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 22 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 491 454 539
Rank change year-on-year -37 +85 +131
Contract jobs citing SOC 2 61 28 15
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.18% 0.11% 0.040%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 1.01% 0.73% 0.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 16 12
10th Percentile £413 £382 £418
25th Percentile £431 £406 £473
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £588 £575
Median % change year-on-year -14.89% +2.17% +15.00%
75th Percentile £593 £751 £633
90th Percentile £680 £813 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £613 £575
% change year-on-year -18.37% +6.52% -

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 6,053 3,848 5,427
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 17.40% 14.88% 14.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,909 2,299 3,559
10th Percentile £325 £263 £313
25th Percentile £413 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £608 £638 £638
90th Percentile £700 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 148 320
10th Percentile £15.57 £15.43 £12.22
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.20 £14.53
Median hourly rate £25.64 £31.76 £26.66
Median % change year-on-year -19.29% +19.13% -23.83%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £49.02
90th Percentile £70.00 £76.01 £72.53
UK median hourly rate £26.28 £29.50 £25.25
% change year-on-year -10.93% +16.84% -22.32%

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 22 February 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 22 February 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 -22 29 £525 -30.09% 29
North of England -56 11 £466 +12.97% 10
Midlands - 7 £438 - 2
Yorkshire -58 6 £539 +30.58% 3
South East - 5 £650 - 10
West Midlands - 4 - - 2
North West -25 3 £423 +36.29% 3
East Midlands - 3 £438 -
North East - 2 £466 - 4
South West - 2 - - 3
East of England -28 1 £525 -12.50%
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 (3.28%) Confluence
2 1 (1.64%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 2 (3.28%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (3.28%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 31 (50.82%) Azure
2 20 (32.79%) AWS
3 15 (24.59%) GCP
4 14 (22.95%) Entra ID
5 7 (11.48%) Amazon GuardDuty
5 7 (11.48%) Azure Sentinel
5 7 (11.48%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (9.84%) AWS CloudFormation
7 5 (8.20%) Power Platform
8 4 (6.56%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (6.56%) GitHub
8 4 (6.56%) GitHub Actions
8 4 (6.56%) Microsoft Purview
9 3 (4.92%) Azure Key Vault
9 3 (4.92%) SaaS
10 2 (3.28%) AWS KMS
10 2 (3.28%) Cloud Run
10 2 (3.28%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 2 (3.28%) Lucidchart
10 2 (3.28%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 8 (13.11%) Network Security
2 5 (8.20%) Reverse Proxy
3 4 (6.56%) Firewall
4 3 (4.92%) VPN
5 2 (3.28%) Kerberos
5 2 (3.28%) SSH
6 1 (1.64%) BGP
6 1 (1.64%) DNS
6 1 (1.64%) OSPF
6 1 (1.64%) SSL
6 1 (1.64%) TCP/IP
6 1 (1.64%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.64%) Data Lake
1 1 (1.64%) Data Vault
1 1 (1.64%) Looker
1 1 (1.64%) Power BI
1 1 (1.64%) Snowflake Schema
1 1 (1.64%) Tableau
General
1 21 (34.43%) Social Skills
2 12 (19.67%) Finance
3 9 (14.75%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (8.20%) Legal
5 4 (6.56%) Banking
5 4 (6.56%) Documentation Skills
5 4 (6.56%) Public Sector
6 2 (3.28%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.64%) Financial Institution
7 1 (1.64%) Law
7 1 (1.64%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 7 (11.48%) Analyst
1 7 (11.48%) Senior
2 6 (9.84%) Architect
2 6 (9.84%) Security Engineer
3 5 (8.20%) Security Specialist
4 4 (6.56%) Consultant
4 4 (6.56%) Platform Engineer
5 3 (4.92%) Azure Engineer
5 3 (4.92%) Azure Security Engineer
5 3 (4.92%) Business Analyst
5 3 (4.92%) Project Manager
5 3 (4.92%) Security Architect
5 3 (4.92%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
5 3 (4.92%) Senior Security Specialist
5 3 (4.92%) Solutions Architect
