SOC Engineer Contracts in England

Security Operations Centre Engineer
UK > England

The median Security Operations Centre Engineer daily rate in England is £488, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 August 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 502 489 577
Rank change year-on-year -13 +88 +196
Contract jobs requiring a SOC Engineer 17 35 39
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.062% 0.10% 0.086%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.067% 0.11% 0.091%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 30 26
10th Percentile £453 £398 £450
25th Percentile £463 £553 £470
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -18.75% -3.97% -0.03%
75th Percentile £556 £678 £669
90th Percentile £590 £700 £724
UK median daily rate £494 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -17.71% -3.97% +4.14%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in England with a recognized job title 25,342 31,079 43,055
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.69% 92.90% 94.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,441 20,449 30,337
10th Percentile £285 £300 £307
25th Percentile £402 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £656
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,310 1,833 1,343
10th Percentile £13.55 £14.16 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £21.25 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.66 £45.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -42.98% +5.88% +66.67%
75th Percentile £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -41.51% +1.18% +65.50%

SOC Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings that featured SOC Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for SOC Engineer in England

SOC Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SOC Engineer in England.

Daily rate trend for SOC Engineer in England

SOC Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SOC Engineer in England over the 6 months to 6 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SOC Engineer in England

SOC Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SOC Engineer in England.

Hourly rate trend for SOC Engineer in England

SOC Engineer
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 Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 6 August 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 +5 13 £475 +52.00% 3
South East +18 3 £544 -4.61% 2
West Midlands -11 1 - - 1
Midlands -11 1 - - 1
SOC Engineer
UK

SOC Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 6 August 2025, SOC Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring SOC Engineer in the job title.

1 15 (88.24%) SIEM
2 11 (64.71%) Microsoft
3 10 (58.82%) Security Cleared
3 10 (58.82%) Security Operations
4 9 (52.94%) Incident Response
5 8 (47.06%) SC Cleared
6 7 (41.18%) Kusto Query Language
7 6 (35.29%) Cybersecurity
8 5 (29.41%) Threat Detection
8 5 (29.41%) Azure
8 5 (29.41%) Windows
9 4 (23.53%) Security Architecture
9 4 (23.53%) Data Analysis
9 4 (23.53%) Security Operations Centre
9 4 (23.53%) Analytical Skills
10 3 (17.65%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (17.65%) Analytics
10 3 (17.65%) Decision-Making
10 3 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
10 3 (17.65%) Public Sector
10 3 (17.65%) Use Case
10 3 (17.65%) Continuous Improvement
10 3 (17.65%) Management Information System
10 3 (17.65%) Security Posture
10 3 (17.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (17.65%) Red Team
10 3 (17.65%) Blue Team
10 3 (17.65%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (11.76%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (11.76%) Observability

SOC Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Cloud Services
1 5 (29.41%) Azure
2 3 (17.65%) Azure Sentinel
3 2 (11.76%) Datadog
4 1 (5.88%) Azure Logic Apps
4 1 (5.88%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 1 (5.88%) Firewall
1 1 (5.88%) Network Security
General
1 4 (23.53%) Analytical Skills
2 3 (17.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 3 (17.65%) Public Sector
3 2 (11.76%) Finance
4 1 (5.88%) Social Skills
Miscellaneous
1 4 (23.53%) Security Operations Centre
2 3 (17.65%) Cyber Threat
2 3 (17.65%) Management Information System
2 3 (17.65%) Security Posture
3 2 (11.76%) Cyber Kill Chain
4 1 (5.88%) Data Centre
4 1 (5.88%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (5.88%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 5 (29.41%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (88.24%) SIEM
2 10 (58.82%) Security Operations
3 9 (52.94%) Incident Response
4 6 (35.29%) Cybersecurity
5 5 (29.41%) Threat Detection
6 4 (23.53%) Data Analysis
6 4 (23.53%) Security Architecture
7 3 (17.65%) Analytics
7 3 (17.65%) Blue Team
7 3 (17.65%) Continuous Improvement
7 3 (17.65%) Decision-Making
7 3 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
7 3 (17.65%) Red Team
7 3 (17.65%) Use Case
8 2 (11.76%) Mentoring
8 2 (11.76%) Observability
8 2 (11.76%) Purple Team
8 2 (11.76%) Security Monitoring
8 2 (11.76%) Task Automation
8 2 (11.76%) Threat Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 7 (41.18%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 10 (58.82%) Security Cleared
2 8 (47.06%) SC Cleared
3 2 (11.76%) CompTIA Security+
3 2 (11.76%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (5.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 1 (5.88%) NIST
Systems Management
1 1 (5.88%) QRadar
Vendors
1 11 (64.71%) Microsoft
2 2 (11.76%) Citrix
2 2 (11.76%) Forcepoint
2 2 (11.76%) Fortinet
2 2 (11.76%) Splunk
3 1 (5.88%) Cisco
3 1 (5.88%) Kenna
3 1 (5.88%) LogRhythm
3 1 (5.88%) Rapid7