GIAC Contract Job Trends in England

Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC)
UK > England

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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 585 461 492
Rank change year-on-year -124 +31 -22
Contract jobs citing GIAC 55 53 31
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.12% 0.19% 0.093%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.38% 0.61% 0.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 30 29 28
10th Percentile £453 £325 £304
25th Percentile £500 £445 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £625 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +4.17% -
75th Percentile £706 £723 £650
90th Percentile £764 £970 £738
UK median daily rate £575 £613 £600
% change year-on-year -6.12% +2.08% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £51.25 £100.50 -
Median hourly rate £52.50 £103.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -49.03% - -
75th Percentile £53.75 £105.50 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £103.00 -
% change year-on-year -49.03% - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

GIAC 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 14,565 8,752 10,084
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.73% 31.55% 30.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,799 5,500 6,410
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.38% -0.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,130 683 703
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.22 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £53.00 £25.15 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year +110.74% -47.60% -12.73%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £49.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +94.83% -41.51% -21.82%

GIAC
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

GIAC job vacancy trend in England

GIAC
Daily Rate Trend in England

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing GIAC

GIAC
Daily Rate Histogram in England

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

Daily rate histogram for GIAC in England

GIAC
Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing GIAC

GIAC
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 GIAC within the England region over the 6 months to 23 August 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 -83 32 £601 -7.62% 11
North of England -49 11 £565 -16.30% 6
South East -70 10 £560 +11.90% 5
North West -36 7 £644 -4.59% 5
Yorkshire - 4 £558 - 1
South West -40 2 £650 +18.18%
GIAC
UK

