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 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 278 220 201
Rank change year-on-year -58 -19 +2
Contract jobs citing TCP/IP 513 414 467
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.94% 1.25% 1.23%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 10.16% 10.98% 10.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 268 228 263
10th Percentile £197 £184 £203
25th Percentile £299 £286 £261
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £461 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.89% - +5.56%
75th Percentile £575 £591 £600
90th Percentile £672 £695 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £425
% change year-on-year - +5.88% +6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 38 29
10th Percentile £25.00 £17.10 £43.00
25th Percentile £31.25 £33.00 -
Median hourly rate £64.24 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.17% - +29.49%
75th Percentile £68.75 - -
90th Percentile £92.28 £71.98 £65.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - - +30.00%

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 5,047 3,770 4,549
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.25% 11.38% 11.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,920 2,391 2,612
10th Percentile £236 £214 £223
25th Percentile £391 £358 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £602
90th Percentile £680 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £485
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.21% +6.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 434 192 190
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.50 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £20.13 £24.18
Median hourly rate £32.50 £36.25 £48.78
Median % change year-on-year -10.34% -25.69% -13.65%
75th Percentile £68.69 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £92.11 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £41.72 £54.88
% change year-on-year -37.34% -23.97% -4.57%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 10 October 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 -61 474 £475 -3.46% 716
UK excluding London -31 298 £450 - 417
London -56 195 £475 -13.64% 324
Work from Home -69 125 £500 -2.44% 243
South East -48 76 £540 +43.93% 111
North of England -66 76 £406 -21.50% 89
South West +5 52 £600 -14.29% 55
Midlands -34 44 £439 +17.92% 62
North West -36 44 £235 -56.68% 40
East of England -28 41 £425 -10.53% 48
West Midlands -41 39 £481 +24.70% 32
Yorkshire -36 28 £488 -2.50% 37
Scotland -17 16 £210 -53.33% 28
Wales -5 7 £376 +109.03% 13
East Midlands -9 5 £326 +97.58% 30
North East -41 4 £438 +75.00% 14

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 (9.55%) SharePoint
2 38 (7.41%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.53%) Confluence
4 12 (2.34%) OpenStack
5 5 (0.97%) nginx
6 4 (0.78%) FactoryTalk
7 2 (0.39%) CICS
7 2 (0.39%) IIS
7 2 (0.39%) Skype for Business
7 2 (0.39%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.19%) Traefik
Applications
1 22 (4.29%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (3.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (1.17%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.39%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.39%) Houdini
5 2 (0.39%) NUKE
5 2 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.19%) Weka
Business Applications
1 8 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 170 (33.14%) Azure
2 126 (24.56%) Microsoft 365
3 107 (20.86%) AWS
4 79 (15.40%) Entra ID
5 37 (7.21%) OneDrive
6 33 (6.43%) GCP
7 24 (4.68%) GitHub
8 19 (3.70%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 18 (3.51%) Azure Monitor
10 15 (2.92%) OpenShift
11 13 (2.53%) Azure Sentinel
12 12 (2.34%) AWS CloudFormation
12 12 (2.34%) GitHub Actions
13 11 (2.14%) Route 53
14 10 (1.95%) Google Workspace
15 8 (1.56%) Amazon EC2
15 8 (1.56%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 8 (1.56%) SaaS
16 7 (1.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 7 (1.36%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 298 (58.09%) DNS
