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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 520 443 543
Rank change year-on-year -77 +100 +67
Contract jobs citing SOC 2 61 39 7
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.15% 0.16% 0.019%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.91% 1.01% 0.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 21 4
10th Percentile £425 £406 £494
25th Percentile £475 £513 £514
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £580 £625 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.20% +13.64% +10.00%
75th Percentile £650 £751 £616
90th Percentile £725 £875 £666
UK median daily rate £574 £688 £525
% change year-on-year -16.58% +30.95% -4.55%

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 6,736 3,863 5,315
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.95% 15.70% 14.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,393 2,475 3,383
10th Percentile £340 £269 £301
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £605 £630 £638
90th Percentile £706 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 419 158 347
10th Percentile £14.02 £17.74 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.27 £13.00
Median hourly rate £30.58 £35.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.63% +66.67% -50.59%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £81.00 £79.92 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £34.50 £20.50
% change year-on-year -5.80% +68.29% -47.16%

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 24 April 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 24 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 -74 22 £540 -25.52% 22
South East -36 21 £650 - 7
North of England -63 9 £508 +23.15% 3
Midlands - 5 £438 - 2
Yorkshire -52 4 £500 +21.21%
North West - 4 £574 - 3
East Midlands - 3 £438 -
East of England -34 2 £503 -4.29% 3
West Midlands - 2 - - 2
North East - 1 £466 -
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 4 (6.56%) Confluence
2 1 (1.64%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (4.92%) MS Visio
2 2 (3.28%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 16 (26.23%) Azure
2 11 (18.03%) AWS
3 9 (14.75%) Entra ID
3 9 (14.75%) GCP
4 5 (8.20%) Azure Sentinel
5 4 (6.56%) Amazon GuardDuty
5 4 (6.56%) AWS CloudFormation
5 4 (6.56%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (4.92%) Azure AKS
6 3 (4.92%) Azure Key Vault
6 3 (4.92%) GitHub
6 3 (4.92%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (3.28%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (3.28%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 2 (3.28%) Cloud Run
7 2 (3.28%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 2 (3.28%) Lucidchart
7 2 (3.28%) Microsoft Purview
7 2 (3.28%) Power Platform
7 2 (3.28%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (14.75%) Network Security
2 5 (8.20%) Firewall
2 5 (8.20%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (3.28%) NGFW
3 2 (3.28%) VPN
4 1 (1.64%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (1.64%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.64%) Azure SQL Database
1 1 (1.64%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 2 (3.28%) JIRA
2 1 (1.64%) Burp Suite
2 1 (1.64%) GitLab
2 1 (1.64%) Jenkins
General
1 21 (34.43%) Social Skills
2 19 (31.15%) Finance
3 6 (9.84%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (8.20%) Legal
5 3 (4.92%) Banking
6 2 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (3.28%) Organisational Skills
6 2 (3.28%) Public Sector
7 1 (1.64%) Law
7 1 (1.64%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 18 (29.51%) Project Manager
2 15 (24.59%) Security Manager
2 15 (24.59%) Security Project Manager
3 8 (13.11%) Analyst
3 8 (13.11%) Senior
4 7 (11.48%) Cybersecurity Manager
4 7 (11.48%) Project Manager - Cybersecurity
5 6 (9.84%) Security Specialist
6 5 (8.20%) Project Assurance Manager
7 4 (6.56%) Architect
7 4 (6.56%) Business Analyst
7 4 (6.56%) Security Assurance Manager
7 4 (6.56%) Security Engineer
7 4 (6.56%) SOC Manager
8 3 (4.92%) Azure Engineer
8 3 (4.92%) Security Architect
8 3 (4.92%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
8 3 (4.92%) Senior Manager
8 3 (4.92%) Senior Project Manager
