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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 145 172
Rank change year-on-year -9 +27 +31
Contract jobs citing Network Security 687 491 513
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.70% 2.01% 1.38%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.74% 15.45% 10.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 482 297 361
10th Percentile £360 £375 £353
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £666
90th Percentile £700 £700 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £575
% change year-on-year -3.85% -9.57% +2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 9 15
10th Percentile £32.00 £18.05 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £40.50 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.50 £80.68 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.81% +497.59% -74.10%
75th Percentile £74.07 £81.35 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.48 -
UK median hourly rate £65.50 £62.84 £19.00
% change year-on-year +4.24% +230.72% -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 3,873 3,179 4,997
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.59% 13.03% 13.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,438 1,960 3,015
10th Percentile £238 £220 £206
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £490
Median % change year-on-year - +2.04% -6.67%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £495 £488 £495
% change year-on-year +1.54% -1.52% -4.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 212 122 400
10th Percentile £16.50 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £21.31 £15.65 £17.52
Median hourly rate £42.10 £30.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.89% -23.13% +114.36%
75th Percentile £66.38 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.01 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £36.57 £40.00
% change year-on-year +14.68% -8.57% +110.53%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -32 285 £525 -4.55% 95
North of England +3 138 £480 -4.00% 49
South East -24 107 £500 +2.04% 63
North West +1 85 £481 -3.75% 33
Midlands -30 69 £500 -9.09% 25
Yorkshire -19 52 £450 +12.50% 13
West Midlands -38 49 £475 -9.52% 18
East of England -23 36 £515 -8.44% 13
South West -31 30 £550 - 11
East Midlands -20 19 £638 -1.92% 7
North East -17 3 £538 -14.00% 3
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 12 (1.75%) Confluence
2 10 (1.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.87%) Apache
4 4 (0.58%) SharePoint
Applications
1 20 (2.91%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.60%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 206 (29.99%) Azure
2 144 (20.96%) AWS
3 78 (11.35%) GCP
4 49 (7.13%) Entra ID
5 27 (3.93%) GitHub
6 24 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
6 24 (3.49%) Azure Sentinel
6 24 (3.49%) GitHub Actions
7 19 (2.77%) Azure Key Vault
8 17 (2.47%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 16 (2.33%) Azure AKS
9 16 (2.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 15 (2.18%) AWS CloudFormation
11 13 (1.89%) Azure Monitor
11 13 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
11 13 (1.89%) SaaS
12 12 (1.75%) Amazon S3
12 12 (1.75%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 12 (1.75%) Serverless
13 11 (1.60%) Akamai
Communications & Networking
1 327 (47.60%) Firewall
2 130 (18.92%) VPN
3 121 (17.61%) WAN
4 92 (13.39%) LAN
5 88 (12.81%) BGP
6 84 (12.23%) DNS
7 77 (11.21%) OSPF
8 69 (10.04%) VLAN
9 65 (9.46%) SD-WAN
10 52 (7.57%) TCP/IP
10 52 (7.57%) Wireless
11 41 (5.97%) MPLS
12 37 (5.39%) DHCP
13 33 (4.80%) Cisco ASA
14 30 (4.37%) Cisco ISE
