PCI DSS Contract Job Trends in the North West

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring PCI DSS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 130 104 123
Rank change year-on-year -26 +19 +36
Contract jobs citing PCI DSS 19 19 16
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 0.76% 0.88% 0.61%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 5.31% 6.09% 4.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 19 18 8
10th Percentile £398 £308 £387
25th Percentile £408 £476 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £553 £535
Median % change year-on-year -10.95% +3.27% +12.63%
75th Percentile £577 £638 £621
90th Percentile £618 £713 £638
England median daily rate £513 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -14.58% - +7.87%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
North West

PCI DSS falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 358 312 358
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 14.30% 14.40% 13.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 186 206
10th Percentile £311 £296 £284
25th Percentile £360 £363 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £437 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.94% -10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £549 £588
90th Percentile £638 £640 £697
England median daily rate £500 £500 £545
% change year-on-year - -8.26% +3.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 14 26
10th Percentile £42.29 £16.12 £16.25
25th Percentile £48.86 £18.57 £17.17
Median hourly rate £56.25 £23.14 £28.30
Median % change year-on-year +143.14% -18.25% -45.50%
75th Percentile £63.48 £27.94 £64.06
90th Percentile £71.31 £29.85 £76.50
England median hourly rate £25.63 £29.50 £35.50
% change year-on-year -13.12% -16.90% +58.41%

PCI DSS
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing PCI DSS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

PCI DSS job vacancy trend in the North West

PCI DSS
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing PCI DSS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing PCI DSS

PCI DSS
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PCI DSS in the North West over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PCI DSS in the North West

PCI DSS
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing PCI DSS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing PCI DSS

PCI DSS
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 PCI DSS within the North West region over the 6 months to 19 December 2025. 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 -15 10 £462 -11.95%
Manchester -17 6 £491 -27.22% 12
Merseyside -9 2 £734 +33.36% 1
Lancashire - 1 £335 - 5
PCI DSS
England

