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

6 months to
8 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 164 155 169
Rank change year-on-year -9 +14 +8
Contract jobs citing Network Security 772 516 472
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.68% 1.89% 1.45%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.89% 15.74% 12.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 514 304 326
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 £632 £666
90th Percentile £734 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +3.77% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 14 6
10th Percentile £26.00 £45.00 £30.50
25th Percentile £42.13 £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 - £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 4,315 3,278 3,932
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.38% 11.98% 12.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,597 2,040 2,339
10th Percentile £250 £237 £248
25th Percentile £400 £364 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £508
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -3.45% +1.50%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £619
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £483 £500
% change year-on-year +3.63% -3.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 164 234
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £14.19
25th Percentile £19.50 £25.11 £22.10
Median hourly rate £28.00 £41.48 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -32.49% -27.68% +1.52%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.53 £78.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £43.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -40.23% -17.14% -7.06%

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 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 8 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 8 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 +6 338 £550 - 327
North of England +4 204 £535 +9.24% 57
North West -7 115 £531 +11.79% 33
South East -36 103 £550 +17.18% 96
Yorkshire +15 86 £539 +9.50% 19
Midlands -71 45 £475 -13.64% 51
East of England -7 39 £525 -2.78% 25
West Midlands -73 30 £425 -22.73% 33
South West -58 21 £600 -3.23% 43
East Midlands -3 14 £500 - 18
North East - 2 £675 - 5
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 18 (2.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (1.81%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.30%) 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 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 276 (35.75%) Azure
2 188 (24.35%) AWS
3 103 (13.34%) GCP
4 84 (10.88%) Entra ID
5 43 (5.57%) Microsoft 365
6 38 (4.92%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (4.40%) GitHub
8 30 (3.89%) Azure Monitor
9 28 (3.63%) Serverless
10 25 (3.24%) SaaS
11 24 (3.11%) Azure Sentinel
12 21 (2.72%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 18 (2.33%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 18 (2.33%) GitHub Actions
14 16 (2.07%) Amazon EKS
15 15 (1.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 15 (1.94%) OCI
15 15 (1.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 13 (1.68%) AWS Direct Connect
16 13 (1.68%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 362 (46.89%) Firewall
2 182 (23.58%) VPN
3 171 (22.15%) WAN
4 128 (16.58%) DNS
5 107 (13.86%) LAN
6 100 (12.95%) Wireless
7 84 (10.88%) BGP
8 83 (10.75%) TCP/IP
9 71 (9.20%) SD-WAN
10 70 (9.07%) DHCP
11 68 (8.81%) VLAN
12 58 (7.51%) OSPF
13 50 (6.48%) SSL
14 44 (5.70%) Cisco ISE
15 43 (5.57%) IPsec
16 41 (5.31%) MPLS
17 39 (5.05%) Wi-Fi
18 37 (4.79%) Cisco ASA
19 31 (4.02%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
19 31 (4.02%) Internet
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 35 (4.53%) Git
2 30 (3.89%) GitLab
3 29 (3.76%) JIRA
4 25 (3.24%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.78%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (0.65%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.52%) MSBuild
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%) Snyk
10 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 206 (26.68%) Social Skills
2 139 (18.01%) Finance
3 75 (9.72%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (7.64%) Banking
5 41 (5.31%) Public Sector
6 32 (4.15%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (2.85%) Telecoms
8 19 (2.46%) Legal
9 18 (2.33%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.94%) Retail
11 12 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
11 12 (1.55%) Manufacturing
12 11 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 9 (1.17%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (1.04%) Police
15 7 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.78%) Automotive
16 6 (0.78%) Local Government
16 6 (0.78%) Military
17 5 (0.65%) Law
Job Titles
1 210 (27.20%) Network Engineer
2 141 (18.26%) Architect
3 100 (12.95%) Security Engineer
4 99 (12.82%) Senior
5 73 (9.46%) Security Architect
6 57 (7.38%) Network Security Engineer
7 55 (7.12%) Consultant
8 53 (6.87%) Network Architect
9 46 (5.96%) Senior Network Engineer
10 44 (5.70%) Project Manager
11 39 (5.05%) Cloud Engineer
12 37 (4.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 31 (4.02%) Lead
14 26 (3.37%) Security Consultant
15 23 (2.98%) Network Manager
15 23 (2.98%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 21 (2.72%) Analyst
