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

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 158 144 181
Rank change year-on-year -14 +37 -12
Contract jobs citing Network Security 771 539 465
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.68% 1.95% 1.39%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.91% 15.74% 11.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 534 325 324
10th Percentile £398 £375 £371
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £547 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.14% -4.55% -1.79%
75th Percentile £650 £613 £669
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 18 5
10th Percentile £26.00 £45.00 £20.30
25th Percentile £42.13 £58.79 £23.00
Median hourly rate £73.00 £80.68 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.51% +40.30% -6.88%
75th Percentile £74.00 £83.53 £58.75
90th Percentile - £89.50 £94.82
UK median hourly rate £73.00 £80.68 £57.50
% change year-on-year -9.51% +40.30% -12.88%

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 4,306 3,425 4,178
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.41% 12.41% 12.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,610 2,127 2,568
10th Percentile £263 £250 £243
25th Percentile £400 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £588 £600 £613
90th Percentile £677 £680 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £488 £500
% change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 338 163 288
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £14.48
25th Percentile £19.50 £25.15 £20.38
Median hourly rate £27.94 £45.00 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year -37.91% -18.00% +8.84%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £87.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.44 £48.75 £48.56
% change year-on-year -45.76% +0.39% -3.69%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -13 345 £550 - 177
North of England -4 184 £530 +9.18% 51
South East -26 117 £557 +13.67% 72
North West -5 103 £536 +12.84% 30
Yorkshire +4 78 £507 +3.05% 19
Midlands -50 51 £438 -23.91% 31
East of England -11 36 £525 -4.55% 16
West Midlands -69 32 £406 -29.35% 18
East Midlands +6 18 £638 - 13
South West -63 16 £550 -8.33% 23
North East -42 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 16 (2.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (1.56%) Confluence
3 11 (1.43%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.39%) Apache
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.13%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 21 (2.72%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.78%) 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 (0.78%) Oracle ERP
1 6 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 264 (34.24%) Azure
2 182 (23.61%) AWS
3 101 (13.10%) GCP
4 86 (11.15%) Entra ID
5 35 (4.54%) Microsoft 365
6 31 (4.02%) Azure DevOps
7 30 (3.89%) GitHub
8 29 (3.76%) Azure Sentinel
9 27 (3.50%) SaaS
10 25 (3.24%) Azure Monitor
11 24 (3.11%) Serverless
12 19 (2.46%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 19 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
12 19 (2.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 16 (2.08%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 15 (1.95%) OCI
15 14 (1.82%) Akamai
15 14 (1.82%) Azure AKS
16 13 (1.69%) Azure Key Vault
17 12 (1.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 350 (45.40%) Firewall
2 175 (22.70%) VPN
3 161 (20.88%) WAN
4 122 (15.82%) DNS
5 109 (14.14%) LAN
6 88 (11.41%) TCP/IP
7 87 (11.28%) Wireless
8 82 (10.64%) BGP
9 69 (8.95%) SD-WAN
9 69 (8.95%) VLAN
10 63 (8.17%) OSPF
11 61 (7.91%) DHCP
12 45 (5.84%) SSL
13 41 (5.32%) MPLS
14 39 (5.06%) Cisco ISE
14 39 (5.06%) IPsec
15 35 (4.54%) Cisco ASA
16 33 (4.28%) NGFW
17 32 (4.15%) Wi-Fi
18 30 (3.89%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.69%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
