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

6 months to
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 149 187
Rank change year-on-year -5 +38 -9
Contract jobs citing Network Security 735 467 480
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.72% 1.89% 1.28%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 18.18% 14.72% 9.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 514 288 332
10th Percentile £399 £375 £363
25th Percentile £446 £461 £462
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £528 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% -4.09% -2.65%
75th Percentile £624 £625 £672
90th Percentile £722 £725 £774
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 8 16
10th Percentile £26.80 £77.28 -
25th Percentile £38.94 £80.34 £7.43
Median hourly rate £67.50 £81.35 £16.25
Median % change year-on-year -17.03% +400.62% -68.83%
75th Percentile £74.00 £82.58 £41.25
90th Percentile - £88.80 -
UK median hourly rate £67.50 £81.35 £21.00
% change year-on-year -17.03% +287.38% -61.82%

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 4,043 3,172 4,828
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.46% 12.86% 12.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,507 1,978 2,874
10th Percentile £263 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -3.85%
75th Percentile £590 £600 £605
90th Percentile £675 £675 £689
UK median daily rate £500 £485 £495
% change year-on-year +3.09% -2.02% -3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 127 391
10th Percentile £16.50 £14.49 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.33 £16.30 £17.69
Median hourly rate £30.77 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.95% -6.25% +116.22%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.00 £81.65 £72.90
UK median hourly rate £27.69 £41.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -33.28% +3.75% +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 14 June 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 June 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 June 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 +4 328 £550 -4.35% 69
North of England +5 166 £500 - 57
South East -31 98 £523 +6.63% 57
North West +1 90 £500 -0.99% 43
Yorkshire -5 74 £500 +2.04% 13
Midlands -49 48 £449 -22.84% 24
East of England -21 33 £525 -8.70% 12
South West -21 32 £550 -4.35% 25
West Midlands -61 29 £420 -27.74% 13
East Midlands -9 18 £638 - 11
North East -32 2 £675 +8.00% 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 17 (2.31%) Confluence
2 13 (1.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.09%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.27%) Apache
5 1 (0.14%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 15 (2.04%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.50%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.41%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.14%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 219 (29.80%) Azure
2 163 (22.18%) AWS
3 96 (13.06%) GCP
4 66 (8.98%) Entra ID
5 26 (3.54%) GitHub
6 23 (3.13%) Azure Sentinel
7 22 (2.99%) Azure DevOps
7 22 (2.99%) GitHub Actions
8 21 (2.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 19 (2.59%) Microsoft 365
9 19 (2.59%) Serverless
10 17 (2.31%) Azure Key Vault
10 17 (2.31%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 17 (2.31%) SaaS
11 15 (2.04%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 14 (1.90%) Akamai
13 13 (1.77%) Amazon EKS
13 13 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
14 12 (1.63%) Azure AKS
14 12 (1.63%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 337 (45.85%) Firewall
2 137 (18.64%) VPN
3 133 (18.10%) WAN
4 99 (13.47%) LAN
5 90 (12.24%) DNS
6 87 (11.84%) BGP
7 73 (9.93%) OSPF
8 72 (9.80%) VLAN
9 69 (9.39%) Wireless
10 68 (9.25%) SD-WAN
11 58 (7.89%) TCP/IP
12 46 (6.26%) MPLS
13 44 (5.99%) DHCP
14 38 (5.17%) Cisco ISE
14 38 (5.17%) SSL
15 32 (4.35%) IPsec
16 31 (4.22%) Cisco ASA