GIAC
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 1 (1.82%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (3.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.82%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 36 (65.45%) Azure
2 23 (41.82%) AWS
3 19 (34.55%) GCP
4 10 (18.18%) Entra ID
5 9 (16.36%) Azure Sentinel
6 8 (14.55%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (12.73%) IaaS
7 7 (12.73%) PaaS
8 4 (7.27%) GitHub
8 4 (7.27%) SaaS
9 3 (5.45%) Apigee
9 3 (5.45%) Azure API Management
9 3 (5.45%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (5.45%) Kong
10 2 (3.64%) Akamai
10 2 (3.64%) Cloudflare
10 2 (3.64%) Power Platform
11 1 (1.82%) Datadog
11 1 (1.82%) Microsoft Copilot
11 1 (1.82%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 9 (16.36%) Network Security
2 8 (14.55%) Firewall
3 3 (5.45%) Software-Defined Networking
3 3 (5.45%) TCP/IP
4 2 (3.64%) Cisco ISE
4 2 (3.64%) DNS
4 2 (3.64%) HTTP
5 1 (1.82%) Cisco ASA
5 1 (1.82%) Cisco Firepower
5 1 (1.82%) Internet
5 1 (1.82%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (1.82%) Kerberos
5 1 (1.82%) Modbus
5 1 (1.82%) NAS
5 1 (1.82%) SAN
5 1 (1.82%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.82%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (7.27%) Burp Suite
1 4 (7.27%) GitLab
1 4 (7.27%) Jenkins
1 4 (7.27%) Snyk
2 3 (5.45%) SonarQube
3 2 (3.64%) JIRA
4 1 (1.82%) Claude Code
4 1 (1.82%) Git
4 1 (1.82%) TruffleHog
General
1 25 (45.45%) Social Skills
2 14 (25.45%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (21.82%) Finance
4 6 (10.91%) Banking
5 4 (7.27%) Public Sector
6 2 (3.64%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (3.64%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.82%) Financial Institution
7 1 (1.82%) Law
7 1 (1.82%) Military
7 1 (1.82%) Retail
Job Titles
1 13 (23.64%) Architect
2 12 (21.82%) Analyst
3 10 (18.18%) Security Architect
4 9 (16.36%) Security Analyst
5 7 (12.73%) Cybersecurity Analyst
5 7 (12.73%) Security Engineer
5 7 (12.73%) Security Specialist
6 6 (10.91%) Cybersecurity Architect
6 6 (10.91%) Cybersecurity Specialist
6 6 (10.91%) SOC Analyst
7 5 (9.09%) Lead
8 3 (5.45%) Network Engineer
8 3 (5.45%) Operations Analyst
8 3 (5.45%) Security Operations Analyst
8 3 (5.45%) Senior
9 2 (3.64%) Consultant
9 2 (3.64%) Information Assurance Leader
9 2 (3.64%) Network Security Engineer
9 2 (3.64%) Security Consultant
9 2 (3.64%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (10.91%) Terraform
2 5 (9.09%) OAuth
3 4 (7.27%) OAuth2
3 4 (7.27%) OpenID
3 4 (7.27%) SAML
4 3 (5.45%) JWT
5 2 (3.64%) JSON
5 2 (3.64%) XML
6 1 (1.82%) Azure Blueprints
6 1 (1.82%) FIDO
6 1 (1.82%) Kafka
6 1 (1.82%) LDAP
6 1 (1.82%) Middleware
6 1 (1.82%) REST
6 1 (1.82%) SailPoint
6 1 (1.82%) WebAuthn
Miscellaneous
1 9 (16.36%) Management Information System
2 8 (14.55%) Operational Technology
3 6 (10.91%) PKI
3 6 (10.91%) SCADA
4 5 (9.09%) Cyber Defence
4 5 (9.09%) Cyber Threat
4 5 (9.09%) Onboarding
4 5 (9.09%) Security Operations Centre
4 5 (9.09%) Security Posture
5 4 (7.27%) Cloud Native
6 2 (3.64%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (3.64%) Data Centre
7 1 (1.82%) CAN bus
7 1 (1.82%) CMDB
7 1 (1.82%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 1 (1.82%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 1 (1.82%) iSeries
7 1 (1.82%) Product Ownership
7 1 (1.82%) Public Cloud
7 1 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 11 (20.00%) Linux
1 11 (20.00%) Windows
2 6 (10.91%) Unix
3 2 (3.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (3.64%) Ubuntu
3 2 (3.64%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.82%) Alpine Linux
4 1 (1.82%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (80.00%) Cybersecurity
2 29 (52.73%) SIEM
3 28 (50.91%) SABSA
3 28 (50.91%) Security Architecture
4 20 (36.36%) CI/CD
5 18 (32.73%) Incident Response
5 18 (32.73%) OWASP
5 18 (32.73%) Threat Modelling
6 17 (30.91%) Security Operations
6 17 (30.91%) Threat Intelligence
7 15 (27.27%) Cloud Security
7 15 (27.27%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
8 14 (25.45%) Risk Assessment
8 14 (25.45%) TOGAF
9 13 (23.64%) DevOps
9 13 (23.64%) Vulnerability Management
10 12 (21.82%) DevSecOps
10 12 (21.82%) MITRE ATT&CK
10 12 (21.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 12 (21.82%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 11 (20.00%) Python
2 7 (12.73%) PowerShell
3 4 (7.27%) Bash
4 2 (3.64%) Kusto Query Language
4 2 (3.64%) Objective-C
5 1 (1.82%) Bicep
5 1 (1.82%) C
5 1 (1.82%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 51 (92.73%) CISSP
2 30 (54.55%) CISM
3 25 (45.45%) Security Cleared
4 17 (30.91%) CEH
5 16 (29.09%) SC Cleared
6 15 (27.27%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 15 (27.27%) Cisco Certification
6 15 (27.27%) Degree
7 12 (21.82%) CompTIA Security+
7 12 (21.82%) CRISC
8 10 (18.18%) SANS
9 8 (14.55%) CISA
9 8 (14.55%) GCIA
9 8 (14.55%) GCIH
9 8 (14.55%) GSEC
10 7 (12.73%) DV Cleared
10 7 (12.73%) SSCP
11 6 (10.91%) CESG Certified Professional
12 5 (9.09%) AWS Certification
12 5 (9.09%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (58.18%) NIST
2 31 (56.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (20.00%) NCSC
4 7 (12.73%) COBIT
4 7 (12.73%) Cyber Essentials
5 5 (9.09%) ISO 31000
6 3 (5.45%) GRC
6 3 (5.45%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 3 (5.45%) NIST 800
7 2 (3.64%) PCI DSS
8 1 (1.82%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (1.82%) HIPAA
8 1 (1.82%) RMADS
8 1 (1.82%) SLA
8 1 (1.82%) SOC 2
System Software
1 8 (14.55%) Active Directory
2 3 (5.45%) Docker
3 1 (1.82%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
3 1 (1.82%) Squid
3 1 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 4 (7.27%) Ansible
1 4 (7.27%) Kubernetes
2 3 (5.45%) QRadar
2 3 (5.45%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (3.64%) HP Fortify
4 1 (1.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 1 (1.82%) Progress Chef
4 1 (1.82%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 20 (36.36%) Microsoft
2 11 (20.00%) Splunk
3 5 (9.09%) Tenable
4 4 (7.27%) Palo Alto
5 3 (5.45%) ArcSight
5 3 (5.45%) Checkmarx
5 3 (5.45%) Cisco
5 3 (5.45%) CrowdStrike
5 3 (5.45%) MuleSoft
5 3 (5.45%) Qualys
6 2 (3.64%) AlgoSec
6 2 (3.64%) CheckPoint
6 2 (3.64%) Exabeam
6 2 (3.64%) F5
6 2 (3.64%) ForeScout
6 2 (3.64%) Google
6 2 (3.64%) LogRhythm
6 2 (3.64%) Okta
6 2 (3.64%) Veracode
7 1 (1.82%) Dynatrace