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

6 months to
11 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 153 144 165
Rank change year-on-year -9 +21 +51
Contract jobs citing Network Security 678 492 566
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.73% 2.02% 1.51%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.80% 15.37% 10.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 462 315 399
10th Percentile £351 £370 £400
25th Percentile £425 £444 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -2.44%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £650
90th Percentile £692 £683 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £550
% change year-on-year -3.85% -5.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 8 14
10th Percentile £37.23 £17.83 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £35.00 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £80.68 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.43% +497.59% -74.10%
75th Percentile £74.26 £81.54 £41.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.67 -
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £45.00 £18.25
% change year-on-year +44.44% +146.58% -64.99%

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 3,810 3,202 5,196
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.74% 13.15% 13.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,410 2,011 3,148
10th Percentile £225 £220 £205
25th Percentile £400 £375 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £490 £485
% change year-on-year +2.04% +1.14% -6.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 123 396
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.75 £19.77 £17.69
Median hourly rate £46.25 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +23.33% -6.25% +110.91%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.81 £69.32
UK median hourly rate £42.71 £37.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +13.88% -6.25% +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 11 April 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 11 April 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 11 April 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 -32 278 £515 -6.36% 73
North of England -5 137 £481 -0.39% 33
South East -19 107 £500 -1.48% 46
North West +13 87 £489 +0.31% 24
Midlands -25 71 £500 -13.04% 20
West Midlands -32 54 £500 -13.04% 14
Yorkshire -20 53 £425 +6.25% 8
East of England -23 33 £525 -6.67% 19
South West -30 31 £545 -0.91% 19
East Midlands -30 16 £638 -1.92% 6
North East -14 3 £550 -12.00% 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 12 (1.77%) Confluence
2 8 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (0.88%) Apache
4 4 (0.59%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 22 (3.24%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.47%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 203 (29.94%) Azure
2 137 (20.21%) AWS
3 77 (11.36%) GCP
4 53 (7.82%) Entra ID
5 30 (4.42%) GitHub
6 27 (3.98%) Azure DevOps
6 27 (3.98%) GitHub Actions
7 23 (3.39%) Azure Sentinel
8 22 (3.24%) Azure Key Vault
9 16 (2.36%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 15 (2.21%) AWS CloudFormation
10 15 (2.21%) Azure Monitor
10 15 (2.21%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 14 (2.06%) Microsoft 365
12 13 (1.92%) Serverless
13 12 (1.77%) Amazon S3
13 12 (1.77%) Azure AKS
13 12 (1.77%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 11 (1.62%) Akamai
14 11 (1.62%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 332 (48.97%) Firewall
2 128 (18.88%) VPN
3 119 (17.55%) WAN
4 92 (13.57%) LAN
5 90 (13.27%) BGP
6 81 (11.95%) DNS
7 74 (10.91%) OSPF
8 66 (9.73%) VLAN
9 62 (9.14%) SD-WAN
10 53 (7.82%) TCP/IP
11 43 (6.34%) Wireless