2 223 (43.47%) Firewall
3 206 (40.16%) DHCP
4 158 (30.80%) VPN
5 93 (18.13%) Network Security
6 89 (17.35%) WAN
7 85 (16.57%) VLAN
8 82 (15.98%) LAN
9 74 (14.42%) BGP
10 67 (13.06%) HTTP
11 55 (10.72%) SSL
12 53 (10.33%) Wi-Fi
13 49 (9.55%) OSPF
14 48 (9.36%) Wireless
15 28 (5.46%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 28 (5.46%) SD-WAN
16 27 (5.26%) BIG-IP
17 24 (4.68%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
18 23 (4.48%) Ethernet
19 21 (4.09%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (3.51%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (3.31%) SQL Server
3 8 (1.56%) MySQL
3 8 (1.56%) NoSQL
3 8 (1.56%) SQLite
4 7 (1.36%) MongoDB
5 6 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (1.17%) Redis
6 3 (0.58%) BigQuery
6 3 (0.58%) KDB
7 1 (0.19%) Cloud Spanner
7 1 (0.19%) Kdb+
7 1 (0.19%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 51 (9.94%) Git
2 46 (8.97%) JIRA
3 38 (7.41%) Jenkins
4 29 (5.65%) GitLab
5 13 (2.53%) Visual Studio
6 12 (2.34%) Eclipse
6 12 (2.34%) Fiddler
7 8 (1.56%) Sonatype Nexus
8 7 (1.36%) Artifactory
9 5 (0.97%) Selenium
10 3 (0.58%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.19%) Browser DevTools
11 1 (0.19%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.19%) MSI
11 1 (0.19%) Postman
11 1 (0.19%) REST Assured
General
1 202 (39.38%) Social Skills
2 78 (15.20%) Analytical Skills
3 65 (12.67%) Finance
4 38 (7.41%) Banking
5 34 (6.63%) Public Sector
6 30 (5.85%) Telecoms
7 19 (3.70%) Military
8 15 (2.92%) Investment Banking
9 13 (2.53%) Front Office
10 11 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
11 9 (1.75%) Aerospace
11 9 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (1.36%) Legal
12 7 (1.36%) Organisational Skills
13 6 (1.17%) Manufacturing
13 6 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (0.97%) Pharmaceutical
14 5 (0.97%) Police
15 4 (0.78%) Automotive
15 4 (0.78%) Multimedia
Job Titles
1 114 (22.22%) Network Engineer
2 70 (13.65%) Support Engineer
3 66 (12.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 63 (12.28%) Senior
5 54 (10.53%) IT Support
6 45 (8.77%) IT Engineer
7 37 (7.21%) IT Support Engineer
8 33 (6.43%) Analyst
9 32 (6.24%) Architect
10 26 (5.07%) Senior Network Engineer
11 24 (4.68%) Platform Engineer
12 23 (4.48%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
13 21 (4.09%) Linux Engineer
14 18 (3.51%) Security Engineer
15 17 (3.31%) Cloud Engineer
15 17 (3.31%) Network Infrastructure Engineer
16 16 (3.12%) Support Analyst
17 14 (2.73%) Desktop Support
17 14 (2.73%) Developer
17 14 (2.73%) Technical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (18.91%) Terraform
2 18 (3.51%) REST
3 16 (3.12%) ARM Templates
4 13 (2.53%) JSON
5 12 (2.34%) Node.js
5 12 (2.34%) Web Services
6 11 (2.14%) SAML
7 10 (1.95%) .NET
8 9 (1.75%) Kafka
9 8 (1.56%) Elastic Stack
9 8 (1.56%) SPNEGO
10 7 (1.36%) 802.1X
10 7 (1.36%) Jinja
10 7 (1.36%) LDAP
11 6 (1.17%) CSS
11 6 (1.17%) FastAPI
11 6 (1.17%) HTML
11 6 (1.17%) pytest
11 6 (1.17%) RESTful
11 6 (1.17%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 87 (16.96%) Data Centre
2 61 (11.89%) Onboarding
3 35 (6.82%) Hybrid Cloud
4 34 (6.63%) PKI
5 30 (5.85%) Management Information System
6 22 (4.29%) Linux Command Line
7 19 (3.70%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 19 (3.70%) Self-Motivation
8 18 (3.51%) Public Cloud
8 18 (3.51%) Video Conferencing
9 16 (3.12%) Driving Licence
9 16 (3.12%) Operational Technology
10 14 (2.73%) Cloud Native
11 13 (2.53%) SCADA
12 11 (2.14%) Cyber Threat
12 11 (2.14%) Replication
13 10 (1.95%) ARM Cortex
13 10 (1.95%) IoT
13 10 (1.95%) Security Posture
14 9 (1.75%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 256 (49.90%) Windows
2 173 (33.72%) Linux
3 86 (16.76%) Windows Server
4 51 (9.94%) Windows 10
5 41 (7.99%) Mac OS
6 32 (6.24%) Unix
7 31 (6.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 21 (4.09%) Apple iOS
9 18 (3.51%) Android
10 14 (2.73%) Ubuntu
11 6 (1.17%) zOS
12 5 (0.97%) CentOS
13 3 (0.58%) Check Point GAiA
13 3 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
