Security Posture Contract Job Trends in the North West

Security Posture
England > North West

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Security Posture in contract job vacancies in the North West. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Security Posture over the 6 months leading up to 26 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 131 101 133
Rank change year-on-year -30 +32 +30
Contract jobs citing Security Posture 12 15 4
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 0.47% 0.70% 0.15%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.31% 2.21% 0.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 10 3
10th Percentile £356 £496 £344
25th Percentile £480 £501 £373
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £563 £443
Median % change year-on-year +2.22% +27.12% -32.31%
75th Percentile £615 £699 £544
90th Percentile £639 £788 £593
England median daily rate £544 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -9.38% - -

All Generic Skills
North West

Security Posture falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 914 679 767
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 36.00% 31.48% 28.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 614 370 542
10th Percentile £200 £203 £256
25th Percentile £358 £356 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £477 £513
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% -7.02% +2.50%
75th Percentile £562 £558 £594
90th Percentile £638 £675 £670
England median daily rate £513 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.82% - -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 36 42
10th Percentile £16.70 £19.72 £13.98
25th Percentile £25.15 £21.25 £17.50
Median hourly rate £45.46 £27.33 £40.46
Median % change year-on-year +66.34% -32.45% +53.63%
75th Percentile £60.61 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £73.29 £67.75 £55.00
England median hourly rate £29.00 £37.00 £42.92
% change year-on-year -21.62% -13.78% +22.42%

Security Posture
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Security Posture job vacancy trend in the North West

Security Posture
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Security Posture.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Security Posture

Security Posture
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Posture in the North West over the 6 months to 26 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Security Posture in the North West

Security Posture
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 Security Posture within the North West region over the 6 months to 26 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
Manchester -8 7 £575 -4.17% 18
Cheshire -25 4 £542 +3.19% 12
Security Posture
England

Security Posture
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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (8.33%) AWS
1 1 (8.33%) Azure
1 1 (8.33%) GCP
1 1 (8.33%) GitHub
1 1 (8.33%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 5 (41.67%) Firewall
2 3 (25.00%) DNS
2 3 (25.00%) SSL
2 3 (25.00%) TCP/IP
3 2 (16.67%) Network Security
4 1 (8.33%) 802.11
4 1 (8.33%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (8.33%) Cisco Nexus
4 1 (8.33%) Internet
4 1 (8.33%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (8.33%) SD-WAN
4 1 (8.33%) VPN
4 1 (8.33%) WAN
4 1 (8.33%) Wi-Fi
Development Applications
1 1 (8.33%) Bitbucket
1 1 (8.33%) Jenkins
1 1 (8.33%) Snyk
1 1 (8.33%) SonarQube
1 1 (8.33%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 5 (41.67%) Finance
2 2 (16.67%) Social Skills
3 1 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (8.33%) Banking
3 1 (8.33%) Corporate Banking
3 1 (8.33%) Military
3 1 (8.33%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 2 (16.67%) Security Engineer
1 2 (16.67%) Security Specialist
2 1 (8.33%) Analyst
2 1 (8.33%) Application Security Specialist
2 1 (8.33%) Applications Specialist
2 1 (8.33%) Cybersecurity Engineer
2 1 (8.33%) DevSecOps Engineer
2 1 (8.33%) Incident Analyst
2 1 (8.33%) Incident Response Lead
2 1 (8.33%) Information Assurance Specialist
2 1 (8.33%) Information Security Specialist
2 1 (8.33%) Information Specialist
2 1 (8.33%) Lead
2 1 (8.33%) Mobile Specialist
2 1 (8.33%) Network Engineer
2 1 (8.33%) Senior
2 1 (8.33%) Senior Network Engineer
2 1 (8.33%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (25.00%) LDAP
2 1 (8.33%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 4 (33.33%) Cloud Security Posture
2 1 (8.33%) Cloud Native
2 1 (8.33%) CMDB
2 1 (8.33%) Cyber Defence
2 1 (8.33%) Cyber Threat
2 1 (8.33%) Management Information System
2 1 (8.33%) Mobile App
2 1 (8.33%) Onboarding
2 1 (8.33%) Operational Technology
2 1 (8.33%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 4 (33.33%) Linux
1 4 (33.33%) Windows
2 3 (25.00%) Unix
3 1 (8.33%) Android
3 1 (8.33%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (41.67%) Cloud Security
1 5 (41.67%) Penetration Testing
1 5 (41.67%) Vulnerability Management
2 4 (33.33%) ITIL
2 4 (33.33%) Vulnerability Assessment
2 4 (33.33%) Vulnerability Remediation
3 3 (25.00%) Cybersecurity
3 3 (25.00%) DevSecOps
3 3 (25.00%) Identity Management
3 3 (25.00%) Log Correlation
3 3 (25.00%) Ticket Management
3 3 (25.00%) Validation
3 3 (25.00%) Vulnerability Scanning
4 2 (16.67%) Application Security
4 2 (16.67%) Incident Response
4 2 (16.67%) MITRE ATT&CK
4 2 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
4 2 (16.67%) SIEM
5 1 (8.33%) CI/CD
5 1 (8.33%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 1 (8.33%) Java
1 1 (8.33%) Python
Qualifications
1 4 (33.33%) CISSP
1 4 (33.33%) CompTIA Security+
2 3 (25.00%) MCSA
2 3 (25.00%) MCSE
2 3 (25.00%) Microsoft Certification
3 2 (16.67%) Cisco Certification
3 2 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 2 (16.67%) Security Cleared
4 1 (8.33%) CCIE
4 1 (8.33%) CCNA CyberOps
4 1 (8.33%) CCNP
4 1 (8.33%) CCSA
4 1 (8.33%) CCSE
4 1 (8.33%) Check Point Certification
4 1 (8.33%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (8.33%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (16.67%) NIST
2 1 (8.33%) GRC
2 1 (8.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 3 (25.00%) Active Directory
2 1 (8.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (25.00%) CASB
1 3 (25.00%) Nessus
2 1 (8.33%) Ansible
2 1 (8.33%) Kubernetes
2 1 (8.33%) QRadar
2 1 (8.33%) SCCM
2 1 (8.33%) WSUS
Vendors
1 4 (33.33%) Microsoft
1 4 (33.33%) Splunk
2 3 (25.00%) CyberArk
2 3 (25.00%) Remedy
2 3 (25.00%) Tenable
3 2 (16.67%) Cisco
3 2 (16.67%) Palo Alto
4 1 (8.33%) Checkmarx
4 1 (8.33%) CheckPoint
4 1 (8.33%) Meraki
4 1 (8.33%) Rapid7
4 1 (8.33%) Veracode
4 1 (8.33%) Zscaler