CISSP Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

(ISC)² Certified Information Systems Security Professional (ISC2 CISSP)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London with a requirement for CISSP qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 1 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 173 210 172
Rank change year-on-year +37 -38 +100
Contract jobs citing CISSP 274 141 262
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 1.50% 0.97% 1.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.04% 2.79% 3.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 192 100 191
10th Percentile £384 £461 £475
25th Percentile £454 £504 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £600 £615
Median % change year-on-year -13.58% -2.44% +1.44%
75th Percentile £638 £666 £675
90th Percentile £736 £728 £750
UK median daily rate £550 £613 £614
% change year-on-year -10.20% -0.20% -1.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 3 4
10th Percentile - £68.86 -
25th Percentile £41.94 £69.76 £68.26
Median hourly rate £80.00 £73.31 £78.36
Median % change year-on-year +9.13% -6.44% +15.66%
75th Percentile £88.75 £80.78 £84.31
90th Percentile £100.35 £82.23 £85.92
UK median hourly rate £57.50 £78.40 £78.36
% change year-on-year -26.66% +0.05% +15.66%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK excluding London

CISSP 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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 6,776 5,047 7,153
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 36.99% 34.69% 36.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,255 3,012 4,335
10th Percentile £256 £225 £250
25th Percentile £405 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £502 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.37% -7.07% +2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £649
90th Percentile £705 £700 £703
UK median daily rate £521 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 856 393 618
10th Percentile £16.00 £18.50 £15.93
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £26.35
Median hourly rate £25.15 £41.50 £51.90
Median % change year-on-year -39.40% -20.03% +20.43%
75th Percentile £51.53 £67.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £79.78
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -37.13% -23.81% +16.67%

CISSP
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing CISSP relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

CISSP job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

CISSP
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing CISSP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing CISSP

CISSP
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing CISSP in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for CISSP in the UK excluding London

CISSP
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing CISSP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing CISSP

CISSP
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing CISSP in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for CISSP in the UK excluding London

CISSP
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing CISSP within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 January 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
South East +35 92 £480 -20.00% 58
North of England +1 84 £525 -12.50% 23
Yorkshire -10 49 £500 -23.08% 7
South West +9 34 £619 -4.81% 24
Midlands -30 33 £525 -13.93% 19
North West -20 28 £525 -12.50% 15
West Midlands -21 27 £625 - 11
Scotland +13 17 £588 +23.68% 6
East of England -18 9 £500 -13.04% 15
Wales +4 8 £625 -10.71% 5
North East - 8 £725 - 1
East Midlands -21 6 £437 -27.17% 8
Northern Ireland - 2 £500 - 1
CISSP
UK

