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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 165 149 180
Rank change year-on-year -16 +31 -11
Contract jobs citing Network Security 761 525 459
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.67% 1.89% 1.38%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.73% 15.52% 11.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 518 311 317
10th Percentile £400 £375 £363
25th Percentile £463 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £613 £669
90th Percentile £736 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 17 6
10th Percentile £26.00 £45.00 £20.75
25th Percentile £42.13 £55.00 £29.75
Median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% +30.53% -22.94%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.00 £58.75
90th Percentile - £91.00 £88.81
UK median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £50.00
% change year-on-year +4.05% +40.32% -24.24%

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 4,293 3,382 4,094
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.40% 12.19% 12.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,585 2,097 2,490
10th Percentile £263 £250 £243
25th Percentile £400 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £492 £505
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% -2.57% +1.00%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £614
90th Percentile £680 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £483 £500
% change year-on-year +3.52% -3.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 344 168 266
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £25.15 £21.37
Median hourly rate £28.52 £43.00 £55.75
Median % change year-on-year -33.67% -22.86% -1.32%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £84.30 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.14 £46.25 £50.00
% change year-on-year -43.48% -7.50% -10.56%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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 24 August 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 -5 333 £550 - 81
North of England +16 201 £530 +8.67% 32
North West -3 116 £537 +13.05% 21
South East -33 105 £557 +13.67% 68
Yorkshire +18 82 £500 +1.63% 9
Midlands -53 48 £500 -4.76% 28
East of England -11 39 £525 -2.78% 19
West Midlands -68 29 £413 -21.43% 18
East Midlands +3 18 £638 - 10
South West -61 15 £563 -12.11% 23
North East -38 2 £675 +8.00% 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 17 (2.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (1.58%) Confluence
2 12 (1.58%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.39%) Apache
4 2 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.13%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 20 (2.63%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.79%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.13%) InfoPath
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.79%) Oracle ERP
1 6 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 274 (36.01%) Azure
2 183 (24.05%) AWS
3 99 (13.01%) GCP
4 82 (10.78%) Entra ID
5 42 (5.52%) Microsoft 365
6 36 (4.73%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (3.81%) Azure Monitor
7 29 (3.81%) GitHub
8 27 (3.55%) SaaS
9 26 (3.42%) Serverless
10 24 (3.15%) Azure Sentinel
11 20 (2.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 19 (2.50%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 18 (2.37%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 17 (2.23%) GitHub Actions
15 16 (2.10%) OCI
16 15 (1.97%) Azure AKS
17 14 (1.84%) Amazon EKS
18 13 (1.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 13 (1.71%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 354 (46.52%) Firewall
2 172 (22.60%) VPN
3 164 (21.55%) WAN
4 124 (16.29%) DNS
5 109 (14.32%) LAN
6 92 (12.09%) Wireless
7 88 (11.56%) TCP/IP
8 83 (10.91%) BGP
9 70 (9.20%) DHCP
10 69 (9.07%) SD-WAN
11 68 (8.94%) VLAN
12 63 (8.28%) OSPF
13 42 (5.52%) Cisco ISE
13 42 (5.52%) SSL
14 41 (5.39%) MPLS
15 37 (4.86%) IPsec
15 37 (4.86%) Wi-Fi
