NCSC Contracts in the Thames Valley

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the Thames Valley requiring NCSC skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited NCSC over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 65 116 144
Rank change year-on-year +51 +28 +18
Contract jobs citing NCSC 37 29 7
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 2.45% 1.08% 0.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 12.21% 6.22% 1.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 6 4
10th Percentile £566 - £541
25th Percentile £614 £606 £603
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £653 £613 £675
Median % change year-on-year +6.53% -9.26% +10.20%
75th Percentile £743 £637 £734
90th Percentile £751 £643 £773
South East median daily rate £630 £613 £700
% change year-on-year +2.86% -12.50% +33.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £60.75 - £71.20
Median hourly rate £61.50 - £72.40
75th Percentile £87.50 - £73.59
90th Percentile £90.50 - -
South East median hourly rate £67.40 - £72.40

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
Thames Valley

NCSC 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 303 466 433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 20.05% 17.35% 14.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 162 246 261
10th Percentile £300 £180 £252
25th Percentile £412 £315 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - +5.56%
75th Percentile £614 £575 £550
90th Percentile £688 £600 £675
South East median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 25 15
10th Percentile £29.62 £18.20 £18.50
25th Percentile £46.30 £22.50 £19.75
Median hourly rate £61.50 £27.50 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +123.62% +19.57% +9.52%
75th Percentile £66.56 £65.00 £38.00
90th Percentile £79.50 £66.50 £65.66
South East median hourly rate £46.30 £27.50 £31.00
% change year-on-year +68.36% -11.29% +47.44%

NCSC
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Job postings citing NCSC as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Job vacancy trend for NCSC in the Thames Valley

NCSC
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing NCSC in the Thames Valley.

Daily rate trend for NCSC in the Thames Valley

NCSC
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NCSC in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for NCSC in the Thames Valley

NCSC
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing NCSC in the Thames Valley.

Hourly rate trend for NCSC in the Thames Valley

NCSC
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing NCSC in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for NCSC in the Thames Valley

NCSC
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 NCSC within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
Buckinghamshire +28 18 £630 +2.86% 3
Berkshire +26 18 £734 - 5
Oxfordshire - 1 £675 - 3
NCSC
South East

NCSC
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Thames Valley by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 2 (5.41%) Camunda
1 2 (5.41%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (2.70%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 10 (27.03%) AWS
1 10 (27.03%) Azure
1 10 (27.03%) PaaS
1 10 (27.03%) SaaS
2 8 (21.62%) IaaS
3 3 (8.11%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (5.41%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 2 (5.41%) Amazon ECS
4 2 (5.41%) AWS Fargate
4 2 (5.41%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 10 (27.03%) VSAN
2 4 (10.81%) BGP
2 4 (10.81%) Cisco Nexus
2 4 (10.81%) MPLS
2 4 (10.81%) NGFW
2 4 (10.81%) OSPF
2 4 (10.81%) SD-WAN
2 4 (10.81%) TCP/IP
2 4 (10.81%) VPN
2 4 (10.81%) WAN
3 3 (8.11%) DNS
3 3 (8.11%) Firewall
3 3 (8.11%) VLAN
4 2 (5.41%) Cisco ASA
5 1 (2.70%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.41%) Amazon RDS
1 2 (5.41%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 2 (5.41%) Jenkins
1 2 (5.41%) JIRA
1 2 (5.41%) Terragrunt
General
1 12 (32.43%) Public Sector
2 5 (13.51%) Military
3 4 (10.81%) Social Skills
4 3 (8.11%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (8.11%) Telecoms
5 1 (2.70%) Automotive
5 1 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (2.70%) Law
Job Titles
1 20 (54.05%) Architect
2 17 (45.95%) Senior
3 13 (35.14%) Technical Architect
4 10 (27.03%) Senior Architect
4 10 (27.03%) Senior Technical Architect
5 6 (16.22%) Auditor
5 6 (16.22%) Security Auditor
6 5 (13.51%) Information Security Specialist
6 5 (13.51%) Information Specialist
6 5 (13.51%) Security Specialist
7 4 (10.81%) Infrastructure Technical Architect
7 4 (10.81%) Principal Architect
7 4 (10.81%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
7 4 (10.81%) Senior Information Security Specialist
7 4 (10.81%) Senior Security Specialist
7 4 (10.81%) Technical Infrastructure Architect
8 3 (8.11%) Consultant
8 3 (8.11%) Security Advisor
9 2 (5.41%) Java Architect
9 2 (5.41%) Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (5.41%) AngularJS
1 2 (5.41%) Kafka
1 2 (5.41%) Keycloak
1 2 (5.41%) OpenJDK
1 2 (5.41%) Spring Boot
2 1 (2.70%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (2.70%) JBoss Seam
Miscellaneous
1 11 (29.73%) Hybrid Cloud
2 10 (27.03%) Management Information System
2 10 (27.03%) PKI
3 8 (21.62%) Public Cloud
4 2 (5.41%) Operational Technology
5 1 (2.70%) SCADA
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (51.35%) Containerisation
2 18 (48.65%) TOGAF
3 16 (43.24%) CI/CD
4 15 (40.54%) Microservices
5 14 (37.84%) DevSecOps
5 14 (37.84%) Infrastructure as Code
6 13 (35.14%) Continuous Delivery
6 13 (35.14%) Continuous Integration
6 13 (35.14%) ITIL
6 13 (35.14%) Zachman Framework
7 12 (32.43%) IT Strategy
7 12 (32.43%) Technology Strategy
8 11 (29.73%) Risk Management
8 11 (29.73%) Security Architecture
9 10 (27.03%) Agile
9 10 (27.03%) Decision-Making
9 10 (27.03%) Matrix Organization
9 10 (27.03%) Vulnerability Assessment
10 9 (24.32%) Cybersecurity
10 9 (24.32%) Risk Assessment
Programming Languages
1 2 (5.41%) Java
Qualifications
1 32 (86.49%) Security Cleared
2 23 (62.16%) SC Cleared
3 16 (43.24%) DV Cleared
4 14 (37.84%) MCSE
4 14 (37.84%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (27.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 5 (13.51%) CCNP
6 5 (13.51%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (10.81%) CISM
8 2 (5.41%) AWS Certification
8 2 (5.41%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (5.41%) Degree
9 1 (2.70%) CEH
9 1 (2.70%) CISA
9 1 (2.70%) CISSP
9 1 (2.70%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (48.65%) NIST
2 12 (32.43%) Cyber Essentials
3 5 (13.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (2.70%) JSP 440
System Software
1 12 (32.43%) VMware Infrastructure
1 12 (32.43%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 2 (5.41%) Terraform
Vendors
1 16 (43.24%) VMware
2 12 (32.43%) Cisco
2 12 (32.43%) Palo Alto
3 4 (10.81%) Microsoft
4 1 (2.70%) Darktrace