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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 154 150 181
Rank change year-on-year -4 +31 -20
Contract jobs citing Network Security 790 497 503
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.77% 1.84% 1.35%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 18.57% 14.59% 10.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 543 309 339
10th Percentile £387 £375 £363
25th Percentile £435 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.57% -4.55% -2.22%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £666
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £515 £550
% change year-on-year +1.94% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 10 16
10th Percentile £24.10 £70.16 -
25th Percentile £38.94 £80.34 £7.43
Median hourly rate £73.00 £81.35 £16.25
Median % change year-on-year -10.26% +400.62% -70.45%
75th Percentile £74.00 £83.53 £41.25
90th Percentile £74.05 £100.55 -
UK median hourly rate £73.00 £81.35 £21.00
% change year-on-year -10.26% +287.38% -67.69%

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 4,254 3,407 4,854
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.51% 12.63% 13.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,623 2,116 2,892
10th Percentile £250 £235 £215
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £481 £500
% change year-on-year +4.06% -3.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 300 148 390
10th Percentile £16.04 £14.90 £13.87
25th Percentile £20.50 £22.45 £17.69
Median hourly rate £26.72 £40.50 £45.44
Median % change year-on-year -34.02% -10.87% +65.24%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £81.35 £74.10
UK median hourly rate £26.55 £45.00 £44.00
% change year-on-year -41.00% +2.27% +53.04%

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 9 July 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 9 July 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 9 July 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 -8 337 £550 - 93
North of England +7 190 £525 +7.80% 52
South East -14 118 £523 +6.63% 62
North West +5 99 £531 +11.79% 39
Yorkshire +10 89 £500 +1.83% 12
Midlands -49 57 £500 -13.98% 22
West Midlands -71 36 £435 -25.16% 10
East of England -11 33 £525 -0.94% 16
South West -34 32 £550 -8.33% 21
East Midlands +4 20 £569 - 12
North East -31 2 £675 +8.00% 1
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 (2.15%) Confluence
2 12 (1.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.14%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.25%) Apache
5 1 (0.13%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 17 (2.15%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.39%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.13%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.76%) Oracle ERP
1 6 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 236 (29.87%) Azure
2 178 (22.53%) AWS
3 105 (13.29%) GCP
4 71 (8.99%) Entra ID
5 29 (3.67%) GitHub
6 27 (3.42%) Azure DevOps
7 25 (3.16%) Azure Sentinel
7 25 (3.16%) Microsoft 365
8 24 (3.04%) SaaS
9 23 (2.91%) Serverless
10 21 (2.66%) GitHub Actions
10 21 (2.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 18 (2.28%) Azure Monitor
12 17 (2.15%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 17 (2.15%) OCI
13 16 (2.03%) Azure AKS
13 16 (2.03%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 16 (2.03%) Azure Key Vault
14 14 (1.77%) Akamai
14 14 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 359 (45.44%) Firewall
2 170 (21.52%) VPN
3 160 (20.25%) WAN
4 111 (14.05%) DNS
4 111 (14.05%) LAN
5 95 (12.03%) BGP
6 87 (11.01%) Wireless
7 79 (10.00%) SD-WAN
8 76 (9.62%) TCP/IP
9 75 (9.49%) OSPF
10 71 (8.99%) VLAN
11 53 (6.71%) DHCP
12 49 (6.20%) MPLS
13 41 (5.19%) SSL
14 40 (5.06%) Cisco ISE
15 38 (4.81%) Cisco ASA
16 35 (4.43%) IPsec
17 34 (4.30%) NGFW
