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 14 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 173 138 146
Rank change year-on-year -35 +8 +108
Contract jobs citing Network Security 519 551 665
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.67% 1.88% 1.76%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.31% 14.74% 12.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 314 348 458
10th Percentile £340 £363 £413
25th Percentile £410 £450 £478
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £575 £626 £650
90th Percentile £672 £725 £721
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 8 5
10th Percentile £44.10 £17.83 £65.00
25th Percentile £48.94 £30.88 £68.75
Median hourly rate £65.50 £43.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.33% -40.69% +61.11%
75th Percentile £84.06 £52.19 £76.25
90th Percentile £93.88 £76.78 -
UK median hourly rate £65.50 £41.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year +59.76% -43.45% +61.11%

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 3,391 3,737 5,320
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.91% 12.74% 14.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,186 2,190 3,311
10th Percentile £206 £221 £210
25th Percentile £357 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £484 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.20% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £686 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 119 323
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.05 £17.73
25th Percentile £20.50 £21.46 £22.88
Median hourly rate £34.00 £42.50 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -24.65% +27.03%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £39.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year -8.86% -28.18% +32.53%

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 14 December 2025.

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 14 December 2025.

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 14 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 -12 230 £515 -4.28% 63
North of England -22 102 £457 -8.65% 53
South East -9 71 £430 -21.10% 88
North West +7 69 £475 -2.56% 33
Midlands -29 64 £500 -14.24% 34
West Midlands -17 60 £500 -20.32% 20
Yorkshire -43 46 £221 -55.75% 17
East of England -19 25 £488 +21.88% 33
South West -14 23 £554 +5.48% 26
East Midlands -30 4 £650 +73.33% 13
North East -11 2 £475 -41.72% 4
South Coast - 2 - -
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 6 (1.16%) Confluence
2 5 (0.96%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.77%) Apache
4 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.19%) IIS
5 1 (0.19%) nginx
5 1 (0.19%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (3.08%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.35%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.19%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 137 (26.40%) Azure
2 112 (21.58%) AWS
3 43 (8.29%) GCP
4 25 (4.82%) Entra ID
4 25 (4.82%) Microsoft 365
5 23 (4.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 22 (4.24%) Amazon S3
7 20 (3.85%) Amazon EC2
7 20 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (3.08%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 16 (3.08%) Amazon ELB
9 15 (2.89%) GitHub
10 13 (2.50%) Azure Monitor
10 13 (2.50%) Azure Sentinel
10 13 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
10 13 (2.50%) Serverless
11 12 (2.31%) Azure Key Vault
12 11 (2.12%) Google Workspace
12 11 (2.12%) IaaS
13 9 (1.73%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 255 (49.13%) Firewall
2 110 (21.19%) VPN
3 105 (20.23%) DNS
4 84 (16.18%) WAN
5 65 (12.52%) SSL
6 59 (11.37%) TCP/IP
7 58 (11.18%) BGP
8 55 (10.60%) LAN
