Network Security Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Network Security Engineer
UK > England

The median Network Security Engineer daily rate in England is £431, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 20 September 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 465 444 533
Rank change year-on-year -21 +89 +152
Contract jobs requiring a Network Security Engineer 56 90 63
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.20% 0.27% 0.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.22% 0.29% 0.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 36 65 47
10th Percentile £343 £300 £363
25th Percentile £380 £413 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £431 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £526 £550 £600
90th Percentile £574 £614 £647
UK median daily rate £431 £475 £515
% change year-on-year -9.21% -7.77% +3.00%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 25,374 30,624 40,138
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.35% 92.98% 94.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,359 19,070 28,007
10th Percentile £278 £300 £300
25th Percentile £401 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,370 1,470 1,375
10th Percentile £13.75 £14.69 £15.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £21.25 £19.18
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% +2.62% +73.08%
75th Percentile £53.99 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £75.00 £77.80
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -41.51% -3.37% +71.15%

Network Security Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings that featured Network Security Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Network Security Engineer 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 20 September 2025.

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 20 September 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
London +22 30 £438 -7.89% 5
North of England -39 11 £476 +7.02% 4
North West -14 10 £476 -9.29% 2
South East -5 8 £425 -22.73% 6
West Midlands -6 6 £380 -14.61% 2
Midlands -17 6 £380 -21.65% 2
Yorkshire -20 1 - - 2
Network Security Engineer
UK

Network Security Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 20 September 2025, Network Security Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Network Security Engineer in the job title.

1 49 (87.50%) Network Security
2 46 (82.14%) Firewall
3 32 (57.14%) Cisco
4 19 (33.93%) Palo Alto
5 18 (32.14%) CheckPoint
6 17 (30.36%) Juniper
6 17 (30.36%) WAN
7 16 (28.57%) Cisco Certification
8 15 (26.79%) CCNP
8 15 (26.79%) Zscaler
9 14 (25.00%) Social Skills
9 14 (25.00%) Incident Response
9 14 (25.00%) AWS
10 13 (23.21%) Security Cleared
10 13 (23.21%) F5
10 13 (23.21%) SIEM
11 12 (21.43%) Azure
12 11 (19.64%) SSL
12 11 (19.64%) VPN
12 11 (19.64%) DNS
13 10 (17.86%) OSPF
13 10 (17.86%) BGP
13 10 (17.86%) SolarWinds
13 10 (17.86%) SC Cleared
14 9 (16.07%) Fortinet
14 9 (16.07%) Data Centre
15 8 (14.29%) Cloud Security
15 8 (14.29%) Intrusion Detection
16 7 (12.50%) Wireshark
16 7 (12.50%) Network Architecture