16 35 (4.60%) Cisco ASA
17 30 (3.94%) NGFW
18 29 (3.81%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.71%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
3 5 (0.66%) BigQuery
4 4 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
4 4 (0.53%) Neo4j
4 4 (0.53%) Power BI
5 3 (0.39%) Data Lake
5 3 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.26%) Delta Lake
7 1 (0.13%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.13%) InfluxDB
7 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.13%) Qlik Sense
7 1 (0.13%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.13%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.13%) Star Schema
7 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 36 (4.73%) Git
2 32 (4.20%) JIRA
3 28 (3.68%) GitLab
4 22 (2.89%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.92%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.79%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.53%) MSBuild
7 4 (0.53%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.53%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.39%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.26%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.13%) Postman
10 1 (0.13%) Snyk
10 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 194 (25.49%) Social Skills
2 137 (18.00%) Finance
3 73 (9.59%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (7.88%) Banking
5 46 (6.04%) Public Sector
6 31 (4.07%) Documentation Skills
7 19 (2.50%) Financial Institution
8 18 (2.37%) Legal
8 18 (2.37%) Telecoms
9 14 (1.84%) Retail
10 12 (1.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 12 (1.58%) Manufacturing
11 11 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
12 9 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
13 8 (1.05%) Police
14 6 (0.79%) Automotive
14 6 (0.79%) Local Government
15 5 (0.66%) Front Office
15 5 (0.66%) Law
15 5 (0.66%) Military
Job Titles
1 208 (27.33%) Network Engineer
2 140 (18.40%) Architect
3 99 (13.01%) Senior
4 92 (12.09%) Security Engineer
5 69 (9.07%) Security Architect
6 52 (6.83%) Network Architect
6 52 (6.83%) Network Security Engineer
7 48 (6.31%) Consultant
8 46 (6.04%) Senior Network Engineer
9 41 (5.39%) Project Manager
10 39 (5.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 36 (4.73%) Cloud Engineer
11 36 (4.73%) Lead
12 24 (3.15%) Analyst
13 22 (2.89%) Network Manager
13 22 (2.89%) Security Consultant
14 18 (2.37%) Azure Engineer
14 18 (2.37%) Network Security Architect
14 18 (2.37%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 18 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (14.32%) Terraform
2 35 (4.60%) 802.1X
3 14 (1.84%) REST
4 13 (1.71%) ARM Templates
4 13 (1.71%) SAML
5 9 (1.18%) Kafka
6 6 (0.79%) NETCONF
7 5 (0.66%) .NET
7 5 (0.66%) JSON
7 5 (0.66%) OpenID
8 4 (0.53%) Azure Blueprints
8 4 (0.53%) CSS
8 4 (0.53%) gRPC
8 4 (0.53%) Keycloak
8 4 (0.53%) OAuth
8 4 (0.53%) Protocol Buffers
8 4 (0.53%) RESTful
8 4 (0.53%) SLSA
8 4 (0.53%) XML
9 3 (0.39%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 85 (11.17%) Data Centre
2 71 (9.33%) Security Posture
3 49 (6.44%) Cloud Native
4 42 (5.52%) Hybrid Cloud
5 34 (4.47%) Management Information System
5 34 (4.47%) Onboarding
6 32 (4.20%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 25 (3.29%) Cyber Threat
7 25 (3.29%) Operational Technology
8 22 (2.89%) PKI
9 18 (2.37%) Public Cloud
9 18 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
10 17 (2.23%) Cloud Security Posture
10 17 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
10 17 (2.23%) Security Operations Centre
11 13 (1.71%) Linux Command Line
11 13 (1.71%) Product Ownership
12 12 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
13 9 (1.18%) Enterprise Cloud
13 9 (1.18%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 75 (9.86%) Windows
2 65 (8.54%) Linux
3 27 (3.55%) Windows Server
4 14 (1.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.05%) Windows 10
6 7 (0.92%) Unix
7 6 (0.79%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.79%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.39%) Check Point GAiA
