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 18 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 152 141 179
Rank change year-on-year -11 +38 +14
Contract jobs citing Network Security 679 484 472
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.66% 1.98% 1.30%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.58% 15.21% 9.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 474 293 326
10th Percentile £399 £382 £361
25th Percentile £440 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £534 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.59% -7.22% -1.11%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £675
90th Percentile £700 £700 £775
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £575
% change year-on-year -0.95% -8.70% -0.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 8 15
10th Percentile £31.88 £17.83 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £64.88 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.50 £81.01 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.15% +500.09% -74.10%
75th Percentile £74.07 £81.54 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.67 -
UK median hourly rate £65.50 £80.68 £19.00
% change year-on-year -18.81% +324.61% -64.53%

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 3,862 3,183 4,790
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.43% 13.01% 13.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,411 1,980 2,878
10th Percentile £250 £220 £210
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £495
Median % change year-on-year - +1.01% -5.71%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £495 £488 £490
% change year-on-year +1.54% -0.51% -5.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 227 118 389
10th Percentile £16.64 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.33 £15.44 £16.30
Median hourly rate £41.94 £29.66 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.40% -25.85% +122.22%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.11 £70.13
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +15.38% -18.75% +116.22%

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 18 May 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 18 May 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 18 May 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 -11 294 £550 -4.35% 101
North of England -8 143 £489 -2.20% 52
South East -32 96 £500 +2.04% 63
North West +4 87 £489 -3.22% 32
Midlands -40 54 £500 -9.09% 18
Yorkshire -32 53 £500 +2.04% 16
East of England -19 36 £515 -10.43% 12
West Midlands -51 34 £475 -13.64% 12
South West -26 29 £545 -0.91% 19
East Midlands -11 19 £638 - 6
North East -18 3 £538 -14.00% 5
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 13 (1.91%) Confluence
2 10 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.59%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.29%) Apache
Applications
1 14 (2.06%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.62%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 206 (30.34%) Azure
2 144 (21.21%) AWS
3 82 (12.08%) GCP
4 50 (7.36%) Entra ID
5 25 (3.68%) GitHub
6 24 (3.53%) Azure Sentinel
7 23 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
8 22 (3.24%) GitHub Actions
9 18 (2.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 17 (2.50%) Azure Key Vault
11 15 (2.21%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 14 (2.06%) Azure AKS
13 13 (1.91%) AWS CloudFormation
13 13 (1.91%) Azure Monitor
13 13 (1.91%) Microsoft 365
13 13 (1.91%) SaaS
14 12 (1.77%) Akamai
14 12 (1.77%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 11 (1.62%) Amazon S3
16 10 (1.47%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 319 (46.98%) Firewall
2 135 (19.88%) VPN
3 123 (18.11%) WAN
4 93 (13.70%) LAN
5 85 (12.52%) DNS
6 83 (12.22%) BGP
7 72 (10.60%) OSPF
8 69 (10.16%) VLAN
9 61 (8.98%) SD-WAN
