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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 223 228 217
Rank change year-on-year +5 -11 +45
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 407 409 581
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.24% 1.06% 1.17%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 10.70% 8.92% 8.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 225 225 362
10th Percentile £185 £203 £200
25th Percentile £300 £260 £305
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £454 £465 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.37% +3.33% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £599
90th Percentile £657 £650 £712
UK excluding London median daily rate £449 £425 £400
% change year-on-year +5.53% +6.25% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 30 59
10th Percentile £28.40 £29.13 £20.11
25th Percentile £41.70 - £32.47
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year - +30.00% -23.08%
75th Percentile - - £57.42
90th Percentile £76.70 £65.25 £71.57
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 3,805 4,583 6,569
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 11.55% 11.89% 13.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,363 2,666 4,180
10th Percentile £225 £225 £228
25th Percentile £363 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £608 £613
90th Percentile £680 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £500 £453
% change year-on-year -10.00% +10.50% +0.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 199 252 305
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.16 £16.95
25th Percentile £25.15 £21.37 £23.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £51.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% -9.72% +36.12%
75th Percentile £64.38 £65.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £75.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £57.35 £57.50
% change year-on-year -25.89% -0.26% +27.78%

TCP/IP
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing TCP/IP as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for TCP/IP 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 19 September 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 19 September 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 19 September 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 +9 366 £469 - 304
UK excluding London -21 208 £449 +5.53% 265
London +40 163 £550 +13.11% 75
Work from Home +33 142 £500 +5.26% 108
North of England -23 65 £518 +11.89% 58
South East +22 57 £375 +7.14% 75
Yorkshire -22 33 £500 - 25
Midlands -18 32 £401 -1.29% 49
West Midlands +11 30 £401 -5.65% 29
East of England -8 30 £475 -15.56% 51
North West -8 29 £543 +17.30% 27
Scotland +4 15 £420 -6.78% 10
South West -15 10 £450 -18.18% 28
Northern Ireland -7 4 - - 2
North East -1 3 £250 +78.57% 9
East Midlands -27 2 £358 -4.67% 20
Wales -1 1 £180 -40.00% 2

TCP/IP
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 23 (5.65%) SharePoint
2 16 (3.93%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.47%) Confluence
4 3 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.74%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.49%) IIS
5 2 (0.49%) nginx
5 2 (0.49%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.25%) Apache
6 1 (0.25%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.25%) Exchange Server 2013
6 1 (0.25%) OpenStack
Applications
1 32 (7.86%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.74%) AutoCAD
2 3 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.25%) Eikon
1 1 (0.25%) Eze OMS
1 1 (0.25%) Fidessa
1 1 (0.25%) Finacle
1 1 (0.25%) Pegasus Opera
1 1 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 85 (20.88%) AWS
2 84 (20.64%) Azure
3 67 (16.46%) Microsoft 365
4 32 (7.86%) Amazon EC2
5 24 (5.90%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 23 (5.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 23 (5.65%) Amazon S3
7 21 (5.16%) Entra ID
8 20 (4.91%) GCP
9 19 (4.67%) Amazon ELB
9 19 (4.67%) GitHub
10 13 (3.19%) AWS CloudFormation
11 11 (2.70%) Amazon EKS
11 11 (2.70%) Azure Monitor
12 8 (1.97%) Azure Sentinel
12 8 (1.97%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (1.97%) SaaS
13 7 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (1.72%) OneDrive
