Cyber Defence Contracts in the UK excluding London

Cyber Defence
UK > UK excluding London

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Cyber Defence in contract job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cyber Defence 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 323 282 434
Rank change year-on-year -41 +152 +47
Contract jobs citing Cyber Defence 13 118 28
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.10% 0.57% 0.12%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.31% 1.93% 0.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 60 19
10th Percentile £510 £513 £593
25th Percentile £525 £559 £616
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £645 £650
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -0.77% -10.34%
75th Percentile £725 £850 £700
90th Percentile - - £783
UK median daily rate £638 £645 £735
% change year-on-year -1.16% -12.30% +1.44%

All Generic Skills
UK excluding London

Cyber Defence falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 4,241 6,126 7,826
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 33.22% 29.49% 32.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,608 3,665 5,276
10th Percentile £210 £210 £213
25th Percentile £363 £378 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £598 £618
90th Percentile £665 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 301 723 439
10th Percentile £16.67 £12.15 £9.80
25th Percentile £20.00 £14.06 £10.63
Median hourly rate £31.08 £28.25 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.02% +28.41% +9.64%
75th Percentile £64.52 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.20 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £32.05 £30.00 £22.49
% change year-on-year +6.83% +33.42% -18.24%

Cyber Defence
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Cyber Defence as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Cyber Defence in the UK excluding London

Cyber Defence
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Cyber Defence in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Cyber Defence in the UK excluding London

Cyber Defence
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cyber Defence in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Cyber Defence in the UK excluding London

Cyber Defence
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Cyber Defence in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Cyber Defence in the UK excluding London

Cyber Defence
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 Cyber Defence within the UK excluding London 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
South East +10 5 £700 -12.50% 9
South West +1 3 £550 -5.50% 12
Midlands -10 2 £600 -6.98% 5
West Midlands -18 2 £600 -6.98% 4
East of England - 2 - - 25
Scotland +9 1 - - 5
Cyber Defence
UK

Cyber Defence
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Cloud Services
1 7 (53.85%) Azure
2 6 (46.15%) Azure Sentinel
3 5 (38.46%) AWS
4 3 (23.08%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (15.38%) GCP
6 1 (7.69%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 1 (7.69%) Azure Monitor
6 1 (7.69%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (7.69%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 4 (30.77%) Firewall
2 3 (23.08%) Network Security
3 2 (15.38%) Intrusion Detection
3 2 (15.38%) VSAN
4 1 (7.69%) VPN
General
1 8 (61.54%) Social Skills
2 2 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (7.69%) Influencing Skills
3 1 (7.69%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 3 (23.08%) Analyst
1 3 (23.08%) Architect
1 3 (23.08%) Security Engineer
2 2 (15.38%) Cyber Defence Analyst
2 2 (15.38%) Security Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Automation Engineer
3 1 (7.69%) Operations Analyst
3 1 (7.69%) Principal Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Principal Technical Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Security Analyst
3 1 (7.69%) Senior
3 1 (7.69%) Senior Analyst
3 1 (7.69%) Senior Operations Analyst
3 1 (7.69%) SIEM Engineer
3 1 (7.69%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (15.38%) Elastic Stack
2 1 (7.69%) .NET
2 1 (7.69%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 5 (38.46%) Cyber Threat
2 2 (15.38%) Cloud Native
2 2 (15.38%) Cyber Kill Chain
2 2 (15.38%) PKI
2 2 (15.38%) Security Posture
3 1 (7.69%) Cloud Security Posture
3 1 (7.69%) Cyberattack
3 1 (7.69%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (7.69%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (7.69%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 3 (23.08%) Windows
2 2 (15.38%) Linux
3 1 (7.69%) Unix
3 1 (7.69%) Windows 10
3 1 (7.69%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (53.85%) Cybersecurity
2 6 (46.15%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
2 6 (46.15%) Incident Response
2 6 (46.15%) Threat Intelligence
3 5 (38.46%) SIEM
4 4 (30.77%) Cloud Security
4 4 (30.77%) Continuous Improvement
4 4 (30.77%) Roadmaps
4 4 (30.77%) Vulnerability Management
5 3 (23.08%) Agile
5 3 (23.08%) ITIL
5 3 (23.08%) MITRE ATT&CK
5 3 (23.08%) Process Improvement
5 3 (23.08%) SOAR
5 3 (23.08%) Threat Modelling
5 3 (23.08%) Workload Management
5 3 (23.08%) Zero Trust
6 2 (15.38%) Analytics
6 2 (15.38%) Security Operations
6 2 (15.38%) Threat Analysis
Programming Languages
1 2 (15.38%) Kusto Query Language
1 2 (15.38%) PowerShell
1 2 (15.38%) Python
Qualifications
1 6 (46.15%) Degree
2 5 (38.46%) CISSP
3 4 (30.77%) CompTIA Security+
3 4 (30.77%) SC Cleared
3 4 (30.77%) Security Cleared
4 3 (23.08%) Azure Certification
4 3 (23.08%) ISSEP
4 3 (23.08%) Microsoft Certification
4 3 (23.08%) SSCP
5 2 (15.38%) CISM
5 2 (15.38%) GIAC
5 2 (15.38%) SANS
6 1 (7.69%) AWS Certification
6 1 (7.69%) CEH
6 1 (7.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (7.69%) DV Cleared
6 1 (7.69%) GCFE
6 1 (7.69%) GCIH
6 1 (7.69%) GREM
6 1 (7.69%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (15.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 2 (15.38%) NIST
2 1 (7.69%) GDPR
2 1 (7.69%) NCSC
2 1 (7.69%) SLA
System Software
1 1 (7.69%) VMware ESXi
1 1 (7.69%) VMware Infrastructure
1 1 (7.69%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 1 (7.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
1 1 (7.69%) Ansible
1 1 (7.69%) CASB
1 1 (7.69%) OPNET
1 1 (7.69%) Puppet
Vendors
1 8 (61.54%) Microsoft
2 3 (23.08%) Palo Alto
3 2 (15.38%) ArcSight
3 2 (15.38%) Google
3 2 (15.38%) SolarWinds
3 2 (15.38%) VMware
4 1 (7.69%) Atlassian
4 1 (7.69%) Cisco
4 1 (7.69%) CyberArk
4 1 (7.69%) Forcepoint
4 1 (7.69%) Fortinet
4 1 (7.69%) ServiceNow
4 1 (7.69%) Splunk