CEH Contract Job Trends in England

EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for CEH qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 23 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 458 427 503
Rank change year-on-year -31 +76 +144
Contract jobs citing CEH 82 65 54
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.25% 0.24% 0.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.74% 0.80% 0.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 44 35
10th Percentile £337 £529 £398
25th Percentile £413 £575 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £446 £650 £625
Median % change year-on-year -31.38% +4.00% +13.64%
75th Percentile £599 £700 £688
90th Percentile £679 £750 £780
UK median daily rate £430 £650 £620
% change year-on-year -33.85% +4.84% +22.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 1
10th Percentile £37.90 - -
25th Percentile £40.38 - -
Median hourly rate £48.50 - £87.00
75th Percentile £57.38 - -
90th Percentile £60.30 - -
UK median hourly rate £48.50 - £87.00
% change year-on-year - - +32.82%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

CEH falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in England.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 11,145 8,170 11,458
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.33% 30.48% 30.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,401 4,957 7,170
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £519 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.24% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 875 400 783
10th Percentile £15.92 £19.78 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.87 £25.26 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £47.75
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -3.29% +6.11%
75th Percentile £62.50 £67.56 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.25 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £39.52 £47.75
% change year-on-year -36.36% -17.24% +6.11%

CEH
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

CEH job vacancy trend in England

CEH
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing CEH.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing CEH

CEH
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing CEH in England over the 6 months to 23 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for CEH in England

CEH
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing CEH.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing CEH

CEH
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing CEH in England over the 6 months to 23 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for CEH in England

CEH
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing CEH within the England region over the 6 months to 23 January 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
South East +9 35 £425 -32.54% 19
London -34 27 £525 -19.23% 19
North of England -56 6 £650 -2.26% 18
Yorkshire -49 5 £700 +7.69% 8
West Midlands -47 3 £700 +14.75% 3
Midlands -49 3 £700 +14.75% 13
East of England -20 2 £550 +10.00% 9
South West -14 1 - - 12
North West -30 1 £325 -52.21% 8
CEH
UK

CEH
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in 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:

