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 14 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 268 319 302
Rank change year-on-year +51 -17 +109
Contract jobs citing NCSC 67 65 150
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.52% 0.32% 0.64%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.27% 2.16% 4.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 37 91
10th Percentile £500 £525 £550
25th Percentile £563 £563 £620
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £645 £600 £700
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% -14.29% +12.00%
75th Percentile £725 £675 £796
90th Percentile £749 £700 £838
UK median daily rate £625 £640 £675
% change year-on-year -2.39% -5.14% +8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 23
10th Percentile £60.75 - £59.73
25th Percentile £64.50 - £62.00
Median hourly rate £83.41 £80.00 £72.98
Median % change year-on-year +4.26% +9.62% +15.84%
75th Percentile £90.00 - £83.36
90th Percentile £92.50 - £83.40
UK median hourly rate £83.41 £81.71 £73.99
% change year-on-year +2.09% +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 2,050 3,009 3,467
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 16.04% 14.78% 14.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,290 1,778 2,318
10th Percentile £220 £250 £220
25th Percentile £362 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £484 £479
Median % change year-on-year -1.81% +0.99% +6.44%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £588
90th Percentile £650 £688 £675
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% +2.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 131 306 188
10th Percentile £17.35 £10.95 £13.11
25th Percentile £24.18 £12.66 £18.07
Median hourly rate £50.00 £18.19 £32.94
Median % change year-on-year +174.88% -44.78% +46.12%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £60.50
90th Percentile £78.70 £68.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £21.06 £35.00
% change year-on-year +66.21% -39.84% +8.12%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +67 36 £675 +10.20% 26
Midlands +21 10 £650 -3.70% 16
West Midlands +20 10 £650 -3.70% 11
South West +16 9 £663 +10.42% 17
North of England +23 8 £663 +15.22% 17
Scotland +8 6 £550 -4.35% 7
North West +14 5 £706 +22.83% 5
North East - 2 £528 - 8
East of England +27 1 - - 2
Yorkshire +12 1 £725 +26.09% 4
Wales - 1 £488 - 2
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 3 (4.48%) Confluence
2 2 (2.99%) Camunda
2 2 (2.99%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (2.99%) nginx
2 2 (2.99%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.99%) SharePoint Server
3 1 (1.49%) Apache
3 1 (1.49%) IIS
3 1 (1.49%) Tomcat
3 1 (1.49%) Traefik
Applications
1 3 (4.48%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 18 (26.87%) Azure
2 16 (23.88%) AWS
3 6 (8.96%) Microsoft 365
3 6 (8.96%) PaaS
4 5 (7.46%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 5 (7.46%) SaaS
5 4 (5.97%) Amazon ECS
5 4 (5.97%) AWS Fargate
5 4 (5.97%) IaaS
6 3 (4.48%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (4.48%) GitHub
7 2 (2.99%) Entra ID
7 2 (2.99%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 1 (1.49%) Amazon EKS
8 1 (1.49%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (1.49%) GCP
8 1 (1.49%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 7 (10.45%) DNS
1 7 (10.45%) Firewall
2 6 (8.96%) BGP
2 6 (8.96%) TCP/IP
3 5 (7.46%) Network Security
3 5 (7.46%) SD-WAN
3 5 (7.46%) VPN
3 5 (7.46%) VSAN
3 5 (7.46%) WAN
4 4 (5.97%) Cisco Nexus
4 4 (5.97%) MPLS
4 4 (5.97%) NGFW
4 4 (5.97%) OSPF
5 3 (4.48%) Modbus
5 3 (4.48%) MQTT
5 3 (4.48%) VLAN
6 2 (2.99%) Cisco ASA
6 2 (2.99%) Ethernet
6 2 (2.99%) Internet
6 2 (2.99%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (4.48%) Amazon RDS
2 2 (2.99%) MongoDB
2 2 (2.99%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.49%) Amazon Aurora
3 1 (1.49%) MariaDB
3 1 (1.49%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 6 (8.96%) Jenkins
2 5 (7.46%) JIRA
3 4 (5.97%) Git
4 3 (4.48%) GitLab
5 2 (2.99%) Terragrunt
6 1 (1.49%) SonarQube
General
1 19 (28.36%) Public Sector
2 17 (25.37%) Social Skills
3 6 (8.96%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (8.96%) Military
4 2 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (2.99%) Publishing
4 2 (2.99%) Telecoms
5 1 (1.49%) Automotive
5 1 (1.49%) Law
5 1 (1.49%) Marketing
5 1 (1.49%) Organisational Skills
5 1 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 28 (41.79%) Architect
2 14 (20.90%) Senior
3 10 (14.93%) Technical Architect
4 8 (11.94%) Security Architect
5 6 (8.96%) Auditor
5 6 (8.96%) Security Auditor
5 6 (8.96%) Senior Architect
6 5 (7.46%) Principal Architect
6 5 (7.46%) Security Specialist
7 4 (5.97%) Consultant
