Cyber Defence Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Cyber Defence
England > North of England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Cyber Defence in contract job vacancies in the North of England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cyber Defence over the 6 months leading up to 3 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 213 160 177
Rank change year-on-year -53 +17 +55
Contract jobs citing Cyber Defence 6 1 10
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 0.12% 0.030% 0.20%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.34% 0.091% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 0 4
10th Percentile £324 - -
25th Percentile £341 - £582
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 - £687
Median % change year-on-year - - +44.63%
75th Percentile £416 - £794
90th Percentile £534 - £798
England median daily rate £550 £773 £635
% change year-on-year -28.80% +21.65% -6.06%

All Generic Skills
North of England

Cyber Defence falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in the North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 1,743 1,103 1,382
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 34.46% 33.17% 27.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,151 640 899
10th Percentile £213 £200 £233
25th Percentile £366 £328 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £474 £495
Median % change year-on-year +0.26% -4.29% -1.00%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £582
90th Percentile £625 £675 £638
England median daily rate £510 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -7.27% - -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 102 45 113
10th Percentile £15.50 £19.63 £12.33
25th Percentile £20.02 £22.72 £14.06
Median hourly rate £45.46 £30.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +51.53% +36.36% +11.73%
75th Percentile £57.44 £33.75 £43.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £46.18 £48.75
England median hourly rate £31.51 £37.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -15.99% +15.38% +44.54%

Cyber Defence
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Cyber Defence relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

Cyber Defence job vacancy trend in the North of England

Cyber Defence
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Cyber Defence.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Cyber Defence

Cyber Defence
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cyber Defence in the North of England over the 6 months to 3 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cyber Defence in the North of England

Cyber Defence
Contract Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cyber Defence within the North of England region over the 6 months to 3 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
Yorkshire - 4 £350 - 2
North West -31 2 £575 - 2
Cyber Defence
England

Cyber Defence
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of 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:

Cloud Services
1 4 (66.67%) Akamai
2 2 (33.33%) Azure
2 2 (33.33%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 3 (50.00%) DNS
1 3 (50.00%) Firewall
2 2 (33.33%) Network Security
Job Titles
1 3 (50.00%) Architect
1 3 (50.00%) Security Architect
2 2 (33.33%) Cybersecurity Engineer
2 2 (33.33%) Security Engineer
3 1 (16.67%) Analyst
3 1 (16.67%) Incident Analyst
3 1 (16.67%) Incident Response Lead
3 1 (16.67%) Lead
3 1 (16.67%) Software Engineer
Miscellaneous
1 3 (50.00%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
2 2 (33.33%) Cloud Native
3 1 (16.67%) Cyber Threat
3 1 (16.67%) Security Posture
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (83.33%) Cybersecurity
2 3 (50.00%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
2 3 (50.00%) Threat Intelligence
3 2 (33.33%) Vulnerability Management
4 1 (16.67%) Containerisation
4 1 (16.67%) Cyber Intelligence
4 1 (16.67%) GAP Analysis
4 1 (16.67%) Incident Response
4 1 (16.67%) MITRE ATT&CK
4 1 (16.67%) Software Engineering
4 1 (16.67%) Threat and Vulnerability Management
4 1 (16.67%) Threat Detection
Programming Languages
1 1 (16.67%) Python
Qualifications
1 1 (16.67%) SC Cleared
1 1 (16.67%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (16.67%) NIST
Systems Management
1 2 (33.33%) Terraform
2 1 (16.67%) QRadar
Vendors
1 1 (16.67%) Microsoft
1 1 (16.67%) Splunk