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 15 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 82 59
Rank change year-on-year +5 -23 +63
Contract jobs citing Network Security 80 45 82
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.67% 2.21% 2.90%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 19.56% 12.23% 20.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 55 36 74
10th Percentile £410 £383 £465
25th Percentile £463 £426 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £625
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -20.00% +22.55%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £672
90th Percentile £625 £625 £750
England median daily rate £500 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -7.41% -1.82% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Median hourly rate £74.26 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £80.68 £23.00
% change year-on-year -19.43% +250.76% -42.21%

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 409 368 403
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.67% 18.09% 14.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 233 218 299
10th Percentile £290 £184 £199
25th Percentile £400 £311 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £587
90th Percentile £642 £600 £675
England median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 3 13
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.00 -
25th Percentile £18.75 £21.12 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.59 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +70.59% -5.44% +7.87%
75th Percentile £74.26 £25.47 £45.88
90th Percentile - £25.90 £49.18
England median hourly rate £39.50 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.86% +7.69% +71.05%

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 15 March 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 15 March 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 +1 28 £489 -16.85% 4
Manchester -17 23 £559 +14.62% 24
Cumbria +2 12 £475 -13.64% 3
Merseyside - 9 - - 1
Lancashire - 8 £475 - 6
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 4 (5.00%) Apache
2 2 (2.50%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 12 (15.00%) Azure
2 5 (6.25%) AWS
2 5 (6.25%) Azure Key Vault
3 3 (3.75%) Azure Sentinel
3 3 (3.75%) Entra ID
4 2 (2.50%) Azure AI
4 2 (2.50%) Azure Data Factory
4 2 (2.50%) Azure Machine Learning
4 2 (2.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 2 (2.50%) GCP
4 2 (2.50%) Power Platform
4 2 (2.50%) Virtual Private Cloud
5 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (1.25%) OCI
5 1 (1.25%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 47 (58.75%) Firewall
2 16 (20.00%) DNS
2 16 (20.00%) VLAN
3 14 (17.50%) DMZ
3 14 (17.50%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
3 14 (17.50%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 10 (12.50%) VPN
5 8 (10.00%) WAN
6 7 (8.75%) SD-WAN
7 6 (7.50%) BGP
8 4 (5.00%) HTTP
9 3 (3.75%) Internet
9 3 (3.75%) MPLS
9 3 (3.75%) Software-Defined Networking
9 3 (3.75%) TCP/IP
10 2 (2.50%) Cisco Nexus
10 2 (2.50%) Ethernet VPN
10 2 (2.50%) NGFW
10 2 (2.50%) OSPF
11 1 (1.25%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.25%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 2 (2.50%) JIRA
2 1 (1.25%) GitLab
General
1 16 (20.00%) Social Skills
2 11 (13.75%) Banking
3 9 (11.25%) Finance
4 8 (10.00%) Investment Banking
5 5 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (3.75%) Public Sector
7 1 (1.25%) Advertising
7 1 (1.25%) Aerospace
7 1 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.25%) Legal
7 1 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 22 (27.50%) Network Engineer
2 17 (21.25%) Architect
3 9 (11.25%) Network Architect
3 9 (11.25%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 8 (10.00%) Operations Engineer
5 6 (7.50%) Server Engineer
6 5 (6.25%) Automation Engineer
6 5 (6.25%) Azure Architect
6 5 (6.25%) Platform Engineer
6 5 (6.25%) Security Architect
7 4 (5.00%) Cisco Engineer
7 4 (5.00%) Cisco Network Engineer
7 4 (5.00%) Security Engineer
7 4 (5.00%) Senior
7 4 (5.00%) Software Engineer
8 3 (3.75%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
8 3 (3.75%) Network Security Engineer
8 3 (3.75%) Product Owner
8 3 (3.75%) Senior Architect
8 3 (3.75%) Senior Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (5.00%) 802.1X
2 1 (1.25%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 19 (23.75%) Data Centre
2 8 (10.00%) Management Information System
3 7 (8.75%) Product Ownership
4 6 (7.50%) Clustering
5 5 (6.25%) Security Posture
6 4 (5.00%) Cloud Native
6 4 (5.00%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (3.75%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (2.50%) Onboarding
9 1 (1.25%) Cloud Security Posture
9 1 (1.25%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (1.25%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 13 (16.25%) Windows
2 10 (12.50%) Linux
3 6 (7.50%) Windows Server
4 5 (6.25%) Unix
5 4 (5.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (23.75%) Load Balancing
2 14 (17.50%) Network Monitoring
2 14 (17.50%) Network Segmentation
2 14 (17.50%) Problem-Solving
3 12 (15.00%) Cybersecurity
4 11 (13.75%) Change Management
4 11 (13.75%) Zero Trust
5 9 (11.25%) Business Strategy
6 8 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
6 8 (10.00%) Design Patterns
6 8 (10.00%) High Availability
6 8 (10.00%) Performance Optimisation
6 8 (10.00%) Project Delivery
7 7 (8.75%) Capacity Planning
7 7 (8.75%) Disaster Recovery
7 7 (8.75%) Operational Stability
7 7 (8.75%) Security Architecture
7 7 (8.75%) SIEM
7 7 (8.75%) Threat Modelling
7 7 (8.75%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 10 (12.50%) PowerShell
2 4 (5.00%) Bash
3 3 (3.75%) Bicep
4 1 (1.25%) Perl
4 1 (1.25%) Python
Qualifications
1 23 (28.75%) Cisco Certification
1 23 (28.75%) Security Cleared
2 21 (26.25%) CCNP
3 17 (21.25%) SC Cleared
4 15 (18.75%) CCNA
5 4 (5.00%) CCIE
5 4 (5.00%) DV Cleared
6 2 (2.50%) CISSP
6 2 (2.50%) Degree
7 1 (1.25%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.25%) CCDP
7 1 (1.25%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (1.25%) MCSA
7 1 (1.25%) MCSE
7 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (10.00%) NIST
2 3 (3.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (3.75%) PCI DSS
3 2 (2.50%) Cyber Essentials
3 2 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 2 (2.50%) SLA
3 2 (2.50%) SOC 2
System Software
1 10 (12.50%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (11.25%) Active Directory
3 6 (7.50%) Hyper-V
4 5 (6.25%) VMware NSX
5 4 (5.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (12.50%) Terraform
2 6 (7.50%) Ansible
2 6 (7.50%) Microsoft Clustering
2 6 (7.50%) Nagios
3 4 (5.00%) Kubernetes
4 3 (3.75%) CASB
5 2 (2.50%) Nessus
6 1 (1.25%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 22 (27.50%) Cisco
2 15 (18.75%) VMware
3 14 (17.50%) F5
4 13 (16.25%) Palo Alto
5 10 (12.50%) Microsoft
6 6 (7.50%) SolarWinds
7 5 (6.25%) Computacenter
8 4 (5.00%) Red Hat
8 4 (5.00%) Splunk
9 3 (3.75%) Meraki
9 3 (3.75%) ServiceNow
9 3 (3.75%) Zscaler
10 2 (2.50%) Databricks
10 2 (2.50%) Fortinet
10 2 (2.50%) Foundry
10 2 (2.50%) Google
10 2 (2.50%) Okta
10 2 (2.50%) OpenAI
10 2 (2.50%) SAP
11 1 (1.25%) Blue Coat