NCSC Contract Job Trends in England

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring NCSC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 348 467 338
Rank change year-on-year +119 -129 +262
Contract jobs citing NCSC 165 60 269
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.59% 0.19% 0.66%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.34% 1.42% 4.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 114 34 161
10th Percentile £500 £467 £488
25th Percentile £550 £500 £560
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £648 £525 £672
Median % change year-on-year +23.33% -21.88% +3.38%
75th Percentile £700 £639 £790
90th Percentile £749 £764 £850
UK median daily rate £650 £525 £671
% change year-on-year +23.81% -21.76% +3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 3 28
10th Percentile £38.53 - £70.32
25th Percentile £82.50 £60.75 £74.84
Median hourly rate £87.50 £61.50 £83.40
Median % change year-on-year +42.29% -26.26% +21.76%
75th Percentile £91.50 £71.12 -
90th Percentile - £76.45 £84.06
UK median hourly rate £87.00 £61.50 £83.40
% change year-on-year +41.47% -26.26% +21.76%

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 4,947 4,229 5,823
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 17.62% 13.09% 14.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,219 2,453 3,952
10th Percentile £300 £296 £325
25th Percentile £400 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £540
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -5.09% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £651
90th Percentile £713 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 245 198 239
10th Percentile £15.13 £12.81 £15.21
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.13 £20.04
Median hourly rate £32.50 £35.00 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.14% -2.78% +53.19%
75th Percentile £63.40 £68.44 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.80 £70.05 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.67 £35.63
% change year-on-year +8.42% -22.34% +44.81%

NCSC
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

NCSC job vacancy trend in England

NCSC
Daily Rate Trend in England

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing NCSC

NCSC
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NCSC in England over the 6 months to 11 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for NCSC in England

NCSC
Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing NCSC

NCSC
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing NCSC in England over the 6 months to 11 October 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 11 October 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 West +56 51 £675 +3.85% 14
London +36 50 £650 +23.81% 32
East of England +15 17 £249 - 2
South East +13 17 £590 +16.83% 21
Midlands 0 14 £700 +21.74% 8
West Midlands -3 14 £700 +21.74% 2
North of England -13 7 £550 +9.56% 13
North West -10 4 £400 -20.32% 11
Yorkshire - 3 £650 - 1
NCSC
UK

