Cyber Essentials Contract Job Trends in the Midlands

Cyber Essentials
England > Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Midlands requiring Cyber Essentials skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 159 110 125
Rank change year-on-year -49 +15 +53
Contract jobs citing Cyber Essentials 9 13 10
As % of all contract jobs in the Midlands 0.27% 0.60% 0.38%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 1.81% 3.72% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 8 6
10th Percentile £356 £226 £500
25th Percentile £388 £313 £581
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £444 £325 £600
Median % change year-on-year +36.54% -45.83% +20.00%
75th Percentile £469 £331 £634
90th Percentile £522 £481 £638
England median daily rate £525 £518 £538
% change year-on-year +1.33% -3.61% +13.16%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
Midlands

Cyber Essentials 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 the Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 498 349 345
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Midlands 15.04% 16.11% 13.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 324 213 257
10th Percentile £304 £197 £260
25th Percentile £402 £320 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £445 £475
Median % change year-on-year +10.56% -6.32% +2.28%
75th Percentile £575 £544 £588
90th Percentile £688 £620 £700
England median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.10% +1.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 18 25
10th Percentile £12.63 £12.64 £11.44
25th Percentile £12.94 £14.70 £13.25
Median hourly rate £13.20 £17.85 £17.25
Median % change year-on-year -26.05% +3.48% -12.28%
75th Percentile £18.84 £33.25 £34.50
90th Percentile £26.50 £52.50 £57.25
England median hourly rate £25.46 £30.21 £30.00
% change year-on-year -15.72% +0.70% +7.14%

Cyber Essentials
Job Vacancy Trend in the Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Cyber Essentials relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Midlands.

Cyber Essentials job vacancy trend in the Midlands

Cyber Essentials
Daily Rate Trend in the Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Cyber Essentials.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Midlands citing Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials
Daily Rate Histogram in the Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cyber Essentials in the Midlands over the 6 months to 26 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cyber Essentials in the Midlands

Cyber Essentials
Contract Job Locations in the Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cyber Essentials within the Midlands region over the 6 months to 26 January 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
West Midlands -39 5 £465 +43.08% 17
East Midlands -29 4 £444 +47.92% 14
Cyber Essentials
England

Cyber Essentials
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Midlands 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 6 (66.67%) Azure
2 5 (55.56%) Azure Sentinel
3 4 (44.44%) AWS
3 4 (44.44%) Entra ID
4 2 (22.22%) Amazon EKS
4 2 (22.22%) Amazon GuardDuty
4 2 (22.22%) AWS Control Tower
4 2 (22.22%) Azure AKS
4 2 (22.22%) IaaS
4 2 (22.22%) PaaS
4 2 (22.22%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (22.22%) Firewall
1 2 (22.22%) Network Security
2 1 (11.11%) TCP/IP
2 1 (11.11%) VLAN
2 1 (11.11%) Wireless
General
1 3 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 1 (11.11%) Documentation Skills
2 1 (11.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 1 (11.11%) Legal
2 1 (11.11%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 4 (44.44%) Security Manager
2 2 (22.22%) Infrastructure Manager
3 1 (11.11%) Architect
3 1 (11.11%) Consultant
3 1 (11.11%) Cybersecurity Manager
3 1 (11.11%) Cybersecurity Specialist
3 1 (11.11%) DevSecOps Architect
3 1 (11.11%) DevSecOps Consultant
3 1 (11.11%) DevSecOps Engineer
3 1 (11.11%) Information Manager
3 1 (11.11%) Information Security Manager
3 1 (11.11%) IT Engineer
3 1 (11.11%) Network Engineer
3 1 (11.11%) Security Specialist
3 1 (11.11%) Senior
3 1 (11.11%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (22.22%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 2 (22.22%) Onboarding
1 2 (22.22%) Security Posture
2 1 (11.11%) Management Information System
2 1 (11.11%) NHS
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (33.33%) Cybersecurity
1 3 (33.33%) Incident Response
1 3 (33.33%) Information Security
1 3 (33.33%) Risk Register
1 3 (33.33%) Security Operations
1 3 (33.33%) Zero Trust
2 2 (22.22%) Analytics
2 2 (22.22%) Architectural Patterns
2 2 (22.22%) Architecture Governance
2 2 (22.22%) Cloud Security
2 2 (22.22%) Coaching
2 2 (22.22%) Data Loss Prevention
2 2 (22.22%) DevSecOps
2 2 (22.22%) Identity Management
2 2 (22.22%) Infrastructure Management
2 2 (22.22%) ITSM
2 2 (22.22%) Patch Management
2 2 (22.22%) Regulatory Compliance
2 2 (22.22%) Threat Modelling
2 2 (22.22%) Vulnerability Remediation
Programming Languages
1 2 (22.22%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2 (22.22%) CISSP
2 1 (11.11%) CCNA
2 1 (11.11%) CCNP
2 1 (11.11%) Cisco Certification
2 1 (11.11%) CISM
2 1 (11.11%) CompTIA Security+
2 1 (11.11%) ISACA
2 1 (11.11%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
2 1 (11.11%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
2 1 (11.11%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (100.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (44.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 2 (22.22%) NIST
4 1 (11.11%) ISO 22301
4 1 (11.11%) NCSC
System Software
1 1 (11.11%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 3 (33.33%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (22.22%) Kubernetes
2 2 (22.22%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 6 (66.67%) Microsoft
2 3 (33.33%) Cisco
3 1 (11.11%) Aruba
3 1 (11.11%) CheckPoint
3 1 (11.11%) Fortinet