Network Security Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Network Security Engineer
UK > England

The median Network Security Engineer daily rate in England is £466, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 September 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 536 458 443
Rank change year-on-year -78 -15 +85
Contract jobs requiring a Network Security Engineer 90 57 85
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.20% 0.21% 0.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.23% 0.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 36 40 59
10th Percentile £328 £325 £340
25th Percentile £413 £379 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £444 £450
Median % change year-on-year +4.90% -1.39% -8.72%
75th Percentile £553 £506 £550
90th Percentile £675 £578 £614
UK median daily rate £463 £444 £500
% change year-on-year +4.23% -11.25% -2.91%

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 42,143 25,068 30,781
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.41% 91.54% 93.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,317 16,174 19,714
10th Percentile £325 £281 £303
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £635 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,273 1,351 1,623
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.69 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.33 £21.00
Median hourly rate £43.56 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.20% -44.11% +2.86%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £67.01
90th Percentile £79.80 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%

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 September 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 September 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
North of England -48 41 £491 +3.26% 3
North West -22 38 £491 +3.26% 3
Midlands -25 34 £338 -11.18% 3
London -67 33 £475 +5.56% 21
West Midlands -19 32 £338 -11.18% 3
South East -66 9 £380 -10.59% 7
Yorkshire -38 2 - -
East Midlands - 2 - -
East of England -23 1 - - 2
South West - 1 £550 - 4
North East - 1 - -
Network Security Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 September 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 64 (71.11%) Cisco
2 54 (60.00%) Network Security
2 54 (60.00%) VPN
3 50 (55.56%) F5
4 48 (53.33%) Firewall
5 39 (43.33%) BGP
6 37 (41.11%) DNS
7 36 (40.00%) Load Balancing
8 34 (37.78%) Palo Alto
9 32 (35.56%) DMZ
10 30 (33.33%) Multicast
11 25 (27.78%) Fortinet
12 20 (22.22%) CheckPoint
13 19 (21.11%) Azure
13 19 (21.11%) WAN
14 17 (18.89%) CCNP
14 17 (18.89%) Cisco Certification
14 17 (18.89%) Python
15 16 (17.78%) Zero Trust
16 14 (15.56%) SD-WAN
16 14 (15.56%) Zscaler
17 13 (14.44%) AWS
17 13 (14.44%) Security Operations
18 12 (13.33%) Cisco ISE
18 12 (13.33%) SC Cleared
18 12 (13.33%) Security Cleared
19 11 (12.22%) CISSP
19 11 (12.22%) SSL
19 11 (12.22%) Validation
20 10 (11.11%) Blue Coat

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:

Cloud Services
1 19 (21.11%) Azure
2 13 (14.44%) AWS
3 5 (5.56%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (3.33%) Entra ID
4 3 (3.33%) Mimecast
5 2 (2.22%) Cloudflare
5 2 (2.22%) GCP
6 1 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (1.11%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 1 (1.11%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (1.11%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (1.11%) AWS Lambda
6 1 (1.11%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (1.11%) OCI
6 1 (1.11%) SaaS
6 1 (1.11%) Serverless
6 1 (1.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 54 (60.00%) Network Security
1 54 (60.00%) VPN
2 48 (53.33%) Firewall
3 39 (43.33%) BGP
4 37 (41.11%) DNS
5 32 (35.56%) DMZ
6 30 (33.33%) Multicast
7 19 (21.11%) WAN
8 14 (15.56%) SD-WAN
9 12 (13.33%) Cisco ISE
10 11 (12.22%) SSL
11 10 (11.11%) Wireless
12 8 (8.89%) OSPF
12 8 (8.89%) VLAN
13 7 (7.78%) TCP/IP
14 6 (6.67%) Internet
14 6 (6.67%) IPsec
14 6 (6.67%) TACACS
15 5 (5.56%) DMVPN
16 4 (4.44%) Cisco Nexus
Development Applications
1 4 (4.44%) JIRA
2 1 (1.11%) Browser DevTools
General
1 19 (21.11%) Banking
2 17 (18.89%) Investment Banking
3 11 (12.22%) Social Skills
4 10 (11.11%) Finance
5 7 (7.78%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (5.56%) Telecoms
8 2 (2.22%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (1.11%) Legal
9 1 (1.11%) Manufacturing
9 1 (1.11%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (8.89%) Terraform
2 6 (6.67%) 802.1X
3 3 (3.33%) REST
3 3 (3.33%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (12.22%) Data Centre
2 4 (4.44%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
2 4 (4.44%) Security Posture
3 3 (3.33%) Cyber Threat
4 2 (2.22%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.11%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.11%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.11%) Mac OS
1 1 (1.11%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (40.00%) Load Balancing
2 16 (17.78%) Zero Trust
3 13 (14.44%) Security Operations
4 11 (12.22%) Validation
5 9 (10.00%) Cloud Security
6 8 (8.89%) Change Management
6 8 (8.89%) Network Segmentation
7 7 (7.78%) Stakeholder Management
8 6 (6.67%) Incident Management
8 6 (6.67%) ITSM
8 6 (6.67%) SIEM
9 5 (5.56%) Agile
9 5 (5.56%) Asset Management
9 5 (5.56%) Data Protection
9 5 (5.56%) Problem-Solving
9 5 (5.56%) Project Delivery
10 4 (4.44%) Incident Response
10 4 (4.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 4 (4.44%) Inventory Management
10 4 (4.44%) Threat Detection
Programming Languages
1 17 (18.89%) Python
2 8 (8.89%) PowerShell
3 5 (5.56%) Bash
Qualifications
1 17 (18.89%) CCNP
1 17 (18.89%) Cisco Certification
2 12 (13.33%) SC Cleared
2 12 (13.33%) Security Cleared
3 11 (12.22%) CISSP
4 7 (7.78%) CCIE
5 4 (4.44%) CCIE Security
6 2 (2.22%) CCSA
6 2 (2.22%) CCSE
6 2 (2.22%) CCSP
6 2 (2.22%) GIAC
7 1 (1.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (1.11%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.11%) Azure Certification
7 1 (1.11%) CCIE Service Provider
7 1 (1.11%) CEH
7 1 (1.11%) DV Cleared
7 1 (1.11%) GCIA
7 1 (1.11%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.33%) NIST
2 2 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (2.22%) PCI DSS
3 1 (1.11%) GRC
System Software
1 3 (3.33%) Active Directory
2 2 (2.22%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (1.11%) Virtual Servers
3 1 (1.11%) VMware NSX
3 1 (1.11%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 10 (11.11%) FortiGate
2 9 (10.00%) Ansible
3 2 (2.22%) Progress Chef
4 1 (1.11%) CASB
4 1 (1.11%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 64 (71.11%) Cisco
2 50 (55.56%) F5
3 34 (37.78%) Palo Alto
4 25 (27.78%) Fortinet
5 20 (22.22%) CheckPoint
6 14 (15.56%) Zscaler
7 10 (11.11%) Blue Coat
8 8 (8.89%) Juniper
9 5 (5.56%) AlgoSec
9 5 (5.56%) Meraki
10 4 (4.44%) Infoblox
10 4 (4.44%) Microsoft
11 3 (3.33%) Netskope
11 3 (3.33%) Tenable
12 2 (2.22%) Arista
12 2 (2.22%) Aruba
12 2 (2.22%) ForeScout
12 2 (2.22%) LogicMonitor
12 2 (2.22%) Tufin
13 1 (1.11%) Splunk