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 29 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 176 163 158
Rank change year-on-year -13 -5 +10
Contract jobs citing Network Security 762 483 498
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.64% 1.75% 1.54%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.61% 14.94% 12.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 496 287 325
10th Percentile £400 £378 £363
25th Percentile £462 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £638
90th Percentile £735 £743 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £533 £535
% change year-on-year +3.29% -0.47% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 14 7
10th Percentile £27.00 £45.00 £28.40
25th Percentile £67.81 £55.00 £38.75
Median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% +40.32% -31.03%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.09 £58.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £95.50 £82.79
UK median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £45.00
% change year-on-year +4.05% +55.91% -37.93%

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 4,326 3,232 3,907
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 9.34% 11.73% 12.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,547 2,038 2,247
10th Percentile £250 £220 £243
25th Percentile £400 £363 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £608
90th Percentile £688 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 387 166 180
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £16.19
25th Percentile £21.33 £24.25 £24.09
Median hourly rate £45.00 £39.66 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +13.46% -30.85% +1.52%
75th Percentile £69.13 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £92.51 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £34.28 £42.50 £50.50
% change year-on-year -19.34% -15.84% -10.53%

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 29 September 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 29 September 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 29 September 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 -3 325 £550 - 288
North of England +10 206 £540 +10.32% 81
North West -5 110 £540 +13.68% 50
Yorkshire +17 91 £540 +8.87% 22
South East -40 89 £558 +24.00% 98
Midlands -54 54 £450 -14.29% 54
East of England -5 42 £525 +10.53% 31
West Midlands -64 41 £450 -14.29% 38
South West -45 26 £675 +5.47% 37
East Midlands -8 13 £500 - 16
North East - 4 £680 - 10
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 20 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
2 16 (2.10%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.44%) Confluence
4 4 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.39%) Apache
6 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.13%) CMS
6 1 (0.13%) IIS
6 1 (0.13%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 17 (2.23%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.79%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.52%) Microsoft Excel
4 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.13%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.79%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 256 (33.60%) Azure
2 176 (23.10%) AWS
3 95 (12.47%) GCP
4 90 (11.81%) Entra ID
5 50 (6.56%) Microsoft 365
6 38 (4.99%) GitHub
7 37 (4.86%) Azure DevOps
8 31 (4.07%) Azure Monitor
9 27 (3.54%) Serverless
10 23 (3.02%) SaaS
11 21 (2.76%) Azure Sentinel
12 17 (2.23%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 17 (2.23%) GitHub Actions
12 17 (2.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 17 (2.23%) OCI
13 15 (1.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 15 (1.97%) Amazon EKS
13 15 (1.97%) Azure AKS
14 14 (1.84%) AWS Direct Connect
14 14 (1.84%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 358 (46.98%) Firewall
2 178 (23.36%) VPN
3 170 (22.31%) WAN
4 131 (17.19%) DNS
5 113 (14.83%) LAN
6 93 (12.20%) Wireless
7 87 (11.42%) TCP/IP
8 84 (11.02%) BGP
9 72 (9.45%) DHCP
10 64 (8.40%) SD-WAN
10 64 (8.40%) VLAN
11 56 (7.35%) OSPF
12 55 (7.22%) SSL
13 44 (5.77%) MPLS
14 38 (4.99%) Cisco ISE
15 35 (4.59%) IPsec
16 34 (4.46%) Cisco ASA
16 34 (4.46%) Wi-Fi