17 28 (3.81%) HTTP
17 28 (3.81%) NGFW
18 27 (3.67%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.68%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.54%) Neo4j
3 4 (0.54%) Power BI
4 3 (0.41%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.41%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.27%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.14%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.14%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.14%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.14%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.14%) InfluxDB
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.14%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.14%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.14%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 34 (4.63%) JIRA
2 21 (2.86%) GitLab
3 20 (2.72%) Git
4 17 (2.31%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.68%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.54%) Snyk
6 4 (0.54%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.41%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.14%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.14%) Postman
8 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
General
1 163 (22.18%) Social Skills
2 120 (16.33%) Finance
3 56 (7.62%) Analytical Skills
4 54 (7.35%) Public Sector
5 47 (6.39%) Banking
6 29 (3.95%) Documentation Skills
7 21 (2.86%) Financial Institution
7 21 (2.86%) Telecoms
8 11 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 11 (1.50%) Legal
8 11 (1.50%) Retail
9 8 (1.09%) Police
10 7 (0.95%) Local Government
11 6 (0.82%) Law
11 6 (0.82%) Manufacturing
11 6 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.68%) Military
13 3 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.27%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 181 (24.63%) Network Engineer
2 161 (21.90%) Architect
3 99 (13.47%) Security Engineer
4 76 (10.34%) Security Architect
5 71 (9.66%) Senior
6 55 (7.48%) Network Architect
7 51 (6.94%) Network Security Engineer
8 37 (5.03%) Project Manager
9 33 (4.49%) Consultant
10 29 (3.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 27 (3.67%) Lead
12 25 (3.40%) Cloud Engineer
12 25 (3.40%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 23 (3.13%) Network Security Architect
14 21 (2.86%) Network Manager
14 21 (2.86%) Senior Network Engineer
15 20 (2.72%) Cloud Architect
15 20 (2.72%) Senior Architect
15 20 (2.72%) Solutions Architect
16 18 (2.45%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (4.76%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.77%) SAML
3 9 (1.22%) Kafka
3 9 (1.22%) REST
4 8 (1.09%) LDAP
5 7 (0.95%) CSS
5 7 (0.95%) OAuth
6 6 (0.82%) ARM Templates
6 6 (0.82%) HTML
6 6 (0.82%) OpenID
7 5 (0.68%) OAuth2
8 4 (0.54%) gRPC
8 4 (0.54%) Keycloak
8 4 (0.54%) Protocol Buffers
8 4 (0.54%) RESTful
9 3 (0.41%) Lambda Expressions
9 3 (0.41%) Plotly
9 3 (0.41%) SailPoint
9 3 (0.41%) SLSA
10 2 (0.27%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 95 (12.93%) Data Centre
2 53 (7.21%) Security Posture
3 44 (5.99%) Cloud Native
4 39 (5.31%) Hybrid Cloud
5 29 (3.95%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 28 (3.81%) PKI
7 26 (3.54%) Onboarding
8 21 (2.86%) Operational Technology
8 21 (2.86%) Public Cloud
9 19 (2.59%) Product Ownership
10 18 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
11 17 (2.31%) Cyber Threat
11 17 (2.31%) IoT
12 14 (1.90%) Management Information System
12 14 (1.90%) Security Operations Centre
13 12 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
14 9 (1.22%) Replication
15 8 (1.09%) Enterprise Cloud
15 8 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
15 8 (1.09%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 59 (8.03%) Linux
2 57 (7.76%) Windows
3 24 (3.27%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (0.95%) VMS
6 6 (0.82%) Ubuntu
6 6 (0.82%) Unix
7 5 (0.68%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.54%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.41%) SUSE