8 3 (4.92%) Senior Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (9.84%) OAuth
2 5 (8.20%) OAuth2
2 5 (8.20%) OpenID
2 5 (8.20%) SAML
3 2 (3.28%) 802.1X
3 2 (3.28%) ARM Templates
3 2 (3.28%) JWT
3 2 (3.28%) Microsoft Graph
3 2 (3.28%) Middleware
3 2 (3.28%) Node.js
3 2 (3.28%) RESTful
4 1 (1.64%) LDAP
4 1 (1.64%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 8 (13.11%) Cloud Native
1 8 (13.11%) Security Posture
2 6 (9.84%) Operational Technology
2 6 (9.84%) Product Ownership
3 5 (8.20%) Onboarding
4 4 (6.56%) Management Information System
4 4 (6.56%) Virtual Team
5 3 (4.92%) Distributed Systems
6 2 (3.28%) Cyber Threat
6 2 (3.28%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (3.28%) PMI
6 2 (3.28%) Security Operations Centre
7 1 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.64%) CMDB
7 1 (1.64%) Cyberattack
7 1 (1.64%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 1 (1.64%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (1.64%) NHS
7 1 (1.64%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 3 (4.92%) Linux
2 2 (3.28%) AIX
2 2 (3.28%) Solaris
2 2 (3.28%) Windows
3 1 (1.64%) CoreOS
3 1 (1.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (1.64%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (59.02%) Cybersecurity
2 26 (42.62%) Stakeholder Management
3 25 (40.98%) Risk Management
4 19 (31.15%) Change Management
5 17 (27.87%) Data Protection
6 16 (26.23%) CI/CD
6 16 (26.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 14 (22.95%) Infrastructure as Code
8 13 (21.31%) Information Security
8 13 (21.31%) Security Operations
8 13 (21.31%) SIEM
9 12 (19.67%) Agile
9 12 (19.67%) DevOps
9 12 (19.67%) Zero Trust
10 11 (18.03%) Budget Management
11 10 (16.39%) Cloud Security
11 10 (16.39%) Incident Response
11 10 (16.39%) Regulatory Compliance
11 10 (16.39%) Runbook
11 10 (16.39%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 8 (13.11%) Python
2 6 (9.84%) Bicep
2 6 (9.84%) PowerShell
3 5 (8.20%) Bash
4 4 (6.56%) Go
5 3 (4.92%) Java
6 1 (1.64%) SQL
Qualifications
1 16 (26.23%) CISSP
2 14 (22.95%) CISM
3 12 (19.67%) Degree
4 11 (18.03%) PMI Certification
4 11 (18.03%) PMP
5 7 (11.48%) CRISC
6 4 (6.56%) CISA
6 4 (6.56%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (6.56%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
7 3 (4.92%) Azure Certification
7 3 (4.92%) CCSP
7 3 (4.92%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (4.92%) Master's Degree
7 3 (4.92%) Security Cleared
8 2 (3.28%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 2 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (3.28%) CAPM
8 2 (3.28%) CBAP
8 2 (3.28%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 2 (3.28%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (86.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 40 (65.57%) NIST
3 33 (54.10%) GDPR
4 16 (26.23%) PCI DSS
5 13 (21.31%) GRC
6 5 (8.20%) HIPAA
6 5 (8.20%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 5 (8.20%) PMO
7 4 (6.56%) NIST 800
8 2 (3.28%) COBIT
8 2 (3.28%) EU AI Act
8 2 (3.28%) ISO 31000
8 2 (3.28%) SLA
9 1 (1.64%) FedRAMP
9 1 (1.64%) ISO 9001
9 1 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (1.64%) NCSC
9 1 (1.64%) QA
9 1 (1.64%) SOC 1
System Software
1 1 (1.64%) Active Directory
1 1 (1.64%) Ceph
1 1 (1.64%) Docker
1 1 (1.64%) Virtual Machines
1 1 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 11 (18.03%) Terraform
2 8 (13.11%) Kubernetes
2 8 (13.11%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (3.28%) CASB
3 2 (3.28%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (1.64%) Ansible
4 1 (1.64%) Argo
4 1 (1.64%) CSIRT
4 1 (1.64%) Grafana
4 1 (1.64%) HP Fortify
4 1 (1.64%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.64%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 7 (11.48%) Microsoft
2 4 (6.56%) Splunk
3 3 (4.92%) Google
3 3 (4.92%) Qualys
3 3 (4.92%) ServiceNow
3 3 (4.92%) Tenable
4 2 (3.28%) CrowdStrike
4 2 (3.28%) Databricks
4 2 (3.28%) Okta
4 2 (3.28%) Ping Identity
4 2 (3.28%) Rapid7
5 1 (1.64%) Commvault
5 1 (1.64%) CyberArk
5 1 (1.64%) Intel
5 1 (1.64%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.64%) Red Hat
5 1 (1.64%) Remedy
5 1 (1.64%) Veeam
5 1 (1.64%) Veracode
5 1 (1.64%) VMware