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 26 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 278 242 262
Rank change year-on-year -36 +20 -35
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 487 371 368
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.91% 1.13% 0.95%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 9.61% 9.58% 7.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 269 203 226
10th Percentile £203 £200 £203
25th Percentile £313 £353 £260
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.11% +5.56% -
75th Percentile £560 £609 £575
90th Percentile £675 £653 £641
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £431
% change year-on-year - +4.35% +7.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 31 32
10th Percentile £26.25 £28.00 £31.63
25th Percentile £31.25 £47.88 £63.44
Median hourly rate £52.50 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.23% - +30.00%
75th Percentile £81.05 - -
90th Percentile £98.82 £83.00 £67.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -19.23% - +33.33%

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 5,068 3,874 4,665
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.45% 11.84% 12.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,992 2,362 2,803
10th Percentile £250 £241 £220
25th Percentile £400 £367 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £677 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £472 £500
% change year-on-year +0.58% -5.55% +9.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 371 201 302
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £20.50
Median hourly rate £26.00 £46.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.78% -7.50% -11.49%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.35 £74.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £44.50 £54.94
% change year-on-year -42.09% -19.00% -4.46%

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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 -31 447 £475 -5.00% 227
UK excluding London -25 268 £450 - 181
London -41 196 £475 -15.56% 69
Work from Home -71 113 £518 -3.27% 87
South East -33 81 £525 +38.34% 48
North of England -51 78 £450 -15.98% 37
North West -26 48 £315 -41.12% 17
South West -7 45 £644 +5.10% 35
Midlands -31 44 £402 -10.67% 30
West Midlands -42 36 £406 -9.72% 18
Yorkshire -41 26 £500 -9.09% 13
East of England -32 20 £423 -23.18% 19
Scotland -19 13 £210 -49.94% 9
Wales -9 8 £425 +136.11% 5
East Midlands -10 8 £402 -26.91% 12
North East -40 4 £438 +75.00% 10

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 49 (10.06%) SharePoint
2 29 (5.95%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (2.26%) Confluence
3 11 (2.26%) OpenStack
4 5 (1.03%) nginx
5 4 (0.82%) FactoryTalk
5 4 (0.82%) WebSphere
6 3 (0.62%) IIS
7 2 (0.41%) CICS
7 2 (0.41%) IBM HTTP Server
7 2 (0.41%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 2 (0.41%) WebSphere Application Server
7 2 (0.41%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 18 (3.70%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (3.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (1.44%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.41%) Houdini
5 2 (0.41%) NUKE
6 1 (0.21%) Weka
Business Applications
1 8 (1.64%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 169 (34.70%) Azure
2 121 (24.85%) Microsoft 365
3 113 (23.20%) AWS
4 75 (15.40%) Entra ID
5 37 (7.60%) GCP
6 36 (7.39%) OneDrive
7 23 (4.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 21 (4.31%) GitHub
9 13 (2.67%) Azure Monitor
9 13 (2.67%) OpenShift
10 12 (2.46%) Route 53
11 11 (2.26%) Amazon EC2
11 11 (2.26%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (2.26%) Google Workspace
12 10 (2.05%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (1.64%) Akamai
13 8 (1.64%) Amazon EKS
13 8 (1.64%) Azure Sentinel
14 7 (1.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 7 (1.44%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 297 (60.99%) DNS
2 211 (43.33%) Firewall
3 185 (37.99%) DHCP
4 147 (30.18%) VPN
5 93 (19.10%) Network Security