Application Platforms
1 4 (4.88%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.44%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 18 (21.95%) Azure
2 15 (18.29%) AWS
3 6 (7.32%) GCP
4 4 (4.88%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (3.66%) Akamai
5 3 (3.66%) Cloudflare
6 2 (2.44%) Azure Sentinel
6 2 (2.44%) Entra ID
6 2 (2.44%) GitHub
6 2 (2.44%) Microsoft Purview
6 2 (2.44%) Mimecast
7 1 (1.22%) Amazon EC2
7 1 (1.22%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (1.22%) Amazon S3
7 1 (1.22%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (1.22%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (1.22%) SaaS
7 1 (1.22%) Serverless
7 1 (1.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 25 (30.49%) Network Security
2 15 (18.29%) Firewall
3 9 (10.98%) Wireshark
4 5 (6.10%) HTTP
5 4 (4.88%) Internet
6 3 (3.66%) HTTPS
7 2 (2.44%) DNS
7 2 (2.44%) SMTP
7 2 (2.44%) SNMP
7 2 (2.44%) SSH
7 2 (2.44%) SSL
7 2 (2.44%) TCP/IP
8 1 (1.22%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
1 1 (1.22%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 12 (14.63%) Burp Suite
2 10 (12.20%) Metasploit
3 7 (8.54%) JIRA
4 2 (2.44%) Git
5 1 (1.22%) TestDirector
General
1 47 (57.32%) Social Skills
2 37 (45.12%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (12.20%) Public Sector
4 9 (10.98%) Finance
5 5 (6.10%) Law
5 5 (6.10%) Legal
6 4 (4.88%) Marketing
7 2 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.22%) Banking
8 1 (1.22%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.22%) Military
8 1 (1.22%) Retail
Job Titles
1 19 (23.17%) Analyst
2 18 (21.95%) SIEM Engineer
3 17 (20.73%) Security Analyst
4 13 (15.85%) Cybersecurity Analyst
4 13 (15.85%) Security Engineer
5 11 (13.41%) Tester
6 10 (12.20%) Penetration Tester
7 7 (8.54%) Cybersecurity Engineer
8 5 (6.10%) Security Manager
9 4 (4.88%) Consultant
9 4 (4.88%) Operational Security Manager
9 4 (4.88%) Operations Manager
9 4 (4.88%) Security Operations Manager
10 3 (3.66%) Cybersecurity Consultant
10 3 (3.66%) Data Analyst
10 3 (3.66%) Lead
10 3 (3.66%) Security Consultant
10 3 (3.66%) SOC Manager
11 2 (2.44%) Information Security Engineer
11 2 (2.44%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.66%) JSON
1 3 (3.66%) REST
1 3 (3.66%) XML
2 2 (2.44%) Flash
2 2 (2.44%) Smart Contracts
3 1 (1.22%) Elastic Stack
3 1 (1.22%) Lucene
3 1 (1.22%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 15 (18.29%) Cyber Security Posture
2 12 (14.63%) Security Posture
3 11 (13.41%) Management Information System
4 8 (9.76%) Cyber Threat
5 7 (8.54%) Security Operations Centre
6 6 (7.32%) Operational Technology
7 5 (6.10%) Cybercrime
8 4 (4.88%) Robotics
9 3 (3.66%) CSOC
9 3 (3.66%) Cyber Defence
10 2 (2.44%) Algorithms
10 2 (2.44%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (2.44%) Blockchain
10 2 (2.44%) PKI
11 1 (1.22%) Clustering
11 1 (1.22%) Data Centre
11 1 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
11 1 (1.22%) Linux Command Line
11 1 (1.22%) NHS
11 1 (1.22%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 14 (17.07%) Linux
2 11 (13.41%) Kali Linux
3 3 (3.66%) Windows
4 1 (1.22%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (75.61%) Cybersecurity
2 42 (51.22%) SIEM
3 35 (42.68%) Incident Response
4 27 (32.93%) Problem-Solving
5 25 (30.49%) Security Operations
6 23 (28.05%) Threat Detection
7 21 (25.61%) Penetration Testing
8 20 (24.39%) Ethical Hacking
9 19 (23.17%) Vulnerability Management
10 18 (21.95%) OWASP
11 17 (20.73%) Analytical Thinking
12 16 (19.51%) Threat Modelling
13 15 (18.29%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
13 15 (18.29%) Threat Intelligence
14 14 (17.07%) Cloud Security
14 14 (17.07%) MITRE ATT&CK
14 14 (17.07%) Risk Assessment
14 14 (17.07%) Test Automation
15 12 (14.63%) Information Security
16 11 (13.41%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 33 (40.24%) Python
2 31 (37.80%) PowerShell
3 15 (18.29%) Kusto Query Language
4 14 (17.07%) Bash
5 4 (4.88%) SQL
6 2 (2.44%) Rust
6 2 (2.44%) Solidity
Qualifications
1 59 (71.95%) CISSP
2 50 (60.98%) Security Cleared
3 40 (48.78%) SC Cleared
4 38 (46.34%) GIAC
5 27 (32.93%) CISM
6 24 (29.27%) OSCP
7 16 (19.51%) CompTIA Security+
8 12 (14.63%) DV Cleared
9 10 (12.20%) Degree
10 9 (10.98%) CompTIA CySA+
10 9 (10.98%) GPEN
11 8 (9.76%) CISA
12 7 (8.54%) Cisco Certification
12 7 (8.54%) CREST Certified
13 6 (7.32%) Master's Degree
14 5 (6.10%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 5 (6.10%) GREM
15 4 (4.88%) CCSP
16 3 (3.66%) CCNA
16 3 (3.66%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (35.37%) NIST
2 25 (30.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 8 (9.76%) GDPR
4 7 (8.54%) PCI DSS
5 5 (6.10%) NIST 800
6 4 (4.88%) NCSC
7 3 (3.66%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (2.44%) COBIT
8 2 (2.44%) FIPS 140-2
8 2 (2.44%) GRC
8 2 (2.44%) QA
8 2 (2.44%) SOC 2
9 1 (1.22%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (1.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (1.22%) HIPAA
9 1 (1.22%) JSP 440
9 1 (1.22%) SLA
System Software
1 2 (2.44%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.22%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 15 (18.29%) Kibana
2 10 (12.20%) Nmap
3 8 (9.76%) QRadar
4 5 (6.10%) Nessus
5 2 (2.44%) CASB
5 2 (2.44%) CSIRT
6 1 (1.22%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (1.22%) Fluentd
6 1 (1.22%) Kubernetes
6 1 (1.22%) logstash
6 1 (1.22%) Nexpose
6 1 (1.22%) Rsyslog
6 1 (1.22%) Terraform
Vendors
1 18 (21.95%) Splunk
2 14 (17.07%) FireEye
2 14 (17.07%) Microsoft
2 14 (17.07%) Tanium
2 14 (17.07%) Tenable
3 6 (7.32%) Qualys
4 5 (6.10%) CrowdStrike
5 4 (4.88%) ArcSight
5 4 (4.88%) Cisco
5 4 (4.88%) Google
6 3 (3.66%) F5
6 3 (3.66%) Imperva
6 3 (3.66%) ServiceNow
7 2 (2.44%) Darktrace
7 2 (2.44%) Rapid7
7 2 (2.44%) Thales
8 1 (1.22%) BeyondTrust
8 1 (1.22%) Okta
8 1 (1.22%) Proofpoint
8 1 (1.22%) SolarWinds