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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 151 152 182
Rank change year-on-year +1 +30 -13
Contract jobs citing Network Security 753 469 487
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.73% 1.87% 1.30%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 18.38% 14.61% 10.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 531 289 331
10th Percentile £400 £380 £363
25th Percentile £447 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.05% -4.55% -2.44%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £669
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 9 16
10th Percentile £21.25 £70.16 -
25th Percentile £33.81 £80.34 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.35 £16.25
Median % change year-on-year -20.10% +400.62% -68.83%
75th Percentile £74.00 £82.10 £41.25
90th Percentile - £87.20 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £81.01 £21.00
% change year-on-year -19.77% +285.77% -61.82%

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 4,097 3,211 4,788
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.43% 12.82% 12.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,547 1,997 2,850
10th Percentile £250 £230 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.01% -1.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 283 134 394
10th Percentile £16.04 £14.69 £13.61
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.98 £17.69
Median hourly rate £29.04 £40.50 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.30% -7.95% +131.58%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £81.35 £73.60
UK median hourly rate £27.94 £45.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -37.91% +12.50% +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 24 June 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 24 June 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 24 June 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 +12 332 £550 -4.35% 58
North of England -2 177 £514 +4.47% 44
South East -25 104 £520 +6.12% 51
North West -5 96 £525 +5.00% 32
Yorkshire 0 79 £500 +1.83% 11
Midlands -43 51 £475 -18.28% 21
East of England -20 32 £525 -4.55% 16
South West -30 30 £550 -6.38% 21
West Midlands -64 30 £420 -27.74% 11
East Midlands 0 20 £569 - 10
North East -34 2 £675 +8.00% 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 17 (2.26%) Confluence
2 14 (1.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.20%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.27%) Apache
5 1 (0.13%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 17 (2.26%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.46%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.13%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.66%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 227 (30.15%) Azure
2 171 (22.71%) AWS
3 102 (13.55%) GCP
4 69 (9.16%) Entra ID
5 29 (3.85%) GitHub
6 25 (3.32%) GitHub Actions
7 24 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
7 24 (3.19%) Azure Sentinel
8 22 (2.92%) Microsoft 365
8 22 (2.92%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 21 (2.79%) Serverless
10 20 (2.66%) SaaS
11 17 (2.26%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 16 (2.12%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 16 (2.12%) Azure Key Vault
13 14 (1.86%) Akamai
13 14 (1.86%) AWS CloudFormation
13 14 (1.86%) Azure AKS
13 14 (1.86%) Azure Monitor
13 14 (1.86%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 347 (46.08%) Firewall
2 153 (20.32%) VPN
3 142 (18.86%) WAN
4 105 (13.94%) LAN
5 100 (13.28%) DNS
6 89 (11.82%) BGP
7 77 (10.23%) Wireless
8 72 (9.56%) SD-WAN
9 71 (9.43%) OSPF
10 68 (9.03%) TCP/IP
10 68 (9.03%) VLAN
11 48 (6.37%) DHCP
12 47 (6.24%) MPLS
13 39 (5.18%) SSL
14 37 (4.91%) Cisco ISE
15 33 (4.38%) IPsec
16 31 (4.12%) Cisco ASA
17 30 (3.98%) Internet
17 30 (3.98%) NGFW
18 29 (3.85%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.66%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.53%) Data Lake
3 4 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.53%) Neo4j
3 4 (0.53%) Power BI
4 3 (0.40%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.13%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.13%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.13%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.13%) InfluxDB
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.13%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.13%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.13%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 36 (4.78%) JIRA
2 21 (2.79%) Git
2 21 (2.79%) GitLab
3 17 (2.26%) Jenkins
4 5 (0.66%) Browser DevTools
5 4 (0.53%) Snyk
5 4 (0.53%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.40%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.40%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.13%) Postman
7 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
General
1 178 (23.64%) Social Skills
2 126 (16.73%) Finance
3 59 (7.84%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (7.44%) Public Sector
5 51 (6.77%) Banking
6 30 (3.98%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (2.92%) Financial Institution
8 20 (2.66%) Telecoms
9 12 (1.59%) Retail
10 11 (1.46%) Legal
11 10 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 9 (1.20%) Police
13 8 (1.06%) Local Government
13 8 (1.06%) Organisational Skills
14 7 (0.93%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (0.80%) Law
16 5 (0.66%) Military
17 3 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
18 2 (0.27%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 189 (25.10%) Network Engineer
2 163 (21.65%) Architect
3 103 (13.68%) Security Engineer
4 76 (10.09%) Senior
5 72 (9.56%) Security Architect
6 56 (7.44%) Network Security Engineer
7 55 (7.30%) Network Architect
8 38 (5.05%) Project Manager