7 4 (5.97%) Information Security Specialist
7 4 (5.97%) Information Specialist
7 4 (5.97%) Network Architect
7 4 (5.97%) Senior Technical Architect
8 3 (4.48%) Analyst
8 3 (4.48%) Cybersecurity Architect
8 3 (4.48%) Developer
8 3 (4.48%) DevOps Engineer
8 3 (4.48%) Security Advisor
8 3 (4.48%) Technical Writer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (5.97%) AngularJS
1 4 (5.97%) Kafka
1 4 (5.97%) Keycloak
2 3 (4.48%) .NET
2 3 (4.48%) RESTful
3 2 (2.99%) .NET Framework
3 2 (2.99%) ActiveMQ
3 2 (2.99%) Ajax
3 2 (2.99%) cloud-init
3 2 (2.99%) CSS
3 2 (2.99%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (2.99%) Entity Framework
3 2 (2.99%) HTML
3 2 (2.99%) JMS
3 2 (2.99%) Middleware
3 2 (2.99%) OpenJDK
3 2 (2.99%) RabbitMQ
3 2 (2.99%) Spring Boot
3 2 (2.99%) UIKit
3 2 (2.99%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 16 (23.88%) Management Information System
2 11 (16.42%) Operational Technology
3 8 (11.94%) PKI
3 8 (11.94%) Public Cloud
4 7 (10.45%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (8.96%) SCADA
6 4 (5.97%) Industrial Internet of Things
6 4 (5.97%) IoT
7 2 (2.99%) Mobile App
7 2 (2.99%) NB-IoT
8 1 (1.49%) Algorithms
8 1 (1.49%) Cyber Defence
8 1 (1.49%) Cyber Threat
8 1 (1.49%) Cyberattack
8 1 (1.49%) Data Structures
8 1 (1.49%) Onboarding
8 1 (1.49%) Security Posture
8 1 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 7 (10.45%) Linux
2 4 (5.97%) Apple iOS
2 4 (5.97%) Windows
3 3 (4.48%) CentOS
3 3 (4.48%) Mac OS
3 3 (4.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (4.48%) Windows 10
4 2 (2.99%) AIX
4 2 (2.99%) Android
4 2 (2.99%) Unix
4 2 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.99%) Windows Server 2016
4 2 (2.99%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (41.79%) Cybersecurity
2 19 (28.36%) Agile
3 17 (25.37%) Containerisation
4 16 (23.88%) CI/CD
4 16 (23.88%) Infrastructure as Code
4 16 (23.88%) Risk Management
5 13 (19.40%) Security Architecture
6 12 (17.91%) TOGAF
7 11 (16.42%) Decision-Making
7 11 (16.42%) DevOps
7 11 (16.42%) DevSecOps
7 11 (16.42%) Information Security
7 11 (16.42%) Microservices
8 10 (14.93%) Information Assurance
9 9 (13.43%) Continuous Integration
9 9 (13.43%) Vulnerability Assessment
10 8 (11.94%) Continuous Delivery
10 8 (11.94%) ITIL
10 8 (11.94%) Risk Assessment
10 8 (11.94%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 5 (7.46%) Python
2 4 (5.97%) Bash
2 4 (5.97%) PowerShell
3 3 (4.48%) Java
3 3 (4.48%) VB
4 2 (2.99%) Go
4 2 (2.99%) JavaScript
4 2 (2.99%) Objective-C
4 2 (2.99%) PL/SQL
4 2 (2.99%) SQL
4 2 (2.99%) Swift
4 2 (2.99%) VBScript
5 1 (1.49%) VB6
Qualifications
1 41 (61.19%) Security Cleared
2 28 (41.79%) SC Cleared
3 23 (34.33%) DV Cleared
4 10 (14.93%) MCSE
4 10 (14.93%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (11.94%) Degree
6 6 (8.96%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (7.46%) CCNP
7 5 (7.46%) CISM
7 5 (7.46%) CISSP
8 4 (5.97%) AWS Certification
8 4 (5.97%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 2 (2.99%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (2.99%) MCP
9 2 (2.99%) MCSA
10 1 (1.49%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (1.49%) Azure Certification
10 1 (1.49%) CESG Certified Professional
10 1 (1.49%) CISA
10 1 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (34.33%) NIST
2 14 (20.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (8.96%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (4.48%) GRC
4 3 (4.48%) JSP 440
4 3 (4.48%) NIST 800
5 1 (1.49%) Accessibility
5 1 (1.49%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (1.49%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 9 (13.43%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (8.96%) VMware NSX
3 5 (7.46%) Docker
4 3 (4.48%) Active Directory
5 2 (2.99%) BitLocker
5 2 (2.99%) Microsoft App-V
5 2 (2.99%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (1.49%) Firmware
6 1 (1.49%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 10 (14.93%) Terraform
2 7 (10.45%) Kubernetes
3 5 (7.46%) Ansible
4 4 (5.97%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (4.48%) Grafana
5 3 (4.48%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (4.48%) Packer
5 3 (4.48%) Prometheus
5 3 (4.48%) SCCM
6 2 (2.99%) Consul
6 2 (2.99%) Istio
6 2 (2.99%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (2.99%) linkerd
6 2 (2.99%) Puppet
6 2 (2.99%) Rancher
6 2 (2.99%) ZABBIX
7 1 (1.49%) HAProxy
7 1 (1.49%) OPNET
7 1 (1.49%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 17 (25.37%) VMware
2 7 (10.45%) Microsoft
3 6 (8.96%) Cisco
3 6 (8.96%) Palo Alto
4 2 (2.99%) McAfee
4 2 (2.99%) Okta
4 2 (2.99%) Oracle
4 2 (2.99%) Splunk
4 2 (2.99%) Symantec
5 1 (1.49%) Apple
5 1 (1.49%) Atlassian
5 1 (1.49%) Darktrace
5 1 (1.49%) ESET