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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 153 173
Rank change year-on-year -15 +20 -4
Contract jobs citing Network Security 773 516 485
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.67% 1.85% 1.47%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.79% 15.47% 12.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 511 304 332
10th Percentile £400 £380 £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 £650 £626 £663
90th Percentile £735 £738 £736
UK median daily rate £550 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +3.77% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 14 6
10th Percentile £26.60 £45.00 £30.50
25th Percentile £56.47 £55.00 £44.38
Median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% +30.53% -24.30%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.09 £58.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £95.50 £88.81
UK median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £50.00
% change year-on-year +4.05% +40.32% -25.65%

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 4,345 3,335 3,986
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.37% 11.99% 12.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,603 2,076 2,345
10th Percentile £250 £235 £244
25th Percentile £400 £368 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £492 £508
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% -3.05% +1.50%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £614
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 361 168 231
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £24.75 £21.69
Median hourly rate £32.50 £41.23 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -21.16% -28.12% +1.52%
75th Percentile £67.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £76.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.66 £42.50 £51.00
% change year-on-year -37.27% -16.67% -9.72%

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 11 September 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 11 September 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 11 September 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 -7 341 £550 - 154
North of England +5 201 £531 +8.42% 42
North West +1 115 £530 +11.47% 22
South East -27 100 £554 +20.41% 78
Yorkshire +9 83 £538 +9.25% 15
Midlands -62 48 £450 -18.18% 35
East of England -15 41 £525 -0.94% 29
West Midlands -72 33 £450 -18.18% 24
South West -61 20 £600 -3.23% 27
East Midlands -3 14 £500 - 11
North East - 2 £675 - 6
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 19 (2.46%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (1.81%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.42%) Confluence
4 3 (0.39%) Apache
4 3 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.13%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 21 (2.72%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.78%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.52%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.13%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.78%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 277 (35.83%) Azure
2 188 (24.32%) AWS
3 98 (12.68%) GCP
4 84 (10.87%) Entra ID
5 45 (5.82%) Microsoft 365
6 36 (4.66%) Azure DevOps
7 35 (4.53%) GitHub
8 30 (3.88%) Azure Monitor
9 28 (3.62%) Serverless
10 25 (3.23%) SaaS
11 24 (3.10%) Azure Sentinel
12 19 (2.46%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 19 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
13 16 (2.07%) Amazon EKS
13 16 (2.07%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 15 (1.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 15 (1.94%) OCI
14 15 (1.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 13 (1.68%) Azure AKS
15 13 (1.68%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 363 (46.96%) Firewall
2 185 (23.93%) VPN
3 170 (21.99%) WAN
4 125 (16.17%) DNS
5 104 (13.45%) LAN
6 99 (12.81%) Wireless
7 83 (10.74%) BGP
8 82 (10.61%) TCP/IP
9 70 (9.06%) DHCP
9 70 (9.06%) SD-WAN
10 69 (8.93%) VLAN
11 57 (7.37%) OSPF
12 52 (6.73%) SSL
13 43 (5.56%) Cisco ISE
13 43 (5.56%) MPLS
14 41 (5.30%) IPsec
