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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 75 68
Rank change year-on-year -2 -7 +16
Contract jobs citing Network Security 103 58 52
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.73% 2.64% 2.19%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.50% 18.71% 18.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 33 44
10th Percentile £414 £363 £463
25th Percentile £474 £410 £498
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £475 £655
Median % change year-on-year +12.84% -27.48% +34.77%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £689
90th Percentile £645 £726 £775
England median daily rate £543 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +3.51% -4.55% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £16.50 - -
Median hourly rate £17.00 £70.16 -
Median % change year-on-year -75.77% - -
75th Percentile £17.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £73.00 £80.68 £57.50
% change year-on-year -9.51% +40.30% -6.88%

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 479 310 279
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 12.68% 14.11% 11.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 309 182 189
10th Percentile £248 £149 £248
25th Percentile £363 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £446 £515
Median % change year-on-year +9.53% -13.40% +11.35%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £688
90th Percentile £630 £650 £850
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 3 9
10th Percentile £15.40 £21.20 £20.21
25th Percentile £16.88 £23.00 £26.25
Median hourly rate £17.50 £27.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.19% -43.16% +184.77%
75th Percentile £27.38 £49.08 £51.91
90th Percentile £74.26 £61.73 £62.32
England median hourly rate £27.94 £44.50 £54.88
% change year-on-year -37.21% -18.91% +5.75%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 +11 47 £528 +11.16% 9
Manchester -30 29 £550 +17.96% 15
Cumbria - 17 £525 - 2
Lancashire -7 5 £400 +6.67% 5
Merseyside -15 5 - - 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 (1.94%) Confluence
2 1 (0.97%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 5 (4.85%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.94%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 24 (23.30%) Azure
2 17 (16.50%) AWS
3 7 (6.80%) Azure Sentinel
3 7 (6.80%) Entra ID
3 7 (6.80%) GCP
4 6 (5.83%) SaaS
5 3 (2.91%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (2.91%) Azure Key Vault
5 3 (2.91%) Serverless
5 3 (2.91%) Smartsheet
6 2 (1.94%) Amazon ECS
6 2 (1.94%) Amazon EKS
6 2 (1.94%) AWS CloudFormation
6 2 (1.94%) AWS KMS
6 2 (1.94%) AWS Lambda
6 2 (1.94%) Azure AKS
6 2 (1.94%) Azure Monitor
6 2 (1.94%) Google Kubernetes Engine
6 2 (1.94%) OCI
6 2 (1.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 66 (64.08%) Firewall
2 37 (35.92%) VPN
3 28 (27.18%) WAN
4 26 (25.24%) Wireless
5 19 (18.45%) LAN
6 14 (13.59%) DNS
7 13 (12.62%) Broadband
7 13 (12.62%) Converged Networks
8 12 (11.65%) BGP
9 11 (10.68%) OSPF
10 9 (8.74%) TCP/IP
11 8 (7.77%) SD-WAN
12 7 (6.80%) DMZ
13 6 (5.83%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 5 (4.85%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
14 5 (4.85%) Internet
15 4 (3.88%) MPLS
15 4 (3.88%) VLAN
15 4 (3.88%) Wi-Fi
16 3 (2.91%) SSL
Development Applications
1 6 (5.83%) GitLab
2 5 (4.85%) Jenkins
2 5 (4.85%) JIRA
3 3 (2.91%) Git
4 1 (0.97%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 14 (13.59%) Finance
1 14 (13.59%) Social Skills
2 9 (8.74%) Banking
3 6 (5.83%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (2.91%) Documentation Skills
4 3 (2.91%) Financial Institution
4 3 (2.91%) Manufacturing
5 1 (0.97%) Advertising
5 1 (0.97%) Automotive
5 1 (0.97%) Games
5 1 (0.97%) Legal
5 1 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (0.97%) Retail
Job Titles
1 43 (41.75%) Network Engineer
2 14 (13.59%) Architect
3 11 (10.68%) Project Manager
4 10 (9.71%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 7 (6.80%) Network Manager
5 7 (6.80%) Network Project Manager
5 7 (6.80%) Network Security Manager