10 58 (8.54%) TCP/IP
11 55 (8.10%) Wireless
12 41 (6.04%) MPLS
13 38 (5.60%) DHCP
14 31 (4.57%) Cisco ISE
15 30 (4.42%) SSL
16 29 (4.27%) Cisco ASA
17 28 (4.12%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 25 (3.68%) NGFW
19 24 (3.53%) Wi-Fi
20 22 (3.24%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
1 5 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
1 5 (0.74%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.59%) InfluxDB
2 4 (0.59%) Relational Database
3 3 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.44%) Power BI
4 2 (0.29%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.29%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 27 (3.98%) JIRA
2 17 (2.50%) Jenkins
3 16 (2.36%) GitLab
4 13 (1.91%) Git
5 5 (0.74%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.59%) Snyk
6 4 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.44%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.15%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.15%) Postman
8 1 (0.15%) SoapUI
General
1 153 (22.53%) Social Skills
2 103 (15.17%) Finance
3 65 (9.57%) Analytical Skills
4 47 (6.92%) Public Sector
5 40 (5.89%) Banking
6 27 (3.98%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.53%) Telecoms
8 21 (3.09%) Financial Institution
9 9 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.18%) Legal
11 5 (0.74%) Law
11 5 (0.74%) Local Government
11 5 (0.74%) Military
11 5 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (0.74%) Retail
12 4 (0.59%) Manufacturing
12 4 (0.59%) Police
13 3 (0.44%) Electronics
13 3 (0.44%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.29%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 168 (24.74%) Network Engineer
2 146 (21.50%) Architect
3 88 (12.96%) Security Engineer
4 71 (10.46%) Security Architect
5 61 (8.98%) Senior
6 51 (7.51%) Network Architect
7 45 (6.63%) Network Security Engineer
8 26 (3.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 26 (3.83%) Lead
8 26 (3.83%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 25 (3.68%) Project Manager
10 24 (3.53%) Consultant
11 22 (3.24%) Cloud Engineer
11 22 (3.24%) Network Security Architect
12 21 (3.09%) Analyst
13 18 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
14 17 (2.50%) Senior Network Engineer
15 16 (2.36%) Azure Architect
15 16 (2.36%) Cloud Architect
15 16 (2.36%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.68%) 802.1X
2 14 (2.06%) LDAP
3 10 (1.47%) SAML
4 5 (0.74%) Node.js
4 5 (0.74%) OAuth
5 4 (0.59%) HTML
5 4 (0.59%) OpenID
5 4 (0.59%) RabbitMQ
5 4 (0.59%) REST
6 3 (0.44%) .NET
6 3 (0.44%) CSS
6 3 (0.44%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (0.44%) JSON
6 3 (0.44%) Lambda Expressions
6 3 (0.44%) OAuth2
6 3 (0.44%) Plotly
6 3 (0.44%) SLSA
7 2 (0.29%) .NET Core
7 2 (0.29%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.29%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 96 (14.14%) Data Centre
2 41 (6.04%) Security Posture
3 38 (5.60%) Hybrid Cloud
4 35 (5.15%) Cloud Native
5 26 (3.83%) PKI
6 23 (3.39%) Onboarding
7 21 (3.09%) Cyber Threat
8 20 (2.95%) IoT
8 20 (2.95%) Public Cloud
9 17 (2.50%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 16 (2.36%) Data Protection Act
10 16 (2.36%) Management Information System
10 16 (2.36%) Operational Technology
11 15 (2.21%) Product Ownership
12 13 (1.91%) Security Operations Centre
13 11 (1.62%) Cyber Security Posture
14 10 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
14 10 (1.47%) Replication
14 10 (1.47%) Virtual Team
15 9 (1.33%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 61 (8.98%) Windows
2 49 (7.22%) Linux
3 24 (3.53%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.03%) VMS
5 6 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.88%) Ubuntu
5 6 (0.88%) Unix
6 5 (0.74%) Windows 10
7 4 (0.59%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.44%) SUSE
