Incident Response Contract Job Trends in the North West

Incident Response
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Incident Response skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 79 99 126
Rank change year-on-year +20 +27 +45
Contract jobs citing Incident Response 73 24 13
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.92% 1.11% 0.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.30% 1.28% 0.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 51 13 10
10th Percentile £310 £365 £445
25th Percentile £360 £395 £482
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £598
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% -22.59% +16.59%
75th Percentile £604 £525 £731
90th Percentile £650 £643 £778
England median daily rate £537 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -10.50% - +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
Median hourly rate £41.94 - -
England median hourly rate £61.25 £57.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +6.52% -8.00% +45.35%

All Process and Methodology Skills
North West

Incident Response falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,213 1,874 2,344
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 88.38% 86.48% 89.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,448 1,055 1,596
10th Percentile £213 £265 £295
25th Percentile £358 £390 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £567 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £656 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £544
% change year-on-year -3.81% -3.49% -1.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 108 157
10th Percentile £16.41 £16.00 £15.75
25th Percentile £20.63 £21.20 £18.00
Median hourly rate £31.50 £31.25 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.80% -11.97% +33.81%
75th Percentile £51.76 £51.91 £46.88
90th Percentile £69.78 £68.65 £65.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +19.70%

Incident Response
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Incident Response relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Incident Response job vacancy trend in the North West

Incident Response
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Incident Response.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Incident Response

Incident Response
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Incident Response in the North West over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Incident Response in the North West

Incident Response
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Incident Response.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Incident Response

Incident Response
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Incident Response within the North West region over the 6 months to 19 December 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
Cheshire +9 35 £433 -15.61% 21
Manchester +5 28 £588 +11.90% 38
Cumbria +6 5 £400 +0.63%
Lancashire - 4 £193 - 18
Merseyside -10 1 £633 - 5
Incident Response
England

