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 4 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 73 71
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +23
Contract jobs citing Network Security 114 62 48
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.89% 2.88% 2.02%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 22.80% 21.23% 16.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 76 33 40
10th Percentile £407 £363 £446
25th Percentile £472 £416 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £475 £655
Median % change year-on-year +11.47% -27.48% +34.77%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £688
90th Percentile £640 £738 £775
England median daily rate £550 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 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 £73.00 £70.16 £57.50
% change year-on-year +4.05% +22.02% -19.01%

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 500 292 293
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.67% 13.58% 12.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 322 173 185
10th Percentile £213 £147 £273
25th Percentile £350 £325 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £438 £515
Median % change year-on-year +8.39% -15.05% +8.42%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £675
90th Percentile £626 £669 £850
England median daily rate £500 £490 £505
% change year-on-year +2.04% -2.97% +1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 7 10
10th Percentile £13.89 £18.50 £25.43
25th Percentile £16.50 £19.25 £37.55
Median hourly rate £17.50 £27.00 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -35.19% -44.40% +191.13%
75th Percentile £20.88 £67.25 £51.91
90th Percentile £28.83 £68.41 £57.65
England median hourly rate £27.75 £41.48 £57.35
% change year-on-year -33.09% -27.68% +1.52%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 +9 47 £536 +12.78% 4
Manchester -25 28 £550 -4.35% 19
Cumbria - 23 £520 - 2
Merseyside -14 10 £600 +71.43% 3
Lancashire -12 6 £438 +16.67% 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 1 (0.88%) Confluence
1 1 (0.88%) NetWeaver
1 1 (0.88%) nginx
Applications
1 5 (4.39%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.75%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.88%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 32 (28.07%) Azure
2 25 (21.93%) AWS
3 10 (8.77%) Entra ID
4 8 (7.02%) Azure Sentinel
4 8 (7.02%) GCP
5 6 (5.26%) SaaS
5 6 (5.26%) Serverless
6 5 (4.39%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (3.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 4 (3.51%) Amazon ECS
7 4 (3.51%) Amazon EKS
7 4 (3.51%) AWS CloudFormation
7 4 (3.51%) AWS CloudTrail
7 4 (3.51%) AWS KMS
7 4 (3.51%) AWS Lambda
7 4 (3.51%) Azure Monitor
7 4 (3.51%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 3 (2.63%) Azure AI
8 3 (2.63%) Azure Key Vault
8 3 (2.63%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 74 (64.91%) Firewall
2 41 (35.96%) VPN
3 32 (28.07%) Wireless
4 31 (27.19%) WAN
5 22 (19.30%) LAN
6 14 (12.28%) DNS
7 13 (11.40%) Broadband
7 13 (11.40%) Converged Networks
8 10 (8.77%) BGP
9 9 (7.89%) DMZ
9 9 (7.89%) OSPF
10 8 (7.02%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 8 (7.02%) SD-WAN
11 7 (6.14%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
12 6 (5.26%) Cisco ASA
12 6 (5.26%) Internet
12 6 (5.26%) TCP/IP
12 6 (5.26%) Wi-Fi
13 4 (3.51%) MPLS
13 4 (3.51%) VLAN
Development Applications
1 7 (6.14%) GitLab
2 6 (5.26%) Jenkins
3 4 (3.51%) JIRA
4 3 (2.63%) Git
5 1 (0.88%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 19 (16.67%) Finance
1 19 (16.67%) Social Skills
2 12 (10.53%) Banking
3 11 (9.65%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
4 3 (2.63%) Financial Institution
4 3 (2.63%) Legal
4 3 (2.63%) Manufacturing
5 1 (0.88%) Automotive
5 1 (0.88%) Games
5 1 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 50 (43.86%) Network Engineer
2 15 (13.16%) Architect
2 15 (13.16%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
3 12 (10.53%) Security Engineer
4 11 (9.65%) Project Manager
5 8 (7.02%) Security Architect
5 8 (7.02%) Senior
5 8 (7.02%) Senior Network Engineer
5 8 (7.02%) VMware Engineer
6 7 (6.14%) Network Manager
6 7 (6.14%) Network Project Manager
6 7 (6.14%) Network Security Manager