18 31 (3.92%) Internet
19 29 (3.67%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.14%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
3 4 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.51%) Data Lake
3 4 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.51%) Neo4j
3 4 (0.51%) Power BI
4 3 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Database
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 39 (4.94%) JIRA
2 30 (3.80%) Git
3 21 (2.66%) GitLab
4 17 (2.15%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.89%) Sonatype Nexus
6 6 (0.76%) Browser DevTools
7 4 (0.51%) MSBuild
7 4 (0.51%) Snyk
7 4 (0.51%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.51%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.38%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.13%) Postman
9 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 194 (24.56%) Social Skills
2 130 (16.46%) Finance
3 67 (8.48%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (7.47%) Public Sector
5 58 (7.34%) Banking
6 33 (4.18%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.04%) Financial Institution
8 19 (2.41%) Telecoms
9 12 (1.52%) Legal
9 12 (1.52%) Retail
10 10 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 10 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
10 10 (1.27%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (1.14%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.01%) Police
13 6 (0.76%) Law
13 6 (0.76%) Local Government
14 4 (0.51%) Military
15 3 (0.38%) Presentation Skills
16 2 (0.25%) Billing
Job Titles
1 206 (26.08%) Network Engineer
2 171 (21.65%) Architect
3 106 (13.42%) Security Engineer
4 81 (10.25%) Security Architect
4 81 (10.25%) Senior
5 61 (7.72%) Network Architect
5 61 (7.72%) Network Security Engineer
6 41 (5.19%) Consultant
7 40 (5.06%) Project Manager
8 33 (4.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 31 (3.92%) Lead
10 26 (3.29%) Senior Network Engineer
11 25 (3.16%) Cloud Engineer
11 25 (3.16%) Network Security Architect
12 22 (2.78%) Network Manager
12 22 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
13 21 (2.66%) Senior Architect
14 20 (2.53%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 19 (2.41%) Cloud Architect
16 18 (2.28%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (4.30%) 802.1X
2 17 (2.15%) SAML
3 11 (1.39%) REST
4 9 (1.14%) Kafka
5 8 (1.01%) LDAP
6 7 (0.89%) ARM Templates
6 7 (0.89%) OAuth
6 7 (0.89%) OpenID
7 6 (0.76%) CSS
8 5 (0.63%) .NET
8 5 (0.63%) HTML
8 5 (0.63%) OAuth2
9 4 (0.51%) gRPC
9 4 (0.51%) JSON
9 4 (0.51%) Keycloak
9 4 (0.51%) Protocol Buffers
9 4 (0.51%) RESTful
10 3 (0.38%) Lambda Expressions
10 3 (0.38%) ModSecurity
10 3 (0.38%) Plotly
Miscellaneous
1 93 (11.77%) Data Centre
2 64 (8.10%) Security Posture
3 45 (5.70%) Cloud Native
4 41 (5.19%) Hybrid Cloud
5 32 (4.05%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 26 (3.29%) Operational Technology
7 25 (3.16%) Onboarding
8 22 (2.78%) Cyber Threat
8 22 (2.78%) PKI
9 21 (2.66%) Data Protection Act
10 19 (2.41%) Management Information System
10 19 (2.41%) Product Ownership
11 18 (2.28%) Public Cloud
12 17 (2.15%) Security Operations Centre
13 16 (2.03%) IoT
14 15 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
15 10 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
15 10 (1.27%) Linux Command Line
16 9 (1.14%) Enterprise Cloud
16 9 (1.14%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 63 (7.97%) Linux
2 59 (7.47%) Windows
3 20 (2.53%) Windows Server
4 10 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.01%) Unix
6 7 (0.89%) Ubuntu
7 6 (0.76%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.63%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.38%) Android
9 3 (0.38%) Check Point GAiA
9 3 (0.38%) SUSE
9 3 (0.38%) VMS
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (20.76%) Cybersecurity
