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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 155 139 185
Rank change year-on-year -16 +46 +6
Contract jobs citing Network Security 710 463 466
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.70% 1.95% 1.27%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.88% 14.90% 9.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 493 284 323
10th Percentile £400 £382 £363
25th Percentile £446 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £532 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.27% -3.32% -4.35%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £675
90th Percentile £700 £709 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £524 £550
% change year-on-year +0.24% -4.77% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 6 15
10th Percentile £27.20 £80.34 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £80.59 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.35 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.10% +502.59% -74.10%
75th Percentile £74.00 £81.91 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £83.05 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £81.35 £19.00
% change year-on-year -20.10% +328.16% -63.55%

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 3,972 3,108 4,804
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.53% 13.07% 13.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,465 1,947 2,893
10th Percentile £263 £220 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -3.85%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £695
UK median daily rate £500 £486 £490
% change year-on-year +2.83% -0.77% -4.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 114 386
10th Percentile £16.50 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.33 £15.44 £16.30
Median hourly rate £32.50 £39.66 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.05% -0.85% +131.45%
75th Percentile £65.66 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £81.35 £70.33
UK median hourly rate £28.96 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -27.60% - +116.22%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 -15 303 £550 -4.35% 111
North of England +4 158 £498 -0.50% 55
South East -22 100 £500 +2.04% 73
North West +5 91 £493 -3.28% 35
Yorkshire -17 64 £500 +1.83% 16
Midlands -52 51 £475 -9.52% 19
East of England -19 35 £525 -6.67% 16
South West -24 33 £550 - 20
West Midlands -59 32 £435 -17.14% 13
East Midlands -16 18 £638 - 6
North East -22 3 £538 -14.00% 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 15 (2.11%) Confluence
2 11 (1.55%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (0.70%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.28%) Apache
Applications
1 13 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.69%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 211 (29.72%) Azure
2 150 (21.13%) AWS
3 91 (12.82%) GCP
4 56 (7.89%) Entra ID
5 25 (3.52%) Azure Sentinel
6 23 (3.24%) GitHub
7 21 (2.96%) Azure DevOps
8 19 (2.68%) GitHub Actions
9 18 (2.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 17 (2.39%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 16 (2.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 16 (2.25%) Azure Key Vault
11 16 (2.25%) Microsoft 365
12 14 (1.97%) Akamai
13 13 (1.83%) SaaS
14 12 (1.69%) AWS CloudFormation
14 12 (1.69%) Azure AKS
14 12 (1.69%) Azure Monitor
15 11 (1.55%) Serverless
16 10 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 326 (45.92%) Firewall
2 142 (20.00%) VPN
3 132 (18.59%) WAN
4 100 (14.08%) LAN
5 91 (12.82%) DNS
6 88 (12.39%) BGP
7 76 (10.70%) OSPF
8 71 (10.00%) VLAN
9 64 (9.01%) SD-WAN
10 62 (8.73%) TCP/IP
11 61 (8.59%) Wireless
12 46 (6.48%) MPLS
13 43 (6.06%) DHCP
14 36 (5.07%) SSL
15 33 (4.65%) Cisco ISE
16 28 (3.94%) Cisco ASA
