CISM Contract Job Trends

ISACA Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for CISM qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 17 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 339 316 357
Rank change year-on-year -23 +41 -27
Contract jobs citing CISM 330 225 246
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.76% 0.56%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.09% 2.44% 1.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 229 127 182
10th Percentile £450 £408 £425
25th Percentile £513 £513 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - -
75th Percentile £688 £700 £750
90th Percentile £761 £800 £823
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £550 £550
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -3.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 8 0
10th Percentile - £28.92 -
25th Percentile £41.94 £45.82 -
Median hourly rate £47.22 £57.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -17.15% - -
75th Percentile £61.84 £66.28 -
90th Percentile £76.40 £79.84 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.22 £52.50 -
% change year-on-year -10.06% - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

CISM 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 15,756 9,203 13,032
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 31.01% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,481 5,704 8,054
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £616 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.20% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,160 598 1,119
10th Percentile £17.20 £17.74 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.68 £21.00 £18.65
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.65%
75th Percentile £72.50 £63.63 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £75.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £28.34 £41.50
% change year-on-year +67.75% -31.71% -20.95%

CISM
Job Vacancy Trend

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

CISM job vacancy trend in the UK

CISM
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

CISM
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing CISM over the 6 months to 17 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for CISM in the UK

CISM
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

CISM
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing CISM over the 6 months to 17 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for CISM in the UK

CISM
Top 15 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing CISM within the UK over the 6 months to 17 June 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 -15 294 £600 -4.00% 139
UK excluding London -38 162 £600 +9.09% 96
Work from Home +2 132 £575 -4.17% 72
London -23 131 £588 -9.62% 61
South East -45 54 £600 -4.00% 35
North of England -33 47 £663 +10.42% 20
Yorkshire -28 30 £673 +19.56% 5
South West -8 28 £570 +12.87% 14
North West -29 17 £524 -25.09% 14
Midlands -55 17 £600 +14.29% 15
West Midlands -47 15 £600 +2.08% 6
Scotland -15 11 £683 +43.68% 7
East of England -26 5 £525 +36.72% 8
East Midlands -25 2 £533 +33.13% 9
Wales - 2 £800 - 1

CISM
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:

Application Platforms
1 26 (7.88%) Confluence
2 2 (0.61%) nginx
2 2 (0.61%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (1.52%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (1.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (1.52%) Maximo
2 2 (0.61%) SAP FI
2 2 (0.61%) SAP GRC
2 2 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.61%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.30%) SAP CCM
3 1 (0.30%) SAP FI-GL
Cloud Services
1 130 (39.39%) Azure
2 112 (33.94%) AWS
3 64 (19.39%) GCP
4 35 (10.61%) Entra ID
5 18 (5.45%) Azure Sentinel
6 17 (5.15%) Microsoft 365
7 9 (2.73%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (2.42%) SaaS
9 7 (2.12%) Azure AKS
9 7 (2.12%) IaaS
9 7 (2.12%) Microsoft Purview
9 7 (2.12%) OpenShift
9 7 (2.12%) PaaS
10 6 (1.82%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 5 (1.52%) Azure Monitor
11 5 (1.52%) GitHub
12 3 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
13 2 (0.61%) AWS Control Tower
13 2 (0.61%) Power Platform
14 1 (0.30%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 60 (18.18%) Network Security
2 33 (10.00%) Firewall
3 10 (3.03%) VPN
4 9 (2.73%) Intrusion Detection
5 7 (2.12%) HTTP
6 5 (1.52%) TCP/IP
7 4 (1.21%) SSH
7 4 (1.21%) SSL
8 2 (0.61%) DNS
8 2 (0.61%) Internet
8 2 (0.61%) MPLS
8 2 (0.61%) S/MIME
8 2 (0.61%) VLAN
9 1 (0.30%) BGP
9 1 (0.30%) Calico
9 1 (0.30%) IPsec
9 1 (0.30%) Modbus
9 1 (0.30%) NGFW
9 1 (0.30%) OSPF
9 1 (0.30%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.52%) Data Lake
2 4 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (0.61%) Metadata
3 2 (0.61%) SAP HANA
3 2 (0.61%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.30%) Db2
4 1 (0.30%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle Reports
4 1 (0.30%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 30 (9.09%) JIRA
2 7 (2.12%) Snyk
3 5 (1.52%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.91%) GitLab
5 1 (0.30%) Git
General
1 128 (38.79%) Social Skills
2 93 (28.18%) Finance
3 45 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (10.30%) Public Sector
5 19 (5.76%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (5.45%) Banking
7 13 (3.94%) Legal
8 9 (2.73%) Financial Institution
9 8 (2.42%) Manufacturing
10 6 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (1.52%) Retail
12 4 (1.21%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (1.21%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.91%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.91%) Local Government
13 3 (0.91%) Marketing
13 3 (0.91%) Military
13 3 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.91%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.91%) Police
Job Titles
1 64 (19.39%) Architect
2 54 (16.36%) Consultant
3 52 (15.76%) Security Architect
4 35 (10.61%) Security Consultant
5 33 (10.00%) Security Manager
6 29 (8.79%) Project Manager
7 28 (8.48%) Security Engineer
8 27 (8.18%) Lead
9 22 (6.67%) Analyst
10 18 (5.45%) Security Specialist
11 16 (4.85%) Cybersecurity Consultant
11 16 (4.85%) Security Project Manager
12 14 (4.24%) Cybersecurity Manager
12 14 (4.24%) DevSecOps Consultant
12 14 (4.24%) Senior
13 11 (3.33%) Cybersecurity Architect
14 10 (3.03%) Cybersecurity Specialist
14 10 (3.03%) Security Analyst
15 9 (2.73%) SOC Manager
16 8 (2.42%) Cybersecurity Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (6.97%) LDAP
2 10 (3.03%) OAuth
2 10 (3.03%) SAML
3 9 (2.73%) OpenID
3 9 (2.73%) REST
3 9 (2.73%) RESTful
3 9 (2.73%) SailPoint
4 7 (2.12%) JDBC
4 7 (2.12%) JSON
4 7 (2.12%) SOAP
5 6 (1.82%) Leaflet
5 6 (1.82%) SLSA
6 5 (1.52%) ARM Templates
6 5 (1.52%) J2EE
7 4 (1.21%) OAuth2
8 2 (0.61%) Azure Blueprints
8 2 (0.61%) FastAPI
8 2 (0.61%) Flask
8 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Graph
8 2 (0.61%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 47 (14.24%) Security Posture
2 38 (11.52%) Management Information System
3 33 (10.00%) Operational Technology
4 16 (4.85%) Cloud Native
5 15 (4.55%) Security Operations Centre
6 14 (4.24%) Cyber Threat
7 13 (3.94%) Private Cloud
8 12 (3.64%) Onboarding
9 11 (3.33%) SCADA
10 10 (3.03%) PKI
11 9 (2.73%) Enterprise Software
12 8 (2.42%) Hybrid Cloud
13 7 (2.12%) BYOD
13 7 (2.12%) Public Cloud
14 6 (1.82%) Cyber Defence
14 6 (1.82%) Virtual Team
15 5 (1.52%) CMDB
15 5 (1.52%) Data Centre
15 5 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
16 4 (1.21%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 27 (8.18%) Windows
2 21 (6.36%) Linux
3 9 (2.73%) Unix
3 9 (2.73%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.91%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.61%) Alpine Linux
7 1 (0.30%) CentOS
7 1 (0.30%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 225 (68.18%) Cybersecurity
2 101 (30.61%) Risk Management
3 93 (28.18%) Cloud Security
4 86 (26.06%) Information Security
4 86 (26.06%) SIEM
5 84 (25.45%) Stakeholder Management
6 73 (22.12%) Threat Modelling
7 72 (21.82%) Vulnerability Management
8 64 (19.39%) Incident Response
8 64 (19.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 63 (19.09%) Problem-Solving
9 63 (19.09%) Security Operations
10 60 (18.18%) Security Architecture
11 56 (16.97%) Agile
11 56 (16.97%) TOGAF
12 53 (16.06%) DevSecOps
13 52 (15.76%) SABSA
14 51 (15.45%) Application Security
14 51 (15.45%) CI/CD
15 50 (15.15%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 39 (11.82%) Python
2 36 (10.91%) PowerShell
3 10 (3.03%) Java
4 9 (2.73%) SQL
5 7 (2.12%) Bicep
6 2 (0.61%) Bash
6 2 (0.61%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.30%) ABAP
7 1 (0.30%) BeanShell
7 1 (0.30%) Go
7 1 (0.30%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 322 (97.58%) CISSP
2 117 (35.45%) Security Cleared
3 85 (25.76%) SC Cleared
4 77 (23.33%) Cisco Certification
5 76 (23.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 68 (20.61%) Degree
7 57 (17.27%) CRISC
8 47 (14.24%) CEH
9 44 (13.33%) CCSP
10 34 (10.30%) GIAC
11 33 (10.00%) DV Cleared
12 31 (9.39%) CISA
13 28 (8.48%) PMI Certification
13 28 (8.48%) PMP
14 23 (6.97%) CompTIA Security+
15 18 (5.45%) Computer Science Degree
16 15 (4.55%) Azure Certification
16 15 (4.55%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
16 15 (4.55%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
16 15 (4.55%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 157 (47.58%) NIST
2 141 (42.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 76 (23.03%) GDPR
4 36 (10.91%) GRC
5 35 (10.61%) NCSC
6 33 (10.00%) PCI DSS
7 26 (7.88%) COBIT
8 18 (5.45%) SOC 2
9 15 (4.55%) Cyber Essentials
9 15 (4.55%) NIST 800
9 15 (4.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 10 (3.03%) HIPAA
11 9 (2.73%) JSP 440
12 6 (1.82%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 6 (1.82%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 6 (1.82%) ISO 31000
13 5 (1.52%) EU AI Act
13 5 (1.52%) Government Security Classifications
14 4 (1.21%) ISA99
14 4 (1.21%) RMADS
System Software
1 34 (10.30%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.91%) Docker
2 3 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.61%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.30%) KVM
4 1 (0.30%) RACF
4 1 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.30%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 29 (8.79%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.73%) Terraform
3 7 (2.12%) CASB
4 6 (1.82%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (1.52%) Ansible
6 4 (1.21%) QRadar
7 3 (0.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.61%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.61%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.30%) Istio
9 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 60 (18.18%) Microsoft
2 24 (7.27%) ServiceNow
2 24 (7.27%) Splunk
3 20 (6.06%) CyberArk
4 17 (5.15%) Tenable
5 14 (4.24%) BeyondTrust
6 13 (3.94%) BiZZdesign
7 10 (3.03%) Qualys
8 9 (2.73%) Okta
9 8 (2.42%) IBM
9 8 (2.42%) SAP
10 7 (2.12%) Red Hat
11 6 (1.82%) CheckPoint
11 6 (1.82%) CrowdStrike
11 6 (1.82%) Fortinet
11 6 (1.82%) Google
11 6 (1.82%) Workday
12 5 (1.52%) Cribl.io
12 5 (1.52%) Oracle
13 4 (1.21%) Rapid7