9 46 (8.86%) SD-WAN
10 43 (8.29%) OSPF
11 41 (7.90%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 37 (7.13%) VLAN
13 35 (6.74%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 35 (6.74%) Wireless
14 33 (6.36%) DMZ
15 26 (5.01%) Intrusion Detection
16 25 (4.82%) HTTP
17 22 (4.24%) Internet
18 19 (3.66%) WLAN
19 18 (3.47%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (0.77%) InfluxDB
1 4 (0.77%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
2 2 (0.39%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.39%) Power BI
3 1 (0.19%) Amazon Athena
3 1 (0.19%) GIS
3 1 (0.19%) MySQL
3 1 (0.19%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.19%) Redis
3 1 (0.19%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.19%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 25 (4.82%) Jenkins
2 23 (4.43%) GitLab
3 22 (4.24%) Git
4 6 (1.16%) JIRA
5 1 (0.19%) Metasploit
5 1 (0.19%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.19%) Subversion
General
1 173 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 99 (19.08%) Analytical Skills
3 51 (9.83%) Finance
4 43 (8.29%) Public Sector
5 35 (6.74%) Banking
6 21 (4.05%) Telecoms
7 19 (3.66%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (3.08%) Investment Banking
9 11 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 10 (1.93%) Pharmaceutical
11 7 (1.35%) Manufacturing
11 7 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.16%) Legal
12 6 (1.16%) Military
13 5 (0.96%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.96%) Law
14 4 (0.77%) Marketing
14 4 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.58%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 112 (21.58%) Network Engineer
2 100 (19.27%) Security Engineer
3 76 (14.64%) Architect
4 53 (10.21%) Network Security Engineer
5 45 (8.67%) Security Architect
6 44 (8.48%) Senior
7 43 (8.29%) Analyst
8 35 (6.74%) Network Architect
9 21 (4.05%) Administrator
9 21 (4.05%) SOC Analyst
10 19 (3.66%) Consultant
10 19 (3.66%) Cybersecurity Engineer
10 19 (3.66%) Security Analyst
11 18 (3.47%) Network Security Architect
12 17 (3.28%) Operations Engineer
13 16 (3.08%) Lead
14 15 (2.89%) IT Engineer
15 14 (2.70%) Platform Manager
15 14 (2.70%) Wintel Administrator
15 14 (2.70%) Wintel Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (3.47%) LDAP
2 10 (1.93%) 802.1X
3 8 (1.54%) .NET
3 8 (1.54%) Node.js
4 6 (1.16%) ARM Templates
4 6 (1.16%) SAML
5 5 (0.96%) .NET Core
5 5 (0.96%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.96%) Elastic Stack
5 5 (0.96%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.96%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (0.96%) React
5 5 (0.96%) TensorFlow
6 2 (0.39%) ADO
6 2 (0.39%) OAuth
6 2 (0.39%) OAuth2
6 2 (0.39%) OpenID
6 2 (0.39%) YAML
7 1 (0.19%) HTML
7 1 (0.19%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 45 (8.67%) Data Centre
1 45 (8.67%) Management Information System
2 33 (6.36%) Security Posture
3 29 (5.59%) Hybrid Cloud
4 24 (4.62%) Security Operations Centre
5 23 (4.43%) Cloud Native
6 22 (4.24%) Analytical Mindset
6 22 (4.24%) Cyber Threat
7 18 (3.47%) PKI
8 16 (3.08%) CSOC
8 16 (3.08%) Cyberattack
9 14 (2.70%) Onboarding
10 13 (2.50%) Operational Technology
10 13 (2.50%) Public Cloud
11 12 (2.31%) Cyber Security Posture
12 11 (2.12%) Virtual Team
13 10 (1.93%) Cloud Security Posture
14 8 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
15 7 (1.35%) Clustering
15 7 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 81 (15.61%) Windows
2 59 (11.37%) Linux
3 19 (3.66%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.35%) Unix
5 4 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.77%) VMS
6 3 (0.58%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.19%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (24.66%) Cybersecurity