17 28 (3.67%) Internet
18 27 (3.54%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (1.57%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.79%) BigQuery
3 4 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.52%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.52%) Neo4j
4 3 (0.39%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (0.39%) Power BI
5 2 (0.26%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.26%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.13%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.13%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.13%) Metadata
6 1 (0.13%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.13%) Qlik Sense
6 1 (0.13%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.13%) Star Schema
6 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 37 (4.86%) Git
2 29 (3.81%) GitLab
3 25 (3.28%) Jenkins
4 24 (3.15%) JIRA
5 6 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.52%) MSBuild
6 4 (0.52%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.52%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.39%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.39%) Browser DevTools
7 3 (0.39%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.26%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.13%) Postman
9 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.13%) Subversion
General
1 219 (28.74%) Social Skills
2 145 (19.03%) Finance
3 83 (10.89%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (8.40%) Banking
5 38 (4.99%) Public Sector
6 32 (4.20%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.15%) Telecoms
8 23 (3.02%) Legal
9 18 (2.36%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.84%) Retail
12 13 (1.71%) Manufacturing
13 11 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
15 8 (1.05%) Local Government
16 6 (0.79%) Automotive
16 6 (0.79%) Law
16 6 (0.79%) Military
16 6 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 215 (28.22%) Network Engineer
2 128 (16.80%) Architect
3 113 (14.83%) Security Engineer
4 93 (12.20%) Senior
5 66 (8.66%) Network Security Engineer
6 65 (8.53%) Security Architect
7 57 (7.48%) Consultant
8 52 (6.82%) Network Architect
9 43 (5.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 42 (5.51%) Cloud Engineer
10 42 (5.51%) Project Manager
10 42 (5.51%) Senior Network Engineer
11 31 (4.07%) Lead
12 28 (3.67%) Security Consultant
13 26 (3.41%) Network Security Architect
14 24 (3.15%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 22 (2.89%) Analyst
15 22 (2.89%) Network Manager
16 21 (2.76%) DevSecOps Consultant
17 19 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (16.27%) Terraform
2 36 (4.72%) 802.1X
3 21 (2.76%) REST
4 15 (1.97%) SAML
5 14 (1.84%) ARM Templates
6 11 (1.44%) Kafka
7 8 (1.05%) NETCONF
8 7 (0.92%) JSON
9 6 (0.79%) gRPC
9 6 (0.79%) Keycloak
9 6 (0.79%) LDAP
9 6 (0.79%) OpenID
10 5 (0.66%) Azure Blueprints
10 5 (0.66%) SLSA
10 5 (0.66%) Software Packaging
10 5 (0.66%) YAML
11 4 (0.52%) .NET
11 4 (0.52%) CSS
11 4 (0.52%) OAuth
11 4 (0.52%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 100 (13.12%) Data Centre
2 76 (9.97%) Security Posture
3 47 (6.17%) Onboarding
4 44 (5.77%) Cloud Native
5 38 (4.99%) Hybrid Cloud
6 36 (4.72%) Management Information System
7 33 (4.33%) Operational Technology
8 32 (4.20%) Cyber Threat
9 26 (3.41%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 24 (3.15%) PKI
11 23 (3.02%) Self-Motivation
12 20 (2.62%) Cloud Security Posture
13 19 (2.49%) Security Operations Centre
14 17 (2.23%) Public Cloud
15 14 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
16 13 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
17 10 (1.31%) SCADA
18 9 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
18 9 (1.18%) Replication
18 9 (1.18%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 95 (12.47%) Windows
2 77 (10.10%) Linux
3 43 (5.64%) Windows Server
4 17 (2.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (1.57%) Unix
6 9 (1.18%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.79%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.66%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.39%) Check Point GAiA
10 2 (0.26%) Android