6 91 (18.69%) WAN
7 80 (16.43%) LAN
8 76 (15.61%) HTTP
9 73 (14.99%) VLAN
10 71 (14.58%) BGP
11 57 (11.70%) SSL
12 45 (9.24%) OSPF
13 44 (9.03%) Wi-Fi
14 43 (8.83%) BIG-IP
14 43 (8.83%) Wireless
15 38 (7.80%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 27 (5.54%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
17 26 (5.34%) SD-WAN
18 23 (4.72%) Wireshark
19 18 (3.70%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.08%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (2.87%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.64%) MySQL
4 7 (1.44%) NoSQL
5 6 (1.23%) MongoDB
6 5 (1.03%) Redis
6 5 (1.03%) SQLite
7 4 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.62%) KDB
9 2 (0.41%) BigQuery
10 1 (0.21%) Cloud Spanner
10 1 (0.21%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.21%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 45 (9.24%) JIRA
2 33 (6.78%) Git
3 28 (5.75%) Jenkins
4 21 (4.31%) GitLab
5 17 (3.49%) Fiddler
6 10 (2.05%) Browser DevTools
7 8 (1.64%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (1.23%) Visual Studio
9 5 (1.03%) Artifactory
9 5 (1.03%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.82%) Selenium
11 2 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.41%) Introscope
11 2 (0.41%) Subversion
12 1 (0.21%) MSI
12 1 (0.21%) Postman
General
1 193 (39.63%) Social Skills
2 76 (15.61%) Analytical Skills
3 67 (13.76%) Finance
4 45 (9.24%) Banking
5 29 (5.95%) Public Sector
6 25 (5.13%) Telecoms
7 22 (4.52%) Investment Banking
8 14 (2.87%) Front Office
9 13 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
10 8 (1.64%) Military
11 6 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.23%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.03%) Aerospace
12 5 (1.03%) Legal
12 5 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
12 5 (1.03%) Police
13 4 (0.82%) Automotive
14 3 (0.62%) Multimedia
14 3 (0.62%) Retail
Job Titles
1 109 (22.38%) Network Engineer
2 71 (14.58%) Support Engineer
3 63 (12.94%) Senior
4 54 (11.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 50 (10.27%) IT Support
6 41 (8.42%) IT Engineer
7 37 (7.60%) Analyst
7 37 (7.60%) Architect
8 35 (7.19%) IT Support Engineer
9 25 (5.13%) Senior Network Engineer
10 24 (4.93%) Security Engineer
10 24 (4.93%) Web Engineer
11 23 (4.72%) Platform Engineer
12 20 (4.11%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 18 (3.70%) IP Network Engineer
14 16 (3.29%) Blue Coat Engineer
14 16 (3.29%) Linux Engineer
14 16 (3.29%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
15 15 (3.08%) Support Analyst
16 14 (2.87%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (17.45%) Terraform
2 20 (4.11%) SAML
3 16 (3.29%) REST
4 12 (2.46%) ARM Templates
4 12 (2.46%) JSON
5 11 (2.26%) 802.1X
6 9 (1.85%) .NET
7 8 (1.64%) Kafka
8 7 (1.44%) HTML
8 7 (1.44%) LDAP
9 6 (1.23%) Elastic Stack
9 6 (1.23%) Jinja
9 6 (1.23%) RabbitMQ
9 6 (1.23%) XML
10 5 (1.03%) FastAPI
10 5 (1.03%) Flask
10 5 (1.03%) NETCONF
10 5 (1.03%) OpenConfig
10 5 (1.03%) RESTCONF
10 5 (1.03%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 84 (17.25%) Data Centre
2 59 (12.11%) Onboarding
3 33 (6.78%) PKI
4 30 (6.16%) Hybrid Cloud
5 28 (5.75%) Management Information System
6 24 (4.93%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 19 (3.90%) Linux Command Line
8 17 (3.49%) Public Cloud
9 16 (3.29%) Driving Licence
9 16 (3.29%) Operational Technology
9 16 (3.29%) Self-Motivation
10 13 (2.67%) SCADA
11 12 (2.46%) Cloud Native
12 11 (2.26%) Cyber Threat
12 11 (2.26%) Video Conferencing
13 10 (2.05%) Analytical Mindset
14 9 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
14 9 (1.85%) Private Cloud
14 9 (1.85%) Security Operations Centre
14 9 (1.85%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 226 (46.41%) Windows
2 134 (27.52%) Linux
3 68 (13.96%) Windows Server
4 47 (9.65%) Windows 10
5 39 (8.01%) Mac OS
6 23 (4.72%) Unix
7 20 (4.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 18 (3.70%) Apple iOS
9 14 (2.87%) Android
9 14 (2.87%) Ubuntu
10 6 (1.23%) zOS
11 3 (0.62%) CentOS
11 3 (0.62%) Check Point GAiA