15 37 (4.79%) Cisco ASA
15 37 (4.79%) Wi-Fi
16 32 (4.14%) Internet
17 30 (3.88%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.68%) SQL Server
2 5 (0.65%) BigQuery
3 4 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.52%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.52%) Neo4j
4 3 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.39%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (0.39%) Power BI
5 2 (0.26%) Delta Lake
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%) Qlik Sense
6 1 (0.13%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.13%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.13%) Star Schema
6 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 36 (4.66%) Git
2 30 (3.88%) GitLab
3 28 (3.62%) JIRA
4 25 (3.23%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.78%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.52%) MSBuild
6 4 (0.52%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.52%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.39%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.39%) Browser DevTools
8 2 (0.26%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.13%) Postman
9 1 (0.13%) Snyk
9 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 212 (27.43%) Social Skills
2 141 (18.24%) Finance
3 77 (9.96%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (8.02%) Banking
5 38 (4.92%) Public Sector
6 32 (4.14%) Documentation Skills
7 23 (2.98%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.59%) Legal
9 19 (2.46%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.94%) Retail
11 13 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 13 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
11 13 (1.68%) Manufacturing
12 9 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
13 8 (1.03%) Police
13 8 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.78%) Automotive
14 6 (0.78%) Local Government
14 6 (0.78%) Military
15 5 (0.65%) Law
Job Titles
1 215 (27.81%) Network Engineer
2 142 (18.37%) Architect
3 105 (13.58%) Security Engineer
4 100 (12.94%) Senior
5 73 (9.44%) Security Architect
6 61 (7.89%) Network Security Engineer
7 56 (7.24%) Consultant
8 53 (6.86%) Network Architect
9 45 (5.82%) Senior Network Engineer
10 44 (5.69%) Project Manager
11 40 (5.17%) Cloud Engineer
12 39 (5.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 29 (3.75%) Lead
14 27 (3.49%) Security Consultant
15 23 (2.98%) Network Manager
15 23 (2.98%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 22 (2.85%) Analyst
17 21 (2.72%) DevSecOps Consultant
17 21 (2.72%) Solutions Architect
18 20 (2.59%) Network Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (15.01%) Terraform
2 34 (4.40%) 802.1X
3 17 (2.20%) REST
4 14 (1.81%) ARM Templates
5 13 (1.68%) SAML
6 11 (1.42%) Kafka
7 8 (1.03%) NETCONF
8 6 (0.78%) gRPC
8 6 (0.78%) JSON
8 6 (0.78%) Keycloak
9 5 (0.65%) Azure Blueprints
9 5 (0.65%) OpenID
9 5 (0.65%) SLSA
10 4 (0.52%) .NET
10 4 (0.52%) CSS
10 4 (0.52%) LDAP
10 4 (0.52%) OAuth
10 4 (0.52%) RESTful
10 4 (0.52%) XML
10 4 (0.52%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 94 (12.16%) Data Centre
2 74 (9.57%) Security Posture
3 50 (6.47%) Cloud Native
4 40 (5.17%) Hybrid Cloud
4 40 (5.17%) Onboarding
5 38 (4.92%) Management Information System
6 30 (3.88%) Cyber Threat
7 28 (3.62%) Operational Technology
8 27 (3.49%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 24 (3.10%) PKI
10 19 (2.46%) Cloud Security Posture
11 18 (2.33%) Security Operations Centre
12 17 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
13 14 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
13 14 (1.81%) Public Cloud
14 13 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
14 13 (1.68%) Linux Command Line
15 11 (1.42%) Replication
16 8 (1.03%) Mainframe
16 8 (1.03%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 83 (10.74%) Windows
2 69 (8.93%) Linux
3 34 (4.40%) Windows Server
4 15 (1.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.03%) Windows 10
6 7 (0.91%) Unix
7 6 (0.78%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.65%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.39%) Check Point GAiA
9 3 (0.39%) SUSE
