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 26 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 159 140 150
Rank change year-on-year -19 +10 +118
Contract jobs citing Network Security 539 541 628
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.70% 1.89% 1.70%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.74% 14.75% 12.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 323 344 444
10th Percentile £340 £358 £413
25th Percentile £413 £447 £480
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £576 £625 £650
90th Percentile £686 £700 £743
UK median daily rate £500 £511 £550
% change year-on-year -2.20% -7.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 8 5
10th Percentile £43.20 £17.83 £65.00
25th Percentile £47.63 £30.88 £68.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £43.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.16% -40.69% +93.33%
75th Percentile £84.38 £52.19 £76.25
90th Percentile £94.00 £76.78 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £41.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year +58.54% -43.45% +93.33%

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 3,425 3,668 5,221
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 10.78% 12.81% 14.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,222 2,158 3,238
10th Percentile £206 £220 £210
25th Percentile £360 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -1.96%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £677 £700
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 108 316
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.15 £17.88
25th Percentile £20.26 £20.64 £23.00
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -38.04% +29.27%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.81 £65.98
90th Percentile £75.50 £72.00 £76.18
UK median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £56.40
% change year-on-year -2.86% -37.94% +38.23%

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025. 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 -13 237 £525 -2.33% 81
North of England -40 105 £460 -8.00% 139
North West +6 74 £476 +0.26% 74
South East -15 73 £438 -20.45% 161
Midlands -29 63 £500 -14.24% 109
West Midlands -3 58 £500 -19.35% 62
Yorkshire -40 44 £205 -59.00% 57
East of England -20 28 £475 -12.04% 103
South West -15 23 £533 +1.43% 76
East Midlands -29 5 £650 +73.33% 41
North East -10 2 £475 -41.72% 9
South Coast - 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 6 (1.11%) Confluence
2 5 (0.93%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.74%) Apache
3 4 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.19%) IIS
4 1 (0.19%) nginx
4 1 (0.19%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (2.97%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (1.48%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.19%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 148 (27.46%) Azure
2 117 (21.71%) AWS
3 44 (8.16%) GCP
4 28 (5.19%) Entra ID
5 25 (4.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 24 (4.45%) Microsoft 365
7 22 (4.08%) Amazon S3
8 21 (3.90%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (3.71%) Amazon EC2
10 16 (2.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 16 (2.97%) Amazon ELB
11 14 (2.60%) GitHub
12 13 (2.41%) Azure Key Vault
12 13 (2.41%) Azure Sentinel
12 13 (2.41%) Serverless
13 12 (2.23%) Azure Monitor
13 12 (2.23%) GitHub Actions
14 11 (2.04%) Google Workspace
14 11 (2.04%) IaaS
15 8 (1.48%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 268 (49.72%) Firewall
2 116 (21.52%) VPN
3 103 (19.11%) DNS
4 94 (17.44%) WAN
5 65 (12.06%) SSL
6 64 (11.87%) LAN
7 59 (10.95%) BGP
7 59 (10.95%) TCP/IP
8 49 (9.09%) SD-WAN
9 46 (8.53%) VLAN
