Network Security Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Network Security Engineer
UK > England

The median Network Security Engineer daily rate in England is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 5 August 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 536 436 445
Rank change year-on-year -100 +9 +94
Contract jobs requiring a Network Security Engineer 95 68 89
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.21% 0.25% 0.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.23% 0.27% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 47 59
10th Percentile £336 £325 £340
25th Percentile £414 £380 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £420 £450
Median % change year-on-year +13.10% -6.67% -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £498 £550
90th Percentile £671 £575 £614
UK median daily rate £475 £420 £475
% change year-on-year +13.10% -11.58% -9.52%

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 42,051 25,317 31,124
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.58% 91.70% 92.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,530 16,429 20,502
10th Percentile £328 £286 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,118 1,308 1,828
10th Percentile £15.74 £13.54 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.93 £17.50 £21.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.32 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +77.73% -43.73% +5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £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 5 August 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 5 August 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 -29 41 £513 +10.81% 2
North West -23 38 £513 +10.81% 2
Midlands -23 37 £375 -1.32% 1
West Midlands -24 37 £375 -1.32%
London -55 36 £475 +5.56% 21
South East -70 6 £403 -3.01% 6
South West -47 2 £550 +43.98% 2
Yorkshire - 2 - -
East of England -16 1 - -
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 5 August 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 68 (71.58%) Cisco
2 58 (61.05%) VPN
3 57 (60.00%) Network Security
4 53 (55.79%) F5
5 50 (52.63%) Firewall
6 43 (45.26%) BGP
6 43 (45.26%) DNS
7 40 (42.11%) Load Balancing
8 35 (36.84%) DMZ
9 33 (34.74%) Multicast
10 29 (30.53%) Palo Alto
11 24 (25.26%) Fortinet
12 19 (20.00%) Azure
13 18 (18.95%) CheckPoint
13 18 (18.95%) WAN
14 17 (17.89%) Python
15 15 (15.79%) Zscaler
16 14 (14.74%) CCNP
16 14 (14.74%) Cisco Certification
16 14 (14.74%) SD-WAN
17 13 (13.68%) Zero Trust
18 12 (12.63%) Cisco ISE
19 11 (11.58%) AWS
19 11 (11.58%) Blue Coat
19 11 (11.58%) SSL
19 11 (11.58%) Validation
20 10 (10.53%) Cloud Security
20 10 (10.53%) FortiGate
20 10 (10.53%) SC Cleared
20 10 (10.53%) Security Cleared

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:

Applications
1 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 19 (20.00%) Azure
2 11 (11.58%) AWS
3 5 (5.26%) Microsoft 365
4 4 (4.21%) Entra ID
5 3 (3.16%) Mimecast
6 2 (2.11%) Cloudflare
6 2 (2.11%) GCP
6 2 (2.11%) SaaS
7 1 (1.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 1 (1.05%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 1 (1.05%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (1.05%) AWS Direct Connect
7 1 (1.05%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.05%) OCI
7 1 (1.05%) Serverless
7 1 (1.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 58 (61.05%) VPN
2 57 (60.00%) Network Security
3 50 (52.63%) Firewall
4 43 (45.26%) BGP
4 43 (45.26%) DNS
5 35 (36.84%) DMZ
6 33 (34.74%) Multicast
7 18 (18.95%) WAN
8 14 (14.74%) SD-WAN
9 12 (12.63%) Cisco ISE
10 11 (11.58%) SSL
11 10 (10.53%) TCP/IP
11 10 (10.53%) VLAN
11 10 (10.53%) Wireless
12 8 (8.42%) OSPF
13 7 (7.37%) Internet
13 7 (7.37%) TACACS
14 5 (5.26%) DHCP
14 5 (5.26%) IPsec
14 5 (5.26%) MPLS
Development Applications
1 4 (4.21%) JIRA
2 1 (1.05%) Browser DevTools
General
1 18 (18.95%) Banking
1 18 (18.95%) Investment Banking
2 11 (11.58%) Social Skills
3 10 (10.53%) Finance
4 7 (7.37%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (6.32%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (4.21%) Telecoms
7 2 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (2.11%) Public Sector
8 1 (1.05%) Legal
8 1 (1.05%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.26%) 802.1X
2 3 (3.16%) SAML
3 2 (2.11%) LDAP
3 2 (2.11%) REST
4 1 (1.05%) CSS
4 1 (1.05%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (11.58%) Data Centre
2 5 (5.26%) Security Posture
3 3 (3.16%) Cyber Threat
3 3 (3.16%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (3.16%) Operational Technology
4 2 (2.11%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 1 (1.05%) Cloud Security Posture
5 1 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.05%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.05%) PKI
5 1 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 2 (2.11%) Linux
1 2 (2.11%) Windows
2 1 (1.05%) Mac OS
2 1 (1.05%) Ubuntu
2 1 (1.05%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (42.11%) Load Balancing
2 13 (13.68%) Zero Trust
3 11 (11.58%) Validation
4 10 (10.53%) Cloud Security
5 8 (8.42%) Security Operations
5 8 (8.42%) SIEM
6 6 (6.32%) Change Management
6 6 (6.32%) Incident Management
6 6 (6.32%) ITSM
6 6 (6.32%) Network Segmentation
6 6 (6.32%) Project Delivery
7 5 (5.26%) Agile
7 5 (5.26%) Asset Management
7 5 (5.26%) Data Protection
7 5 (5.26%) Incident Response
7 5 (5.26%) Security Hardening
7 5 (5.26%) Stakeholder Management
8 4 (4.21%) Problem-Solving
8 4 (4.21%) Security Architecture
8 4 (4.21%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 17 (17.89%) Python
2 6 (6.32%) PowerShell
3 4 (4.21%) Bash
4 1 (1.05%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.05%) PHP
Qualifications
1 14 (14.74%) CCNP
1 14 (14.74%) Cisco Certification
2 10 (10.53%) SC Cleared
2 10 (10.53%) Security Cleared
3 7 (7.37%) CISSP
4 6 (6.32%) CCIE
5 2 (2.11%) CCIE Security
5 2 (2.11%) CompTIA Security+
5 2 (2.11%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.11%) GIAC
6 1 (1.05%) APMG
6 1 (1.05%) CCNA
6 1 (1.05%) CCSA
6 1 (1.05%) CCSE
6 1 (1.05%) CEH
6 1 (1.05%) Degree
6 1 (1.05%) MCSA
6 1 (1.05%) MCSE
6 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (1.05%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.16%) NIST
2 1 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 1 (1.05%) GRC
2 1 (1.05%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 1 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.05%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (4.21%) Active Directory
2 2 (2.11%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (1.05%) Virtual Servers
3 1 (1.05%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (1.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.05%) VMware NSX
3 1 (1.05%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 10 (10.53%) FortiGate
2 7 (7.37%) Ansible
3 6 (6.32%) Terraform
4 2 (2.11%) CASB
4 2 (2.11%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.05%) Nessus
5 1 (1.05%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 68 (71.58%) Cisco
2 53 (55.79%) F5
3 29 (30.53%) Palo Alto
4 24 (25.26%) Fortinet
5 18 (18.95%) CheckPoint
6 15 (15.79%) Zscaler
7 11 (11.58%) Blue Coat
8 7 (7.37%) Juniper
9 5 (5.26%) Meraki
9 5 (5.26%) Microsoft
10 4 (4.21%) Infoblox
10 4 (4.21%) Netskope
10 4 (4.21%) Tenable
11 2 (2.11%) Arista
11 2 (2.11%) Aruba
11 2 (2.11%) ForeScout
11 2 (2.11%) LogicMonitor
11 2 (2.11%) Splunk
11 2 (2.11%) Tufin
11 2 (2.11%) VMware