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 23 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 77 70
Rank change year-on-year +1 -7 +18
Contract jobs citing Network Security 102 49 56
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.76% 2.28% 2.19%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.21% 15.56% 17.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 29 47
10th Percentile £414 £355 £463
25th Percentile £474 £410 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £475 £650
Median % change year-on-year +13.05% -26.92% +33.74%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £688
90th Percentile £650 £690 £775
England median daily rate £540 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +2.86% -4.55% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £16.50 - -
Median hourly rate £17.00 £70.16 -
Median % change year-on-year -75.77% - -
75th Percentile £45.88 - -
90th Percentile £62.91 - -
England median hourly rate £73.00 £80.68 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.51% +284.17% -65.99%

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 481 315 312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.04% 14.66% 12.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 310 184 217
10th Percentile £277 £153 £210
25th Percentile £375 £325 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £449 £504
Median % change year-on-year +10.93% -11.01% +8.97%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £672
90th Percentile £638 £638 £835
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 2 13
10th Percentile £15.71 £25.02 £21.10
25th Percentile £17.06 £32.54 £26.00
Median hourly rate £17.75 £45.08 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -60.63% -1.74% +172.12%
75th Percentile £32.54 £57.62 £51.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £65.14 £51.91
England median hourly rate £26.72 £44.50 £45.44
% change year-on-year -39.96% -2.07% +0.98%

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 23 July 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Security in the North West over the 6 months to 23 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the North West

