Network Security Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Network Security Engineer
UK > England

The median Network Security Engineer daily rate in England is £425, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 February 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 499 428 508
Rank change year-on-year -71 +80 +121
Contract jobs requiring a Network Security Engineer 49 49 42
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.15% 0.19% 0.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.16% 0.20% 0.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 27 21
10th Percentile £340 £275 £413
25th Percentile £385 £356 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -15.00% - -4.31%
75th Percentile £538 £561 £556
90th Percentile £550 £613 £669
UK median daily rate £425 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -15.00% - -4.31%

All Contract IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in England with a recognized job title 30,066 24,417 35,598
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.62% 93.06% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,145 15,033 24,004
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £745
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,886 731 2,091
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.92 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.60 £21.25 £17.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £35.95
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -2.64% +2.71%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £61.69
90th Percentile £71.00 £75.00 £72.75
UK median hourly rate £29.61 £33.00 £35.95
% change year-on-year -10.27% -8.21% +2.71%

Network Security Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Network Security Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Network Security Engineer job vacancy trend in England

Network Security Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in England

Network Security Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Security Engineer in England over the 6 months to 2 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Security Engineer in England

Network Security Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in England

Network Security Engineer
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 Network Security Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 2 February 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 -28 23 £550 +2.47% 8
North of England -50 11 £525 +90.91% 11
West Midlands -30 10 £383 +4.79% 5
Midlands -42 10 £383 +4.79% 7
North West -25 9 £525 - 7
South East -26 8 £400 -15.79% 6
South West -19 2 £463 -11.90% 9
Yorkshire -59 2 - - 3
East of England -23 1 £475 +72.73% 5
Network Security Engineer
UK

Network Security Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 2 February 2026, Network Security Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Network Security Engineer in the job title.

1 33 (67.35%) Network Security
2 31 (63.27%) Firewall
3 28 (57.14%) Cisco
4 17 (34.69%) DNS
4 17 (34.69%) F5
4 17 (34.69%) VPN
5 16 (32.65%) BGP
5 16 (32.65%) Palo Alto
6 13 (26.53%) Fortinet
7 10 (20.41%) AWS
7 10 (20.41%) Azure
7 10 (20.41%) CheckPoint
7 10 (20.41%) Load Balancing
7 10 (20.41%) SC Cleared
7 10 (20.41%) Security Cleared
8 9 (18.37%) WAN
9 8 (16.33%) Cybersecurity
9 8 (16.33%) DMZ
9 8 (16.33%) Multicast
9 8 (16.33%) OSPF
9 8 (16.33%) Problem-Solving
10 7 (14.29%) Cloud Security
10 7 (14.29%) Incident Management
10 7 (14.29%) NGFW
10 7 (14.29%) Wireless
11 6 (12.24%) Change Management
11 6 (12.24%) Continuous Improvement
11 6 (12.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 6 (12.24%) Juniper
11 6 (12.24%) Linux

