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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 138 147
Rank change year-on-year -30 +9 +81
Contract jobs citing Network Security 594 498 630
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.65% 2.00% 1.65%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 16.46% 14.83% 11.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 401 309 439
10th Percentile £350 £363 £400
25th Percentile £420 £425 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% -1.82% -2.22%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £690 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £514 £550
% change year-on-year -2.68% -6.59% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 9 17
10th Percentile £36.00 £18.05 -
25th Percentile £46.19 £35.00 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £80.68 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.43% +250.76% -42.21%
75th Percentile £79.38 £81.35 £41.25
90th Percentile £93.75 £82.48 £68.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £41.00 £23.00
% change year-on-year +58.54% +78.26% -42.21%

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 3,609 3,358 5,362
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.02% 13.48% 14.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,327 2,051 3,220
10th Percentile £204 £210 £205
25th Percentile £366 £366 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £480 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -4.00% +5.26% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 112 380
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.01 £14.27
25th Percentile £20.32 £21.46 £19.83
Median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -12.50% +110.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £72.97
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +7.14% -12.50% +110.53%

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 9 March 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 March 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 March 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 -19 257 £525 -4.55% 80
North of England -28 112 £475 -5.00% 47
South East -22 92 £500 -6.10% 58
North West -8 69 £489 -2.30% 35
Midlands -24 66 £500 -13.53% 37
West Midlands -20 55 £500 -13.53% 25
Yorkshire -34 50 £335 +5.85% 7
South West -33 27 £538 - 29
East of England -34 25 £475 -17.39% 27
East Midlands -31 11 £638 +50.00% 12
North East -11 2 £475 -24.00% 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 (2.19%) Confluence
2 5 (0.84%) Apache
2 5 (0.84%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.17%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 18 (3.03%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.68%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.17%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 4 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 171 (28.79%) Azure
2 118 (19.87%) AWS
3 62 (10.44%) GCP
4 44 (7.41%) Entra ID
5 27 (4.55%) GitHub
6 25 (4.21%) GitHub Actions
7 21 (3.54%) Azure DevOps
8 19 (3.20%) Azure Sentinel
8 19 (3.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 17 (2.86%) Azure Key Vault
10 14 (2.36%) AWS CloudFormation
10 14 (2.36%) Microsoft 365
11 13 (2.19%) Amazon S3
12 12 (2.02%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 12 (2.02%) Azure Monitor
13 11 (1.85%) Azure AKS
13 11 (1.85%) Google Workspace
13 11 (1.85%) Power Platform
13 11 (1.85%) Serverless
14 9 (1.52%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 291 (48.99%) Firewall
2 117 (19.70%) VPN
3 101 (17.00%) WAN
4 80 (13.47%) BGP
4 80 (13.47%) LAN
5 70 (11.78%) DNS
6 65 (10.94%) OSPF
7 58 (9.76%) VLAN
8 46 (7.74%) SD-WAN
8 46 (7.74%) TCP/IP
9 37 (6.23%) Wireless
10 35 (5.89%) MPLS
11 33 (5.56%) Cisco ASA
12 30 (5.05%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