12 39 (5.75%) MPLS
13 35 (5.16%) Cisco ASA
14 34 (5.01%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 33 (4.87%) DHCP
16 29 (4.28%) Internet
16 29 (4.28%) Wi-Fi
17 28 (4.13%) SSL
18 27 (3.98%) Cisco ISE
19 25 (3.69%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
1 6 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.74%) InfluxDB
2 5 (0.74%) Relational Database
3 3 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
3 3 (0.44%) Data Lake
3 3 (0.44%) Power BI
3 3 (0.44%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.29%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 26 (3.83%) JIRA
2 17 (2.51%) Jenkins
3 12 (1.77%) GitLab
4 9 (1.33%) Git
5 5 (0.74%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.59%) Snyk
6 4 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.15%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.15%) SoapUI
General
1 175 (25.81%) Social Skills
2 97 (14.31%) Finance
3 83 (12.24%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (8.26%) Public Sector
5 34 (5.01%) Banking
6 25 (3.69%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.54%) Telecoms
8 20 (2.95%) Financial Institution
9 9 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.03%) Legal
11 6 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.74%) Investment Banking
12 5 (0.74%) Local Government
12 5 (0.74%) Manufacturing
12 5 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.59%) Electronics
13 4 (0.59%) Military
14 3 (0.44%) Law
14 3 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 153 (22.57%) Network Engineer
2 147 (21.68%) Architect
3 81 (11.95%) Security Engineer
4 72 (10.62%) Security Architect
5 54 (7.96%) Network Architect
6 52 (7.67%) Senior
7 39 (5.75%) Network Security Engineer
8 27 (3.98%) Analyst
9 24 (3.54%) Network Security Architect
10 21 (3.10%) Consultant
10 21 (3.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 21 (3.10%) Lead
11 19 (2.80%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
12 18 (2.65%) Cloud Architect
13 17 (2.51%) Azure Architect
13 17 (2.51%) Cloud Engineer
13 17 (2.51%) Project Manager
14 16 (2.36%) Security Specialist
15 15 (2.21%) Administrator
15 15 (2.21%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.10%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.92%) LDAP
3 9 (1.33%) SAML
4 8 (1.18%) Node.js
5 6 (0.88%) .NET
6 5 (0.74%) .NET Core
6 5 (0.74%) AngularJS
6 5 (0.74%) PyTorch
6 5 (0.74%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (0.74%) React
6 5 (0.74%) TensorFlow
7 4 (0.59%) ARM Templates
7 4 (0.59%) OAuth
7 4 (0.59%) OpenID
8 3 (0.44%) CSS
8 3 (0.44%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.44%) HTML
8 3 (0.44%) Lambda Expressions
8 3 (0.44%) Plotly
8 3 (0.44%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 87 (12.83%) Data Centre
2 45 (6.64%) Security Posture
3 43 (6.34%) Hybrid Cloud
4 38 (5.60%) Cloud Native
5 23 (3.39%) Management Information System
5 23 (3.39%) PKI
5 23 (3.39%) Public Cloud
6 21 (3.10%) IoT
6 21 (3.10%) Onboarding
7 19 (2.80%) Cyber Threat
8 18 (2.65%) Operational Technology
8 18 (2.65%) Product Ownership
9 16 (2.36%) Security Operations Centre
10 15 (2.21%) Analytical Mindset
11 14 (2.06%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 13 (1.92%) Data Protection Act
13 12 (1.77%) Cyber Security Posture
14 11 (1.62%) Virtual Team
15 9 (1.33%) Clustering
16 7 (1.03%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 74 (10.91%) Windows
2 63 (9.29%) Linux
3 27 (3.98%) Windows Server
4 10 (1.47%) Unix
5 8 (1.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.18%) VMS
6 6 (0.88%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.88%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.44%) SUSE
7 3 (0.44%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.15%) Android