10 45 (8.35%) OSPF
11 42 (7.79%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
12 36 (6.68%) DMZ
12 36 (6.68%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
13 33 (6.12%) Wireless
14 25 (4.64%) HTTP
15 22 (4.08%) Internet
15 22 (4.08%) Intrusion Detection
16 20 (3.71%) Wi-Fi
17 18 (3.34%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (0.74%) InfluxDB
1 4 (0.74%) Relational Database
2 3 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (0.37%) Data Lake
3 2 (0.37%) Power BI
4 1 (0.19%) Amazon Athena
4 1 (0.19%) MySQL
4 1 (0.19%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.19%) Redis
4 1 (0.19%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.19%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 24 (4.45%) Jenkins
2 22 (4.08%) GitLab
3 21 (3.90%) Git
4 6 (1.11%) JIRA
5 1 (0.19%) Metasploit
5 1 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.19%) Subversion
General
1 173 (32.10%) Social Skills
2 98 (18.18%) Analytical Skills
3 53 (9.83%) Finance
4 47 (8.72%) Public Sector
5 35 (6.49%) Banking
6 21 (3.90%) Telecoms
7 19 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (2.97%) Investment Banking
9 13 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (1.67%) Pharmaceutical
11 7 (1.30%) Legal
11 7 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.11%) Manufacturing
12 6 (1.11%) Military
13 5 (0.93%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
14 4 (0.74%) Aerospace
14 4 (0.74%) Law
14 4 (0.74%) Marketing
14 4 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 116 (21.52%) Network Engineer
2 96 (17.81%) Security Engineer
3 87 (16.14%) Architect
4 54 (10.02%) Security Architect
5 47 (8.72%) Network Security Engineer
6 45 (8.35%) Senior
7 44 (8.16%) Analyst
8 42 (7.79%) Network Architect
9 23 (4.27%) Network Security Architect
10 22 (4.08%) Administrator
11 21 (3.90%) Security Analyst
12 20 (3.71%) SOC Analyst
13 19 (3.53%) Cybersecurity Engineer
14 17 (3.15%) Consultant
14 17 (3.15%) Lead
14 17 (3.15%) Operations Engineer
15 15 (2.78%) Platform Manager
15 15 (2.78%) Systems Administrator
15 15 (2.78%) Wintel Administrator
15 15 (2.78%) Wintel Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (3.34%) LDAP
2 12 (2.23%) 802.1X
3 8 (1.48%) .NET
3 8 (1.48%) Node.js
4 6 (1.11%) SAML
5 5 (0.93%) .NET Core
5 5 (0.93%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.93%) ARM Templates
5 5 (0.93%) Elastic Stack
5 5 (0.93%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.93%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (0.93%) React
5 5 (0.93%) TensorFlow
6 2 (0.37%) HTML
6 2 (0.37%) OAuth
6 2 (0.37%) OAuth2
6 2 (0.37%) OpenID
7 1 (0.19%) ADO
7 1 (0.19%) CSS
7 1 (0.19%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 57 (10.58%) Data Centre
2 45 (8.35%) Management Information System
3 34 (6.31%) Security Posture
4 33 (6.12%) Hybrid Cloud
5 24 (4.45%) Cloud Native
6 23 (4.27%) Security Operations Centre
7 22 (4.08%) Analytical Mindset
7 22 (4.08%) Cyber Threat
8 21 (3.90%) PKI
9 16 (2.97%) CSOC
9 16 (2.97%) Cyberattack
9 16 (2.97%) Onboarding
10 15 (2.78%) Operational Technology
11 13 (2.41%) Public Cloud
12 12 (2.23%) Cyber Security Posture
13 10 (1.86%) Cloud Security Posture
13 10 (1.86%) Virtual Team
14 7 (1.30%) Clustering
14 7 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
14 7 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 83 (15.40%) Windows
2 63 (11.69%) Linux
3 21 (3.90%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.30%) Unix
5 4 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.74%) VMS
6 3 (0.56%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.19%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.19%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (24.30%) Cybersecurity
