Security Engineer Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Security Engineer
South East > Thames Valley

The median Security Engineer daily rate in the Thames Valley is £463, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 December 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 113 101 122
Rank change year-on-year -12 +21 +38
Contract jobs requiring a Security Engineer 15 19 19
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 0.73% 0.94% 0.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.80% 1.02% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 13 14
10th Percentile £393 £360 £485
25th Percentile £413 £425 £545
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £525 £623
Median % change year-on-year -11.90% -15.66% +38.33%
75th Percentile £604 £550 £645
90th Percentile £655 - £650
South East median daily rate £513 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -2.38% -3.67% +17.84%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
Thames Valley

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the Thames Valley. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the Thames Valley with a recognized job title 1,882 1,854 2,358
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.05% 91.69% 94.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,237 1,098 1,527
10th Percentile £268 £254 £213
25th Percentile £400 £402 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £675
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £513
% change year-on-year -2.44% - +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 127 56 110
10th Percentile £14.75 £15.77 £16.40
25th Percentile £18.00 £21.72 £24.63
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.12 £50.53
Median % change year-on-year -45.47% -8.72% +152.64%
75th Percentile £71.75 £62.59 £65.19
90th Percentile £94.86 £66.31 £72.62
South East median hourly rate £25.00 £46.12 £52.20
% change year-on-year -45.80% -11.64% +49.14%

Security Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Security Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Security Engineer job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Security Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Security Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Security Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley

Security Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Engineer in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 14 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Security Engineer in the Thames Valley

Security Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Security Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Security Engineer job vacancies in the Thames Valley

Security Engineer
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 Security Engineer within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 14 December 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 -8 6 £410 -0.61% 10
Buckinghamshire +2 5 £590 +12.38% 15
Oxfordshire - 4 £425 - 4
Security Engineer
South East

Security Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley

For the 6 months to 14 December 2025, Security Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the Thames Valley region featuring Security Engineer in the job title.

1 10 (66.67%) Cybersecurity
2 8 (53.33%) Network Security
2 8 (53.33%) Security Cleared
3 7 (46.67%) SC Cleared
4 6 (40.00%) SIEM
5 5 (33.33%) Cisco
5 5 (33.33%) Microsoft
6 4 (26.67%) CheckPoint
6 4 (26.67%) Firewall
6 4 (26.67%) PowerShell
6 4 (26.67%) Problem-Solving
6 4 (26.67%) SolarWinds
7 3 (20.00%) Azure
7 3 (20.00%) Ethical Hacking
7 3 (20.00%) Fortinet
7 3 (20.00%) NIST
7 3 (20.00%) Python
7 3 (20.00%) Security Operations
7 3 (20.00%) Tanium
7 3 (20.00%) Threat Modelling
8 2 (13.33%) Active Directory
8 2 (13.33%) Analytical Thinking
8 2 (13.33%) CEH
8 2 (13.33%) CISSP
8 2 (13.33%) Cloud Security
8 2 (13.33%) Data Protection
8 2 (13.33%) DevOps
8 2 (13.33%) DNS
8 2 (13.33%) DV Cleared
8 2 (13.33%) Entra ID

Security Engineer Skill Set
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 3 (20.00%) Azure
2 2 (13.33%) Entra ID
2 2 (13.33%) Microsoft Purview
2 2 (13.33%) SaaS
3 1 (6.67%) AWS
3 1 (6.67%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (6.67%) Azure Sentinel
3 1 (6.67%) Cloud Computing
3 1 (6.67%) GCP
3 1 (6.67%) GitHub
3 1 (6.67%) IaaS
3 1 (6.67%) Microsoft 365
3 1 (6.67%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (53.33%) Network Security
2 4 (26.67%) Firewall
3 2 (13.33%) DNS
4 1 (6.67%) Cisco IPT
4 1 (6.67%) Cisco ISE
4 1 (6.67%) DMVPN
4 1 (6.67%) HTTP
4 1 (6.67%) IPsec
4 1 (6.67%) SSL
4 1 (6.67%) TCP/IP
4 1 (6.67%) VPN
4 1 (6.67%) WAN
4 1 (6.67%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 1 (6.67%) Git
General
1 6 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 4 (26.67%) Public Sector
3 3 (20.00%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (6.67%) French Language
4 1 (6.67%) German Language
4 1 (6.67%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (6.67%) 802.1X
1 1 (6.67%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 2 (13.33%) Security Posture
2 1 (6.67%) Analytical Mindset
2 1 (6.67%) Clustering
2 1 (6.67%) Cyber Kill Chain
2 1 (6.67%) Cyber Security Posture
2 1 (6.67%) Cyber Threat
2 1 (6.67%) Data Centre
2 1 (6.67%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (6.67%) Driving Licence
2 1 (6.67%) Greenfield Project
2 1 (6.67%) Hybrid Cloud
2 1 (6.67%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 2 (13.33%) Linux
2 1 (6.67%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (66.67%) Cybersecurity
2 6 (40.00%) SIEM
3 4 (26.67%) Problem-Solving
4 3 (20.00%) Ethical Hacking
4 3 (20.00%) Security Operations
4 3 (20.00%) Threat Modelling
5 2 (13.33%) Analytical Thinking
5 2 (13.33%) Cloud Security
5 2 (13.33%) Data Protection
5 2 (13.33%) DevOps
5 2 (13.33%) Incident Response
5 2 (13.33%) Information Security
5 2 (13.33%) MITRE ATT&CK
5 2 (13.33%) Risk Management
6 1 (6.67%) Actionable Insight
6 1 (6.67%) CI/CD
6 1 (6.67%) Customer Experience
6 1 (6.67%) Data Pipeline
6 1 (6.67%) Proactive Monitoring
6 1 (6.67%) SOAR
Programming Languages
1 4 (26.67%) PowerShell
2 3 (20.00%) Python
3 1 (6.67%) Kusto Query Language
3 1 (6.67%) SQL
Qualifications
1 8 (53.33%) Security Cleared
2 7 (46.67%) SC Cleared
3 2 (13.33%) CEH
3 2 (13.33%) CISSP
3 2 (13.33%) DV Cleared
4 1 (6.67%) CCNA
4 1 (6.67%) Cisco Certification
4 1 (6.67%) CompTIA Security+
4 1 (6.67%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (20.00%) NIST
2 2 (13.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (6.67%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 2 (13.33%) Active Directory
2 1 (6.67%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 1 (6.67%) Failover Clustering
1 1 (6.67%) Kibana
1 1 (6.67%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 5 (33.33%) Cisco
1 5 (33.33%) Microsoft
2 4 (26.67%) CheckPoint
2 4 (26.67%) SolarWinds
3 3 (20.00%) Fortinet
3 3 (20.00%) Tanium
4 2 (13.33%) FireEye
5 1 (6.67%) Blue Coat
5 1 (6.67%) F5
5 1 (6.67%) Juniper
5 1 (6.67%) Salesforce
5 1 (6.67%) Splunk