Network Security Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Network Security Engineer
UK > England

The median Network Security Engineer daily rate in England is £400, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 December 2025.

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

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 491 423 519
Rank change year-on-year -68 +96 +136
Contract jobs requiring a Network Security Engineer 56 72 40
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.18% 0.25% 0.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 0.27% 0.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 32 48 22
10th Percentile £336 £328 £401
25th Percentile £374 £400 £464
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £445 £508
Median % change year-on-year -10.06% -12.32% -2.87%
75th Percentile £488 £541 £563
90th Percentile £549 £586 £662
UK median daily rate £400 £445 £500
% change year-on-year -10.06% -11.00% -4.31%

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 29,026 26,600 34,534
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.34% 92.93% 93.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,504 16,539 23,627
10th Percentile £296 £300 £285
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £525 £528
Median % change year-on-year -3.43% -0.57% -4.00%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,775 836 1,432
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.74 £14.93
25th Percentile £18.47 £21.25 £20.00
Median hourly rate £27.00 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.86% -22.22% +38.46%
75th Percentile £60.96 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £74.00 £76.95
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £33.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -21.21% -26.67% +46.39%

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 26 December 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 26 December 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 +5 30 £401 -19.90% 6
South East -24 10 £400 -25.58% 4
North of England -64 10 £625 +47.93% 6
North West -28 8 £625 +40.45% 4
West Midlands -30 6 £380 +4.11% 3
Midlands -44 6 £380 +4.11% 3
Yorkshire -44 2 - - 2
East of England -24 1 £475 +72.73% 8
Network Security Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 December 2025, 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 47 (83.93%) Network Security
2 43 (76.79%) Firewall
3 31 (55.36%) Cisco
4 20 (35.71%) Palo Alto
5 17 (30.36%) CheckPoint
5 17 (30.36%) WAN
6 16 (28.57%) F5
6 16 (28.57%) VPN
7 15 (26.79%) AWS
7 15 (26.79%) DNS
8 14 (25.00%) BGP
9 13 (23.21%) Cisco Certification
9 13 (23.21%) Juniper
10 12 (21.43%) Azure
10 12 (21.43%) CCNP
10 12 (21.43%) Fortinet
10 12 (21.43%) Incident Response
10 12 (21.43%) OSPF
10 12 (21.43%) SSL
10 12 (21.43%) Wireless
11 11 (19.64%) Zscaler
12 10 (17.86%) Security Cleared
12 10 (17.86%) SIEM
13 9 (16.07%) Network Architecture
13 9 (16.07%) Problem-Solving
13 9 (16.07%) SC Cleared
14 8 (14.29%) Change Management
14 8 (14.29%) Cybersecurity
14 8 (14.29%) Zero Trust
15 7 (12.50%) Cloud Security