3 4 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.52%) Data Lake
3 4 (0.52%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.52%) Neo4j
3 4 (0.52%) Power BI
4 3 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.26%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.13%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.13%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.13%) InfluxDB
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.13%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.13%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.13%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 36 (4.67%) Git
2 32 (4.15%) JIRA
3 25 (3.24%) GitLab
4 19 (2.46%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.91%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.78%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.52%) MSBuild
7 4 (0.52%) Snyk
7 4 (0.52%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.52%) 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%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 192 (24.90%) Social Skills
2 137 (17.77%) Finance
3 68 (8.82%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (7.52%) Banking
5 48 (6.23%) Public Sector
6 34 (4.41%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (3.24%) Financial Institution
8 18 (2.33%) Telecoms
9 15 (1.95%) Legal
10 14 (1.82%) Retail
11 12 (1.56%) Manufacturing
12 11 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 11 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
13 10 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (1.04%) Police
15 6 (0.78%) Automotive
15 6 (0.78%) Law
15 6 (0.78%) Local Government
16 5 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
17 4 (0.52%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 206 (26.72%) Network Engineer
2 160 (20.75%) Architect
3 93 (12.06%) Security Engineer
4 91 (11.80%) Senior
5 81 (10.51%) Security Architect
6 59 (7.65%) Network Architect
7 56 (7.26%) Network Security Engineer
8 47 (6.10%) Consultant
9 41 (5.32%) Project Manager
10 39 (5.06%) Senior Network Engineer
11 36 (4.67%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 36 (4.67%) Lead
12 29 (3.76%) Cloud Engineer
13 23 (2.98%) Analyst
14 22 (2.85%) Network Manager
14 22 (2.85%) Network Security Architect
15 20 (2.59%) Security Consultant
15 20 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
16 19 (2.46%) Senior Architect
17 17 (2.20%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (4.41%) 802.1X
2 15 (1.95%) SAML
3 11 (1.43%) ARM Templates
3 11 (1.43%) REST
4 9 (1.17%) Kafka
5 6 (0.78%) NETCONF
6 5 (0.65%) .NET
6 5 (0.65%) CSS
7 4 (0.52%) gRPC
7 4 (0.52%) HTML
7 4 (0.52%) JSON
7 4 (0.52%) Keycloak
7 4 (0.52%) OAuth
7 4 (0.52%) OpenID
7 4 (0.52%) Protocol Buffers
7 4 (0.52%) RESTful
8 3 (0.39%) Lambda Expressions
8 3 (0.39%) ModSecurity
8 3 (0.39%) SailPoint
8 3 (0.39%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 82 (10.64%) Data Centre
2 65 (8.43%) Security Posture
3 46 (5.97%) Cloud Native
4 45 (5.84%) Hybrid Cloud
5 33 (4.28%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 33 (4.28%) Onboarding
6 29 (3.76%) Management Information System
7 25 (3.24%) Operational Technology
8 22 (2.85%) Cyber Threat
9 20 (2.59%) PKI
10 19 (2.46%) Public Cloud
11 17 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
11 17 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
12 15 (1.95%) Security Operations Centre
13 13 (1.69%) Linux Command Line
13 13 (1.69%) Product Ownership
14 12 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
15 11 (1.43%) Cloud Security Posture
16 9 (1.17%) Enterprise Cloud
16 9 (1.17%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 69 (8.95%) Windows
2 63 (8.17%) Linux
3 23 (2.98%) Windows Server
4 13 (1.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (1.17%) Unix
6 7 (0.91%) Ubuntu
6 7 (0.91%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.78%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.39%) Android
