SOC Engineer Contracts in the UK excluding London

Security Operations Centre Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Security Operations Centre Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 August 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 368 343 374
Rank change year-on-year -25 +31 +126
Contract jobs requiring a SOC Engineer 5 26 34
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.033% 0.14% 0.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.036% 0.15% 0.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 3 25 22
10th Percentile £525 £550 £450
25th Percentile £534 £590 £470
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £625 £570
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +9.65% -5.00%
75th Percentile £597 £688 £650
90th Percentile £621 £700 £727
UK median daily rate £500 £625 £600
% change year-on-year -20.00% +4.17% -

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 13,869 16,817 20,704
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.15% 92.06% 94.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,472 10,273 14,018
10th Percentile £215 £220 £225
25th Percentile £363 £375 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +1.01%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £685 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -0.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,239 1,734 1,126
10th Percentile £13.25 £14.05 £13.98
25th Percentile £16.30 £18.91 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -44.11% +20.00% +75.32%
75th Percentile £54.38 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £43.00 £42.16
% change year-on-year -41.51% +2.00% +64.15%

SOC Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured SOC Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for SOC Engineer in the UK excluding London

SOC Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate trend for SOC Engineer in the UK excluding London

SOC Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate trend for SOC Engineer in the UK excluding London

SOC 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 SOC Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 15 August 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 +23 3 £544 -4.61% 1
West Midlands -12 2 £625 -1.57% 1
Midlands -12 2 £625 -1.57% 1
SOC Engineer
UK

SOC Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 15 August 2025, SOC Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring SOC Engineer in the job title.

1 5 (100.00%) SIEM
1 5 (100.00%) Security Operations
2 4 (80.00%) Security Cleared
3 3 (60.00%) Security Operations Centre
3 3 (60.00%) Threat Detection
3 3 (60.00%) Microsoft
4 2 (40.00%) SC Cleared
4 2 (40.00%) DV Cleared
4 2 (40.00%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (40.00%) Threat Intelligence
4 2 (40.00%) Splunk
5 1 (20.00%) PowerShell
5 1 (20.00%) Network Architecture
5 1 (20.00%) Collaborative Working
5 1 (20.00%) NIST
5 1 (20.00%) Search Processing Language
5 1 (20.00%) Kenna
5 1 (20.00%) Cloud Security
5 1 (20.00%) Threat and Vulnerability Management
5 1 (20.00%) Onboarding
5 1 (20.00%) Kusto Query Language
5 1 (20.00%) Data Centre
5 1 (20.00%) Threat Modelling
5 1 (20.00%) QRadar
5 1 (20.00%) Security Monitoring
5 1 (20.00%) Behavioural Analysis
5 1 (20.00%) Python
5 1 (20.00%) Cisco
5 1 (20.00%) IBM
5 1 (20.00%) Vulnerability Management

SOC Engineer Skill Set
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:

Communications & Networking
1 1 (20.00%) Firewall
1 1 (20.00%) Network Security
General
1 2 (40.00%) Analytical Skills
Miscellaneous
1 3 (60.00%) Security Operations Centre
2 1 (20.00%) Data Centre
2 1 (20.00%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (20.00%) Onboarding
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (100.00%) Security Operations
1 5 (100.00%) SIEM
2 3 (60.00%) Threat Detection
3 2 (40.00%) Threat Intelligence
4 1 (20.00%) Anomaly Detection
4 1 (20.00%) Behavioural Analysis
4 1 (20.00%) Cloud Security
4 1 (20.00%) Collaborative Working
4 1 (20.00%) Cybersecurity
4 1 (20.00%) Data Protection
4 1 (20.00%) Incident Management
4 1 (20.00%) Network Architecture
4 1 (20.00%) Network Monitoring
4 1 (20.00%) Security Monitoring
4 1 (20.00%) Threat and Vulnerability Management
4 1 (20.00%) Threat Modelling
4 1 (20.00%) Use Case
4 1 (20.00%) Vulnerability Assessment
4 1 (20.00%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 1 (20.00%) Kusto Query Language
1 1 (20.00%) PowerShell
1 1 (20.00%) Python
1 1 (20.00%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 4 (80.00%) Security Cleared
2 2 (40.00%) DV Cleared
2 2 (40.00%) SC Cleared
3 1 (20.00%) CISSP
3 1 (20.00%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (20.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 1 (20.00%) NIST
Systems Management
1 1 (20.00%) QRadar
Vendors
1 3 (60.00%) Microsoft
2 2 (40.00%) Splunk
3 1 (20.00%) Cisco
3 1 (20.00%) Google
3 1 (20.00%) IBM
3 1 (20.00%) Kenna
3 1 (20.00%) LogRhythm
3 1 (20.00%) Rapid7