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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 151 144 182
Rank change year-on-year -7 +38 +10
Contract jobs citing Network Security 697 473 470
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.69% 1.95% 1.29%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.89% 15.03% 9.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 484 286 324
10th Percentile £395 £382 £361
25th Percentile £437 £459 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £532 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.50% -7.52% -0.06%
75th Percentile £619 £613 £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 3,895 3,147 4,801
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.45% 13.00% 13.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,421 1,959 2,889
10th Percentile £263 £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 £497 £485 £490
% change year-on-year +2.51% -1.02% -5.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 237 117 388
10th Percentile £16.50 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.33 £15.44 £16.30
Median hourly rate £36.50 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.31% -18.75% +122.22%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £81.15 £70.20
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £37.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -13.33% -6.25% +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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -6 298 £550 -4.35% 89
North of England -2 155 £493 -1.35% 56
South East -23 97 £500 +2.04% 64
North West +9 90 £489 -4.12% 36
Yorkshire -17 62 £500 +1.83% 14
Midlands -36 51 £475 -9.52% 19
East of England -14 36 £515 -6.36% 16
West Midlands -53 32 £435 -17.14% 13
South West -33 31 £545 -0.91% 14
East Midlands -11 18 £638 - 6
North East -21 3 £538 -14.00% 7
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 14 (2.01%) Confluence
2 10 (1.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.57%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.29%) Apache
Applications
1 14 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.58%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 208 (29.84%) Azure
2 148 (21.23%) AWS
3 88 (12.63%) GCP
4 54 (7.75%) Entra ID
5 25 (3.59%) GitHub
6 24 (3.44%) Azure Sentinel
7 23 (3.30%) Azure DevOps
8 21 (3.01%) GitHub Actions
9 18 (2.58%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 17 (2.44%) Azure Key Vault
10 17 (2.44%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 15 (2.15%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 14 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
13 13 (1.87%) Akamai
13 13 (1.87%) Azure AKS
13 13 (1.87%) SaaS
14 12 (1.72%) AWS CloudFormation
14 12 (1.72%) Azure Monitor
15 11 (1.58%) Serverless
16 10 (1.43%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 326 (46.77%) Firewall
2 140 (20.09%) VPN
3 127 (18.22%) WAN
4 97 (13.92%) LAN
5 88 (12.63%) DNS
6 85 (12.20%) BGP
7 73 (10.47%) OSPF
8 71 (10.19%) VLAN
9 62 (8.90%) SD-WAN
9 62 (8.90%) TCP/IP
10 58 (8.32%) Wireless
11 42 (6.03%) MPLS
12 40 (5.74%) DHCP
13 35 (5.02%) SSL
14 32 (4.59%) Cisco ISE
15 29 (4.16%) Cisco ASA
16 28 (4.02%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 25 (3.59%) NGFW
18 24 (3.44%) HTTP
19 23 (3.30%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
1 5 (0.72%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.57%) Neo4j
3 3 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.43%) Power BI
4 2 (0.29%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.29%) InfluxDB
4 2 (0.29%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.29%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.14%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.14%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 31 (4.45%) JIRA
2 16 (2.30%) GitLab
2 16 (2.30%) Jenkins
3 15 (2.15%) Git
4 5 (0.72%) Browser DevTools
5 4 (0.57%) Snyk
5 4 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.43%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.14%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.14%) Postman
7 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.14%) SonarQube
General
1 160 (22.96%) Social Skills
2 108 (15.49%) Finance
3 65 (9.33%) Analytical Skills
4 47 (6.74%) Public Sector
5 43 (6.17%) Banking
6 31 (4.45%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.44%) Telecoms
8 21 (3.01%) Financial Institution
9 10 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.00%) Legal
10 7 (1.00%) Manufacturing
10 7 (1.00%) Retail
11 6 (0.86%) Law
12 5 (0.72%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.72%) Local Government
12 5 (0.72%) Military
12 5 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.72%) Police
13 3 (0.43%) Electronics
13 3 (0.43%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 171 (24.53%) Network Engineer
2 147 (21.09%) Architect
3 92 (13.20%) Security Engineer
4 70 (10.04%) Security Architect
5 61 (8.75%) Senior
6 53 (7.60%) Network Architect
7 47 (6.74%) Network Security Engineer
8 28 (4.02%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
9 27 (3.87%) Consultant
10 26 (3.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 26 (3.73%) Lead
10 26 (3.73%) Project Manager
11 23 (3.30%) Cloud Engineer
12 22 (3.16%) Analyst
12 22 (3.16%) Network Security Architect
13 19 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
14 17 (2.44%) Cloud Architect
14 17 (2.44%) Senior Network Engineer
15 16 (2.30%) Azure Architect