Network Security Engineer Skill Set
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 3 (6.12%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (2.04%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 10 (20.41%) AWS
1 10 (20.41%) Azure
2 5 (10.20%) GCP
3 2 (4.08%) Mimecast
4 1 (2.04%) Azure Sentinel
4 1 (2.04%) Entra ID
4 1 (2.04%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 33 (67.35%) Network Security
2 31 (63.27%) Firewall
3 17 (34.69%) DNS
3 17 (34.69%) VPN
4 16 (32.65%) BGP
5 9 (18.37%) WAN
6 8 (16.33%) DMZ
6 8 (16.33%) Multicast
6 8 (16.33%) OSPF
7 7 (14.29%) NGFW
7 7 (14.29%) Wireless
8 6 (12.24%) SSL
8 6 (12.24%) TCP/IP
9 5 (10.20%) Cisco ASA
10 4 (8.16%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (6.12%) IPsec
11 3 (6.12%) LAN
11 3 (6.12%) SD-WAN
11 3 (6.12%) Wireshark
12 2 (4.08%) DMVPN
Development Applications
1 2 (4.08%) JIRA
General
1 9 (18.37%) Social Skills
2 6 (12.24%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (12.24%) Banking
3 5 (10.20%) Finance
3 5 (10.20%) Investment Banking
4 4 (8.16%) Pharmaceutical
4 4 (8.16%) Public Sector
5 3 (6.12%) Spanish Language
6 2 (4.08%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (4.08%) Telecoms
7 1 (2.04%) Financial Institution
7 1 (2.04%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (6.12%) SAML
2 2 (4.08%) 802.1X
3 1 (2.04%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 11 (22.45%) Data Centre
2 6 (12.24%) Security Posture
3 3 (6.12%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (6.12%) Life Science
3 3 (6.12%) Management Information System
3 3 (6.12%) Operational Technology
4 2 (4.08%) Driving Licence
5 1 (2.04%) Clustering
5 1 (2.04%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 1 (2.04%) Insider Threat
5 1 (2.04%) Renewable Energy
5 1 (2.04%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 6 (12.24%) Linux
2 3 (6.12%) Windows
2 3 (6.12%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (20.41%) Load Balancing
2 8 (16.33%) Cybersecurity
2 8 (16.33%) Problem-Solving
3 7 (14.29%) Cloud Security
3 7 (14.29%) Incident Management
4 6 (12.24%) Change Management
4 6 (12.24%) Continuous Improvement
4 6 (12.24%) Security Management
4 6 (12.24%) Security Monitoring
4 6 (12.24%) Security Operations
4 6 (12.24%) SIEM
4 6 (12.24%) Stakeholder Management
5 5 (10.20%) Incident Response
5 5 (10.20%) Migration
5 5 (10.20%) Network Architecture
5 5 (10.20%) Zero Trust
6 4 (8.16%) Information Security
6 4 (8.16%) Information Security Management
6 4 (8.16%) Network Segmentation
7 3 (6.12%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 2 (4.08%) Python
2 1 (2.04%) Bash
2 1 (2.04%) PowerShell
2 1 (2.04%) SQL
Qualifications
1 10 (20.41%) SC Cleared
1 10 (20.41%) Security Cleared
2 5 (10.20%) Cisco Certification
3 4 (8.16%) CCNP
3 4 (8.16%) CISSP
4 3 (6.12%) CompTIA Security+
5 2 (4.08%) CCNA
6 1 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (2.04%) CCIE
6 1 (2.04%) CCIE Data Center
6 1 (2.04%) CEH
6 1 (2.04%) CHECK Team Leader
6 1 (2.04%) CREST Certified
6 1 (2.04%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (12.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (10.20%) GDPR
2 5 (10.20%) NIST
3 3 (6.12%) Actionable Recommendations
3 3 (6.12%) GRC
3 3 (6.12%) PCI DSS
4 2 (4.08%) GxP
5 1 (2.04%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
5 1 (2.04%) SLA
5 1 (2.04%) SOC 2
System Software
1 4 (8.16%) Active Directory
1 4 (8.16%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (2.04%) Firmware
2 1 (2.04%) Hyper-V
2 1 (2.04%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 3 (6.12%) CASB
1 3 (6.12%) SCCM
1 3 (6.12%) SCOrch
1 3 (6.12%) Single Sign-On
2 2 (4.08%) Ansible
2 2 (4.08%) FortiGate
2 2 (4.08%) Terraform
3 1 (2.04%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 28 (57.14%) Cisco
2 17 (34.69%) F5
3 16 (32.65%) Palo Alto
4 13 (26.53%) Fortinet
5 10 (20.41%) CheckPoint
6 6 (12.24%) Juniper
6 6 (12.24%) Zscaler
7 5 (10.20%) Microsoft
8 4 (8.16%) SolarWinds
9 3 (6.12%) Meraki
9 3 (6.12%) Splunk
10 2 (4.08%) Blue Coat
10 2 (4.08%) ServiceNow
11 1 (2.04%) CrowdStrike
11 1 (2.04%) FireEye
11 1 (2.04%) Forcepoint
11 1 (2.04%) Infoblox
11 1 (2.04%) Rockwell
11 1 (2.04%) Tanium
11 1 (2.04%) Tenable