13 7 (1.72%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 213 (52.33%) DNS
2 175 (43.00%) Firewall
3 136 (33.42%) VPN
4 111 (27.27%) DHCP
5 78 (19.16%) SSL
6 72 (17.69%) Network Security
7 69 (16.95%) VLAN
8 65 (15.97%) LAN
9 57 (14.00%) HTTP
10 55 (13.51%) WAN
11 53 (13.02%) BGP
12 46 (11.30%) OSPF
13 36 (8.85%) Wireless
14 32 (7.86%) Internet
15 23 (5.65%) SAN
16 22 (5.41%) Ethernet
17 16 (3.93%) IPsec
18 14 (3.44%) MPLS
18 14 (3.44%) SMTP
19 13 (3.19%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (4.67%) SQL Server
2 15 (3.69%) Amazon RDS
3 10 (2.46%) NoSQL
3 10 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (2.21%) Amazon Aurora
5 5 (1.23%) Hadoop
5 5 (1.23%) Oracle Database
6 4 (0.98%) Apache Cassandra
6 4 (0.98%) DB2
6 4 (0.98%) MySQL
6 4 (0.98%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.74%) Big Data
7 3 (0.74%) Delta Lake
7 3 (0.74%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
7 3 (0.74%) Parquet
7 3 (0.74%) Power BI
8 2 (0.49%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.49%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.25%) Redis
Development Applications
1 57 (14.00%) Jenkins
2 52 (12.78%) Git
3 22 (5.41%) GitLab
4 21 (5.16%) Visual Studio
5 19 (4.67%) Eclipse
6 18 (4.42%) JIRA
7 16 (3.93%) Postman
8 9 (2.21%) Subversion
9 4 (0.98%) Fiddler
9 4 (0.98%) Robot Framework
9 4 (0.98%) TeamCity
10 3 (0.74%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.74%) MLflow
10 3 (0.74%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.74%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.49%) Mercurial
11 2 (0.49%) Poetry
11 2 (0.49%) PyCharm
11 2 (0.49%) Visual Studio Code
12 1 (0.25%) Burp Suite
General
1 153 (37.59%) Social Skills
2 78 (19.16%) Analytical Skills
3 59 (14.50%) Finance
4 29 (7.13%) Military
5 28 (6.88%) Public Sector
6 21 (5.16%) Banking
7 20 (4.91%) Presentation Skills
8 17 (4.18%) Telecoms
9 13 (3.19%) Legal
10 11 (2.70%) Investment Banking
11 9 (2.21%) Local Government
11 9 (2.21%) Marketing
12 7 (1.72%) Law
13 6 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
13 6 (1.47%) Financial Institution
13 6 (1.47%) Front Office
14 5 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
15 4 (0.98%) French Language
15 4 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (0.98%) Retail
Job Titles
1 64 (15.72%) Senior
2 59 (14.50%) Network Engineer
3 52 (12.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 47 (11.55%) Support Engineer
5 38 (9.34%) Analyst
6 32 (7.86%) IT Support
7 25 (6.14%) DevOps Engineer
7 25 (6.14%) IT Engineer
8 23 (5.65%) Developer
8 23 (5.65%) Support Analyst
9 20 (4.91%) Technical Engineer
10 19 (4.67%) C# Software Engineer
10 19 (4.67%) Software Engineer
11 18 (4.42%) Senior DevOps
11 18 (4.42%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 17 (4.18%) Senior DevOps Engineer
12 17 (4.18%) Technical Support
13 16 (3.93%) Windows Engineer
14 15 (3.69%) Automation Engineer
14 15 (3.69%) C++ Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (5.41%) Node.js
2 20 (4.91%) Web Services
3 17 (4.18%) Elastic Stack
4 14 (3.44%) REST
5 13 (3.19%) Middleware
6 11 (2.70%) LDAP
7 9 (2.21%) .NET
7 9 (2.21%) SOAP
8 7 (1.72%) FIX Protocol
9 5 (1.23%) AngularJS
9 5 (1.23%) FpML
10 4 (0.98%) 802.1X
10 4 (0.98%) JSON
10 4 (0.98%) RESTful
11 3 (0.74%) Apache Avro
11 3 (0.74%) Flask
11 3 (0.74%) NumPy
11 3 (0.74%) OpenTelemetry
11 3 (0.74%) Pandas
11 3 (0.74%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 28 (6.88%) Data Centre
2 20 (4.91%) Management Information System
2 20 (4.91%) Onboarding
3 14 (3.44%) Security Posture
4 12 (2.95%) Analytical Mindset
4 12 (2.95%) Self-Motivation
5 11 (2.70%) Replication
6 10 (2.46%) Distributed Systems
6 10 (2.46%) Private Cloud
6 10 (2.46%) Video Conferencing
7 9 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
7 9 (2.21%) SCADA
7 9 (2.21%) Security Operations Centre
8 8 (1.97%) Clustering
9 7 (1.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 6 (1.47%) Fixed Income
10 6 (1.47%) iPad
10 6 (1.47%) iPhone
10 6 (1.47%) PKI
11 5 (1.23%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 176 (43.24%) Windows
2 125 (30.71%) Linux
3 42 (10.32%) Windows Server
4 38 (9.34%) Unix
5 37 (9.09%) Windows 10
6 20 (4.91%) Mac OS
7 16 (3.93%) Windows Server 2016
