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 4 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 588 470 511
Rank change year-on-year -118 +41 -74
Contract jobs citing GIAC 58 52 21
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.13% 0.19% 0.065%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.39% 0.58% 0.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 32 32 17
10th Percentile £462 £340 £270
25th Percentile £517 £510 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £568 £650 £550
Median % change year-on-year -12.69% +18.18% -8.33%
75th Percentile £628 £723 £650
90th Percentile £723 £961 £764
UK median daily rate £568 £650 £618
% change year-on-year -12.69% +5.26% +2.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 0
10th Percentile £55.25 - -
25th Percentile £61.25 £100.50 -
Median hourly rate £72.50 £103.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -29.61% - -
75th Percentile £74.38 £105.50 -
90th Percentile £74.75 - -
UK median hourly rate £72.50 £103.00 -
% change year-on-year -29.61% - -

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 14,874 8,948 9,646
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.11% 31.87% 29.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,921 5,677 5,862
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £447 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £734
UK median daily rate £530 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,272 739 533
10th Percentile £17.63 £17.87 £18.54
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £30.00
Median hourly rate £50.74 £25.15 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +101.76% -52.10% -
75th Percentile £73.46 £43.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £72.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £45.20 £25.15 £48.18
% change year-on-year +79.72% -47.80% -10.08%

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 4 October 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing GIAC in England over the 6 months to 4 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for GIAC in England

