Network Security Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Network Security
North West > Manchester

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Manchester requiring Network Security skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 91 66 61
Rank change year-on-year -25 -5 +13
Contract jobs citing Network Security 35 15 22
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 1.70% 1.47% 1.87%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.34% 18.52% 17.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 10 16
10th Percentile £505 £414 £431
25th Percentile £525 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £594 £538
Median % change year-on-year -7.33% +10.42% -6.52%
75th Percentile £650 £704 £647
90th Percentile £673 £739 £706
North West median daily rate £545 £475 £550
% change year-on-year +14.74% -13.64% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £16.50 - -
Median hourly rate £17.00 - -
75th Percentile £17.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
North West median hourly rate £17.00 £68.33 -
% change year-on-year -75.12% - -

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
Manchester

Network Security falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in Manchester.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 164 81 126
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 7.97% 7.96% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 109 49 83
10th Percentile £189 £170 £320
25th Percentile £316 £325 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £425 £495
Median % change year-on-year +16.47% -14.14% +10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £535 £575
90th Percentile £650 £646 £675
North West median daily rate £470 £438 £500
% change year-on-year +7.43% -12.50% +1.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 2
10th Percentile - - £36.13
25th Percentile £12.98 £18.50 £37.81
Median hourly rate £17.00 £19.50 £41.25
Median % change year-on-year -12.82% -52.73% +150.00%
75th Percentile £21.95 £20.00 £45.31
90th Percentile £27.38 - £47.38
North West median hourly rate £17.50 £19.00 £48.56
% change year-on-year -7.89% -60.87% +191.13%

Network Security
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Network Security relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

Network Security job vacancy trend in Manchester

Network Security
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Network Security.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Network Security

Network Security
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Security in Manchester over the 6 months to 15 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Security in Manchester

Network Security
Hourly Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Network Security.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Network Security

