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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 176 159 159
Rank change year-on-year -17 0 +12
Contract jobs citing Network Security 754 489 506
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.62% 1.75% 1.55%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.37% 14.91% 12.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 288 331
10th Percentile £400 £379 £363
25th Percentile £460 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £533 £538
Median % change year-on-year +3.29% -0.93% -2.27%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £741 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £534 £536
% change year-on-year +3.09% -0.51% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 14 7
10th Percentile £27.00 £45.00 £28.40
25th Percentile £67.81 £55.00 £38.75
Median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% +40.32% -29.58%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.09 £58.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £95.50 £82.79
UK median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £45.00
% change year-on-year +4.05% +55.91% -33.09%

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 4,340 3,280 3,987
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.32% 11.74% 12.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,560 2,064 2,307
10th Percentile £250 £225 £243
25th Percentile £400 £363 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £610
90th Percentile £688 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 384 168 192
10th Percentile £16.02 £15.50 £15.33
25th Percentile £21.33 £24.75 £23.80
Median hourly rate £44.25 £39.66 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +11.57% -30.85% +1.52%
75th Percentile £69.63 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £92.38 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £33.00 £42.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -22.35% -15.00% -11.49%

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 26 September 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 26 September 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 26 September 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 -8 326 £550 - 371
North of England +13 203 £540 +10.32% 91
North West -2 108 £537 +13.05% 55
Yorkshire +15 90 £540 +8.87% 27
South East -43 89 £559 +24.26% 128
Midlands -61 50 £450 -14.29% 56
East of England -12 42 £525 +10.53% 38
West Midlands -69 37 £450 -14.29% 41
South West -47 24 £675 +5.47% 44
East Midlands -6 13 £500 - 15
North East - 4 £680 - 9
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 20 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
2 16 (2.12%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.46%) Confluence
4 4 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.40%) Apache
6 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.13%) CMS
6 1 (0.13%) IIS
6 1 (0.13%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 17 (2.25%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.80%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.13%) InfoPath
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.80%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 258 (34.22%) Azure
2 175 (23.21%) AWS
3 93 (12.33%) GCP
4 89 (11.80%) Entra ID
5 50 (6.63%) Microsoft 365
6 37 (4.91%) GitHub
7 36 (4.77%) Azure DevOps
8 30 (3.98%) Azure Monitor
9 27 (3.58%) Serverless
10 23 (3.05%) SaaS
11 21 (2.79%) Azure Sentinel
12 17 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
12 17 (2.25%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 16 (2.12%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 15 (1.99%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 15 (1.99%) Amazon EKS
14 15 (1.99%) Azure AKS
14 15 (1.99%) OCI
15 14 (1.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 13 (1.72%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 352 (46.68%) Firewall
2 176 (23.34%) VPN
3 166 (22.02%) WAN
4 128 (16.98%) DNS
5 111 (14.72%) LAN
6 92 (12.20%) Wireless
7 86 (11.41%) TCP/IP
8 83 (11.01%) BGP
9 71 (9.42%) DHCP
