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 22 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 177 150 87
Rank change year-on-year -27 -63 +118
Contract jobs citing Security Testing 16 11 122
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.36% 0.33% 2.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.43% 0.37% 2.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 13 7 23
10th Percentile £511 £470 £470
25th Percentile £556 £531 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £600 £653 £625
90th Percentile £745 £664 £638
England median daily rate £525 £640 £600
% change year-on-year -17.97% +6.67% -

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 3,742 2,943 4,543
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 84.01% 89.34% 88.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,464 1,815 2,840
10th Percentile £250 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% +1.49%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £613
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 328 110 301
10th Percentile £14.50 £19.90 £15.48
25th Percentile £17.00 £25.19 £23.63
Median hourly rate £23.58 £43.94 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.35% -12.12% +12.99%
75th Percentile £50.65 £62.64 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.88 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £34.50 £38.00
% change year-on-year -27.10% -9.21% +8.57%

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 22 January 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 22 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 -6 11 £600 - 4
Berkshire -7 11 £600 +5.49% 4
Hampshire -17 4 £563 -13.46% 1
West Sussex -11 1 £570 +26.67% 1
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 (12.50%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 4 (25.00%) AWS
2 3 (18.75%) Azure
2 3 (18.75%) Entra ID
2 3 (18.75%) GCP
3 2 (12.50%) OCI
4 1 (6.25%) AWS CloudFormation
4 1 (6.25%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 6 (37.50%) Network Security
2 3 (18.75%) Firewall
2 3 (18.75%) HTTP
3 1 (6.25%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 2 (12.50%) Git
2 1 (6.25%) Burp Suite
2 1 (6.25%) Cucumber
2 1 (6.25%) Gradle
2 1 (6.25%) Jenkins
2 1 (6.25%) JIRA
2 1 (6.25%) JUnit
2 1 (6.25%) Maven
2 1 (6.25%) Postman
2 1 (6.25%) REST Assured
2 1 (6.25%) TestNG
General
1 7 (43.75%) Social Skills
2 4 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
2 4 (25.00%) Presentation Skills
3 3 (18.75%) Finance
4 1 (6.25%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 4 (25.00%) Test Manager
2 3 (18.75%) Analyst
2 3 (18.75%) Architect
2 3 (18.75%) Security Analyst
2 3 (18.75%) Security Architect
2 3 (18.75%) Strategy Manager
2 3 (18.75%) Test Strategy Manager
3 2 (12.50%) Lead
3 2 (12.50%) Lead Project Manager
3 2 (12.50%) Oracle Project Manager
3 2 (12.50%) Project Manager
4 1 (6.25%) Developer
4 1 (6.25%) Java Engineer
4 1 (6.25%) Penetration Tester
4 1 (6.25%) Security Specialist
4 1 (6.25%) Senior
4 1 (6.25%) Senior Developer
4 1 (6.25%) Senior Software Developer
4 1 (6.25%) Software Developer
4 1 (6.25%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (25.00%) JWT
1 4 (25.00%) OAuth
1 4 (25.00%) SAML
2 2 (12.50%) Oracle Fusion
3 1 (6.25%) Gherkin
3 1 (6.25%) Node.js
3 1 (6.25%) React
Miscellaneous
1 4 (25.00%) Distributed Systems
1 4 (25.00%) Security Posture
2 3 (18.75%) BYOD
2 3 (18.75%) Cloud Native
2 3 (18.75%) Cloud Security Posture
2 3 (18.75%) Enterprise Software
2 3 (18.75%) Hybrid Cloud
2 3 (18.75%) Management Information System
2 3 (18.75%) Public Cloud
3 1 (6.25%) Onboarding
3 1 (6.25%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 1 (6.25%) Kali Linux
1 1 (6.25%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (56.25%) Penetration Testing
1 9 (56.25%) Test Automation
2 8 (50.00%) Agile
2 8 (50.00%) SDLC
2 8 (50.00%) Secure Coding
2 8 (50.00%) Threat Modelling
3 7 (43.75%) Dynamic Application Security Testing
3 7 (43.75%) OWASP
3 7 (43.75%) Static Application Security Testing
3 7 (43.75%) Waterfall
4 6 (37.50%) Application Security
4 6 (37.50%) Information Security
4 6 (37.50%) Regulatory Compliance
5 5 (31.25%) CI/CD
5 5 (31.25%) Problem-Solving
5 5 (31.25%) User Acceptance Testing
6 4 (25.00%) Code Quality
6 4 (25.00%) Decision-Making
6 4 (25.00%) Infrastructure as Code
6 4 (25.00%) Integration Patterns
Programming Languages
1 1 (6.25%) Java
1 1 (6.25%) Python
Qualifications
1 6 (37.50%) CISSP
2 3 (18.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
2 3 (18.75%) AWS Certification
2 3 (18.75%) Azure Certification
2 3 (18.75%) CCSP
2 3 (18.75%) Cisco Certification
2 3 (18.75%) CISM
2 3 (18.75%) Degree
3 2 (12.50%) Security Cleared
4 1 (6.25%) DV Cleared
4 1 (6.25%) SANS
4 1 (6.25%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (43.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 7 (43.75%) NIST
2 6 (37.50%) GDPR
2 6 (37.50%) PCI DSS
3 3 (18.75%) PSD2
3 3 (18.75%) QA
3 3 (18.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 1 (6.25%) NCSC
System Software
1 4 (25.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (18.75%) Kubernetes
2 1 (6.25%) Nessus
2 1 (6.25%) Nmap
2 1 (6.25%) Terraform
Vendors
1 3 (18.75%) SAP
2 2 (12.50%) Oracle