8 13 (3.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (1.97%) Ubuntu
9 8 (1.97%) Windows 7
9 8 (1.97%) Windows Server 2019
10 7 (1.72%) Android
10 7 (1.72%) Solaris
10 7 (1.72%) Windows Server 2003
11 6 (1.47%) CentOS
11 6 (1.47%) Check Point GAiA
12 5 (1.23%) Apple iOS
12 5 (1.23%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.98%) Debian
13 4 (0.98%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (24.32%) Problem-Solving
2 71 (17.44%) CI/CD
3 70 (17.20%) DevOps
4 65 (15.97%) Agile
5 58 (14.25%) ITIL
6 56 (13.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 55 (13.51%) High Availability
8 46 (11.30%) Infrastructure as Code
9 42 (10.32%) Configuration Management
10 37 (9.09%) SIEM
11 36 (8.85%) Continuous Integration
12 34 (8.35%) Cybersecurity
13 32 (7.86%) Computer Science
13 32 (7.86%) Infrastructure Automation
14 31 (7.62%) Migration
15 30 (7.37%) Security Operations
16 28 (6.88%) Disaster Recovery
16 28 (6.88%) Incident Response
16 28 (6.88%) Validation
17 27 (6.63%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 126 (30.96%) Python
2 54 (13.27%) Bash
3 32 (7.86%) C#
4 31 (7.62%) C++
4 31 (7.62%) PowerShell
5 29 (7.13%) SQL
6 25 (6.14%) JavaScript
7 24 (5.90%) Perl
8 16 (3.93%) Java
9 11 (2.70%) Shell Script
10 6 (1.47%) Go
11 5 (1.23%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.74%) Bicep
12 3 (0.74%) C
12 3 (0.74%) Groovy
12 3 (0.74%) PHP
12 3 (0.74%) Search Processing Language
13 2 (0.49%) VB
14 1 (0.25%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.25%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 86 (21.13%) Security Cleared
2 72 (17.69%) SC Cleared
3 54 (13.27%) Cisco Certification
4 50 (12.29%) Degree
5 39 (9.58%) CCNP
6 36 (8.85%) Microsoft Certification
7 27 (6.63%) CCNA
8 13 (3.19%) MCSE
9 12 (2.95%) CCSE
9 12 (2.95%) MCP
10 11 (2.70%) Azure Certification
10 11 (2.70%) Computer Science Degree
10 11 (2.70%) Network+ Certification
11 10 (2.46%) A+ Certification
11 10 (2.46%) DV Cleared
11 10 (2.46%) MCSA
12 9 (2.21%) Server+ Certification
13 8 (1.97%) CCIE
13 8 (1.97%) CCSA
13 8 (1.97%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.16%) GDPR
2 7 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (1.47%) Cyber Essentials
3 6 (1.47%) NIST
3 6 (1.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 5 (1.23%) QA
4 5 (1.23%) SLA
5 4 (0.98%) PCI DSS
6 3 (0.74%) NCSC
6 3 (0.74%) SOC 2
7 2 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
7 2 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.49%) Government Security Classifications
7 2 (0.49%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.49%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.25%) PMO
System Software
1 80 (19.66%) Active Directory
2 65 (15.97%) VMware Infrastructure
3 39 (9.58%) Docker
4 33 (8.11%) Hyper-V
5 12 (2.95%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (2.21%) vSphere
7 8 (1.97%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (1.72%) Terminal Services
9 6 (1.47%) Veritas Cluster Server
10 5 (1.23%) NFS
10 5 (1.23%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.98%) Veritas File System
11 4 (0.98%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.74%) NDS
12 3 (0.74%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 2 (0.49%) Firmware
13 2 (0.49%) iptables
13 2 (0.49%) KVM
13 2 (0.49%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.49%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 88 (21.62%) Ansible
2 60 (14.74%) Terraform
3 33 (8.11%) Puppet
3 33 (8.11%) SCCM
4 25 (6.14%) Kubernetes
5 24 (5.90%) FortiGate
6 21 (5.16%) Grafana
7 20 (4.91%) Prometheus
8 16 (3.93%) Microsoft Intune
9 11 (2.70%) Progress Chef
10 10 (2.46%) Microsoft Clustering
11 7 (1.72%) Nessus
11 7 (1.72%) vCenter Server
12 5 (1.23%) CASB
12 5 (1.23%) QRadar
12 5 (1.23%) Tivoli
13 4 (0.98%) Red Hat Satellite
14 3 (0.74%) Argo
14 3 (0.74%) Iperf
14 3 (0.74%) Istio
Vendors
1 134 (32.92%) Microsoft
2 83 (20.39%) VMware
3 74 (18.18%) Cisco
4 65 (15.97%) Palo Alto
5 50 (12.29%) CheckPoint
6 44 (10.81%) F5
7 27 (6.63%) Citrix
7 27 (6.63%) Fortinet
7 27 (6.63%) Red Hat
8 23 (5.65%) SolarWinds
8 23 (5.65%) Splunk
9 21 (5.16%) ServiceNow
10 20 (4.91%) MuleSoft
11 18 (4.42%) Oracle
12 14 (3.44%) Google
13 13 (3.19%) Juniper
13 13 (3.19%) Meraki
14 12 (2.95%) Veeam
15 10 (2.46%) CyberArk
16 9 (2.21%) Dell