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

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 142 178
Rank change year-on-year -12 +36 +14
Contract jobs citing Network Security 681 492 495
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.67% 2.02% 1.34%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.62% 15.38% 10.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 478 298 346
10th Percentile £379 £375 £350
25th Percentile £430 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £528 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% -8.26% -
75th Percentile £613 £624 £670
90th Percentile £700 £700 £775
UK median daily rate £510 £520 £575
% change year-on-year -1.97% -9.52% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 8 15
10th Percentile £32.00 £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 3,864 3,199 4,863
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.48% 13.16% 13.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,418 1,982 2,938
10th Percentile £250 £220 £206
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 £601
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £495 £489 £495
% change year-on-year +1.28% -1.26% -4.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 220 120 394
10th Percentile £16.50 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.33 £15.44 £16.90
Median hourly rate £41.94 £29.66 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.40% -25.85% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.05 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £40.54 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +24.74% -18.75% +111.92%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -22 290 £530 -7.83% 111
North of England -5 138 £481 -3.75% 60
South East -33 103 £500 +2.04% 66
North West +3 85 £481 -3.75% 45
Midlands -28 62 £475 -13.64% 27
Yorkshire -24 51 £480 -1.54% 14
West Midlands -41 42 £435 -17.14% 20
East of England -29 36 £515 -8.44% 14
South West -36 29 £545 -0.91% 13
East Midlands -17 19 £638 -1.92% 7
North East -16 3 £538 -14.00% 1
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 6 (0.88%) Apache
4 4 (0.59%) SharePoint
Applications
1 16 (2.35%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.62%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 206 (30.25%) Azure
2 143 (21.00%) AWS
3 83 (12.19%) GCP
4 50 (7.34%) Entra ID
5 26 (3.82%) GitHub
6 24 (3.52%) Azure DevOps
6 24 (3.52%) Azure Sentinel
7 23 (3.38%) GitHub Actions
8 18 (2.64%) Azure Key Vault
9 17 (2.50%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 15 (2.20%) AWS CloudFormation
10 15 (2.20%) Azure AKS
10 15 (2.20%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 14 (2.06%) Microsoft 365
12 13 (1.91%) SaaS
13 12 (1.76%) Akamai
13 12 (1.76%) Amazon S3
13 12 (1.76%) Azure Monitor
13 12 (1.76%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 11 (1.62%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 320 (46.99%) Firewall
2 127 (18.65%) VPN
3 120 (17.62%) WAN
4 90 (13.22%) LAN
5 85 (12.48%) BGP
6 84 (12.33%) DNS
7 74 (10.87%) OSPF
8 70 (10.28%) VLAN
9 63 (9.25%) SD-WAN
10 55 (8.08%) TCP/IP
11 52 (7.64%) Wireless
12 41 (6.02%) MPLS
13 38 (5.58%) DHCP
14 32 (4.70%) Cisco ISE
15 31 (4.55%) Cisco ASA
16 30 (4.41%) SSL
17 28 (4.11%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 25 (3.67%) HTTP
18 25 (3.67%) Internet
18 25 (3.67%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
1 6 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.73%) InfluxDB
2 5 (0.73%) Relational Database
2 5 (0.73%) SQL Server
3 3 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.44%) Data Lake
3 3 (0.44%) Power BI
4 2 (0.29%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 26 (3.82%) JIRA
2 18 (2.64%) Jenkins
3 13 (1.91%) GitLab
4 10 (1.47%) Git
5 5 (0.73%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.59%) Snyk
6 4 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.15%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.15%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.15%) Postman
7 1 (0.15%) SoapUI
General
1 160 (23.49%) Social Skills
2 106 (15.57%) Finance
3 70 (10.28%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (7.64%) Public Sector
5 39 (5.73%) Banking
6 25 (3.67%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.52%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.94%) Financial Institution
9 9 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (1.32%) Legal
10 7 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (0.73%) Law
11 5 (0.73%) Local Government
11 5 (0.73%) Military
11 5 (0.73%) Retail
12 4 (0.59%) Manufacturing
12 4 (0.59%) Police
12 4 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.44%) Electronics
13 3 (0.44%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 167 (24.52%) Network Engineer
2 148 (21.73%) Architect
3 89 (13.07%) Security Engineer
4 73 (10.72%) Security Architect
5 61 (8.96%) Senior
6 50 (7.34%) Network Architect
7 45 (6.61%) Network Security Engineer
8 26 (3.82%) Lead
9 25 (3.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 23 (3.38%) Analyst
11 22 (3.23%) Consultant
11 22 (3.23%) Network Security Architect
12 21 (3.08%) Project Manager
12 21 (3.08%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 19 (2.79%) Cloud Engineer
14 18 (2.64%) Solutions Architect
15 17 (2.50%) Cloud Architect
15 17 (2.50%) Senior Architect
