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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 70 74
Rank change year-on-year -11 +4 +11
Contract jobs citing Network Security 111 63 54
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 2.87% 2.86% 2.24%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 21.94% 21.14% 18.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 77 33 46
10th Percentile £415 £363 £456
25th Percentile £474 £410 £487
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £475 £650
Median % change year-on-year +13.05% -26.92% +33.74%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £688
90th Percentile £641 £726 £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 £80.68 £53.75
% change year-on-year -9.51% +50.09% -12.96%

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 506 298 295
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 13.07% 13.55% 12.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 331 170 196
10th Percentile £240 £146 £256
25th Percentile £356 £325 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £436 £514
Median % change year-on-year +11.98% -15.09% +8.16%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £678
90th Percentile £625 £669 £838
England median daily rate £500 £492 £500
% change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 5 9
10th Percentile £15.10 £22.40 £24.61
25th Percentile £16.69 £26.00 £35.00
Median hourly rate £17.50 £66.50 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year -73.68% +36.94% +191.13%
75th Percentile £23.25 £67.25 £51.91
90th Percentile £48.29 £69.00 £62.80
England median hourly rate £26.72 £44.50 £54.88
% change year-on-year -39.96% -18.91% -0.23%

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 19 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 19 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 +10 49 £536 +12.78% 8
Manchester -21 32 £550 +17.96% 16
Cumbria - 17 £525 - 3
Merseyside -15 8 £600 +71.43% 3
Lancashire -8 5 £400 +6.67% 1
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 3 (2.70%) Confluence
2 1 (0.90%) NetWeaver
2 1 (0.90%) nginx
Applications
1 5 (4.50%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.80%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 31 (27.93%) Azure
2 25 (22.52%) AWS
3 9 (8.11%) GCP
4 8 (7.21%) Azure Sentinel
4 8 (7.21%) Entra ID
5 6 (5.41%) SaaS
6 5 (4.50%) Serverless
7 4 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (2.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 3 (2.70%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (2.70%) Amazon EKS
8 3 (2.70%) AWS CloudFormation
8 3 (2.70%) AWS CloudTrail
8 3 (2.70%) AWS KMS
8 3 (2.70%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (2.70%) Azure Key Vault
8 3 (2.70%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (2.70%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 3 (2.70%) Smartsheet
9 2 (1.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 73 (65.77%) Firewall
2 39 (35.14%) VPN
3 28 (25.23%) WAN
4 26 (23.42%) Wireless
5 19 (17.12%) LAN
6 13 (11.71%) Broadband
6 13 (11.71%) Converged Networks
6 13 (11.71%) DNS
7 12 (10.81%) BGP
8 11 (9.91%) OSPF
9 8 (7.21%) DMZ
9 8 (7.21%) SD-WAN
9 8 (7.21%) TCP/IP
10 7 (6.31%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 6 (5.41%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
12 5 (4.50%) Internet
13 4 (3.60%) MPLS
13 4 (3.60%) VLAN
13 4 (3.60%) Wi-Fi
14 3 (2.70%) Cisco IOS
Development Applications
1 7 (6.31%) GitLab
2 6 (5.41%) Jenkins
2 6 (5.41%) JIRA
3 3 (2.70%) Git
4 1 (0.90%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 19 (17.12%) Finance
2 17 (15.32%) Social Skills
3 12 (10.81%) Banking
4 10 (9.01%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (2.70%) Financial Institution
5 3 (2.70%) Manufacturing
6 1 (0.90%) Advertising
6 1 (0.90%) Automotive
6 1 (0.90%) Games
6 1 (0.90%) Legal
6 1 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (0.90%) Retail
Job Titles
1 45 (40.54%) Network Engineer
2 14 (12.61%) Architect
3 11 (9.91%) Project Manager
3 11 (9.91%) Security Engineer
4 10 (9.01%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
5 7 (6.31%) Network Manager
5 7 (6.31%) Network Project Manager
5 7 (6.31%) Network Security Manager
5 7 (6.31%) Security Architect