Incident Response
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 12 (16.44%) SharePoint
2 10 (13.70%) Confluence
3 4 (5.48%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (5.48%) OpenStack
4 1 (1.37%) JBoss
Applications
1 9 (12.33%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 17 (23.29%) Azure
2 16 (21.92%) AWS
3 11 (15.07%) GCP
4 8 (10.96%) Microsoft 365
5 4 (5.48%) OpenShift
6 3 (4.11%) Azure Sentinel
7 2 (2.74%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (2.74%) Azure Logic Apps
7 2 (2.74%) Cloud Computing
7 2 (2.74%) Datadog
7 2 (2.74%) Entra ID
7 2 (2.74%) OneDrive
7 2 (2.74%) SaaS
8 1 (1.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 1 (1.37%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (1.37%) Amazon ELB
8 1 (1.37%) Amazon S3
8 1 (1.37%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (1.37%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 18 (24.66%) Firewall
2 12 (16.44%) Network Security
3 10 (13.70%) SSH
4 7 (9.59%) Intrusion Detection
5 5 (6.85%) Internet
5 5 (6.85%) VPN
6 3 (4.11%) TCP/IP
7 2 (2.74%) Wireshark
8 1 (1.37%) DNS
8 1 (1.37%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.37%) RDBMS
1 1 (1.37%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 12 (16.44%) JIRA
2 6 (8.22%) GitLab
2 6 (8.22%) Postman
3 4 (5.48%) Jenkins
4 2 (2.74%) CircleCI
4 2 (2.74%) Fiddler
4 2 (2.74%) Git
5 1 (1.37%) Bitbucket
5 1 (1.37%) SonarQube
5 1 (1.37%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (1.37%) TeamCity
General
1 27 (36.99%) Social Skills
2 14 (19.18%) Analytical Skills
2 14 (19.18%) Finance
3 10 (13.70%) Documentation Skills
4 6 (8.22%) Telecoms
5 5 (6.85%) Public Sector
6 4 (5.48%) Retail
7 2 (2.74%) Banking
7 2 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.37%) Legal
8 1 (1.37%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 32 (43.84%) Analyst
2 11 (15.07%) Network Engineer
3 10 (13.70%) Security Engineer
4 7 (9.59%) Security Analyst
5 6 (8.22%) Cybersecurity Engineer
5 6 (8.22%) Help Desk Analyst
5 6 (8.22%) Network Security Engineer
6 5 (6.85%) Senior
7 4 (5.48%) Cybersecurity Specialist
7 4 (5.48%) Lead
7 4 (5.48%) Platform Engineer
8 3 (4.11%) Cybersecurity Manager
8 3 (4.11%) DevOps Engineer
8 3 (4.11%) Incident Analyst
8 3 (4.11%) Incident Manager
8 3 (4.11%) Security Manager
8 3 (4.11%) SOC Analyst
8 3 (4.11%) Virtualisation Engineer
9 2 (2.74%) Service Security Manager
9 2 (2.74%) Transition Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (4.11%) Elastic Stack
2 2 (2.74%) HTML
3 1 (1.37%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 10 (13.70%) Tandem
2 8 (10.96%) Onboarding
3 4 (5.48%) Cyber Threat
4 3 (4.11%) Management Information System
4 3 (4.11%) Security Operations Centre
5 2 (2.74%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (2.74%) Cloud Native
5 2 (2.74%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (2.74%) Driving Licence
5 2 (2.74%) Operational Technology
5 2 (2.74%) Security Posture
5 2 (2.74%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 1 (1.37%) CMDB
6 1 (1.37%) Cyber Defence
6 1 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (1.37%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.37%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 16 (21.92%) Windows
2 10 (13.70%) Unix
3 9 (12.33%) Linux
4 2 (2.74%) Windows Server
5 1 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (28.77%) Information Security
2 20 (27.40%) Cybersecurity
3 18 (24.66%) SIEM
4 17 (23.29%) ITIL
5 14 (19.18%) Computer Science
5 14 (19.18%) Stakeholder Management
6 12 (16.44%) CI/CD
6 12 (16.44%) Security Operations
7 11 (15.07%) DevOps
7 11 (15.07%) Incident Management
7 11 (15.07%) Problem-Solving
7 11 (15.07%) Root Cause Analysis
8 10 (13.70%) Change Management
8 10 (13.70%) Cryptography
8 10 (13.70%) Infrastructure as Code
8 10 (13.70%) Infrastructure Automation
8 10 (13.70%) Release Management
8 10 (13.70%) Service Delivery
9 9 (12.33%) ITSM
9 9 (12.33%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 19 (26.03%) Python
2 8 (10.96%) Bash
3 7 (9.59%) PowerShell
4 3 (4.11%) Kusto Query Language
5 2 (2.74%) JavaScript
6 1 (1.37%) Java
6 1 (1.37%) Perl
Qualifications
1 20 (27.40%) Degree
2 17 (23.29%) Security Cleared
3 13 (17.81%) Computer Science Degree
3 13 (17.81%) SC Cleared
4 12 (16.44%) CISSP
5 10 (13.70%) CISM
6 5 (6.85%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (5.48%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (5.48%) CCNP
7 4 (5.48%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 3 (4.11%) CISA
8 3 (4.11%) CompTIA Security+
8 3 (4.11%) GSEC
9 2 (2.74%) GCIA
9 2 (2.74%) GCIH
9 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (1.37%) CCSA
10 1 (1.37%) CEH
10 1 (1.37%) Check Point Certification
10 1 (1.37%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (16.44%) NIST
2 9 (12.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 8 (10.96%) GDPR
4 6 (8.22%) SLA
5 3 (4.11%) HIPAA
5 3 (4.11%) PCI DSS
6 2 (2.74%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (2.74%) QA
6 2 (2.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 1 (1.37%) NCSC
System Software
1 7 (9.59%) Docker
2 5 (6.85%) Active Directory
3 4 (5.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (5.48%) vSphere
4 1 (1.37%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 9 (12.33%) Kubernetes
2 7 (9.59%) Terraform
3 5 (6.85%) QRadar
4 3 (4.11%) Ansible
4 3 (4.11%) Fluentd
5 2 (2.74%) Grafana
5 2 (2.74%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (2.74%) Prometheus
5 2 (2.74%) SCCM
6 1 (1.37%) Kibana
6 1 (1.37%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 18 (24.66%) Microsoft
2 12 (16.44%) IBM
2 12 (16.44%) Palo Alto
3 9 (12.33%) F5
3 9 (12.33%) Splunk
3 9 (12.33%) VMware
4 7 (9.59%) Cisco
4 7 (9.59%) Zscaler
5 6 (8.22%) Gemalto
5 6 (8.22%) Thales
6 4 (5.48%) ArcSight
6 4 (5.48%) Blue Coat
6 4 (5.48%) McAfee
7 3 (4.11%) Cribl.io
8 2 (2.74%) CheckPoint
8 2 (2.74%) ServiceNow
9 1 (1.37%) AlienVault
9 1 (1.37%) AppDynamics
9 1 (1.37%) Cloudera
9 1 (1.37%) Red Hat