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

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 171 139 151
Rank change year-on-year -32 +12 +106
Contract jobs citing Network Security 543 499 622
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.66% 1.89% 1.66%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.92% 14.57% 11.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 335 312 444
10th Percentile £340 £354 £407
25th Percentile £413 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £575 £625 £650
90th Percentile £680 £736 £745
UK median daily rate £500 £508 £550
% change year-on-year -1.48% -7.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 6 15
10th Percentile £34.30 £17.38 -
25th Percentile £51.44 £22.63 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.50 £38.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.37% -5.00% +6.67%
75th Percentile £81.56 £46.00 £69.38
90th Percentile £93.88 £48.75 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £65.50 £41.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +59.76% +2.50% +6.67%

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 3,410 3,425 5,304
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.39% 12.95% 14.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,212 1,964 3,233
10th Percentile £204 £220 £205
25th Percentile £356 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £490
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% +2.04% -6.67%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £680 £686 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £495
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% -3.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 154 106 366
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.11 £16.13
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.46 £22.13
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £51.65
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -32.24% +140.24%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £70.63 £75.89
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £51.65
% change year-on-year -14.29% -32.24% +149.47%

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 28 January 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 28 January 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 28 January 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 -19 236 £539 -2.05% 91
North of England -34 107 £462 -7.63% 50
North West -4 70 £475 -5.00% 18
South East -10 70 £430 -18.10% 99
Midlands -25 62 £475 -18.31% 43
West Midlands -6 54 £500 -14.13% 25
Yorkshire -37 48 £221 -55.75% 24
South West -23 28 £533 +1.91% 50
East of England -13 23 £475 -14.80% 43
East Midlands -37 8 £442 +46.20% 17
North East -13 2 £475 - 8
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 10 (1.84%) Confluence
2 5 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (0.92%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.74%) Apache
4 1 (0.18%) IIS
4 1 (0.18%) nginx
4 1 (0.18%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 18 (3.31%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (2.03%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.18%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 149 (27.44%) Azure
2 111 (20.44%) AWS
3 49 (9.02%) GCP
4 32 (5.89%) Entra ID
5 27 (4.97%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 25 (4.60%) GitHub
7 24 (4.42%) Amazon S3
8 23 (4.24%) GitHub Actions
9 20 (3.68%) Amazon EC2
9 20 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (3.68%) Microsoft 365
10 18 (3.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 16 (2.95%) Amazon ELB
12 15 (2.76%) Azure Key Vault
12 15 (2.76%) Azure Sentinel
13 13 (2.39%) Serverless
14 11 (2.03%) AWS CloudFormation
14 11 (2.03%) Azure Monitor
14 11 (2.03%) Google Workspace
15 9 (1.66%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 270 (49.72%) Firewall
2 118 (21.73%) VPN
