NIST Contract Job Trends in the East of England

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
England > East of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the East of England requiring NIST skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 69 106
Rank change year-on-year -20 +37 +8
Contract jobs citing NIST 22 12 7
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 1.08% 1.27% 0.37%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 6.47% 8.28% 3.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 4 7
10th Percentile £520 £488 £549
25th Percentile £558 £508 £649
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £635 £522 £650
Median % change year-on-year +21.65% -19.69% +4.00%
75th Percentile £675 £581 £663
90th Percentile £713 £683 £765
England median daily rate £583 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -6.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £85.00 -
England median hourly rate £81.50 £83.20 £66.25
% change year-on-year -2.04% +25.58% +1.15%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
East of England

NIST 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 the East of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 340 145 177
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 16.62% 15.31% 9.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 147 79 106
10th Percentile £320 £259 £258
25th Percentile £438 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £550 £450
Median % change year-on-year -7.27% +22.22% -
75th Percentile £638 £656 £558
90th Percentile £675 £724 £650
England median daily rate £510 £509 £525
% change year-on-year +0.25% -3.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 21 28
10th Percentile £14.11 £17.61 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £27.00 £14.38
Median hourly rate £18.50 £35.00 £15.79
Median % change year-on-year -47.14% +121.66% -9.77%
75th Percentile £20.35 £73.75 £24.25
90th Percentile £32.79 £88.00 £25.00
England median hourly rate £28.55 £32.81 £21.38
% change year-on-year -12.98% +53.48% -49.70%

NIST
Job Vacancy Trend in the East of England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing NIST relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England.

NIST job vacancy trend in the East of England

NIST
Daily Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing NIST.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing NIST

NIST
Daily Rate Histogram in the East of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NIST in the East of England over the 6 months to 5 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for NIST in the East of England

NIST
Hourly Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing NIST.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing NIST

NIST
Contract Job Locations in the East of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NIST within the East of England region over the 6 months to 5 April 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
Cambridgeshire +6 9 £625 -10.71% 3
Bedfordshire -4 7 £650 +23.81% 1
Hertfordshire -24 4 £725 +45.00% 7
Suffolk +2 2 £525 +1.16%
NIST
England

NIST
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East of England 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 9 (40.91%) Azure
2 4 (18.18%) AWS
2 4 (18.18%) GCP
3 3 (13.64%) Azure AKS
3 3 (13.64%) GitHub
3 3 (13.64%) GitHub Copilot
3 3 (13.64%) PaaS
3 3 (13.64%) Serverless
4 2 (9.09%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (9.09%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (4.55%) AWS KMS
5 1 (4.55%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 3 (13.64%) Firewall
1 3 (13.64%) Network Security
2 1 (4.55%) Cisco ASA
2 1 (4.55%) DHCP
2 1 (4.55%) DNS
2 1 (4.55%) LAN
2 1 (4.55%) Modbus
2 1 (4.55%) SD-WAN
2 1 (4.55%) VPN
2 1 (4.55%) WAN
2 1 (4.55%) Wi-Fi
General
1 6 (27.27%) Social Skills
2 5 (22.73%) Aerospace
3 2 (9.09%) Manufacturing
4 1 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (4.55%) Electronics
4 1 (4.55%) Finance
4 1 (4.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 1 (4.55%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (4.55%) Police
4 1 (4.55%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (40.91%) Architect
2 5 (22.73%) Technical Architect
3 3 (13.64%) Security Architect
3 3 (13.64%) Senior
4 2 (9.09%) Analyst
4 2 (9.09%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 1 (4.55%) Cloud Security Analyst
5 1 (4.55%) Cloud Security Engineer
5 1 (4.55%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
5 1 (4.55%) Lead
5 1 (4.55%) Migration Architect
5 1 (4.55%) Network Architect
5 1 (4.55%) Principal Architect
5 1 (4.55%) Principal Engineer
5 1 (4.55%) Principal Technical Architect
5 1 (4.55%) Security Engineer
5 1 (4.55%) Security Manager
5 1 (4.55%) SIEM Engineer
5 1 (4.55%) SOC Analyst
5 1 (4.55%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (22.73%) .NET
2 3 (13.64%) A2A Protocol
2 3 (13.64%) Model Context Protocol
2 3 (13.64%) PyTorch
2 3 (13.64%) RESTful
2 3 (13.64%) Semantic Kernel
2 3 (13.64%) TensorFlow
3 1 (4.55%) eBPF
Miscellaneous
1 8 (36.36%) Operational Technology
2 7 (31.82%) Cloud Native
2 7 (31.82%) SCADA
3 4 (18.18%) Security Posture
4 3 (13.64%) Algorithms
5 2 (9.09%) Cloud Security Posture
6 1 (4.55%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 1 (4.55%) Cyber Threat
6 1 (4.55%) Management Information System
6 1 (4.55%) Onboarding
6 1 (4.55%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 1 (4.55%) Linux
1 1 (4.55%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (59.09%) Cybersecurity
2 7 (31.82%) Agile
2 7 (31.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 6 (27.27%) AI
3 6 (27.27%) Enterprise Architecture
3 6 (27.27%) SIEM
4 5 (22.73%) Business Continuity
4 5 (22.73%) Digital Transformation Programme
4 5 (22.73%) Disaster Recovery
4 5 (22.73%) Incident Response
4 5 (22.73%) ITIL
4 5 (22.73%) Problem-Solving
4 5 (22.73%) Prompt Engineering
4 5 (22.73%) Security Operations
4 5 (22.73%) Stakeholder Management
4 5 (22.73%) Technology Roadmap
4 5 (22.73%) Test Automation
4 5 (22.73%) Threat Detection
4 5 (22.73%) Threat Modelling
4 5 (22.73%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 4 (18.18%) Python
2 1 (4.55%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 8 (36.36%) Security Cleared
2 7 (31.82%) SC Cleared
3 4 (18.18%) CISSP
4 3 (13.64%) Microsoft Certified Professional
5 2 (9.09%) Cisco Certification
5 2 (9.09%) CISM
6 1 (4.55%) AWS Certification
6 1 (4.55%) CCIE
6 1 (4.55%) CCIE Security
6 1 (4.55%) CCNP
6 1 (4.55%) CCSP
6 1 (4.55%) Degree
6 1 (4.55%) DV Cleared
6 1 (4.55%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (50.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 7 (31.82%) Cyber Essentials
3 6 (27.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 6 (27.27%) Def Stans
4 5 (22.73%) EU AI Act
5 2 (9.09%) GDPR
5 2 (9.09%) HIPAA
5 2 (9.09%) PCI DSS
5 2 (9.09%) QA
6 1 (4.55%) GPG13
6 1 (4.55%) GRC
6 1 (4.55%) ISA99
6 1 (4.55%) JSP 440
System Software
1 1 (4.55%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 2 (9.09%) Kubernetes
2 1 (4.55%) Ansible
2 1 (4.55%) FortiGate
2 1 (4.55%) Terraform
2 1 (4.55%) vRealize
Vendors
1 6 (27.27%) Microsoft
1 6 (27.27%) VMware
2 3 (13.64%) Foundry
3 2 (9.09%) Fortinet
3 2 (9.09%) Splunk
4 1 (4.55%) CheckPoint
4 1 (4.55%) Cisco
4 1 (4.55%) Computacenter
4 1 (4.55%) Forcepoint
4 1 (4.55%) Palo Alto
4 1 (4.55%) ServiceNow
4 1 (4.55%) Zscaler