NCSC Contracts in the UK excluding London

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London 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 3 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 259 300 308
Rank change year-on-year +41 +8 +109
Contract jobs citing NCSC 75 94 147
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.59% 0.45% 0.61%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.64% 3.02% 4.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 45 42 89
10th Percentile £500 £525 £545
25th Percentile £566 £563 £613
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £663 £600 £700
Median % change year-on-year +10.42% -14.29% +14.29%
75th Percentile £743 £650 £788
90th Percentile £750 £700 £838
UK median daily rate £650 £625 £675
% change year-on-year +4.00% -7.41% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 23
10th Percentile - - £59.73
25th Percentile £60.75 - £62.00
Median hourly rate £78.36 £80.00 £72.98
Median % change year-on-year -2.05% +9.62% +15.84%
75th Percentile £88.75 - £83.36
90th Percentile £92.50 - £83.40
UK median hourly rate £78.36 £81.71 £73.99
% change year-on-year -4.09% +10.43% +17.44%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 2,061 3,114 3,556
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 16.13% 15.04% 14.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,294 1,822 2,393
10th Percentile £211 £254 £219
25th Percentile £363 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% +2.63% +5.56%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £667 £687 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 137 307 183
10th Percentile £17.72 £10.95 £12.67
25th Percentile £24.18 £12.53 £18.09
Median hourly rate £46.30 £18.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +157.22% -48.57% +66.27%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.38 £61.00
90th Percentile £80.32 £67.43 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £34.75 £20.61 £36.25
% change year-on-year +68.65% -43.16% +31.82%

NCSC
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Job vacancy trend for NCSC in the UK excluding London

NCSC
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate trend for NCSC in the UK excluding London

NCSC
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NCSC in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 3 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for NCSC in the UK excluding London

NCSC
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate trend for NCSC in the UK excluding London

NCSC
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing NCSC in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 3 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for NCSC in the UK excluding London

NCSC
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 NCSC within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 3 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 +31 39 £653 +6.53% 28
North of England +19 15 £725 +26.09% 17
Midlands +25 10 £650 +13.04% 13
West Midlands +20 10 £650 +13.04% 10
South West +3 7 £700 +16.67% 18
Scotland +12 6 £550 -4.35% 8
Yorkshire +12 6 £725 +26.09% 3
North West +10 5 £706 +22.83% 7
North East - 4 £625 - 7
East of England +38 1 - - 7
Wales - 1 £488 - 4
NCSC
UK

NCSC
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:

Application Platforms
1 8 (10.67%) nginx
2 7 (9.33%) Traefik
3 3 (4.00%) Confluence
4 2 (2.67%) Camunda
4 2 (2.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (2.67%) SharePoint
4 2 (2.67%) SharePoint Server
5 1 (1.33%) Apache
5 1 (1.33%) IIS
5 1 (1.33%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (4.00%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 23 (30.67%) AWS
2 19 (25.33%) Azure
3 12 (16.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 11 (14.67%) Amazon ECS
4 11 (14.67%) AWS Fargate
5 10 (13.33%) AWS CloudFormation
6 9 (12.00%) Entra ID
6 9 (12.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 8 (10.67%) PaaS
8 7 (9.33%) Microsoft 365
9 6 (8.00%) IaaS
9 6 (8.00%) SaaS
10 3 (4.00%) GitHub
11 1 (1.33%) Amazon EKS
11 1 (1.33%) Azure DevOps
11 1 (1.33%) GCP
11 1 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 14 (18.67%) DNS
2 13 (17.33%) TCP/IP
3 7 (9.33%) Firewall
4 6 (8.00%) VSAN
5 5 (6.67%) SD-WAN
5 5 (6.67%) VPN
5 5 (6.67%) WAN
6 4 (5.33%) BGP
6 4 (5.33%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (5.33%) MPLS
6 4 (5.33%) NGFW
6 4 (5.33%) OSPF
7 3 (4.00%) Modbus
7 3 (4.00%) MQTT
7 3 (4.00%) Network Security
7 3 (4.00%) VLAN
8 2 (2.67%) 5G
8 2 (2.67%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (2.67%) Intrusion Detection
8 2 (2.67%) LoRaWAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (12.00%) MongoDB
2 3 (4.00%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (1.33%) Amazon Aurora
4 1 (1.33%) MariaDB
4 1 (1.33%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 13 (17.33%) Jenkins
2 10 (13.33%) GitLab
3 5 (6.67%) JIRA
4 4 (5.33%) Git
5 2 (2.67%) Terragrunt
6 1 (1.33%) SonarQube
General
1 23 (30.67%) Public Sector
2 16 (21.33%) Social Skills
3 9 (12.00%) Military
4 5 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (4.00%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.67%) Publishing
7 1 (1.33%) Automotive
7 1 (1.33%) Law
7 1 (1.33%) Marketing
7 1 (1.33%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 27 (36.00%) Architect
2 21 (28.00%) Senior
3 11 (14.67%) Technical Architect
4 8 (10.67%) Security Architect
4 8 (10.67%) Senior DevOps
5 7 (9.33%) DevOps Engineer
6 6 (8.00%) Auditor
6 6 (8.00%) Security Auditor
6 6 (8.00%) Security Specialist
7 5 (6.67%) Information Security Specialist
7 5 (6.67%) Information Specialist
7 5 (6.67%) Principal Architect
7 5 (6.67%) Senior Architect
7 5 (6.67%) Senior DevOps Engineer
7 5 (6.67%) Senior Technical Architect
8 4 (5.33%) Consultant
8 4 (5.33%) Lead
8 4 (5.33%) Senior Data Warehouse Specialist
8 4 (5.33%) Senior Information Security Specialist
8 4 (5.33%) Senior Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (14.67%) Kafka
1 11 (14.67%) Keycloak
2 9 (12.00%) cloud-init
3 4 (5.33%) AngularJS
4 3 (4.00%) .NET
4 3 (4.00%) RESTful
4 3 (4.00%) YAML
5 2 (2.67%) .NET Framework
5 2 (2.67%) ActiveMQ
5 2 (2.67%) Ajax
5 2 (2.67%) CSS
5 2 (2.67%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (2.67%) Entity Framework
5 2 (2.67%) HTML
5 2 (2.67%) JMS
5 2 (2.67%) Middleware
5 2 (2.67%) OpenJDK
5 2 (2.67%) RabbitMQ
5 2 (2.67%) Spring Boot
5 2 (2.67%) UIKit
Miscellaneous
1 17 (22.67%) Management Information System
2 16 (21.33%) PKI
3 11 (14.67%) Operational Technology
4 8 (10.67%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (10.67%) Public Cloud
5 6 (8.00%) SCADA
6 4 (5.33%) Industrial Internet of Things
6 4 (5.33%) IoT
7 2 (2.67%) Mobile App
7 2 (2.67%) NB-IoT
8 1 (1.33%) Algorithms
8 1 (1.33%) Cyber Defence
8 1 (1.33%) Cyber Threat
8 1 (1.33%) Cyberattack
8 1 (1.33%) Data Structures
8 1 (1.33%) Security Posture
8 1 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 14 (18.67%) Linux
2 10 (13.33%) CentOS
2 10 (13.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 9 (12.00%) Unix
4 4 (5.33%) Apple iOS
4 4 (5.33%) Windows
5 3 (4.00%) Mac OS
5 3 (4.00%) Windows 10
6 2 (2.67%) AIX
6 2 (2.67%) Android
6 2 (2.67%) Windows Server
6 2 (2.67%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (2.67%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (38.67%) Cybersecurity
2 25 (33.33%) Infrastructure as Code
3 24 (32.00%) CI/CD
4 20 (26.67%) Agile
5 19 (25.33%) DevOps
6 18 (24.00%) Containerisation
7 17 (22.67%) Continuous Integration
7 17 (22.67%) Risk Management
8 14 (18.67%) Security Architecture
9 13 (17.33%) Decision-Making
9 13 (17.33%) TOGAF
10 12 (16.00%) DevSecOps
10 12 (16.00%) Microservices
11 11 (14.67%) Cloud Security
11 11 (14.67%) Information Assurance
12 10 (13.33%) Information Security
12 10 (13.33%) Risk Assessment
12 10 (13.33%) Vulnerability Assessment
13 9 (12.00%) Identity Management
13 9 (12.00%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 13 (17.33%) Python
2 11 (14.67%) Bash
3 9 (12.00%) Go
4 5 (6.67%) PowerShell
5 3 (4.00%) Java
5 3 (4.00%) VB
6 2 (2.67%) JavaScript
6 2 (2.67%) Objective-C
6 2 (2.67%) PL/SQL
6 2 (2.67%) SQL
6 2 (2.67%) Swift
6 2 (2.67%) VBScript
7 1 (1.33%) VB6
Qualifications
1 48 (64.00%) Security Cleared
2 35 (46.67%) SC Cleared
3 22 (29.33%) DV Cleared
4 11 (14.67%) AWS Certification
4 11 (14.67%) MCSE
4 11 (14.67%) Microsoft Certification
5 9 (12.00%) Degree
6 6 (8.00%) Cisco Certification
6 6 (8.00%) CISM
7 5 (6.67%) CCNP
7 5 (6.67%) CISSP
7 5 (6.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 2 (2.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (2.67%) Azure Certification
8 2 (2.67%) MCP
8 2 (2.67%) MCSA
9 1 (1.33%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 1 (1.33%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (1.33%) CEH
9 1 (1.33%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (32.00%) NIST
2 16 (21.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (9.33%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (4.00%) GRC
4 3 (4.00%) JSP 440
4 3 (4.00%) NIST 800
5 1 (1.33%) Accessibility
5 1 (1.33%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (1.33%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (1.33%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 10 (13.33%) VMware Infrastructure
2 7 (9.33%) VMware NSX
3 5 (6.67%) Docker
4 3 (4.00%) Active Directory
5 2 (2.67%) BitLocker
5 2 (2.67%) Microsoft App-V
5 2 (2.67%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (1.33%) Firmware
6 1 (1.33%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 18 (24.00%) Terraform
2 14 (18.67%) Kubernetes
3 10 (13.33%) Grafana
3 10 (13.33%) Packer
3 10 (13.33%) Prometheus
4 9 (12.00%) Consul
4 9 (12.00%) Istio
4 9 (12.00%) Jamf Pro
4 9 (12.00%) linkerd
4 9 (12.00%) Rancher
4 9 (12.00%) ZABBIX
5 7 (9.33%) HAProxy
6 5 (6.67%) Ansible
7 4 (5.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (5.33%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (5.33%) SCCM
8 2 (2.67%) Puppet
9 1 (1.33%) OPNET
9 1 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 16 (21.33%) VMware
2 9 (12.00%) Okta
2 9 (12.00%) Splunk
3 7 (9.33%) Apple
3 7 (9.33%) Cisco
3 7 (9.33%) ESET
3 7 (9.33%) Microsoft
3 7 (9.33%) Palo Alto
4 2 (2.67%) McAfee
4 2 (2.67%) Oracle
4 2 (2.67%) Symantec
5 1 (1.33%) Atlassian
5 1 (1.33%) Darktrace