9 1 (0.15%) Android
9 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (20.91%) Cybersecurity
2 111 (16.35%) Cloud Security
3 106 (15.61%) Zero Trust
4 96 (14.14%) Security Architecture
5 92 (13.55%) SIEM
6 91 (13.40%) CI/CD
7 88 (12.96%) Migration
8 87 (12.81%) DevOps
9 77 (11.34%) Infrastructure as Code
10 75 (11.05%) Problem-Solving
11 72 (10.60%) Continuous Improvement
12 69 (10.16%) Network Segmentation
13 63 (9.28%) Threat Modelling
14 62 (9.13%) Stakeholder Management
15 59 (8.69%) Incident Response
15 59 (8.69%) Security Operations
16 58 (8.54%) High Availability
16 58 (8.54%) ITIL
17 56 (8.25%) Agile
17 56 (8.25%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 89 (13.11%) Python
2 58 (8.54%) PowerShell
3 27 (3.98%) Bash
4 22 (3.24%) JavaScript
5 19 (2.80%) SQL
6 18 (2.65%) Bicep
7 9 (1.33%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (1.03%) Java
8 7 (1.03%) Shell Script
9 6 (0.88%) Go
10 4 (0.59%) C
10 4 (0.59%) PHP
11 3 (0.44%) C++
12 2 (0.29%) C#
12 2 (0.29%) Ruby
13 1 (0.15%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.15%) C-shell
13 1 (0.15%) Korn
13 1 (0.15%) Perl
13 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 211 (31.08%) Security Cleared
2 153 (22.53%) SC Cleared
3 132 (19.44%) Cisco Certification
4 90 (13.25%) CCNP
5 77 (11.34%) CISSP
6 67 (9.87%) DV Cleared
7 52 (7.66%) CCNA
8 43 (6.33%) Degree
9 42 (6.19%) CISM
10 27 (3.98%) Azure Certification
10 27 (3.98%) CCSP
11 26 (3.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 17 (2.50%) GIAC
13 16 (2.36%) CCIE
14 15 (2.21%) AWS Certification
15 14 (2.06%) CEH
15 14 (2.06%) CompTIA Security+
16 10 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
17 9 (1.33%) Network+ Certification
18 8 (1.18%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (9.57%) NIST
2 53 (7.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 32 (4.71%) GDPR
4 24 (3.53%) PCI DSS
5 16 (2.36%) GRC
6 15 (2.21%) NCSC
7 13 (1.91%) Cyber Essentials
8 10 (1.47%) QA
8 10 (1.47%) SLA
9 8 (1.18%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.18%) SOC 2
10 6 (0.88%) PMO
10 6 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 4 (0.59%) RMADS
12 3 (0.44%) ISA99
13 2 (0.29%) JSP 440
14 1 (0.15%) NIST 800
System Software
1 47 (6.92%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (6.77%) Active Directory
3 19 (2.80%) Virtual Machines
4 18 (2.65%) VMware NSX
5 13 (1.91%) Docker
6 12 (1.77%) Hyper-V
7 10 (1.47%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (1.03%) vSphere
9 5 (0.74%) Firmware
9 5 (0.74%) Squid
10 4 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.29%) NFS
11 2 (0.29%) Postfix
11 2 (0.29%) Sendmail
11 2 (0.29%) Varnish
12 1 (0.15%) KVM
12 1 (0.15%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.15%) Xen
12 1 (0.15%) XenApp
12 1 (0.15%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 97 (14.29%) Terraform
2 58 (8.54%) Ansible
3 50 (7.36%) Kubernetes
4 33 (4.86%) FortiGate
5 15 (2.21%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (2.06%) Nagios
7 11 (1.62%) Grafana
7 11 (1.62%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.33%) Microsoft Clustering
8 9 (1.33%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (1.18%) Kibana
10 5 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.74%) Prometheus
10 5 (0.74%) QRadar
10 5 (0.74%) WSUS
11 4 (0.59%) CASB
11 4 (0.59%) Istio
11 4 (0.59%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.59%) Suricata
12 3 (0.44%) SCOM
Vendors
1 198 (29.16%) Cisco
2 113 (16.64%) Palo Alto
3 97 (14.29%) Microsoft
4 63 (9.28%) F5
5 62 (9.13%) VMware
6 50 (7.36%) Fortinet
7 48 (7.07%) Juniper
8 46 (6.77%) CheckPoint
9 44 (6.48%) Zscaler
10 31 (4.57%) ServiceNow
11 25 (3.68%) Splunk
12 20 (2.95%) SolarWinds
13 19 (2.80%) ForeScout
13 19 (2.80%) Google
14 17 (2.50%) Citrix
15 14 (2.06%) Aruba
16 12 (1.77%) Tenable
17 11 (1.62%) Meraki
17 11 (1.62%) Okta
17 11 (1.62%) SAP