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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 156 140 178
Rank change year-on-year -16 +38 +14
Contract jobs citing Network Security 674 485 483
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.66% 2.01% 1.32%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.57% 15.34% 10.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 469 293 335
10th Percentile £398 £382 £360
25th Percentile £438 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £534 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.53% -7.22% -
75th Percentile £619 £625 £673
90th Percentile £700 £700 £775
UK median daily rate £515 £523 £575
% change year-on-year -1.44% -9.13% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 8 15
10th Percentile £32.65 £17.83 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £64.88 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.01 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.77% +500.09% -74.10%
75th Percentile £74.00 £81.54 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.67 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £80.68 £19.00
% change year-on-year -19.43% +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 3,835 3,162 4,824
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.44% 13.11% 13.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,390 1,963 2,903
10th Percentile £250 £220 £208
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £495
Median % change year-on-year - +1.01% -5.49%
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% -4.99%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 117 391
10th Percentile £16.59 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.33 £15.44 £16.58
Median hourly rate £41.94 £30.32 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.32% -24.20% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.15 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £40.54 £34.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +17.51% -13.75% +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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -22 291 £544 -5.43% 97
North of England -6 141 £489 -2.25% 52
South East -29 97 £500 +2.04% 63
North West +2 85 £486 -3.85% 32
Midlands -36 55 £500 -9.09% 25
Yorkshire -24 54 £500 +3.09% 17
East of England -24 36 £515 -10.43% 15
West Midlands -48 35 £475 -9.52% 18
South West -34 29 £545 -0.91% 15
East Midlands -15 19 £638 -1.92% 7
North East -15 3 £538 -14.00% 4
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 (1.93%) Confluence
2 10 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.59%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.45%) Apache
Applications
1 15 (2.23%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.63%) 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 (30.56%) Azure
2 143 (21.22%) AWS
3 84 (12.46%) GCP
4 50 (7.42%) Entra ID
5 25 (3.71%) GitHub
6 24 (3.56%) Azure Sentinel
7 23 (3.41%) Azure DevOps
8 22 (3.26%) GitHub Actions
9 18 (2.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 17 (2.52%) Azure Key Vault
11 15 (2.23%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 14 (2.08%) Azure AKS
12 14 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
13 13 (1.93%) AWS CloudFormation
13 13 (1.93%) Azure Monitor
13 13 (1.93%) SaaS
14 12 (1.78%) Akamai
14 12 (1.78%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 11 (1.63%) Amazon S3
16 10 (1.48%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 318 (47.18%) Firewall
2 129 (19.14%) VPN
3 121 (17.95%) WAN
4 90 (13.35%) LAN
5 86 (12.76%) DNS
6 83 (12.31%) BGP
7 72 (10.68%) OSPF
8 69 (10.24%) VLAN
9 62 (9.20%) SD-WAN
10 58 (8.61%) TCP/IP
11 52 (7.72%) Wireless
12 42 (6.23%) MPLS
13 38 (5.64%) DHCP
14 31 (4.60%) Cisco ISE
15 30 (4.45%) Cisco ASA
15 30 (4.45%) SSL
16 29 (4.30%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 25 (3.71%) Internet
18 24 (3.56%) NGFW
18 24 (3.56%) Wi-Fi
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 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.45%) Power BI
4 2 (0.30%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.30%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 26 (3.86%) JIRA
2 17 (2.52%) Jenkins
3 16 (2.37%) GitLab
4 13 (1.93%) Git
5 5 (0.74%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.59%) Snyk
6 4 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.45%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.15%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.15%) Postman
8 1 (0.15%) SoapUI
General
1 157 (23.29%) Social Skills
2 105 (15.58%) Finance
3 65 (9.64%) Analytical Skills
4 49 (7.27%) Public Sector
5 40 (5.93%) Banking
6 26 (3.86%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.56%) Telecoms
8 21 (3.12%) Financial Institution
9 9 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.19%) Legal
11 6 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.74%) Law
12 5 (0.74%) Local Government
12 5 (0.74%) Military
12 5 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.74%) Retail
13 4 (0.59%) Manufacturing
13 4 (0.59%) Police
14 3 (0.45%) Electronics
14 3 (0.45%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 166 (24.63%) Network Engineer
2 145 (21.51%) Architect
3 87 (12.91%) Security Engineer
4 71 (10.53%) Security Architect
5 62 (9.20%) Senior
6 50 (7.42%) Network Architect
7 44 (6.53%) Network Security Engineer
8 26 (3.86%) Lead
9 25 (3.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 24 (3.56%) Consultant
