Cyber Essentials Contract Job Trends in the South West

Cyber Essentials
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Cyber Essentials skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 116 139 152
Rank change year-on-year +23 +13 +12
Contract jobs citing Cyber Essentials 6 1 4
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 0.31% 0.039% 0.12%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 1.50% 0.30% 0.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 5 0 3
10th Percentile £250 - -
25th Percentile £325 - £190
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 - £200
Median % change year-on-year - - -66.67%
75th Percentile £375 - £274
90th Percentile £536 - £312
England median daily rate £575 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +15.00% -9.09% +22.22%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
South West

Cyber Essentials falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills in the South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 399 328 422
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 20.28% 12.82% 13.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 239 155 273
10th Percentile £235 £253 £350
25th Percentile £353 £427 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% +6.49%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £657
90th Percentile £706 £690 £750
England median daily rate £500 £520 £540
% change year-on-year -3.85% -3.70% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 57 45
10th Percentile £15.52 £12.24 £33.00
25th Percentile £31.25 £28.00 £50.00
Median hourly rate £33.50 £70.00 £68.50
Median % change year-on-year -52.14% +2.19% +26.85%
75th Percentile £65.00 - £83.40
90th Percentile £71.75 £74.00 -
England median hourly rate £32.50 £34.47 £39.42
% change year-on-year -5.70% -12.57% +75.20%

Cyber Essentials
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Cyber Essentials relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Cyber Essentials job vacancy trend in the South West

Cyber Essentials
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Cyber Essentials.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cyber Essentials in the South West over the 6 months to 5 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Cyber Essentials in the South West

Cyber Essentials
Contract Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cyber Essentials within the South West region over the 6 months to 5 October 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
Gloucestershire - 3 £350 - 8
Wiltshire - 2 £613 -
Somerset - 1 £350 - 5
Cyber Essentials
England

Cyber Essentials
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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:

Applications
1 3 (50.00%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 3 (50.00%) Power Platform
2 2 (33.33%) Azure
3 1 (16.67%) AWS
3 1 (16.67%) AWS CloudFormation
3 1 (16.67%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (16.67%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 1 (16.67%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (50.00%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (16.67%) GitLab
1 1 (16.67%) Jenkins
1 1 (16.67%) SonarQube
General
1 3 (50.00%) Analytical Skills
2 2 (33.33%) Social Skills
3 1 (16.67%) Manufacturing
3 1 (16.67%) Military
Job Titles
1 2 (33.33%) Analyst
2 1 (16.67%) Coordinator
2 1 (16.67%) Cybersecurity Analyst
2 1 (16.67%) Cybersecurity Engineer
2 1 (16.67%) Data Analyst
2 1 (16.67%) DevSecOps Engineer
2 1 (16.67%) Junior
2 1 (16.67%) Junior Analyst
2 1 (16.67%) Junior Security Analyst
2 1 (16.67%) Lead
2 1 (16.67%) Project Coordinator
2 1 (16.67%) Security Analyst
2 1 (16.67%) Security Engineer
Operating Systems
1 1 (16.67%) Windows
1 1 (16.67%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (50.00%) Business Intelligence
1 3 (50.00%) Cybersecurity
1 3 (50.00%) Data Cleansing
1 3 (50.00%) Information Security
1 3 (50.00%) Risk Management
2 2 (33.33%) Cloud Security
2 2 (33.33%) Data Analysis
2 2 (33.33%) Decision-Making
2 2 (33.33%) Incident Response
2 2 (33.33%) Information Governance
2 2 (33.33%) Problem-Solving
2 2 (33.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 2 (33.33%) Zero Trust
3 1 (16.67%) Business Analysis
3 1 (16.67%) OWASP
3 1 (16.67%) Product Management
3 1 (16.67%) Project Planning
3 1 (16.67%) Security Testing
3 1 (16.67%) Test Automation
3 1 (16.67%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 2 (33.33%) Python
2 1 (16.67%) Bash
2 1 (16.67%) PowerShell
2 1 (16.67%) SQL
Qualifications
1 3 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 2 (33.33%) SC Cleared
3 1 (16.67%) AWS Certification
3 1 (16.67%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
3 1 (16.67%) CISSP
3 1 (16.67%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (83.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 4 (66.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (50.00%) GDPR
4 1 (16.67%) Accessibility
4 1 (16.67%) JSP 440
4 1 (16.67%) NCSC
System Software
1 1 (16.67%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (16.67%) Ansible
1 1 (16.67%) Grafana
1 1 (16.67%) Kubernetes
1 1 (16.67%) Prometheus
1 1 (16.67%) Terraform
Vendors
1 3 (50.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (16.67%) Qualys
2 1 (16.67%) Splunk