Network Security Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Network Security Engineer
UK > England

The median Network Security Engineer daily rate in England is £470, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 September 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 530 454 443
Rank change year-on-year -76 -11 +96
Contract jobs requiring a Network Security Engineer 92 57 91
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.20% 0.21% 0.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.23% 0.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 39 36 65
10th Percentile £330 £343 £300
25th Percentile £413 £380 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £431 £450
Median % change year-on-year +8.99% -4.17% -10.00%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £550
90th Percentile £678 £574 £614
UK median daily rate £466 £431 £475
% change year-on-year +8.12% -9.21% -7.77%

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 42,935 25,205 29,932
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.31% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,501 16,241 18,594
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.98%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,554 1,371 1,420
10th Percentile £14.85 £13.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.33 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.58 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +69.28% -45.54% +2.62%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £79.70 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% -3.37%

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 23 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 23 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
London -77 39 £475 +5.56% 37
North of England -51 38 £470 -1.31% 19
North West -24 35 £470 -1.31% 11
Midlands -25 30 £338 -11.18% 8
West Midlands -19 27 £338 -11.18% 7
South East -62 9 £380 -10.59% 9
East Midlands - 3 - - 1
Yorkshire -44 2 - - 5
North East - 1 - - 3
East of England - 1 - - 12
Network Security Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 23 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 (69.57%) Cisco
1 64 (69.57%) Network Security
2 56 (60.87%) Firewall
2 56 (60.87%) VPN
3 42 (45.65%) F5
3 42 (45.65%) Palo Alto
4 34 (36.96%) BGP
5 33 (35.87%) DNS
6 28 (30.43%) Load Balancing
7 26 (28.26%) DMZ
7 26 (28.26%) Fortinet
8 25 (27.17%) CheckPoint
9 24 (26.09%) Multicast
10 22 (23.91%) Python
11 21 (22.83%) Zero Trust
12 20 (21.74%) Zscaler
13 19 (20.65%) Azure
13 19 (20.65%) WAN
14 18 (19.57%) Security Operations
15 17 (18.48%) CCNP
15 17 (18.48%) Cisco Certification
16 14 (15.22%) Validation
17 13 (14.13%) Cisco ISE
17 13 (14.13%) PowerShell
17 13 (14.13%) SSL
17 13 (14.13%) Terraform
18 12 (13.04%) Ansible
18 12 (13.04%) AWS
18 12 (13.04%) SD-WAN
19 11 (11.96%) 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 (20.65%) Azure
2 12 (13.04%) AWS
3 7 (7.61%) Entra ID
4 5 (5.43%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (2.17%) Cloudflare
5 2 (2.17%) GCP
5 2 (2.17%) Mimecast
6 1 (1.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (1.09%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 1 (1.09%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (1.09%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
6 1 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (1.09%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (1.09%) OCI
6 1 (1.09%) SaaS
6 1 (1.09%) Serverless
6 1 (1.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 64 (69.57%) Network Security
2 56 (60.87%) Firewall
2 56 (60.87%) VPN
3 34 (36.96%) BGP
4 33 (35.87%) DNS
5 26 (28.26%) DMZ
6 24 (26.09%) Multicast
7 19 (20.65%) WAN
8 13 (14.13%) Cisco ISE
8 13 (14.13%) SSL
9 12 (13.04%) SD-WAN
10 11 (11.96%) Wireless
11 9 (9.78%) IPsec
11 9 (9.78%) OSPF
12 8 (8.70%) Internet
12 8 (8.70%) VLAN
13 7 (7.61%) Cisco ASA
13 7 (7.61%) TCP/IP
14 6 (6.52%) DMVPN
14 6 (6.52%) TACACS
Development Applications
1 3 (3.26%) JIRA
2 1 (1.09%) Browser DevTools
General
1 19 (20.65%) Banking
2 14 (15.22%) Investment Banking
3 13 (14.13%) Finance
3 13 (14.13%) Social Skills
4 6 (6.52%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (5.43%) Documentation Skills
5 5 (5.43%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.17%) Financial Institution
6 2 (2.17%) Pharmaceutical
6 2 (2.17%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.09%) Legal
7 1 (1.09%) Manufacturing
7 1 (1.09%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (14.13%) Terraform
2 6 (6.52%) 802.1X
3 4 (4.35%) REST
4 3 (3.26%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 13 (14.13%) Data Centre
2 7 (7.61%) Security Posture
3 6 (6.52%) Cyber Threat
4 4 (4.35%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 3 (3.26%) Cyber Defence
6 2 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (1.09%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.09%) Mac OS
1 1 (1.09%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (30.43%) Load Balancing
2 21 (22.83%) Zero Trust
3 18 (19.57%) Security Operations
4 14 (15.22%) Validation
5 11 (11.96%) Cloud Security
5 11 (11.96%) Network Segmentation
6 10 (10.87%) SIEM
7 9 (9.78%) Change Management
7 9 (9.78%) ITIL
7 9 (9.78%) Stakeholder Management
8 8 (8.70%) Data Protection
8 8 (8.70%) Incident Response
8 8 (8.70%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 8 (8.70%) Migration
9 7 (7.61%) Cybersecurity
9 7 (7.61%) Security Architecture
9 7 (7.61%) Threat Detection
10 6 (6.52%) Data Loss Prevention
10 6 (6.52%) ITSM
10 6 (6.52%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 22 (23.91%) Python
2 13 (14.13%) PowerShell
3 10 (10.87%) Bash
Qualifications
1 17 (18.48%) CCNP
1 17 (18.48%) Cisco Certification
2 11 (11.96%) CISSP
2 11 (11.96%) SC Cleared
2 11 (11.96%) Security Cleared
3 6 (6.52%) CCIE
4 4 (4.35%) CCIE Security
5 2 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.17%) CCSA
5 2 (2.17%) CCSE
5 2 (2.17%) CCSP
5 2 (2.17%) GIAC
6 1 (1.09%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 1 (1.09%) AWS Certification
6 1 (1.09%) Azure Certification
6 1 (1.09%) CCIE Service Provider
6 1 (1.09%) CEH
6 1 (1.09%) GCIA
6 1 (1.09%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (6.52%) NIST
2 5 (5.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (5.43%) PCI DSS
3 1 (1.09%) GRC
System Software
1 4 (4.35%) Active Directory
2 2 (2.17%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (1.09%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 12 (13.04%) Ansible
2 10 (10.87%) FortiGate
3 4 (4.35%) Progress Chef
4 1 (1.09%) CASB
4 1 (1.09%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 64 (69.57%) Cisco
2 42 (45.65%) F5
2 42 (45.65%) Palo Alto
3 26 (28.26%) Fortinet
4 25 (27.17%) CheckPoint
5 20 (21.74%) Zscaler
6 11 (11.96%) Blue Coat
7 10 (10.87%) Juniper
8 9 (9.78%) AlgoSec
8 9 (9.78%) Microsoft
9 5 (5.43%) Meraki
10 3 (3.26%) Arista
10 3 (3.26%) Aruba
10 3 (3.26%) Netskope
10 3 (3.26%) Tufin
11 2 (2.17%) ForeScout
11 2 (2.17%) Infoblox
11 2 (2.17%) LogicMonitor
11 2 (2.17%) Tenable
12 1 (1.09%) Splunk