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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 153 152 184
Rank change year-on-year -1 +32 -18
Contract jobs citing Network Security 761 467 488
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.75% 1.85% 1.31%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 18.55% 14.48% 10.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 533 288 331
10th Percentile £400 £379 £363
25th Percentile £447 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.14% -4.55% -2.22%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £669
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +0.05% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 9 16
10th Percentile £21.25 £70.16 -
25th Percentile £33.81 £80.34 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.35 £16.25
Median % change year-on-year -20.10% +400.62% -68.83%
75th Percentile £74.00 £82.10 £41.25
90th Percentile - £87.20 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £81.01 £21.00
% change year-on-year -19.77% +285.77% -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 4,103 3,225 4,810
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.44% 12.76% 12.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,543 1,992 2,860
10th Percentile £250 £235 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £494 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.21% -1.20% -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 283 137 393
10th Percentile £16.04 £14.69 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.25 £19.46 £17.69
Median hourly rate £28.88 £40.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -27.80% -12.82% +121.59%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £81.35 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £27.69 £43.75 £45.00
% change year-on-year -36.71% -2.78% +114.29%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +6 330 £550 -4.35% 56
North of England +15 183 £525 +6.71% 40
South East -21 107 £525 +7.14% 60
North West -6 97 £525 +7.47% 28
Yorkshire +15 84 £500 +1.83% 11
Midlands -49 54 £475 -17.39% 22
West Midlands -68 33 £420 -26.96% 10
East of England -15 32 £525 -0.94% 18
South West -35 30 £550 -8.33% 20
East Midlands +4 20 £569 - 12
North East -35 2 £675 +8.00% 1
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%) Confluence
2 13 (1.71%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.18%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.26%) Apache
5 1 (0.13%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 17 (2.23%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.45%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.13%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.66%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 226 (29.70%) Azure
2 173 (22.73%) AWS
3 104 (13.67%) GCP
4 70 (9.20%) Entra ID
5 28 (3.68%) GitHub
6 25 (3.29%) Azure Sentinel
7 24 (3.15%) Azure DevOps
8 23 (3.02%) GitHub Actions
9 22 (2.89%) Microsoft 365
9 22 (2.89%) Serverless
10 21 (2.76%) SaaS
10 21 (2.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 17 (2.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 16 (2.10%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 16 (2.10%) Azure Key Vault
13 14 (1.84%) Akamai
13 14 (1.84%) AWS CloudFormation
13 14 (1.84%) Azure AKS
13 14 (1.84%) Azure Monitor
13 14 (1.84%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 345 (45.34%) Firewall
2 156 (20.50%) VPN
3 145 (19.05%) WAN
4 105 (13.80%) LAN
5 103 (13.53%) DNS
6 91 (11.96%) BGP
7 80 (10.51%) Wireless
8 72 (9.46%) OSPF
8 72 (9.46%) SD-WAN
9 69 (9.07%) TCP/IP
10 68 (8.94%) VLAN
11 49 (6.44%) DHCP
12 47 (6.18%) MPLS
13 39 (5.12%) SSL
14 37 (4.86%) Cisco ISE
15 33 (4.34%) IPsec
16 31 (4.07%) Cisco ASA
17 30 (3.94%) Internet
17 30 (3.94%) NGFW
18 28 (3.68%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
1 7 (0.92%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
2 4 (0.53%) Data Lake
