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 19 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 576 497 563
Rank change year-on-year -79 +66 +146
Contract jobs citing CCSP 41 23 18
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.095% 0.079% 0.041%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.28% 0.26% 0.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 27 18 14
10th Percentile £416 £546 £310
25th Percentile £435 £639 £466
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £680 £550
Median % change year-on-year -22.79% +23.64% -10.20%
75th Percentile £688 £750 £600
90th Percentile £747 £761 £705
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £680 £600
% change year-on-year -33.82% +13.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £36.25 £45.75 -
Median hourly rate £39.50 £54.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -27.52% - -
75th Percentile £42.75 £63.25 -
90th Percentile - - -
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 14,632 8,936 13,549
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.76% 30.51% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,630 5,648 8,380
10th Percentile £335 £288 £300
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £719 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,082 472 1,010
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.51 £13.99
25th Percentile £19.72 £24.42 £17.85
Median hourly rate £29.61 £42.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.33% +13.33% -25.00%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £62.47
90th Percentile £84.00 £82.03 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -45.00% +33.33% -22.05%

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 19 March 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 19 March 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 -81 39 £525 -22.79% 13
London -30 24 £625 +1.21% 6
UK excluding London -81 14 £450 -33.82% 10
Work from Home -17 11 £581 +7.64% 6
North of England -71 6 £464 -31.73% 4
West Midlands -55 5 £475 -38.71% 2
Yorkshire -55 5 £464 -31.73% 1
Midlands -64 5 £475 -38.71% 2
North West -34 1 - - 1
South East -50 1 £413 -25.00% 2
East of England - 1 - -
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 (7.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (2.44%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 33 (80.49%) Azure
2 28 (68.29%) AWS
3 20 (48.78%) GCP
4 12 (29.27%) Azure Sentinel
5 9 (21.95%) Entra ID
6 5 (12.20%) AWS CloudFormation
6 5 (12.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 4 (9.76%) OCI
8 3 (7.32%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (7.32%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 3 (7.32%) GitHub
8 3 (7.32%) IaaS
8 3 (7.32%) Microsoft Purview
8 3 (7.32%) PaaS
8 3 (7.32%) SaaS
9 2 (4.88%) AWS Direct Connect
9 2 (4.88%) AWS KMS
9 2 (4.88%) Mimecast
10 1 (2.44%) Azure AKS
10 1 (2.44%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 16 (39.02%) Network Security
2 7 (17.07%) Firewall
3 5 (12.20%) LAN
3 5 (12.20%) MPLS
3 5 (12.20%) SD-WAN
3 5 (12.20%) WAN
3 5 (12.20%) Wireless
3 5 (12.20%) WLAN
4 4 (9.76%) BGP
4 4 (9.76%) DNS
4 4 (9.76%) IPv4
4 4 (9.76%) IPv6
4 4 (9.76%) OSPF
4 4 (9.76%) VPN
4 4 (9.76%) VXLAN
5 3 (7.32%) Cisco ASA
5 3 (7.32%) DHCP
5 3 (7.32%) EIGRP
5 3 (7.32%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 3 (7.32%) VLAN
Development Applications
1 4 (9.76%) Snyk
2 3 (7.32%) Git
3 1 (2.44%) Burp Suite
General
1 16 (39.02%) Social Skills
2 11 (26.83%) Analytical Skills
2 11 (26.83%) Finance
3 8 (19.51%) Public Sector
4 5 (12.20%) Presentation Skills
5 4 (9.76%) Financial Institution
5 4 (9.76%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (4.88%) Banking
7 1 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (2.44%) Legal
Job Titles
1 21 (51.22%) Architect
2 17 (41.46%) Security Architect
3 8 (19.51%) Security Engineer
4 5 (12.20%) Cloud Engineer
4 5 (12.20%) Consultant
4 5 (12.20%) Network Architect
4 5 (12.20%) Security Consultant
