Network Security Contract Job Trends in England

Network Security
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Network Security skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 173 157 164
Rank change year-on-year -16 +7 +10
Contract jobs citing Network Security 758 499 494
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.63% 1.80% 1.51%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.47% 15.15% 12.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 495 294 336
10th Percentile £400 £375 £363
25th Percentile £458 £450 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £539
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -2.60% -2.00%
75th Percentile £650 £636 £650
90th Percentile £738 £746 £725
UK median daily rate £550 £530 £540
% change year-on-year +3.77% -1.85% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 14 6
10th Percentile £23.00 £45.00 £30.50
25th Percentile £62.81 £55.00 £44.38
Median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% +30.53% -24.30%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.09 £58.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £95.50 £88.81
UK median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £50.00
% change year-on-year +4.05% +40.32% -25.65%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
England

Network Security falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 4,340 3,293 3,936
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.35% 11.86% 12.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,571 2,057 2,306
10th Percentile £250 £230 £242
25th Percentile £400 £363 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £508
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -3.45% +1.50%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £613
90th Percentile £676 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £476 £500
% change year-on-year +5.04% -4.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 381 165 218
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.28 £14.47
25th Percentile £21.25 £25.00 £22.84
Median hourly rate £38.53 £41.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -7.17% -27.64% +1.52%
75th Percentile £68.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £80.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £43.00 £50.50
% change year-on-year -24.42% -14.85% -10.60%

Network Security
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Network Security relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Network Security job vacancy trend in England

Network Security
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Network Security.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Network Security

Network Security
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Security in England over the 6 months to 17 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Security in England

Network Security
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Network Security.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Network Security

Network Security
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Security in England over the 6 months to 17 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in England

Network Security
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 within the England region over the 6 months to 17 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 -8 335 £550 - 457
North of England +3 195 £537 +9.70% 96
North West -7 106 £537 +13.05% 55
South East -41 93 £559 +24.26% 138
Yorkshire +7 85 £540 +9.76% 32
Midlands -61 50 £450 -14.29% 69
East of England -8 41 £525 +10.53% 41
West Midlands -76 35 £450 -14.29% 44
South West -55 22 £613 -1.21% 44
East Midlands +3 14 £500 - 25
North East - 3 £678 - 10
Network Security
UK