8 3 (0.39%) SUSE
8 3 (0.39%) VMS
9 2 (0.26%) Android
9 2 (0.26%) zOS
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.13%) Rocky
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (20.63%) Cybersecurity
2 152 (19.97%) Cloud Security
3 122 (16.03%) Zero Trust
4 117 (15.37%) Stakeholder Management
5 116 (15.24%) CI/CD
6 112 (14.72%) Continuous Improvement
7 106 (13.93%) Infrastructure as Code
8 102 (13.40%) DevOps
9 100 (13.14%) Change Management
10 97 (12.75%) Migration
11 96 (12.61%) SIEM
12 91 (11.96%) Incident Response
13 87 (11.43%) Problem-Solving
14 81 (10.64%) ITIL
14 81 (10.64%) Security Architecture
14 81 (10.64%) Security Operations
15 80 (10.51%) Identity Access Management
16 79 (10.38%) Data Protection
17 76 (9.99%) DevSecOps
17 76 (9.99%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 115 (15.11%) Python
2 75 (9.86%) PowerShell
3 61 (8.02%) Bash
4 34 (4.47%) Bicep
5 27 (3.55%) SQL
6 9 (1.18%) Go
6 9 (1.18%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.05%) Java
8 7 (0.92%) Search Processing Language
8 7 (0.92%) Shell Script
9 6 (0.79%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.53%) Rust
11 3 (0.39%) Perl
11 3 (0.39%) VBScript
12 2 (0.26%) Ruby
13 1 (0.13%) C
Qualifications
1 197 (25.89%) Security Cleared
2 142 (18.66%) Cisco Certification
3 137 (18.00%) SC Cleared
4 92 (12.09%) CISSP
5 87 (11.43%) CCNP
6 67 (8.80%) Degree
7 64 (8.41%) DV Cleared
8 50 (6.57%) CCNA
9 46 (6.04%) CISM
10 39 (5.12%) CCSP
11 37 (4.86%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 34 (4.47%) Azure Certification
13 23 (3.02%) AWS Certification
14 21 (2.76%) CCIE
15 16 (2.10%) Computer Science Degree
16 10 (1.31%) PMP
17 9 (1.18%) CompTIA Security+
17 9 (1.18%) GIAC
17 9 (1.18%) JNCIS
18 8 (1.05%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (8.41%) NIST
2 63 (8.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 37 (4.86%) GDPR
4 27 (3.55%) NCSC
5 26 (3.42%) PCI DSS
6 15 (1.97%) GRC
7 13 (1.71%) SLA
8 11 (1.45%) QA
9 10 (1.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 9 (1.18%) Cyber Essentials
11 8 (1.05%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 5 (0.66%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 3 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
14 3 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 3 (0.39%) ISA99
15 2 (0.26%) JSP 440
15 2 (0.26%) PMO
System Software
1 75 (9.86%) Active Directory
2 56 (7.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (3.29%) Docker
4 20 (2.63%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (2.50%) VMware NSX
6 12 (1.58%) Hyper-V
7 11 (1.45%) vSphere
8 8 (1.05%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (1.05%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.79%) Firmware
10 5 (0.66%) Squid
11 3 (0.39%) NFS
12 2 (0.26%) FreeRADIUS
12 2 (0.26%) Postfix
12 2 (0.26%) Sendmail
12 2 (0.26%) Varnish
12 2 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.13%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.13%) Samba
Systems Management
1 81 (10.64%) Ansible
2 67 (8.80%) Kubernetes
3 42 (5.52%) FortiGate
4 23 (3.02%) Microsoft Intune
5 20 (2.63%) Grafana
6 16 (2.10%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (1.58%) CASB
7 12 (1.58%) Progress Chef
7 12 (1.58%) SCCM
8 11 (1.45%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.92%) Puppet
9 7 (0.92%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.79%) Cisco CUCM
10 6 (0.79%) QRadar
11 5 (0.66%) Suricata
11 5 (0.66%) WSUS
12 4 (0.53%) Cisco Prime
12 4 (0.53%) Kustomize
12 4 (0.53%) Podman
12 4 (0.53%) systemd
Vendors
1 219 (28.78%) Cisco
2 148 (19.45%) Microsoft
3 124 (16.29%) Palo Alto
4 72 (9.46%) Fortinet
5 71 (9.33%) VMware
6 61 (8.02%) F5
7 52 (6.83%) Zscaler
8 48 (6.31%) CheckPoint
9 41 (5.39%) Juniper
10 31 (4.07%) ServiceNow
10 31 (4.07%) Splunk
11 27 (3.55%) SolarWinds
12 26 (3.42%) Google
13 20 (2.63%) Citrix
14 19 (2.50%) Aruba
15 14 (1.84%) ForeScout
15 14 (1.84%) Meraki
16 13 (1.71%) Infoblox
16 13 (1.71%) Tenable
17 12 (1.58%) CyberArk