Security Testing Contract Job Trends in the South East

Security Testing
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Security Testing skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 181 137 89
Rank change year-on-year -44 -48 +102
Contract jobs citing Security Testing 22 16 119
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.41% 0.54% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.49% 0.59% 2.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 11 20
10th Percentile £551 £375 £500
25th Percentile £556 £469 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £569 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +13.75% -9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £650 £674 £625
90th Percentile £745 £756 £639
England median daily rate £550 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £52.50 -
England median hourly rate - £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

Security Testing 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 4,481 2,711 4,881
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 82.87% 92.15% 86.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,928 1,742 2,887
10th Percentile £275 £258 £213
25th Percentile £406 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% +2.00% -0.10%
75th Percentile £604 £613 £615
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 393 153 403
10th Percentile £15.30 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £19.97 £18.10
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% -18.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £80.09 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £35.00 £33.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year +6.06% - -12.00%

Security Testing
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Security Testing job vacancy trend in the South East

Security Testing
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

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

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

Security Testing
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Testing in the South East over the 6 months to 24 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Security Testing in the South East

Security Testing
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

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

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

Security Testing
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 Security Testing within the South East region over the 6 months to 24 March 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
Hampshire -20 12 £563 +28.57% 2
Berkshire -34 10 £600 -14.04% 2
Thames Valley -42 10 £600 +4.35% 3
Security Testing
England

Security Testing
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:

Business Applications
1 2 (9.09%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 6 (27.27%) AWS
2 2 (9.09%) OCI
3 1 (4.55%) AWS CloudFormation
3 1 (4.55%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 8 (36.36%) HTTP
1 8 (36.36%) Network Security
2 3 (13.64%) BGP
2 3 (13.64%) OSPF
3 2 (9.09%) Cisco ASA
3 2 (9.09%) Firewall
3 2 (9.09%) MPLS
3 2 (9.09%) Multicast
3 2 (9.09%) TCP/IP
3 2 (9.09%) VLAN
3 2 (9.09%) VPN
3 2 (9.09%) Wireshark
4 1 (4.55%) IPsec
4 1 (4.55%) NGFW
4 1 (4.55%) SD-WAN
4 1 (4.55%) WAN
4 1 (4.55%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 2 (9.09%) Git
2 1 (4.55%) Burp Suite
2 1 (4.55%) Cucumber
2 1 (4.55%) Gradle
2 1 (4.55%) Jenkins
2 1 (4.55%) JIRA
2 1 (4.55%) JUnit
2 1 (4.55%) Maven
2 1 (4.55%) Postman
2 1 (4.55%) REST Assured
2 1 (4.55%) TestNG
General
1 10 (45.45%) Social Skills
2 4 (18.18%) Presentation Skills
3 3 (13.64%) Public Sector
4 2 (9.09%) Aviation
4 2 (9.09%) Telecoms
5 1 (4.55%) Aerospace
5 1 (4.55%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 6 (27.27%) Consultant
1 6 (27.27%) Security Consultant
2 4 (18.18%) Analyst
2 4 (18.18%) Security Analyst
2 4 (18.18%) Senior
2 4 (18.18%) Test Manager
3 3 (13.64%) Strategy Manager
3 3 (13.64%) Test Strategy Manager
4 2 (9.09%) Lead
4 2 (9.09%) Lead Project Manager
4 2 (9.09%) Oracle Project Manager
4 2 (9.09%) Project Manager
4 2 (9.09%) Senior Consultant
4 2 (9.09%) Senior Security Consultant
4 2 (9.09%) Tester
5 1 (4.55%) Automation Engineer
5 1 (4.55%) Developer
5 1 (4.55%) Senior Developer
5 1 (4.55%) Software Developer
5 1 (4.55%) Validation Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (18.18%) JWT
1 4 (18.18%) OAuth
1 4 (18.18%) SAML
2 2 (9.09%) Oracle Fusion
3 1 (4.55%) Gherkin
3 1 (4.55%) Node.js
3 1 (4.55%) React
Miscellaneous
1 10 (45.45%) Management Information System
2 8 (36.36%) BYOD
3 4 (18.18%) Distributed Systems
4 2 (9.09%) Security Posture
5 1 (4.55%) Onboarding
5 1 (4.55%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 1 (4.55%) Kali Linux
1 1 (4.55%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (68.18%) Agile
1 15 (68.18%) Penetration Testing
2 12 (54.55%) Waterfall
3 10 (45.45%) Cybersecurity
4 8 (36.36%) Application Security
4 8 (36.36%) Change Management
4 8 (36.36%) Data Flow Diagram
4 8 (36.36%) Due Diligence
4 8 (36.36%) Incident Management
4 8 (36.36%) Information Governance
4 8 (36.36%) Information Security
4 8 (36.36%) Information Security Management
4 8 (36.36%) ISMS
4 8 (36.36%) Mobile Device Management
4 8 (36.36%) Risk Analysis
4 8 (36.36%) Risk Management
4 8 (36.36%) Security Management
4 8 (36.36%) Security Operations
4 8 (36.36%) Test Automation
5 6 (27.27%) OWASP
Programming Languages
1 3 (13.64%) Python
2 2 (9.09%) Bash
3 1 (4.55%) Java
Qualifications
1 8 (36.36%) CISM
1 8 (36.36%) CISSP
1 8 (36.36%) Degree
2 3 (13.64%) SC Cleared
2 3 (13.64%) Security Cleared
3 2 (9.09%) BC Cleared
3 2 (9.09%) CCIE
3 2 (9.09%) CCNP
3 2 (9.09%) Cisco Certification
3 2 (9.09%) ISTQB
4 1 (4.55%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (36.36%) GDPR
1 8 (36.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 8 (36.36%) NIST
1 8 (36.36%) PCI DSS
1 8 (36.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
2 4 (18.18%) NCSC
2 4 (18.18%) QA
3 1 (4.55%) GRC
System Software
1 1 (4.55%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (13.64%) Nmap
2 2 (9.09%) Ansible
2 2 (9.09%) Cisco Prime
2 2 (9.09%) Iperf
3 1 (4.55%) FortiGate
3 1 (4.55%) Nessus
3 1 (4.55%) Terraform
Vendors
1 3 (13.64%) Fortinet
1 3 (13.64%) SAP
2 2 (9.09%) CheckPoint
2 2 (9.09%) Cisco
2 2 (9.09%) Oracle
2 2 (9.09%) Palo Alto
2 2 (9.09%) SolarWinds
2 2 (9.09%) Tufin