SOC 2 Contract Job Trends in England

System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring SOC 2 skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 23 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 563 458 512
Rank change year-on-year -105 +54 +32
Contract jobs citing SOC 2 59 53 22
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.13% 0.19% 0.068%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.71% 1.11% 0.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 33 31 9
10th Percentile £425 £250 £462
25th Percentile £463 £419 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £525 £625
Median % change year-on-year +9.52% -16.00% -
75th Percentile £675 £806 £675
90th Percentile £725 £1,100 £688
UK median daily rate £558 £585 £638
% change year-on-year -4.70% -8.24% +2.00%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
England

SOC 2 falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 8,279 4,773 4,222
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 17.79% 17.29% 13.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,199 3,116 2,498
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £724 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £507
% change year-on-year - -1.38% -3.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 598 224 206
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.13 £12.24
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.96 £15.50
Median hourly rate £33.00 £32.50 £33.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.54% -2.99% -6.94%
75th Percentile £67.50 £62.54 £64.93
90th Percentile £75.30 £82.93 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £30.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +8.33% +9.09% -22.54%

SOC 2
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SOC 2 relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

SOC 2 job vacancy trend in England

SOC 2
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SOC 2.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SOC 2

SOC 2
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SOC 2 in England over the 6 months to 23 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SOC 2 in England

SOC 2
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 SOC 2 within the England region over the 6 months to 23 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 -74 42 £600 -4.00% 234
South East -60 9 £650 - 21
Yorkshire -47 5 £453 -9.35% 6
North of England -81 5 £453 -9.35% 26
East of England -30 2 £503 -4.29% 4
West Midlands -41 1 £463 +2.78% 5
Midlands -50 1 £463 +2.78% 7
SOC 2
UK