8 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 149 (21.98%) Cybersecurity
2 105 (15.49%) Problem-Solving
3 101 (14.90%) Cloud Security
4 97 (14.31%) Zero Trust
5 95 (14.01%) Security Architecture
6 94 (13.86%) SIEM
7 89 (13.13%) DevOps
7 89 (13.13%) Migration
8 84 (12.39%) CI/CD
9 79 (11.65%) Infrastructure as Code
10 74 (10.91%) Continuous Improvement
11 67 (9.88%) Change Management
12 66 (9.73%) Network Segmentation
13 65 (9.59%) Security Operations
14 63 (9.29%) Incident Response
15 62 (9.14%) Threat Modelling
16 60 (8.85%) Stakeholder Management
17 58 (8.55%) Agile
18 57 (8.41%) Load Balancing
19 53 (7.82%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 90 (13.27%) Python
2 61 (9.00%) PowerShell
3 24 (3.54%) JavaScript
4 23 (3.39%) Bicep
5 22 (3.24%) SQL
6 20 (2.95%) Bash
7 14 (2.06%) Kusto Query Language
8 8 (1.18%) Shell Script
9 7 (1.03%) Go
9 7 (1.03%) Java
10 5 (0.74%) C#
11 4 (0.59%) C
11 4 (0.59%) PHP
12 3 (0.44%) C++
13 2 (0.29%) Ruby
14 1 (0.15%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.15%) C-shell
14 1 (0.15%) Korn
14 1 (0.15%) Perl
14 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 213 (31.42%) Security Cleared
2 150 (22.12%) SC Cleared
3 114 (16.81%) Cisco Certification
4 88 (12.98%) CCNP
5 82 (12.09%) CISSP
6 72 (10.62%) DV Cleared
7 44 (6.49%) CCNA
8 43 (6.34%) CISM
9 41 (6.05%) Degree
10 28 (4.13%) Azure Certification
11 25 (3.69%) GIAC
12 24 (3.54%) CCIE
13 22 (3.24%) CEH
14 17 (2.51%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 17 (2.51%) AWS Certification
14 17 (2.51%) CCSP
14 17 (2.51%) CompTIA Security+
15 10 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
15 10 (1.47%) PMP
16 9 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (10.32%) NIST
2 61 (9.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 41 (6.05%) GDPR
4 29 (4.28%) PCI DSS
5 16 (2.36%) NCSC
6 15 (2.21%) Cyber Essentials
6 15 (2.21%) GRC
7 13 (1.92%) SLA
8 9 (1.33%) SOC 2
9 8 (1.18%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 8 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.88%) QA
11 5 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 5 (0.74%) PMO
12 4 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 4 (0.59%) RMADS
13 3 (0.44%) ISA99
13 3 (0.44%) JSP 440
14 2 (0.29%) PSD2
System Software
1 50 (7.37%) VMware Infrastructure
2 45 (6.64%) Active Directory
3 20 (2.95%) Docker
4 19 (2.80%) VMware NSX
5 12 (1.77%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (1.47%) Hyper-V
6 10 (1.47%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (1.33%) vSphere
8 7 (1.03%) Firmware
9 4 (0.59%) ProxySG
10 3 (0.44%) 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%) RHEV
12 1 (0.15%) Xen
12 1 (0.15%) XenApp
12 1 (0.15%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 100 (14.75%) Terraform
2 57 (8.41%) Ansible
3 52 (7.67%) Kubernetes
4 26 (3.83%) FortiGate
5 14 (2.06%) Nagios
5 14 (2.06%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (1.77%) Kibana
7 11 (1.62%) Microsoft Intune
7 11 (1.62%) vCenter Server
8 9 (1.33%) Microsoft Clustering
9 8 (1.18%) Grafana
10 7 (1.03%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 5 (0.74%) CASB
11 5 (0.74%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.59%) Puppet
13 3 (0.44%) Cisco Prime
13 3 (0.44%) Icinga
13 3 (0.44%) SCOM
13 3 (0.44%) WSUS
Vendors
1 184 (27.14%) Cisco
2 114 (16.81%) Microsoft
3 106 (15.63%) Palo Alto
4 72 (10.62%) F5
5 63 (9.29%) VMware
6 50 (7.37%) Juniper
7 49 (7.23%) Fortinet
8 45 (6.64%) CheckPoint
9 37 (5.46%) Zscaler
10 30 (4.42%) Splunk
11 29 (4.28%) ServiceNow
12 26 (3.83%) Google
13 19 (2.80%) SolarWinds
14 16 (2.36%) Aruba
14 16 (2.36%) Tenable
15 15 (2.21%) ForeScout
15 15 (2.21%) Meraki
16 14 (2.06%) Databricks
16 14 (2.06%) Okta
17 12 (1.77%) Citrix