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 28 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 236 204 198
Rank change year-on-year -32 -6 +46
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 440 450 576
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.22% 1.23% 1.26%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 11.04% 10.10% 9.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 233 255 356
10th Percentile £185 £203 £186
25th Percentile £270 £275 £280
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £438
Median % change year-on-year -2.11% +8.57% -15.05%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £588
90th Percentile £723 £738 £681
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £400 £400
% change year-on-year +6.25% - -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 20 58
10th Percentile £15.50 £29.13 £23.13
25th Percentile £33.00 £58.44 £33.83
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year - +30.00% -23.08%
75th Percentile - - £56.49
90th Percentile £81.20 £67.50 £69.62
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year - +30.00% -23.08%

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 3,987 4,455 6,359
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.04% 12.17% 13.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,585 2,559 3,940
10th Percentile £206 £223 £211
25th Percentile £356 £370 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £613
90th Percentile £675 £686 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 173 347
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.53 £17.72
25th Percentile £20.56 £23.59 £22.88
Median hourly rate £34.00 £42.50 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -24.65% +35.90%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £48.03 £56.49
% change year-on-year -11.51% -14.98% +25.53%

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 28 November 2025.

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 28 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for TCP/IP in the UK

TCP/IP
Top 17 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 28 November 2025. 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 -10 398 £477 +0.32% 287
UK excluding London -15 257 £425 +6.25% 280
London +5 153 £550 +12.82% 75
Work from Home -6 135 £454 -9.20% 107
North of England -32 72 £463 +4.23% 31
South East -2 56 £380 -15.67% 113
East of England +3 55 £413 -29.79% 44
North West -10 37 £535 +15.68% 17
Midlands -20 35 £213 -43.33% 26
West Midlands -15 34 £225 - 16
Yorkshire -43 32 £365 -39.17% 11
South West -6 28 £700 +47.37% 42
Scotland +4 18 £414 +3.44% 25
Wales -6 4 £250 -16.67% 4
Northern Ireland -8 3 - - 3
North East -11 3 £400 +166.67% 3
East Midlands -29 1 £165 -56.00% 9

