Network Security Engineer Contract Job Trends in London

Network Security Engineer
England > London

The median Network Security Engineer daily rate in London is £488, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 October 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 418 336 361
Rank change year-on-year -82 +25 +32
Contract jobs requiring a Network Security Engineer 36 33 25
As % of all contract jobs in London 0.18% 0.25% 0.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 0.27% 0.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 17 21
10th Percentile £351 £344 £354
25th Percentile £417 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £438 £450
Median % change year-on-year +11.43% -2.78% -17.24%
75th Percentile £558 £523 £550
90th Percentile £665 £574 £613
England median daily rate £469 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +10.24% -5.56% -10.00%

All Contract IT Job Roles
London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in London. 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 London with a recognized job title 18,842 12,404 15,187
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.12% 92.57% 94.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,171 8,277 9,921
10th Percentile £363 £332 £340
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £543 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.38% -1.36% -4.35%
75th Percentile £663 £663 £675
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 416 207 179
10th Percentile £16.94 £17.00 £17.25
25th Percentile £21.93 £22.50 £23.98
Median hourly rate £41.00 £27.40 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.64% -21.71% -9.58%
75th Percentile £65.60 £48.50 £58.75
90th Percentile £81.25 £66.34 £79.00
England median hourly rate £42.15 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.59% -41.51% -6.52%

Network Security Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Network Security Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

Network Security Engineer job vacancy trend in London

Network Security Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in London

Network Security Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Security Engineer in London over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Security Engineer in London

Network Security Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in London

Network Security Engineer
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Network Security Engineer within the London region over the 6 months to 10 October 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
Central London -27 3 £675 +30.12% 7
Network Security Engineer
England

Network Security Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 10 October 2026, Network Security Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the London region featuring Network Security Engineer in the job title.

1 36 (100.00%) Network Security
2 29 (80.56%) Firewall
3 24 (66.67%) Palo Alto
4 22 (61.11%) Cisco
5 17 (47.22%) Fortinet
5 17 (47.22%) VPN
6 15 (41.67%) Azure
7 14 (38.89%) Python
8 13 (36.11%) Zero Trust
9 12 (33.33%) Zscaler
10 11 (30.56%) CheckPoint
11 10 (27.78%) Cisco ISE
11 10 (27.78%) WAN
12 9 (25.00%) AWS
12 9 (25.00%) CCNP
12 9 (25.00%) Cisco Certification
12 9 (25.00%) FortiGate
13 7 (19.44%) Ansible
13 7 (19.44%) BGP
13 7 (19.44%) Cloud Security
13 7 (19.44%) PowerShell
13 7 (19.44%) SD-WAN
13 7 (19.44%) Terraform
14 6 (16.67%) Bash
14 6 (16.67%) Internet
14 6 (16.67%) OSPF
14 6 (16.67%) SIEM
15 5 (13.89%) Asset Management
15 5 (13.89%) CISSP
15 5 (13.89%) F5

Network Security Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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:

Cloud Services
1 15 (41.67%) Azure
2 9 (25.00%) AWS
3 4 (11.11%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (8.33%) Entra ID
5 2 (5.56%) GCP
5 2 (5.56%) Mimecast
6 1 (2.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (2.78%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 1 (2.78%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (2.78%) AWS Direct Connect
6 1 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
6 1 (2.78%) Serverless
6 1 (2.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 36 (100.00%) Network Security
2 29 (80.56%) Firewall
3 17 (47.22%) VPN
4 10 (27.78%) Cisco ISE
4 10 (27.78%) WAN
5 7 (19.44%) BGP
5 7 (19.44%) SD-WAN
6 6 (16.67%) Internet
6 6 (16.67%) OSPF
7 5 (13.89%) TACACS
7 5 (13.89%) TCP/IP
7 5 (13.89%) VLAN
8 4 (11.11%) MPLS
8 4 (11.11%) SSL
8 4 (11.11%) Wireless
9 3 (8.33%) DHCP
9 3 (8.33%) DMZ
9 3 (8.33%) DNS
9 3 (8.33%) HTTP
9 3 (8.33%) LAN
Development Applications
1 2 (5.56%) JIRA
General
1 10 (27.78%) Finance
2 7 (19.44%) Social Skills
3 4 (11.11%) Banking
4 3 (8.33%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (5.56%) Financial Institution
5 2 (5.56%) Investment Banking
5 2 (5.56%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (2.78%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (2.78%) Legal
6 1 (2.78%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (19.44%) Terraform
2 2 (5.56%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 5 (13.89%) Data Centre
2 3 (8.33%) Cyber Threat
2 3 (8.33%) Security Posture
3 2 (5.56%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
4 1 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (36.11%) Zero Trust
2 7 (19.44%) Cloud Security
3 6 (16.67%) SIEM
4 5 (13.89%) Asset Management
4 5 (13.89%) Incident Response
4 5 (13.89%) ITSM
4 5 (13.89%) Security Operations
4 5 (13.89%) Stakeholder Management
4 5 (13.89%) Validation
5 4 (11.11%) Agile
5 4 (11.11%) Data Protection
5 4 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 4 (11.11%) Migration
5 4 (11.11%) Network Segmentation
5 4 (11.11%) Security Architecture
5 4 (11.11%) Security Management
6 3 (8.33%) Network Monitoring
6 3 (8.33%) Security Hardening
6 3 (8.33%) Security Monitoring
6 3 (8.33%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 14 (38.89%) Python
2 7 (19.44%) PowerShell
3 6 (16.67%) Bash
Qualifications
1 9 (25.00%) CCNP
1 9 (25.00%) Cisco Certification
2 5 (13.89%) CISSP
3 4 (11.11%) CCIE
4 2 (5.56%) CCIE Security
5 1 (2.78%) CCSA
5 1 (2.78%) CCSE
5 1 (2.78%) SC Cleared
5 1 (2.78%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (5.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 2 (5.56%) NIST
1 2 (5.56%) PCI DSS
2 1 (2.78%) GRC
System Software
1 3 (8.33%) Active Directory
2 2 (5.56%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 9 (25.00%) FortiGate
2 7 (19.44%) Ansible
3 1 (2.78%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 24 (66.67%) Palo Alto
2 22 (61.11%) Cisco
3 17 (47.22%) Fortinet
4 12 (33.33%) Zscaler
5 11 (30.56%) CheckPoint
6 5 (13.89%) F5
6 5 (13.89%) Meraki
6 5 (13.89%) Microsoft
7 4 (11.11%) AlgoSec
7 4 (11.11%) Blue Coat
8 3 (8.33%) Arista
8 3 (8.33%) Netskope
9 2 (5.56%) LogicMonitor
9 2 (5.56%) Tenable
10 1 (2.78%) Aruba
10 1 (2.78%) NetApp
10 1 (2.78%) Splunk
10 1 (2.78%) Tufin