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 4 October 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 -75 32 £571 -12.12% 56
South East -50 17 £567 +49.06% 14
North of England -65 7 £550 -20.00% 7
Yorkshire -41 4 £558 -20.36%
North West -41 3 £500 -25.93% 7
South West -32 2 £650 +18.18% 2
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 (1.72%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (3.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.72%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 36 (62.07%) Azure
2 24 (41.38%) AWS
3 14 (24.14%) GCP
4 10 (17.24%) Entra ID
5 8 (13.79%) Azure Sentinel
5 8 (13.79%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (12.07%) IaaS
6 7 (12.07%) PaaS
7 3 (5.17%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (5.17%) GitHub
7 3 (5.17%) SaaS
8 2 (3.45%) Akamai
8 2 (3.45%) Cloudflare
8 2 (3.45%) Power Platform
9 1 (1.72%) AWS KMS
9 1 (1.72%) Azure Key Vault
9 1 (1.72%) Datadog
9 1 (1.72%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (1.72%) Microsoft Copilot
9 1 (1.72%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 10 (17.24%) Network Security
2 8 (13.79%) Firewall
3 4 (6.90%) Intrusion Detection
4 3 (5.17%) Software-Defined Networking
4 3 (5.17%) TCP/IP
5 2 (3.45%) Cisco ISE
5 2 (3.45%) DNS
5 2 (3.45%) HTTP
5 2 (3.45%) Modbus
6 1 (1.72%) Cisco ASA
6 1 (1.72%) Cisco Firepower
6 1 (1.72%) Ethernet
6 1 (1.72%) Internet
6 1 (1.72%) Kerberos
6 1 (1.72%) NAS
6 1 (1.72%) SAN
6 1 (1.72%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.72%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (6.90%) Burp Suite
1 4 (6.90%) Snyk
2 3 (5.17%) GitLab
2 3 (5.17%) Jenkins
2 3 (5.17%) SonarQube
3 2 (3.45%) JIRA
4 1 (1.72%) Claude Code
4 1 (1.72%) Git
4 1 (1.72%) TruffleHog
General
1 29 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 22 (37.93%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (15.52%) Finance
4 5 (8.62%) Banking
4 5 (8.62%) Public Sector
5 2 (3.45%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.72%) Law
6 1 (1.72%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.72%) Military
6 1 (1.72%) Retail
Job Titles
1 14 (24.14%) Analyst
2 10 (17.24%) Security Engineer
3 9 (15.52%) Architect
3 9 (15.52%) Security Analyst
4 8 (13.79%) SOC Analyst
5 7 (12.07%) Cybersecurity Analyst
5 7 (12.07%) Security Specialist
6 6 (10.34%) Cybersecurity Specialist
6 6 (10.34%) Senior
7 5 (8.62%) Cybersecurity Architect
7 5 (8.62%) Lead
7 5 (8.62%) Security Architect
8 3 (5.17%) DevSecOps Engineer
8 3 (5.17%) Network Engineer
8 3 (5.17%) SIEM Engineer
9 2 (3.45%) SIEM Analyst
9 2 (3.45%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 2 (3.45%) SOC Engineer
9 2 (3.45%) SOC Manager
9 2 (3.45%) Vulnerability Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (15.52%) Terraform
2 4 (6.90%) SAML
3 2 (3.45%) JSON
3 2 (3.45%) OAuth
3 2 (3.45%) XML
4 1 (1.72%) Azure Blueprints
4 1 (1.72%) FIDO
4 1 (1.72%) Kafka
4 1 (1.72%) LDAP
4 1 (1.72%) Middleware
4 1 (1.72%) OAuth2
4 1 (1.72%) OpenID
4 1 (1.72%) SailPoint
4 1 (1.72%) WebAuthn
Miscellaneous
1 9 (15.52%) Cyber Threat
1 9 (15.52%) Management Information System
2 8 (13.79%) Onboarding
2 8 (13.79%) Operational Technology
3 7 (12.07%) Cyber Defence
4 6 (10.34%) PKI
4 6 (10.34%) SCADA
5 5 (8.62%) Security Operations Centre
5 5 (8.62%) Security Posture
6 4 (6.90%) Cloud Native
7 2 (3.45%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (3.45%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 2 (3.45%) Cyber Security Posture
7 2 (3.45%) Cyberattack
7 2 (3.45%) Data Centre
8 1 (1.72%) CAN bus
8 1 (1.72%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 1 (1.72%) FMCG
8 1 (1.72%) iSeries
8 1 (1.72%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 14 (24.14%) Linux
1 14 (24.14%) Windows
2 6 (10.34%) Unix
3 2 (3.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (3.45%) Ubuntu
3 2 (3.45%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.72%) Alpine Linux
4 1 (1.72%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (84.48%) Cybersecurity
2 36 (62.07%) SIEM
3 24 (41.38%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
3 24 (41.38%) Security Architecture
3 24 (41.38%) Threat Intelligence
4 23 (39.66%) Incident Response
4 23 (39.66%) SABSA
5 22 (37.93%) Security Operations
6 18 (31.03%) Vulnerability Management
7 17 (29.31%) CI/CD
7 17 (29.31%) DevOps
7 17 (29.31%) Problem-Solving
8 16 (27.59%) Continuous Improvement
8 16 (27.59%) Risk Management
9 15 (25.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 15 (25.86%) Threat Modelling
10 14 (24.14%) Incident Management
10 14 (24.14%) MITRE ATT&CK
11 13 (22.41%) Cloud Security
11 13 (22.41%) DevSecOps
Programming Languages
1 14 (24.14%) Python
2 9 (15.52%) PowerShell
3 5 (8.62%) Bash
4 2 (3.45%) Kusto Query Language
4 2 (3.45%) Objective-C
5 1 (1.72%) Bicep
5 1 (1.72%) C
5 1 (1.72%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 52 (89.66%) CISSP
2 31 (53.45%) Security Cleared
3 30 (51.72%) CISM
4 25 (43.10%) SC Cleared
5 16 (27.59%) CEH
6 15 (25.86%) Cisco Certification
7 14 (24.14%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 12 (20.69%) Degree
8 12 (20.69%) GCIA
9 11 (18.97%) CompTIA Security+
9 11 (18.97%) CRISC
9 11 (18.97%) GCIH
10 10 (17.24%) SANS
11 9 (15.52%) DV Cleared
12 8 (13.79%) AWS Certification
12 8 (13.79%) GSEC
13 7 (12.07%) CompTIA CySA+
13 7 (12.07%) OSCP
13 7 (12.07%) SSCP
14 6 (10.34%) CESG Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (55.17%) NIST
2 31 (53.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (17.24%) Cyber Essentials
3 10 (17.24%) NCSC
4 5 (8.62%) ISO 31000
5 4 (6.90%) COBIT
6 3 (5.17%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 3 (5.17%) NIST 800
7 2 (3.45%) PCI DSS
8 1 (1.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (1.72%) HIPAA
8 1 (1.72%) RMADS
8 1 (1.72%) SLA
8 1 (1.72%) SOC 2
System Software
1 10 (17.24%) Active Directory
2 4 (6.90%) Docker
3 1 (1.72%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
3 1 (1.72%) Squid
3 1 (1.72%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 9 (15.52%) Kubernetes
2 6 (10.34%) QRadar
3 4 (6.90%) Ansible
4 3 (5.17%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (3.45%) HP Fortify
6 1 (1.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (1.72%) Istio
6 1 (1.72%) Progress Chef
6 1 (1.72%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 25 (43.10%) Microsoft
2 14 (24.14%) Splunk
3 6 (10.34%) Qualys
4 5 (8.62%) ArcSight
4 5 (8.62%) LogRhythm
4 5 (8.62%) Palo Alto
4 5 (8.62%) Tenable
5 4 (6.90%) Cisco
5 4 (6.90%) CrowdStrike
5 4 (6.90%) Rapid7
6 3 (5.17%) Checkmarx
7 2 (3.45%) AlgoSec
7 2 (3.45%) CheckPoint
7 2 (3.45%) Exabeam
7 2 (3.45%) F5
7 2 (3.45%) ForeScout
7 2 (3.45%) Fortinet
7 2 (3.45%) Google
7 2 (3.45%) Okta
7 2 (3.45%) Siemens