16 28 (3.94%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 27 (3.80%) IPsec
18 26 (3.66%) HTTP
19 25 (3.52%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
1 5 (0.70%) SQL Server
2 4 (0.56%) Neo4j
3 3 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.42%) Power BI
4 2 (0.28%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
4 2 (0.28%) InfluxDB
4 2 (0.28%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.28%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (0.28%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.14%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 31 (4.37%) JIRA
2 17 (2.39%) GitLab
3 16 (2.25%) Git
3 16 (2.25%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.70%) Browser DevTools
5 4 (0.56%) Snyk
5 4 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.42%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.28%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.14%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.14%) Postman
8 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
General
1 164 (23.10%) Social Skills
2 108 (15.21%) Finance
3 65 (9.15%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (7.04%) Public Sector
5 44 (6.20%) Banking
6 31 (4.37%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.38%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.82%) Financial Institution
9 10 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (1.27%) Legal
11 8 (1.13%) Retail
12 7 (0.99%) Manufacturing
13 6 (0.85%) Law
13 6 (0.85%) Military
14 5 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.70%) Local Government
14 5 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.70%) Police
15 3 (0.42%) Electronics
15 3 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 175 (24.65%) Network Engineer
2 152 (21.41%) Architect
3 93 (13.10%) Security Engineer
4 71 (10.00%) Security Architect
5 65 (9.15%) Senior
6 55 (7.75%) Network Architect
7 47 (6.62%) Network Security Engineer
8 29 (4.08%) Consultant
9 28 (3.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 28 (3.94%) Project Manager
9 28 (3.94%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
10 25 (3.52%) Lead
11 24 (3.38%) Cloud Engineer
12 23 (3.24%) Network Security Architect
13 21 (2.96%) Analyst
14 20 (2.82%) Cloud Architect
15 19 (2.68%) Azure Architect
15 19 (2.68%) Solutions Architect
16 18 (2.54%) Senior Architect
16 18 (2.54%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (4.08%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.83%) LDAP
3 11 (1.55%) SAML
4 7 (0.99%) Kafka
5 6 (0.85%) REST
6 5 (0.70%) OAuth
7 4 (0.56%) ARM Templates
7 4 (0.56%) CSS
7 4 (0.56%) HTML
7 4 (0.56%) OpenID
8 3 (0.42%) JSON
8 3 (0.42%) Lambda Expressions
8 3 (0.42%) Node.js
8 3 (0.42%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.42%) Plotly
8 3 (0.42%) SLSA
9 2 (0.28%) gRPC
9 2 (0.28%) Keycloak
9 2 (0.28%) Protocol Buffers
9 2 (0.28%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 98 (13.80%) Data Centre
2 46 (6.48%) Security Posture
3 39 (5.49%) Cloud Native
4 38 (5.35%) Hybrid Cloud
5 27 (3.80%) PKI
6 25 (3.52%) Onboarding
7 22 (3.10%) Cyber Threat
8 20 (2.82%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 20 (2.82%) IoT
9 19 (2.68%) Public Cloud
10 18 (2.54%) Operational Technology
11 17 (2.39%) Management Information System
12 16 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
12 16 (2.25%) Product Ownership
13 14 (1.97%) Security Operations Centre
14 12 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
15 11 (1.55%) Cyber Security Posture
16 10 (1.41%) Analytical Mindset
16 10 (1.41%) Replication
17 9 (1.27%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 64 (9.01%) Windows
2 51 (7.18%) Linux
3 26 (3.66%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (0.99%) VMS
5 6 (0.85%) Ubuntu
5 6 (0.85%) Unix
6 5 (0.70%) Windows 10
