Application Security Contracts

Application Security (AppSec)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Application Security skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Application Security over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 346 342 285
Rank change year-on-year -4 -57 +64
Contract jobs citing Application Security 180 250 564
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.61% 0.57% 0.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.68% 0.66% 1.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 110 156 407
10th Percentile £412 £481 £481
25th Percentile £456 £540 £540
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £600 £640
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% -6.25% +6.67%
75th Percentile £695 £689 £750
90th Percentile £788 £775 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £634 £602
% change year-on-year -17.16% +5.36% +4.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 2
10th Percentile - - £40.63
25th Percentile £68.75 - £49.06
Median hourly rate £73.75 - £66.25
75th Percentile £76.25 - £86.56
90th Percentile - - £96.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.75 - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Application Security 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

Application Security
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Application Security as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Application Security in the UK

Application Security
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Application Security.

Daily rate trend for Application Security in the UK

Application Security
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Application Security over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Application Security in the UK

Application Security
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Application Security.

Hourly rate trend for Application Security in the UK

Application Security
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Application Security within the UK over the 6 months to 1 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
England -4 142 £588 -2.08% 169
London +5 74 £618 +2.92% 106
UK excluding London +26 66 £525 -17.16% 85
Work from Home -13 64 £575 -4.17% 119
South East +16 24 £650 +26.83% 35
South West +55 14 £442 +10.56% 7
North of England +3 10 £625 -3.85% 24
Midlands +22 8 £575 -11.54% 6
West Midlands +15 8 £575 -11.54% 3
North West +12 7 £638 -5.70% 18
Scotland +10 6 £525 -15.66% 7
East of England +32 4 £775 -8.82% 3
Yorkshire -1 3 £438 -28.86% 6
Wales 0 1 £650 -2.44% 1

