Cyber Essentials PLUS Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Cyber Essentials PLUS
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Cyber Essentials PLUS skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 31 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 161 107 -
Rank change year-on-year -54 - -
Contract jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS 2 5 0
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 0.061% 0.30% -
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.32% 1.39% -
Number of daily rates quoted 2 4 0
10th Percentile £388 £476 -
25th Percentile £406 £523 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £575 -
Median % change year-on-year -23.91% - -
75th Percentile £469 £600 -
90th Percentile £488 - -
South East median daily rate £550 £575 -
% change year-on-year -4.35% - -

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
Thames Valley

Cyber Essentials PLUS 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 Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 617 360 339
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.82% 21.65% 14.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 402 196 150
10th Percentile £357 £301 £248
25th Percentile £431 £400 £366
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £532 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year +6.41% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £625 £588 £562
90th Percentile £725 £650 £653
South East median daily rate £525 £500 £475
% change year-on-year +5.00% +5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 30 25
10th Percentile £18.32 £15.12 £18.20
25th Percentile £33.70 £15.13 £22.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £46.30 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.39% +54.33% -33.33%
75th Percentile £82.44 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £94.50 £89.63 £69.11
South East median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £27.50
% change year-on-year +108.75% -8.55% -42.11%

Cyber Essentials PLUS
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

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

Cyber Essentials PLUS job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Cyber Essentials PLUS
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Cyber Essentials PLUS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Cyber Essentials PLUS

Cyber Essentials PLUS
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 31 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cyber Essentials PLUS in the Thames Valley

Cyber Essentials PLUS
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 31 July 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
Berkshire -23 1 £375 - 4
Buckinghamshire -38 1 £500 -9.09%
Cyber Essentials PLUS
South East

Cyber Essentials PLUS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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:

Cloud Services
1 2 (100.00%) Azure
1 2 (100.00%) Entra ID
2 1 (50.00%) AWS
2 1 (50.00%) Azure Sentinel
2 1 (50.00%) Microsoft 365
2 1 (50.00%) Microsoft Purview
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (50.00%) Data Lake
1 1 (50.00%) Data Warehouse
General
1 1 (50.00%) Social Skills
1 1 (50.00%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 1 (50.00%) Architect
1 1 (50.00%) Cybersecurity Architect
1 1 (50.00%) Data Analytics Architect
1 1 (50.00%) Microsoft Engineer
1 1 (50.00%) Security Architect
1 1 (50.00%) Systems Engineer
1 1 (50.00%) Telecoms Architect
Miscellaneous
1 1 (50.00%) Cloud Native
1 1 (50.00%) Enterprise Software
Processes & Methodologies
1 1 (50.00%) AI
1 1 (50.00%) Analytics
1 1 (50.00%) API Design
1 1 (50.00%) Configuration Management
1 1 (50.00%) Continuous Improvement
1 1 (50.00%) Cybersecurity
1 1 (50.00%) Data Engineering
1 1 (50.00%) Data Governance
1 1 (50.00%) Data Protection
1 1 (50.00%) DevOps
1 1 (50.00%) ITIL
1 1 (50.00%) Machine Learning
1 1 (50.00%) Risk Management
1 1 (50.00%) SDLC
1 1 (50.00%) Security Architecture
1 1 (50.00%) Security Testing
1 1 (50.00%) SIEM
1 1 (50.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
1 1 (50.00%) Test Automation
1 1 (50.00%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 1 (50.00%) PowerShell
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (100.00%) Cyber Essentials
1 2 (100.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (50.00%) GDPR
2 1 (50.00%) GRC
2 1 (50.00%) NIST
2 1 (50.00%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 1 (50.00%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 1 (50.00%) Kubernetes
1 1 (50.00%) Microsoft Intune
1 1 (50.00%) QRadar
Vendors
1 2 (100.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (50.00%) Splunk