8 3 (0.39%) Check Point GAiA
8 3 (0.39%) SUSE
8 3 (0.39%) VMS
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 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (19.71%) Cybersecurity
2 149 (19.33%) Cloud Security
3 116 (15.05%) Zero Trust
4 114 (14.79%) CI/CD
5 107 (13.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 106 (13.75%) SIEM
7 105 (13.62%) DevOps
8 102 (13.23%) Stakeholder Management
9 99 (12.84%) Migration
10 98 (12.71%) Infrastructure as Code
11 95 (12.32%) Change Management
12 89 (11.54%) Security Architecture
13 84 (10.89%) Identity Access Management
13 84 (10.89%) Problem-Solving
14 82 (10.64%) Incident Response
15 77 (9.99%) Agile
15 77 (9.99%) Security Operations
16 76 (9.86%) Data Protection
16 76 (9.86%) ITIL
17 75 (9.73%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 98 (12.71%) Python
2 67 (8.69%) PowerShell
3 51 (6.61%) Bash
4 31 (4.02%) Bicep
5 25 (3.24%) SQL
6 16 (2.08%) JavaScript
7 7 (0.91%) Java
7 7 (0.91%) Shell Script
8 5 (0.65%) Kusto Query Language
8 5 (0.65%) Search Processing Language
9 4 (0.52%) Rust
10 3 (0.39%) Perl
11 2 (0.26%) Go
11 2 (0.26%) Ruby
11 2 (0.26%) VBScript
12 1 (0.13%) C
12 1 (0.13%) PHP
Qualifications
1 205 (26.59%) Security Cleared
2 139 (18.03%) SC Cleared
3 136 (17.64%) Cisco Certification
4 92 (11.93%) CISSP
5 78 (10.12%) CCNP
6 70 (9.08%) DV Cleared
7 67 (8.69%) Degree
8 51 (6.61%) CCNA
9 50 (6.49%) CISM
10 38 (4.93%) CCSP
11 37 (4.80%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 32 (4.15%) Azure Certification
13 19 (2.46%) AWS Certification
13 19 (2.46%) CCIE
14 15 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
15 12 (1.56%) CompTIA Security+
16 11 (1.43%) PMP
17 9 (1.17%) JNCIS
18 8 (1.04%) CEH
18 8 (1.04%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (9.08%) NIST
2 60 (7.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 37 (4.80%) GDPR
4 26 (3.37%) NCSC
4 26 (3.37%) PCI DSS
5 15 (1.95%) GRC
5 15 (1.95%) SLA
6 11 (1.43%) QA
6 11 (1.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 9 (1.17%) Cyber Essentials
8 8 (1.04%) NIST 800
9 5 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 5 (0.65%) SOC 2
10 4 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
10 4 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 3 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 3 (0.39%) ISA99
11 3 (0.39%) PMO
12 2 (0.26%) JSP 440
System Software
1 73 (9.47%) Active Directory
2 53 (6.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (3.11%) Docker
4 20 (2.59%) Virtual Machines
4 20 (2.59%) VMware NSX
5 11 (1.43%) vSphere
6 10 (1.30%) Hyper-V
7 8 (1.04%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.78%) Firmware
8 6 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.65%) Squid
10 3 (0.39%) NFS
11 2 (0.26%) Postfix
11 2 (0.26%) Sendmail
11 2 (0.26%) Varnish
11 2 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.13%) FreeRADIUS
12 1 (0.13%) OpenSSH
12 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.13%) Samba
Systems Management
1 102 (13.23%) Terraform
2 75 (9.73%) Ansible
3 63 (8.17%) Kubernetes
4 42 (5.45%) FortiGate
5 23 (2.98%) Microsoft Intune
6 20 (2.59%) Grafana
7 17 (2.20%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (1.56%) CASB
9 11 (1.43%) Prometheus
10 10 (1.30%) SCCM
11 8 (1.04%) Progress Chef
11 8 (1.04%) vCenter Server
12 7 (0.91%) Puppet
13 6 (0.78%) Cisco CUCM
13 6 (0.78%) QRadar
14 5 (0.65%) Suricata
14 5 (0.65%) WSUS
15 4 (0.52%) Kustomize
15 4 (0.52%) Podman
15 4 (0.52%) systemd
Vendors
1 219 (28.40%) Cisco
2 136 (17.64%) Microsoft
3 121 (15.69%) Palo Alto
4 66 (8.56%) Fortinet
4 66 (8.56%) VMware
5 62 (8.04%) F5
6 57 (7.39%) Zscaler
7 49 (6.36%) CheckPoint
7 49 (6.36%) Juniper
8 33 (4.28%) Splunk
9 32 (4.15%) ServiceNow
10 25 (3.24%) SolarWinds
11 21 (2.72%) Citrix
12 20 (2.59%) Google
13 18 (2.33%) Aruba
14 17 (2.20%) Tenable
15 13 (1.69%) Blue Coat
15 13 (1.69%) CyberArk
15 13 (1.69%) Infoblox
15 13 (1.69%) Meraki