6 2 (3.28%) DevSecOps Engineer
6 2 (3.28%) Lead
6 2 (3.28%) Project Manager - Cybersecurity
6 2 (3.28%) Security Project Manager
6 2 (3.28%) Senior Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (22.95%) OAuth
1 14 (22.95%) SAML
2 11 (18.03%) OpenID
3 8 (13.11%) OAuth2
4 5 (8.20%) LDAP
5 4 (6.56%) ARM Templates
5 4 (6.56%) Microsoft Graph
5 4 (6.56%) RESTful
6 2 (3.28%) Flash
6 2 (3.28%) GraphQL
6 2 (3.28%) JWT
6 2 (3.28%) Middleware
6 2 (3.28%) Node.js
6 2 (3.28%) Smart Contracts
7 1 (1.64%) Kafka
7 1 (1.64%) Model Context Protocol
7 1 (1.64%) SailPoint
7 1 (1.64%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 8 (13.11%) Cloud Native
2 7 (11.48%) Security Posture
3 5 (8.20%) Management Information System
3 5 (8.20%) Onboarding
4 4 (6.56%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (4.92%) Distributed Systems
5 3 (4.92%) Product Ownership
6 2 (3.28%) Blockchain
6 2 (3.28%) Cloud Security Posture
6 2 (3.28%) Cyber Threat
6 2 (3.28%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (3.28%) PMI
7 1 (1.64%) CMDB
7 1 (1.64%) Cyberattack
7 1 (1.64%) Data Centre
7 1 (1.64%) Enterprise Cloud
7 1 (1.64%) NHS
7 1 (1.64%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.64%) PKI
7 1 (1.64%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 6 (9.84%) Linux
2 4 (6.56%) AIX
2 4 (6.56%) Solaris
2 4 (6.56%) Windows
3 2 (3.28%) VMS
4 1 (1.64%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (37.70%) Cybersecurity
2 18 (29.51%) Risk Management
3 17 (27.87%) Infrastructure as Code
4 16 (26.23%) CI/CD
4 16 (26.23%) Cloud Security
4 16 (26.23%) DevOps
5 13 (21.31%) AI
5 13 (21.31%) Incident Response
5 13 (21.31%) Zero Trust
6 12 (19.67%) Data Protection
6 12 (19.67%) Stakeholder Management
7 11 (18.03%) Information Security
7 11 (18.03%) RBAC
8 10 (16.39%) Agile
8 10 (16.39%) Data Loss Prevention
8 10 (16.39%) SIEM
9 9 (14.75%) Continuous Improvement
9 9 (14.75%) DevSecOps
9 9 (14.75%) Problem-Solving
10 8 (13.11%) Regulatory Compliance
Programming Languages
1 12 (19.67%) PowerShell
1 12 (19.67%) Python
2 9 (14.75%) Bicep
3 8 (13.11%) Bash
4 3 (4.92%) Go
4 3 (4.92%) SQL
5 2 (3.28%) Java
5 2 (3.28%) Rust
5 2 (3.28%) Solidity
6 1 (1.64%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 13 (21.31%) CISSP
2 12 (19.67%) Degree
3 11 (18.03%) CISM
4 6 (9.84%) CISA
4 6 (9.84%) CRISC
4 6 (9.84%) Security Cleared
5 5 (8.20%) Azure Certification
6 4 (6.56%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (6.56%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (6.56%) SC Cleared
7 3 (4.92%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 3 (4.92%) AWS Certification
7 3 (4.92%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (4.92%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
7 3 (4.92%) Master's Degree
7 3 (4.92%) PMI Certification
7 3 (4.92%) PMP
8 2 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (3.28%) CCSK
8 2 (3.28%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (65.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 28 (45.90%) GDPR
2 28 (45.90%) NIST
3 18 (29.51%) PCI DSS
4 10 (16.39%) GRC
4 10 (16.39%) HIPAA
5 4 (6.56%) NIST 800
6 3 (4.92%) EU AI Act
6 3 (4.92%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 3 (4.92%) PMO
7 2 (3.28%) COBIT
7 2 (3.28%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (3.28%) FedRAMP
7 2 (3.28%) ISO 31000
7 2 (3.28%) SLA
8 1 (1.64%) Data Quality
8 1 (1.64%) ISO 22301
8 1 (1.64%) NCSC
8 1 (1.64%) QA
System Software
1 10 (16.39%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.64%) Docker
Systems Management
1 16 (26.23%) Terraform
2 12 (19.67%) Single Sign-On
3 7 (11.48%) Kubernetes
4 2 (3.28%) Ansible
4 2 (3.28%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (3.28%) PingFederate
5 1 (1.64%) CSIRT
5 1 (1.64%) QRadar
Vendors
1 13 (21.31%) Microsoft
2 7 (11.48%) Splunk
3 4 (6.56%) CrowdStrike
3 4 (6.56%) Databricks
3 4 (6.56%) Google
3 4 (6.56%) Ping Identity
3 4 (6.56%) ServiceNow
4 3 (4.92%) CyberArk
4 3 (4.92%) Tenable
5 2 (3.28%) BeyondTrust
5 2 (3.28%) Okta
5 2 (3.28%) Optimizely
5 2 (3.28%) Qualys
5 2 (3.28%) Salesforce
6 1 (1.64%) Informatica
6 1 (1.64%) Intel
6 1 (1.64%) Rapid7
6 1 (1.64%) Talend
6 1 (1.64%) Zscaler