15 29 (4.22%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 29 (4.22%) Wi-Fi
16 28 (4.08%) Internet
17 26 (3.78%) SSL
18 23 (3.35%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.87%) Amazon RDS
1 6 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.73%) InfluxDB
2 5 (0.73%) Relational Database
2 5 (0.73%) SQL Server
3 3 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.44%) Data Lake
3 3 (0.44%) Power BI
4 2 (0.29%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 25 (3.64%) JIRA
2 18 (2.62%) Jenkins
3 12 (1.75%) GitLab
4 7 (1.02%) Git
5 5 (0.73%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.58%) Snyk
6 4 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.15%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.15%) Postman
7 1 (0.15%) SoapUI
General
1 162 (23.58%) Social Skills
2 102 (14.85%) Finance
3 69 (10.04%) Analytical Skills
4 53 (7.71%) Public Sector
5 36 (5.24%) Banking
6 26 (3.78%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (3.64%) Telecoms
8 22 (3.20%) Financial Institution
9 8 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (1.16%) Legal
10 7 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (0.73%) Law
11 5 (0.73%) Local Government
11 5 (0.73%) Manufacturing
12 4 (0.58%) Electronics
12 4 (0.58%) Military
12 4 (0.58%) Police
13 3 (0.44%) Investment Banking
13 3 (0.44%) Marketing
13 3 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 167 (24.31%) Network Engineer
2 146 (21.25%) Architect
3 86 (12.52%) Security Engineer
4 70 (10.19%) Security Architect
5 60 (8.73%) Senior
6 52 (7.57%) Network Architect
7 44 (6.40%) Network Security Engineer
8 26 (3.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 25 (3.64%) Analyst
9 25 (3.64%) Lead
10 22 (3.20%) Network Security Architect
11 21 (3.06%) Consultant
11 21 (3.06%) Project Manager
12 20 (2.91%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 17 (2.47%) Cloud Engineer
13 17 (2.47%) Solutions Architect
14 16 (2.33%) Cloud Architect
14 16 (2.33%) Senior Architect
14 16 (2.33%) Senior Network Engineer
15 15 (2.18%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.64%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.89%) LDAP
3 10 (1.46%) SAML
4 7 (1.02%) Node.js
5 5 (0.73%) .NET
5 5 (0.73%) OAuth
5 5 (0.73%) RabbitMQ
6 4 (0.58%) .NET Core
6 4 (0.58%) AngularJS
6 4 (0.58%) OpenID
6 4 (0.58%) PyTorch
6 4 (0.58%) React
6 4 (0.58%) TensorFlow
7 3 (0.44%) CSS
7 3 (0.44%) Elastic Stack
7 3 (0.44%) HTML
7 3 (0.44%) JSON
7 3 (0.44%) Lambda Expressions
7 3 (0.44%) OAuth2
7 3 (0.44%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 91 (13.25%) Data Centre
2 38 (5.53%) Security Posture
3 37 (5.39%) Hybrid Cloud
4 35 (5.09%) Cloud Native
5 27 (3.93%) PKI
6 25 (3.64%) Onboarding
7 22 (3.20%) Cyber Threat
7 22 (3.20%) Public Cloud
8 21 (3.06%) IoT
9 19 (2.77%) Management Information System
10 16 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
10 16 (2.33%) Operational Technology
11 15 (2.18%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 15 (2.18%) Product Ownership
12 13 (1.89%) Virtual Team
13 12 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
13 12 (1.75%) Security Operations Centre
14 11 (1.60%) Cyber Security Posture
15 9 (1.31%) Clustering
16 8 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 70 (10.19%) Windows
2 58 (8.44%) Linux
3 26 (3.78%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.60%) Unix
5 8 (1.16%) VMS
6 6 (0.87%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.87%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.73%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.44%) SUSE
9 1 (0.15%) Android
9 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (21.54%) Cybersecurity
2 106 (15.43%) Cloud Security