Network Security
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 20 (2.64%) Microsoft Exchange
2 15 (1.98%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.45%) Confluence
4 3 (0.40%) Apache
4 3 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.13%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (2.64%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.79%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.13%) InfoPath
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.79%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 266 (35.09%) Azure
2 178 (23.48%) AWS
3 93 (12.27%) GCP
4 82 (10.82%) Entra ID
5 47 (6.20%) Microsoft 365
6 36 (4.75%) Azure DevOps
6 36 (4.75%) GitHub
7 32 (4.22%) Azure Monitor
8 27 (3.56%) Serverless
9 23 (3.03%) SaaS
10 20 (2.64%) Azure Sentinel
11 19 (2.51%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 18 (2.37%) GitHub Actions
13 16 (2.11%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 15 (1.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 15 (1.98%) Amazon EKS
14 15 (1.98%) OCI
15 14 (1.85%) Azure AKS
15 14 (1.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 13 (1.72%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 355 (46.83%) Firewall
2 180 (23.75%) VPN
3 162 (21.37%) WAN
4 131 (17.28%) DNS
5 105 (13.85%) LAN
6 98 (12.93%) Wireless
7 86 (11.35%) TCP/IP
8 82 (10.82%) BGP
9 72 (9.50%) DHCP
10 69 (9.10%) VLAN
11 63 (8.31%) SD-WAN
12 56 (7.39%) OSPF
13 55 (7.26%) SSL
14 41 (5.41%) MPLS
15 39 (5.15%) Cisco ISE
16 36 (4.75%) Wi-Fi
17 35 (4.62%) IPsec
18 34 (4.49%) Cisco ASA
19 31 (4.09%) Internet
20 28 (3.69%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.72%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
2 5 (0.66%) BigQuery
3 4 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.53%) Neo4j
4 3 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.26%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.26%) Delta Lake
5 2 (0.26%) Power BI
6 1 (0.13%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.13%) InfluxDB
6 1 (0.13%) Metadata
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.13%) Qlik Sense
6 1 (0.13%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.13%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.13%) Star Schema
6 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 38 (5.01%) Git
2 29 (3.83%) GitLab
3 27 (3.56%) JIRA
4 25 (3.30%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.53%) MSBuild
6 4 (0.53%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.53%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.40%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
8 2 (0.26%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.13%) Postman
9 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 208 (27.44%) Social Skills
2 136 (17.94%) Finance
3 78 (10.29%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (7.92%) Banking
5 38 (5.01%) Public Sector
6 32 (4.22%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (2.90%) Telecoms
8 21 (2.77%) Legal
9 17 (2.24%) Financial Institution
10 14 (1.85%) Retail
11 13 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 13 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
11 13 (1.72%) Manufacturing
12 9 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
13 8 (1.06%) Local Government
13 8 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (0.92%) Police
15 6 (0.79%) Automotive
15 6 (0.79%) Military
16 5 (0.66%) Law
Job Titles
1 214 (28.23%) Network Engineer
2 129 (17.02%) Architect
3 104 (13.72%) Security Engineer
4 95 (12.53%) Senior
5 67 (8.84%) Security Architect
6 61 (8.05%) Network Security Engineer
7 57 (7.52%) Consultant
8 51 (6.73%) Network Architect
9 42 (5.54%) Project Manager
9 42 (5.54%) Senior Network Engineer
10 40 (5.28%) Cloud Engineer
10 40 (5.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 31 (4.09%) Lead
12 28 (3.69%) Security Consultant
13 24 (3.17%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 22 (2.90%) Analyst
14 22 (2.90%) Network Manager
14 22 (2.90%) Network Security Architect
15 21 (2.77%) DevSecOps Consultant
15 21 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (15.17%) Terraform
2 33 (4.35%) 802.1X
3 19 (2.51%) REST
4 14 (1.85%) ARM Templates
4 14 (1.85%) SAML
5 11 (1.45%) Kafka
6 8 (1.06%) NETCONF
7 7 (0.92%) JSON
8 6 (0.79%) gRPC
8 6 (0.79%) Keycloak
8 6 (0.79%) OpenID
9 5 (0.66%) Azure Blueprints
9 5 (0.66%) LDAP
9 5 (0.66%) OAuth
9 5 (0.66%) SLSA
9 5 (0.66%) Software Packaging
9 5 (0.66%) YAML
10 4 (0.53%) CSS
10 4 (0.53%) RESTful
10 4 (0.53%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 94 (12.40%) Data Centre
2 70 (9.23%) Security Posture
3 42 (5.54%) Cloud Native
3 42 (5.54%) Onboarding
4 40 (5.28%) Hybrid Cloud
5 37 (4.88%) Management Information System
6 31 (4.09%) Cyber Threat
7 28 (3.69%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 28 (3.69%) Operational Technology
8 23 (3.03%) PKI
9 20 (2.64%) Self-Motivation
