56.49
90th Percentile £67.27 £65.00 £69.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £47.50 £56.49
% change year-on-year +31.58% -15.91% -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 4,534 3,764 5,861
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.90% 12.88% 13.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,868 2,343 3,535
10th Percentile £231 £213 £205
25th Percentile £394 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £480
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% +1.56% -7.69%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £469 £475
% change year-on-year +1.28% -1.26% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 202 158 415
10th Percentile £15.66 £14.99 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.56 £21.46 £17.71
Median hourly rate £43.85 £37.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +16.94% - +97.37%
75th Percentile £70.00 £62.50 £61.75
90th Percentile £76.35 £75.00 £67.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £54.00 £28.00 £45.44
% change year-on-year +92.86% -38.38% +145.62%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -52 369 £465 -7.46% 197
UK excluding London -16 276 £450 -12.20% 174
London -63 119 £470 -1.05% 42
Work from Home -67 97 £425 -22.73% 79
North of England -19 93 £450 -7.51% 49
South East -31 60 £523 -5.00% 50
North West +10 59 £540 +44.00% 26
East of England -9 52 £280 -34.88% 20
Midlands -39 36 £300 -45.45% 25
West Midlands -31 33 £225 +7.14% 17
Yorkshire -43 31 £447 -22.35% 17
Scotland +20 26 £425 -3.30% 5
South West -26 25 £613 -0.41% 25
Wales -15 6 £335 -21.18% 4
North East -18 3 £200 -27.27% 7
East Midlands -37 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 18 (4.19%) Confluence
2 13 (3.02%) Microsoft Exchange
2 13 (3.02%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.33%) nginx
4 6 (1.40%) OpenStack
4 6 (1.40%) Skype for Business
5 3 (0.70%) Apache
6 2 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
6 2 (0.47%) IIS
6 2 (0.47%) Oracle HTTP Server
6 2 (0.47%) WebSphere
6 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Application Server
6 2 (0.47%) WebSphere Portal
6 2 (0.47%) WordPress
7 1 (0.23%) Traefik
Applications
1 36 (8.37%) 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 92 (21.40%) AWS
3 75 (17.44%) Microsoft 365
4 28 (6.51%) GCP
5 25 (5.81%) Entra ID
6 20 (4.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 14 (3.26%) Amazon S3
7 14 (3.26%) Route 53
8 13 (3.02%) Amazon EC2
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%) Google Workspace
12 8 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
12 8 (1.86%) GitHub
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
3 105 (24.42%) VPN
4 102 (23.72%) DHCP
5 89 (20.70%) WAN
6 80 (18.60%) LAN
7 70 (16.28%) HTTP
8 66 (15.35%) SSL
9 64 (14.88%) VLAN
10 60 (13.95%) Network Security
11 50 (11.63%) BGP
11 50 (11.63%) BIG-IP
12 43 (10.00%) OSPF
13 42 (9.77%) Wi-Fi
14 35 (8.14%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 35 (8.14%) Wireshark
15 34 (7.91%) Ethernet
16 28 (6.51%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
17 21 (4.88%) SD-WAN
18 19 (4.42%) 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 30 (6.98%) Fiddler
3 17 (3.95%) GitLab
4 14 (3.26%) Eclipse
4 14 (3.26%) Visual Studio
5 13 (3.02%) Git
6 10 (2.33%) Jenkins
7 9 (2.09%) Browser DevTools
8 7 (1.63%) Bitbucket
8 7 (1.63%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.93%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.47%) Introscope
10 2 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.47%) Subversion
11 1 (0.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.23%) Travis CI
General
1 150 (34.88%) Social Skills
2 52 (12.09%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (10.47%) Finance
4 40 (9.30%) Banking
5 30 (6.98%) Public Sector
6 26 (6.05%) Investment Banking
6 26 (6.05%) Presentation Skills
7 24 (5.58%) Military
8 18 (4.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 16 (3.72%) Documentation Skills
10 12 (2.79%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.63%) Front Office
12 5 (1.16%) Law
12 5 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
13 4 (0.93%) Legal
14 3 (0.70%) French Language
14 3 (0.70%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.70%) Marketing
15 2 (0.47%) Japanese Language
15 2 (0.47%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 109 (25.35%) Network Engineer
2 53 (12.33%) Analyst
3 44 (10.23%) Support Engineer
4 39 (9.07%) Web Engineer
5 32 (7.44%) Senior
6 30 (6.98%) Architect
7 24 (5.58%) IT Engineer
7 24 (5.58%) IT Support
8 23 (5.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 21 (4.88%) IP Network Engineer
9 21 (4.88%) SOC Analyst
10 20 (4.65%) Blue Coat Engineer
