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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 84 95
Rank change year-on-year +9 +11 +13
Contract jobs citing Network Security 89 41 40
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.74% 2.11% 1.51%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.71% 12.77% 12.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 71 29 36
10th Percentile £355 £366 £463
25th Percentile £440 £459 £527
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £500 £663
Median % change year-on-year -2.30% -24.59% +36.42%
75th Percentile £563 £588 £750
90th Percentile £630 £608 £775
England median daily rate £520 £534 £569
% change year-on-year -2.53% -6.20% -1.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £22.28 - -
25th Percentile £30.94 - -
Median hourly rate £45.63 - -
75th Percentile £60.07 - -
90th Percentile £68.58 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £81.01 £13.50
% change year-on-year -19.77% +500.09% -74.10%

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 410 321 323
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.62% 16.50% 12.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 244 188 220
10th Percentile £308 £192 £200
25th Percentile £379 £309 £322
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £450 £483
Median % change year-on-year +7.42% -6.74% -0.72%
75th Percentile £588 £528 £665
90th Percentile £639 £600 £828
England median daily rate £500 £500 £495
% change year-on-year - +1.01% -5.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 3 12
10th Percentile £16.16 £20.00 £18.02
25th Percentile £17.94 £21.12 £22.06
Median hourly rate £38.88 £24.59 £34.37
Median % change year-on-year +58.15% -28.46% +24.96%
75th Percentile £66.18 £25.47 £45.88
90th Percentile £74.26 £25.90 £94.59
England median hourly rate £41.94 £29.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +44.62% -27.50% +116.22%

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 May 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 15 May 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 15 May 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 +24 37 £456 -4.00% 6
Manchester -33 25 £568 +19.47% 17
Cumbria +5 19 £476 -17.17% 4
Lancashire -2 7 £425 - 7
Merseyside -17 1 - - 3
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 (2.25%) Confluence
2 1 (1.12%) Apache
Applications
1 3 (3.37%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 17 (19.10%) Azure
2 8 (8.99%) AWS
3 5 (5.62%) Azure Key Vault
4 3 (3.37%) Azure Sentinel
4 3 (3.37%) Entra ID
4 3 (3.37%) GCP
4 3 (3.37%) Smartsheet
5 2 (2.25%) Azure AI
5 2 (2.25%) Azure Data Factory
5 2 (2.25%) Azure Machine Learning
5 2 (2.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 2 (2.25%) OCI
5 2 (2.25%) Power Platform
5 2 (2.25%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 1 (1.12%) Azure AKS
6 1 (1.12%) Microsoft Purview
6 1 (1.12%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 53 (59.55%) Firewall
2 16 (17.98%) VPN
3 15 (16.85%) VLAN
4 14 (15.73%) WAN
5 11 (12.36%) Wireless
6 9 (10.11%) DNS
7 8 (8.99%) SD-WAN
8 7 (7.87%) LAN
9 5 (5.62%) Broadband
9 5 (5.62%) Converged Networks
9 5 (5.62%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 5 (5.62%) Internet
10 4 (4.49%) BGP
10 4 (4.49%) DMZ
10 4 (4.49%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 3 (3.37%) Ethernet VPN
11 3 (3.37%) MPLS
11 3 (3.37%) NGFW
11 3 (3.37%) OSPF
11 3 (3.37%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.12%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 5 (5.62%) JIRA
2 2 (2.25%) GitLab
General
1 11 (12.36%) Social Skills
2 6 (6.74%) Finance
3 4 (4.49%) Banking
4 3 (3.37%) Public Sector
5 1 (1.12%) Advertising
5 1 (1.12%) Aerospace
5 1 (1.12%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (1.12%) Legal
5 1 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (1.12%) Retail
