Network Security Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Network Security
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Network Security skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 147 129 116
Rank change year-on-year -18 -13 +99
Contract jobs citing Network Security 299 275 420
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 1.64% 1.84% 2.14%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 13.32% 11.54% 12.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 176 163 298
10th Percentile £303 £313 £350
25th Percentile £389 £400 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £570 £594 £650
90th Percentile £684 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £550
% change year-on-year -1.96% -7.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 5 4
10th Percentile £42.30 £17.16 £64.38
25th Percentile £46.31 £18.50 £67.19
Median hourly rate £65.00 £41.00 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.54% -43.45% +93.33%
75th Percentile £75.00 £50.00 £76.25
90th Percentile £85.00 £55.25 -
UK median hourly rate £65.50 £41.00 £72.50
% change year-on-year +59.76% -43.45% +80.12%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK excluding London

Network Security falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 2,245 2,384 3,491
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 12.35% 15.97% 17.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,485 1,343 2,088
10th Percentile £200 £200 £205
25th Percentile £300 £319 £340
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - +5.56%
75th Percentile £563 £575 £598
90th Percentile £643 £650 £683
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 124 272
10th Percentile £15.42 £16.79 £17.30
25th Percentile £18.28 £21.46 £24.32
Median hourly rate £42.50 £37.50 £56.49
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% -33.62% +25.53%
75th Percentile £67.88 £65.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £83.38 £73.38 £75.23
UK median hourly rate £34.00 £37.25 £56.40
% change year-on-year -8.72% -33.95% +37.46%

Network Security
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Network Security job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Network Security
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

Network Security
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Security in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 20 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Network Security in the UK excluding London

Network Security
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

Network Security
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Security in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 20 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK excluding London

Network Security
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 within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 20 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 -26 104 £458 -8.50% 39
North West +11 73 £475 - 29
South East -23 73 £430 -21.82% 61
Midlands -26 63 £500 -14.24% 20
West Midlands -4 59 £500 -19.35% 13
Yorkshire -48 44 £205 -59.00% 8
East of England -18 27 £475 +18.75% 23
South West -10 24 £533 +1.43% 22
Scotland +8 20 £475 +18.75% 7
East Midlands -30 4 £650 +73.33% 7
Wales -3 3 £471 +92.35% 6
Northern Ireland - 3 £500 - 1
North East -9 2 £475 -41.72% 3
South Coast - 2 - -
Network Security
UK