10 63 (8.36%) SD-WAN
10 63 (8.36%) VLAN
11 56 (7.43%) OSPF
12 55 (7.29%) SSL
13 42 (5.57%) MPLS
14 38 (5.04%) Cisco ISE
15 35 (4.64%) IPsec
16 34 (4.51%) Cisco ASA
17 33 (4.38%) Wi-Fi
18 28 (3.71%) Internet
19 27 (3.58%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (1.59%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.80%) BigQuery
3 4 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.53%) Neo4j
4 3 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.27%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.27%) Delta Lake
5 2 (0.27%) Power BI
6 1 (0.13%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.13%) Metadata
6 1 (0.13%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.13%) Qlik Sense
6 1 (0.13%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.13%) Star Schema
6 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 37 (4.91%) Git
2 29 (3.85%) GitLab
3 24 (3.18%) Jenkins
3 24 (3.18%) JIRA
4 6 (0.80%) Sonatype Nexus
5 4 (0.53%) MSBuild
5 4 (0.53%) SonarQube
5 4 (0.53%) Visual Studio
6 3 (0.40%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
7 2 (0.27%) Claude Code
7 2 (0.27%) IBM UrbanCode
8 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.13%) Postman
8 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 216 (28.65%) Social Skills
2 142 (18.83%) Finance
3 82 (10.88%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (8.49%) Banking
5 38 (5.04%) Public Sector
6 32 (4.24%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (2.92%) Legal
8 21 (2.79%) Telecoms
9 18 (2.39%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.86%) Retail
12 13 (1.72%) Manufacturing
13 11 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
15 8 (1.06%) Local Government
16 6 (0.80%) Automotive
16 6 (0.80%) Law
16 6 (0.80%) Military
16 6 (0.80%) Police
Job Titles
1 212 (28.12%) Network Engineer
2 128 (16.98%) Architect
3 111 (14.72%) Security Engineer
4 93 (12.33%) Senior
5 67 (8.89%) Security Architect
6 66 (8.75%) Network Security Engineer
7 58 (7.69%) Consultant
8 49 (6.50%) Network Architect
9 42 (5.57%) Project Manager
9 42 (5.57%) Senior Network Engineer
10 41 (5.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 40 (5.31%) Cloud Engineer
12 31 (4.11%) Lead
13 29 (3.85%) Security Consultant
14 24 (3.18%) Network Security Architect
14 24 (3.18%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 22 (2.92%) Analyst
15 22 (2.92%) Network Manager
16 21 (2.79%) DevSecOps Consultant
17 20 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (16.18%) Terraform
2 35 (4.64%) 802.1X
3 21 (2.79%) REST
4 15 (1.99%) SAML
5 14 (1.86%) ARM Templates
6 11 (1.46%) Kafka
7 8 (1.06%) NETCONF
8 7 (0.93%) JSON
9 6 (0.80%) gRPC
9 6 (0.80%) Keycloak
9 6 (0.80%) LDAP
9 6 (0.80%) OpenID
10 5 (0.66%) Azure Blueprints
10 5 (0.66%) OAuth
10 5 (0.66%) SLSA
10 5 (0.66%) Software Packaging
10 5 (0.66%) YAML
11 4 (0.53%) .NET
11 4 (0.53%) CSS
11 4 (0.53%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 96 (12.73%) Data Centre
2 76 (10.08%) Security Posture
3 44 (5.84%) Cloud Native
3 44 (5.84%) Onboarding
4 38 (5.04%) Hybrid Cloud
5 37 (4.91%) Management Information System
6 32 (4.24%) Cyber Threat
6 32 (4.24%) Operational Technology
7 26 (3.45%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 24 (3.18%) PKI
9 22 (2.92%) Self-Motivation
10 20 (2.65%) Cloud Security Posture
11 18 (2.39%) Security Operations Centre
12 16 (2.12%) Public Cloud
13 15 (1.99%) Data Protection Act
14 13 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
15 9 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
15 9 (1.19%) Replication
15 9 (1.19%) SCADA
15 9 (1.19%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 92 (12.20%) Windows
2 76 (10.08%) Linux
3 43 (5.70%) Windows Server
4 17 (2.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (1.59%) Unix
6 9 (1.19%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.80%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.66%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.40%) Check Point GAiA
10 2 (0.27%) Android
10 2 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.27%) zOS