2 4 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
2 4 (0.53%) Neo4j
2 4 (0.53%) Power BI
3 3 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.26%) Oracle Database
5 1 (0.13%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.13%) Data Mining
5 1 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.13%) Delta Lake
5 1 (0.13%) InfluxDB
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (0.13%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.13%) Snowflake Schema
5 1 (0.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.13%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 37 (4.86%) JIRA
2 23 (3.02%) Git
3 21 (2.76%) GitLab
4 17 (2.23%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.66%) Browser DevTools
5 5 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.53%) Snyk
6 4 (0.53%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.39%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.26%) MSBuild
8 2 (0.26%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.13%) Postman
9 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
General
1 181 (23.78%) Social Skills
2 131 (17.21%) Finance
3 62 (8.15%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (7.49%) Public Sector
5 54 (7.10%) Banking
6 30 (3.94%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.15%) Financial Institution
8 20 (2.63%) Telecoms
9 12 (1.58%) Retail
10 11 (1.45%) Legal
11 10 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 9 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
12 9 (1.18%) Police
13 8 (1.05%) Organisational Skills
14 7 (0.92%) Local Government
14 7 (0.92%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.79%) Law
16 5 (0.66%) Military
17 3 (0.39%) Presentation Skills
18 2 (0.26%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 191 (25.10%) Network Engineer
2 169 (22.21%) Architect
3 103 (13.53%) Security Engineer
4 77 (10.12%) Security Architect
4 77 (10.12%) Senior
5 60 (7.88%) Network Architect
6 56 (7.36%) Network Security Engineer
7 38 (4.99%) Project Manager
8 37 (4.86%) Consultant
9 31 (4.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 29 (3.81%) Lead
11 27 (3.55%) Cloud Engineer
12 23 (3.02%) Network Security Architect
12 23 (3.02%) Senior Network Engineer
13 22 (2.89%) Network Manager
13 22 (2.89%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 22 (2.89%) Solutions Architect
14 21 (2.76%) Senior Architect
15 19 (2.50%) Cloud Architect
16 18 (2.37%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (4.60%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.71%) SAML
3 9 (1.18%) Kafka
4 8 (1.05%) LDAP
4 8 (1.05%) REST
5 7 (0.92%) ARM Templates
5 7 (0.92%) OAuth
6 6 (0.79%) CSS
6 6 (0.79%) OpenID
7 5 (0.66%) HTML
7 5 (0.66%) OAuth2
8 4 (0.53%) gRPC
8 4 (0.53%) Keycloak
8 4 (0.53%) Protocol Buffers
8 4 (0.53%) RESTful
9 3 (0.39%) .NET
9 3 (0.39%) Lambda Expressions
9 3 (0.39%) Plotly
9 3 (0.39%) SailPoint
9 3 (0.39%) SLSA
Miscellaneous
1 91 (11.96%) Data Centre
2 62 (8.15%) Security Posture
3 45 (5.91%) Cloud Native
4 41 (5.39%) Hybrid Cloud
5 31 (4.07%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 24 (3.15%) PKI
7 23 (3.02%) Operational Technology
8 22 (2.89%) Onboarding
9 20 (2.63%) Public Cloud
10 19 (2.50%) Data Protection Act
10 19 (2.50%) Product Ownership
11 18 (2.37%) Cyber Threat
12 17 (2.23%) Management Information System
13 16 (2.10%) IoT
13 16 (2.10%) Security Operations Centre
14 13 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
15 9 (1.18%) Enterprise Cloud
15 9 (1.18%) Replication
15 9 (1.18%) Virtual Team
16 8 (1.05%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 58 (7.62%) Linux
2 55 (7.23%) Windows
3 22 (2.89%) Windows Server
4 10 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.05%) Unix
6 7 (0.92%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.66%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.66%) VMS
7 5 (0.66%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.39%) Android