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 (5.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.79%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 15 (26.79%) AWS
2 12 (21.43%) Azure
3 7 (12.50%) GCP
4 1 (1.79%) Azure Sentinel
4 1 (1.79%) Entra ID
4 1 (1.79%) Mimecast
4 1 (1.79%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 47 (83.93%) Network Security
2 43 (76.79%) Firewall
3 17 (30.36%) WAN
4 16 (28.57%) VPN
5 15 (26.79%) DNS
6 14 (25.00%) BGP
7 12 (21.43%) OSPF
7 12 (21.43%) SSL
7 12 (21.43%) Wireless
8 7 (12.50%) SD-WAN
9 6 (10.71%) DMVPN
9 6 (10.71%) Intrusion Detection
10 5 (8.93%) Cisco ASA
10 5 (8.93%) IPsec
10 5 (8.93%) LAN
10 5 (8.93%) NGFW
10 5 (8.93%) TCP/IP
10 5 (8.93%) VLAN
11 4 (7.14%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (7.14%) WLAN
Development Applications
1 2 (3.57%) JIRA
General
1 12 (21.43%) Social Skills
2 6 (10.71%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (8.93%) Pharmaceutical
3 5 (8.93%) Public Sector
3 5 (8.93%) Telecoms
4 4 (7.14%) Finance
5 3 (5.36%) Banking
5 3 (5.36%) Spanish Language
6 2 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (3.57%) Investment Banking
7 1 (1.79%) Financial Institution
7 1 (1.79%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (8.93%) 802.1X
2 3 (5.36%) SAML
3 1 (1.79%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 12 (21.43%) Data Centre
2 4 (7.14%) Hybrid Cloud
2 4 (7.14%) Management Information System
3 3 (5.36%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
3 3 (5.36%) Life Science
3 3 (5.36%) Operational Technology
3 3 (5.36%) Security Posture
4 2 (3.57%) Driving Licence
5 1 (1.79%) Cloud Native
5 1 (1.79%) Clustering
5 1 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.79%) Insider Threat
5 1 (1.79%) Renewable Energy
5 1 (1.79%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 6 (10.71%) Linux
2 3 (5.36%) Windows
2 3 (5.36%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (21.43%) Incident Response
2 10 (17.86%) SIEM
3 9 (16.07%) Network Architecture
3 9 (16.07%) Problem-Solving
4 8 (14.29%) Change Management
4 8 (14.29%) Cybersecurity
4 8 (14.29%) Zero Trust
5 7 (12.50%) Cloud Security
5 7 (12.50%) Incident Management
5 7 (12.50%) Kalman Filter
5 7 (12.50%) Load Balancing
5 7 (12.50%) Security Monitoring
6 6 (10.71%) Migration
6 6 (10.71%) Security Management
7 4 (7.14%) Information Security
7 4 (7.14%) Information Security Management
7 4 (7.14%) Infrastructure as Code
7 4 (7.14%) Infrastructure Automation
7 4 (7.14%) Inventory Management
7 4 (7.14%) Network Segmentation
Programming Languages
1 2 (3.57%) Python
2 1 (1.79%) Bash
2 1 (1.79%) PowerShell
2 1 (1.79%) SQL
Qualifications
1 13 (23.21%) Cisco Certification
2 12 (21.43%) CCNP
3 10 (17.86%) Security Cleared
4 9 (16.07%) SC Cleared
5 5 (8.93%) CISSP
6 3 (5.36%) CCSA
6 3 (5.36%) CompTIA Security+
7 2 (3.57%) CCNA
7 2 (3.57%) CEH
7 2 (3.57%) Degree
8 1 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (1.79%) CCIE
8 1 (1.79%) CCIE Data Center
8 1 (1.79%) CCSE
8 1 (1.79%) CHECK Team Leader
8 1 (1.79%) CREST Certified
8 1 (1.79%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (8.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (7.14%) NIST
3 2 (3.57%) GDPR
3 2 (3.57%) GRC
3 2 (3.57%) GxP
3 2 (3.57%) PCI DSS
3 2 (3.57%) SLA
3 2 (3.57%) SOC 2
4 1 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 4 (7.14%) Active Directory
1 4 (7.14%) Virtual Machines
2 3 (5.36%) Firmware
3 1 (1.79%) Hyper-V
3 1 (1.79%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 5 (8.93%) Ansible
1 5 (8.93%) Terraform
2 3 (5.36%) CASB
2 3 (5.36%) FortiGate
2 3 (5.36%) SCCM
2 3 (5.36%) SCOrch
2 3 (5.36%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (3.57%) CA Spectrum
4 1 (1.79%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 31 (55.36%) Cisco
2 20 (35.71%) Palo Alto
3 17 (30.36%) CheckPoint
4 16 (28.57%) F5
5 13 (23.21%) Juniper
6 12 (21.43%) Fortinet
7 11 (19.64%) Zscaler
8 6 (10.71%) SolarWinds
9 5 (8.93%) Meraki
9 5 (8.93%) Microsoft
10 4 (7.14%) Blue Coat
10 4 (7.14%) Qualys
10 4 (7.14%) Tenable
11 3 (5.36%) Splunk
12 2 (3.57%) ServiceNow
13 1 (1.79%) CrowdStrike
13 1 (1.79%) FireEye
13 1 (1.79%) Infoblox
13 1 (1.79%) Rockwell
13 1 (1.79%) Tanium