Cyber Essentials Contract Job Trends in England

Cyber Essentials
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Cyber Essentials skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 419 410 459
Rank change year-on-year -9 +49 +139
Contract jobs citing Cyber Essentials 121 84 89
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.38% 0.31% 0.25%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.20% 2.17% 1.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 85 43 55
10th Percentile £313 £315 £400
25th Percentile £413 £419 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £560 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +6.67% +10.53%
75th Percentile £613 £629 £638
90th Percentile £675 £680 £705
UK median daily rate £525 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -2.33% +2.38% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 10
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £68.80 £42.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £78.40 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -54.08% +76.18% -
75th Percentile £79.31 £83.20 £46.75
90th Percentile £94.38 - £49.00
UK median hourly rate £58.00 £83.20 £44.50
% change year-on-year -30.29% +86.97% -

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
England

Cyber Essentials 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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 5,509 3,868 5,135
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 17.30% 14.35% 14.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,590 2,261 3,427
10th Percentile £315 £265 £320
25th Percentile £408 £381 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £540
Median % change year-on-year - -7.41% +2.86%
75th Percentile £614 £635 £650
90th Percentile £706 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 278 149 229
10th Percentile £15.96 £14.70 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.00 £20.50 £17.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.17% -9.09% +33.12%
75th Percentile £60.46 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £75.00 £79.82
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -13.28% -10.77% +35.42%

Cyber Essentials
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Cyber Essentials job vacancy trend in England

Cyber Essentials
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Cyber Essentials.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cyber Essentials in England over the 6 months to 16 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cyber Essentials in England

Cyber Essentials
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Cyber Essentials.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cyber Essentials in England over the 6 months to 16 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cyber Essentials in England

Cyber Essentials
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 Cyber Essentials within the England region over the 6 months to 16 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
London +8 51 £550 +11.39% 36
South East -21 21 £503 -18.62% 33
East of England -5 19 £553 +10.60% 19
North of England -43 10 £504 +0.74% 27
Midlands -48 9 £444 +36.54% 31
South West -11 6 £475 -20.83% 19
Yorkshire -48 6 £502 +0.37% 7
West Midlands -38 5 £465 +43.08% 18
North West -16 4 £525 +2.44% 16
East Midlands -29 4 £444 +47.92% 13
Cyber Essentials
UK