CISSP
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Application Platforms
1 25 (9.12%) Confluence
2 2 (0.73%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.36%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (1.82%) Microsoft Project
2 4 (1.46%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (2.19%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 98 (35.77%) AWS
2 95 (34.67%) Azure
3 58 (21.17%) GCP
4 23 (8.39%) OpenShift
5 13 (4.74%) Entra ID
6 12 (4.38%) Microsoft 365
7 11 (4.01%) Azure Sentinel
8 9 (3.28%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 7 (2.55%) Azure AKS
10 6 (2.19%) Azure DevOps
10 6 (2.19%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (2.19%) IaaS
10 6 (2.19%) PaaS
11 5 (1.82%) Microsoft Purview
11 5 (1.82%) SaaS
12 4 (1.46%) Power Platform
13 3 (1.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 2 (0.73%) AWS Direct Connect
14 2 (0.73%) Google Workspace
15 1 (0.36%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 50 (18.25%) Firewall
2 45 (16.42%) Network Security
3 29 (10.58%) VPN
4 9 (3.28%) DNS
4 9 (3.28%) SSL
5 6 (2.19%) Intrusion Detection
5 6 (2.19%) LAN
5 6 (2.19%) TCP/IP
5 6 (2.19%) WAN
6 5 (1.82%) BGP
6 5 (1.82%) Kerberos
6 5 (1.82%) OSPF
6 5 (1.82%) SD-WAN
7 4 (1.46%) DHCP
7 4 (1.46%) IPv4
7 4 (1.46%) IPv6
7 4 (1.46%) MPLS
7 4 (1.46%) VXLAN
7 4 (1.46%) Wireless
7 4 (1.46%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.19%) MongoDB
1 6 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (0.73%) Power BI
2 2 (0.73%) Tableau
3 1 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 39 (14.23%) JIRA
2 8 (2.92%) GitLab
2 8 (2.92%) Postman
2 8 (2.92%) SoapUI
3 3 (1.09%) Burp Suite
3 3 (1.09%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.73%) Git
4 2 (0.73%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.36%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.36%) Snyk
5 1 (0.36%) TestDirector
General
1 114 (41.61%) Social Skills
2 64 (23.36%) Analytical Skills
3 52 (18.98%) Finance
4 33 (12.04%) Public Sector
5 22 (8.03%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (3.65%) Legal
7 9 (3.28%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (2.19%) Telecoms
9 5 (1.82%) Electronics
9 5 (1.82%) Manufacturing
9 5 (1.82%) Marketing
9 5 (1.82%) Military
9 5 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (1.46%) Aerospace
11 3 (1.09%) Banking
11 3 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.73%) Law
13 1 (0.36%) Automotive
13 1 (0.36%) Financial Institution
13 1 (0.36%) Retail
Job Titles
1 76 (27.74%) Architect
2 54 (19.71%) Security Architect
3 43 (15.69%) Analyst
4 29 (10.58%) Security Engineer
5 27 (9.85%) Solutions Architect
6 23 (8.39%) Consultant
7 21 (7.66%) Lead
8 20 (7.30%) Senior
9 19 (6.93%) Security Analyst
10 16 (5.84%) Security Consultant
10 16 (5.84%) SIEM Engineer
11 15 (5.47%) Security Solutions Architect
12 11 (4.01%) SOC Analyst
13 9 (3.28%) Network Architect
13 9 (3.28%) Security Manager
13 9 (3.28%) Security Specialist
14 8 (2.92%) Cybersecurity Architect
14 8 (2.92%) Lead Architect
15 7 (2.55%) Cybersecurity Analyst
15 7 (2.55%) Cybersecurity Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (8.76%) LDAP
2 11 (4.01%) OAuth
3 9 (3.28%) SailPoint
3 9 (3.28%) SAML
4 7 (2.55%) ARM Templates
5 6 (2.19%) ModSecurity
6 5 (1.82%) REST
7 4 (1.46%) SOAP
8 3 (1.09%) OAuth2
9 2 (0.73%) Flash
9 2 (0.73%) OpenID
9 2 (0.73%) Smart Contracts
10 1 (0.36%) Elastic Stack
10 1 (0.36%) JSON
10 1 (0.36%) JWT
10 1 (0.36%) Lucene
10 1 (0.36%) SLSA
Miscellaneous
1 33 (12.04%) Management Information System
2 26 (9.49%) Security Operations Centre
3 24 (8.76%) Security Posture
4 23 (8.39%) Cyber Threat
5 17 (6.20%) Cloud Native
6 16 (5.84%) PKI
7 14 (5.11%) Cyber Security Posture
7 14 (5.11%) Hybrid Cloud
8 13 (4.74%) Enterprise Software
