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

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 145 153
Rank change year-on-year -9 +8 +79
Contract jobs citing Network Security 650 485 608
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.76% 1.98% 1.61%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.53% 14.67% 11.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 444 304 430
10th Percentile £350 £370 £392
25th Percentile £425 £431 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% -1.82% -2.22%
75th Percentile £595 £625 £650
90th Percentile £688 £696 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £518 £550
% change year-on-year -3.38% -5.91% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 9 17
10th Percentile £36.61 £18.05 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £35.00 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £80.68 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.43% +250.76% -42.21%
75th Percentile £77.19 £81.35 £41.25
90th Percentile £92.75 £82.48 £68.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £41.00 £23.00
% change year-on-year +58.54% +78.26% -42.21%

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 3,707 3,305 5,288
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.02% 13.51% 13.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,383 2,034 3,199
10th Percentile £213 £213 £205
25th Percentile £375 £375 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £489 £495 £475
% change year-on-year -1.21% +4.21% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 114 374
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.99 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £18.23
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% +7.69% +71.69%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £64.34
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.21 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -2.86% +7.69% +71.05%

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 19 March 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 19 March 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 19 March 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 -11 274 £525 -4.55% 75
North of England -25 129 £480 -4.00% 44
South East -14 104 £500 -4.76% 44
North West +2 82 £492 -1.60% 33
Midlands -30 65 £500 -14.02% 15
Yorkshire -29 53 £335 -31.63% 10
West Midlands -27 52 £500 -14.02% 10
East of England -15 30 £488 -17.02% 24
South West -21 30 £538 -2.27% 26
East Midlands -30 12 £638 +50.00% 5
North East -8 2 £475 -24.00% 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 13 (2.00%) Confluence
2 5 (0.77%) Apache
2 5 (0.77%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 19 (2.92%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.54%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.15%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 5 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 194 (29.85%) Azure
2 137 (21.08%) AWS
3 76 (11.69%) GCP
4 50 (7.69%) Entra ID
5 29 (4.46%) GitHub
6 26 (4.00%) GitHub Actions
7 24 (3.69%) Azure DevOps
8 23 (3.54%) Azure Sentinel
9 21 (3.23%) Azure Key Vault
10 20 (3.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 16 (2.46%) Microsoft 365
12 14 (2.15%) Amazon S3
12 14 (2.15%) AWS CloudFormation
13 12 (1.85%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 12 (1.85%) Azure Monitor
13 12 (1.85%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 12 (1.85%) Power Platform
13 12 (1.85%) Serverless
14 11 (1.69%) Azure AKS
14 11 (1.69%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 320 (49.23%) Firewall
2 128 (19.69%) VPN
3 116 (17.85%) WAN
4 89 (13.69%) LAN
5 88 (13.54%) BGP
6 78 (12.00%) DNS
7 73 (11.23%) OSPF
8 62 (9.54%) VLAN
9 58 (8.92%) SD-WAN
10 54 (8.31%) TCP/IP
