National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for NCSC skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited NCSC over the 6 months to 27 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
27 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 409 466 615
Rank change year-on-year +57 +149 -53
Contract jobs citing NCSC 192 262 239
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.44% 0.44% 0.27%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.09% 3.28% 2.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 91 170 158
10th Percentile £500 £500 £450
25th Percentile £563 £606 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £675 £613
Median % change year-on-year -9.26% +10.20% +8.89%
75th Percentile £694 £725 £688
90th Percentile £738 £838 £801
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £700 £600
% change year-on-year -14.29% +16.67% +30.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 23 11
10th Percentile £80.34 £59.73 £53.22
25th Percentile £80.85 £62.00 £57.50
Median hourly rate £81.71 £72.98 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.96% +15.84% +8.28%
75th Percentile £82.56 £83.31 £75.06
90th Percentile £83.07 £83.40 £81.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.00 £72.98 £63.00
% change year-on-year +9.62% +15.84% +8.28%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

NCSC is in the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 6,212 7,992 11,762
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.35% 13.36% 13.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,921 5,491 8,030
10th Percentile £297 £275 £292
25th Percentile £405 £410 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% +2.44% +7.89%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £619
90th Percentile £750 £738 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +2.63% +5.56% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 381 225 302
10th Percentile £10.95 £13.16 £11.75
25th Percentile £13.18 £18.50 £17.06
Median hourly rate £20.61 £37.50 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -45.05% +31.58% +35.71%
75th Percentile £45.00 £62.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £67.38 £77.50 £67.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £18.00 £35.00 £21.05
% change year-on-year -48.57% +66.27% +0.24%

NCSC
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing NCSC as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing NCSC.

Daily rate trend for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NCSC over the 6 months to 27 April 2024.

Daily rate histogram for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing NCSC.

Hourly rate trend for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Top 13 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NCSC within the UK over the 6 months to 27 April 2024. 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 +62 166 £600 -11.11% 36
UK excluding London +43 117 £600 -14.29% 30
Work from Home +146 113 £600 -7.69% 14
South East +63 67 £613 -12.50% 7
London +52 51 £638 -8.93% 8
South West +2 34 £600 -16.43% 11
North of England +9 7 £575 -11.54% 3
Scotland +30 5 £575 +15.00% 4
North West -10 5 £575 -11.54% 3
West Midlands +28 3 £575 -26.98% 1
Midlands +21 3 £575 -26.98% 1
Yorkshire - 2 £575 -
East of England +6 1 - - 4