PCI DSS
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 (21.05%) Confluence
2 1 (5.26%) IIS
Business Applications
1 6 (31.58%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 8 (42.11%) AWS
2 6 (31.58%) Azure
3 5 (26.32%) GCP
4 1 (5.26%) Amazon ECS
4 1 (5.26%) Amazon EventBridge
4 1 (5.26%) Amazon SQS
4 1 (5.26%) AWS CloudFormation
4 1 (5.26%) AWS Fargate
4 1 (5.26%) AWS Lambda
4 1 (5.26%) Microsoft 365
4 1 (5.26%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 3 (15.79%) Network Security
2 2 (10.53%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (5.26%) Cisco ASA
3 1 (5.26%) Cisco Nexus
3 1 (5.26%) Firewall
3 1 (5.26%) LAN
3 1 (5.26%) MPLS
3 1 (5.26%) SD-WAN
3 1 (5.26%) TCP/IP
3 1 (5.26%) VLAN
3 1 (5.26%) VoIP
3 1 (5.26%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (5.26%) DynamoDB
1 1 (5.26%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 4 (21.05%) JIRA
2 2 (10.53%) Postman
General
1 8 (42.11%) Finance
1 8 (42.11%) Social Skills
2 6 (31.58%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (26.32%) Banking
4 1 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (5.26%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (5.26%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 6 (31.58%) Architect
2 4 (21.05%) Analyst
2 4 (21.05%) Business Analyst
2 4 (21.05%) Senior
2 4 (21.05%) Solutions Architect
3 3 (15.79%) Cybersecurity Engineer
3 3 (15.79%) Cybersecurity Specialist
3 3 (15.79%) Payments Architect
3 3 (15.79%) Payments Solutions Architect
4 2 (10.53%) Payments Analyst
4 2 (10.53%) Payments Business Analyst
4 2 (10.53%) Platform Engineer
4 2 (10.53%) Security Architect
4 2 (10.53%) Senior Architect
4 2 (10.53%) Senior Security Architect
5 1 (5.26%) AWS Platform Engineer
5 1 (5.26%) PCI DSS Project Manager
5 1 (5.26%) Product Business Analyst
5 1 (5.26%) Senior DevOps
5 1 (5.26%) Senior Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (21.05%) Spring
1 4 (21.05%) Spring Boot
2 2 (10.53%) JSON
2 2 (10.53%) Kafka
2 2 (10.53%) REST
2 2 (10.53%) SOAP
2 2 (10.53%) Swagger
2 2 (10.53%) XML
3 1 (5.26%) Middleware
3 1 (5.26%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 5 (26.32%) Distributed Systems
2 3 (15.79%) Cloud Native
3 2 (10.53%) Digital Wallet
3 2 (10.53%) PKI
3 2 (10.53%) Product Ownership
4 1 (5.26%) Clustering
4 1 (5.26%) Enterprise Storage
4 1 (5.26%) IBM XIV
4 1 (5.26%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (5.26%) Management Information System
4 1 (5.26%) Onboarding
4 1 (5.26%) Replication
4 1 (5.26%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (36.84%) Microservices
1 7 (36.84%) Stakeholder Management
2 6 (31.58%) Containerisation
3 5 (26.32%) Architectural Patterns
3 5 (26.32%) Mentoring
3 5 (26.32%) Problem-Solving
4 4 (21.05%) Agile
4 4 (21.05%) Data Modelling
4 4 (21.05%) DevOps
4 4 (21.05%) Logical Data Model
4 4 (21.05%) OO
4 4 (21.05%) OOA/OOD
4 4 (21.05%) Roadmaps
4 4 (21.05%) SIEM
4 4 (21.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 4 (21.05%) Translating Business Requirements
4 4 (21.05%) UML
5 3 (15.79%) CI/CD
5 3 (15.79%) Incident Response
5 3 (15.79%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 4 (21.05%) Java
2 1 (5.26%) Go
2 1 (5.26%) PowerShell
2 1 (5.26%) Python
2 1 (5.26%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 5 (26.32%) CISSP
2 4 (21.05%) CISM
2 4 (21.05%) Degree
3 3 (15.79%) CISA
3 3 (15.79%) GSEC
4 2 (10.53%) CBAP
4 2 (10.53%) Cisco Certification
4 2 (10.53%) CSPO
5 1 (5.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 1 (5.26%) AWS Certification
5 1 (5.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 1 (5.26%) CCNA
5 1 (5.26%) CCNP
5 1 (5.26%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (5.26%) GIAC
5 1 (5.26%) PCI QSA
5 1 (5.26%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (36.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 7 (36.84%) NIST
2 6 (31.58%) ISO 20022
3 5 (26.32%) GDPR
4 3 (15.79%) HIPAA
5 2 (10.53%) PSD2
5 2 (10.53%) SOC 1
6 1 (5.26%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (5.26%) ISO 8583
6 1 (5.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 1 (5.26%) SEPA
6 1 (5.26%) SOC 2
System Software
1 4 (21.05%) Docker
2 1 (5.26%) Active Directory
2 1 (5.26%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (5.26%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 3 (15.79%) QRadar
1 3 (15.79%) Terraform
2 1 (5.26%) Ansible
2 1 (5.26%) FortiGate
2 1 (5.26%) Kubernetes
2 1 (5.26%) SCCM
2 1 (5.26%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 5 (26.32%) Microsoft
2 4 (21.05%) Google
2 4 (21.05%) Splunk
3 3 (15.79%) ArcSight
3 3 (15.79%) IBM
4 2 (10.53%) IBM Sterling
5 1 (5.26%) CheckPoint
5 1 (5.26%) Cisco
5 1 (5.26%) Citrix
5 1 (5.26%) CyberArk
5 1 (5.26%) LogicMonitor
5 1 (5.26%) Palo Alto
5 1 (5.26%) SolarWinds
5 1 (5.26%) VMware