11 23 (3.41%) Project Manager
11 23 (3.41%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 22 (3.26%) Analyst
12 22 (3.26%) Cloud Engineer
12 22 (3.26%) Network Security Architect
13 18 (2.67%) Solutions Architect
14 17 (2.52%) Senior Architect
14 17 (2.52%) Senior Network Engineer
15 16 (2.37%) Cloud Architect
16 15 (2.23%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.71%) 802.1X
2 14 (2.08%) LDAP
3 10 (1.48%) 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 (0.45%) .NET
6 3 (0.45%) CSS
6 3 (0.45%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (0.45%) JSON
6 3 (0.45%) Lambda Expressions
6 3 (0.45%) OAuth2
6 3 (0.45%) Plotly
6 3 (0.45%) SLSA
7 2 (0.30%) .NET Core
7 2 (0.30%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.30%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 96 (14.24%) Data Centre
2 38 (5.64%) Hybrid Cloud
2 38 (5.64%) Security Posture
3 34 (5.04%) Cloud Native
4 26 (3.86%) PKI
5 23 (3.41%) Onboarding
6 22 (3.26%) Public Cloud
7 21 (3.12%) Cyber Threat
8 20 (2.97%) IoT
9 17 (2.52%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 17 (2.52%) Management Information System
10 16 (2.37%) Data Protection Act
10 16 (2.37%) Operational Technology
11 15 (2.23%) Product Ownership
12 13 (1.93%) Security Operations Centre
13 11 (1.63%) Cyber Security Posture
14 10 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
14 10 (1.48%) Replication
14 10 (1.48%) Virtual Team
15 9 (1.34%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 61 (9.05%) Windows
2 50 (7.42%) Linux
3 23 (3.41%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.04%) Unix
4 7 (1.04%) VMS
5 6 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (0.89%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.74%) Windows 10
7 4 (0.59%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.45%) SUSE
9 1 (0.15%) Android
9 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (21.22%) Cybersecurity
2 110 (16.32%) Cloud Security
3 106 (15.73%) Zero Trust
4 95 (14.09%) Security Architecture
5 92 (13.65%) SIEM
6 91 (13.50%) CI/CD
7 89 (13.20%) Migration
8 87 (12.91%) DevOps
9 78 (11.57%) Problem-Solving
10 76 (11.28%) Infrastructure as Code
11 71 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
12 67 (9.94%) Network Segmentation
13 63 (9.35%) Stakeholder Management
13 63 (9.35%) Threat Modelling
14 59 (8.75%) High Availability
15 58 (8.61%) Security Operations
16 57 (8.46%) Incident Response
16 57 (8.46%) ITIL
17 56 (8.31%) Application Security
18 55 (8.16%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 89 (13.20%) Python
2 58 (8.61%) PowerShell
3 27 (4.01%) Bash
4 22 (3.26%) JavaScript
5 19 (2.82%) SQL
6 18 (2.67%) Bicep
7 9 (1.34%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (1.04%) Java
8 7 (1.04%) Shell Script
9 6 (0.89%) Go
10 4 (0.59%) C
10 4 (0.59%) PHP
11 3 (0.45%) C++
12 2 (0.30%) C#
12 2 (0.30%) 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
1 209 (31.01%) Security Cleared
2 150 (22.26%) SC Cleared
3 130 (19.29%) Cisco Certification
4 91 (13.50%) CCNP
5 77 (11.42%) CISSP
6 66 (9.79%) DV Cleared
7 49 (7.27%) CCNA
8 43 (6.38%) Degree
9 42 (6.23%) CISM
10 27 (4.01%) Azure Certification
10 27 (4.01%) CCSP
11 26 (3.86%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 17 (2.52%) CCIE
12 17 (2.52%) GIAC
13 15 (2.23%) AWS Certification
14 14 (2.08%) CEH
14 14 (2.08%) CompTIA Security+
15 10 (1.48%) BPSS Clearance
16 9 (1.34%) Network+ Certification
17 7 (1.04%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (9.79%) NIST
2 54 (8.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 33 (4.90%) GDPR
4 24 (3.56%) PCI DSS
5 16 (2.37%) GRC
6 15 (2.23%) NCSC
7 14 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials
8 10 (1.48%) QA
8 10 (1.48%) SLA
9 8 (1.19%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.19%) SOC 2
10 6 (0.89%) PMO
10 6 (0.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 4 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 4 (0.59%) RMADS
13 3 (0.45%) ISA99
14 2 (0.30%) JSP 440
15 1 (0.15%) HIPAA
System Software
1 48 (7.12%) VMware Infrastructure
2 45 (6.68%) Active Directory
3 19 (2.82%) Virtual Machines
4 18 (2.67%) VMware NSX
5 13 (1.93%) Docker
6 12 (1.78%) Hyper-V
7 10 (1.48%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (1.04%) vSphere
9 5 (0.74%) Firmware
9 5 (0.74%) Squid
10 4 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.30%) NFS
11 2 (0.30%) Postfix
11 2 (0.30%) Sendmail
11 2 (0.30%) 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 96 (14.24%) Terraform
2 58 (8.61%) Ansible
3 50 (7.42%) Kubernetes
4 31 (4.60%) FortiGate
5 15 (2.23%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (2.08%) Nagios
7 11 (1.63%) Grafana
8 10 (1.48%) vCenter Server
9 9 (1.34%) Microsoft Clustering
9 9 (1.34%) Microsoft Intune
10 8 (1.19%) Kibana
11 5 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.74%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.74%) QRadar
11 5 (0.74%) WSUS
12 4 (0.59%) CASB
12 4 (0.59%) Istio
12 4 (0.59%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.59%) Suricata
13 3 (0.45%) SCOM
Vendors
1 194 (28.78%) Cisco
2 115 (17.06%) Palo Alto
3 99 (14.69%) Microsoft
4 63 (9.35%) F5
5 62 (9.20%) VMware
6 49 (7.27%) Juniper
7 48 (7.12%) Fortinet
8 45 (6.68%) CheckPoint
9 43 (6.38%) Zscaler
10 31 (4.60%) ServiceNow
11 25 (3.71%) Splunk
12 20 (2.97%) Google
12 20 (2.97%) SolarWinds
13 19 (2.82%) ForeScout
14 17 (2.52%) Citrix
15 14 (2.08%) Aruba
16 12 (1.78%) Meraki
17 11 (1.63%) Okta
17 11 (1.63%) SAP
17 11 (1.63%) Tenable