3 90 (16.57%) WAN
4 89 (16.39%) DNS
5 66 (12.15%) LAN
6 58 (10.68%) BGP
6 58 (10.68%) TCP/IP
7 48 (8.84%) SSL
8 47 (8.66%) VLAN
9 43 (7.92%) OSPF
10 38 (7.00%) SD-WAN
11 34 (6.26%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 32 (5.89%) Wireless
13 31 (5.71%) DMZ
13 31 (5.71%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 21 (3.87%) Cisco ASA
14 21 (3.87%) Internet
15 20 (3.68%) MPLS
16 17 (3.13%) DHCP
16 17 (3.13%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (0.74%) InfluxDB
1 4 (0.74%) Relational Database
2 3 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (0.37%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.37%) Power BI
3 2 (0.37%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.18%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (0.18%) Redis
4 1 (0.18%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.18%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (5.71%) Jenkins
2 22 (4.05%) GitLab
3 21 (3.87%) Git
4 9 (1.66%) JIRA
5 3 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.18%) Metasploit
6 1 (0.18%) Subversion
General
1 155 (28.55%) Social Skills
2 85 (15.65%) Analytical Skills
3 62 (11.42%) Finance
4 43 (7.92%) Public Sector
5 33 (6.08%) Banking
6 23 (4.24%) Telecoms
7 20 (3.68%) Documentation Skills
8 14 (2.58%) Investment Banking
9 13 (2.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.47%) Military
11 7 (1.29%) Financial Institution
11 7 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.10%) Legal
12 6 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
13 5 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.92%) Manufacturing
14 4 (0.74%) Local Government
14 4 (0.74%) Marketing
14 4 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.55%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 119 (21.92%) Network Engineer
2 91 (16.76%) Architect
3 80 (14.73%) Security Engineer
4 52 (9.58%) Security Architect
5 45 (8.29%) Senior
6 38 (7.00%) Network Architect
7 35 (6.45%) Network Security Engineer
8 29 (5.34%) Analyst
9 21 (3.87%) Network Security Architect
10 19 (3.50%) Administrator
11 18 (3.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 18 (3.31%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 18 (3.31%) Security Analyst
12 16 (2.95%) Cloud Engineer
12 16 (2.95%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 16 (2.95%) Operations Engineer
12 16 (2.95%) SIEM Engineer
13 15 (2.76%) IT Support
13 15 (2.76%) Lead
14 14 (2.58%) Wintel Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (3.50%) 802.1X
2 10 (1.84%) LDAP
3 9 (1.66%) SAML
4 8 (1.47%) .NET
4 8 (1.47%) Node.js
5 5 (0.92%) .NET Core
5 5 (0.92%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.92%) Elastic Stack
5 5 (0.92%) OAuth
5 5 (0.92%) OAuth2
5 5 (0.92%) OpenID
5 5 (0.92%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.92%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (0.92%) React
5 5 (0.92%) TensorFlow
6 4 (0.74%) ARM Templates
7 3 (0.55%) HTML
8 2 (0.37%) AWS CDK
8 2 (0.37%) CSS
8 2 (0.37%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 66 (12.15%) Data Centre
2 31 (5.71%) Security Posture
3 30 (5.52%) Hybrid Cloud
3 30 (5.52%) Management Information System
4 29 (5.34%) PKI
5 28 (5.16%) Cloud Native
6 18 (3.31%) Public Cloud
7 16 (2.95%) Onboarding
8 15 (2.76%) Cyber Security Posture
9 14 (2.58%) Analytical Mindset
9 14 (2.58%) Cyber Threat
10 13 (2.39%) IoT
10 13 (2.39%) Operational Technology
10 13 (2.39%) Security Operations Centre
11 10 (1.84%) Product Ownership
12 9 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.66%) Virtual Team
13 8 (1.47%) CSOC
13 8 (1.47%) SCADA
14 7 (1.29%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 79 (14.55%) Windows
2 61 (11.23%) Linux
3 28 (5.16%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.47%) VMS
5 6 (1.10%) Unix
