CCSP Contract Job Trends

Cisco Certified Security Professional (CCSP)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for CCSP qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 2 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 564 497 576
Rank change year-on-year -67 +79 +82
Contract jobs citing CCSP 54 26 22
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.11% 0.089% 0.051%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.35% 0.29% 0.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 39 19 15
10th Percentile £470 £547 £288
25th Percentile £516 £613 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £638 £750 £550
Median % change year-on-year -15.00% +36.36% -21.43%
75th Percentile £721 £769 £600
90th Percentile £765 £850 £735
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £750 £600
% change year-on-year -31.47% +25.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £54.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

CCSP falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 15,265 9,010 13,295
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.27% 30.72% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,156 5,682 8,181
10th Percentile £347 £288 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.05% -2.55%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £709 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £501 £535
% change year-on-year -0.10% -6.45% +0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,107 512 1,079
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.92 £17.88
Median hourly rate £47.50 £40.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.01% +0.63% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.55
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.09 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £42.50 £40.94
% change year-on-year +10.59% +3.81% -18.02%

CCSP
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing CCSP relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

CCSP job vacancy trend in the UK

CCSP
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CCSP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CCSP

CCSP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing CCSP over the 6 months to 2 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for CCSP in the UK

CCSP
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CCSP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CCSP

CCSP
Top 12 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing CCSP within the UK over the 6 months to 2 May 2026. 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 -82 44 £650 -13.33% 34
London -54 25 £650 -23.53% 14
UK excluding London -95 20 £514 -31.47% 23
Work from Home -28 17 £594 +7.95% 8
North of England -51 13 £663 -7.34% 10
Yorkshire -39 11 £663 -7.34% 4
East of England - 4 £505 - 4
North West -38 2 - - 6
South East -56 1 - - 2
West Midlands -62 1 £450 -41.94% 6
Midlands -70 1 £450 -41.94% 6
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 -

CCSP
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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:

