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 16 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 569 457 489
Rank change year-on-year -112 +32 -1
Contract jobs citing GIAC 57 49 30
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.12% 0.18% 0.090%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.39% 0.56% 0.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 31 28 27
10th Percentile £425 £336 £304
25th Percentile £500 £449 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £619 £600
Median % change year-on-year -7.07% +3.13% -4.00%
75th Percentile £700 £716 £650
90th Percentile £763 £974 £738
UK median daily rate £575 £570 £600
% change year-on-year +0.92% -5.04% -4.00%
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 14,556 8,744 10,132
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.74% 31.46% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,821 5,471 6,463
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £526
% change year-on-year - -0.24% -4.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,125 677 751
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.32 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £51.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +102.78% -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 16 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 16 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 -61 35 £588 -7.80% 35
North of England -66 10 £605 -10.44% 10
South East -76 10 £560 +17.79% 7
North West -36 6 £678 +0.44% 8
Yorkshire - 4 £558 - 2
South West -48 2 £650 -13.33%
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 (1.75%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (3.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.75%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 35 (61.40%) Azure
2 22 (38.60%) AWS
3 19 (33.33%) GCP
4 10 (17.54%) Entra ID
5 9 (15.79%) Azure Sentinel
6 8 (14.04%) Microsoft 365
7 7 (12.28%) IaaS
7 7 (12.28%) PaaS
8 5 (8.77%) SaaS
9 4 (7.02%) GitHub
10 3 (5.26%) Apigee
10 3 (5.26%) Azure API Management
10 3 (5.26%) Azure DevOps
10 3 (5.26%) Kong
11 2 (3.51%) Akamai
11 2 (3.51%) Cloudflare
11 2 (3.51%) Power Platform
12 1 (1.75%) AWS KMS
12 1 (1.75%) Datadog
12 1 (1.75%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 8 (14.04%) Network Security
2 7 (12.28%) Firewall
3 3 (5.26%) TCP/IP
4 2 (3.51%) Cisco ISE
4 2 (3.51%) DNS
4 2 (3.51%) HTTP
4 2 (3.51%) Software-Defined Networking
5 1 (1.75%) Cisco ASA
5 1 (1.75%) Cisco Firepower
5 1 (1.75%) Internet
5 1 (1.75%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (1.75%) Kerberos
5 1 (1.75%) Modbus
5 1 (1.75%) NAS
5 1 (1.75%) SAN
5 1 (1.75%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.75%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (7.02%) Burp Suite
1 4 (7.02%) GitLab
1 4 (7.02%) Jenkins
1 4 (7.02%) Snyk
2 3 (5.26%) SonarQube
3 2 (3.51%) JIRA
4 1 (1.75%) Claude Code
4 1 (1.75%) Git
4 1 (1.75%) TruffleHog
General
1 26 (45.61%) Social Skills
2 13 (22.81%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (19.30%) Finance
4 6 (10.53%) Public Sector
5 5 (8.77%) Banking
6 2 (3.51%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (3.51%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.75%) Financial Institution
7 1 (1.75%) Law
7 1 (1.75%) Military
7 1 (1.75%) Retail
Job Titles
1 13 (22.81%) Analyst
1 13 (22.81%) Architect
2 10 (17.54%) Security Analyst
2 10 (17.54%) Security Architect
3 8 (14.04%) Cybersecurity Analyst
4 7 (12.28%) Security Specialist
5 6 (10.53%) Cybersecurity Architect
5 6 (10.53%) Cybersecurity Specialist
5 6 (10.53%) Lead
5 6 (10.53%) Security Engineer
5 6 (10.53%) SOC Analyst
6 3 (5.26%) Information Assurance Leader
6 3 (5.26%) Network Engineer
6 3 (5.26%) Operations Analyst
6 3 (5.26%) Security Operations Analyst
6 3 (5.26%) Senior
6 3 (5.26%) SOC Engineer
6 3 (5.26%) Technical Leader
7 2 (3.51%) Network Security Engineer
7 2 (3.51%) Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (8.77%) OAuth
