Security Operations Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Security Operations (SecOps)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Security Operations skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 171 232 198
Rank change year-on-year +61 -34 +103
Contract jobs citing Security Operations 254 126 218
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 1.40% 0.84% 1.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.63% 0.97% 1.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 150 86 156
10th Percentile £358 £428 £431
25th Percentile £450 £513 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% - -
75th Percentile £622 £725 £650
90th Percentile £700 £818 £725
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £613
% change year-on-year -8.70% -6.12% +2.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 3 10
10th Percentile £37.81 £59.25 £49.00
25th Percentile £45.35 £63.75 £62.50
Median hourly rate £60.25 £72.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.90% +11.54% -0.38%
75th Percentile £75.00 £83.38 £67.50
90th Percentile £84.38 £89.15 £68.88
UK median hourly rate £56.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -13.08% - +24.40%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Security Operations falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 15,617 13,041 17,394
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 86.01% 86.97% 88.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,535 7,668 11,224
10th Percentile £220 £235 £250
25th Percentile £375 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.60% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,767 762 1,227
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.50 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.03 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.50 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -27.69% -26.97% +39.06%
75th Percentile £48.75 £64.01 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.33
% change year-on-year -22.62% -24.99% +23.80%

Security Operations
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Security Operations job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Security Operations
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

Security Operations
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Operations in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Security Operations in the UK excluding London

Security Operations
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

Security Operations
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Operations in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Operations in the UK excluding London

Security Operations
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 Security Operations within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 19 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
South East +22 78 £525 -10.64% 93
North of England -2 60 £519 -1.10% 57
Midlands -22 42 £500 -21.26% 51
East of England +8 38 £564 +2.55% 45
West Midlands -24 32 £525 -17.32% 27
North West -7 29 £450 -14.29% 31
Yorkshire -15 29 £537 -34.11% 23
South West -13 23 £500 -31.03% 39
Scotland +1 20 £564 +12.80% 18
East Midlands - 10 £425 - 21
Wales +9 4 £238 - 11
North East -6 2 £400 -50.92% 3
Security Operations
UK