9 12 (4.38%) Cyber Defence
10 9 (3.28%) Cloud Security Posture
10 9 (3.28%) Operational Technology
11 7 (2.55%) Data Centre
12 5 (1.82%) Public Cloud
12 5 (1.82%) SCADA
13 3 (1.09%) Algorithms
13 3 (1.09%) BYOD
13 3 (1.09%) CSOC
13 3 (1.09%) Smartcard
13 3 (1.09%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 27 (9.85%) Linux
1 27 (9.85%) Windows
2 9 (3.28%) Unix
3 7 (2.55%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.73%) Kali Linux
4 2 (0.73%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 154 (56.20%) Cybersecurity
2 95 (34.67%) SIEM
3 92 (33.58%) Incident Response
4 70 (25.55%) Cloud Security
5 65 (23.72%) Problem-Solving
6 63 (22.99%) Security Operations
7 55 (20.07%) TOGAF
8 54 (19.71%) Identity Access Management
9 53 (19.34%) CI/CD
10 52 (18.98%) DevSecOps
11 50 (18.25%) Risk Management
12 46 (16.79%) DevOps
13 45 (16.42%) Security Architecture
14 44 (16.06%) Information Security
15 42 (15.33%) Vulnerability Management
16 40 (14.60%) Agile
17 34 (12.41%) Threat Modelling
17 34 (12.41%) Zero Trust
18 33 (12.04%) Privileged Access Management
19 31 (11.31%) Threat Detection
Programming Languages
1 57 (20.80%) Python
2 52 (18.98%) PowerShell
3 13 (4.74%) Kusto Query Language
4 7 (2.55%) Bicep
5 6 (2.19%) Bash
6 4 (1.46%) BeanShell
6 4 (1.46%) Java
7 3 (1.09%) SQL
8 2 (0.73%) Rust
8 2 (0.73%) Solidity
9 1 (0.36%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.36%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 163 (59.49%) CISM
2 97 (35.40%) Security Cleared
3 72 (26.28%) SC Cleared
4 69 (25.18%) Degree
5 40 (14.60%) GIAC
6 37 (13.50%) CEH
7 29 (10.58%) DV Cleared
8 27 (9.85%) Azure Certification
8 27 (9.85%) Cisco Certification
9 21 (7.66%) CISA
9 21 (7.66%) TOGAF Certification
10 20 (7.30%) AWS Certification
11 19 (6.93%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 19 (6.93%) CompTIA Security+
12 17 (6.20%) GCIH
12 17 (6.20%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (5.47%) CCSP
14 14 (5.11%) Master's Degree
15 13 (4.74%) GCFA
15 13 (4.74%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (46.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 126 (45.99%) NIST
3 70 (25.55%) GDPR
4 34 (12.41%) PCI DSS
5 17 (6.20%) NCSC
6 16 (5.84%) NIST 800
7 13 (4.74%) JSP 440
8 11 (4.01%) COBIT
9 10 (3.65%) HIPAA
9 10 (3.65%) QA
10 9 (3.28%) Cyber Essentials
11 8 (2.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 7 (2.55%) GRC
12 7 (2.55%) PSD2
13 6 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 5 (1.82%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (1.82%) RMADS
15 4 (1.46%) Def Stans
15 4 (1.46%) PMO
15 4 (1.46%) SOC 2
System Software
1 34 (12.41%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.55%) Docker
3 4 (1.46%) VMware NSX
4 3 (1.09%) Firmware
4 3 (1.09%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.73%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 33 (12.04%) Kubernetes
2 18 (6.57%) Terraform
3 12 (4.38%) Kibana
4 11 (4.01%) Ansible
5 10 (3.65%) Single Sign-On
6 9 (3.28%) QRadar
7 8 (2.92%) Fluentd
8 5 (1.82%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 4 (1.46%) Nessus
9 4 (1.46%) RSA Archer
10 3 (1.09%) CASB
10 3 (1.09%) FortiGate
10 3 (1.09%) Grafana
10 3 (1.09%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.73%) EnCase
11 2 (0.73%) FTK
11 2 (0.73%) Nmap
11 2 (0.73%) PingFederate
11 2 (0.73%) SCCM
12 1 (0.36%) Nagios
Vendors
1 72 (26.28%) Microsoft
2 46 (16.79%) CyberArk
3 35 (12.77%) Splunk
4 25 (9.12%) BeyondTrust
5 18 (6.57%) BiZZdesign
6 16 (5.84%) ArcSight
7 14 (5.11%) Centrify
7 14 (5.11%) Thycotic
8 13 (4.74%) CrowdStrike
9 11 (4.01%) FireEye
9 11 (4.01%) Google
9 11 (4.01%) Tanium
10 10 (3.65%) IBM
10 10 (3.65%) ServiceNow
11 9 (3.28%) Fortinet
11 9 (3.28%) Tenable
12 8 (2.92%) Cisco
12 8 (2.92%) Palo Alto
13 7 (2.55%) LogRhythm
13 7 (2.55%) SAP