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 12 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 90 86 58
Rank change year-on-year -4 -28 +60
Contract jobs citing Network Security 64 44 85
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.36% 2.10% 3.03%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.58% 12.05% 19.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 37 37 75
10th Percentile £349 £408 £466
25th Percentile £456 £431 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £625
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% -20.00% +25.00%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £672
90th Percentile £650 £623 £700
England median daily rate £500 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £66.60 - -
25th Percentile £67.88 - -
Median hourly rate £70.38 - -
75th Percentile £72.51 - -
90th Percentile £73.56 - -
England median hourly rate £66.00 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +88.57% -12.50% +6.67%

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 364 365 436
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.43% 17.40% 15.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 200 208 313
10th Percentile £251 £189 £214
25th Percentile £358 £313 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.94% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £538 £613
90th Percentile £669 £591 £672
England median daily rate £487 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.60% +5.26% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 5 14
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.74 £17.72
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.98 £18.92
Median hourly rate £41.94 £24.76 £42.49
Median % change year-on-year +69.39% -41.73% +105.22%
75th Percentile £74.26 £51.00 £46.63
90th Percentile - £51.90 £49.06
England median hourly rate £28.38 £35.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -18.91% -26.32% +138.93%

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 12 February 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 12 February 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 18 £355 -33.18% 2
Manchester -25 15 £575 +15.00% 20
Cumbria -1 12 £475 -13.64%
Merseyside - 11 - - 1
Lancashire -4 8 £475 - 5
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 (6.25%) Apache
Cloud Services
1 5 (7.81%) Azure
2 2 (3.13%) AWS
2 2 (3.13%) Azure AI
2 2 (3.13%) Azure Data Factory
2 2 (3.13%) Azure Key Vault
2 2 (3.13%) Azure Machine Learning
2 2 (3.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
2 2 (3.13%) Power Platform
3 1 (1.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 1 (1.56%) Amazon EC2
3 1 (1.56%) Amazon ELB
3 1 (1.56%) Amazon S3
3 1 (1.56%) Microsoft Purview
3 1 (1.56%) OCI
3 1 (1.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 31 (48.44%) Firewall
2 19 (29.69%) DNS
3 18 (28.13%) DMZ
3 18 (28.13%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
3 18 (28.13%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 16 (25.00%) VLAN
5 5 (7.81%) BGP
5 5 (7.81%) WAN
6 4 (6.25%) HTTP
7 3 (4.69%) Internet
7 3 (4.69%) MPLS
7 3 (4.69%) SD-WAN
7 3 (4.69%) Software-Defined Networking
8 2 (3.13%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (3.13%) Ethernet VPN
8 2 (3.13%) LAN
8 2 (3.13%) TCP/IP
8 2 (3.13%) VPN
9 1 (1.56%) SSL
9 1 (1.56%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.56%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 2 (3.13%) GitLab
1 2 (3.13%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.56%) Git
General
1 18 (28.13%) Social Skills
2 10 (15.63%) Banking
2 10 (15.63%) Investment Banking
3 7 (10.94%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (9.38%) Finance
5 4 (6.25%) Public Sector
6 1 (1.56%) Aerospace
6 1 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.56%) Legal
6 1 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (1.56%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 17 (26.56%) Network Engineer
2 10 (15.63%) Operations Engineer
2 10 (15.63%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
3 8 (12.50%) Architect
4 6 (9.38%) Network Architect
4 6 (9.38%) Senior
4 6 (9.38%) Server Engineer
5 5 (7.81%) Automation Engineer
5 5 (7.81%) Platform Engineer
6 4 (6.25%) Cisco Engineer
6 4 (6.25%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 4 (6.25%) Software Engineer
7 3 (4.69%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
7 3 (4.69%) Network Security Architect
7 3 (4.69%) Security Architect
7 3 (4.69%) Senior Architect
7 3 (4.69%) Senior Network Architect
8 2 (3.13%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
8 2 (3.13%) Azure Architect
8 2 (3.13%) Senior Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (3.13%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 17 (26.56%) Data Centre
2 10 (15.63%) Management Information System
3 6 (9.38%) Clustering
4 4 (6.25%) Product Ownership
5 3 (4.69%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (3.13%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (3.13%) Onboarding
6 2 (3.13%) Security Posture
7 1 (1.56%) Enterprise Storage
7 1 (1.56%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 12 (18.75%) Windows
2 9 (14.06%) Linux
3 6 (9.38%) Windows Server
4 4 (6.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (6.25%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (29.69%) Load Balancing
2 14 (21.88%) Problem-Solving
3 13 (20.31%) Business Strategy
4 11 (17.19%) Cybersecurity
5 10 (15.63%) Change Management
5 10 (15.63%) Design Patterns
5 10 (15.63%) Network Monitoring
6 8 (12.50%) Disaster Recovery
6 8 (12.50%) Infrastructure Automation
6 8 (12.50%) Project Delivery
7 6 (9.38%) High Availability
7 6 (9.38%) Observability
8 5 (7.81%) CI/CD
8 5 (7.81%) Containerisation
8 5 (7.81%) DevOps
8 5 (7.81%) Platform Engineering
9 4 (6.25%) Continuous Improvement
9 4 (6.25%) Network Architecture
9 4 (6.25%) Software Engineering
9 4 (6.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 10 (15.63%) PowerShell
2 6 (9.38%) Bash
3 4 (6.25%) Python
4 2 (3.13%) Perl
Qualifications
1 25 (39.06%) Security Cleared
2 19 (29.69%) Cisco Certification
2 19 (29.69%) SC Cleared
3 17 (26.56%) CCNP
4 12 (18.75%) CCNA
5 4 (6.25%) DV Cleared
6 3 (4.69%) CCIE
7 2 (3.13%) CCDP
8 1 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (1.56%) CCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.13%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 14 (21.88%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (10.94%) Active Directory
3 6 (9.38%) Hyper-V
4 5 (7.81%) Docker
4 5 (7.81%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 9 (14.06%) Terraform
2 7 (10.94%) Ansible
3 6 (9.38%) Microsoft Clustering
3 6 (9.38%) Nagios
4 4 (6.25%) Kubernetes
5 1 (1.56%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.56%) Nessus
Vendors
1 21 (32.81%) F5
2 19 (29.69%) Cisco
2 19 (29.69%) VMware
3 17 (26.56%) Palo Alto
4 7 (10.94%) SolarWinds
5 5 (7.81%) Computacenter
6 4 (6.25%) Meraki
6 4 (6.25%) Microsoft
6 4 (6.25%) Red Hat
7 2 (3.13%) CheckPoint
7 2 (3.13%) Databricks
7 2 (3.13%) Foundry
7 2 (3.13%) OpenAI
7 2 (3.13%) SAP
7 2 (3.13%) Zscaler
8 1 (1.56%) Apple
8 1 (1.56%) Citrix
8 1 (1.56%) McAfee
8 1 (1.56%) Oracle
8 1 (1.56%) Sophos