8 3 (0.39%) Check Point GAiA
8 3 (0.39%) SUSE
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (20.63%) Cybersecurity
2 129 (16.95%) Cloud Security
3 125 (16.43%) Zero Trust
4 110 (14.45%) CI/CD
5 105 (13.80%) SIEM
6 101 (13.27%) DevOps
7 100 (13.14%) Security Architecture
8 98 (12.88%) Migration
9 97 (12.75%) Continuous Improvement
10 95 (12.48%) Infrastructure as Code
11 87 (11.43%) Stakeholder Management
12 82 (10.78%) Problem-Solving
13 77 (10.12%) Application Security
14 76 (9.99%) Agile
14 76 (9.99%) Network Segmentation
15 74 (9.72%) High Availability
16 73 (9.59%) Threat Modelling
17 72 (9.46%) Load Balancing
18 71 (9.33%) Data Protection
19 70 (9.20%) DevSecOps
Programming Languages
1 91 (11.96%) Python
2 46 (6.04%) PowerShell
3 34 (4.47%) Bash
4 24 (3.15%) Bicep
5 20 (2.63%) SQL
6 18 (2.37%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.05%) Shell Script
8 5 (0.66%) Java
9 4 (0.53%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (0.53%) PHP
9 4 (0.53%) Rust
10 3 (0.39%) C
10 3 (0.39%) Perl
11 2 (0.26%) C++
11 2 (0.26%) Ruby
12 1 (0.13%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.13%) Search Processing Language
12 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 223 (29.30%) Security Cleared
2 158 (20.76%) SC Cleared
3 144 (18.92%) Cisco Certification
4 87 (11.43%) CISSP
5 85 (11.17%) CCNP
6 74 (9.72%) DV Cleared
7 59 (7.75%) Degree
8 58 (7.62%) CCNA
9 52 (6.83%) CISM
10 36 (4.73%) CCSP
11 35 (4.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 26 (3.42%) Azure Certification
13 20 (2.63%) CCIE
14 18 (2.37%) AWS Certification
15 15 (1.97%) CompTIA Security+
16 13 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
17 12 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
17 12 (1.58%) GIAC
18 9 (1.18%) PMP
19 8 (1.05%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (9.86%) NIST
2 61 (8.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 34 (4.47%) GDPR
4 26 (3.42%) PCI DSS
5 24 (3.15%) NCSC
6 19 (2.50%) GRC
7 14 (1.84%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (1.45%) QA
9 10 (1.31%) SLA
10 8 (1.05%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (1.05%) SOC 2
11 6 (0.79%) NIST 800
11 6 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 4 (0.53%) PMO
14 3 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 3 (0.39%) ISA99
14 3 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 3 (0.39%) RMADS
System Software
1 60 (7.88%) Active Directory
2 51 (6.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (2.89%) Docker
3 22 (2.89%) Virtual Machines
4 20 (2.63%) VMware NSX
5 11 (1.45%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (1.05%) Hyper-V
6 8 (1.05%) vSphere
7 6 (0.79%) Firmware
8 5 (0.66%) Squid
9 3 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.26%) NFS
10 2 (0.26%) Postfix
10 2 (0.26%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.26%) Varnish
10 2 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 100 (13.14%) Terraform
2 65 (8.54%) Kubernetes
3 64 (8.41%) Ansible
4 40 (5.26%) FortiGate
5 18 (2.37%) Grafana
5 18 (2.37%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (1.45%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (1.45%) vCenter Server
7 10 (1.31%) Prometheus
8 7 (0.92%) CASB
9 6 (0.79%) QRadar
10 5 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.66%) Puppet
10 5 (0.66%) Suricata
10 5 (0.66%) WSUS
11 4 (0.53%) Istio
11 4 (0.53%) Kustomize
11 4 (0.53%) Podman
12 3 (0.39%) Failover Clustering
12 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 214 (28.12%) Cisco
2 117 (15.37%) Microsoft
3 114 (14.98%) Palo Alto
4 65 (8.54%) Fortinet
5 63 (8.28%) VMware
6 62 (8.15%) F5
7 54 (7.10%) CheckPoint
8 49 (6.44%) Zscaler
9 45 (5.91%) Juniper
10 33 (4.34%) ServiceNow
11 30 (3.94%) Splunk
12 23 (3.02%) Google
13 21 (2.76%) Citrix
14 20 (2.63%) SolarWinds
15 18 (2.37%) Aruba
15 18 (2.37%) ForeScout
16 15 (1.97%) Tenable
17 12 (1.58%) Infoblox
18 11 (1.45%) CyberArk
18 11 (1.45%) Meraki