5 7 (6.80%) Security Architect
5 7 (6.80%) Security Manager
5 7 (6.80%) Security Project Manager
5 7 (6.80%) Senior
5 7 (6.80%) Senior Network Engineer
6 6 (5.83%) Network Architect
6 6 (5.83%) Security Engineer
6 6 (5.83%) VMware Engineer
7 4 (3.88%) Network Security Engineer
7 4 (3.88%) SIEM Engineer
7 4 (3.88%) Splunk Engineer
8 3 (2.91%) Azure Architect
8 3 (2.91%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (6.80%) 802.1X
2 3 (2.91%) ARM Templates
2 3 (2.91%) Azure Blueprints
2 3 (2.91%) JSON
2 3 (2.91%) REST
3 2 (1.94%) Django
3 2 (1.94%) XML
4 1 (0.97%) LDAP
4 1 (0.97%) ModSecurity
4 1 (0.97%) SAP Basis
4 1 (0.97%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (11.65%) Security Posture
2 9 (8.74%) Data Centre
3 7 (6.80%) Management Information System
4 6 (5.83%) Cloud Native
5 4 (3.88%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (3.88%) Product Ownership
6 3 (2.91%) PKI
7 2 (1.94%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.94%) Social Media
8 1 (0.97%) Animation
8 1 (0.97%) Cloud Security Posture
8 1 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.97%) Enterprise Cloud
8 1 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 7 (6.80%) Linux
2 6 (5.83%) Windows
3 2 (1.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (1.94%) Unix
3 2 (1.94%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.97%) Windows Server 2003
4 1 (0.97%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (28.16%) Load Balancing
2 21 (20.39%) Network Segmentation
3 19 (18.45%) Change Management
4 17 (16.50%) Zero Trust
5 16 (15.53%) Project Delivery
6 15 (14.56%) Cloud Security
7 14 (13.59%) CI/CD
7 14 (13.59%) Infrastructure as Code
8 13 (12.62%) SIEM
9 12 (11.65%) Impact Assessments
9 12 (11.65%) ITIL
9 12 (11.65%) Migration
10 11 (10.68%) Agile
10 11 (10.68%) Continuous Improvement
10 11 (10.68%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 10 (9.71%) High Availability
11 10 (9.71%) Network Monitoring
11 10 (9.71%) Validation
12 9 (8.74%) Security Architecture
12 9 (8.74%) Security Operations
Programming Languages
1 17 (16.50%) Python
2 10 (9.71%) PowerShell
3 6 (5.83%) Bicep
4 4 (3.88%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (3.88%) Search Processing Language
4 4 (3.88%) SQL
5 3 (2.91%) Bash
6 2 (1.94%) Java
6 2 (1.94%) Perl
Qualifications
1 38 (36.89%) Cisco Certification
2 28 (27.18%) CCNA
3 23 (22.33%) CCNP
4 21 (20.39%) Security Cleared
5 19 (18.45%) SC Cleared
6 11 (10.68%) Degree
7 7 (6.80%) CISSP
8 6 (5.83%) CCIE
9 4 (3.88%) CompTIA Security+
9 4 (3.88%) GCFA
9 4 (3.88%) GCIH
10 3 (2.91%) Azure Certification
10 3 (2.91%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (2.91%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (1.94%) AWS Certification
12 1 (0.97%) MCSA
12 1 (0.97%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (8.74%) NIST
2 7 (6.80%) PCI DSS
3 5 (4.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 4 (3.88%) GDPR
5 3 (2.91%) SLA
6 2 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 2 (1.94%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.97%) GxP
System Software
1 6 (5.83%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (4.85%) Active Directory
3 3 (2.91%) Docker
4 1 (0.97%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.97%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.97%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (15.53%) Ansible
2 8 (7.77%) CASB
2 8 (7.77%) Terraform
3 7 (6.80%) Progress Chef
4 6 (5.83%) Kubernetes
5 3 (2.91%) Cisco Prime
6 2 (1.94%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.97%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.97%) Nagios
7 1 (0.97%) Nessus
7 1 (0.97%) Puppet
7 1 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.97%) vMotion
Vendors
1 43 (41.75%) Cisco
2 17 (16.50%) Microsoft
3 14 (13.59%) Splunk
4 10 (9.71%) ServiceNow
5 9 (8.74%) Fortinet
5 9 (8.74%) Palo Alto
6 8 (7.77%) VMware
7 7 (6.80%) F5
7 7 (6.80%) ForeScout
7 7 (6.80%) Zscaler
8 5 (4.85%) Google
9 4 (3.88%) Cribl.io
9 4 (3.88%) CyberArk
9 4 (3.88%) Juniper
9 4 (3.88%) McAfee
10 3 (2.91%) Arista
10 3 (2.91%) Aruba
10 3 (2.91%) Broadcom
11 2 (1.94%) Red Hat
11 2 (1.94%) SolarWinds