Network Security Contract Job Trends in the North West

Network Security
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Network Security skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 72 77
Rank change year-on-year -8 +5 -7
Contract jobs citing Network Security 112 60 43
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.82% 2.73% 1.77%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 23.38% 20.98% 14.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 31 30
10th Percentile £417 £363 £412
25th Percentile £474 £414 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £475 £556
Median % change year-on-year +14.74% -14.61% -9.37%
75th Percentile £604 £645 £684
90th Percentile £650 £750 £754
England median daily rate £550 £533 £538
% change year-on-year +3.29% -1.02% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 0
10th Percentile - £66.19 -
25th Percentile £16.50 £66.85 -
Median hourly rate £17.00 £68.33 -
Median % change year-on-year -75.12% - -
75th Percentile £17.50 £69.43 -
90th Percentile - £69.87 -
England median hourly rate £70.63 £70.16 £50.00
% change year-on-year +0.66% +40.32% -31.03%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
North West

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 the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 479 286 304
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.04% 13.01% 12.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 307 170 149
10th Percentile £200 £147 £243
25th Percentile £324 £318 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £438 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.74% -12.50% +1.78%
75th Percentile £575 £537 £600
90th Percentile £628 £681 £738
England median daily rate £500 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +3.09% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 15 9
10th Percentile £13.68 - £24.61
25th Percentile £17.25 £15.50 £35.00
Median hourly rate £17.50 £19.00 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -7.89% -60.87% +191.13%
75th Percentile £23.75 £34.97 £51.91
90th Percentile £43.90 £67.25 £52.02
England median hourly rate £38.62 £34.00 £57.38
% change year-on-year +13.60% -40.74% +1.57%

Network Security
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Network Security job vacancy trend in the North West

Network Security
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Network Security.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Network Security

Network Security
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

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

Daily rate histogram for Network Security in the North West

Network Security
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Network Security.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Network Security

Network Security
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 Network Security within the North West 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
Cheshire +5 36 £550 +15.79% 5
Manchester -27 34 £550 -7.33% 24
Cumbria - 25 £520 -
Merseyside -9 11 £600 +71.43% 3
Lancashire -20 6 £438 +16.67% 7
Network Security
England

