NCSC Contracts in England

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring NCSC skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited NCSC over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 387 389 426
Rank change year-on-year +2 +37 +186
Contract jobs citing NCSC 98 153 236
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.40% 0.41% 0.47%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.54% 2.89% 3.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 57 76 157
10th Percentile £500 £495 £513
25th Percentile £575 £559 £613
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £650 £600 £675
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -11.11% +8.00%
75th Percentile £738 £700 £738
90th Percentile £750 £738 £838
UK median daily rate £630 £619 £675
% change year-on-year +1.82% -8.33% +10.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 2 23
10th Percentile - £80.34 £59.73
25th Percentile £60.75 £80.85 £62.00
Median hourly rate £78.36 £81.71 £72.98
Median % change year-on-year -4.09% +11.96% +17.78%
75th Percentile £88.75 £82.56 £83.31
90th Percentile £92.50 £83.07 £83.40
UK median hourly rate £78.36 £81.71 £72.98
% change year-on-year -4.09% +11.96% +17.78%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
England

NCSC 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 3,865 5,295 6,738
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.87% 14.24% 13.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,481 3,378 4,585
10th Percentile £270 £300 £276
25th Percentile £400 £408 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -
75th Percentile £635 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 347 206
10th Percentile £17.78 £10.95 £13.94
25th Percentile £22.27 £13.09 £19.50
Median hourly rate £34.75 £22.34 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.55% -46.17% +50.91%
75th Percentile £65.00 £45.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £79.11 £67.38 £79.88
UK median hourly rate £34.50 £20.80 £37.50
% change year-on-year +65.85% -44.53% +33.93%

NCSC
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing NCSC as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for NCSC in England

NCSC
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing NCSC in England.

Daily rate trend for NCSC in England

NCSC
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NCSC in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for NCSC in England

NCSC
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing NCSC in England.

Hourly rate trend for NCSC in England

NCSC
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing NCSC in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for NCSC in England

NCSC
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 NCSC within the England region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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 +35 44 £630 +2.86% 27
London +7 19 £644 +0.98% 28
North of England +27 15 £725 +26.09% 15
Midlands +29 10 £650 +13.04% 12
West Midlands +21 10 £650 +13.04% 9
South West +19 7 £700 +16.67% 16
Yorkshire +12 6 £725 +26.09% 3
North West +17 5 £706 +22.83% 6
North East - 4 £625 - 6
East of England +30 1 - - 7
NCSC
UK