10 2 (0.27%) Android
11 1 (0.14%) Check Point GAiA
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 153 (20.82%) Cybersecurity
2 124 (16.87%) Cloud Security
3 123 (16.73%) Zero Trust
4 105 (14.29%) CI/CD
5 102 (13.88%) Security Architecture
6 99 (13.47%) DevOps
6 99 (13.47%) Migration
7 95 (12.93%) SIEM
8 93 (12.65%) Infrastructure as Code
9 87 (11.84%) Continuous Improvement
10 75 (10.20%) Network Segmentation
11 74 (10.07%) Application Security
12 73 (9.93%) Problem-Solving
12 73 (9.93%) Stakeholder Management
13 70 (9.52%) High Availability
14 69 (9.39%) Agile
15 67 (9.12%) Data Protection
15 67 (9.12%) Threat Modelling
16 65 (8.84%) Identity Access Management
17 64 (8.71%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 83 (11.29%) Python
2 40 (5.44%) PowerShell
3 31 (4.22%) Bash
4 22 (2.99%) Bicep
5 19 (2.59%) JavaScript
6 18 (2.45%) SQL
7 8 (1.09%) Shell Script
8 6 (0.82%) Java
9 4 (0.54%) C
9 4 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (0.54%) PHP
9 4 (0.54%) Rust
10 3 (0.41%) C++
11 2 (0.27%) Perl
11 2 (0.27%) Ruby
12 1 (0.14%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.14%) Search Processing Language
12 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 223 (30.34%) Security Cleared
2 163 (22.18%) SC Cleared
3 136 (18.50%) Cisco Certification
4 86 (11.70%) CCNP
5 81 (11.02%) CISSP
6 71 (9.66%) DV Cleared
7 55 (7.48%) CCNA
8 54 (7.35%) Degree
9 48 (6.53%) CISM
10 33 (4.49%) CCSP
11 32 (4.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 27 (3.67%) Azure Certification
13 18 (2.45%) AWS Certification
14 17 (2.31%) CCIE
15 14 (1.90%) CompTIA Security+
16 12 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
16 12 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (1.63%) GIAC
17 9 (1.22%) JNCIS
18 8 (1.09%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (10.48%) NIST
2 59 (8.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 32 (4.35%) GDPR
4 26 (3.54%) PCI DSS
5 20 (2.72%) NCSC
6 18 (2.45%) GRC
7 16 (2.18%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (1.50%) QA
9 9 (1.22%) SLA
10 8 (1.09%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (1.09%) SOC 2
11 6 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.68%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.54%) PMO
13 4 (0.54%) RMADS
14 3 (0.41%) ISA99
14 3 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 2 (0.27%) JSP 440
System Software
1 55 (7.48%) Active Directory
2 51 (6.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (2.86%) Virtual Machines
4 20 (2.72%) Docker
4 20 (2.72%) VMware NSX
5 11 (1.50%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (1.09%) Hyper-V
6 8 (1.09%) vSphere
7 5 (0.68%) Firmware
7 5 (0.68%) Squid
8 4 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.27%) NFS
9 2 (0.27%) Postfix
9 2 (0.27%) Sendmail
9 2 (0.27%) Varnish
9 2 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.14%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 101 (13.74%) Terraform
2 63 (8.57%) Ansible
2 63 (8.57%) Kubernetes
3 38 (5.17%) FortiGate
4 17 (2.31%) Grafana
5 16 (2.18%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (1.50%) vCenter Server
7 10 (1.36%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (1.22%) Prometheus
9 6 (0.82%) QRadar
10 5 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.68%) CASB
10 5 (0.68%) Puppet
10 5 (0.68%) Suricata
10 5 (0.68%) WSUS
11 4 (0.54%) Istio
11 4 (0.54%) Kustomize
11 4 (0.54%) Podman
12 3 (0.41%) Microsoft Clustering
12 3 (0.41%) VxRail
Vendors
1 213 (28.98%) Cisco
2 119 (16.19%) Palo Alto
3 107 (14.56%) Microsoft
4 63 (8.57%) VMware
5 62 (8.44%) F5
6 59 (8.03%) Fortinet
7 50 (6.80%) CheckPoint
8 47 (6.39%) Zscaler
9 45 (6.12%) Juniper
10 34 (4.63%) ServiceNow
11 28 (3.81%) Splunk
12 20 (2.72%) Aruba
12 20 (2.72%) Citrix
12 20 (2.72%) Google
13 19 (2.59%) SolarWinds
14 18 (2.45%) ForeScout
15 14 (1.90%) Tenable
16 11 (1.50%) CyberArk
16 11 (1.50%) Meraki
16 11 (1.50%) Okta