Cyber Essentials
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 7 (5.79%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (3.31%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.65%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.83%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 1 (0.83%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 48 (39.67%) Azure
2 32 (26.45%) AWS
3 26 (21.49%) Microsoft 365
4 23 (19.01%) Entra ID
5 13 (10.74%) Amazon GuardDuty
5 13 (10.74%) Azure Sentinel
5 13 (10.74%) Microsoft Purview
6 9 (7.44%) AWS Control Tower
7 8 (6.61%) AWS CloudFormation
7 8 (6.61%) SaaS
8 7 (5.79%) AWS CloudTrail
8 7 (5.79%) Mimecast
9 6 (4.96%) AWS KMS
9 6 (4.96%) IaaS
9 6 (4.96%) PaaS
9 6 (4.96%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 3 (2.48%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (2.48%) Azure AKS
10 3 (2.48%) Power Platform
10 3 (2.48%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 18 (14.88%) Firewall
2 17 (14.05%) Network Security
3 15 (12.40%) VPN
4 8 (6.61%) DNS
5 7 (5.79%) DHCP
6 3 (2.48%) VLAN
7 2 (1.65%) LAN
7 2 (1.65%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (1.65%) Wireless
8 1 (0.83%) BGP
8 1 (0.83%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (0.83%) Cisco IOS
8 1 (0.83%) HTTP
8 1 (0.83%) Intrusion Detection
8 1 (0.83%) MPLS
8 1 (0.83%) TACACS
8 1 (0.83%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.83%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.65%) DynamoDB
2 1 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.83%) Metadata
2 1 (0.83%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.83%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (1.65%) Jenkins
1 2 (1.65%) JIRA
General
1 37 (30.58%) Social Skills
2 23 (19.01%) Public Sector
3 16 (13.22%) Finance
4 8 (6.61%) Presentation Skills
5 7 (5.79%) Legal
6 6 (4.96%) Aerospace
6 6 (4.96%) Local Government
6 6 (4.96%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (3.31%) Aviation
7 4 (3.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (2.48%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.48%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.83%) Digital Health
9 1 (0.83%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.83%) Electronics
9 1 (0.83%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.83%) Marketing
9 1 (0.83%) Retail
9 1 (0.83%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 20 (16.53%) Architect
2 17 (14.05%) Senior
3 16 (13.22%) Analyst
3 16 (13.22%) Security Engineer
4 13 (10.74%) Lead
5 11 (9.09%) Security Manager
6 10 (8.26%) Security Analyst
7 7 (5.79%) Consultant
8 6 (4.96%) Cloud Architect
8 6 (4.96%) Cybersecurity Engineer
8 6 (4.96%) Cybersecurity Manager
8 6 (4.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 6 (4.96%) Project Manager
8 6 (4.96%) Security Architect
9 5 (4.13%) 3rd Line Support
9 5 (4.13%) Information Analyst
9 5 (4.13%) Information Security Analyst
9 5 (4.13%) Lead Architect
9 5 (4.13%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 5 (4.13%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (4.13%) LDAP
2 4 (3.31%) OpenID
2 4 (3.31%) SAML
3 3 (2.48%) OAuth
3 3 (2.48%) Oracle Fusion
4 2 (1.65%) ARM Templates
4 2 (1.65%) AWS CDK
4 2 (1.65%) Node.js
5 1 (0.83%) .NET
5 1 (0.83%) Middleware
5 1 (0.83%) React
5 1 (0.83%) RESTful
5 1 (0.83%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (12.40%) Security Posture
2 14 (11.57%) Cyber Threat
3 10 (8.26%) Onboarding
4 9 (7.44%) Operational Technology
5 8 (6.61%) Cloud Native
6 7 (5.79%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 7 (5.79%) NHS
7 6 (4.96%) SCADA
8 4 (3.31%) Cloud Security Posture
8 4 (3.31%) Driving Licence
9 3 (2.48%) Security Operations Centre
10 2 (1.65%) Cyber Defence
10 2 (1.65%) Cybercrime
10 2 (1.65%) Management Information System
11 1 (0.83%) CMDB
11 1 (0.83%) Data Protection Act
11 1 (0.83%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 1 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
11 1 (0.83%) EPoS
11 1 (0.83%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 14 (11.57%) Linux
2 11 (9.09%) Windows
3 7 (5.79%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.65%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.83%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (49.59%) Cybersecurity
2 27 (22.31%) Cloud Security
3 26 (21.49%) Incident Response
3 26 (21.49%) Information Security
4 21 (17.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 19 (15.70%) Security Operations
6 18 (14.88%) ITIL
6 18 (14.88%) Migration
6 18 (14.88%) Roadmaps
7 17 (14.05%) Data Loss Prevention
8 16 (13.22%) Threat Detection
9 15 (12.40%) SIEM
9 15 (12.40%) Zero Trust
10 12 (9.92%) Continuous Improvement
10 12 (9.92%) Network Segmentation
10 12 (9.92%) Risk Management
10 12 (9.92%) Threat Modelling
11 11 (9.09%) Decision-Making
11 11 (9.09%) ITSM
11 11 (9.09%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 12 (9.92%) PowerShell
2 7 (5.79%) Kusto Query Language
3 6 (4.96%) Python
4 2 (1.65%) Bicep
5 1 (0.83%) Bash
5 1 (0.83%) C#
5 1 (0.83%) Go
5 1 (0.83%) PHP
5 1 (0.83%) SQL
5 1 (0.83%) T-SQL
5 1 (0.83%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 32 (26.45%) Security Cleared
2 28 (23.14%) SC Cleared
3 26 (21.49%) CISSP
4 18 (14.88%) CISM
5 15 (12.40%) Degree
6 9 (7.44%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
7 7 (5.79%) AWS Certification
7 7 (5.79%) CompTIA Security+
8 6 (4.96%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 6 (4.96%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (4.13%) CISA
10 4 (3.31%) Azure Certification
10 4 (3.31%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 3 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (2.48%) DV Cleared
11 3 (2.48%) Master's Degree
12 2 (1.65%) CCNA
12 2 (1.65%) CISMP
12 2 (1.65%) CRISC
12 2 (1.65%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (59.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 49 (40.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 47 (38.84%) NIST
4 38 (31.40%) GDPR
5 24 (19.83%) NCSC
6 8 (6.61%) GRC
7 7 (5.79%) PCI DSS
8 5 (4.13%) Def Stans
9 3 (2.48%) IASME
9 3 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 3 (2.48%) NIST 800
10 2 (1.65%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 2 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 2 (1.65%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.83%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.83%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.83%) SLA
System Software
1 12 (9.92%) Active Directory
2 6 (4.96%) Virtual Desktop
3 5 (4.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (2.48%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.65%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.83%) Firmware
6 1 (0.83%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.83%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (13.22%) Microsoft Intune
2 11 (9.09%) Terraform
3 7 (5.79%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (4.13%) Kubernetes
5 4 (3.31%) AirWatch
5 4 (3.31%) CSIRT
5 4 (3.31%) PingFederate
5 4 (3.31%) QRadar
6 3 (2.48%) SCCM
7 2 (1.65%) Ansible
8 1 (0.83%) CASB
8 1 (0.83%) Grafana
8 1 (0.83%) SCOM
8 1 (0.83%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.83%) WSUS
Vendors
1 45 (37.19%) Microsoft
2 13 (10.74%) VMware
3 12 (9.92%) Cisco
4 8 (6.61%) CrowdStrike
5 7 (5.79%) CyberArk
5 7 (5.79%) Fortinet
5 7 (5.79%) Palo Alto
6 6 (4.96%) Citrix
6 6 (4.96%) CloudEndure
6 6 (4.96%) ServiceNow
6 6 (4.96%) Splunk
7 5 (4.13%) Barracuda Networks
7 5 (4.13%) Netskope
8 4 (3.31%) CheckPoint
8 4 (3.31%) Ping Identity
9 3 (2.48%) Computacenter
9 3 (2.48%) Oracle
9 3 (2.48%) Tenable
10 2 (1.65%) LogRhythm
11 1 (0.83%) Meraki