NCSC
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 12 (6.25%) Confluence
2 2 (1.04%) Jupyter
2 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.04%) nginx
2 2 (1.04%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.04%) Traefik
3 1 (0.52%) Apache
3 1 (0.52%) JBoss
3 1 (0.52%) Tomcat
3 1 (0.52%) WildFly
Applications
1 8 (4.17%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.56%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 52 (27.08%) AWS
2 50 (26.04%) IaaS
3 49 (25.52%) PaaS
3 49 (25.52%) SaaS
4 46 (23.96%) Azure
5 14 (7.29%) GitHub
6 13 (6.77%) Azure DevOps
7 11 (5.73%) GitHub Actions
8 7 (3.65%) Microsoft 365
9 6 (3.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 6 (3.13%) GCP
10 4 (2.08%) AWS CloudTrail
10 4 (2.08%) Azure Monitor
10 4 (2.08%) Power Platform
10 4 (2.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 3 (1.56%) Amazon EC2
11 3 (1.56%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (1.56%) Azure Sentinel
12 2 (1.04%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 2 (1.04%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 40 (20.83%) 5G
2 39 (20.31%) Broadband
3 23 (11.98%) Network Security
4 13 (6.77%) Firewall
5 9 (4.69%) WAN
6 5 (2.60%) DNS
6 5 (2.60%) Intrusion Detection
7 4 (2.08%) LAN
7 4 (2.08%) SSL
7 4 (2.08%) VPN
7 4 (2.08%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (1.56%) 4G
8 3 (1.56%) BGP
8 3 (1.56%) DHCP
8 3 (1.56%) DMVPN
8 3 (1.56%) MPLS
8 3 (1.56%) OSPF
8 3 (1.56%) SNMP
8 3 (1.56%) TCP/IP
8 3 (1.56%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.04%) Amazon Athena
1 2 (1.04%) Big Data
2 1 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.52%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.52%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.52%) Oracle Database 11g
2 1 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (0.52%) RDBMS
2 1 (0.52%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 13 (6.77%) JIRA
2 10 (5.21%) SonarQube
3 6 (3.13%) Git
4 4 (2.08%) Jenkins
5 2 (1.04%) CircleCI
5 2 (1.04%) GitLab
5 2 (1.04%) RStudio
6 1 (0.52%) JUnit
6 1 (0.52%) Maven
6 1 (0.52%) Subversion
6 1 (0.52%) Terragrunt
General
1 39 (20.31%) Law
1 39 (20.31%) Organisational Skills
2 35 (18.23%) Public Sector
3 24 (12.50%) Social Skills
4 9 (4.69%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (3.13%) Local Government
6 5 (2.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.56%) Finance
7 3 (1.56%) Legal
7 3 (1.56%) Police
8 2 (1.04%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.04%) Military
9 1 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.52%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 49 (25.52%) Architect
2 40 (20.83%) Security Specialist
3 39 (20.31%) Penetration Tester
3 39 (20.31%) Security Penetration Tester
3 39 (20.31%) Security Tester
3 39 (20.31%) Tester
3 39 (20.31%) Testing Specialist
4 29 (15.10%) Security Architect
5 20 (10.42%) Analyst
6 17 (8.85%) Consultant
6 17 (8.85%) Security Consultant
7 14 (7.29%) SOC Analyst
8 11 (5.73%) Senior
9 10 (5.21%) Cybersecurity Consultant
10 8 (4.17%) Lead
10 8 (4.17%) Security Engineer
10 8 (4.17%) Solutions Architect
11 6 (3.13%) IT Architect
11 6 (3.13%) Security Analyst
11 6 (3.13%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (20.31%) Web Services
2 10 (5.21%) ARM Templates
2 10 (5.21%) Azure Blueprints
3 6 (3.13%) XML
4 5 (2.60%) JSON
5 3 (1.56%) Jinja
5 3 (1.56%) NETCONF
5 3 (1.56%) PyTorch
5 3 (1.56%) RESTful
5 3 (1.56%) scikit-learn
5 3 (1.56%) TensorFlow
5 3 (1.56%) YANG
6 2 (1.04%) cloud-init
6 2 (1.04%) JSON Schema
6 2 (1.04%) KML
6 2 (1.04%) Regular Expression
6 2 (1.04%) XML Schema
7 1 (0.52%) JSP
7 1 (0.52%) Servlets
7 1 (0.52%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 39 (20.31%) Mobile App
2 36 (18.75%) Management Information System
3 17 (8.85%) Cyber Defence
4 15 (7.81%) CSOC
4 15 (7.81%) Security Operations Centre
4 15 (7.81%) Security Posture