15 16 (2.30%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.87%) 802.1X
2 14 (2.01%) LDAP
3 11 (1.58%) SAML
4 6 (0.86%) Kafka
5 5 (0.72%) Node.js
5 5 (0.72%) OAuth
6 4 (0.57%) CSS
6 4 (0.57%) HTML
6 4 (0.57%) OpenID
6 4 (0.57%) REST
7 3 (0.43%) .NET
7 3 (0.43%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (0.43%) JSON
7 3 (0.43%) Lambda Expressions
7 3 (0.43%) OAuth2
7 3 (0.43%) Plotly
7 3 (0.43%) SLSA
8 2 (0.29%) .NET Core
8 2 (0.29%) AWS CDK
8 2 (0.29%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 100 (14.35%) Data Centre
2 44 (6.31%) Security Posture
3 39 (5.60%) Cloud Native
4 37 (5.31%) Hybrid Cloud
5 26 (3.73%) PKI
6 23 (3.30%) Onboarding
7 21 (3.01%) Cyber Threat
8 20 (2.87%) IoT
9 19 (2.73%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 19 (2.73%) Public Cloud
10 18 (2.58%) Operational Technology
11 16 (2.30%) Data Protection Act
11 16 (2.30%) Management Information System
12 15 (2.15%) Product Ownership
13 13 (1.87%) Security Operations Centre
14 12 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
15 11 (1.58%) Cyber Security Posture
16 10 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
16 10 (1.43%) Replication
17 9 (1.29%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 62 (8.90%) Windows
2 49 (7.03%) Linux
3 25 (3.59%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.00%) VMS
5 6 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.86%) Ubuntu
5 6 (0.86%) Unix
6 5 (0.72%) Windows 10
7 4 (0.57%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.43%) SUSE
9 1 (0.14%) Android
9 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 149 (21.38%) Cybersecurity
2 114 (16.36%) Zero Trust
3 112 (16.07%) Cloud Security
4 96 (13.77%) Security Architecture
5 94 (13.49%) CI/CD
5 94 (13.49%) SIEM
6 90 (12.91%) DevOps
7 88 (12.63%) Migration
8 81 (11.62%) Infrastructure as Code
9 77 (11.05%) Continuous Improvement
9 77 (11.05%) Problem-Solving
10 70 (10.04%) Network Segmentation
11 64 (9.18%) Threat Modelling
12 63 (9.04%) Agile
12 63 (9.04%) Application Security
12 63 (9.04%) High Availability
12 63 (9.04%) Stakeholder Management
13 60 (8.61%) Load Balancing
14 59 (8.46%) Change Management
14 59 (8.46%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 90 (12.91%) Python
2 58 (8.32%) PowerShell
3 28 (4.02%) Bash
4 22 (3.16%) JavaScript
5 18 (2.58%) Bicep
6 17 (2.44%) SQL
7 9 (1.29%) Kusto Query Language
8 6 (0.86%) Shell Script
9 5 (0.72%) Java
10 4 (0.57%) C
10 4 (0.57%) Go
10 4 (0.57%) PHP
11 3 (0.43%) C++
12 2 (0.29%) C#
12 2 (0.29%) Ruby
13 1 (0.14%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.14%) C-shell
13 1 (0.14%) Korn
13 1 (0.14%) Perl
13 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 214 (30.70%) Security Cleared
2 156 (22.38%) SC Cleared
3 135 (19.37%) Cisco Certification
4 91 (13.06%) CCNP
5 81 (11.62%) CISSP
6 69 (9.90%) DV Cleared
7 54 (7.75%) CCNA
8 47 (6.74%) Degree
9 45 (6.46%) CISM
10 28 (4.02%) CCSP
11 27 (3.87%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 27 (3.87%) Azure Certification
12 17 (2.44%) GIAC
13 16 (2.30%) CCIE
14 14 (2.01%) AWS Certification
14 14 (2.01%) CEH
14 14 (2.01%) CompTIA Security+
15 11 (1.58%) JNCIS
16 10 (1.43%) BPSS Clearance
16 10 (1.43%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (9.47%) NIST
2 52 (7.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 32 (4.59%) GDPR
4 23 (3.30%) PCI DSS
5 16 (2.30%) GRC
6 15 (2.15%) NCSC
7 13 (1.87%) Cyber Essentials
8 10 (1.43%) QA
8 10 (1.43%) SLA
9 8 (1.15%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.15%) SOC 2
10 6 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (0.72%) PMO
12 4 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 4 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 4 (0.57%) RMADS
13 3 (0.43%) ISA99
14 2 (0.29%) JSP 440
15 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
System Software
1 50 (7.17%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (6.60%) Active Directory
3 19 (2.73%) Virtual Machines
3 19 (2.73%) VMware NSX
4 17 (2.44%) Docker
5 13 (1.87%) Hyper-V
6 10 (1.43%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (1.15%) vSphere
8 5 (0.72%) Firmware
8 5 (0.72%) Squid
9 4 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.29%) NFS
10 2 (0.29%) Postfix
10 2 (0.29%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.29%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.29%) Varnish
11 1 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.14%) Xen
11 1 (0.14%) XenApp
11 1 (0.14%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 99 (14.20%) Terraform
2 63 (9.04%) Ansible
3 55 (7.89%) Kubernetes
4 36 (5.16%) FortiGate
5 15 (2.15%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (2.01%) Nagios
7 11 (1.58%) Grafana
7 11 (1.58%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.29%) Microsoft Clustering
8 9 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (1.15%) Kibana
10 5 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.72%) CASB
10 5 (0.72%) QRadar
10 5 (0.72%) WSUS
11 4 (0.57%) Istio
11 4 (0.57%) Kustomize
11 4 (0.57%) Prometheus
11 4 (0.57%) Suricata
12 3 (0.43%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 205 (29.41%) Cisco
2 117 (16.79%) Palo Alto
3 99 (14.20%) Microsoft
4 65 (9.33%) F5
5 64 (9.18%) VMware
6 54 (7.75%) Fortinet
7 52 (7.46%) Juniper
8 47 (6.74%) CheckPoint
9 46 (6.60%) Zscaler
10 31 (4.45%) ServiceNow
11 25 (3.59%) Splunk
12 21 (3.01%) SolarWinds
13 19 (2.73%) ForeScout
13 19 (2.73%) Google
14 17 (2.44%) Aruba
14 17 (2.44%) Citrix
15 13 (1.87%) Tenable
16 11 (1.58%) Okta
16 11 (1.58%) SAP
17 10 (1.43%) Meraki