4 5 (12.20%) Solutions Architect
5 4 (9.76%) Cloud Security Engineer
6 3 (7.32%) Cybersecurity Architect
6 3 (7.32%) Cybersecurity Consultant
6 3 (7.32%) Security Specialist
7 2 (4.88%) Analyst
7 2 (4.88%) Application Security Specialist
7 2 (4.88%) Applications Specialist
7 2 (4.88%) Enterprise Architect
7 2 (4.88%) Enterprise Security Architect
7 2 (4.88%) Network Consultant
7 2 (4.88%) Network Security Consultant
7 2 (4.88%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (12.20%) .NET
2 3 (7.32%) RESTful
3 2 (4.88%) OAuth
3 2 (4.88%) OAuth2
3 2 (4.88%) OpenID
3 2 (4.88%) SAML
4 1 (2.44%) eBPF
4 1 (2.44%) Microsoft Graph
4 1 (2.44%) REST
4 1 (2.44%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 8 (19.51%) Security Posture
2 5 (12.20%) Data Centre
3 4 (9.76%) Cloud Native
3 4 (9.76%) Cloud Security Posture
3 4 (9.76%) Private Cloud
4 3 (7.32%) Enterprise Software
4 3 (7.32%) Management Information System
4 3 (7.32%) Public Cloud
5 2 (4.88%) CMDB
5 2 (4.88%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (4.88%) IBM Mainframe
5 2 (4.88%) IoT
5 2 (4.88%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (4.88%) Mainframe
5 2 (4.88%) PKI
5 2 (4.88%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (2.44%) CSOC
6 1 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (2.44%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (2.44%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 3 (7.32%) Windows
2 2 (4.88%) Linux
3 1 (2.44%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (68.29%) Cloud Security
2 21 (51.22%) Cybersecurity
3 20 (48.78%) Security Architecture
4 19 (46.34%) Zero Trust
5 17 (41.46%) DevSecOps
6 16 (39.02%) SIEM
6 16 (39.02%) Threat Modelling
7 15 (36.59%) CI/CD
8 14 (34.15%) TOGAF
9 13 (31.71%) Vulnerability Management
10 12 (29.27%) Application Security
10 12 (29.27%) Identity Access Management
11 11 (26.83%) Data Protection
11 11 (26.83%) Incident Response
11 11 (26.83%) Problem-Solving
12 10 (24.39%) Computer Science
12 10 (24.39%) DevOps
12 10 (24.39%) Information Security
12 10 (24.39%) Infrastructure as Code
12 10 (24.39%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 11 (26.83%) Python
2 5 (12.20%) Java
3 2 (4.88%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.44%) Bash
4 1 (2.44%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 41 (100.00%) Cisco Certification
2 37 (90.24%) (ISC)2 CCSP
3 36 (87.80%) CISSP
4 13 (31.71%) CISM
5 11 (26.83%) AWS Certification
5 11 (26.83%) Degree
5 11 (26.83%) Security Cleared
6 9 (21.95%) CEH
6 9 (21.95%) OSCP
7 7 (17.07%) Azure Certification
8 6 (14.63%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (12.20%) CCNP
9 5 (12.20%) Master's Degree
10 4 (9.76%) CCIE
10 4 (9.76%) SANS
10 4 (9.76%) SC Cleared
11 3 (7.32%) CCIE Security
11 3 (7.32%) CSSLP
11 3 (7.32%) GCIH
12 2 (4.88%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (58.54%) NIST
2 23 (56.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 18 (43.90%) PCI DSS
4 15 (36.59%) GDPR
5 5 (12.20%) NCSC
6 4 (9.76%) GRC
7 3 (7.32%) COBIT
7 3 (7.32%) HIPAA
7 3 (7.32%) PSD2
8 2 (4.88%) JSP 440
9 1 (2.44%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (2.44%) NIST 800
9 1 (2.44%) SOC 2
System Software
1 7 (17.07%) Docker
2 3 (7.32%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (7.32%) VMware NSX
3 1 (2.44%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 14 (34.15%) Kubernetes
2 10 (24.39%) Terraform
3 5 (12.20%) Ansible
4 3 (7.32%) Nessus
5 2 (4.88%) CASB
5 2 (4.88%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (2.44%) CSIRT
6 1 (2.44%) FortiGate
6 1 (2.44%) Nmap
6 1 (2.44%) SELinux
Vendors
1 8 (19.51%) Microsoft
2 7 (17.07%) Cisco
3 6 (14.63%) Tenable
4 5 (12.20%) Fortinet
4 5 (12.20%) Okta
4 5 (12.20%) Splunk
5 4 (9.76%) F5
5 4 (9.76%) Google
5 4 (9.76%) Meraki
5 4 (9.76%) Palo Alto
5 4 (9.76%) Qualys
6 3 (7.32%) Rapid7
6 3 (7.32%) SolarWinds
6 3 (7.32%) VMware
7 2 (4.88%) CheckPoint
7 2 (4.88%) Forcepoint
7 2 (4.88%) IBM
7 2 (4.88%) Juniper
7 2 (4.88%) ServiceNow
8 1 (2.44%) Darktrace