Job Titles
1 35 (39.33%) Network Engineer
2 18 (20.22%) Architect
3 13 (14.61%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
4 9 (10.11%) Network Architect
5 6 (6.74%) Security Architect
5 6 (6.74%) Server Engineer
6 5 (5.62%) Azure Architect
6 5 (5.62%) Cisco Engineer
6 5 (5.62%) Cisco Network Engineer
6 5 (5.62%) Project Manager
7 4 (4.49%) Automation Engineer
7 4 (4.49%) Security Engineer
7 4 (4.49%) Senior
8 3 (3.37%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
8 3 (3.37%) Lead
8 3 (3.37%) Network Security Engineer
8 3 (3.37%) Product Owner
8 3 (3.37%) Security Manager
8 3 (3.37%) Senior Architect
8 3 (3.37%) Senior Network Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (7.87%) 802.1X
2 1 (1.12%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 21 (23.60%) Data Centre
2 7 (7.87%) Security Posture
3 6 (6.74%) Clustering
4 5 (5.62%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (4.49%) Cloud Native
5 4 (4.49%) Product Ownership
6 3 (3.37%) PKI
7 2 (2.25%) Onboarding
8 1 (1.12%) Cloud Security Posture
8 1 (1.12%) Enterprise Cloud
8 1 (1.12%) Enterprise Storage
8 1 (1.12%) Security Operations Centre
8 1 (1.12%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 11 (12.36%) Windows
2 5 (5.62%) Linux
3 4 (4.49%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.25%) Unix
5 1 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (1.12%) Windows Server 2003
5 1 (1.12%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (19.10%) Network Segmentation
2 16 (17.98%) Load Balancing
2 16 (17.98%) Network Monitoring
3 15 (16.85%) Zero Trust
4 14 (15.73%) Change Management
4 14 (15.73%) Project Delivery
5 12 (13.48%) High Availability
6 10 (11.24%) ITIL
7 9 (10.11%) Cybersecurity
8 8 (8.99%) Capacity Planning
8 8 (8.99%) Cloud Security
8 8 (8.99%) Operational Stability
8 8 (8.99%) Security Architecture
8 8 (8.99%) Validation
9 7 (7.87%) Disaster Recovery
9 7 (7.87%) Migration
9 7 (7.87%) Problem-Solving
9 7 (7.87%) SIEM
9 7 (7.87%) Threat Modelling
10 6 (6.74%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 8 (8.99%) PowerShell
2 3 (3.37%) Bicep
3 2 (2.25%) Python
4 1 (1.12%) Bash
4 1 (1.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 36 (40.45%) Cisco Certification
2 29 (32.58%) CCNP
2 29 (32.58%) Security Cleared
3 28 (31.46%) CCNA
4 22 (24.72%) SC Cleared
5 5 (5.62%) Degree
6 4 (4.49%) CCIE
6 4 (4.49%) CompTIA Security+
6 4 (4.49%) DV Cleared
7 3 (3.37%) Network+ Certification
8 2 (2.25%) CISSP
8 2 (2.25%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (1.12%) Azure Certification
9 1 (1.12%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (1.12%) CCDP
9 1 (1.12%) MCSA
9 1 (1.12%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (10.11%) NIST
2 3 (3.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (3.37%) PCI DSS
2 3 (3.37%) SLA
3 2 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 2 (2.25%) SOC 2
4 1 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 10 (11.24%) Active Directory
2 6 (6.74%) Hyper-V
3 4 (4.49%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.12%) Docker
4 1 (1.12%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (1.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 10 (11.24%) Ansible
1 10 (11.24%) Terraform
2 6 (6.74%) Microsoft Clustering
2 6 (6.74%) Nagios
3 3 (3.37%) CASB
3 3 (3.37%) Cisco Prime
3 3 (3.37%) Kubernetes
4 2 (2.25%) Nessus
4 2 (2.25%) vCenter Server
5 1 (1.12%) Backup Exec
5 1 (1.12%) vMotion
Vendors
1 34 (38.20%) Cisco
2 16 (17.98%) Palo Alto
3 11 (12.36%) Microsoft
4 7 (7.87%) ForeScout
4 7 (7.87%) Splunk
4 7 (7.87%) VMware
5 6 (6.74%) ServiceNow
5 6 (6.74%) SolarWinds
6 5 (5.62%) F5
7 4 (4.49%) Computacenter
7 4 (4.49%) CyberArk
8 3 (3.37%) Broadcom
8 3 (3.37%) Fortinet
8 3 (3.37%) Meraki
8 3 (3.37%) Zscaler
9 2 (2.25%) Databricks
9 2 (2.25%) Foundry
9 2 (2.25%) Google
9 2 (2.25%) Okta
9 2 (2.25%) SAP