3 105 (15.28%) Zero Trust
4 95 (13.83%) Security Architecture
5 89 (12.95%) Problem-Solving
6 86 (12.52%) Migration
6 86 (12.52%) SIEM
7 85 (12.37%) CI/CD
8 81 (11.79%) DevOps
9 74 (10.77%) Continuous Improvement
9 74 (10.77%) Infrastructure as Code
10 66 (9.61%) Network Segmentation
11 65 (9.46%) Stakeholder Management
12 62 (9.02%) Change Management
12 62 (9.02%) Security Operations
13 60 (8.73%) High Availability
13 60 (8.73%) Incident Response
13 60 (8.73%) Threat Modelling
14 59 (8.59%) Agile
15 57 (8.30%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 85 (12.37%) Python
2 56 (8.15%) PowerShell
3 23 (3.35%) JavaScript
4 22 (3.20%) SQL
5 19 (2.77%) Bash
6 18 (2.62%) Bicep
7 10 (1.46%) Kusto Query Language
8 8 (1.16%) Shell Script
9 7 (1.02%) Go
9 7 (1.02%) Java
10 4 (0.58%) C
10 4 (0.58%) C#
10 4 (0.58%) PHP
11 3 (0.44%) C++
12 2 (0.29%) Ruby
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%) VBA
Qualifications
1 212 (30.86%) Security Cleared
2 151 (21.98%) SC Cleared
3 127 (18.49%) Cisco Certification
4 93 (13.54%) CCNP
5 79 (11.50%) CISSP
6 70 (10.19%) DV Cleared
7 48 (6.99%) CCNA
8 44 (6.40%) Degree
9 43 (6.26%) CISM
10 27 (3.93%) Azure Certification
11 24 (3.49%) CCSP
12 23 (3.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 21 (3.06%) CCIE
14 20 (2.91%) GIAC
15 18 (2.62%) CompTIA Security+
16 16 (2.33%) AWS Certification
16 16 (2.33%) CEH
17 10 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
17 10 (1.46%) PMP
18 9 (1.31%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (9.61%) NIST
2 58 (8.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 36 (5.24%) GDPR
4 26 (3.78%) PCI DSS
5 16 (2.33%) GRC
5 16 (2.33%) NCSC
6 15 (2.18%) Cyber Essentials
7 13 (1.89%) SLA
8 8 (1.16%) Actionable Recommendations
8 8 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 8 (1.16%) SOC 2
9 6 (0.87%) PMO
9 6 (0.87%) QA
9 6 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 5 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 4 (0.58%) RMADS
12 3 (0.44%) ISA99
12 3 (0.44%) JSP 440
13 2 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 50 (7.28%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (6.70%) Active Directory
3 18 (2.62%) VMware NSX
4 16 (2.33%) Docker
5 14 (2.04%) Virtual Machines
6 12 (1.75%) Hyper-V
7 10 (1.46%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (1.16%) vSphere
9 6 (0.87%) Firmware
10 4 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.29%) NFS
11 2 (0.29%) Postfix
11 2 (0.29%) Sendmail
11 2 (0.29%) Varnish
12 1 (0.15%) KVM
12 1 (0.15%) ProxySG
12 1 (0.15%) RHEV
12 1 (0.15%) Squid
12 1 (0.15%) XenApp
12 1 (0.15%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 97 (14.12%) Terraform
2 60 (8.73%) Ansible
3 51 (7.42%) Kubernetes
4 32 (4.66%) FortiGate
5 14 (2.04%) Nagios
5 14 (2.04%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (1.60%) vCenter Server
7 10 (1.46%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (1.31%) Kibana
8 9 (1.31%) Microsoft Clustering
9 7 (1.02%) Grafana
10 6 (0.87%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.73%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.73%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.73%) QRadar
11 5 (0.73%) WSUS
12 4 (0.58%) CASB
12 4 (0.58%) Istio
12 4 (0.58%) Puppet
13 3 (0.44%) SCOM
Vendors
1 198 (28.82%) Cisco
2 113 (16.45%) Palo Alto
3 109 (15.87%) Microsoft
4 64 (9.32%) F5
5 63 (9.17%) VMware
6 50 (7.28%) Fortinet
7 47 (6.84%) CheckPoint
7 47 (6.84%) Juniper
8 41 (5.97%) Zscaler
9 30 (4.37%) ServiceNow
10 25 (3.64%) Splunk
11 22 (3.20%) Google
12 20 (2.91%) SolarWinds
13 19 (2.77%) ForeScout
14 16 (2.33%) Aruba
14 16 (2.33%) Meraki
15 15 (2.18%) Citrix
16 12 (1.75%) Okta
16 12 (1.75%) SAP
17 11 (1.60%) Tenable