OWASP Contract Job Trends in the South East

Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring OWASP skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 156 150 119
Rank change year-on-year -6 -31 +111
Contract jobs citing OWASP 26 17 90
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.59% 0.51% 1.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.70% 0.57% 1.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 4 2
10th Percentile £406 £419 £611
25th Percentile £425 £446 £628
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £573 £486 £663
Median % change year-on-year +17.80% -26.64% +6.00%
75th Percentile £775 £538 £703
90th Percentile - £605 £724
England median daily rate £575 £675 £600
% change year-on-year -14.81% +12.50% +9.09%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

OWASP falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,715 2,989 4,516
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 84.16% 89.30% 88.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,445 1,854 2,848
10th Percentile £237 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £506 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.23% -1.27% +1.53%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £615
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 331 112 286
10th Percentile £14.50 £19.37 £16.25
25th Percentile £17.00 £25.56 £24.57
Median hourly rate £23.58 £43.94 £54.44
Median % change year-on-year -46.35% -19.29% +20.98%
75th Percentile £50.00 £62.55 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.57 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £40.29
% change year-on-year -28.14% -13.14% +15.12%

OWASP
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing OWASP relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

OWASP job vacancy trend in the South East

OWASP
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing OWASP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing OWASP

OWASP
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing OWASP in the South East over the 6 months to 17 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for OWASP in the South East

OWASP
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing OWASP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing OWASP

OWASP
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing OWASP within the South East region over the 6 months to 17 January 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
Thames Valley -8 17 £450 -10.00% 10
Berkshire -12 15 £450 -10.00% 8
Hampshire -23 7 £750 +58.90% 2
Oxfordshire - 2 - - 1
West Sussex - 2 £610 - 2
OWASP
England

OWASP
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 1 (3.85%) CMS
1 1 (3.85%) Umbraco
Business Applications
1 5 (19.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 4 (15.38%) AWS
2 3 (11.54%) Azure
3 2 (7.69%) AWS CloudFormation
3 2 (7.69%) GitHub
4 1 (3.85%) Amazon EC2
4 1 (3.85%) Amazon ECR
4 1 (3.85%) Amazon ECS
4 1 (3.85%) Amazon ELB
4 1 (3.85%) Amazon OpenSearch
4 1 (3.85%) Amazon S3
4 1 (3.85%) GCP
4 1 (3.85%) GitHub Actions
4 1 (3.85%) OCI
4 1 (3.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 8 (30.77%) Wireshark
2 2 (7.69%) Wireless
3 1 (3.85%) Internet
3 1 (3.85%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.85%) PostgreSQL
1 1 (3.85%) Relational Database
1 1 (3.85%) SQL Server
1 1 (3.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 10 (38.46%) Burp Suite
2 8 (30.77%) Metasploit
3 2 (7.69%) Git
General
1 15 (57.69%) Social Skills
2 8 (30.77%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (15.38%) Presentation Skills
4 1 (3.85%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 10 (38.46%) Penetration Tester
1 10 (38.46%) Tester
2 7 (26.92%) Architect
3 5 (19.23%) Enterprise Architect
4 4 (15.38%) Test Manager
5 3 (11.54%) Developer
5 3 (11.54%) Senior
5 3 (11.54%) Senior Developer
5 3 (11.54%) Strategy Manager
5 3 (11.54%) Test Strategy Manager
6 2 (7.69%) Solutions Architect
7 1 (3.85%) Backend Developer
7 1 (3.85%) DevSecOps Engineer
7 1 (3.85%) Python Developer
7 1 (3.85%) Security Specialist
7 1 (3.85%) Senior Python Developer
7 1 (3.85%) Senior Software Developer
7 1 (3.85%) Senior Web Developer
7 1 (3.85%) Software Developer
7 1 (3.85%) Web Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (19.23%) OAuth
2 4 (15.38%) JWT
2 4 (15.38%) SAML
3 2 (7.69%) Node.js
4 1 (3.85%) .NET
4 1 (3.85%) .NET Core
4 1 (3.85%) .NET Framework
4 1 (3.85%) AngularJS
4 1 (3.85%) ASP.NET
4 1 (3.85%) ASP.NET Web API
4 1 (3.85%) CSS
4 1 (3.85%) Entity Framework
4 1 (3.85%) Flask
4 1 (3.85%) HTML
4 1 (3.85%) OAuth2
4 1 (3.85%) OpenID
4 1 (3.85%) React
4 1 (3.85%) REST
4 1 (3.85%) RESTful
4 1 (3.85%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 4 (15.38%) Distributed Systems
2 2 (7.69%) Security Posture
3 1 (3.85%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (3.85%) Onboarding
3 1 (3.85%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 10 (38.46%) Kali Linux
1 10 (38.46%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (57.69%) Penetration Testing
1 15 (57.69%) Test Automation
2 10 (38.46%) Red Team
3 9 (34.62%) SDLC
4 8 (30.77%) Ethical Hacking
4 8 (30.77%) MITRE ATT&CK
5 7 (26.92%) Security Testing
6 5 (19.23%) Agile
6 5 (19.23%) Code Quality
6 5 (19.23%) Enterprise Architecture
6 5 (19.23%) Roadmaps
6 5 (19.23%) Secure Coding
6 5 (19.23%) Strategic Roadmap
6 5 (19.23%) Test Strategy
6 5 (19.23%) Threat Modelling
6 5 (19.23%) TOGAF
6 5 (19.23%) Zachman Framework
7 4 (15.38%) Decision-Making
7 4 (15.38%) Scenario Testing
7 4 (15.38%) Strategic Thinking
Programming Languages
1 11 (42.31%) Python
2 9 (34.62%) Bash
3 8 (30.77%) PowerShell
4 1 (3.85%) C#
4 1 (3.85%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 16 (61.54%) SC Cleared
1 16 (61.54%) Security Cleared
2 9 (34.62%) OSCP
3 8 (30.77%) CEH
3 8 (30.77%) GPEN
4 2 (7.69%) DV Cleared
4 2 (7.69%) SANS
5 1 (3.85%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 1 (3.85%) CCSP
5 1 (3.85%) Cisco Certification
5 1 (3.85%) CISSP
5 1 (3.85%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (3.85%) Degree
5 1 (3.85%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (30.77%) NCSC
2 7 (26.92%) GDPR
3 3 (11.54%) QA
4 2 (7.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (7.69%) NIST
5 1 (3.85%) WCAG
System Software
1 1 (3.85%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (38.46%) Nmap
2 2 (7.69%) Nessus
2 2 (7.69%) Terraform
3 1 (3.85%) Argo
3 1 (3.85%) Grafana
3 1 (3.85%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 5 (19.23%) Sparx
2 3 (11.54%) SAP