Applications
1 3 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.85%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 40 (74.07%) Azure
2 31 (57.41%) AWS
3 20 (37.04%) GCP
4 17 (31.48%) Azure Sentinel
5 11 (20.37%) Entra ID
6 5 (9.26%) AWS CloudFormation
6 5 (9.26%) SaaS
7 4 (7.41%) GitHub
7 4 (7.41%) IaaS
7 4 (7.41%) PaaS
8 3 (5.56%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (5.56%) Azure AKS
8 3 (5.56%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (5.56%) OCI
9 2 (3.70%) AWS KMS
9 2 (3.70%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 1 (1.85%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (1.85%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 1 (1.85%) Cloudflare
10 1 (1.85%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 27 (50.00%) Network Security
2 3 (5.56%) Firewall
2 3 (5.56%) VPN
3 1 (1.85%) Cisco Wireless
3 1 (1.85%) Internet
3 1 (1.85%) LAN
3 1 (1.85%) MPLS
3 1 (1.85%) SD-WAN
3 1 (1.85%) SNA
3 1 (1.85%) WAN
3 1 (1.85%) Wireless
3 1 (1.85%) WLAN
Development Applications
1 4 (7.41%) Snyk
2 3 (5.56%) Git
3 1 (1.85%) JIRA
General
1 20 (37.04%) Social Skills
2 15 (27.78%) Finance
3 8 (14.81%) Banking
3 8 (14.81%) Public Sector
4 6 (11.11%) Financial Institution
5 4 (7.41%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (5.56%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (3.70%) Police
8 1 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 22 (40.74%) Architect
2 21 (38.89%) Security Architect
3 15 (27.78%) Consultant
4 9 (16.67%) Security Consultant
5 8 (14.81%) DevSecOps Consultant
6 6 (11.11%) Security Engineer
7 4 (7.41%) Cloud Engineer
7 4 (7.41%) Cybersecurity Architect
7 4 (7.41%) Cybersecurity Consultant
7 4 (7.41%) Lead
8 3 (5.56%) Cloud Security Engineer
8 3 (5.56%) Security Specialist
9 2 (3.70%) Application Security Specialist
9 2 (3.70%) Applications Specialist
9 2 (3.70%) AWS Architect
9 2 (3.70%) Cloud Consultant
9 2 (3.70%) Network Consultant
9 2 (3.70%) Network Security Consultant
9 2 (3.70%) Senior
9 2 (3.70%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (9.26%) RESTful
2 3 (5.56%) .NET
3 2 (3.70%) SLSA
4 1 (1.85%) eBPF
4 1 (1.85%) Microsoft Graph
4 1 (1.85%) REST
4 1 (1.85%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 10 (18.52%) Security Posture
2 7 (12.96%) Private Cloud
3 5 (9.26%) Data Centre
4 4 (7.41%) Cloud Native
4 4 (7.41%) Management Information System
4 4 (7.41%) Public Cloud
5 3 (5.56%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (3.70%) Cloud Security Posture
6 2 (3.70%) CMDB
6 2 (3.70%) Cyber Security Posture
6 2 (3.70%) IBM Mainframe
6 2 (3.70%) Mainframe
6 2 (3.70%) Onboarding
6 2 (3.70%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (1.85%) Cyber Defence
7 1 (1.85%) IoT
7 1 (1.85%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (1.85%) Operational Technology
7 1 (1.85%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 3 (5.56%) Windows
2 2 (3.70%) Linux
3 1 (1.85%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (64.81%) Cloud Security
2 34 (62.96%) Threat Modelling
3 22 (40.74%) Application Security
3 22 (40.74%) Cybersecurity
3 22 (40.74%) Security Architecture
4 21 (38.89%) CI/CD
4 21 (38.89%) Identity Access Management
5 19 (35.19%) DevSecOps
6 18 (33.33%) Vulnerability Management
7 17 (31.48%) SIEM
8 16 (29.63%) Cryptography
9 15 (27.78%) Zero Trust
10 14 (25.93%) Data Protection
11 13 (24.07%) Architectural Patterns
11 13 (24.07%) DevOps
12 12 (22.22%) Risk Management
12 12 (22.22%) Stakeholder Management
13 11 (20.37%) Incident Response
13 11 (20.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 11 (20.37%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 5 (9.26%) Python
2 3 (5.56%) Java
3 2 (3.70%) PowerShell
4 1 (1.85%) Bash
4 1 (1.85%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 54 (100.00%) Cisco Certification
2 50 (92.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
3 49 (90.74%) CISSP
4 29 (53.70%) CISM
5 17 (31.48%) Security Cleared
6 14 (25.93%) SC Cleared
7 10 (18.52%) OSCP
8 9 (16.67%) CEH
9 8 (14.81%) Degree
10 6 (11.11%) Azure Certification
11 5 (9.26%) AWS Certification
11 5 (9.26%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (7.41%) CCSK
12 4 (7.41%) CISA
12 4 (7.41%) SANS
13 3 (5.56%) CRISC
13 3 (5.56%) CSSLP
13 3 (5.56%) GCIH
14 2 (3.70%) CISMP
14 2 (3.70%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (59.26%) NIST
2 25 (46.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (24.07%) GDPR
4 12 (22.22%) PCI DSS
5 8 (14.81%) GRC
5 8 (14.81%) NCSC
6 6 (11.11%) COBIT
7 3 (5.56%) SOC 2
8 1 (1.85%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (1.85%) HIPAA
8 1 (1.85%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (1.85%) ISO 31000
8 1 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 3 (5.56%) Docker
2 2 (3.70%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 17 (31.48%) Kubernetes
2 6 (11.11%) Terraform
3 1 (1.85%) Ansible
3 1 (1.85%) FortiGate
3 1 (1.85%) SELinux
3 1 (1.85%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 11 (20.37%) Microsoft
2 6 (11.11%) Splunk
3 4 (7.41%) Okta
3 4 (7.41%) Qualys
3 4 (7.41%) Tenable
4 3 (5.56%) Google
4 3 (5.56%) Rapid7
5 2 (3.70%) CheckPoint
5 2 (3.70%) IBM
5 2 (3.70%) ServiceNow
6 1 (1.85%) Adobe
6 1 (1.85%) Broadcom
6 1 (1.85%) Cisco
6 1 (1.85%) CrowdStrike
6 1 (1.85%) Fortinet
6 1 (1.85%) Netlify
6 1 (1.85%) Palo Alto
6 1 (1.85%) Sage
6 1 (1.85%) Symantec