Network Security
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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 (5.71%) Confluence
2 1 (2.86%) nginx
Cloud Services
1 10 (28.57%) AWS
2 9 (25.71%) Azure
3 6 (17.14%) GitHub
4 5 (14.29%) IaaS
5 4 (11.43%) GCP
6 3 (8.57%) OCI
7 2 (5.71%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (5.71%) SaaS
8 1 (2.86%) Akamai
8 1 (2.86%) AWS Direct Connect
8 1 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (2.86%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 1 (2.86%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (2.86%) Kong
8 1 (2.86%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (2.86%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 23 (65.71%) Firewall
2 9 (25.71%) BIG-IP
3 6 (17.14%) DNS
3 6 (17.14%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 5 (14.29%) BGP
4 5 (14.29%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
4 5 (14.29%) VPN
5 4 (11.43%) OSPF
6 3 (8.57%) TCP/IP
6 3 (8.57%) WAN
7 2 (5.71%) Cisco ASA
7 2 (5.71%) Ethernet VPN
7 2 (5.71%) SD-WAN
7 2 (5.71%) Software-Defined Networking
7 2 (5.71%) VXLAN
8 1 (2.86%) Cisco Firepower
8 1 (2.86%) Junos
8 1 (2.86%) NAS
8 1 (2.86%) NGFW
8 1 (2.86%) Unified Communications
Development Applications
1 8 (22.86%) Jenkins
2 4 (11.43%) GitLab
3 3 (8.57%) JIRA
4 1 (2.86%) Git
4 1 (2.86%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 12 (34.29%) Finance
2 8 (22.86%) Social Skills
3 4 (11.43%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (11.43%) Banking
4 2 (5.71%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (2.86%) Games
5 1 (2.86%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (2.86%) Public Sector
5 1 (2.86%) Retail
Job Titles
1 10 (28.57%) Network Engineer
2 8 (22.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 7 (20.00%) Network Manager
3 7 (20.00%) Network Project Manager
3 7 (20.00%) Network Security Manager
3 7 (20.00%) Project Manager
3 7 (20.00%) Security Engineer
3 7 (20.00%) Security Manager
3 7 (20.00%) Security Project Manager
4 4 (11.43%) Network Security Engineer
5 3 (8.57%) SIEM Engineer
6 2 (5.71%) Automation Engineer
6 2 (5.71%) Network Operations Engineer
6 2 (5.71%) Operations Engineer
6 2 (5.71%) Splunk Engineer
7 1 (2.86%) Cloud Engineer
7 1 (2.86%) DevOps Engineer
7 1 (2.86%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
7 1 (2.86%) Storage Architect
7 1 (2.86%) Storage Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (11.43%) Terraform
2 2 (5.71%) REST
3 1 (2.86%) JSON
3 1 (2.86%) JWT
3 1 (2.86%) OAuth
3 1 (2.86%) OpenID
3 1 (2.86%) SAML
3 1 (2.86%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 8 (22.86%) Security Posture
2 7 (20.00%) Data Centre
3 6 (17.14%) Self-Motivation
4 5 (14.29%) Public Cloud
5 4 (11.43%) Onboarding
6 3 (8.57%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (8.57%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (5.71%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 1 (2.86%) Animation
8 1 (2.86%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (2.86%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (2.86%) Enterprise Storage
8 1 (2.86%) Management Information System
8 1 (2.86%) PKI
8 1 (2.86%) Security Operations Centre
8 1 (2.86%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 2 (5.71%) Windows
2 1 (2.86%) Linux
2 1 (2.86%) Unix
2 1 (2.86%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (37.14%) Network Segmentation
2 10 (28.57%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 9 (25.71%) CI/CD
3 9 (25.71%) Zero Trust
4 8 (22.86%) Problem-Solving
5 7 (20.00%) Agile
5 7 (20.00%) Security Operations
6 6 (17.14%) Cloud Security
7 5 (14.29%) Incident Response
7 5 (14.29%) Infrastructure as Code
7 5 (14.29%) Project Delivery
7 5 (14.29%) Risk Assessment
7 5 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
8 4 (11.43%) Change Management
8 4 (11.43%) Cybersecurity
8 4 (11.43%) ITIL
8 4 (11.43%) Migration
8 4 (11.43%) Network Architecture
8 4 (11.43%) Service Management
8 4 (11.43%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 13 (37.14%) Python
2 5 (14.29%) ActionScript
3 4 (11.43%) PowerShell
4 2 (5.71%) Bash
4 2 (5.71%) Kusto Query Language
4 2 (5.71%) Search Processing Language
4 2 (5.71%) SQL
Qualifications
1 10 (28.57%) CCNP
1 10 (28.57%) Cisco Certification
2 9 (25.71%) CISSP
3 4 (11.43%) Degree
3 4 (11.43%) SC Cleared
3 4 (11.43%) Security Cleared
4 3 (8.57%) CCIE
4 3 (8.57%) GCIH
5 2 (5.71%) CCIE Security
5 2 (5.71%) CCSP
5 2 (5.71%) GCFA
5 2 (5.71%) TOGAF Certification
6 1 (2.86%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 1 (2.86%) AWS Certification
6 1 (2.86%) CCIE Service Provider
6 1 (2.86%) CCSE
6 1 (2.86%) CEH
6 1 (2.86%) CISM
6 1 (2.86%) Master's Degree
6 1 (2.86%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (14.29%) PCI DSS
2 4 (11.43%) NIST
3 3 (8.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (5.71%) GDPR
4 2 (5.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1 (2.86%) Active Directory
1 1 (2.86%) Docker
1 1 (2.86%) VMware Infrastructure
1 1 (2.86%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 7 (20.00%) Ansible
2 4 (11.43%) Progress Chef
3 2 (5.71%) CASB
4 1 (2.86%) Istio
4 1 (2.86%) Kubernetes
4 1 (2.86%) Nagios
4 1 (2.86%) Network Intrusion Detection System
4 1 (2.86%) Puppet
4 1 (2.86%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 11 (31.43%) F5
2 8 (22.86%) Cisco
3 7 (20.00%) Palo Alto
4 6 (17.14%) AlgoSec
5 5 (14.29%) Fortinet
6 4 (11.43%) CheckPoint
6 4 (11.43%) Microsoft
7 3 (8.57%) Aruba
7 3 (8.57%) Juniper
7 3 (8.57%) Splunk
8 2 (5.71%) Cribl.io
9 1 (2.86%) ArcSight
9 1 (2.86%) Arista
9 1 (2.86%) BiZZdesign
9 1 (2.86%) LogRhythm
9 1 (2.86%) Oracle
9 1 (2.86%) Rapid7
9 1 (2.86%) ServiceNow
9 1 (2.86%) SolarWinds
9 1 (2.86%) Zscaler