Network Security
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 4 (1.34%) Apache
2 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.33%) Confluence
3 1 (0.33%) IIS
3 1 (0.33%) nginx
3 1 (0.33%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.33%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (5.35%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.00%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.33%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 66 (22.07%) Azure
2 57 (19.06%) AWS
3 18 (6.02%) GCP
4 14 (4.68%) Entra ID
5 11 (3.68%) Amazon EC2
5 11 (3.68%) Amazon S3
5 11 (3.68%) Google Workspace
6 9 (3.01%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 7 (2.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 7 (2.34%) Amazon ELB
7 7 (2.34%) Azure Sentinel
8 6 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (2.01%) PaaS
9 5 (1.67%) IaaS
9 5 (1.67%) OpenShift
10 4 (1.34%) AWS Lambda
10 4 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (1.34%) SaaS
10 4 (1.34%) Serverless
11 3 (1.00%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 158 (52.84%) Firewall
2 72 (24.08%) DNS
3 60 (20.07%) VPN
4 46 (15.38%) WAN
5 35 (11.71%) SSL
6 33 (11.04%) TCP/IP
7 31 (10.37%) LAN
8 28 (9.36%) BGP
9 27 (9.03%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 26 (8.70%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
11 25 (8.36%) DMZ
11 25 (8.36%) VLAN
12 24 (8.03%) HTTP
13 20 (6.69%) OSPF
14 17 (5.69%) SD-WAN
15 16 (5.35%) Intrusion Detection
15 16 (5.35%) Wireless
16 15 (5.02%) FTP
16 15 (5.02%) SMTP
17 14 (4.68%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (1.34%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (1.34%) InfluxDB
1 4 (1.34%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.33%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 12 (4.01%) Jenkins
2 10 (3.34%) GitLab
3 7 (2.34%) Git
4 1 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.33%) Subversion
General
1 120 (40.13%) Social Skills
2 66 (22.07%) Analytical Skills
3 22 (7.36%) Public Sector
4 21 (7.02%) Banking
4 21 (7.02%) Finance
5 14 (4.68%) Investment Banking
6 11 (3.68%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (3.34%) Telecoms
8 6 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
9 5 (1.67%) Legal
10 4 (1.34%) Aerospace
11 3 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (1.00%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.67%) Advertising
12 2 (0.67%) Military
12 2 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.33%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.33%) Law
13 1 (0.33%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 66 (22.07%) Network Engineer
2 41 (13.71%) Architect
2 41 (13.71%) Security Engineer
3 29 (9.70%) Analyst
4 24 (8.03%) Network Security Engineer
4 24 (8.03%) Senior
5 23 (7.69%) Security Architect
6 20 (6.69%) SOC Analyst
7 18 (6.02%) Network Architect
8 16 (5.35%) IT Engineer
9 14 (4.68%) Operations Engineer
10 13 (4.35%) Administrator
10 13 (4.35%) SIEM Engineer
10 13 (4.35%) Support Engineer
11 12 (4.01%) IT Support
12 11 (3.68%) IT Support Engineer
12 11 (3.68%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 10 (3.34%) Lead
14 9 (3.01%) Network Security Architect
14 9 (3.01%) Wintel Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (6.02%) LDAP
2 8 (2.68%) 802.1X
3 4 (1.34%) RabbitMQ
4 1 (0.33%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.33%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (0.33%) HTML
4 1 (0.33%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 41 (13.71%) Management Information System
2 29 (9.70%) Data Centre
3 24 (8.03%) Security Posture
4 19 (6.35%) Analytical Mindset
5 18 (6.02%) Cyber Threat
5 18 (6.02%) Security Operations Centre
6 17 (5.69%) Hybrid Cloud
7 16 (5.35%) Cyberattack
8 14 (4.68%) CSOC
9 12 (4.01%) Cyber Security Posture
9 12 (4.01%) Operational Technology
10 11 (3.68%) Cloud Native
11 10 (3.34%) PKI
12 8 (2.68%) Cloud Security Posture
13 7 (2.34%) Clustering
13 7 (2.34%) Public Cloud
14 6 (2.01%) Data Protection Act
14 6 (2.01%) Onboarding
15 5 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
15 5 (1.67%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 59 (19.73%) Windows
2 42 (14.05%) Linux
3 17 (5.69%) Windows Server
4 11 (3.68%) Unix
5 3 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (1.00%) VMS
6 2 (0.67%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.33%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (28.43%) Cybersecurity
2 68 (22.74%) Problem-Solving
3 65 (21.74%) SIEM
4 56 (18.73%) Incident Response
5 38 (12.71%) Continuous Improvement
6 34 (11.37%) Change Management
7 32 (10.70%) Cloud Security
7 32 (10.70%) Threat Modelling
8 30 (10.03%) Zero Trust
9 29 (9.70%) Information Security
9 29 (9.70%) Load Balancing
9 29 (9.70%) Threat Detection
10 26 (8.70%) Security Operations
11 25 (8.36%) CI/CD
11 25 (8.36%) Network Design
11 25 (8.36%) Root Cause Analysis
12 22 (7.36%) DevOps
12 22 (7.36%) Infrastructure Automation
12 22 (7.36%) Network Architecture
12 22 (7.36%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 50 (16.72%) Python
2 40 (13.38%) PowerShell
3 13 (4.35%) Kusto Query Language
4 12 (4.01%) Bash
5 7 (2.34%) SQL
6 4 (1.34%) Go
6 4 (1.34%) Java
6 4 (1.34%) Shell Script
7 3 (1.00%) Bicep
7 3 (1.00%) Perl
8 2 (0.67%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.33%) C
9 1 (0.33%) C++
9 1 (0.33%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 102 (34.11%) Security Cleared
2 78 (26.09%) SC Cleared
3 63 (21.07%) Cisco Certification
4 50 (16.72%) CCNP
4 50 (16.72%) CISSP
5 30 (10.03%) DV Cleared
6 27 (9.03%) Degree
7 21 (7.02%) GIAC
8 20 (6.69%) CCNA
9 17 (5.69%) CEH
10 16 (5.35%) CCIE
10 16 (5.35%) CISM
11 9 (3.01%) AWS Certification
11 9 (3.01%) Azure Certification
12 8 (2.68%) CISA
12 8 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
13 7 (2.34%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 7 (2.34%) CCSP
13 7 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
14 6 (2.01%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (10.70%) NIST
2 30 (10.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (7.69%) GDPR
4 18 (6.02%) PCI DSS
5 8 (2.68%) Cyber Essentials
6 7 (2.34%) GRC
7 6 (2.01%) NCSC
8 5 (1.67%) HIPAA
8 5 (1.67%) PSD2
9 3 (1.00%) QA
9 3 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.67%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 1 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.33%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 1 (0.33%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.33%) SLA
System Software
1 30 (10.03%) VMware Infrastructure
2 19 (6.35%) Active Directory
3 18 (6.02%) Docker
4 10 (3.34%) Hyper-V
5 6 (2.01%) VMware NSX
6 4 (1.34%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (1.00%) vSphere
8 1 (0.33%) Firmware
8 1 (0.33%) KVM
8 1 (0.33%) ProxySG
8 1 (0.33%) RHEV
8 1 (0.33%) Xen
8 1 (0.33%) XenApp
8 1 (0.33%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 31 (10.37%) Terraform
2 27 (9.03%) Ansible
3 15 (5.02%) Kubernetes
4 11 (3.68%) Nagios
5 10 (3.34%) Kibana
6 7 (2.34%) FortiGate
6 7 (2.34%) QRadar
7 6 (2.01%) Microsoft Clustering
8 5 (1.67%) Microsoft Intune
9 4 (1.34%) Grafana
9 4 (1.34%) Progress Chef
9 4 (1.34%) Prometheus
10 3 (1.00%) Puppet
11 2 (0.67%) Docker Swarm
12 1 (0.33%) Amdocs OSS
12 1 (0.33%) CASB
12 1 (0.33%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
12 1 (0.33%) Icinga
12 1 (0.33%) Proxmox
12 1 (0.33%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 79 (26.42%) Cisco
2 57 (19.06%) Microsoft
3 54 (18.06%) Palo Alto
4 52 (17.39%) F5
5 40 (13.38%) VMware
6 28 (9.36%) CheckPoint
7 19 (6.35%) SolarWinds
8 18 (6.02%) Fortinet
9 17 (5.69%) Juniper
10 16 (5.35%) Zscaler
11 14 (4.68%) Google
12 12 (4.01%) Meraki
12 12 (4.01%) Splunk
13 10 (3.34%) FireEye
13 10 (3.34%) Tanium
14 9 (3.01%) ArcSight
15 8 (2.68%) Blue Coat
16 5 (1.67%) ServiceNow
17 4 (1.34%) Citrix
17 4 (1.34%) Computacenter