5 11 (5.73%) Public Cloud
6 10 (5.21%) Onboarding
7 7 (3.65%) PKI
8 6 (3.13%) Operational Technology
9 5 (2.60%) SCADA
10 4 (2.08%) Cloud Native
11 3 (1.56%) Algorithms
11 3 (1.56%) Cyber Threat
11 3 (1.56%) NHS
11 3 (1.56%) Product Ownership
12 2 (1.04%) Clustering
12 2 (1.04%) Cyber Security Posture
12 2 (1.04%) Cyberattack
12 2 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 10 (5.21%) Linux
2 4 (2.08%) Windows
3 3 (1.56%) CentOS
4 2 (1.04%) Apple iOS
4 2 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (1.04%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.52%) AIX
5 1 (0.52%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.52%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.52%) Unix
5 1 (0.52%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (72.40%) Cybersecurity
2 56 (29.17%) MITRE ATT&CK
3 49 (25.52%) Information Security
4 44 (22.92%) Penetration Testing
4 44 (22.92%) Security Architecture
4 44 (22.92%) Stakeholder Management
5 43 (22.40%) OWASP
6 41 (21.35%) Security Testing
7 40 (20.83%) Application Security
8 29 (15.10%) DevOps
9 28 (14.58%) Security Management
10 27 (14.06%) Incident Response
11 26 (13.54%) Information Assurance
12 22 (11.46%) Information Security Management
13 21 (10.94%) Risk Assessment
13 21 (10.94%) Threat Intelligence
14 20 (10.42%) Risk Register
15 19 (9.90%) Architectural Patterns
15 19 (9.90%) Containerisation
16 18 (9.38%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 6 (3.13%) Python
2 2 (1.04%) Bash
2 2 (1.04%) Go
2 2 (1.04%) Java
2 2 (1.04%) R
2 2 (1.04%) Ruby
3 1 (0.52%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 152 (79.17%) Security Cleared
2 71 (36.98%) SC Cleared
3 50 (26.04%) DV Cleared
4 47 (24.48%) CREST Certified
5 39 (20.31%) GIAC
5 39 (20.31%) GPEN
5 39 (20.31%) OSCP
5 39 (20.31%) SANS
6 32 (16.67%) CISSP
7 26 (13.54%) CISM
8 15 (7.81%) BPSS Clearance
9 11 (5.73%) CISA
10 10 (5.21%) Cisco Certification
11 8 (4.17%) TOGAF Certification
12 7 (3.65%) Degree
13 6 (3.13%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 5 (2.60%) CCSK
15 3 (1.56%) Azure Certification
15 3 (1.56%) CESG Certified Professional
15 3 (1.56%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (30.21%) GDPR
2 48 (25.00%) NIST
3 41 (21.35%) PCI DSS
4 36 (18.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 21 (10.94%) RMADS
6 10 (5.21%) Government Security Classifications
7 7 (3.65%) GRC
8 6 (3.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 4 (2.08%) ISO 31000
9 4 (2.08%) JSP 440
10 3 (1.56%) COBIT
10 3 (1.56%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (1.56%) GPG13
10 3 (1.56%) ISO 22301
10 3 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 3 (1.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (1.04%) Disclosure Scotland
11 2 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 2 (1.04%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 17 (8.85%) Docker
2 4 (2.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.04%) Firmware
4 1 (0.52%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 20 (10.42%) Terraform
2 18 (9.38%) Ansible
3 17 (8.85%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
3 17 (8.85%) Kubernetes
4 4 (2.08%) Docker Swarm
4 4 (2.08%) Trend Micro Deep Security
5 3 (1.56%) Puppet
6 2 (1.04%) Consul
6 2 (1.04%) FortiGate
6 2 (1.04%) Graphite
6 2 (1.04%) HAProxy
6 2 (1.04%) Istio
6 2 (1.04%) linkerd
6 2 (1.04%) Packer
6 2 (1.04%) Podman
6 2 (1.04%) Prometheus
6 2 (1.04%) ZABBIX
7 1 (0.52%) Check_MK
Vendors
1 39 (20.31%) Virgin Media
2 25 (13.02%) Microsoft
3 11 (5.73%) VMware
4 7 (3.65%) Splunk
5 5 (2.60%) Cisco
5 5 (2.60%) Oracle
5 5 (2.60%) Palo Alto
6 4 (2.08%) Atlassian
6 4 (2.08%) Juniper
7 3 (1.56%) Aruba
7 3 (1.56%) Databricks
7 3 (1.56%) Meraki
7 3 (1.56%) Sparx
8 2 (1.04%) Apple
8 2 (1.04%) PagerDuty
9 1 (0.52%) Cadence
9 1 (0.52%) CheckPoint
9 1 (0.52%) CrowdStrike
9 1 (0.52%) ForeScout
9 1 (0.52%) Fortinet