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 35 (7.95%) SharePoint
2 27 (6.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (3.18%) Skype for Business
4 7 (1.59%) Confluence
4 7 (1.59%) OpenStack
5 4 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.68%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.45%) IIS
7 2 (0.45%) nginx
7 2 (0.45%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.45%) WordPress
8 1 (0.23%) Apache
8 1 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2010
8 1 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
8 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
Applications
1 42 (9.55%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.36%) Weka
3 4 (0.91%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.45%) AutoCAD
4 2 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.45%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.23%) Acrobat
5 1 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
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%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.23%) RMDS
1 1 (0.23%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 89 (20.23%) AWS
1 89 (20.23%) Azure
2 88 (20.00%) Microsoft 365
3 27 (6.14%) Amazon EC2
4 26 (5.91%) Amazon S3
5 25 (5.68%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 23 (5.23%) Entra ID
7 22 (5.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 22 (5.00%) Amazon ELB
7 22 (5.00%) GCP
8 14 (3.18%) GitHub
9 10 (2.27%) SaaS
10 9 (2.05%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (1.82%) Cloud Computing
11 8 (1.82%) OneDrive
12 6 (1.36%) Google Workspace
13 4 (0.91%) Amazon EKS
13 4 (0.91%) Apigee
13 4 (0.91%) Azure DevOps
13 4 (0.91%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 231 (52.50%) DNS
2 156 (35.45%) Firewall
3 129 (29.32%) DHCP
4 121 (27.50%) VPN
5 79 (17.95%) SSL
6 67 (15.23%) LAN
6 67 (15.23%) WAN
7 61 (13.86%) VLAN
8 59 (13.41%) HTTP
9 58 (13.18%) Network Security
10 30 (6.82%) Internet
11 28 (6.36%) BGP
12 27 (6.14%) Wireshark
13 26 (5.91%) Ethernet
14 23 (5.23%) SAN
14 23 (5.23%) Wi-Fi
14 23 (5.23%) Wireless
15 20 (4.55%) OSPF
16 16 (3.64%) BIG-IP
17 14 (3.18%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (5.91%) SQL Server
2 9 (2.05%) NoSQL
2 9 (2.05%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (1.14%) Oracle Database
4 4 (0.91%) Amazon Aurora
4 4 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.91%) Big Data
4 4 (0.91%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.91%) MySQL
5 3 (0.68%) Apache Cassandra
5 3 (0.68%) DB2
5 3 (0.68%) Delta Lake
5 3 (0.68%) Hadoop
5 3 (0.68%) Parquet
5 3 (0.68%) Relational Database
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%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 48 (10.91%) Git
2 45 (10.23%) Jenkins
3 30 (6.82%) GitLab
4 22 (5.00%) Eclipse
4 22 (5.00%) Visual Studio
5 19 (4.32%) JIRA
6 14 (3.18%) Fiddler
7 9 (2.05%) Postman
8 8 (1.82%) Subversion
9 4 (0.91%) Robot Framework
9 4 (0.91%) TeamCity
10 3 (0.68%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.68%) MLflow
10 3 (0.68%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.45%) Maven
11 2 (0.45%) Mercurial
11 2 (0.45%) Poetry
11 2 (0.45%) PyCharm
11 2 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 160 (36.36%) Social Skills
2 80 (18.18%) Analytical Skills
3 52 (11.82%) Finance
4 33 (7.50%) Public Sector
5 29 (6.59%) Military
6 27 (6.14%) Presentation Skills
7 25 (5.68%) Banking
8 18 (4.09%) Investment Banking
9 13 (2.95%) Front Office
10 12 (2.73%) Legal
11 11 (2.50%) Telecoms
12 10 (2.27%) Organisational Skills
13 8 (1.82%) Financial Institution
13 8 (1.82%) Law
13 8 (1.82%) Local Government
14 4 (0.91%) Documentation Skills
14 4 (0.91%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.68%) Aerospace
15 3 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 2 (0.45%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 77 (17.50%) Network Engineer
2 74 (16.82%) Support Engineer
3 56 (12.73%) Senior
4 53 (12.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 48 (10.91%) Analyst
6 36 (8.18%) IT Support
7 32 (7.27%) IT Engineer
8 29 (6.59%) Developer
9 26 (5.91%) Support Analyst
9 26 (5.91%) Technical Support
10 21 (4.77%) 2nd Line Support
10 21 (4.77%) Technical Engineer
11 20 (4.55%) C# Software Engineer
11 20 (4.55%) DevOps Engineer
11 20 (4.55%) Software Engineer
12 17 (3.86%) Senior DevOps
13 16 (3.64%) IT Support Engineer
13 16 (3.64%) Junior
13 16 (3.64%) Senior DevOps Engineer
13 16 (3.64%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (5.68%) Node.js
1 25 (5.68%) Web Services
2 20 (4.55%) Middleware
3 16 (3.64%) REST
4 12 (2.73%) LDAP
5 11 (2.50%) FIX Protocol
5 11 (2.50%) SOAP
6 9 (2.05%) Elastic Stack
7 7 (1.59%) AngularJS
8 5 (1.14%) FpML
8 5 (1.14%) Ultra Messaging
9 4 (0.91%) React
9 4 (0.91%) RESTful
9 4 (0.91%) SAML
10 3 (0.68%) Apache Avro
10 3 (0.68%) ASP.NET Web API
10 3 (0.68%) Express.js
10 3 (0.68%) Flask
10 3 (0.68%) NumPy
10 3 (0.68%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 33 (7.50%) Data Centre