16 21 (2.72%) DevSecOps Consultant
16 21 (2.72%) Solutions Architect
17 20 (2.59%) Network Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 113 (14.64%) Terraform
2 34 (4.40%) 802.1X
3 17 (2.20%) REST
4 14 (1.81%) ARM Templates
4 14 (1.81%) SAML
5 10 (1.30%) Kafka
6 8 (1.04%) NETCONF
7 6 (0.78%) gRPC
7 6 (0.78%) JSON
8 5 (0.65%) Azure Blueprints
8 5 (0.65%) Keycloak
8 5 (0.65%) OpenID
8 5 (0.65%) SLSA
9 4 (0.52%) .NET
9 4 (0.52%) CSS
9 4 (0.52%) OAuth
9 4 (0.52%) Protocol Buffers
9 4 (0.52%) RESTful
9 4 (0.52%) XML
9 4 (0.52%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 92 (11.92%) Data Centre
2 73 (9.46%) Security Posture
3 50 (6.48%) Cloud Native
4 40 (5.18%) Onboarding
5 39 (5.05%) Hybrid Cloud
6 37 (4.79%) Management Information System
7 33 (4.27%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 28 (3.63%) Operational Technology
9 27 (3.50%) Cyber Threat
10 23 (2.98%) PKI
11 19 (2.46%) Cloud Security Posture
12 18 (2.33%) Security Operations Centre
12 18 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
13 15 (1.94%) Public Cloud
14 14 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
14 14 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
15 13 (1.68%) Linux Command Line
16 10 (1.30%) Replication
17 9 (1.17%) IoT
18 8 (1.04%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 82 (10.62%) Windows
2 67 (8.68%) Linux
3 32 (4.15%) Windows Server
4 15 (1.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.04%) Windows 10
6 6 (0.78%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.78%) Ubuntu
6 6 (0.78%) Unix
7 3 (0.39%) Check Point GAiA
7 3 (0.39%) SUSE
7 3 (0.39%) VMS
8 2 (0.26%) Android
8 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.26%) zOS
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.13%) Rocky
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (20.47%) Cybersecurity
2 157 (20.34%) Cloud Security
3 129 (16.71%) Stakeholder Management
4 119 (15.41%) CI/CD
5 118 (15.28%) Zero Trust
6 117 (15.16%) Continuous Improvement
7 108 (13.99%) Migration
8 106 (13.73%) DevOps
9 105 (13.60%) Change Management
10 103 (13.34%) Infrastructure as Code
11 101 (13.08%) Incident Response
12 97 (12.56%) SIEM
13 90 (11.66%) Problem-Solving
14 86 (11.14%) Security Architecture
15 81 (10.49%) Threat Modelling
16 80 (10.36%) Security Operations
17 79 (10.23%) High Availability
17 79 (10.23%) Load Balancing
18 78 (10.10%) Identity Access Management
19 77 (9.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 126 (16.32%) Python
2 78 (10.10%) PowerShell
3 64 (8.29%) Bash
4 33 (4.27%) Bicep
5 24 (3.11%) SQL
6 11 (1.42%) Go
7 9 (1.17%) Java
7 9 (1.17%) JavaScript
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%) Perl
12 3 (0.39%) VBScript
13 2 (0.26%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 210 (27.20%) Security Cleared
2 152 (19.69%) Cisco Certification
3 150 (19.43%) SC Cleared
4 103 (13.34%) CISSP
5 88 (11.40%) CCNP
6 65 (8.42%) DV Cleared
7 64 (8.29%) Degree
8 50 (6.48%) CISM
9 47 (6.09%) CCNA
10 45 (5.83%) CCSP
11 43 (5.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 33 (4.27%) Azure Certification
13 28 (3.63%) CCIE
14 27 (3.50%) AWS Certification
15 16 (2.07%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (1.55%) PMP
17 11 (1.42%) PMI Certification
18 10 (1.30%) GIAC
19 9 (1.17%) CEH
19 9 (1.17%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (7.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 58 (7.51%) NIST
3 34 (4.40%) GDPR
4 25 (3.24%) NCSC
5 22 (2.85%) PCI DSS
6 13 (1.68%) GRC
7 11 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials
8 9 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 8 (1.04%) NIST 800
9 8 (1.04%) SLA
10 7 (0.91%) QA
11 6 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 4 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 3 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 3 (0.39%) ISA99
13 3 (0.39%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 2 (0.26%) JSP 440
14 2 (0.26%) PMO
System Software
1 72 (9.33%) Active Directory
2 54 (6.99%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (3.50%) Docker
4 20 (2.59%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (2.46%) VMware NSX
6 11 (1.42%) Hyper-V
6 11 (1.42%) vSphere
7 8 (1.04%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (1.04%) 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%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.13%) Varnish
10 1 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 86 (11.14%) Ansible
2 72 (9.33%) Kubernetes
3 42 (5.44%) FortiGate
4 22 (2.85%) Microsoft Intune
5 20 (2.59%) Grafana
6 15 (1.94%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (1.81%) Progress Chef
8 13 (1.68%) Prometheus
9 12 (1.55%) SCCM
10 10 (1.30%) CASB
11 7 (0.91%) Puppet
11 7 (0.91%) QRadar
11 7 (0.91%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.78%) Cisco CUCM
13 5 (0.65%) Suricata
13 5 (0.65%) WSUS
14 4 (0.52%) Cisco Prime
14 4 (0.52%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.52%) Podman
14 4 (0.52%) systemd
Vendors
1 225 (29.15%) Cisco
2 147 (19.04%) Microsoft
3 136 (17.62%) Palo Alto
4 74 (9.59%) Fortinet
5 72 (9.33%) VMware
6 68 (8.81%) F5
7 53 (6.87%) Zscaler
8 50 (6.48%) CheckPoint
9 44 (5.70%) Juniper
10 28 (3.63%) Splunk
11 27 (3.50%) SolarWinds
12 25 (3.24%) Google
12 25 (3.24%) ServiceNow
13 20 (2.59%) Citrix
14 19 (2.46%) Aruba
15 14 (1.81%) Meraki
16 13 (1.68%) Blue Coat
16 13 (1.68%) Tenable
17 12 (1.55%) CyberArk
18 11 (1.42%) ForeScout