Security Operations
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 16 (6.30%) Confluence
2 2 (0.79%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.39%) OpenStack
Applications
1 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
1 1 (0.39%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (1.18%) Maximo
2 2 (0.79%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 58 (22.83%) Azure
2 40 (15.75%) AWS
3 31 (12.20%) Azure Sentinel
4 26 (10.24%) Microsoft 365
5 21 (8.27%) GCP
6 16 (6.30%) Entra ID
7 12 (4.72%) SaaS
8 8 (3.15%) Azure Logic Apps
9 7 (2.76%) Azure Monitor
9 7 (2.76%) Microsoft Purview
10 6 (2.36%) Azure DevOps
10 6 (2.36%) IaaS
10 6 (2.36%) PaaS
11 5 (1.97%) Azure AKS
12 4 (1.57%) Akamai
13 3 (1.18%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 3 (1.18%) Cloudflare
13 3 (1.18%) OCI
13 3 (1.18%) OpenShift
13 3 (1.18%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 46 (18.11%) Firewall
2 26 (10.24%) DNS
2 26 (10.24%) Network Security
3 21 (8.27%) HTTP
4 13 (5.12%) FTP
4 13 (5.12%) SMTP
4 13 (5.12%) SSL
5 11 (4.33%) TCP/IP
6 6 (2.36%) Kerberos
7 4 (1.57%) Internet
7 4 (1.57%) Intrusion Detection
7 4 (1.57%) VPN
8 3 (1.18%) HTTPS
8 3 (1.18%) SSH
9 1 (0.39%) Cisco ASA
9 1 (0.39%) LAN
9 1 (0.39%) Modbus
9 1 (0.39%) VLAN
9 1 (0.39%) VSAN
9 1 (0.39%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (4.72%) Elasticsearch
2 2 (0.79%) Power BI
3 1 (0.39%) DynamoDB
3 1 (0.39%) MariaDB
3 1 (0.39%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 22 (8.66%) JIRA
2 4 (1.57%) Git
3 1 (0.39%) Burp Suite
3 1 (0.39%) GitLab
General
1 89 (35.04%) Social Skills
2 42 (16.54%) Analytical Skills
3 29 (11.42%) Public Sector
4 19 (7.48%) Finance
5 15 (5.91%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (3.94%) Legal
7 8 (3.15%) Retail
8 6 (2.36%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.97%) Law
9 5 (1.97%) Telecoms
10 3 (1.18%) Military
10 3 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.39%) Banking
11 1 (0.39%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.39%) Welsh Language
Job Titles
1 91 (35.83%) Analyst
2 53 (20.87%) SOC Analyst
3 37 (14.57%) Architect
4 32 (12.60%) Security Analyst
5 24 (9.45%) Lead
6 22 (8.66%) Security Engineer
7 21 (8.27%) Senior
8 19 (7.48%) Security Architect
9 11 (4.33%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 11 (4.33%) Solutions Architect
10 9 (3.54%) Cybersecurity Engineer
10 9 (3.54%) IT Security Officer
10 9 (3.54%) Operations Analyst
10 9 (3.54%) Security Manager
10 9 (3.54%) Security Officer
11 8 (3.15%) Administrator
11 8 (3.15%) Lead Architect
11 8 (3.15%) Security Operations Analyst
11 8 (3.15%) Security Solutions Architect
11 8 (3.15%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (7.48%) REST
2 15 (5.91%) LDAP
3 13 (5.12%) SOAP
4 7 (2.76%) JSON
4 7 (2.76%) OAuth
4 7 (2.76%) SAML
5 3 (1.18%) ARM Templates
5 3 (1.18%) Node.js
5 3 (1.18%) XML
6 2 (0.79%) Elastic Stack
6 2 (0.79%) Express.js
6 2 (0.79%) Jinja
6 2 (0.79%) Kafka
6 2 (0.79%) Next.js
6 2 (0.79%) React
7 1 (0.39%) .NET
7 1 (0.39%) ADO
7 1 (0.39%) ISPF
7 1 (0.39%) Lucene
7 1 (0.39%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 98 (38.58%) Security Operations Centre
2 47 (18.50%) Cyber Threat
3 34 (13.39%) Management Information System
4 30 (11.81%) Security Posture
5 27 (10.63%) CSOC
6 23 (9.06%) Onboarding
7 21 (8.27%) Cyberattack
8 18 (7.09%) Cyber Defence
9 17 (6.69%) Cloud Native
10 16 (6.30%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (5.12%) CMDB
12 11 (4.33%) Operational Technology
13 7 (2.76%) Linux Command Line
13 7 (2.76%) PKI
14 5 (1.97%) Cyber Kill Chain
14 5 (1.97%) Data Protection Act
15 4 (1.57%) Cloud Security Posture
15 4 (1.57%) Data Centre
15 4 (1.57%) Hybrid Cloud
16 3 (1.18%) BYOD
Operating Systems
1 37 (14.57%) Windows
2 33 (12.99%) Linux
