Network Security Engineer Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Network Security Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Network Security Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £420, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 December 2025.

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

6 months to
17 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 380 296 384
Rank change year-on-year -84 +88 +78
Contract jobs requiring a Network Security Engineer 29 58 27
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.16% 0.39% 0.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.18% 0.42% 0.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 39 14
10th Percentile £339 £335 £369
25th Percentile £380 £435 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £420 £475 £530
Median % change year-on-year -11.58% -10.38% +11.58%
75th Percentile £481 £613 £652
90th Percentile £558 £614 £693
UK median daily rate £420 £500 £515
% change year-on-year -16.00% -2.91% -1.44%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 UK excluding London with a recognized job title 16,342 13,889 18,269
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.08% 92.35% 93.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,051 8,287 11,933
10th Percentile £210 £213 £213
25th Percentile £366 £363 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £600
90th Percentile £675 £676 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,641 813 1,199
10th Percentile £13.85 £15.25 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.48 £20.24 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -27.78% +80.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.16 £71.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £33.52 £45.00
% change year-on-year -24.97% -25.51% +50.00%

Network Security Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Network Security Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Network Security Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Network Security Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Network Security Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Security Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 17 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Network Security Engineer in the UK excluding London

Network Security Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Network Security Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Network Security Engineer
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 Network Security Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 17 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
North of England -55 12 £478 +7.30% 5
South East -27 10 £400 -27.27% 10
North West -29 10 £478 -1.55% 5
Midlands -29 6 £380 -6.17%
West Midlands -32 6 £380 -6.17%
Yorkshire -50 2 - -
Scotland +4 1 - - 20
East of England -16 1 £475 +72.73% 8
Network Security Engineer
UK

Network Security Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 17 December 2025, Network 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 UK excluding London region featuring Network Security Engineer in the job title.

1 26 (89.66%) Network Security
2 24 (82.76%) Cisco
3 22 (75.86%) Firewall
4 14 (48.28%) Palo Alto
5 9 (31.03%) CheckPoint
5 9 (31.03%) SC Cleared
5 9 (31.03%) Security Cleared
6 8 (27.59%) Cisco Certification
6 8 (27.59%) Zscaler
7 7 (24.14%) CCNP
7 7 (24.14%) DNS
7 7 (24.14%) Incident Response
7 7 (24.14%) Intrusion Detection
7 7 (24.14%) SIEM
7 7 (24.14%) VPN
7 7 (24.14%) Wireless
8 6 (20.69%) F5
8 6 (20.69%) WAN
9 5 (17.24%) AWS
9 5 (17.24%) BGP
9 5 (17.24%) Change Management
9 5 (17.24%) Infrastructure Automation
9 5 (17.24%) Network Architecture
10 4 (13.79%) 802.1X
10 4 (13.79%) Blue Coat
10 4 (13.79%) Cisco IPT
10 4 (13.79%) DMVPN
10 4 (13.79%) Internet
10 4 (13.79%) Inventory Management
10 4 (13.79%) IPsec

Network Security Engineer Skill Set
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 1 (3.45%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 5 (17.24%) AWS
2 2 (6.90%) Azure
3 1 (3.45%) GCP
3 1 (3.45%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 26 (89.66%) Network Security
2 22 (75.86%) Firewall
3 7 (24.14%) DNS
3 7 (24.14%) Intrusion Detection
3 7 (24.14%) VPN
3 7 (24.14%) Wireless
4 6 (20.69%) WAN
5 5 (17.24%) BGP
6 4 (13.79%) Cisco IPT
6 4 (13.79%) DMVPN
6 4 (13.79%) Internet
6 4 (13.79%) IPsec
6 4 (13.79%) OSPF
6 4 (13.79%) SSL
7 3 (10.34%) NGFW
8 1 (3.45%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (3.45%) Cisco Nexus
8 1 (3.45%) Ethernet VPN
8 1 (3.45%) SD-WAN
8 1 (3.45%) VXLAN
Development Applications
1 1 (3.45%) JIRA
General
1 6 (20.69%) Social Skills
2 4 (13.79%) Pharmaceutical
2 4 (13.79%) Public Sector
3 3 (10.34%) Telecoms
4 2 (6.90%) Banking
5 1 (3.45%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (3.45%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (3.45%) Investment Banking
5 1 (3.45%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (13.79%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 8 (27.59%) Data Centre
2 2 (6.90%) Data Protection Act
2 2 (6.90%) Driving Licence
2 2 (6.90%) Management Information System
2 2 (6.90%) Security Posture
3 1 (3.45%) Clustering
3 1 (3.45%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (3.45%) Life Science
3 1 (3.45%) Operational Technology
3 1 (3.45%) Renewable Energy
3 1 (3.45%) SCADA
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (24.14%) Incident Response
1 7 (24.14%) SIEM
2 5 (17.24%) Change Management
2 5 (17.24%) Infrastructure Automation
2 5 (17.24%) Network Architecture
3 4 (13.79%) Inventory Management
3 4 (13.79%) Network Design
3 4 (13.79%) Zero Trust
4 3 (10.34%) Cybersecurity
4 3 (10.34%) Data Protection
4 3 (10.34%) Migration
4 3 (10.34%) Network Load Balancing
4 3 (10.34%) Security Management
5 2 (6.90%) Change Control
5 2 (6.90%) Continuous Improvement
5 2 (6.90%) Load Balancing
5 2 (6.90%) Network Management
5 2 (6.90%) Risk Assessment
5 2 (6.90%) Risk Management
5 2 (6.90%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 1 (3.45%) Python
1 1 (3.45%) SQL
Qualifications
1 9 (31.03%) SC Cleared
1 9 (31.03%) Security Cleared
2 8 (27.59%) Cisco Certification
3 7 (24.14%) CCNP
4 3 (10.34%) Degree
5 2 (6.90%) CCSA
6 1 (3.45%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (3.45%) CCIE
6 1 (3.45%) CCIE Data Center
6 1 (3.45%) CCNA
6 1 (3.45%) CEH
6 1 (3.45%) CISSP
6 1 (3.45%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (3.45%) GRC
1 1 (3.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 1 (3.45%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 1 (3.45%) Hyper-V
1 1 (3.45%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 1 (3.45%) Ansible
1 1 (3.45%) Failover Clustering
1 1 (3.45%) Terraform
Vendors
1 24 (82.76%) Cisco
2 14 (48.28%) Palo Alto
3 9 (31.03%) CheckPoint
4 8 (27.59%) Zscaler
5 6 (20.69%) F5
6 4 (13.79%) Blue Coat
6 4 (13.79%) Juniper
6 4 (13.79%) SolarWinds
7 3 (10.34%) Fortinet
7 3 (10.34%) Meraki
8 2 (6.90%) Microsoft
9 1 (3.45%) FireEye
9 1 (3.45%) Qualys
9 1 (3.45%) Rockwell
9 1 (3.45%) ServiceNow
9 1 (3.45%) Tanium