10 19 (2.51%) Cloud Security Posture
11 18 (2.37%) Security Operations Centre
12 15 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
12 15 (1.98%) Public Cloud
13 13 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (1.72%) Linux Command Line
14 11 (1.45%) Replication
15 8 (1.06%) Mainframe
15 8 (1.06%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 90 (11.87%) Windows
2 72 (9.50%) Linux
3 39 (5.15%) Windows Server
4 17 (2.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (1.32%) Windows 10
6 8 (1.06%) Unix
7 6 (0.79%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.66%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.40%) Check Point GAiA
9 3 (0.40%) SUSE
9 3 (0.40%) VMS
10 2 (0.26%) Android
10 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.26%) zOS
11 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.13%) Rocky
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 153 (20.18%) Cybersecurity
2 150 (19.79%) Cloud Security
3 127 (16.75%) Stakeholder Management
4 121 (15.96%) CI/CD
5 116 (15.30%) Zero Trust
6 111 (14.64%) Continuous Improvement
7 107 (14.12%) Incident Response
7 107 (14.12%) Infrastructure as Code
8 104 (13.72%) DevOps
9 103 (13.59%) Change Management
10 102 (13.46%) Migration
10 102 (13.46%) SIEM
11 90 (11.87%) Problem-Solving
12 83 (10.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 83 (10.95%) Security Architecture
13 80 (10.55%) Identity Access Management
14 76 (10.03%) Security Operations
14 76 (10.03%) Vulnerability Management
15 75 (9.89%) Load Balancing
16 73 (9.63%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 134 (17.68%) Python
2 82 (10.82%) PowerShell
3 67 (8.84%) Bash
4 31 (4.09%) Bicep
5 23 (3.03%) SQL
6 12 (1.58%) Go
7 10 (1.32%) Java
8 7 (0.92%) Search Processing Language
9 6 (0.79%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.53%) Rust
12 3 (0.40%) ActionScript
12 3 (0.40%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.40%) Perl
12 3 (0.40%) VBScript
13 1 (0.13%) Ruby
13 1 (0.13%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 212 (27.97%) Security Cleared
2 154 (20.32%) Cisco Certification
3 150 (19.79%) SC Cleared
4 97 (12.80%) CISSP
5 89 (11.74%) CCNP
6 67 (8.84%) DV Cleared
7 62 (8.18%) Degree
8 47 (6.20%) CCNA
9 46 (6.07%) CCSP
10 43 (5.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 42 (5.54%) CISM
12 32 (4.22%) Azure Certification
13 29 (3.83%) CCIE
14 26 (3.43%) AWS Certification
15 16 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (1.58%) PMP
17 11 (1.45%) GIAC
17 11 (1.45%) PMI Certification
18 10 (1.32%) CEH
18 10 (1.32%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (7.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 56 (7.39%) NIST
3 26 (3.43%) GDPR
4 23 (3.03%) NCSC
5 20 (2.64%) PCI DSS
6 13 (1.72%) Cyber Essentials
6 13 (1.72%) GRC
7 10 (1.32%) NIST 800
8 8 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 8 (1.06%) SLA
9 7 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.79%) QA
11 4 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 3 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.40%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
13 2 (0.26%) Data Quality
13 2 (0.26%) JSP 440
14 1 (0.13%) Government Security Classifications
14 1 (0.13%) GxP
System Software
1 76 (10.03%) Active Directory
2 53 (6.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (3.69%) Docker
4 20 (2.64%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (2.11%) VMware NSX
6 13 (1.72%) vSphere
7 12 (1.58%) Hyper-V
8 10 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (1.06%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.66%) Firmware
10 5 (0.66%) Squid
11 3 (0.40%) FreeRADIUS
11 3 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.26%) NFS
12 2 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.13%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.13%) Postfix
13 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.13%) Samba
13 1 (0.13%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 91 (12.01%) Ansible
2 71 (9.37%) Kubernetes
3 44 (5.80%) FortiGate
4 26 (3.43%) Microsoft Intune
5 22 (2.90%) Grafana
6 15 (1.98%) Progress Chef
7 14 (1.85%) Prometheus
8 13 (1.72%) SCCM
9 12 (1.58%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (1.32%) CASB
11 8 (1.06%) QRadar
12 7 (0.92%) Puppet
12 7 (0.92%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.79%) Cisco CUCM
13 6 (0.79%) Nagios
14 5 (0.66%) Suricata
14 5 (0.66%) VxRail
14 5 (0.66%) WSUS
15 4 (0.53%) Podman
15 4 (0.53%) systemd
Vendors
1 226 (29.82%) Cisco
2 150 (19.79%) Microsoft
3 140 (18.47%) Palo Alto
4 77 (10.16%) Fortinet
5 68 (8.97%) F5
5 68 (8.97%) VMware
6 61 (8.05%) Zscaler
7 49 (6.46%) CheckPoint
8 44 (5.80%) Juniper
9 30 (3.96%) SolarWinds
10 29 (3.83%) Splunk
11 26 (3.43%) Google
12 24 (3.17%) ServiceNow
13 21 (2.77%) Aruba
14 19 (2.51%) Citrix
15 15 (1.98%) Meraki
16 14 (1.85%) Blue Coat
17 13 (1.72%) Tenable
18 12 (1.58%) CyberArk
18 12 (1.58%) ForeScout