2 109 (21.00%) SIEM
3 104 (20.04%) Problem-Solving
4 102 (19.65%) Incident Response
5 77 (14.84%) Cloud Security
6 68 (13.10%) Infrastructure as Code
7 67 (12.91%) CI/CD
7 67 (12.91%) DevOps
8 61 (11.75%) Change Management
9 55 (10.60%) Security Operations
10 46 (8.86%) Infrastructure Automation
10 46 (8.86%) Load Balancing
10 46 (8.86%) Migration
10 46 (8.86%) Zero Trust
11 45 (8.67%) Continuous Improvement
12 43 (8.29%) Identity Access Management
12 43 (8.29%) Network Architecture
12 43 (8.29%) Vulnerability Management
13 42 (8.09%) Security Architecture
14 41 (7.90%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 116 (22.35%) Python
2 78 (15.03%) PowerShell
3 37 (7.13%) Bash
4 16 (3.08%) Bicep
4 16 (3.08%) SQL
5 13 (2.50%) Kusto Query Language
6 10 (1.93%) JavaScript
7 7 (1.35%) Go
7 7 (1.35%) Java
8 5 (0.96%) C#
9 4 (0.77%) Perl
9 4 (0.77%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.39%) C
10 2 (0.39%) C++
11 1 (0.19%) C-shell
11 1 (0.19%) Korn
11 1 (0.19%) Rust
11 1 (0.19%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.19%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 148 (28.52%) Security Cleared
2 103 (19.85%) SC Cleared
3 88 (16.96%) Cisco Certification
4 74 (14.26%) CISSP
5 69 (13.29%) CCNP
6 47 (9.06%) DV Cleared
7 41 (7.90%) Degree
8 32 (6.17%) CISM
9 27 (5.20%) GIAC
10 25 (4.82%) CEH
11 24 (4.62%) CCIE
12 18 (3.47%) CompTIA Security+
13 15 (2.89%) Azure Certification
13 15 (2.89%) CCNA
14 14 (2.70%) Computer Science Degree
15 13 (2.50%) CCSA
15 13 (2.50%) CCSP
16 12 (2.31%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 12 (2.31%) AWS Certification
17 8 (1.54%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (11.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 50 (9.63%) NIST
3 44 (8.48%) GDPR
4 31 (5.97%) PCI DSS
5 12 (2.31%) Cyber Essentials
6 11 (2.12%) NCSC
7 10 (1.93%) GRC
7 10 (1.93%) HIPAA
8 7 (1.35%) SLA
9 5 (0.96%) PSD2
9 5 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (0.96%) SOC 2
10 4 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.58%) JSP 440
12 2 (0.39%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.39%) GxP
12 2 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 2 (0.39%) PMO
12 2 (0.39%) QA
System Software
1 39 (7.51%) Active Directory
2 38 (7.32%) Docker
3 36 (6.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (1.93%) Hyper-V
5 9 (1.73%) Firmware
6 8 (1.54%) VMware NSX
7 7 (1.35%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.77%) ProxySG
8 4 (0.77%) vSphere
9 3 (0.58%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.39%) KVM
11 1 (0.19%) RHEV
11 1 (0.19%) Xen
11 1 (0.19%) XenApp
11 1 (0.19%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 86 (16.57%) Terraform
2 55 (10.60%) Ansible
3 29 (5.59%) Kubernetes
4 22 (4.24%) FortiGate
5 11 (2.12%) Nagios
6 10 (1.93%) Kibana
7 9 (1.73%) QRadar
8 8 (1.54%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (1.35%) Grafana
9 7 (1.35%) Prometheus
10 6 (1.16%) Microsoft Clustering
10 6 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.96%) CASB
12 4 (0.77%) CA Spectrum
12 4 (0.77%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.58%) Icinga
13 3 (0.58%) Puppet
13 3 (0.58%) SCCM
14 2 (0.39%) Docker Swarm
14 2 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 121 (23.31%) Cisco
2 99 (19.08%) Palo Alto
3 89 (17.15%) F5
3 89 (17.15%) Microsoft
4 56 (10.79%) CheckPoint
5 49 (9.44%) Juniper
6 45 (8.67%) VMware
7 42 (8.09%) Fortinet
7 42 (8.09%) Zscaler
8 28 (5.39%) Splunk
9 27 (5.20%) SolarWinds
10 24 (4.62%) Meraki
11 20 (3.85%) CrowdStrike
12 19 (3.66%) Google
13 16 (3.08%) Tenable
14 13 (2.50%) Qualys
15 12 (2.31%) Blue Coat
15 12 (2.31%) ServiceNow
16 11 (2.12%) Forcepoint
17 10 (1.93%) Tanium