11 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.13%) Rocky
11 1 (0.13%) SUSE
11 1 (0.13%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (21.75%) Cybersecurity
2 152 (20.16%) Cloud Security
3 135 (17.90%) Stakeholder Management
4 127 (16.84%) CI/CD
5 122 (16.18%) Zero Trust
6 115 (15.25%) Continuous Improvement
7 111 (14.72%) Infrastructure as Code
8 108 (14.32%) Incident Response
9 106 (14.06%) DevOps
9 106 (14.06%) Migration
9 106 (14.06%) SIEM
10 100 (13.26%) Change Management
11 96 (12.73%) Problem-Solving
12 88 (11.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 88 (11.67%) Security Architecture
13 82 (10.88%) Identity Access Management
14 78 (10.34%) Data Protection
14 78 (10.34%) Security Operations
14 78 (10.34%) Vulnerability Management
15 77 (10.21%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 142 (18.83%) Python
2 84 (11.14%) PowerShell
3 69 (9.15%) Bash
4 32 (4.24%) Bicep
5 22 (2.92%) SQL
6 13 (1.72%) Go
7 10 (1.33%) Java
8 7 (0.93%) Search Processing Language
9 6 (0.80%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.53%) ActionScript
11 4 (0.53%) Rust
12 3 (0.40%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.40%) Perl
12 3 (0.40%) VBScript
13 1 (0.13%) Ruby
13 1 (0.13%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 219 (29.05%) Security Cleared
2 154 (20.42%) Cisco Certification
2 154 (20.42%) SC Cleared
3 99 (13.13%) CISSP
4 86 (11.41%) CCNP
5 72 (9.55%) DV Cleared
6 61 (8.09%) Degree
7 49 (6.50%) CCSP
8 46 (6.10%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 43 (5.70%) CCNA
9 43 (5.70%) CISM
10 31 (4.11%) CCIE
11 27 (3.58%) Azure Certification
12 24 (3.18%) AWS Certification
13 16 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
14 12 (1.59%) PMP
15 11 (1.46%) GIAC
15 11 (1.46%) PMI Certification
16 10 (1.33%) JNCIP
16 10 (1.33%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (8.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 60 (7.96%) NIST
3 27 (3.58%) GDPR
4 26 (3.45%) NCSC
5 25 (3.32%) PCI DSS
6 13 (1.72%) Cyber Essentials
6 13 (1.72%) GRC
7 11 (1.46%) NIST 800
8 8 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 7 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 7 (0.93%) SLA
10 6 (0.80%) QA
11 4 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 3 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.40%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.27%) Data Quality
13 2 (0.27%) JSP 440
14 1 (0.13%) Government Security Classifications
14 1 (0.13%) GxP
14 1 (0.13%) PMO
System Software
1 83 (11.01%) Active Directory
2 56 (7.43%) VMware Infrastructure
3 29 (3.85%) Docker
4 16 (2.12%) Virtual Machines
4 16 (2.12%) VMware NSX
5 11 (1.46%) vSphere
6 10 (1.33%) Hyper-V
7 8 (1.06%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (1.06%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.66%) Squid
8 5 (0.66%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.53%) FreeRADIUS
10 2 (0.27%) Firmware
10 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 2 (0.27%) NFS
10 2 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.13%) OpenSSH
11 1 (0.13%) Postfix
11 1 (0.13%) Samba
11 1 (0.13%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 91 (12.07%) Ansible
2 73 (9.68%) Kubernetes
3 44 (5.84%) FortiGate
4 27 (3.58%) Microsoft Intune
5 23 (3.05%) Grafana
6 16 (2.12%) Progress Chef
7 15 (1.99%) Prometheus
8 13 (1.72%) SCCM
9 12 (1.59%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (1.33%) CASB
11 8 (1.06%) Nagios
11 8 (1.06%) QRadar
12 7 (0.93%) Cisco CUCM
12 7 (0.93%) Puppet
13 5 (0.66%) Suricata
13 5 (0.66%) WSUS
14 4 (0.53%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.53%) Podman
14 4 (0.53%) systemd
14 4 (0.53%) VxRail
Vendors
1 228 (30.24%) Cisco
2 152 (20.16%) Microsoft
3 141 (18.70%) Palo Alto
4 80 (10.61%) Fortinet
5 70 (9.28%) VMware
6 65 (8.62%) F5
7 62 (8.22%) Zscaler
8 49 (6.50%) CheckPoint
9 44 (5.84%) Juniper
10 33 (4.38%) SolarWinds
11 28 (3.71%) Google
11 28 (3.71%) Splunk
12 22 (2.92%) Aruba
13 21 (2.79%) ServiceNow
14 18 (2.39%) Citrix
15 15 (1.99%) Meraki
16 14 (1.86%) Blue Coat
17 13 (1.72%) Tenable
18 12 (1.59%) AlgoSec
19 10 (1.33%) CyberArk