7 4 (0.56%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.42%) SUSE
9 1 (0.14%) Android
9 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (20.85%) Cybersecurity
2 117 (16.48%) Zero Trust
3 114 (16.06%) Cloud Security
4 96 (13.52%) Security Architecture
5 94 (13.24%) CI/CD
5 94 (13.24%) SIEM
6 91 (12.82%) Migration
7 87 (12.25%) DevOps
8 84 (11.83%) Infrastructure as Code
9 78 (10.99%) Continuous Improvement
10 76 (10.70%) Problem-Solving
11 71 (10.00%) Network Segmentation
12 66 (9.30%) Application Security
13 64 (9.01%) Threat Modelling
14 63 (8.87%) High Availability
14 63 (8.87%) Stakeholder Management
15 62 (8.73%) Agile
15 62 (8.73%) Incident Response
16 59 (8.31%) Change Management
17 58 (8.17%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 91 (12.82%) Python
2 58 (8.17%) PowerShell
3 28 (3.94%) Bash
4 21 (2.96%) Bicep
5 20 (2.82%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.11%) SQL
7 9 (1.27%) Kusto Query Language
8 7 (0.99%) Shell Script
9 5 (0.70%) Java
10 4 (0.56%) C
10 4 (0.56%) Go
10 4 (0.56%) PHP
11 3 (0.42%) C++
12 2 (0.28%) Ruby
12 2 (0.28%) Rust
13 1 (0.14%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.14%) C#
13 1 (0.14%) C-shell
13 1 (0.14%) Korn
13 1 (0.14%) Perl
Qualifications
1 221 (31.13%) Security Cleared
2 162 (22.82%) SC Cleared
3 136 (19.15%) Cisco Certification
4 91 (12.82%) CCNP
5 81 (11.41%) CISSP
6 71 (10.00%) DV Cleared
7 55 (7.75%) CCNA
8 49 (6.90%) Degree
9 45 (6.34%) CISM
10 29 (4.08%) CCSP
11 28 (3.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 27 (3.80%) Azure Certification
13 16 (2.25%) CCIE
13 16 (2.25%) GIAC
14 14 (1.97%) AWS Certification
15 13 (1.83%) CEH
16 12 (1.69%) CompTIA Security+
17 11 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
17 11 (1.55%) JNCIS
18 10 (1.41%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (9.58%) NIST
2 52 (7.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (4.37%) GDPR
4 23 (3.24%) PCI DSS
5 17 (2.39%) GRC
6 15 (2.11%) NCSC
7 13 (1.83%) Cyber Essentials
8 10 (1.41%) QA
8 10 (1.41%) SLA
9 8 (1.13%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.13%) SOC 2
10 6 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 4 (0.56%) PMO
11 4 (0.56%) RMADS
12 3 (0.42%) ISA99
13 2 (0.28%) JSP 440
13 2 (0.28%) NIST 800
System Software
1 52 (7.32%) VMware Infrastructure
2 51 (7.18%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.96%) VMware NSX
4 20 (2.82%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (2.39%) Docker
6 14 (1.97%) Hyper-V
7 11 (1.55%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (1.27%) vSphere
9 5 (0.70%) Firmware
9 5 (0.70%) Squid
10 4 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.28%) NFS
11 2 (0.28%) Postfix
11 2 (0.28%) ProxySG
11 2 (0.28%) Sendmail
11 2 (0.28%) Varnish
11 2 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.14%) KVM
12 1 (0.14%) RHEV
12 1 (0.14%) Xen
Systems Management
1 101 (14.23%) Terraform
2 66 (9.30%) Ansible
3 56 (7.89%) Kubernetes
4 36 (5.07%) FortiGate
5 16 (2.25%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.97%) Nagios
7 13 (1.83%) Grafana
8 11 (1.55%) vCenter Server
9 10 (1.41%) Microsoft Intune
10 9 (1.27%) Microsoft Clustering
11 8 (1.13%) Kibana
12 6 (0.85%) QRadar
13 5 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.70%) CASB
13 5 (0.70%) Prometheus
13 5 (0.70%) Suricata
13 5 (0.70%) WSUS
14 4 (0.56%) Istio
14 4 (0.56%) Kustomize
14 4 (0.56%) Puppet
Vendors
1 206 (29.01%) Cisco
2 115 (16.20%) Palo Alto
3 100 (14.08%) Microsoft
4 66 (9.30%) VMware
5 64 (9.01%) F5
6 54 (7.61%) Fortinet
7 51 (7.18%) Juniper
8 46 (6.48%) CheckPoint
9 45 (6.34%) Zscaler
10 30 (4.23%) ServiceNow
11 25 (3.52%) Splunk
12 23 (3.24%) SolarWinds
13 19 (2.68%) ForeScout
13 19 (2.68%) Google
14 17 (2.39%) Aruba
14 17 (2.39%) Citrix
15 13 (1.83%) Tenable
16 11 (1.55%) Meraki
16 11 (1.55%) Okta
16 11 (1.55%) SAP