5 7 (6.31%) Security Manager
5 7 (6.31%) Security Project Manager
5 7 (6.31%) Senior
5 7 (6.31%) Senior Network Engineer
5 7 (6.31%) VMware Engineer
6 6 (5.41%) Network Architect
6 6 (5.41%) Network Security Engineer
7 5 (4.50%) SIEM Engineer
7 5 (4.50%) Splunk Engineer
8 4 (3.60%) Cloud Engineer
9 3 (2.70%) Cloud Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (6.31%) 802.1X
2 4 (3.60%) ARM Templates
2 4 (3.60%) Azure Blueprints
2 4 (3.60%) REST
3 3 (2.70%) JSON
4 2 (1.80%) Django
4 2 (1.80%) XML
5 1 (0.90%) JWT
5 1 (0.90%) ModSecurity
5 1 (0.90%) OpenID
5 1 (0.90%) SAP Basis
5 1 (0.90%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 13 (11.71%) Security Posture
2 11 (9.91%) Management Information System
3 9 (8.11%) Cloud Native
4 8 (7.21%) Data Centre
5 4 (3.60%) PKI
5 4 (3.60%) Product Ownership
6 3 (2.70%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 3 (2.70%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.80%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.80%) Social Media
8 1 (0.90%) Animation
8 1 (0.90%) Cloud Security Posture
8 1 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 7 (6.31%) Linux
2 6 (5.41%) Windows
3 3 (2.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (1.80%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.90%) Unix
5 1 (0.90%) Windows Server 2003
5 1 (0.90%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (27.93%) Load Balancing
2 26 (23.42%) Network Segmentation
2 26 (23.42%) Zero Trust
3 23 (20.72%) Change Management
4 19 (17.12%) Cloud Security
4 19 (17.12%) Infrastructure as Code
5 18 (16.22%) Project Delivery
6 16 (14.41%) CI/CD
7 15 (13.51%) Migration
8 14 (12.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 14 (12.61%) ITIL
9 12 (10.81%) Agile
9 12 (10.81%) Impact Assessments
9 12 (10.81%) Security Operations
9 12 (10.81%) SIEM
9 12 (10.81%) Stakeholder Management
10 11 (9.91%) Configuration Management
11 10 (9.01%) Continuous Improvement
11 10 (9.01%) High Availability
11 10 (9.01%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 21 (18.92%) Python
2 14 (12.61%) PowerShell
3 7 (6.31%) Bicep
4 6 (5.41%) Bash
5 5 (4.50%) Kusto Query Language
5 5 (4.50%) Search Processing Language
5 5 (4.50%) SQL
6 3 (2.70%) Java
7 2 (1.80%) Perl
Qualifications
1 46 (41.44%) Cisco Certification
2 29 (26.13%) CCNP
3 28 (25.23%) CCNA
4 22 (19.82%) Security Cleared
5 20 (18.02%) SC Cleared
6 16 (14.41%) CISSP
7 13 (11.71%) Degree
8 8 (7.21%) CCIE
9 7 (6.31%) AWS Certification
9 7 (6.31%) GCIH
10 5 (4.50%) CCSP
10 5 (4.50%) GCFA
11 4 (3.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 4 (3.60%) Azure Certification
12 3 (2.70%) CCIE Security
12 3 (2.70%) CompTIA Security+
12 3 (2.70%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (2.70%) Network+ Certification
13 2 (1.80%) CCSA
13 2 (1.80%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (10.81%) NIST
2 10 (9.01%) PCI DSS
3 6 (5.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 5 (4.50%) GDPR
4 5 (4.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (2.70%) SLA
6 2 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 2 (1.80%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.90%) GxP
System Software
1 7 (6.31%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (4.50%) Active Directory
3 4 (3.60%) Docker
4 1 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.90%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.90%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 19 (17.12%) Ansible
2 11 (9.91%) Progress Chef
2 11 (9.91%) Terraform
3 8 (7.21%) CASB
4 7 (6.31%) Kubernetes
5 3 (2.70%) Cisco Prime
6 2 (1.80%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.90%) Backup Exec
7 1 (0.90%) Istio
7 1 (0.90%) Nagios
7 1 (0.90%) Network Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.90%) Puppet
7 1 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.90%) vMotion
Vendors
1 47 (42.34%) Cisco
2 18 (16.22%) Microsoft
3 14 (12.61%) Splunk
4 12 (10.81%) Palo Alto
5 11 (9.91%) Fortinet
6 10 (9.01%) ServiceNow
7 9 (8.11%) F5
7 9 (8.11%) VMware
8 7 (6.31%) AlgoSec
8 7 (6.31%) ForeScout
8 7 (6.31%) Zscaler
9 6 (5.41%) Google
10 5 (4.50%) CheckPoint
10 5 (4.50%) Cribl.io
11 4 (3.60%) Juniper
11 4 (3.60%) McAfee
12 3 (2.70%) Aruba
12 3 (2.70%) Broadcom
12 3 (2.70%) CyberArk
12 3 (2.70%) Red Hat