9 3 (0.39%) VMS
10 2 (0.26%) Android
10 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.26%) zOS
11 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.13%) Rocky
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (20.31%) Cloud Security
1 157 (20.31%) Cybersecurity
2 128 (16.56%) Stakeholder Management
3 120 (15.52%) Zero Trust
4 119 (15.39%) CI/CD
5 116 (15.01%) Continuous Improvement
6 107 (13.84%) Incident Response
7 105 (13.58%) Change Management
7 105 (13.58%) Infrastructure as Code
8 104 (13.45%) DevOps
9 103 (13.32%) Migration
10 100 (12.94%) SIEM
11 90 (11.64%) Problem-Solving
12 87 (11.25%) Security Architecture
13 80 (10.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 80 (10.35%) Threat Modelling
14 79 (10.22%) High Availability
14 79 (10.22%) Security Operations
15 78 (10.09%) Data Protection
15 78 (10.09%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 130 (16.82%) Python
2 80 (10.35%) PowerShell
3 66 (8.54%) Bash
4 33 (4.27%) Bicep
5 24 (3.10%) SQL
6 12 (1.55%) Go
7 9 (1.16%) Java
8 7 (0.91%) Search Processing Language
9 6 (0.78%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.65%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.52%) Rust
12 3 (0.39%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.39%) Perl
12 3 (0.39%) VBScript
13 2 (0.26%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 214 (27.68%) Security Cleared
2 154 (19.92%) Cisco Certification
3 153 (19.79%) SC Cleared
4 104 (13.45%) CISSP
5 89 (11.51%) CCNP
6 67 (8.67%) DV Cleared
7 63 (8.15%) Degree
8 49 (6.34%) CISM
9 46 (5.95%) CCNA
9 46 (5.95%) CCSP
10 44 (5.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 32 (4.14%) Azure Certification
12 29 (3.75%) CCIE
13 27 (3.49%) AWS Certification
14 16 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
15 12 (1.55%) PMP
16 11 (1.42%) GIAC
16 11 (1.42%) PMI Certification
17 10 (1.29%) CEH
18 9 (1.16%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (7.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 60 (7.76%) NIST
2 33 (4.27%) GDPR
3 25 (3.23%) NCSC
4 22 (2.85%) PCI DSS
5 12 (1.55%) GRC
6 11 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials
7 9 (1.16%) NIST 800
8 8 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 8 (1.03%) SLA
9 6 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 6 (0.78%) QA
10 4 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 3 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 3 (0.39%) ISA99
11 3 (0.39%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 2 (0.26%) JSP 440
12 2 (0.26%) PMO
System Software
1 71 (9.18%) Active Directory
2 54 (6.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 28 (3.62%) Docker
4 20 (2.59%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (2.33%) VMware NSX
6 11 (1.42%) Hyper-V
6 11 (1.42%) vSphere
7 8 (1.03%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (1.03%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.65%) Firmware
8 5 (0.65%) Squid
9 2 (0.26%) FreeRADIUS
9 2 (0.26%) NFS
9 2 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.13%) OpenSSH
10 1 (0.13%) Postfix
10 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
10 1 (0.13%) Samba
10 1 (0.13%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 89 (11.51%) Ansible
2 73 (9.44%) Kubernetes
3 43 (5.56%) FortiGate
4 24 (3.10%) Microsoft Intune
5 21 (2.72%) Grafana
6 14 (1.81%) Progress Chef
6 14 (1.81%) Prometheus
7 13 (1.68%) SCCM
7 13 (1.68%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (1.29%) CASB
9 8 (1.03%) QRadar
10 7 (0.91%) Puppet
10 7 (0.91%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.78%) Cisco CUCM
12 5 (0.65%) Suricata
12 5 (0.65%) WSUS
13 4 (0.52%) Cisco Prime
13 4 (0.52%) Nagios
13 4 (0.52%) Podman
13 4 (0.52%) systemd
Vendors
1 226 (29.24%) Cisco
2 149 (19.28%) Microsoft
3 140 (18.11%) Palo Alto
4 77 (9.96%) Fortinet
5 71 (9.18%) VMware
6 68 (8.80%) F5
7 56 (7.24%) Zscaler
8 51 (6.60%) CheckPoint
9 44 (5.69%) Juniper
10 30 (3.88%) Splunk
11 27 (3.49%) SolarWinds
12 26 (3.36%) Google
13 25 (3.23%) ServiceNow
14 20 (2.59%) Aruba
15 19 (2.46%) Citrix
16 14 (1.81%) Meraki
17 13 (1.68%) Blue Coat
17 13 (1.68%) Tenable
18 12 (1.55%) CyberArk
19 11 (1.42%) ForeScout