SOC 2
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 2 (3.39%) SharePoint
2 1 (1.69%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 2 (3.39%) Chatbot
1 2 (3.39%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (3.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (1.69%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 32 (54.24%) Azure
2 20 (33.90%) AWS
3 19 (32.20%) Entra ID
3 19 (32.20%) GCP
4 11 (18.64%) Azure Sentinel
5 8 (13.56%) OCI
6 5 (8.47%) SaaS
7 4 (6.78%) Azure Key Vault
7 4 (6.78%) Cloud Run
7 4 (6.78%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 4 (6.78%) Power Platform
7 4 (6.78%) Rubrik
7 4 (6.78%) Snowflake
8 3 (5.08%) Azure AKS
8 3 (5.08%) Datadog
8 3 (5.08%) GitHub
8 3 (5.08%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (5.08%) Microsoft 365
9 2 (3.39%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 2 (3.39%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 4 (6.78%) Reverse Proxy
2 3 (5.08%) DNS
2 3 (5.08%) Firewall
2 3 (5.08%) Network Security
3 2 (3.39%) DHCP
3 2 (3.39%) Internet
3 2 (3.39%) VPN
3 2 (3.39%) X.509
4 1 (1.69%) Cisco IPT
4 1 (1.69%) SMS
4 1 (1.69%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (5.08%) Power BI
2 2 (3.39%) SQL Server
2 2 (3.39%) Tableau
3 1 (1.69%) Chroma
3 1 (1.69%) Data Lake
3 1 (1.69%) Pinecone
3 1 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.69%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 3 (5.08%) Git
1 3 (5.08%) Snyk
2 2 (3.39%) Postman
3 1 (1.69%) JIRA
General
1 18 (30.51%) Finance
2 16 (27.12%) Social Skills
3 7 (11.86%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (8.47%) Legal
4 5 (8.47%) Manufacturing
5 3 (5.08%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (3.39%) Banking
7 1 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.69%) Local Government
7 1 (1.69%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 9 (15.25%) Project Manager
1 9 (15.25%) Security Manager
2 8 (13.56%) Architect
2 8 (13.56%) Lead
2 8 (13.56%) Security Project Manager
3 5 (8.47%) Consultant
3 5 (8.47%) Senior
4 4 (6.78%) Analyst
4 4 (6.78%) Developer
5 3 (5.08%) Applications Developer
5 3 (5.08%) Cybersecurity Manager
5 3 (5.08%) Project Assurance Manager
5 3 (5.08%) Project Manager - Cybersecurity
5 3 (5.08%) Security Engineer
5 3 (5.08%) Technical Manager
5 3 (5.08%) Vulnerability Management Engineer
6 2 (3.39%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 2 (3.39%) Information Security Officer
6 2 (3.39%) Security Officer
6 2 (3.39%) Technical Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (22.03%) Terraform
2 6 (10.17%) OAuth
2 6 (10.17%) OAuth2
2 6 (10.17%) OpenID
2 6 (10.17%) SailPoint
2 6 (10.17%) SAML
3 4 (6.78%) JWT
3 4 (6.78%) Middleware
3 4 (6.78%) Node.js
3 4 (6.78%) React
3 4 (6.78%) REST
3 4 (6.78%) RESTful
4 2 (3.39%) Azure Blueprints
4 2 (3.39%) GraphQL
5 1 (1.69%) FastAPI
5 1 (1.69%) Flask
5 1 (1.69%) LangChain
5 1 (1.69%) Model Context Protocol
5 1 (1.69%) pgvector
5 1 (1.69%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 10 (16.95%) Cloud Native
2 8 (13.56%) Security Posture
3 7 (11.86%) Onboarding
4 6 (10.17%) Operational Technology
5 5 (8.47%) Distributed Systems
5 5 (8.47%) Management Information System
6 4 (6.78%) PKI
7 3 (5.08%) AI Agents
8 2 (3.39%) Algorithms
8 2 (3.39%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (3.39%) CMDB
8 2 (3.39%) Life Science
8 2 (3.39%) Virtual Team
8 2 (3.39%) Web Conferencing
9 1 (1.69%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 1 (1.69%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (1.69%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (1.69%) Product Ownership
9 1 (1.69%) Security Operations Centre
9 1 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 6 (10.17%) Linux
1 6 (10.17%) Windows
2 5 (8.47%) Windows Server
3 4 (6.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (5.08%) Ubuntu
5 2 (3.39%) Alpine Linux
6 1 (1.69%) CentOS
6 1 (1.69%) CoreOS
6 1 (1.69%) Unix
6 1 (1.69%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (42.37%) Cybersecurity
2 18 (30.51%) Stakeholder Management
3 17 (28.81%) CI/CD
3 17 (28.81%) Infrastructure as Code
3 17 (28.81%) Risk Management
4 15 (25.42%) Change Management
4 15 (25.42%) Information Security
5 13 (22.03%) Secrets Management
5 13 (22.03%) Zero Trust
6 12 (20.34%) AI
6 12 (20.34%) DevOps
6 12 (20.34%) Runbook
7 11 (18.64%) Cloud Security
8 10 (16.95%) Budget Management
8 10 (16.95%) RBAC
8 10 (16.95%) Security Operations
8 10 (16.95%) Vulnerability Management
9 8 (13.56%) Matrix Organization
9 8 (13.56%) Patch Management
9 8 (13.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 21 (35.59%) Python
2 12 (20.34%) PowerShell
3 5 (8.47%) Bash
3 5 (8.47%) Go
3 5 (8.47%) SQL
4 4 (6.78%) JavaScript
5 3 (5.08%) Bicep
6 2 (3.39%) Java
7 1 (1.69%) BeanShell
7 1 (1.69%) C#
7 1 (1.69%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 14 (23.73%) CISSP
2 12 (20.34%) CISM
3 7 (11.86%) Degree
3 7 (11.86%) PMI Certification
3 7 (11.86%) PMP
4 5 (8.47%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (6.78%) AWS Certification
5 4 (6.78%) Azure Certification
6 3 (5.08%) CompTIA Security+
7 2 (3.39%) CCSP
7 2 (3.39%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (3.39%) CRISC
7 2 (3.39%) ISSAP
7 2 (3.39%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (3.39%) Security Cleared
7 2 (3.39%) SSCP
8 1 (1.69%) CISA
8 1 (1.69%) GCIH
8 1 (1.69%) GIAC
8 1 (1.69%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (81.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 34 (57.63%) NIST
3 24 (40.68%) GDPR
4 10 (16.95%) HIPAA
5 7 (11.86%) GRC
6 4 (6.78%) ISO 22301
6 4 (6.78%) PCI DSS
6 4 (6.78%) SOC 1
7 3 (5.08%) NIST 800
7 3 (5.08%) QA
8 2 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (1.69%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (1.69%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (1.69%) Data Quality
9 1 (1.69%) PMO
System Software
1 8 (13.56%) Active Directory
2 4 (6.78%) Docker
3 2 (3.39%) Virtual Servers
4 1 (1.69%) Ceph
4 1 (1.69%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (11.86%) Kubernetes
2 4 (6.78%) Ansible
2 4 (6.78%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (3.39%) Nexpose
3 2 (3.39%) Puppet
4 1 (1.69%) Argo
4 1 (1.69%) Grafana
4 1 (1.69%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.69%) QRadar
Vendors
1 17 (28.81%) Microsoft
2 7 (11.86%) Google
2 7 (11.86%) Okta
3 6 (10.17%) ServiceNow
4 5 (8.47%) CyberArk
4 5 (8.47%) Ping Identity
5 4 (6.78%) CrowdStrike
5 4 (6.78%) Splunk
6 3 (5.08%) OpenAI
7 2 (3.39%) Qualys
7 2 (3.39%) Rapid7
7 2 (3.39%) Tenable
7 2 (3.39%) TOWER Software
8 1 (1.69%) Commvault
8 1 (1.69%) Databricks
8 1 (1.69%) Oracle
8 1 (1.69%) Palo Alto
8 1 (1.69%) Red Hat
8 1 (1.69%) Veeam
8 1 (1.69%) VMware