13 28 (4.71%) SSL
14 27 (4.55%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
15 25 (4.21%) DMZ
16 22 (3.70%) DHCP
17 21 (3.54%) Wi-Fi
18 20 (3.37%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
2 4 (0.67%) Amazon RDS
2 4 (0.67%) InfluxDB
2 4 (0.67%) Power BI
2 4 (0.67%) Relational Database
3 3 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (0.34%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.34%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.17%) Redis
5 1 (0.17%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 18 (3.03%) JIRA
2 16 (2.69%) Jenkins
3 13 (2.19%) GitLab
4 10 (1.68%) Git
5 4 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.51%) Snyk
7 1 (0.17%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.17%) Metasploit
General
1 164 (27.61%) Social Skills
2 86 (14.48%) Finance
3 78 (13.13%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (8.42%) Public Sector
5 33 (5.56%) Banking
6 24 (4.04%) Documentation Skills
6 24 (4.04%) Telecoms
7 19 (3.20%) Financial Institution
8 11 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (1.52%) Investment Banking
10 7 (1.18%) Legal
10 7 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (0.84%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (0.84%) Local Government
11 5 (0.84%) Manufacturing
11 5 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (0.67%) Military
13 3 (0.51%) Electronics
13 3 (0.51%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 130 (21.89%) Network Engineer
2 125 (21.04%) Architect
3 78 (13.13%) Security Engineer
4 63 (10.61%) Security Architect
5 47 (7.91%) Network Architect
6 43 (7.24%) Senior
7 35 (5.89%) Network Security Engineer
8 30 (5.05%) Analyst
9 24 (4.04%) Network Security Architect
10 18 (3.03%) Cloud Engineer
10 18 (3.03%) Lead
10 18 (3.03%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 17 (2.86%) Administrator
11 17 (2.86%) Cloud Architect
11 17 (2.86%) Security Analyst
12 15 (2.53%) Azure Architect
12 15 (2.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 15 (2.53%) IT Support
13 13 (2.19%) IT Engineer
13 13 (2.19%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.87%) 802.1X
2 13 (2.19%) LDAP
3 8 (1.35%) .NET
3 8 (1.35%) Node.js
4 7 (1.18%) SAML
5 5 (0.84%) .NET Core
5 5 (0.84%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.84%) OAuth
5 5 (0.84%) OAuth2
5 5 (0.84%) OpenID
5 5 (0.84%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.84%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (0.84%) React
5 5 (0.84%) TensorFlow
6 4 (0.67%) ARM Templates
6 4 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (0.51%) HTML
7 3 (0.51%) Lambda Expressions
7 3 (0.51%) Plotly
7 3 (0.51%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 80 (13.47%) Data Centre
2 38 (6.40%) Hybrid Cloud
3 36 (6.06%) Security Posture
4 28 (4.71%) Cloud Native
5 27 (4.55%) Management Information System
5 27 (4.55%) PKI
6 23 (3.87%) Public Cloud
7 17 (2.86%) Onboarding
7 17 (2.86%) Product Ownership
8 16 (2.69%) Cyber Threat
9 15 (2.53%) Analytical Mindset
9 15 (2.53%) Operational Technology
9 15 (2.53%) Security Operations Centre
10 13 (2.19%) IoT
11 11 (1.85%) Cyber Security Posture
11 11 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
12 8 (1.35%) CSOC
12 8 (1.35%) Virtual Team
13 6 (1.01%) Cyberattack
13 6 (1.01%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
Operating Systems
1 69 (11.62%) Windows
2 56 (9.43%) Linux
3 25 (4.21%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.52%) Unix
5 7 (1.18%) Ubuntu
5 7 (1.18%) VMS
6 5 (0.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.51%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.17%) Android
8 1 (0.17%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (22.73%) Cybersecurity
2 99 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
