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 21 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 205 147 162
Rank change year-on-year -58 +15 +17
Contract jobs citing Security Testing 26 19 17
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.39% 0.54% 0.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.48% 0.60% 0.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 11 14
10th Percentile £280 £375 £381
25th Percentile £412 £469 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £675 £550
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +22.73% +4.76%
75th Percentile £569 £708 £587
90th Percentile £606 £756 £667
England median daily rate £550 £488 £600
% change year-on-year +12.82% -18.75% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £66.61 £51.25 -
Median hourly rate £68.22 £52.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +29.93% - -
75th Percentile £69.82 £53.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £68.22 £52.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +29.93% +50.00% -

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 5,381 3,160 3,976
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.49% 89.67% 82.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,309 1,970 2,411
10th Percentile £280 £250 £255
25th Percentile £420 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% +1.35%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £638
90th Percentile £711 £675 £700
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 592 305 315
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £21.00 £15.50 £26.25
Median hourly rate £53.20 £24.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +121.67% -58.15% +14.70%
75th Percentile £73.25 £53.50 £70.09
90th Percentile £88.00 £70.81 £76.86
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% +3.61%

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 21 August 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 21 August 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 -42 10 £560 -18.43% 4
Hampshire -27 8 £563 +40.63% 2
Berkshire -28 6 £511 -27.74% 4
Middlesex - 4 - -
Oxfordshire -28 2 - -
Buckinghamshire - 2 £560 -
West Sussex - 2 £283 -
Surrey -23 1 £600 - 1
East Sussex - 1 £220 - 2
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:

Applications
1 1 (3.85%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 14 (53.85%) AWS
2 10 (38.46%) Azure
3 5 (19.23%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (19.23%) GCP
4 3 (11.54%) Entra ID
5 2 (7.69%) AWS CloudFormation
5 2 (7.69%) Azure Sentinel
5 2 (7.69%) GitHub
5 2 (7.69%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (3.85%) BrowserStack
6 1 (3.85%) Microsoft Purview
6 1 (3.85%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 6 (23.08%) HTTP
1 6 (23.08%) Network Security
2 4 (15.38%) Broadband
3 2 (7.69%) BGP
3 2 (7.69%) IPsec
3 2 (7.69%) NGFW
3 2 (7.69%) OSPF
3 2 (7.69%) SD-WAN
3 2 (7.69%) WAN
4 1 (3.85%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.85%) Data Lake
1 1 (3.85%) Data Warehouse
1 1 (3.85%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (7.69%) Git
1 2 (7.69%) GitLab
1 2 (7.69%) Jenkins
1 2 (7.69%) REST Assured
2 1 (3.85%) Burp Suite
2 1 (3.85%) JIRA
2 1 (3.85%) JMeter
2 1 (3.85%) Selenium
General
1 5 (19.23%) Social Skills
2 4 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (11.54%) Organisational Skills
4 2 (7.69%) Aerospace
4 2 (7.69%) Finance
4 2 (7.69%) Public Sector
5 1 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (3.85%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 5 (19.23%) Analyst
1 5 (19.23%) Consultant
1 5 (19.23%) Security Consultant
2 4 (15.38%) Lead
2 4 (15.38%) Security Analyst
2 4 (15.38%) Team Leader
3 2 (7.69%) Architect
3 2 (7.69%) Automation Engineer
3 2 (7.69%) Cloud Engineer
3 2 (7.69%) DevOps Engineer
3 2 (7.69%) Gen AI Engineer
3 2 (7.69%) QA Automation Engineer
3 2 (7.69%) QA Engineer
4 1 (3.85%) Cybersecurity Architect
4 1 (3.85%) Cybersecurity Engineer
4 1 (3.85%) Data Analytics Architect
4 1 (3.85%) Security Architect
4 1 (3.85%) Security Engineer
4 1 (3.85%) Technical Design Authority
4 1 (3.85%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (15.38%) Terraform
2 2 (7.69%) JSON
2 2 (7.69%) Node.js
2 2 (7.69%) Playwright
2 2 (7.69%) pytest
2 2 (7.69%) RESTful
2 2 (7.69%) XML
3 1 (3.85%) OAuth
3 1 (3.85%) REST
3 1 (3.85%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 6 (23.08%) BYOD
1 6 (23.08%) Management Information System
2 4 (15.38%) Security Posture
2 4 (15.38%) Social Media
3 3 (11.54%) Cloud Native
4 2 (7.69%) Onboarding
4 2 (7.69%) Virtual Team
5 1 (3.85%) Cyber Defence
5 1 (3.85%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (3.85%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (3.85%) Product Ownership
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (53.85%) Cybersecurity
2 13 (50.00%) CI/CD
3 12 (46.15%) Cloud Security
3 12 (46.15%) Test Automation
4 11 (42.31%) Agile
4 11 (42.31%) SDLC
5 10 (38.46%) Application Security
5 10 (38.46%) Risk Management
5 10 (38.46%) Vulnerability Management
6 9 (34.62%) Information Security
7 8 (30.77%) DevOps
8 7 (26.92%) DevSecOps
8 7 (26.92%) Due Diligence
8 7 (26.92%) Incident Management
8 7 (26.92%) Information Security Management
8 7 (26.92%) ISMS
8 7 (26.92%) Security Management
8 7 (26.92%) Security Operations
8 7 (26.92%) Stakeholder Management
9 6 (23.08%) Data Flow Diagram
Programming Languages
1 5 (19.23%) PowerShell
1 5 (19.23%) Python
2 3 (11.54%) Java
2 3 (11.54%) JavaScript
3 2 (7.69%) Bash
3 2 (7.69%) TypeScript
4 1 (3.85%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 7 (26.92%) CISSP
1 7 (26.92%) SC Cleared
1 7 (26.92%) Security Cleared
2 6 (23.08%) CISM
2 6 (23.08%) Degree
3 2 (7.69%) DV Cleared
4 1 (3.85%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 1 (3.85%) AWS Certification
4 1 (3.85%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
4 1 (3.85%) CEH
4 1 (3.85%) Cisco Certification
4 1 (3.85%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (42.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (38.46%) NIST
3 9 (34.62%) GDPR
4 7 (26.92%) PCI DSS
4 7 (26.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 6 (23.08%) QA
6 3 (11.54%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (11.54%) GRC
7 2 (7.69%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (3.85%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (3.85%) NCSC
System Software
1 2 (7.69%) Active Directory
2 1 (3.85%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (11.54%) Kubernetes
2 2 (7.69%) FortiGate
2 2 (7.69%) QRadar
3 1 (3.85%) Ansible
3 1 (3.85%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 8 (30.77%) Microsoft
2 3 (11.54%) Google
3 2 (7.69%) Fortinet
3 2 (7.69%) Splunk
4 1 (3.85%) CrowdStrike