6 7 (6.14%) Security Manager
6 7 (6.14%) Security Project Manager
7 6 (5.26%) Network Architect
7 6 (5.26%) Network Security Engineer
8 5 (4.39%) Cloud Engineer
8 5 (4.39%) SIEM Engineer
8 5 (4.39%) Splunk Engineer
9 4 (3.51%) Cloud Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (11.40%) Terraform
2 5 (4.39%) 802.1X
2 5 (4.39%) ARM Templates
2 5 (4.39%) Azure Blueprints
3 4 (3.51%) REST
4 3 (2.63%) JSON
5 2 (1.75%) Django
5 2 (1.75%) XML
6 1 (0.88%) JWT
6 1 (0.88%) ModSecurity
6 1 (0.88%) OpenID
6 1 (0.88%) SAP Basis
6 1 (0.88%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 13 (11.40%) Management Information System
2 12 (10.53%) Security Posture
3 10 (8.77%) Cloud Native
4 9 (7.89%) Data Centre
5 4 (3.51%) PKI
6 3 (2.63%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 3 (2.63%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (1.75%) Cloud Security Posture
7 2 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.75%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.75%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.75%) Social Media
8 1 (0.88%) Animation
8 1 (0.88%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (0.88%) Enterprise Cloud
8 1 (0.88%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 8 (7.02%) Linux
2 7 (6.14%) Windows
3 4 (3.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (1.75%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.88%) Unix
5 1 (0.88%) Windows Server 2003
5 1 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (31.58%) Load Balancing
2 25 (21.93%) Change Management
2 25 (21.93%) Network Segmentation
2 25 (21.93%) Zero Trust
3 21 (18.42%) Project Delivery
4 19 (16.67%) Cloud Security
4 19 (16.67%) Infrastructure as Code
5 17 (14.91%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 17 (14.91%) Migration
6 15 (13.16%) CI/CD
7 13 (11.40%) Configuration Management
7 13 (11.40%) Stakeholder Management
8 12 (10.53%) Impact Assessments
8 12 (10.53%) Network Monitoring
8 12 (10.53%) Security Operations
8 12 (10.53%) Validation
9 11 (9.65%) Agile
9 11 (9.65%) SIEM
10 10 (8.77%) Continuous Improvement
10 10 (8.77%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 23 (20.18%) Python
2 16 (14.04%) PowerShell
3 8 (7.02%) Bash
3 8 (7.02%) Bicep
4 5 (4.39%) Kusto Query Language
4 5 (4.39%) Search Processing Language
4 5 (4.39%) SQL
5 4 (3.51%) Java
6 2 (1.75%) Perl
Qualifications
1 46 (40.35%) Cisco Certification
2 28 (24.56%) CCNA
2 28 (24.56%) CCNP
2 28 (24.56%) Security Cleared
3 26 (22.81%) SC Cleared
4 18 (15.79%) CISSP
5 12 (10.53%) Degree
6 9 (7.89%) AWS Certification
7 8 (7.02%) CCIE
8 7 (6.14%) GCIH
9 6 (5.26%) CCSP
10 5 (4.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 5 (4.39%) Azure Certification
10 5 (4.39%) GCFA
11 4 (3.51%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (2.63%) CCIE Security
12 3 (2.63%) CompTIA Security+
12 3 (2.63%) Network+ Certification
13 2 (1.75%) CCSA
13 2 (1.75%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (7.02%) NIST
1 8 (7.02%) PCI DSS
2 6 (5.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 5 (4.39%) GDPR
4 3 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.88%) GxP
5 1 (0.88%) SLA
System Software
1 8 (7.02%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (5.26%) Active Directory
3 5 (4.39%) Docker
4 1 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.88%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.88%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 20 (17.54%) Ansible
2 13 (11.40%) Progress Chef
3 8 (7.02%) Kubernetes
4 7 (6.14%) CASB
5 3 (2.63%) Cisco Prime
6 2 (1.75%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.75%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.88%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.88%) Istio
7 1 (0.88%) Nagios
7 1 (0.88%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.88%) Puppet
7 1 (0.88%) vMotion
Vendors
1 48 (42.11%) Cisco
2 20 (17.54%) Microsoft
3 15 (13.16%) Palo Alto
4 13 (11.40%) F5
5 11 (9.65%) Splunk
6 10 (8.77%) VMware
7 9 (7.89%) Fortinet
8 8 (7.02%) AlgoSec
9 7 (6.14%) ServiceNow
10 6 (5.26%) ForeScout
11 5 (4.39%) CheckPoint
11 5 (4.39%) Cribl.io
11 5 (4.39%) Google
11 5 (4.39%) Zscaler
12 4 (3.51%) Juniper
12 4 (3.51%) McAfee
12 4 (3.51%) Meraki
12 4 (3.51%) Red Hat
12 4 (3.51%) SolarWinds
13 3 (2.63%) CyberArk