Network Security
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 2 (1.79%) Confluence
2 1 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.89%) NetWeaver
2 1 (0.89%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (1.79%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.89%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 24 (21.43%) Azure
2 20 (17.86%) AWS
3 12 (10.71%) Entra ID
4 7 (6.25%) GCP
4 7 (6.25%) IaaS
5 6 (5.36%) GitHub
5 6 (5.36%) SaaS
5 6 (5.36%) Serverless
6 5 (4.46%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (4.46%) Azure Monitor
6 5 (4.46%) Azure Sentinel
7 4 (3.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 4 (3.57%) Amazon ECS
7 4 (3.57%) Amazon EKS
7 4 (3.57%) AWS CloudFormation
7 4 (3.57%) AWS CloudTrail
7 4 (3.57%) AWS KMS
7 4 (3.57%) AWS Lambda
7 4 (3.57%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 3 (2.68%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 69 (61.61%) Firewall
2 37 (33.04%) VPN
3 31 (27.68%) Wireless
4 27 (24.11%) WAN
5 22 (19.64%) LAN
6 20 (17.86%) DNS
7 14 (12.50%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 13 (11.61%) Broadband
8 13 (11.61%) Converged Networks
8 13 (11.61%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
9 10 (8.93%) BGP
9 10 (8.93%) DMZ
10 9 (8.04%) BIG-IP
10 9 (8.04%) OSPF
11 6 (5.36%) Cisco ASA
11 6 (5.36%) TCP/IP
11 6 (5.36%) Wi-Fi
12 4 (3.57%) Internet
12 4 (3.57%) MPLS
12 4 (3.57%) VLAN
Development Applications
1 11 (9.82%) Jenkins
2 8 (7.14%) GitLab
3 3 (2.68%) Git
3 3 (2.68%) JIRA
4 1 (0.89%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 26 (23.21%) Finance
2 22 (19.64%) Social Skills
3 13 (11.61%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (11.61%) Banking
4 3 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
4 3 (2.68%) Financial Institution
4 3 (2.68%) Legal
4 3 (2.68%) Manufacturing
5 1 (0.89%) Automotive
5 1 (0.89%) Billing
5 1 (0.89%) Games
5 1 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (0.89%) Public Sector
5 1 (0.89%) Publishing
5 1 (0.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 53 (47.32%) Network Engineer
2 17 (15.18%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
2 17 (15.18%) Security Engineer
3 11 (9.82%) Network Security Engineer
4 9 (8.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 9 (8.04%) Project Manager
5 8 (7.14%) Senior
5 8 (7.14%) Senior Network Engineer
5 8 (7.14%) VMware Engineer
6 7 (6.25%) Architect
6 7 (6.25%) Network Manager
6 7 (6.25%) Network Project Manager
6 7 (6.25%) Network Security Manager
6 7 (6.25%) Security Manager
6 7 (6.25%) Security Project Manager
7 6 (5.36%) Security Architect
8 5 (4.46%) Cloud Engineer
8 5 (4.46%) SIEM Engineer
8 5 (4.46%) Splunk Engineer
9 4 (3.57%) Cloud Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (14.29%) Terraform
2 5 (4.46%) 802.1X
2 5 (4.46%) ARM Templates
2 5 (4.46%) Azure Blueprints
3 4 (3.57%) REST
4 3 (2.68%) JSON
5 2 (1.79%) Django
5 2 (1.79%) XML
6 1 (0.89%) JWT
6 1 (0.89%) ModSecurity
6 1 (0.89%) OAuth
6 1 (0.89%) OpenID
6 1 (0.89%) SAML
6 1 (0.89%) SAP Basis
6 1 (0.89%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (15.18%) Data Centre
2 16 (14.29%) Security Posture
3 14 (12.50%) Management Information System
4 7 (6.25%) Cloud Native
5 6 (5.36%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (4.46%) Public Cloud
7 4 (3.57%) Cyber Defence
7 4 (3.57%) Cyber Threat
7 4 (3.57%) Onboarding
7 4 (3.57%) PKI
8 3 (2.68%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (2.68%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (2.68%) Hybrid Cloud
9 2 (1.79%) Cloud Security Posture
9 2 (1.79%) Driving Licence
9 2 (1.79%) Operational Technology
10 1 (0.89%) Animation
10 1 (0.89%) Distributed Systems
10 1 (0.89%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (0.89%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 8 (7.14%) Linux
2 6 (5.36%) Windows
3 4 (3.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (1.79%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.89%) Unix
5 1 (0.89%) Windows Server 2003
5 1 (0.89%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (29.46%) Load Balancing
2 31 (27.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 23 (20.54%) Infrastructure as Code
3 23 (20.54%) Zero Trust
4 21 (18.75%) Cloud Security
4 21 (18.75%) Project Delivery
5 20 (17.86%) CI/CD
6 19 (16.96%) Migration
7 18 (16.07%) Network Segmentation
8 17 (15.18%) Change Management
8 17 (15.18%) Security Operations
9 16 (14.29%) Configuration Management
10 15 (13.39%) Incident Response
10 15 (13.39%) SIEM
11 14 (12.50%) Agile
12 13 (11.61%) Cybersecurity
12 13 (11.61%) Problem-Solving
12 13 (11.61%) Stakeholder Management
13 12 (10.71%) Impact Assessments
13 12 (10.71%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 32 (28.57%) Python
2 19 (16.96%) PowerShell
3 11 (9.82%) Bash
4 6 (5.36%) Bicep
5 5 (4.46%) ActionScript
5 5 (4.46%) Kusto Query Language
5 5 (4.46%) Search Processing Language
5 5 (4.46%) SQL
6 4 (3.57%) Java
7 2 (1.79%) Perl
Qualifications
1 39 (34.82%) Cisco Certification
2 31 (27.68%) Security Cleared
3 29 (25.89%) SC Cleared
4 21 (18.75%) CCNA
4 21 (18.75%) CCNP
5 19 (16.96%) CISSP
6 10 (8.93%) Degree
7 9 (8.04%) AWS Certification
8 8 (7.14%) CCIE
9 7 (6.25%) GCIH
10 6 (5.36%) CCSP
11 5 (4.46%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 5 (4.46%) GCFA
12 4 (3.57%) Azure Certification
12 4 (3.57%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (2.68%) CCIE Security
13 3 (2.68%) CompTIA Security+
13 3 (2.68%) Network+ Certification
14 2 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
14 2 (1.79%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (9.82%) PCI DSS
2 7 (6.25%) NIST
3 6 (5.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (5.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 5 (4.46%) GDPR
5 1 (0.89%) GxP
System Software
1 9 (8.04%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (5.36%) Active Directory
2 6 (5.36%) Docker
3 1 (0.89%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 20 (17.86%) Ansible
2 16 (14.29%) Progress Chef
3 7 (6.25%) CASB
3 7 (6.25%) Kubernetes
4 3 (2.68%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.89%) Backup Exec
5 1 (0.89%) Grafana
5 1 (0.89%) Istio
5 1 (0.89%) Nagios
5 1 (0.89%) Network Intrusion Detection System
5 1 (0.89%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.89%) Puppet
5 1 (0.89%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 45 (40.18%) Cisco
2 22 (19.64%) F5
3 20 (17.86%) Microsoft
4 15 (13.39%) Palo Alto
5 10 (8.93%) VMware
6 9 (8.04%) Fortinet
7 8 (7.14%) AlgoSec
7 8 (7.14%) Splunk
8 5 (4.46%) CheckPoint
8 5 (4.46%) Cribl.io
8 5 (4.46%) Google
8 5 (4.46%) Zscaler
9 4 (3.57%) Juniper
9 4 (3.57%) McAfee
9 4 (3.57%) Meraki
9 4 (3.57%) Red Hat
9 4 (3.57%) ServiceNow
9 4 (3.57%) SolarWinds
10 3 (2.68%) Aruba
10 3 (2.68%) ForeScout