2 4 (7.02%) OAuth2
2 4 (7.02%) OpenID
2 4 (7.02%) SAML
3 3 (5.26%) JWT
4 2 (3.51%) JSON
4 2 (3.51%) XML
5 1 (1.75%) Azure Blueprints
5 1 (1.75%) FIDO
5 1 (1.75%) Kafka
5 1 (1.75%) LDAP
5 1 (1.75%) Middleware
5 1 (1.75%) REST
5 1 (1.75%) SailPoint
5 1 (1.75%) WebAuthn
Miscellaneous
1 9 (15.79%) Operational Technology
2 8 (14.04%) Management Information System
3 7 (12.28%) SCADA
4 6 (10.53%) Onboarding
4 6 (10.53%) PKI
5 5 (8.77%) Cyber Defence
5 5 (8.77%) Cyber Threat
5 5 (8.77%) Security Operations Centre
6 4 (7.02%) Cloud Native
6 4 (7.02%) Security Posture
7 2 (3.51%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (3.51%) Data Centre
8 1 (1.75%) CAN bus
8 1 (1.75%) CMDB
8 1 (1.75%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 1 (1.75%) iSeries
8 1 (1.75%) Product Ownership
8 1 (1.75%) Public Cloud
8 1 (1.75%) Robotics
8 1 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 11 (19.30%) Linux
1 11 (19.30%) Windows
2 6 (10.53%) Unix
3 2 (3.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (3.51%) Ubuntu
3 2 (3.51%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.75%) Alpine Linux
4 1 (1.75%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (78.95%) Cybersecurity
2 29 (50.88%) SIEM
3 28 (49.12%) SABSA
3 28 (49.12%) Security Architecture
4 20 (35.09%) CI/CD
5 19 (33.33%) Incident Response
5 19 (33.33%) OWASP
6 18 (31.58%) Security Operations
6 18 (31.58%) Threat Modelling
7 17 (29.82%) Threat Intelligence
8 15 (26.32%) Cloud Security
8 15 (26.32%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
9 14 (24.56%) Risk Assessment
9 14 (24.56%) TOGAF
10 13 (22.81%) DevOps
10 13 (22.81%) DevSecOps
10 13 (22.81%) MITRE ATT&CK
10 13 (22.81%) Vulnerability Management
11 12 (21.05%) Information Security
11 12 (21.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 11 (19.30%) Python
2 7 (12.28%) PowerShell
3 4 (7.02%) Bash
4 2 (3.51%) Kusto Query Language
4 2 (3.51%) Objective-C
5 1 (1.75%) Bicep
5 1 (1.75%) C
5 1 (1.75%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 52 (91.23%) CISSP
2 31 (54.39%) CISM
3 28 (49.12%) Security Cleared
4 19 (33.33%) SC Cleared
5 18 (31.58%) CEH
6 17 (29.82%) Degree
7 14 (24.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 14 (24.56%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (22.81%) CompTIA Security+
9 12 (21.05%) CRISC
10 10 (17.54%) CISA
10 10 (17.54%) SANS
11 8 (14.04%) GSEC
12 7 (12.28%) DV Cleared
12 7 (12.28%) GCIA
12 7 (12.28%) GCIH
12 7 (12.28%) SSCP
13 6 (10.53%) CESG Certified Professional
14 5 (8.77%) CompTIA CySA+
14 5 (8.77%) CSSLP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (57.89%) NIST
2 32 (56.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (19.30%) NCSC
4 7 (12.28%) COBIT
4 7 (12.28%) Cyber Essentials
5 5 (8.77%) ISO 31000
6 4 (7.02%) GRC
7 3 (5.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 3 (5.26%) NIST 800
8 1 (1.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (1.75%) HIPAA
8 1 (1.75%) ISA99
8 1 (1.75%) PCI DSS
8 1 (1.75%) RMADS
8 1 (1.75%) SLA
8 1 (1.75%) SOC 2
System Software
1 8 (14.04%) Active Directory
2 3 (5.26%) Docker
3 1 (1.75%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
3 1 (1.75%) Squid
3 1 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 6 (10.53%) Terraform
2 4 (7.02%) Ansible
2 4 (7.02%) Kubernetes
3 3 (5.26%) QRadar
3 3 (5.26%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (3.51%) HP Fortify
5 1 (1.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 1 (1.75%) Progress Chef
5 1 (1.75%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 21 (36.84%) Microsoft
2 11 (19.30%) Splunk
3 5 (8.77%) Tenable
4 3 (5.26%) ArcSight
4 3 (5.26%) Checkmarx
4 3 (5.26%) Cisco
4 3 (5.26%) CrowdStrike
4 3 (5.26%) MuleSoft
4 3 (5.26%) Palo Alto
4 3 (5.26%) Qualys
5 2 (3.51%) Exabeam
5 2 (3.51%) F5
5 2 (3.51%) ForeScout
5 2 (3.51%) Google
5 2 (3.51%) LogRhythm
5 2 (3.51%) Okta
5 2 (3.51%) Veracode
6 1 (1.75%) Dynatrace
6 1 (1.75%) Thales
6 1 (1.75%) Zscaler