11 42 (6.46%) Wireless
12 38 (5.85%) Cisco ASA
12 38 (5.85%) MPLS
13 34 (5.23%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 29 (4.46%) SSL
15 26 (4.00%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
16 25 (3.85%) DHCP
16 25 (3.85%) NGFW
16 25 (3.85%) Wi-Fi
17 24 (3.69%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
2 5 (0.77%) Power BI
3 4 (0.62%) InfluxDB
3 4 (0.62%) Relational Database
4 3 (0.46%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.46%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.31%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.15%) Redis
6 1 (0.15%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 22 (3.38%) JIRA
2 18 (2.77%) Jenkins
3 15 (2.31%) GitLab
4 10 (1.54%) Git
5 4 (0.62%) Snyk
5 4 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.46%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.15%) Metasploit
General
1 172 (26.46%) Social Skills
2 96 (14.77%) Finance
3 84 (12.92%) Analytical Skills
4 55 (8.46%) Public Sector
5 34 (5.23%) Banking
6 26 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (3.85%) Telecoms
8 21 (3.23%) Financial Institution
9 10 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.23%) Investment Banking
11 7 (1.08%) Legal
11 7 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.77%) Local Government
12 5 (0.77%) Manufacturing
12 5 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
13 4 (0.62%) Military
14 3 (0.46%) Electronics
14 3 (0.46%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 142 (21.85%) Architect
1 142 (21.85%) Network Engineer
2 80 (12.31%) Security Engineer
3 70 (10.77%) Security Architect
4 54 (8.31%) Network Architect
5 51 (7.85%) Senior
6 36 (5.54%) Network Security Engineer
7 30 (4.62%) Analyst
8 25 (3.85%) Network Security Architect
9 22 (3.38%) Lead
10 19 (2.92%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 18 (2.77%) Cloud Architect
12 17 (2.62%) Administrator
12 17 (2.62%) Azure Architect
12 17 (2.62%) Cloud Engineer
12 17 (2.62%) Security Analyst
13 16 (2.46%) Consultant
13 16 (2.46%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 15 (2.31%) IT Support
15 14 (2.15%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.38%) 802.1X
2 13 (2.00%) LDAP
3 8 (1.23%) .NET
3 8 (1.23%) Node.js
3 8 (1.23%) SAML
4 5 (0.77%) .NET Core
4 5 (0.77%) AngularJS
4 5 (0.77%) OAuth
4 5 (0.77%) OAuth2
4 5 (0.77%) OpenID
4 5 (0.77%) PyTorch
4 5 (0.77%) RabbitMQ
4 5 (0.77%) React
4 5 (0.77%) TensorFlow
5 4 (0.62%) ARM Templates
5 4 (0.62%) Elastic Stack
6 3 (0.46%) HTML
6 3 (0.46%) Lambda Expressions
6 3 (0.46%) Plotly
6 3 (0.46%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 84 (12.92%) Data Centre
2 42 (6.46%) Security Posture
3 41 (6.31%) Hybrid Cloud
4 37 (5.69%) Cloud Native
5 29 (4.46%) PKI
6 28 (4.31%) Management Information System
7 23 (3.54%) Public Cloud
8 19 (2.92%) Operational Technology
9 18 (2.77%) Onboarding
9 18 (2.77%) Product Ownership
10 17 (2.62%) Cyber Threat
11 16 (2.46%) Analytical Mindset
11 16 (2.46%) IoT
12 15 (2.31%) Security Operations Centre
13 13 (2.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 11 (1.69%) Cyber Security Posture
14 11 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
15 8 (1.23%) BYOD
15 8 (1.23%) CSOC
15 8 (1.23%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 72 (11.08%) Windows
2 58 (8.92%) Linux
3 26 (4.00%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.38%) Unix
5 7 (1.08%) Ubuntu
6 6 (0.92%) VMS
7 5 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.62%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.15%) Android
9 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.15%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 153 (23.54%) Cybersecurity
2 105 (16.15%) Problem-Solving
3 99 (15.23%) Cloud Security
4 96 (14.77%) SIEM
5 95 (14.62%) Zero Trust