2 107 (19.85%) SIEM
3 106 (19.67%) Problem-Solving
4 100 (18.55%) Incident Response
5 83 (15.40%) Cloud Security
6 68 (12.62%) CI/CD
6 68 (12.62%) DevOps
7 66 (12.24%) Infrastructure as Code
8 60 (11.13%) Change Management
9 59 (10.95%) Zero Trust
10 53 (9.83%) Security Operations
11 52 (9.65%) Security Architecture
12 51 (9.46%) Migration
13 46 (8.53%) Identity Access Management
13 46 (8.53%) Infrastructure Automation
13 46 (8.53%) Load Balancing
13 46 (8.53%) Network Architecture
14 45 (8.35%) Threat Modelling
15 43 (7.98%) Continuous Improvement
16 42 (7.79%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 116 (21.52%) Python
2 78 (14.47%) PowerShell
3 35 (6.49%) Bash
4 17 (3.15%) SQL
5 15 (2.78%) Bicep
6 12 (2.23%) Kusto Query Language
7 11 (2.04%) JavaScript
8 8 (1.48%) Java
9 7 (1.30%) Go
10 5 (0.93%) C#
11 4 (0.74%) Perl
11 4 (0.74%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.56%) C
12 3 (0.56%) C++
13 1 (0.19%) C-shell
13 1 (0.19%) Korn
13 1 (0.19%) Rust
13 1 (0.19%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.19%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 166 (30.80%) Security Cleared
2 119 (22.08%) SC Cleared
3 97 (18.00%) Cisco Certification
4 75 (13.91%) CCNP
4 75 (13.91%) CISSP
5 52 (9.65%) DV Cleared
6 40 (7.42%) Degree
7 32 (5.94%) CISM
8 27 (5.01%) GIAC
9 25 (4.64%) CCIE
9 25 (4.64%) CEH
10 22 (4.08%) CCNA
11 18 (3.34%) Azure Certification
11 18 (3.34%) CompTIA Security+
12 14 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
13 13 (2.41%) AWS Certification
13 13 (2.41%) CCSP
14 12 (2.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 11 (2.04%) CCSA
16 8 (1.48%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (11.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 56 (10.39%) NIST
3 43 (7.98%) GDPR
4 30 (5.57%) PCI DSS
5 15 (2.78%) Cyber Essentials
6 12 (2.23%) NCSC
7 10 (1.86%) GRC
8 9 (1.67%) HIPAA
9 7 (1.30%) SLA
10 5 (0.93%) PSD2
10 5 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.93%) SOC 2
11 4 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.74%) JSP 440
12 2 (0.37%) GxP
12 2 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 2 (0.37%) PMO
12 2 (0.37%) QA
13 1 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 39 (7.24%) Active Directory
2 38 (7.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (6.86%) Docker
4 10 (1.86%) VMware NSX
5 9 (1.67%) Hyper-V
6 8 (1.48%) Firmware
7 7 (1.30%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.74%) ProxySG
8 4 (0.74%) vSphere
9 3 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.37%) KVM
11 1 (0.19%) RHEV
11 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.19%) Xen
11 1 (0.19%) XenApp
11 1 (0.19%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 88 (16.33%) Terraform
2 57 (10.58%) Ansible
3 28 (5.19%) Kubernetes
4 22 (4.08%) FortiGate
5 12 (2.23%) Nagios
6 10 (1.86%) Kibana
7 9 (1.67%) QRadar
8 8 (1.48%) Microsoft Intune
9 7 (1.30%) Grafana
9 7 (1.30%) Prometheus
10 6 (1.11%) Microsoft Clustering
10 6 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.93%) CASB
12 4 (0.74%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.56%) CA Spectrum
13 3 (0.56%) Icinga
13 3 (0.56%) Puppet
13 3 (0.56%) SCCM
14 2 (0.37%) Docker Swarm
14 2 (0.37%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 135 (25.05%) Cisco
2 108 (20.04%) Palo Alto
3 89 (16.51%) F5
3 89 (16.51%) Microsoft
4 58 (10.76%) CheckPoint
5 49 (9.09%) Juniper
6 48 (8.91%) VMware
7 45 (8.35%) Fortinet
8 41 (7.61%) Zscaler
9 29 (5.38%) Splunk
10 24 (4.45%) Meraki
10 24 (4.45%) SolarWinds
11 21 (3.90%) CrowdStrike
12 19 (3.53%) Google
13 16 (2.97%) Tenable
14 15 (2.78%) ServiceNow
15 12 (2.23%) Blue Coat
15 12 (2.23%) Qualys
16 11 (2.04%) Forcepoint
17 10 (1.86%) FireEye