6 4 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.74%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.55%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.18%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.18%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (24.13%) Cybersecurity
2 102 (18.78%) Problem-Solving
3 94 (17.31%) SIEM
4 85 (15.65%) Incident Response
5 84 (15.47%) CI/CD
6 79 (14.55%) DevOps
7 77 (14.18%) Infrastructure as Code
8 74 (13.63%) Cloud Security
9 70 (12.89%) Zero Trust
10 63 (11.60%) Security Architecture
11 60 (11.05%) Migration
12 57 (10.50%) Change Management
13 49 (9.02%) Continuous Improvement
13 49 (9.02%) Identity Access Management
14 48 (8.84%) Load Balancing
15 47 (8.66%) Infrastructure Automation
16 45 (8.29%) Network Segmentation
16 45 (8.29%) Security Operations
17 44 (8.10%) High Availability
18 43 (7.92%) Network Architecture
Programming Languages
1 111 (20.44%) Python
2 67 (12.34%) PowerShell
3 36 (6.63%) Bash
4 18 (3.31%) SQL
5 16 (2.95%) Bicep
6 14 (2.58%) Kusto Query Language
7 12 (2.21%) JavaScript
8 10 (1.84%) Java
9 7 (1.29%) Go
10 5 (0.92%) C
10 5 (0.92%) C#
10 5 (0.92%) C++
11 4 (0.74%) Perl
11 4 (0.74%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.18%) C-shell
12 1 (0.18%) Korn
12 1 (0.18%) PHP
12 1 (0.18%) Rust
12 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 184 (33.89%) Security Cleared
2 132 (24.31%) SC Cleared
3 93 (17.13%) Cisco Certification
4 72 (13.26%) CCNP
4 72 (13.26%) CISSP
5 58 (10.68%) DV Cleared
6 42 (7.73%) Degree
7 32 (5.89%) CCNA
7 32 (5.89%) CISM
8 27 (4.97%) GIAC
9 25 (4.60%) CEH
10 24 (4.42%) CCIE
11 17 (3.13%) Azure Certification
11 17 (3.13%) CompTIA Security+
12 15 (2.76%) Computer Science Degree
13 12 (2.21%) AWS Certification
14 11 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
15 9 (1.66%) CCSP
15 9 (1.66%) JNCIS
15 9 (1.66%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (10.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 55 (10.13%) NIST
3 39 (7.18%) GDPR
4 26 (4.79%) PCI DSS
5 17 (3.13%) Cyber Essentials
6 14 (2.58%) NCSC
7 9 (1.66%) GRC
8 8 (1.47%) SOC 2
9 7 (1.29%) HIPAA
10 6 (1.10%) SLA
11 5 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 5 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.74%) JSP 440
12 4 (0.74%) RMADS
13 3 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 3 (0.55%) PMO
14 2 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 2 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 2 (0.37%) PSD2
System Software
1 44 (8.10%) VMware Infrastructure
2 40 (7.37%) Active Directory
3 34 (6.26%) Docker
4 13 (2.39%) VMware NSX
5 9 (1.66%) Hyper-V
5 9 (1.66%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.74%) Firmware
6 4 (0.74%) ProxySG
6 4 (0.74%) vSphere
7 3 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
7 3 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.37%) KVM
8 2 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.18%) RHEV
9 1 (0.18%) Xen
9 1 (0.18%) XenApp
9 1 (0.18%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 104 (19.15%) Terraform
2 62 (11.42%) Ansible
3 38 (7.00%) Kubernetes
4 19 (3.50%) FortiGate
5 13 (2.39%) Kibana
5 13 (2.39%) Nagios
6 10 (1.84%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (1.66%) QRadar
7 9 (1.66%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (1.29%) Grafana
8 7 (1.29%) Prometheus
9 6 (1.10%) Microsoft Clustering
10 4 (0.74%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.74%) Puppet
10 4 (0.74%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.55%) CASB
11 3 (0.55%) Icinga
11 3 (0.55%) Istio
11 3 (0.55%) SCCM
Vendors
1 144 (26.52%) Cisco
2 111 (20.44%) Palo Alto
3 95 (17.50%) Microsoft
4 83 (15.29%) F5
5 57 (10.50%) CheckPoint
6 52 (9.58%) VMware
7 43 (7.92%) Juniper
8 40 (7.37%) Fortinet
9 34 (6.26%) Zscaler
10 30 (5.52%) Splunk
11 26 (4.79%) Google
12 23 (4.24%) SolarWinds
13 21 (3.87%) Meraki
14 17 (3.13%) ServiceNow
15 13 (2.39%) FireEye
15 13 (2.39%) Tanium
16 12 (2.21%) Databricks
16 12 (2.21%) Tenable
17 11 (2.03%) Blue Coat
17 11 (2.03%) CrowdStrike