10 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.26%) zOS
11 1 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.13%) Rocky
11 1 (0.13%) SUSE
11 1 (0.13%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (21.52%) Cybersecurity
2 152 (19.95%) Cloud Security
3 135 (17.72%) Stakeholder Management
4 130 (17.06%) CI/CD
5 122 (16.01%) Zero Trust
6 116 (15.22%) Continuous Improvement
7 112 (14.70%) Infrastructure as Code
8 109 (14.30%) Incident Response
9 108 (14.17%) Migration
10 106 (13.91%) DevOps
10 106 (13.91%) SIEM
11 99 (12.99%) Change Management
11 99 (12.99%) Problem-Solving
12 91 (11.94%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 86 (11.29%) Security Architecture
14 81 (10.63%) Identity Access Management
14 81 (10.63%) Vulnerability Management
15 78 (10.24%) Agile
15 78 (10.24%) Security Operations
16 76 (9.97%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 144 (18.90%) Python
2 84 (11.02%) PowerShell
3 69 (9.06%) Bash
4 32 (4.20%) Bicep
5 23 (3.02%) SQL
6 13 (1.71%) Go
7 10 (1.31%) Java
8 7 (0.92%) Search Processing Language
9 6 (0.79%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.66%) ActionScript
10 5 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.52%) Rust
12 3 (0.39%) JavaScript
12 3 (0.39%) Perl
12 3 (0.39%) VBScript
13 1 (0.13%) Ruby
13 1 (0.13%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 219 (28.74%) Security Cleared
2 154 (20.21%) Cisco Certification
3 153 (20.08%) SC Cleared
4 97 (12.73%) CISSP
5 87 (11.42%) CCNP
6 73 (9.58%) DV Cleared
7 61 (8.01%) Degree
8 48 (6.30%) CCSP
9 45 (5.91%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 43 (5.64%) CCNA
11 41 (5.38%) CISM
12 32 (4.20%) CCIE
13 27 (3.54%) Azure Certification
14 24 (3.15%) AWS Certification
15 16 (2.10%) Computer Science Degree
16 12 (1.57%) PMI Certification
16 12 (1.57%) PMP
17 11 (1.44%) JNCIP
18 10 (1.31%) GIAC
18 10 (1.31%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (8.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 61 (8.01%) NIST
3 26 (3.41%) GDPR
3 26 (3.41%) NCSC
3 26 (3.41%) PCI DSS
4 13 (1.71%) Cyber Essentials
4 13 (1.71%) GRC
5 11 (1.44%) NIST 800
6 8 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 7 (0.92%) SLA
8 6 (0.79%) QA
8 6 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 4 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 3 (0.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.39%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.26%) Data Quality
11 2 (0.26%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.13%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.13%) GxP
System Software
1 85 (11.15%) Active Directory
2 56 (7.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 29 (3.81%) Docker
4 16 (2.10%) Virtual Machines
4 16 (2.10%) VMware NSX
5 11 (1.44%) vSphere
6 10 (1.31%) Hyper-V
7 8 (1.05%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (1.05%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.66%) Squid
8 5 (0.66%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.52%) FreeRADIUS
10 2 (0.26%) Firmware
10 2 (0.26%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 2 (0.26%) NFS
10 2 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.13%) OpenSSH
11 1 (0.13%) Postfix
11 1 (0.13%) Samba
11 1 (0.13%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 92 (12.07%) Ansible
2 72 (9.45%) Kubernetes
3 45 (5.91%) FortiGate
4 27 (3.54%) Microsoft Intune
5 24 (3.15%) Grafana
6 16 (2.10%) Progress Chef
6 16 (2.10%) Prometheus
7 13 (1.71%) SCCM
8 12 (1.57%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (1.31%) CASB
10 8 (1.05%) Nagios
10 8 (1.05%) QRadar
11 7 (0.92%) Cisco CUCM
11 7 (0.92%) Puppet
12 5 (0.66%) Suricata
12 5 (0.66%) WSUS
13 4 (0.52%) Kustomize
13 4 (0.52%) Podman
13 4 (0.52%) systemd
13 4 (0.52%) VxRail
Vendors
1 232 (30.45%) Cisco
2 155 (20.34%) Microsoft
3 146 (19.16%) Palo Alto
4 81 (10.63%) Fortinet
5 70 (9.19%) VMware
6 68 (8.92%) F5
7 62 (8.14%) Zscaler
8 50 (6.56%) CheckPoint
9 44 (5.77%) Juniper
10 33 (4.33%) SolarWinds
11 29 (3.81%) Splunk
12 28 (3.67%) Google
13 23 (3.02%) ServiceNow
14 22 (2.89%) Aruba
15 18 (2.36%) Citrix
16 16 (2.10%) Meraki
17 14 (1.84%) Blue Coat
18 12 (1.57%) AlgoSec
18 12 (1.57%) Tenable
19 11 (1.44%) Arista