SANS Contract Job Trends in England

SANS Institute
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for SANS qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 18 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 521 486 414
Rank change year-on-year -35 -72 +276
Contract jobs citing SANS 21 18 151
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.067% 0.062% 0.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.20% 0.20% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 8 45
10th Percentile £453 £556 £535
25th Percentile £511 £575 £560
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £650 £673
Median % change year-on-year -17.38% -3.38% +15.74%
75th Percentile £634 £756 £725
90th Percentile £920 £790 £773
UK median daily rate £537 £650 £672
% change year-on-year -17.38% -3.27% +14.38%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

SANS falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in England.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 10,603 8,786 11,335
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.93% 30.33% 30.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,928 5,424 7,175
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £419 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £528 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% -4.09% -
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 901 413 680
10th Percentile £16.75 £20.00 £17.11
25th Percentile £19.38 £25.26 £26.65
Median hourly rate £25.15 £48.56 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -48.21% -7.50% +16.67%
75th Percentile £56.00 £68.00 £67.61
90th Percentile £76.58 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -37.13% -23.81% +16.67%

SANS
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SANS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

SANS job vacancy trend in England

SANS
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SANS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SANS

SANS
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SANS in England over the 6 months to 18 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SANS in England

SANS
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SANS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SANS

SANS
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 SANS within the England region over the 6 months to 18 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 -1 11 £544 -22.32% 2
South West +1 6 £537 -10.50% 2
South East - 3 £413 - 1
West Midlands -31 2 - - 1
Midlands -38 2 - - 3
East of England -20 1 £850 -
SANS
UK

SANS
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 3 (14.29%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 14 (66.67%) AWS
2 8 (38.10%) Azure
3 4 (19.05%) GCP
4 2 (9.52%) Entra ID
4 2 (9.52%) OCI
5 1 (4.76%) Amazon ECR
5 1 (4.76%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (4.76%) Amazon EKS
5 1 (4.76%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (4.76%) AWS Fargate
5 1 (4.76%) Azure AKS
5 1 (4.76%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (4.76%) GitHub
5 1 (4.76%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 1 (4.76%) IaaS
5 1 (4.76%) PaaS
5 1 (4.76%) Power Platform
5 1 (4.76%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (9.52%) Firewall
1 2 (9.52%) VLAN
1 2 (9.52%) VPN
2 1 (4.76%) Internet
2 1 (4.76%) Intranet
2 1 (4.76%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.76%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 4 (19.05%) JIRA
2 3 (14.29%) Burp Suite
3 2 (9.52%) Metasploit
3 2 (9.52%) sqlmap
4 1 (4.76%) Git
4 1 (4.76%) Jenkins
4 1 (4.76%) SonarQube
General
1 9 (42.86%) Social Skills
2 4 (19.05%) Public Sector
3 3 (14.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 2 (9.52%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (9.52%) Legal
5 1 (4.76%) Banking
5 1 (4.76%) Finance
5 1 (4.76%) Law
5 1 (4.76%) Military
5 1 (4.76%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (4.76%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (42.86%) Security Engineer
2 6 (28.57%) Analyst
2 6 (28.57%) Security Analyst
3 4 (19.05%) Tester
4 3 (14.29%) Consultant
4 3 (14.29%) Penetration Tester
5 2 (9.52%) Cybersecurity Specialist
5 2 (9.52%) Head of Information Security
5 2 (9.52%) Security Specialist
5 2 (9.52%) Senior
5 2 (9.52%) Senior Consultant
5 2 (9.52%) Test Engineer
6 1 (4.76%) AWS Infrastructure Architect
6 1 (4.76%) AWS Security Architect
6 1 (4.76%) Cloud Security Engineer
6 1 (4.76%) Head of Information
6 1 (4.76%) Head of Security
6 1 (4.76%) Security Tester
6 1 (4.76%) Vulnerability Consultant
6 1 (4.76%) Vulnerability Management Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (4.76%) .NET
1 1 (4.76%) JWT
1 1 (4.76%) REST
1 1 (4.76%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 6 (28.57%) Cyber Defence
1 6 (28.57%) Security Posture
2 3 (14.29%) Management Information System
3 2 (9.52%) CSOC
3 2 (9.52%) Cyber Threat
3 2 (9.52%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (9.52%) Security Operations Centre
4 1 (4.76%) Cloud Native
4 1 (4.76%) Cloud Security Posture
4 1 (4.76%) Cyber Security Posture
4 1 (4.76%) Data Centre
4 1 (4.76%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (4.76%) Operational Technology
4 1 (4.76%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 4 (19.05%) Linux
2 3 (14.29%) Windows
3 1 (4.76%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (66.67%) Cybersecurity
2 10 (47.62%) Agile
2 10 (47.62%) SIEM
3 8 (38.10%) Cloud Security
3 8 (38.10%) OWASP
4 7 (33.33%) Security Management
4 7 (33.33%) Test Automation
5 6 (28.57%) Application Security
5 6 (28.57%) DevSecOps
5 6 (28.57%) Impact Assessments
5 6 (28.57%) Penetration Testing
6 5 (23.81%) CI/CD
6 5 (23.81%) Infrastructure as Code
6 5 (23.81%) Security Testing
6 5 (23.81%) Vulnerability Management
7 4 (19.05%) Incident Response
7 4 (19.05%) Information Security
7 4 (19.05%) MITRE ATT&CK
7 4 (19.05%) Risk Assessment
7 4 (19.05%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 4 (19.05%) Python
2 2 (9.52%) Bash
2 2 (9.52%) Java
3 1 (4.76%) SQL
Qualifications
1 15 (71.43%) CISSP
2 10 (47.62%) Degree
3 8 (38.10%) Security Cleared
4 7 (33.33%) OSCP
4 7 (33.33%) SC Cleared
5 6 (28.57%) CompTIA CySA+
5 6 (28.57%) Network+ Certification
6 5 (23.81%) CISM
6 5 (23.81%) CREST Certified
6 5 (23.81%) GIAC
7 4 (19.05%) DV Cleared
8 3 (14.29%) CEH
8 3 (14.29%) CISA
9 2 (9.52%) CCSP
9 2 (9.52%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (9.52%) GPEN
9 2 (9.52%) GSEC
9 2 (9.52%) ISACA
9 2 (9.52%) OSCE
9 2 (9.52%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (42.86%) NIST
2 8 (38.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (19.05%) NIST 800
4 1 (4.76%) GDPR
4 1 (4.76%) GRC
4 1 (4.76%) NCSC
4 1 (4.76%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 2 (9.52%) Active Directory
2 1 (4.76%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (14.29%) Nessus
1 3 (14.29%) Nmap
2 2 (9.52%) Ansible
2 2 (9.52%) Kubernetes
2 2 (9.52%) Terraform
3 1 (4.76%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
3 1 (4.76%) Istio
Vendors
1 2 (9.52%) Rapid7
1 2 (9.52%) ServiceNow
2 1 (4.76%) CheckPoint
2 1 (4.76%) Cisco
2 1 (4.76%) Clearswift
2 1 (4.76%) Google
2 1 (4.76%) Microsoft
2 1 (4.76%) Palo Alto
2 1 (4.76%) Qualys
2 1 (4.76%) Tenable