Network Security Engineer Skill Set
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 3 (5.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.79%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 14 (25.00%) AWS
2 12 (21.43%) Azure
3 6 (10.71%) GCP
4 2 (3.57%) Akamai
5 1 (1.79%) AWS Direct Connect
5 1 (1.79%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (1.79%) Cloudflare
5 1 (1.79%) Entra ID
5 1 (1.79%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 49 (87.50%) Network Security
2 46 (82.14%) Firewall
3 17 (30.36%) WAN
4 11 (19.64%) DNS
4 11 (19.64%) SSL
4 11 (19.64%) VPN
5 10 (17.86%) BGP
5 10 (17.86%) OSPF
6 8 (14.29%) Intrusion Detection
7 7 (12.50%) DMVPN
7 7 (12.50%) SD-WAN
7 7 (12.50%) Wireless
7 7 (12.50%) Wireshark
8 6 (10.71%) Cisco ASA
8 6 (10.71%) Cisco ISE
8 6 (10.71%) VLAN
8 6 (10.71%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (8.93%) EIGRP
9 5 (8.93%) Internet
9 5 (8.93%) IPsec
Development Applications
1 1 (1.79%) GitLab
1 1 (1.79%) JIRA
General
1 14 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 7 (12.50%) Public Sector
3 5 (8.93%) Telecoms
4 4 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (5.36%) Finance
5 3 (5.36%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (1.79%) Banking
6 1 (1.79%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.79%) Spanish Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (10.71%) 802.1X
2 4 (7.14%) SAML
3 1 (1.79%) OAuth
3 1 (1.79%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 9 (16.07%) Data Centre
2 4 (7.14%) Management Information System
2 4 (7.14%) Security Posture
3 3 (5.36%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (3.57%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
4 2 (3.57%) Driving Licence
4 2 (3.57%) Operational Technology
5 1 (1.79%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.79%) Clustering
5 1 (1.79%) CMDB
5 1 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (1.79%) Insider Threat
5 1 (1.79%) Life Science
5 1 (1.79%) PKI
5 1 (1.79%) Renewable Energy
5 1 (1.79%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 7 (12.50%) Linux
2 3 (5.36%) Windows
2 3 (5.36%) Windows Server
3 1 (1.79%) CatOS
3 1 (1.79%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (25.00%) Incident Response
2 13 (23.21%) SIEM
3 8 (14.29%) Cloud Security
4 7 (12.50%) Cybersecurity
4 7 (12.50%) Kalman Filter
4 7 (12.50%) Network Architecture
4 7 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
4 7 (12.50%) Security Monitoring
5 6 (10.71%) Change Management
5 6 (10.71%) Network Monitoring
5 6 (10.71%) Security Management
5 6 (10.71%) Zero Trust
6 5 (8.93%) Information Security
6 5 (8.93%) Infrastructure as Code
6 5 (8.93%) Infrastructure Automation
6 5 (8.93%) Migration
6 5 (8.93%) Network Design
6 5 (8.93%) Vulnerability Assessment
7 4 (7.14%) Information Security Management
7 4 (7.14%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 1 (1.79%) Bash
1 1 (1.79%) PowerShell
1 1 (1.79%) Python
1 1 (1.79%) SQL
Qualifications
1 16 (28.57%) Cisco Certification
2 15 (26.79%) CCNP
3 13 (23.21%) Security Cleared
4 10 (17.86%) SC Cleared
5 4 (7.14%) CCSA
5 4 (7.14%) Degree
6 3 (5.36%) CEH
6 3 (5.36%) CISSP
7 2 (3.57%) CCNA
7 2 (3.57%) CCSE
8 1 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (1.79%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (1.79%) DV Cleared
8 1 (1.79%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (7.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (5.36%) NIST
3 2 (3.57%) GDPR
3 2 (3.57%) GRC
3 2 (3.57%) PCI DSS
3 2 (3.57%) SOC 2
4 1 (1.79%) Def Stans
4 1 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 1 (1.79%) SLA
System Software
1 4 (7.14%) Active Directory
1 4 (7.14%) Virtual Machines
2 3 (5.36%) Firmware
3 1 (1.79%) Docker
3 1 (1.79%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 5 (8.93%) Terraform
2 4 (7.14%) Ansible
2 4 (7.14%) CASB
3 3 (5.36%) FortiGate
3 3 (5.36%) SCCM
3 3 (5.36%) SCOrch
3 3 (5.36%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (3.57%) CA Spectrum
5 1 (1.79%) Failover Clustering
5 1 (1.79%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 32 (57.14%) Cisco
2 19 (33.93%) Palo Alto
3 18 (32.14%) CheckPoint
4 17 (30.36%) Juniper
5 15 (26.79%) Zscaler
6 13 (23.21%) F5
7 10 (17.86%) SolarWinds
8 9 (16.07%) Fortinet
9 4 (7.14%) Blue Coat
9 4 (7.14%) Qualys
9 4 (7.14%) Splunk
10 3 (5.36%) Meraki
10 3 (5.36%) Microsoft
10 3 (5.36%) Tenable
11 2 (3.57%) ServiceNow
12 1 (1.79%) AlgoSec
12 1 (1.79%) Forcepoint
12 1 (1.79%) Imperva
12 1 (1.79%) Infoblox
12 1 (1.79%) Tufin