9 35 (4.65%) Consultant
10 31 (4.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 29 (3.85%) Lead
12 28 (3.72%) Cloud Engineer
13 24 (3.19%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 22 (2.92%) Network Manager
14 22 (2.92%) Senior Network Engineer
14 22 (2.92%) Solutions Architect
15 21 (2.79%) Senior Architect
16 20 (2.66%) Network Security Architect
17 19 (2.52%) Cloud Architect
18 18 (2.39%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (4.65%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.73%) SAML
3 9 (1.20%) Kafka
3 9 (1.20%) REST
4 8 (1.06%) LDAP
5 7 (0.93%) ARM Templates
5 7 (0.93%) OAuth
6 6 (0.80%) CSS
6 6 (0.80%) OpenID
7 5 (0.66%) HTML
7 5 (0.66%) OAuth2
8 4 (0.53%) gRPC
8 4 (0.53%) Keycloak
8 4 (0.53%) Protocol Buffers
8 4 (0.53%) RESTful
9 3 (0.40%) Lambda Expressions
9 3 (0.40%) Plotly
9 3 (0.40%) SailPoint
9 3 (0.40%) SLSA
10 2 (0.27%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 90 (11.95%) Data Centre
2 62 (8.23%) Security Posture
3 46 (6.11%) Cloud Native
4 41 (5.44%) Hybrid Cloud
5 31 (4.12%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 25 (3.32%) PKI
7 22 (2.92%) Onboarding
7 22 (2.92%) Public Cloud
8 20 (2.66%) Operational Technology
9 19 (2.52%) Data Protection Act
9 19 (2.52%) Product Ownership
10 17 (2.26%) Cyber Threat
11 16 (2.12%) IoT
11 16 (2.12%) Management Information System
11 16 (2.12%) Security Operations Centre
12 12 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (1.20%) Enterprise Cloud
13 9 (1.20%) Replication
13 9 (1.20%) Virtual Team
14 8 (1.06%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 58 (7.70%) Linux
2 56 (7.44%) Windows
3 22 (2.92%) Windows Server
4 10 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.06%) Unix
6 7 (0.93%) Ubuntu
6 7 (0.93%) VMS
7 5 (0.66%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.66%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.40%) Android
8 3 (0.40%) Check Point GAiA
8 3 (0.40%) SUSE
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (20.72%) Cybersecurity
2 129 (17.13%) Cloud Security
3 123 (16.33%) Zero Trust
4 109 (14.48%) CI/CD
5 104 (13.81%) SIEM
6 103 (13.68%) DevOps
7 101 (13.41%) Migration
8 99 (13.15%) Security Architecture
9 96 (12.75%) Infrastructure as Code
10 95 (12.62%) Continuous Improvement
11 86 (11.42%) Stakeholder Management
12 80 (10.62%) Problem-Solving
13 76 (10.09%) Agile
13 76 (10.09%) High Availability
14 75 (9.96%) Application Security
14 75 (9.96%) Network Segmentation
15 72 (9.56%) Load Balancing
16 70 (9.30%) Threat Modelling
17 69 (9.16%) Data Protection
18 67 (8.90%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 88 (11.69%) Python
2 45 (5.98%) PowerShell
3 33 (4.38%) Bash
4 23 (3.05%) Bicep
5 20 (2.66%) SQL
6 18 (2.39%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.06%) Shell Script
8 5 (0.66%) Java
9 4 (0.53%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (0.53%) PHP
9 4 (0.53%) Rust
10 3 (0.40%) C
10 3 (0.40%) Perl
11 2 (0.27%) C++
11 2 (0.27%) Ruby
12 1 (0.13%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.13%) Search Processing Language
12 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 220 (29.22%) Security Cleared
2 157 (20.85%) SC Cleared
3 141 (18.73%) Cisco Certification
4 86 (11.42%) CISSP
5 84 (11.16%) CCNP
6 71 (9.43%) DV Cleared
7 57 (7.57%) CCNA
7 57 (7.57%) Degree
8 51 (6.77%) CISM
9 35 (4.65%) CCSP
10 34 (4.52%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 27 (3.59%) Azure Certification
12 19 (2.52%) CCIE
13 18 (2.39%) AWS Certification
14 14 (1.86%) CompTIA Security+
15 13 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
16 12 (1.59%) GIAC
17 9 (1.20%) PMP
18 8 (1.06%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (9.83%) NIST
2 60 (7.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 35 (4.65%) GDPR
4 25 (3.32%) PCI DSS
5 23 (3.05%) NCSC
6 19 (2.52%) GRC
7 14 (1.86%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (1.46%) QA
9 9 (1.20%) SLA
10 8 (1.06%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (1.06%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (1.06%) SOC 2
11 6 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (0.66%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.53%) PMO
14 3 (0.40%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 3 (0.40%) ISA99
14 3 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 3 (0.40%) RMADS
System Software
1 60 (7.97%) Active Directory
2 51 (6.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (3.05%) Virtual Machines
4 22 (2.92%) Docker
5 21 (2.79%) VMware NSX
6 11 (1.46%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (1.06%) Hyper-V
7 8 (1.06%) vSphere
8 6 (0.80%) Firmware
9 5 (0.66%) Squid
10 4 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.27%) NFS
11 2 (0.27%) Postfix
11 2 (0.27%) Sendmail
11 2 (0.27%) Varnish
11 2 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
Systems Management
1 102 (13.55%) Terraform
2 67 (8.90%) Kubernetes
3 65 (8.63%) Ansible
4 40 (5.31%) FortiGate
5 18 (2.39%) Grafana
6 17 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (1.46%) vCenter Server
8 10 (1.33%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (1.33%) Prometheus
9 6 (0.80%) CASB
9 6 (0.80%) QRadar
10 5 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (0.66%) Puppet
10 5 (0.66%) Suricata
10 5 (0.66%) WSUS
11 4 (0.53%) Istio
11 4 (0.53%) Kustomize
11 4 (0.53%) Podman
12 3 (0.40%) Failover Clustering
12 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 212 (28.15%) Cisco
2 118 (15.67%) Microsoft
3 115 (15.27%) Palo Alto
4 63 (8.37%) Fortinet
4 63 (8.37%) VMware
5 61 (8.10%) F5
6 53 (7.04%) CheckPoint
7 49 (6.51%) Zscaler
8 44 (5.84%) Juniper
9 33 (4.38%) ServiceNow
10 29 (3.85%) Splunk
11 23 (3.05%) Google
12 21 (2.79%) Citrix
13 20 (2.66%) SolarWinds
14 19 (2.52%) Aruba
15 18 (2.39%) ForeScout
16 14 (1.86%) Tenable
17 12 (1.59%) Arista
17 12 (1.59%) Infoblox
18 11 (1.46%) Blue Coat