14 2 (0.39%) SUSE
14 2 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.19%) AIX
15 1 (0.19%) Solaris
15 1 (0.19%) VMS
15 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (24.76%) Problem-Solving
2 112 (21.83%) ITIL
3 98 (19.10%) CI/CD
4 91 (17.74%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 89 (17.35%) Infrastructure as Code
6 82 (15.98%) DevOps
7 73 (14.23%) ITSM
8 69 (13.45%) Load Balancing
9 66 (12.87%) Customer Service
10 65 (12.67%) Agile
11 63 (12.28%) Cybersecurity
12 54 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
12 54 (10.53%) Platform Engineering
12 54 (10.53%) Validation
13 53 (10.33%) Service Management
14 51 (9.94%) Change Management
14 51 (9.94%) Migration
15 49 (9.55%) Stakeholder Management
16 47 (9.16%) Incident Response
17 44 (8.58%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 152 (29.63%) Python
2 118 (23.00%) PowerShell
3 95 (18.52%) Bash
4 26 (5.07%) C++
5 23 (4.48%) SQL
6 18 (3.51%) C#
6 18 (3.51%) JavaScript
7 17 (3.31%) Shell Script
8 16 (3.12%) Bicep
9 15 (2.92%) Java
10 13 (2.53%) Perl
11 8 (1.56%) Korn
12 7 (1.36%) Go
13 6 (1.17%) ActionScript
14 4 (0.78%) VBA
15 3 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
15 3 (0.58%) VBScript
16 2 (0.39%) Groovy
16 2 (0.39%) Objective-C
16 2 (0.39%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 142 (27.68%) Security Cleared
2 77 (15.01%) SC Cleared
3 65 (12.67%) Degree
4 64 (12.48%) DV Cleared
5 59 (11.50%) Cisco Certification
6 46 (8.97%) CCNP
7 29 (5.65%) CCNA
7 29 (5.65%) Microsoft Certification
8 23 (4.48%) A+ Certification
9 18 (3.51%) Computer Science Degree
10 15 (2.92%) Network+ Certification
11 14 (2.73%) CCIE
12 13 (2.53%) CISSP
12 13 (2.53%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 12 (2.34%) AWS Certification
13 12 (2.34%) VCAP
14 9 (1.75%) Azure Certification
15 8 (1.56%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 6 (1.17%) JNCIS
17 5 (0.97%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (5.07%) SLA
2 16 (3.12%) QA
3 10 (1.95%) NCSC
4 8 (1.56%) NIST
5 7 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.78%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 4 (0.78%) GxP
6 4 (0.78%) NIST 800
6 4 (0.78%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.58%) GDPR
8 2 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.39%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.39%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.19%) Data Quality
9 1 (0.19%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 178 (34.70%) Active Directory
2 100 (19.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 42 (8.19%) Hyper-V
4 37 (7.21%) Docker
5 35 (6.82%) vSphere
6 23 (4.48%) VMware NSX
7 22 (4.29%) Firmware
8 16 (3.12%) Virtual Desktop
9 7 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (1.17%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.97%) NFS
12 4 (0.78%) Squid
12 4 (0.78%) VirtualBox
13 2 (0.39%) KVM
13 2 (0.39%) NDS
13 2 (0.39%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 2 (0.39%) RACF
13 2 (0.39%) Slurm Workload Manager
14 1 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.19%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 117 (22.81%) Ansible
2 71 (13.84%) Microsoft Intune
3 51 (9.94%) Kubernetes
4 39 (7.60%) SCCM
5 31 (6.04%) Grafana
6 18 (3.51%) Prometheus
7 16 (3.12%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (3.12%) VxRail
8 14 (2.73%) Jamf Pro
9 12 (2.34%) FortiGate
10 9 (1.75%) Nagios
11 6 (1.17%) Istio
11 6 (1.17%) Puppet
11 6 (1.17%) systemd
11 6 (1.17%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.97%) WSUS
13 4 (0.78%) Consul
13 4 (0.78%) Suricata
13 4 (0.78%) ZABBIX
14 3 (0.58%) SELinux
Vendors
1 211 (41.13%) Microsoft
2 117 (22.81%) VMware
3 105 (20.47%) Cisco
4 66 (12.87%) ServiceNow
5 55 (10.72%) F5
6 27 (5.26%) Fortinet
6 27 (5.26%) Palo Alto
7 25 (4.87%) Google
8 23 (4.48%) Splunk
8 23 (4.48%) Zscaler
9 21 (4.09%) Juniper
9 21 (4.09%) NetApp
10 18 (3.51%) SolarWinds
11 17 (3.31%) Infoblox
12 15 (2.92%) Arista
12 15 (2.92%) Blue Coat
12 15 (2.92%) Citrix
12 15 (2.92%) Red Hat
13 14 (2.73%) CheckPoint
13 14 (2.73%) McAfee