10 20 (4.65%) Technical Engineer
11 18 (4.19%) IT Support Engineer
11 18 (4.19%) Security Engineer
12 17 (3.95%) Systems Engineer
13 16 (3.72%) Integration Engineer
14 15 (3.49%) Lead
15 14 (3.26%) Junior
15 14 (3.26%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (4.42%) LDAP
2 17 (3.95%) Web Services
3 14 (3.26%) Node.js
4 12 (2.79%) SAML
5 10 (2.33%) JSON
5 10 (2.33%) OpenID
6 9 (2.09%) 802.1X
7 7 (1.63%) REST
8 5 (1.16%) Kafka
9 4 (0.93%) Middleware
9 4 (0.93%) NETCONF
9 4 (0.93%) OAuth
9 4 (0.93%) OpenConfig
9 4 (0.93%) RESTCONF
9 4 (0.93%) YANG
10 3 (0.70%) .NET
10 3 (0.70%) ARM Templates
10 3 (0.70%) HTML
11 2 (0.47%) JMS
11 2 (0.47%) WebSphere MQ
Miscellaneous
1 30 (6.98%) Data Centre
1 30 (6.98%) Management Information System
2 22 (5.12%) Security Operations Centre
3 21 (4.88%) Cyberattack
3 21 (4.88%) Onboarding
4 15 (3.49%) Industry 4.0
4 15 (3.49%) Robotics
5 13 (3.02%) Enterprise Software
5 13 (3.02%) Public Cloud
5 13 (3.02%) Security Posture
6 12 (2.79%) Driving Licence
6 12 (2.79%) PKI
7 10 (2.33%) Cyber Threat
7 10 (2.33%) NHS
7 10 (2.33%) Private Cloud
8 9 (2.09%) CMDB
9 8 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
9 8 (1.86%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
11 6 (1.40%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 190 (44.19%) Windows
2 108 (25.12%) Linux
3 54 (12.56%) Windows Server
4 23 (5.35%) Windows 10
5 16 (3.72%) Android
6 14 (3.26%) Mac OS
7 13 (3.02%) Unix
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%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (29.30%) Problem-Solving
2 68 (15.81%) ITIL
3 56 (13.02%) Cybersecurity
4 55 (12.79%) Agile
5 53 (12.33%) SIEM
6 52 (12.09%) Load Balancing
7 48 (11.16%) Incident Response
8 40 (9.30%) DevOps
9 39 (9.07%) Migration
9 39 (9.07%) Security Operations
10 36 (8.37%) Customer Service
10 36 (8.37%) Validation
11 35 (8.14%) CI/CD
12 33 (7.67%) Root Cause Analysis
13 32 (7.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 31 (7.21%) Data Loss Prevention
15 30 (6.98%) Malware Detection/Protection
16 29 (6.74%) Computer Science
16 29 (6.74%) Decision-Making
17 28 (6.51%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 94 (21.86%) Python
2 65 (15.12%) PowerShell
3 46 (10.70%) Bash
4 27 (6.28%) JavaScript
5 19 (4.42%) C++
5 19 (4.42%) SQL
6 17 (3.95%) C#
7 8 (1.86%) Java
7 8 (1.86%) Perl
8 7 (1.63%) C
9 6 (1.40%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.16%) Go
10 5 (1.16%) VBA
11 2 (0.47%) Jython
11 2 (0.47%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.47%) VBScript
12 1 (0.23%) Bicep
12 1 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.23%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 133 (30.93%) Security Cleared
2 110 (25.58%) SC Cleared
3 64 (14.88%) Degree
4 48 (11.16%) Cisco Certification
5 39 (9.07%) CCNP
6 34 (7.91%) DV Cleared
7 32 (7.44%) CompTIA Security+
8 27 (6.28%) Computer Science Degree
9 26 (6.05%) CCNA
10 19 (4.42%) CISSP
10 19 (4.42%) CompTIA CySA+
11 13 (3.02%) Microsoft Certification
12 11 (2.56%) Network+ Certification
13 9 (2.09%) Azure Certification
13 9 (2.09%) JNCIS
13 9 (2.09%) MCSE
14 8 (1.86%) MCSA
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
2 9 (2.09%) SLA
3 8 (1.86%) GDPR
4 5 (1.16%) NCSC
5 2 (0.47%) HIPAA
5 2 (0.47%) QA
5 2 (0.47%) RMADS
5 2 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
6 1 (0.23%) GRC
System Software
1 89 (20.70%) Active Directory
2 52 (12.09%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (6.51%) Docker
4 20 (4.65%) Firmware
5 10 (2.33%) Hyper-V
5 10 (2.33%) VMware NSX
6 9 (2.09%) Squid
7 8 (1.86%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (1.86%) vSphere
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%) iptables
12 2 (0.47%) NDS
12 2 (0.47%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 61 (14.19%) Ansible
2 39 (9.07%) Kubernetes
3 35 (8.14%) Terraform
4 30 (6.98%) SCCM
5 23 (5.35%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (5.12%) Single Sign-On
7 21 (4.88%) FortiGate
8 18 (4.19%) Grafana
9 15 (3.49%) Prometheus
10 10 (2.33%) WSUS
11 9 (2.09%) Nagios
11 9 (2.09%) QRadar
12 7 (1.63%) Consul
13 6 (1.40%) Tivoli NetView
14 5 (1.16%) CASB
14 5 (1.16%) Nessus
14 5 (1.16%) Puppet
15 4 (0.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 3 (0.70%) Red Hat Satellite
17 2 (0.47%) Nmap
Vendors
1 114 (26.51%) Microsoft
2 72 (16.74%) VMware
3 68 (15.81%) F5
4 66 (15.35%) Cisco
5 40 (9.30%) Splunk
6 34 (7.91%) Blue Coat
7 32 (7.44%) Palo Alto
8 31 (7.21%) McAfee
9 28 (6.51%) ServiceNow
10 27 (6.28%) Fortinet
10 27 (6.28%) Juniper
11 23 (5.35%) NetApp
12 20 (4.65%) Citrix
12 20 (4.65%) Red Hat
13 16 (3.72%) CheckPoint
13 16 (3.72%) Siemens
14 13 (3.02%) SolarWinds
14 13 (3.02%) Zscaler
15 12 (2.79%) Meraki
15 12 (2.79%) Oracle