16 16 (2.35%) Senior Network Engineer
17 15 (2.20%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.67%) 802.1X
2 14 (2.06%) LDAP
3 10 (1.47%) SAML
4 6 (0.88%) Node.js
5 5 (0.73%) OAuth
5 5 (0.73%) RabbitMQ
6 4 (0.59%) .NET
6 4 (0.59%) HTML
6 4 (0.59%) OpenID
6 4 (0.59%) REST
7 3 (0.44%) .NET Core
7 3 (0.44%) AngularJS
7 3 (0.44%) CSS
7 3 (0.44%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (0.44%) JSON
7 3 (0.44%) Lambda Expressions
7 3 (0.44%) OAuth2
7 3 (0.44%) Plotly
7 3 (0.44%) React
7 3 (0.44%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 94 (13.80%) Data Centre
2 38 (5.58%) Hybrid Cloud
3 36 (5.29%) Cloud Native
3 36 (5.29%) Security Posture
4 27 (3.96%) PKI
5 26 (3.82%) Onboarding
6 22 (3.23%) Cyber Threat
6 22 (3.23%) Public Cloud
7 20 (2.94%) IoT
8 17 (2.50%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 17 (2.50%) Management Information System
9 16 (2.35%) Data Protection Act
9 16 (2.35%) Operational Technology
10 15 (2.20%) Product Ownership
11 13 (1.91%) Security Operations Centre
12 12 (1.76%) Analytical Mindset
13 11 (1.62%) Cyber Security Posture
13 11 (1.62%) Virtual Team
14 9 (1.32%) Clustering
15 8 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 64 (9.40%) Windows
2 56 (8.22%) Linux
3 23 (3.38%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.62%) Unix
5 7 (1.03%) VMS
6 6 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.88%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.73%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.59%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.44%) SUSE
10 1 (0.15%) Android
10 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (21.15%) Cybersecurity
2 111 (16.30%) Cloud Security
3 109 (16.01%) Zero Trust
4 98 (14.39%) Security Architecture
5 91 (13.36%) SIEM
6 89 (13.07%) CI/CD
7 88 (12.92%) Migration
8 86 (12.63%) DevOps
9 85 (12.48%) Problem-Solving
10 77 (11.31%) Infrastructure as Code
11 73 (10.72%) Continuous Improvement
12 67 (9.84%) Network Segmentation
13 63 (9.25%) Stakeholder Management
14 62 (9.10%) Threat Modelling
15 61 (8.96%) Incident Response
16 59 (8.66%) Change Management
16 59 (8.66%) High Availability
16 59 (8.66%) Security Operations
17 57 (8.37%) Agile
17 57 (8.37%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 89 (13.07%) Python
2 59 (8.66%) PowerShell
3 24 (3.52%) Bash
4 23 (3.38%) JavaScript
5 21 (3.08%) SQL
6 17 (2.50%) Bicep
7 10 (1.47%) Kusto Query Language
8 8 (1.17%) Java
8 8 (1.17%) Shell Script
9 7 (1.03%) Go
10 4 (0.59%) C
10 4 (0.59%) PHP
11 3 (0.44%) C#
11 3 (0.44%) 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
1 213 (31.28%) Security Cleared
2 153 (22.47%) SC Cleared
3 127 (18.65%) Cisco Certification
4 91 (13.36%) CCNP
5 77 (11.31%) CISSP
6 70 (10.28%) DV Cleared
7 48 (7.05%) CCNA
8 42 (6.17%) Degree
9 40 (5.87%) CISM
10 27 (3.96%) Azure Certification
11 26 (3.82%) CCSP
12 25 (3.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 18 (2.64%) GIAC
14 17 (2.50%) AWS Certification
14 17 (2.50%) CCIE
15 15 (2.20%) CEH
16 14 (2.06%) CompTIA Security+
17 10 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
18 9 (1.32%) Network+ Certification
19 7 (1.03%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (9.69%) NIST
2 58 (8.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 36 (5.29%) GDPR
4 27 (3.96%) PCI DSS
5 16 (2.35%) GRC
5 16 (2.35%) NCSC
6 15 (2.20%) Cyber Essentials
7 11 (1.62%) SLA
8 9 (1.32%) QA
9 8 (1.17%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.17%) SOC 2
10 6 (0.88%) PMO
10 6 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 5 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 4 (0.59%) RMADS
13 3 (0.44%) ISA99
13 3 (0.44%) JSP 440
14 2 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 48 (7.05%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (6.75%) Active Directory
3 18 (2.64%) Virtual Machines
3 18 (2.64%) VMware NSX
4 15 (2.20%) Docker
5 12 (1.76%) Hyper-V
6 10 (1.47%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (1.03%) vSphere
8 6 (0.88%) Firmware
9 4 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.29%) NFS
10 2 (0.29%) Postfix
10 2 (0.29%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.29%) Squid
10 2 (0.29%) Varnish
11 1 (0.15%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.15%) RHEV
11 1 (0.15%) Xen
11 1 (0.15%) XenApp
11 1 (0.15%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 98 (14.39%) Terraform
2 60 (8.81%) Ansible
3 51 (7.49%) Kubernetes
4 31 (4.55%) FortiGate
5 15 (2.20%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (2.06%) Nagios
7 10 (1.47%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.32%) Grafana
8 9 (1.32%) Kibana
8 9 (1.32%) Microsoft Clustering
9 8 (1.17%) Microsoft Intune
10 6 (0.88%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.73%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.73%) QRadar
11 5 (0.73%) WSUS
12 4 (0.59%) CASB
12 4 (0.59%) Istio
13 3 (0.44%) Docker Swarm
13 3 (0.44%) VxRail
Vendors
1 194 (28.49%) Cisco
2 115 (16.89%) Palo Alto
3 100 (14.68%) Microsoft
4 63 (9.25%) F5
5 61 (8.96%) VMware
6 49 (7.20%) Fortinet
7 47 (6.90%) CheckPoint
7 47 (6.90%) Juniper
8 42 (6.17%) Zscaler
9 31 (4.55%) ServiceNow
10 25 (3.67%) Splunk
11 22 (3.23%) Google
12 20 (2.94%) SolarWinds
13 19 (2.79%) ForeScout
14 15 (2.20%) Aruba
14 15 (2.20%) Citrix
15 13 (1.91%) Meraki
16 11 (1.62%) Okta
16 11 (1.62%) SAP
16 11 (1.62%) Tenable