NCSC
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 4 (2.42%) Confluence
2 3 (1.82%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 56 (33.94%) Azure
2 40 (24.24%) AWS
3 27 (16.36%) GitHub
4 18 (10.91%) Entra ID
5 13 (7.88%) GCP
6 11 (6.67%) AWS CloudFormation
7 8 (4.85%) Amazon ECS
7 8 (4.85%) Azure DevOps
7 8 (4.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 7 (4.24%) AWS Fargate
8 7 (4.24%) Microsoft 365
9 5 (3.03%) Azure Sentinel
9 5 (3.03%) SaaS
10 3 (1.82%) Amazon S3
10 3 (1.82%) Azure Key Vault
10 3 (1.82%) IaaS
10 3 (1.82%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (1.82%) PaaS
11 2 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
11 2 (1.21%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 14 (8.48%) Network Security
2 11 (6.67%) Firewall
3 9 (5.45%) BGP
3 9 (5.45%) DNS
4 5 (3.03%) VSAN
5 3 (1.82%) 4G
5 3 (1.82%) 5G
5 3 (1.82%) Skype
5 3 (1.82%) VPN
6 2 (1.21%) DHCP
6 2 (1.21%) Modbus
7 1 (0.61%) DMZ
7 1 (0.61%) Ethernet
7 1 (0.61%) Internet
7 1 (0.61%) LAN
7 1 (0.61%) MQTT
7 1 (0.61%) SAN
7 1 (0.61%) Software-Defined Networking
7 1 (0.61%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.61%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.24%) MongoDB
2 5 (3.03%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.61%) Amazon Athena
3 1 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
3 1 (0.61%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.61%) Redis
3 1 (0.61%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.61%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 20 (12.12%) SonarQube
2 11 (6.67%) GitLab
3 10 (6.06%) Burp Suite
3 10 (6.06%) Jenkins
3 10 (6.06%) Metasploit
4 4 (2.42%) JIRA
4 4 (2.42%) Terragrunt
General
1 50 (30.30%) Public Sector
2 41 (24.85%) Social Skills
3 26 (15.76%) Military
4 11 (6.67%) Finance
5 9 (5.45%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (5.45%) Telecoms
6 8 (4.85%) Electronics
6 8 (4.85%) Manufacturing
6 8 (4.85%) Marketing
7 7 (4.24%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (3.64%) Back Office
9 5 (3.03%) Police
10 4 (2.42%) Aerospace
10 4 (2.42%) Law
11 3 (1.82%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.61%) Automotive
12 1 (0.61%) Legal
12 1 (0.61%) Local Government
12 1 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.61%) Retail
Job Titles
1 46 (27.88%) Architect
2 34 (20.61%) Lead
3 32 (19.39%) Security Engineer
4 21 (12.73%) Security Architect
5 14 (8.48%) Consultant
5 14 (8.48%) Senior
6 11 (6.67%) Cybersecurity Engineer
6 11 (6.67%) DevSecOps Engineer
6 11 (6.67%) Security Consultant
7 9 (5.45%) Analyst
7 9 (5.45%) Solutions Architect
8 7 (4.24%) DevOps Engineer
8 7 (4.24%) Security Analyst
9 6 (3.64%) Lead DevOps
9 6 (3.64%) Lead DevOps Engineer
9 6 (3.64%) Security Manager
9 6 (3.64%) SOC Architect
10 5 (3.03%) Security Specialist
10 5 (3.03%) Senior Architect
10 5 (3.03%) Senior Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (6.06%) YAML
2 7 (4.24%) cloud-init
2 7 (4.24%) Kafka
2 7 (4.24%) Keycloak
3 4 (2.42%) AWS CDK
4 3 (1.82%) .NET
4 3 (1.82%) ModSecurity
5 2 (1.21%) SailPoint
6 1 (0.61%) ADO
6 1 (0.61%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.61%) Azure Blueprints
6 1 (0.61%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.61%) Faiss
6 1 (0.61%) LangChain
6 1 (0.61%) LangGraph
6 1 (0.61%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 18 (10.91%) Management Information System
2 15 (9.09%) PKI
3 13 (7.88%) Cyber Threat
4 12 (7.27%) Onboarding
5 10 (6.06%) Cyber Defence
6 9 (5.45%) Cloud Native
6 9 (5.45%) Security Posture
7 7 (4.24%) Legacy Applications
7 7 (4.24%) Operational Technology
8 5 (3.03%) CSOC
8 5 (3.03%) NHS
8 5 (3.03%) Private Cloud
9 4 (2.42%) Data Centre
9 4 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (1.82%) SCADA
10 3 (1.82%) Security Operations Centre
11 2 (1.21%) Enterprise Cloud
11 2 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
12 1 (0.61%) Data Protection Act
12 1 (0.61%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 17 (10.30%) Linux
2 10 (6.06%) Windows
3 7 (4.24%) CentOS
3 7 (4.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 7 (4.24%) Unix
4 6 (3.64%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.42%) Windows 10
6 3 (1.82%) Mac OS
6 3 (1.82%) Windows Server 2008
7 2 (1.21%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.61%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (37.58%) Cybersecurity
2 38 (23.03%) CI/CD
3 37 (22.42%) Cloud Security
4 34 (20.61%) Infrastructure as Code
5 33 (20.00%) DevSecOps
6 29 (17.58%) DevOps
6 29 (17.58%) Risk Management
7 26 (15.76%) Incident Response
7 26 (15.76%) Information Assurance
8 25 (15.15%) Threat Modelling
9 23 (13.94%) Vulnerability Assessment
10 21 (12.73%) Zero Trust
11 20 (12.12%) Security Architecture
11 20 (12.12%) SIEM
12 19 (11.52%) Containerisation
12 19 (11.52%) Security Management
13 18 (10.91%) Information Security
13 18 (10.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 17 (10.30%) Penetration Testing
15 16 (9.70%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 22 (13.33%) Python
2 19 (11.52%) Bash
3 7 (4.24%) Go
4 6 (3.64%) PowerShell
5 5 (3.03%) Shell Script
6 4 (2.42%) SQL
7 3 (1.82%) Bicep
8 2 (1.21%) C#
9 1 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 129 (78.18%) Security Cleared
2 85 (51.52%) SC Cleared
3 51 (30.91%) DV Cleared
4 33 (20.00%) CISSP
5 21 (12.73%) CISM
6 16 (9.70%) Degree
7 12 (7.27%) CREST Certified
8 11 (6.67%) OSCP
9 9 (5.45%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
9 9 (5.45%) Tigerscheme
10 8 (4.85%) CHECK Team Member
11 7 (4.24%) Cisco Certification
12 6 (3.64%) CESG Certified Professional
13 5 (3.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 4 (2.42%) Azure Certification
14 4 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
15 3 (1.82%) AWS Certification
15 3 (1.82%) CCSP
15 3 (1.82%) GIAC
16 2 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (35.15%) NIST
2 52 (31.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (18.79%) JSP 440
4 21 (12.73%) Cyber Essentials
5 20 (12.12%) NIST 800
6 15 (9.09%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 9 (5.45%) GDPR
8 8 (4.85%) RMADS
9 6 (3.64%) Government Security Classifications
9 6 (3.64%) GRC
10 5 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 4 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (1.82%) IASME
13 2 (1.21%) COBIT
13 2 (1.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 1 (0.61%) ISO 22301
14 1 (0.61%) PCI DSS
14 1 (0.61%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (8.48%) Firmware
2 13 (7.88%) Docker
3 12 (7.27%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.42%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (2.42%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (1.21%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.61%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 23 (13.94%) Terraform
2 22 (13.33%) Kubernetes
3 12 (7.27%) Jamf Pro
4 10 (6.06%) Ansible
4 10 (6.06%) Nmap
5 7 (4.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 7 (4.24%) Packer
6 5 (3.03%) Grafana
6 5 (3.03%) Prometheus
7 4 (2.42%) OPNET
7 4 (2.42%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (1.82%) Check_MK
8 3 (1.82%) vCenter Server
9 2 (1.21%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (1.21%) SELinux
10 1 (0.61%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.61%) Puppet
10 1 (0.61%) VxRail
Vendors
1 22 (13.33%) Microsoft
2 14 (8.48%) VMware
3 12 (7.27%) Splunk
4 10 (6.06%) Veracode
5 9 (5.45%) Okta
6 8 (4.85%) SAP
7 5 (3.03%) Cisco
8 3 (1.82%) Fortinet
8 3 (1.82%) Juniper
9 2 (1.21%) Brio
9 2 (1.21%) CrowdStrike
9 2 (1.21%) Foundry
9 2 (1.21%) Google
9 2 (1.21%) LogRhythm
9 2 (1.21%) NVIDIA
9 2 (1.21%) Saba
10 1 (0.61%) CyberArk
10 1 (0.61%) Dell
10 1 (0.61%) Meraki
10 1 (0.61%) Palo Alto