11 3 (0.62%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.41%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.41%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.21%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.21%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (26.90%) Problem-Solving
2 113 (23.20%) ITIL
3 78 (16.02%) CI/CD
4 77 (15.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 73 (14.99%) Infrastructure as Code
6 65 (13.35%) DevOps
7 62 (12.73%) Load Balancing
8 61 (12.53%) ITSM
9 59 (12.11%) Cybersecurity
10 58 (11.91%) Customer Service
11 56 (11.50%) Agile
12 52 (10.68%) Continuous Improvement
13 51 (10.47%) High Availability
14 50 (10.27%) Migration
15 48 (9.86%) Incident Response
16 46 (9.45%) Platform Engineering
16 46 (9.45%) Service Management
16 46 (9.45%) SIEM
17 44 (9.03%) Technical Leadership
18 42 (8.62%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 150 (30.80%) Python
2 100 (20.53%) PowerShell
3 87 (17.86%) Bash
4 22 (4.52%) SQL
5 20 (4.11%) C++
6 16 (3.29%) JavaScript
7 12 (2.46%) Perl
7 12 (2.46%) Shell Script
8 11 (2.26%) Java
9 10 (2.05%) Bicep
9 10 (2.05%) C#
10 7 (1.44%) VBA
11 5 (1.03%) ActionScript
11 5 (1.03%) Korn
12 4 (0.82%) C
12 4 (0.82%) Go
13 3 (0.62%) VBScript
14 2 (0.41%) Jython
14 2 (0.41%) Objective-C
14 2 (0.41%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 135 (27.72%) Security Cleared
2 84 (17.25%) SC Cleared
3 65 (13.35%) Degree
4 59 (12.11%) Cisco Certification
5 52 (10.68%) DV Cleared
6 45 (9.24%) CCNP
7 29 (5.95%) CCNA
8 25 (5.13%) Microsoft Certification
9 20 (4.11%) Computer Science Degree
10 18 (3.70%) A+ Certification
11 16 (3.29%) Network+ Certification
12 15 (3.08%) CCIE
13 13 (2.67%) CISSP
14 12 (2.46%) Azure Certification
14 12 (2.46%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 12 (2.46%) VCAP
15 11 (2.26%) AWS Certification
16 7 (1.44%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 5 (1.03%) JNCIE
17 5 (1.03%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (4.72%) SLA
2 13 (2.67%) QA
3 11 (2.26%) NIST
4 9 (1.85%) NCSC
5 8 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (1.03%) GDPR
7 4 (0.82%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 4 (0.82%) GxP
7 4 (0.82%) NIST 800
7 4 (0.82%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.41%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.41%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.21%) ISO 8583
9 1 (0.21%) RMADS
System Software
1 151 (31.01%) Active Directory
2 90 (18.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 36 (7.39%) Hyper-V
4 30 (6.16%) Docker
5 24 (4.93%) vSphere
6 23 (4.72%) VMware NSX
7 20 (4.11%) Firmware
8 13 (2.67%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (1.03%) Squid
10 4 (0.82%) NFS
10 4 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.62%) VirtualBox
11 3 (0.62%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.41%) KVM
12 2 (0.41%) RACF
13 1 (0.21%) Lustre
13 1 (0.21%) NDS
13 1 (0.21%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 1 (0.21%) Snort
13 1 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 102 (20.94%) Ansible
2 61 (12.53%) Microsoft Intune
3 46 (9.45%) Kubernetes
4 33 (6.78%) SCCM
5 25 (5.13%) Grafana
6 23 (4.72%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (3.70%) FortiGate
8 16 (3.29%) VxRail
9 14 (2.87%) Prometheus
10 11 (2.26%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (1.64%) WSUS
12 6 (1.23%) systemd
13 5 (1.03%) Suricata
14 4 (0.82%) Istio
15 3 (0.62%) Consul
15 3 (0.62%) Puppet
15 3 (0.62%) SELinux
15 3 (0.62%) Tivoli
15 3 (0.62%) Tivoli NetView
15 3 (0.62%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 186 (38.19%) Microsoft
2 102 (20.94%) VMware
3 97 (19.92%) Cisco
4 62 (12.73%) F5
5 59 (12.11%) ServiceNow
6 30 (6.16%) Fortinet
7 25 (5.13%) Google
7 25 (5.13%) Zscaler
8 22 (4.52%) NetApp
9 21 (4.31%) Blue Coat
9 21 (4.31%) Juniper
10 20 (4.11%) Palo Alto
11 19 (3.90%) McAfee
12 18 (3.70%) Citrix
12 18 (3.70%) Infoblox
13 16 (3.29%) CheckPoint
13 16 (3.29%) Splunk
14 15 (3.08%) Red Hat
15 14 (2.87%) Bloomberg
16 10 (2.05%) IBM