2 135 (17.09%) Cloud Security
3 125 (15.82%) Zero Trust
4 113 (14.30%) CI/CD
5 111 (14.05%) SIEM
6 105 (13.29%) Continuous Improvement
7 103 (13.04%) DevOps
8 102 (12.91%) Security Architecture
9 100 (12.66%) Infrastructure as Code
10 99 (12.53%) Migration
11 92 (11.65%) Stakeholder Management
12 87 (11.01%) Problem-Solving
13 80 (10.13%) Change Management
14 78 (9.87%) Agile
14 78 (9.87%) Application Security
15 76 (9.62%) Data Protection
16 75 (9.49%) DevSecOps
16 75 (9.49%) Network Segmentation
17 74 (9.37%) High Availability
17 74 (9.37%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 101 (12.78%) Python
2 55 (6.96%) PowerShell
3 41 (5.19%) Bash
4 27 (3.42%) Bicep
5 20 (2.53%) SQL
6 18 (2.28%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.01%) Shell Script
8 6 (0.76%) Java
9 4 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
9 4 (0.51%) Perl
9 4 (0.51%) PHP
9 4 (0.51%) Rust
10 2 (0.25%) C
10 2 (0.25%) Ruby
11 1 (0.13%) ActionScript
11 1 (0.13%) C++
11 1 (0.13%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 229 (28.99%) Security Cleared
2 161 (20.38%) SC Cleared
3 145 (18.35%) Cisco Certification
4 89 (11.27%) CISSP
5 84 (10.63%) CCNP
6 78 (9.87%) DV Cleared
7 62 (7.85%) Degree
8 58 (7.34%) CCNA
9 53 (6.71%) CISM
10 37 (4.68%) CCSP
11 36 (4.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 28 (3.54%) Azure Certification
13 21 (2.66%) CCIE
14 19 (2.41%) AWS Certification
15 15 (1.90%) CompTIA Security+
15 15 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
16 13 (1.65%) GIAC
17 12 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
18 9 (1.14%) CEH
18 9 (1.14%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 78 (9.87%) NIST
2 65 (8.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 35 (4.43%) GDPR
4 28 (3.54%) NCSC
5 27 (3.42%) PCI DSS
6 19 (2.41%) GRC
7 13 (1.65%) Cyber Essentials
8 11 (1.39%) QA
9 10 (1.27%) SLA
10 8 (1.01%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 8 (1.01%) NIST 800
10 8 (1.01%) SOC 2
11 6 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 6 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 4 (0.51%) PMO
13 3 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 3 (0.38%) ISA99
13 3 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 3 (0.38%) JSP 440
System Software
1 62 (7.85%) Active Directory
2 55 (6.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (2.91%) Docker
4 22 (2.78%) VMware NSX
5 21 (2.66%) Virtual Machines
6 13 (1.65%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (1.27%) vSphere
8 9 (1.14%) Hyper-V
9 6 (0.76%) Firmware
10 5 (0.63%) Squid
11 3 (0.38%) NFS
11 3 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
12 2 (0.25%) Postfix
12 2 (0.25%) Sendmail
12 2 (0.25%) Varnish
12 2 (0.25%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.13%) OpenSSH
13 1 (0.13%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.13%) Samba
13 1 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 107 (13.54%) Terraform
2 70 (8.86%) Ansible
3 67 (8.48%) Kubernetes
4 41 (5.19%) FortiGate
5 19 (2.41%) Single Sign-On
6 18 (2.28%) Grafana
7 13 (1.65%) vCenter Server
8 11 (1.39%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (1.39%) Prometheus
9 8 (1.01%) CASB
10 7 (0.89%) Puppet
11 6 (0.76%) QRadar
12 5 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.63%) Suricata
12 5 (0.63%) WSUS
13 4 (0.51%) Istio
13 4 (0.51%) Kustomize
13 4 (0.51%) Podman
13 4 (0.51%) SCCM
13 4 (0.51%) SCOM
Vendors
1 225 (28.48%) Cisco
2 120 (15.19%) Palo Alto
3 118 (14.94%) Microsoft
4 71 (8.99%) Fortinet
5 68 (8.61%) F5
6 67 (8.48%) VMware
7 58 (7.34%) CheckPoint
8 50 (6.33%) Juniper
8 50 (6.33%) Zscaler
9 33 (4.18%) ServiceNow
10 31 (3.92%) Splunk
11 25 (3.16%) SolarWinds
12 24 (3.04%) Citrix
13 22 (2.78%) Google
14 18 (2.28%) Aruba
14 18 (2.28%) ForeScout
15 17 (2.15%) Tenable
16 13 (1.65%) Infoblox
17 12 (1.52%) CyberArk
17 12 (1.52%) Meraki