Application Security
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 13 (7.22%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (5.00%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.56%) Confluence
3 1 (0.56%) SAS
Applications
1 4 (2.22%) Simulink
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.56%) Notion
Business Applications
1 8 (4.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (2.22%) SAP ERP
2 4 (2.22%) SAP GRC
3 3 (1.67%) Aladdin
3 3 (1.67%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 79 (43.89%) Azure
2 30 (16.67%) AWS
3 19 (10.56%) Microsoft 365
4 17 (9.44%) Azure Sentinel
5 16 (8.89%) Entra ID
5 16 (8.89%) GCP
6 15 (8.33%) SaaS
7 14 (7.78%) Azure AKS
8 9 (5.00%) OneDrive
8 9 (5.00%) Power Platform
9 8 (4.44%) GitHub
9 8 (4.44%) Power Automate
10 7 (3.89%) Cloud Computing
11 6 (3.33%) IaaS
12 5 (2.78%) AWS CloudFormation
12 5 (2.78%) PaaS
13 4 (2.22%) Serverless
14 3 (1.67%) Akamai
14 3 (1.67%) Amazon S3
14 3 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 49 (27.22%) Network Security
2 13 (7.22%) Firewall
3 8 (4.44%) NGFW
4 6 (3.33%) SSL
5 5 (2.78%) HTTP
5 5 (2.78%) Skype
6 2 (1.11%) DMZ
6 2 (1.11%) HTTPS
6 2 (1.11%) Radio Access Network
6 2 (1.11%) VPN
7 1 (0.56%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.56%) Wireless
7 1 (0.56%) Wireless Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.67%) DynamoDB
1 3 (1.67%) MySQL
2 2 (1.11%) GIS
2 2 (1.11%) NoSQL
2 2 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.56%) Apache Cassandra
3 1 (0.56%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.56%) DataStage
3 1 (0.56%) DB2
3 1 (0.56%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.56%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 1 (0.56%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.56%) QualityStage
3 1 (0.56%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.56%) SAP BW
3 1 (0.56%) SAP HANA
3 1 (0.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 15 (8.33%) Git
2 2 (1.11%) Jenkins
2 2 (1.11%) Rational Statemate
3 1 (0.56%) AppScan
3 1 (0.56%) Cucumber
3 1 (0.56%) GitLab
3 1 (0.56%) Hudson
3 1 (0.56%) Jasmine
3 1 (0.56%) JIRA
3 1 (0.56%) JUnit
3 1 (0.56%) Oracle APEX
3 1 (0.56%) SonarQube
General
1 55 (30.56%) Social Skills
2 39 (21.67%) Finance
3 24 (13.33%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (11.11%) Public Sector
5 7 (3.89%) Legal
5 7 (3.89%) Military
6 6 (3.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.78%) Retail
8 4 (2.22%) Banking
9 3 (1.67%) Financial Institution
10 2 (1.11%) Electronics
10 2 (1.11%) Law
10 2 (1.11%) Manufacturing
10 2 (1.11%) Marketing
10 2 (1.11%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (1.11%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.56%) Automotive
11 1 (0.56%) Back Office
11 1 (0.56%) Games
11 1 (0.56%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 45 (25.00%) Architect
2 32 (17.78%) Security Architect
3 22 (12.22%) Developer
4 20 (11.11%) Consultant
5 16 (8.89%) Senior
6 15 (8.33%) Security Consultant
7 13 (7.22%) Security Engineer
8 11 (6.11%) Lead
9 8 (4.44%) DevSecOps Engineer
9 8 (4.44%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
9 8 (4.44%) Microsoft Engineer
9 8 (4.44%) Solutions Architect
10 7 (3.89%) Analyst
10 7 (3.89%) SAP Consultant
10 7 (3.89%) SAP Security Consultant
10 7 (3.89%) Support Engineer
11 6 (3.33%) Azure Engineer
11 6 (3.33%) Technical Architect
12 5 (2.78%) Applications Developer
12 5 (2.78%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.11%) FastAPI
2 10 (5.56%) OpenID
3 9 (5.00%) CSS
4 8 (4.44%) SAML
5 7 (3.89%) HTML
5 7 (3.89%) SAP Fiori
6 5 (2.78%) .NET
6 5 (2.78%) React
7 4 (2.22%) RESTful
8 3 (1.67%) Flutter
8 3 (1.67%) Godot
8 3 (1.67%) JSON
8 3 (1.67%) REST
8 3 (1.67%) Unreal Engine
9 2 (1.11%) Lightning Web Components
9 2 (1.11%) MapLibre
9 2 (1.11%) Next.js
9 2 (1.11%) OAuth
9 2 (1.11%) Spring
9 2 (1.11%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 31 (17.22%) Security Posture
2 16 (8.89%) Onboarding
3 9 (5.00%) Data Centre
3 9 (5.00%) Mobile App
4 7 (3.89%) Public Cloud
5 6 (3.33%) Cyber Defence
5 6 (3.33%) Operational Technology
6 5 (2.78%) Cloud Native
6 5 (2.78%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 5 (2.78%) Private Cloud
7 4 (2.22%) Management Information System
7 4 (2.22%) SCADA
8 3 (1.67%) Cloud Security Posture
8 3 (1.67%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 2 (1.11%) Algorithms
9 2 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (1.11%) FPGA
9 2 (1.11%) Product Ownership
9 2 (1.11%) Verilog
9 2 (1.11%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 13 (7.22%) Windows
2 10 (5.56%) Windows Server
3 4 (2.22%) Android
3 4 (2.22%) Apple iOS
4 2 (1.11%) Linux
4 2 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.56%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.56%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (29.44%) Cloud Security
2 36 (20.00%) Cybersecurity
2 36 (20.00%) DevSecOps
3 35 (19.44%) Security Architecture
4 33 (18.33%) DevOps
5 30 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
6 29 (16.11%) Information Security
6 29 (16.11%) OWASP
7 26 (14.44%) Identity Access Management
8 25 (13.89%) Static Application Security Testing
9 23 (12.78%) Data Security
10 22 (12.22%) CI/CD
10 22 (12.22%) Threat Modelling
10 22 (12.22%) Vulnerability Management
11 21 (11.67%) Microservices
12 20 (11.11%) Agile
13 17 (9.44%) Risk Management
14 16 (8.89%) Migration
14 16 (8.89%) Penetration Testing
14 16 (8.89%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 24 (13.33%) Python
2 18 (10.00%) PowerShell
3 13 (7.22%) C#
4 10 (5.56%) SQL
5 9 (5.00%) Java
5 9 (5.00%) JavaScript
6 8 (4.44%) PHP
7 6 (3.33%) Bash
8 5 (2.78%) Ruby
9 3 (1.67%) Dart
9 3 (1.67%) TypeScript
10 2 (1.11%) Apex Code
10 2 (1.11%) C
10 2 (1.11%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (1.11%) MATLAB
10 2 (1.11%) Rust
10 2 (1.11%) SystemVerilog
11 1 (0.56%) Perl
11 1 (0.56%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 46 (25.56%) Security Cleared
2 25 (13.89%) SC Cleared
3 24 (13.33%) Degree
4 21 (11.67%) CISSP
5 12 (6.67%) CISM
6 11 (6.11%) CEH
6 11 (6.11%) DV Cleared
7 8 (4.44%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (3.89%) CREST Certified
8 7 (3.89%) GIAC
9 6 (3.33%) Azure Certification
9 6 (3.33%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (3.33%) OSCP
10 5 (2.78%) CCSAS
10 5 (2.78%) GPEN
10 5 (2.78%) GWAPT
11 4 (2.22%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 4 (2.22%) CISA
12 3 (1.67%) TOGAF Certification
13 2 (1.11%) CCSK
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (12.22%) NIST
2 11 (6.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (5.56%) GDPR
4 6 (3.33%) PCI DSS
5 4 (2.22%) COBIT
5 4 (2.22%) GRC
6 3 (1.67%) QA
7 2 (1.11%) HIPAA
7 2 (1.11%) NCSC
7 2 (1.11%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.56%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.56%) FedRAMP
8 1 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
8 1 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.56%) SLA
System Software
1 18 (10.00%) Active Directory
2 9 (5.00%) Docker
2 9 (5.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.11%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.56%) IAG
Systems Management
1 17 (9.44%) Kubernetes
2 10 (5.56%) MIIS
2 10 (5.56%) Terraform
3 9 (5.00%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (4.44%) SCCM
5 6 (3.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (2.22%) CASB
6 4 (2.22%) McAfee ePO
6 4 (2.22%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (1.67%) Norton AntiVirus
7 3 (1.67%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
8 1 (0.56%) Ansible
8 1 (0.56%) Control-M
8 1 (0.56%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 37 (20.56%) Microsoft
2 15 (8.33%) Qualys
3 12 (6.67%) SAP
4 9 (5.00%) VMware
5 5 (2.78%) Wyse
6 4 (2.22%) McAfee
6 4 (2.22%) Splunk
6 4 (2.22%) Zscaler
7 3 (1.67%) Palo Alto
7 3 (1.67%) Symantec
8 2 (1.11%) Databricks
8 2 (1.11%) ESRI
8 2 (1.11%) Fortinet
8 2 (1.11%) Google
8 2 (1.11%) IBM
8 2 (1.11%) Imperva
8 2 (1.11%) Intel
8 2 (1.11%) Salesforce
8 2 (1.11%) ServiceNow
8 2 (1.11%) Xilinx