SANS Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

SANS Institute
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the Thames Valley with a requirement for SANS qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 23 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 115 - 112
Rank change year-on-year - - +73
Contract jobs citing SANS 4 0 26
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 0.23% - 0.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.62% - 2.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 0 1
10th Percentile £441 - -
25th Percentile £492 - -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £581 - £600
Median % change year-on-year - - +9.09%
75th Percentile £667 - -
90th Percentile £717 - -
South East median daily rate £581 - £673
% change year-on-year - - +28.14%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
Thames Valley

SANS falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 646 849 1,058
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 36.68% 39.20% 40.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 416 506 695
10th Percentile £220 £252 £214
25th Percentile £372 £401 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.45% -4.57% +5.00%
75th Percentile £560 £625 £625
90th Percentile £625 £700 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £525 £537
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.14% +2.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 61 55
10th Percentile £18.87 £25.99 £17.15
25th Percentile £20.81 £48.18 £48.40
Median hourly rate £25.15 £61.50 £63.00
Median % change year-on-year -59.10% -2.39% +200.00%
75th Percentile £31.28 £69.69 £72.33
90th Percentile £87.57 £100.00 £75.67
South East median hourly rate £25.15 £58.49 £60.00
% change year-on-year -57.00% -2.52% +33.33%

SANS
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

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

SANS job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

SANS
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing SANS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing SANS

SANS
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SANS in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 23 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SANS in the Thames Valley

SANS
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 SANS within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 23 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
Berkshire - 4 £581 - 1
SANS
South East

SANS
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 1 (25.00%) AWS
1 1 (25.00%) Azure
1 1 (25.00%) GCP
1 1 (25.00%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 1 (25.00%) Internet
1 1 (25.00%) Intranet
1 1 (25.00%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 1 (25.00%) Burp Suite
General
1 4 (100.00%) Social Skills
2 1 (25.00%) Finance
2 1 (25.00%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 2 (50.00%) Cybersecurity Specialist
1 2 (50.00%) Security Specialist
2 1 (25.00%) Consultant
2 1 (25.00%) Penetration Tester
2 1 (25.00%) SOC Consultant
2 1 (25.00%) Tester
Miscellaneous
1 3 (75.00%) Security Operations Centre
2 2 (50.00%) CSOC
2 2 (50.00%) Cyber Threat
3 1 (25.00%) Cyber Kill Chain
3 1 (25.00%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 1 (25.00%) Kali Linux
1 1 (25.00%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 3 (75.00%) Incident Response
2 3 (75.00%) MITRE ATT&CK
2 3 (75.00%) Security Operations
2 3 (75.00%) SIEM
3 2 (50.00%) Agile
3 2 (50.00%) DevSecOps
4 1 (25.00%) Blue Team
4 1 (25.00%) Cloud Security
4 1 (25.00%) Coaching
4 1 (25.00%) Cyber Resilience
4 1 (25.00%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
4 1 (25.00%) Mentoring
4 1 (25.00%) OSINT
4 1 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
4 1 (25.00%) Red Team
4 1 (25.00%) Roadmaps
4 1 (25.00%) SDLC
4 1 (25.00%) Social Engineering
4 1 (25.00%) Threat Intelligence
Qualifications
1 4 (100.00%) CISSP
2 3 (75.00%) CISM
2 3 (75.00%) Degree
3 2 (50.00%) CREST Certified
3 2 (50.00%) GIAC
4 1 (25.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 1 (25.00%) CCSP
4 1 (25.00%) Cisco Certification
4 1 (25.00%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (25.00%) GCED
4 1 (25.00%) GCIA
4 1 (25.00%) Master's Degree
4 1 (25.00%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (75.00%) NIST
2 1 (25.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
Systems Management
1 1 (25.00%) Nessus
1 1 (25.00%) Nmap
1 1 (25.00%) QRadar
Vendors
1 1 (25.00%) Microsoft
1 1 (25.00%) Splunk