NCSC
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 12 (12.24%) nginx
1 12 (12.24%) Traefik
2 4 (4.08%) Confluence
3 2 (2.04%) Camunda
3 2 (2.04%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (2.04%) SharePoint
3 2 (2.04%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 3 (3.06%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.02%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 36 (36.73%) AWS
2 26 (26.53%) Azure
3 19 (19.39%) Entra ID
4 18 (18.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 17 (17.35%) Amazon ECS
5 17 (17.35%) AWS Fargate
6 16 (16.33%) AWS CloudFormation
7 15 (15.31%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 13 (13.27%) PaaS
9 12 (12.24%) SaaS
10 11 (11.22%) IaaS
11 8 (8.16%) Microsoft 365
12 5 (5.10%) GCP
13 4 (4.08%) Azure Monitor
14 3 (3.06%) Amazon EKS
14 3 (3.06%) GitHub
15 2 (2.04%) Cloud Computing
16 1 (1.02%) Amazon EC2
16 1 (1.02%) AWS CodePipeline
16 1 (1.02%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 23 (23.47%) DNS
2 22 (22.45%) TCP/IP
3 12 (12.24%) Firewall
4 11 (11.22%) VSAN
5 9 (9.18%) VPN
6 5 (5.10%) Network Security
6 5 (5.10%) SD-WAN
6 5 (5.10%) WAN
7 4 (4.08%) BGP
7 4 (4.08%) Cisco Nexus
7 4 (4.08%) DHCP
7 4 (4.08%) Intrusion Detection
7 4 (4.08%) MPLS
7 4 (4.08%) NGFW
7 4 (4.08%) OSPF
8 3 (3.06%) Modbus
8 3 (3.06%) MQTT
8 3 (3.06%) VLAN
9 2 (2.04%) Cisco ASA
9 2 (2.04%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (14.29%) MongoDB
2 6 (6.12%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 18 (18.37%) Jenkins
2 16 (16.33%) GitLab
3 6 (6.12%) JIRA
4 2 (2.04%) Terragrunt
General
1 31 (31.63%) Public Sector
2 19 (19.39%) Social Skills
3 15 (15.31%) Military
4 8 (8.16%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (3.06%) Law
5 3 (3.06%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.04%) Finance
6 2 (2.04%) Publishing
7 1 (1.02%) Automotive
7 1 (1.02%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.02%) Fire and Rescue
7 1 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.02%) Legal
7 1 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.02%) Police
Job Titles
1 36 (36.73%) Architect
1 36 (36.73%) Senior
2 16 (16.33%) Technical Architect
3 13 (13.27%) Senior DevOps
4 11 (11.22%) Security Architect
5 10 (10.20%) DevOps Engineer
5 10 (10.20%) Senior Architect
5 10 (10.20%) Senior Technical Architect
6 9 (9.18%) Senior DevOps Engineer
7 6 (6.12%) Auditor
7 6 (6.12%) Consultant
7 6 (6.12%) Security Auditor
8 5 (5.10%) Information Security Specialist
8 5 (5.10%) Information Specialist
8 5 (5.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (5.10%) Principal Architect
8 5 (5.10%) Security Engineer
8 5 (5.10%) Security Specialist
8 5 (5.10%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 4 (4.08%) Infrastructure Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (16.33%) Kafka
1 16 (16.33%) Keycloak
2 14 (14.29%) cloud-init
3 3 (3.06%) YAML
4 2 (2.04%) AngularJS
4 2 (2.04%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (2.04%) LDAP
4 2 (2.04%) OAuth
4 2 (2.04%) OpenID
4 2 (2.04%) OpenJDK
4 2 (2.04%) SAML
4 2 (2.04%) Spring Boot
5 1 (1.02%) .NET
5 1 (1.02%) JBoss Seam
5 1 (1.02%) ModSecurity
5 1 (1.02%) OAuth2
5 1 (1.02%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 31 (31.63%) PKI
2 20 (20.41%) Management Information System
3 14 (14.29%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (13.27%) Operational Technology
5 8 (8.16%) Public Cloud
6 7 (7.14%) SCADA
7 6 (6.12%) Cyber Threat
8 4 (4.08%) Industrial Internet of Things
8 4 (4.08%) IoT
9 3 (3.06%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (2.04%) Cyber Defence
10 2 (2.04%) NB-IoT
11 1 (1.02%) Algorithms
11 1 (1.02%) Cyberattack
11 1 (1.02%) Data Structures
11 1 (1.02%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 16 (16.33%) Linux
2 14 (14.29%) CentOS
2 14 (14.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 14 (14.29%) Unix
3 10 (10.20%) Windows
4 7 (7.14%) Windows Server
5 4 (4.08%) Mac OS
6 3 (3.06%) Windows 10
7 2 (2.04%) Android
7 2 (2.04%) Apple iOS
7 2 (2.04%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (2.04%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (37.76%) Infrastructure as Code
2 35 (35.71%) CI/CD
2 35 (35.71%) Cybersecurity
3 27 (27.55%) Continuous Integration
4 24 (24.49%) Containerisation
5 23 (23.47%) Agile
5 23 (23.47%) DevOps
6 22 (22.45%) Risk Management
7 21 (21.43%) Cloud Security
8 18 (18.37%) DevSecOps
8 18 (18.37%) Information Security
8 18 (18.37%) TOGAF
9 17 (17.35%) Decision-Making
9 17 (17.35%) Microservices
10 16 (16.33%) Risk Assessment
10 16 (16.33%) Security Architecture
11 14 (14.29%) Continuous Delivery
11 14 (14.29%) Identity Management
11 14 (14.29%) ITIL
11 14 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 21 (21.43%) Python
2 15 (15.31%) Bash
3 14 (14.29%) Go
4 10 (10.20%) PowerShell
5 2 (2.04%) Java
5 2 (2.04%) VB
5 2 (2.04%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 71 (72.45%) Security Cleared
2 57 (58.16%) SC Cleared
3 26 (26.53%) DV Cleared
4 16 (16.33%) AWS Certification
4 16 (16.33%) MCSE
4 16 (16.33%) Microsoft Certification
5 12 (12.24%) Degree
6 11 (11.22%) CISSP
7 10 (10.20%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 9 (9.18%) CISM
9 6 (6.12%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (5.10%) CCNP
11 2 (2.04%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (2.04%) Azure Certification
11 2 (2.04%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (2.04%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (2.04%) MCP
11 2 (2.04%) MCSA
12 1 (1.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 1 (1.02%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (32.65%) NIST
2 25 (25.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (12.24%) Cyber Essentials
4 6 (6.12%) GRC
5 5 (5.10%) NIST 800
6 3 (3.06%) JSP 440
7 2 (2.04%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (1.02%) Accessibility
8 1 (1.02%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (1.02%) GDPR
8 1 (1.02%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (1.02%) ISO 31000
8 1 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 14 (14.29%) VMware Infrastructure
2 12 (12.24%) VMware NSX
3 8 (8.16%) Active Directory
4 5 (5.10%) Docker
5 4 (4.08%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (2.04%) BitLocker
6 2 (2.04%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (2.04%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (1.02%) Firmware
7 1 (1.02%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 28 (28.57%) Terraform
2 21 (21.43%) Kubernetes
3 16 (16.33%) Grafana
3 16 (16.33%) Prometheus
4 14 (14.29%) Consul
4 14 (14.29%) Istio
4 14 (14.29%) Jamf Pro
4 14 (14.29%) linkerd
4 14 (14.29%) Packer
4 14 (14.29%) Rancher
4 14 (14.29%) ZABBIX
5 12 (12.24%) HAProxy
6 9 (9.18%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (5.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 4 (4.08%) Ansible
8 4 (4.08%) SCCM
9 1 (1.02%) OPNET
9 1 (1.02%) Puppet
9 1 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 19 (19.39%) VMware
2 14 (14.29%) Okta
2 14 (14.29%) Splunk
3 12 (12.24%) Apple
3 12 (12.24%) Cisco
3 12 (12.24%) ESET
3 12 (12.24%) Palo Alto
4 11 (11.22%) Microsoft
5 4 (4.08%) Google
6 2 (2.04%) McAfee
6 2 (2.04%) QAD
6 2 (2.04%) Symantec
7 1 (1.02%) Atlassian
7 1 (1.02%) Darktrace
7 1 (1.02%) ServiceNow