6 91 (14.00%) Security Architecture
7 86 (13.23%) CI/CD
8 83 (12.77%) DevOps
8 83 (12.77%) Migration
9 79 (12.15%) Infrastructure as Code
10 71 (10.92%) Incident Response
11 70 (10.77%) Continuous Improvement
12 67 (10.31%) Network Segmentation
13 66 (10.15%) Change Management
14 61 (9.38%) Security Operations
15 57 (8.77%) Agile
16 55 (8.46%) Identity Access Management
17 54 (8.31%) Load Balancing
17 54 (8.31%) Stakeholder Management
18 53 (8.15%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 96 (14.77%) Python
2 60 (9.23%) PowerShell
3 24 (3.69%) JavaScript
4 23 (3.54%) Bash
5 22 (3.38%) Bicep
5 22 (3.38%) SQL
6 14 (2.15%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (1.38%) Java
8 7 (1.08%) Go
9 6 (0.92%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.77%) C#
11 4 (0.62%) C
11 4 (0.62%) PHP
12 3 (0.46%) C++
13 1 (0.15%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.15%) C-shell
13 1 (0.15%) Korn
13 1 (0.15%) Perl
13 1 (0.15%) Ruby
13 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 210 (32.31%) Security Cleared
2 145 (22.31%) SC Cleared
3 115 (17.69%) Cisco Certification
4 89 (13.69%) CCNP
5 82 (12.62%) CISSP
6 76 (11.69%) DV Cleared
7 44 (6.77%) CCNA
8 43 (6.62%) Degree
9 42 (6.46%) CISM
10 25 (3.85%) CCIE
10 25 (3.85%) GIAC
11 22 (3.38%) Azure Certification
12 20 (3.08%) CEH
13 18 (2.77%) CompTIA Security+
14 17 (2.62%) AWS Certification
15 16 (2.46%) CCSP
16 15 (2.31%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 12 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
18 11 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
19 10 (1.54%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (11.23%) NIST
2 68 (10.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 48 (7.38%) GDPR
4 35 (5.38%) PCI DSS
5 20 (3.08%) Cyber Essentials
6 17 (2.62%) NCSC
7 15 (2.31%) GRC
8 13 (2.00%) SLA
9 10 (1.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 9 (1.38%) SOC 2
11 8 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 7 (1.08%) Actionable Recommendations
12 7 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 6 (0.92%) QA
14 5 (0.77%) PMO
15 4 (0.62%) HIPAA
15 4 (0.62%) JSP 440
15 4 (0.62%) RMADS
16 2 (0.31%) GxP
16 2 (0.31%) PSD2
System Software
1 47 (7.23%) VMware Infrastructure
2 42 (6.46%) Active Directory
3 26 (4.00%) Docker
4 19 (2.92%) VMware NSX
5 8 (1.23%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.08%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.92%) vSphere
8 5 (0.77%) Firmware
9 4 (0.62%) ProxySG
10 2 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.15%) KVM
11 1 (0.15%) NFS
11 1 (0.15%) Postfix
11 1 (0.15%) RHEV
11 1 (0.15%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.15%) Varnish
11 1 (0.15%) Xen
11 1 (0.15%) XenApp
11 1 (0.15%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 101 (15.54%) Terraform
2 58 (8.92%) Ansible
3 50 (7.69%) Kubernetes
4 26 (4.00%) FortiGate
5 14 (2.15%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (2.15%) Nagios
5 14 (2.15%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (1.85%) Kibana
7 8 (1.23%) Grafana
8 7 (1.08%) Prometheus
8 7 (1.08%) vCenter Server
9 6 (0.92%) Microsoft Clustering
10 5 (0.77%) CASB
11 4 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.62%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.62%) Puppet
12 3 (0.46%) Icinga
12 3 (0.46%) QRadar
12 3 (0.46%) SCCM
12 3 (0.46%) SCOM
Vendors
1 183 (28.15%) Cisco
2 115 (17.69%) Microsoft
3 107 (16.46%) Palo Alto
4 74 (11.38%) F5
5 60 (9.23%) VMware
6 52 (8.00%) Juniper
7 49 (7.54%) Fortinet
8 45 (6.92%) CheckPoint
9 37 (5.69%) Zscaler
10 29 (4.46%) Splunk
11 28 (4.31%) Google
12 27 (4.15%) ServiceNow
13 18 (2.77%) SolarWinds
14 17 (2.62%) Meraki
15 16 (2.46%) Tenable
16 15 (2.31%) Aruba
17 14 (2.15%) Databricks
18 12 (1.85%) ForeScout
18 12 (1.85%) Okta
18 12 (1.85%) SAP