2 29 (6.59%) Management Information System
3 22 (5.00%) Onboarding
4 18 (4.09%) Analytical Mindset
5 15 (3.41%) Private Cloud
6 13 (2.95%) Driving Licence
6 13 (2.95%) NHS
6 13 (2.95%) Security Posture
7 11 (2.50%) Public Cloud
7 11 (2.50%) Replication
7 11 (2.50%) Video Conferencing
8 9 (2.05%) CMDB
8 9 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
9 8 (1.82%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 8 (1.82%) iPhone
9 8 (1.82%) PKI
9 8 (1.82%) SCADA
10 7 (1.59%) Clustering
10 7 (1.59%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 201 (45.68%) Windows
2 147 (33.41%) Linux
3 55 (12.50%) Windows Server
4 47 (10.68%) Windows 10
5 33 (7.50%) Unix
6 16 (3.64%) Mac OS
6 16 (3.64%) Windows Server 2016
7 14 (3.18%) Android
8 12 (2.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (1.82%) Ubuntu
9 8 (1.82%) Windows 7
9 8 (1.82%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (1.59%) Apple iOS
11 6 (1.36%) CentOS
11 6 (1.36%) VMS
11 6 (1.36%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (1.14%) Solaris
13 4 (0.91%) Debian
13 4 (0.91%) Windows Server 2003
14 3 (0.68%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
2 78 (17.73%) CI/CD
3 75 (17.05%) Agile
4 68 (15.45%) ITIL
5 62 (14.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 61 (13.86%) DevOps
7 51 (11.59%) Infrastructure as Code
8 48 (10.91%) High Availability
9 37 (8.41%) Continuous Integration
9 37 (8.41%) Cybersecurity
10 36 (8.18%) Infrastructure Automation
10 36 (8.18%) Load Balancing
11 35 (7.95%) Validation
12 34 (7.73%) Migration
13 31 (7.05%) Configuration Management
13 31 (7.05%) Incident Response
13 31 (7.05%) Knowledge Transfer
14 29 (6.59%) SIEM
15 27 (6.14%) Service Management
16 26 (5.91%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 148 (33.64%) Python
2 78 (17.73%) Bash
3 69 (15.68%) PowerShell
4 34 (7.73%) C++
5 30 (6.82%) C#
5 30 (6.82%) Perl
6 28 (6.36%) JavaScript
7 26 (5.91%) SQL
8 20 (4.55%) Java
9 9 (2.05%) Go
10 8 (1.82%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.91%) C
11 4 (0.91%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.68%) Groovy
12 3 (0.68%) PHP
12 3 (0.68%) Search Processing Language
12 3 (0.68%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.45%) Ruby
14 1 (0.23%) Bicep
14 1 (0.23%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 111 (25.23%) Security Cleared
2 83 (18.86%) SC Cleared
3 40 (9.09%) Cisco Certification
4 37 (8.41%) Degree
5 36 (8.18%) Microsoft Certification
6 28 (6.36%) DV Cleared
7 26 (5.91%) CCNP
8 23 (5.23%) CCNA
9 18 (4.09%) Network+ Certification
10 14 (3.18%) MCP
10 14 (3.18%) MCSE
11 13 (2.95%) Azure Certification
12 12 (2.73%) CISSP
13 11 (2.50%) CompTIA Security+
13 11 (2.50%) Server+ Certification
14 10 (2.27%) MCSA
15 7 (1.59%) A+ Certification
15 7 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
16 6 (1.36%) CCIE
16 6 (1.36%) ECDL
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (5.23%) GDPR
2 8 (1.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 7 (1.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 6 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials
4 6 (1.36%) NIST
5 5 (1.14%) SLA
6 4 (0.91%) HIPAA
7 3 (0.68%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.68%) QA
8 2 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.45%) NCSC
9 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 101 (22.95%) Active Directory
2 76 (17.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 48 (10.91%) Docker
4 36 (8.18%) Hyper-V
5 13 (2.95%) VMware ESXi
6 11 (2.50%) Firmware
7 7 (1.59%) Lustre
7 7 (1.59%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 7 (1.59%) Terminal Services
8 6 (1.36%) GPFS
8 6 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (1.36%) vSphere
9 5 (1.14%) NDS
9 5 (1.14%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 5 (1.14%) NFS
9 5 (1.14%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.91%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 4 (0.91%) Veritas File System
10 4 (0.91%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 4 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 90 (20.45%) Ansible
2 61 (13.86%) Terraform
3 35 (7.95%) SCCM
4 26 (5.91%) Kubernetes
5 24 (5.45%) Microsoft Intune
6 21 (4.77%) Puppet
7 16 (3.64%) Grafana
7 16 (3.64%) Prometheus
8 9 (2.05%) FortiGate
8 9 (2.05%) vCenter Server
9 8 (1.82%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (1.59%) Nessus
11 6 (1.36%) Progress Chef
11 6 (1.36%) QRadar
11 6 (1.36%) WSUS
12 5 (1.14%) CASB
12 5 (1.14%) ITRS Geneos
12 5 (1.14%) Microsoft Clustering
12 5 (1.14%) Red Hat Satellite
13 3 (0.68%) Tivoli NetView
Vendors
1 156 (35.45%) Microsoft
2 96 (21.82%) VMware
3 61 (13.86%) F5
4 58 (13.18%) Cisco
5 52 (11.82%) Palo Alto
6 43 (9.77%) CheckPoint
7 23 (5.23%) Citrix
8 22 (5.00%) ServiceNow
8 22 (5.00%) Splunk
9 21 (4.77%) Blue Coat
9 21 (4.77%) Red Hat
10 20 (4.55%) Oracle
11 19 (4.32%) Fortinet
12 17 (3.86%) NetApp
13 16 (3.64%) McAfee
14 15 (3.41%) SolarWinds
15 13 (2.95%) Juniper
15 13 (2.95%) MuleSoft
16 11 (2.50%) CyberArk
16 11 (2.50%) Zscaler