3 94 (15.82%) SIEM
4 87 (14.65%) Cloud Security
5 85 (14.31%) CI/CD
6 84 (14.14%) Security Architecture
6 84 (14.14%) Zero Trust
7 78 (13.13%) Infrastructure as Code
8 76 (12.79%) DevOps
9 74 (12.46%) Migration
10 67 (11.28%) Incident Response
11 61 (10.27%) Change Management
12 58 (9.76%) Continuous Improvement
13 55 (9.26%) Identity Access Management
14 53 (8.92%) Agile
14 53 (8.92%) Network Segmentation
14 53 (8.92%) Security Operations
15 48 (8.08%) Vulnerability Management
16 46 (7.74%) Load Balancing
17 45 (7.58%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 91 (15.32%) Python
2 57 (9.60%) PowerShell
3 22 (3.70%) Bash
4 21 (3.54%) SQL
5 19 (3.20%) Bicep
6 18 (3.03%) JavaScript
7 14 (2.36%) Kusto Query Language
8 9 (1.52%) Java
9 7 (1.18%) Go
10 6 (1.01%) Shell Script
11 5 (0.84%) C#
12 4 (0.67%) C
12 4 (0.67%) PHP
13 3 (0.51%) C++
14 1 (0.17%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.17%) C-shell
14 1 (0.17%) Korn
14 1 (0.17%) Perl
14 1 (0.17%) Ruby
14 1 (0.17%) VBA
Qualifications
1 198 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 136 (22.90%) SC Cleared
3 106 (17.85%) Cisco Certification
4 81 (13.64%) CCNP
5 74 (12.46%) CISSP
6 71 (11.95%) DV Cleared
7 42 (7.07%) Degree
8 37 (6.23%) CCNA
9 35 (5.89%) CISM
10 25 (4.21%) GIAC
11 24 (4.04%) CCIE
12 20 (3.37%) Azure Certification
12 20 (3.37%) CEH
13 18 (3.03%) CompTIA Security+
14 15 (2.53%) AWS Certification
14 15 (2.53%) CCSP
15 14 (2.36%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 12 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
17 10 (1.68%) JNCIS
18 9 (1.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (11.62%) NIST
2 64 (10.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 40 (6.73%) GDPR
4 32 (5.39%) PCI DSS
5 20 (3.37%) Cyber Essentials
6 15 (2.53%) GRC
6 15 (2.53%) NCSC
7 13 (2.19%) SLA
8 9 (1.52%) SOC 2
9 8 (1.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 7 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 6 (1.01%) Actionable Recommendations
11 6 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 4 (0.67%) HIPAA
12 4 (0.67%) JSP 440
12 4 (0.67%) PMO
12 4 (0.67%) QA
12 4 (0.67%) RMADS
13 2 (0.34%) GxP
13 2 (0.34%) PSD2
System Software
1 42 (7.07%) VMware Infrastructure
2 39 (6.57%) Active Directory
3 25 (4.21%) Docker
4 16 (2.69%) VMware NSX
5 9 (1.52%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (1.35%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.01%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.84%) Firmware
8 5 (0.84%) vSphere
9 4 (0.67%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.17%) KVM
11 1 (0.17%) NFS
11 1 (0.17%) Postfix
11 1 (0.17%) RHEV
11 1 (0.17%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.17%) Varnish
11 1 (0.17%) Xen
11 1 (0.17%) XenApp
11 1 (0.17%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 97 (16.33%) Terraform
2 57 (9.60%) Ansible
3 47 (7.91%) Kubernetes
4 25 (4.21%) FortiGate
5 14 (2.36%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (2.36%) Nagios
6 12 (2.02%) Kibana
7 11 (1.85%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (1.35%) Grafana
9 7 (1.18%) Prometheus
9 7 (1.18%) vCenter Server
10 6 (1.01%) Microsoft Clustering
11 5 (0.84%) CASB
12 4 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.67%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.67%) Puppet
13 3 (0.51%) Icinga
13 3 (0.51%) QRadar
13 3 (0.51%) SCCM
13 3 (0.51%) SCOM
Vendors
1 173 (29.12%) Cisco
2 106 (17.85%) Microsoft
3 97 (16.33%) Palo Alto
4 70 (11.78%) F5
5 52 (8.75%) Juniper
5 52 (8.75%) VMware
6 45 (7.58%) CheckPoint
6 45 (7.58%) Fortinet
7 36 (6.06%) Zscaler
8 28 (4.71%) Google
8 28 (4.71%) Splunk
9 24 (4.04%) ServiceNow
10 18 (3.03%) SolarWinds
11 17 (2.86%) Meraki
12 14 (2.36%) Aruba
12 14 (2.36%) Databricks
12 14 (2.36%) Tenable
13 12 (2.02%) ForeScout
14 11 (1.85%) Okta
14 11 (1.85%) Tanium