3 6 (2.36%) Unix
4 5 (1.97%) Windows 10
5 4 (1.57%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.39%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.39%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.39%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.39%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (56.30%) Incident Response
2 142 (55.91%) Cybersecurity
3 108 (42.52%) SIEM
4 62 (24.41%) Vulnerability Management
5 56 (22.05%) Threat Detection
6 46 (18.11%) SOAR
7 44 (17.32%) Threat Intelligence
8 43 (16.93%) Information Security
9 42 (16.54%) Risk Management
10 41 (16.14%) Continuous Improvement
11 40 (15.75%) Threat and Vulnerability Management
12 36 (14.17%) ITIL
12 36 (14.17%) Problem-Solving
13 35 (13.78%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
14 31 (12.20%) Agile
14 31 (12.20%) Analytics
14 31 (12.20%) MITRE ATT&CK
15 30 (11.81%) Stakeholder Management
16 29 (11.42%) Cloud Security
17 28 (11.02%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 47 (18.50%) Python
2 41 (16.14%) PowerShell
3 11 (4.33%) JavaScript
4 10 (3.94%) Kusto Query Language
5 7 (2.76%) Bicep
5 7 (2.76%) Shell Script
6 6 (2.36%) Bash
7 4 (1.57%) SQL
8 3 (1.18%) Search Processing Language
8 3 (1.18%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.39%) CLIST
9 1 (0.39%) Go
9 1 (0.39%) JCL
9 1 (0.39%) Korn
9 1 (0.39%) REXX
Qualifications
1 100 (39.37%) Security Cleared
2 72 (28.35%) SC Cleared
3 60 (23.62%) CISSP
4 48 (18.90%) Degree
5 38 (14.96%) DV Cleared
6 34 (13.39%) CISM
7 23 (9.06%) GIAC
8 18 (7.09%) GCIH
9 16 (6.30%) TOGAF Certification
10 15 (5.91%) CEH
10 15 (5.91%) CompTIA Security+
11 14 (5.51%) Computer Science Degree
11 14 (5.51%) GCIA
12 12 (4.72%) CompTIA CySA+
13 11 (4.33%) Azure Certification
13 11 (4.33%) Master's Degree
14 10 (3.94%) PhD
15 9 (3.54%) Microsoft Certification
16 7 (2.76%) CREST Certified
16 7 (2.76%) GCFA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (24.80%) NIST
2 50 (19.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (12.20%) GDPR
4 14 (5.51%) Cyber Essentials
5 13 (5.12%) GRC
6 11 (4.33%) PCI DSS
7 9 (3.54%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 8 (3.15%) HIPAA
8 8 (3.15%) NIST 800
9 6 (2.36%) NCSC
10 4 (1.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (1.18%) SLA
12 2 (0.79%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.79%) COBIT
12 2 (0.79%) Disclosure Scotland
12 2 (0.79%) QA
13 1 (0.39%) GPG13
13 1 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 1 (0.39%) PMO
13 1 (0.39%) SOC 2
System Software
1 15 (5.91%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.79%) Docker
2 2 (0.79%) Hyper-V
2 2 (0.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.39%) RACF
3 1 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 11 (4.33%) Kubernetes
2 10 (3.94%) Single Sign-On
3 9 (3.54%) Terraform
4 8 (3.15%) SCCM
5 6 (2.36%) QRadar
6 5 (1.97%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 5 (1.97%) Norton AntiVirus
7 4 (1.57%) Kibana
7 4 (1.57%) logstash
8 3 (1.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (1.18%) Ansible
8 3 (1.18%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.79%) CSIRT
10 1 (0.39%) Check_MK
10 1 (0.39%) Fluentd
10 1 (0.39%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.39%) Rsyslog
10 1 (0.39%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.39%) WSUS
10 1 (0.39%) zSecure
Vendors
1 70 (27.56%) Microsoft
2 48 (18.90%) Splunk
3 22 (8.66%) ServiceNow
4 13 (5.12%) Google
5 10 (3.94%) ArcSight
5 10 (3.94%) BiZZdesign
5 10 (3.94%) CrowdStrike
5 10 (3.94%) CyberArk
6 9 (3.54%) Centrify
6 9 (3.54%) LogRhythm
6 9 (3.54%) Tenable
7 7 (2.76%) IBM
7 7 (2.76%) Palo Alto
8 6 (2.36%) Fortinet
9 5 (1.97%) F5
9 5 (1.97%) McAfee
9 5 (1.97%) Symantec
10 4 (1.57%) Red Hat
10 4 (1.57%) VMware
11 3 (1.18%) CheckPoint