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 23 July 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 +20 44 £525 +10.53% 10
Manchester -35 32 £550 +15.79% 17
Cumbria +8 17 £525 -16.00%
Lancashire -4 6 £400 +6.67% 2
Merseyside -18 3 - - 4
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 (1.96%) Confluence
2 1 (0.98%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 5 (4.90%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.96%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 22 (21.57%) Azure
2 13 (12.75%) AWS
3 7 (6.86%) Entra ID
3 7 (6.86%) GCP
4 5 (4.90%) Azure Key Vault
5 3 (2.94%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (2.94%) Azure Sentinel
5 3 (2.94%) OCI
5 3 (2.94%) Serverless
5 3 (2.94%) Smartsheet
6 2 (1.96%) Amazon ECS
6 2 (1.96%) Amazon EKS
6 2 (1.96%) AWS KMS
6 2 (1.96%) AWS Lambda
6 2 (1.96%) Azure AI
6 2 (1.96%) Azure AKS
6 2 (1.96%) Azure Data Factory
6 2 (1.96%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 2 (1.96%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 2 (1.96%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 63 (61.76%) Firewall
2 36 (35.29%) VPN
3 28 (27.45%) WAN
4 26 (25.49%) Wireless
5 19 (18.63%) LAN
6 13 (12.75%) BGP
6 13 (12.75%) Broadband
6 13 (12.75%) Converged Networks
6 13 (12.75%) DNS
7 11 (10.78%) OSPF
8 9 (8.82%) TCP/IP
9 8 (7.84%) SD-WAN
10 6 (5.88%) DMZ
11 5 (4.90%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 5 (4.90%) Internet
11 5 (4.90%) MPLS
11 5 (4.90%) VLAN
12 4 (3.92%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
12 4 (3.92%) Wi-Fi
13 3 (2.94%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.98%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 5 (4.90%) JIRA
2 3 (2.94%) Git
2 3 (2.94%) GitLab
3 1 (0.98%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.98%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 12 (11.76%) Social Skills
2 11 (10.78%) Finance
3 7 (6.86%) Banking
4 4 (3.92%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (2.94%) Manufacturing
6 2 (1.96%) Legal
7 1 (0.98%) Advertising
7 1 (0.98%) Automotive
7 1 (0.98%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.98%) Financial Institution
7 1 (0.98%) Games
7 1 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (0.98%) Public Sector
7 1 (0.98%) Retail
Job Titles
1 43 (42.16%) Network Engineer
2 17 (16.67%) Architect
3 11 (10.78%) Project Manager
4 10 (9.80%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 8 (7.84%) Security Architect
5 8 (7.84%) Senior
6 7 (6.86%) Network Architect
6 7 (6.86%) Network Manager
6 7 (6.86%) Network Project Manager
6 7 (6.86%) Network Security Manager
6 7 (6.86%) Security Engineer
6 7 (6.86%) Security Manager
6 7 (6.86%) Security Project Manager
6 7 (6.86%) Senior Network Engineer
7 5 (4.90%) Azure Architect
8 4 (3.92%) Network Security Engineer
8 4 (3.92%) VMware Engineer
9 3 (2.94%) Cloud Engineer
9 3 (2.94%) Network Security Architect
9 3 (2.94%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (6.86%) 802.1X
2 3 (2.94%) ARM Templates
2 3 (2.94%) Azure Blueprints
2 3 (2.94%) JSON
2 3 (2.94%) REST
3 2 (1.96%) Django
3 2 (1.96%) XML
4 1 (0.98%) LDAP
4 1 (0.98%) ModSecurity
4 1 (0.98%) SAP Basis
4 1 (0.98%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 13 (12.75%) Security Posture
2 11 (10.78%) Data Centre
3 6 (5.88%) Cloud Native
4 5 (4.90%) Management Information System
4 5 (4.90%) Product Ownership
5 4 (3.92%) Hybrid Cloud
6 3 (2.94%) PKI
7 2 (1.96%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.96%) Social Media
8 1 (0.98%) Animation
8 1 (0.98%) Cloud Security Posture
8 1 (0.98%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.98%) Enterprise Cloud
8 1 (0.98%) Security Operations Centre
8 1 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 9 (8.82%) Linux
2 7 (6.86%) Windows
3 3 (2.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (2.94%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.96%) Unix
5 1 (0.98%) Windows Server 2003
5 1 (0.98%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (27.45%) Load Balancing
2 22 (21.57%) Network Segmentation
3 19 (18.63%) Change Management
4 17 (16.67%) Zero Trust
5 14 (13.73%) Project Delivery
6 12 (11.76%) Cloud Security
6 12 (11.76%) Continuous Improvement
6 12 (11.76%) Impact Assessments
6 12 (11.76%) ITIL
7 11 (10.78%) Agile
7 11 (10.78%) CI/CD
7 11 (10.78%) High Availability
7 11 (10.78%) Infrastructure as Code
8 10 (9.80%) DevOps
8 10 (9.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 10 (9.80%) Migration
8 10 (9.80%) Network Monitoring
8 10 (9.80%) SIEM
8 10 (9.80%) Validation
9 9 (8.82%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 14 (13.73%) Python
2 7 (6.86%) PowerShell
3 6 (5.88%) Bicep
4 4 (3.92%) Bash
5 3 (2.94%) Perl
6 2 (1.96%) Java
Qualifications
1 39 (38.24%) Cisco Certification
2 29 (28.43%) CCNA
3 24 (23.53%) CCNP
4 23 (22.55%) Security Cleared
5 20 (19.61%) SC Cleared
6 8 (7.84%) Degree
7 6 (5.88%) CCIE
8 4 (3.92%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (2.94%) Azure Certification
9 3 (2.94%) CISSP
9 3 (2.94%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (2.94%) Network+ Certification
10 2 (1.96%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.98%) CCDP
11 1 (0.98%) MCSA
11 1 (0.98%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (8.82%) NIST
2 3 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (2.94%) PCI DSS
2 3 (2.94%) SLA
3 2 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 2 (1.96%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.98%) GxP
4 1 (0.98%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 6 (5.88%) Active Directory
2 5 (4.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (3.92%) Docker
4 2 (1.96%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.98%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.98%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (11.76%) Ansible
2 9 (8.82%) Terraform
3 7 (6.86%) Kubernetes
4 4 (3.92%) CASB
5 3 (2.94%) Cisco Prime
5 3 (2.94%) Progress Chef
6 2 (1.96%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.98%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.98%) Nagios
7 1 (0.98%) Nessus
7 1 (0.98%) Puppet
7 1 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.98%) vMotion
Vendors
1 42 (41.18%) Cisco
2 14 (13.73%) Microsoft
3 10 (9.80%) ServiceNow
3 10 (9.80%) Splunk
4 9 (8.82%) Fortinet
4 9 (8.82%) Palo Alto
5 8 (7.84%) VMware
6 7 (6.86%) ForeScout
6 7 (6.86%) Zscaler
7 6 (5.88%) F5
8 5 (4.90%) Google
9 4 (3.92%) CyberArk
9 4 (3.92%) Juniper
9 4 (3.92%) McAfee
10 3 (2.94%) Arista
10 3 (2.94%) Aruba
10 3 (2.94%) Broadcom
10 3 (2.94%) Red Hat
11 2 (1.96%) Databricks
11 2 (1.96%) Okta