NCSC Contract Job Trends in Berkshire

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
South East > Berkshire

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Berkshire requiring NCSC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 108 99 55
Rank change year-on-year -9 -44 +71
Contract jobs citing NCSC 7 4 76
As % of all contract jobs in Berkshire 0.47% 0.26% 4.38%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.64% 1.85% 19.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 0 4
10th Percentile £488 - £241
25th Percentile £529 - £472
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £586 - £650
75th Percentile £600 - £700
90th Percentile - - -
South East median daily rate £570 £618 £643
% change year-on-year -7.69% -3.98% -1.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 2
10th Percentile - - £75.12
25th Percentile - £60.75 £76.25
Median hourly rate - £61.50 £81.24
Median % change year-on-year - -24.30% -
75th Percentile - £62.24 £84.99
90th Percentile - - £85.36
South East median hourly rate £74.31 £61.50 £78.74
% change year-on-year +20.83% -21.90% -

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
Berkshire

NCSC falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in Berkshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 265 216 381
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 17.91% 14.22% 21.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 177 77 200
10th Percentile £400 £363 £148
25th Percentile £450 £450 £328
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% +5.26% +2.70%
75th Percentile £625 £585 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £676
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £520
% change year-on-year - -3.85% +11.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 9 16
10th Percentile £18.65 £52.30 £24.30
25th Percentile £18.87 £60.75 £32.50
Median hourly rate £50.50 £61.71 £59.53
Median % change year-on-year -18.16% +3.65% +183.48%
75th Percentile £81.00 £64.73 £77.02
90th Percentile £83.30 £64.90 £81.44
South East median hourly rate £36.00 £50.00 £51.06
% change year-on-year -28.00% -2.07% +143.12%

NCSC
Job Vacancy Trend in Berkshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing NCSC relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire.

NCSC job vacancy trend in Berkshire

NCSC
Daily Rate Trend in Berkshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing NCSC.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing NCSC

NCSC
Daily Rate Histogram in Berkshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NCSC in Berkshire over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for NCSC in Berkshire

NCSC
Hourly Rate Trend in Berkshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing NCSC.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing NCSC

NCSC
Contract Job Locations in Berkshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NCSC within the Berkshire region over the 6 months to 19 December 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
Reading - 7 £586 - 2
NCSC
South East

NCSC
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Berkshire 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:

Cloud Services
1 5 (71.43%) Entra ID
2 4 (57.14%) Amazon GuardDuty
2 4 (57.14%) AWS
2 4 (57.14%) AWS CloudFormation
2 4 (57.14%) AWS CloudTrail
2 4 (57.14%) AWS Control Tower
2 4 (57.14%) AWS KMS
2 4 (57.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
3 1 (14.29%) Azure
3 1 (14.29%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (14.29%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (14.29%) IPsec
1 1 (14.29%) MQTT
1 1 (14.29%) SD-WAN
General
1 4 (57.14%) Finance
1 4 (57.14%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 5 (71.43%) Architect
2 4 (57.14%) Cloud Architect
3 2 (28.57%) AWS Architect
3 2 (28.57%) Lead
3 2 (28.57%) Lead Architect
3 2 (28.57%) Lead Cloud Architect
4 1 (14.29%) Administrator
4 1 (14.29%) Consultant
4 1 (14.29%) Cybersecurity Architect
4 1 (14.29%) Information Assurance Consultant
4 1 (14.29%) Risk Consultant
4 1 (14.29%) SCCM Administrator
4 1 (14.29%) Security Architect
4 1 (14.29%) Security Solutions Architect
4 1 (14.29%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (14.29%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 1 (14.29%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 2 (28.57%) Windows
2 1 (14.29%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (71.43%) Network Segmentation
2 4 (57.14%) FinOps
2 4 (57.14%) ITIL
2 4 (57.14%) Migration
2 4 (57.14%) RBAC
2 4 (57.14%) Roadmaps
2 4 (57.14%) Runbook
2 4 (57.14%) Threat Detection
2 4 (57.14%) User Acceptance Testing
3 2 (28.57%) Cybersecurity
3 2 (28.57%) Requirements Workshops
3 2 (28.57%) Validation
3 2 (28.57%) Workshop Facilitation
3 2 (28.57%) Zero Trust
4 1 (14.29%) Architectural Design
4 1 (14.29%) Cyber Resilience
4 1 (14.29%) Data Lineage
4 1 (14.29%) DevOps
4 1 (14.29%) Multi-Factor Authentication
4 1 (14.29%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 1 (14.29%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 4 (57.14%) AWS Certification
1 4 (57.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
1 4 (57.14%) Security Cleared
2 3 (42.86%) SC Cleared
3 1 (14.29%) CEH
3 1 (14.29%) CISA
3 1 (14.29%) CISM
3 1 (14.29%) CISSP
3 1 (14.29%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (57.14%) Cyber Essentials
2 2 (28.57%) NIST
3 1 (14.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (14.29%) JSP 440
3 1 (14.29%) NIST 800
System Software
1 4 (57.14%) Virtual Desktop
2 1 (14.29%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 4 (57.14%) Terraform
2 1 (14.29%) Jamf Pro
2 1 (14.29%) SCCM
Vendors
1 4 (57.14%) Citrix
1 4 (57.14%) CloudEndure
2 1 (14.29%) BiZZdesign
2 1 (14.29%) Microsoft