CISSP Contract Job Trends

(ISC)² Certified Information Systems Security Professional (ISC2 CISSP)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for CISSP qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 16 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 241 217 225
Rank change year-on-year -24 +8 -6
Contract jobs citing CISSP 511 363 435
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.06% 1.25% 1.02%
As % of the Qualifications category 3.35% 4.03% 3.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 360 217 301
10th Percentile £450 £406 £425
25th Percentile £500 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £589 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -1.88% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £700
90th Percentile £789 £760 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £600 £575
% change year-on-year -4.25% +4.35% -6.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 10 3
10th Percentile £40.19 £50.70 -
25th Percentile £41.94 £55.50 -
Median hourly rate £71.25 £73.46 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.00% +219.37% -68.36%
75th Percentile £102.19 £83.20 £53.21
90th Percentile £107.13 £89.48 £71.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £71.25 £72.91 £53.21
% change year-on-year -2.27% +37.03% -26.80%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

CISSP 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 9,016 12,830
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.78% 30.95% 30.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,149 5,693 7,947
10th Percentile £350 £283 £305
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -0.57% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £621 £620 £650
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £530
% change year-on-year - -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,077 506 1,053
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.26 £17.72
Median hourly rate £50.00 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -6.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.36 £79.35 £76.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £37.50 £40.33
% change year-on-year +26.77% -7.01% -19.15%

CISSP
Job Vacancy Trend

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

CISSP job vacancy trend in the UK

CISSP
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

CISSP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing CISSP over the 6 months to 16 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for CISSP in the UK

CISSP
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

CISSP
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing CISSP over the 6 months to 16 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for CISSP in the UK

CISSP
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 CISSP within the UK over the 6 months to 16 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 -14 455 £588 -3.69% 184
UK excluding London -3 255 £575 -4.25% 122
London -36 191 £600 -6.98% 79
Work from Home +10 186 £575 -4.17% 90
South East -28 93 £574 -2.79% 39
North of England +11 89 £613 -2.00% 29
North West +9 50 £600 -11.76% 20
Yorkshire -26 35 £625 +4.17% 7
South West -33 30 £570 -5.00% 20
Midlands -64 29 £486 -7.43% 20
West Midlands -59 24 £486 -7.43% 16
Scotland -7 12 £683 +38.58% 8
East of England -32 6 £525 +1.16% 7
East Midlands -25 5 £525 - 4
North East -18 4 £450 -28.00% 2

CISSP
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 31 (6.07%) Confluence
2 3 (0.59%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.39%) nginx
Applications
1 8 (1.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
3 3 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.20%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (0.98%) Maximo
1 5 (0.98%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.39%) SAP FI
2 2 (0.39%) SAP GRC
2 2 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.20%) SAP CCM
3 1 (0.20%) SAP FI-GL
Cloud Services
1 214 (41.88%) Azure
2 181 (35.42%) AWS
3 93 (18.20%) GCP
4 49 (9.59%) Entra ID
5 36 (7.05%) Azure Sentinel
6 26 (5.09%) Microsoft 365
7 19 (3.72%) OpenShift
8 17 (3.33%) SaaS
9 14 (2.74%) GitHub
9 14 (2.74%) IaaS
9 14 (2.74%) PaaS
10 10 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
11 9 (1.76%) Azure AKS
11 9 (1.76%) Microsoft Purview
12 7 (1.37%) Power Platform
13 6 (1.17%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 6 (1.17%) Azure Monitor
14 5 (0.98%) AWS CloudFormation
15 4 (0.78%) Amazon EKS
15 4 (0.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 91 (17.81%) Network Security
2 59 (11.55%) Firewall
3 18 (3.52%) VPN
4 17 (3.33%) TCP/IP
5 16 (3.13%) SSL
6 11 (2.15%) DNS
6 11 (2.15%) HTTP
6 11 (2.15%) Intrusion Detection
7 5 (0.98%) BGP
8 4 (0.78%) OSPF
8 4 (0.78%) S/MIME
9 3 (0.59%) IPsec
9 3 (0.59%) NGFW
9 3 (0.59%) SSH
9 3 (0.59%) VLAN
10 2 (0.39%) IPFIX
10 2 (0.39%) LAN
10 2 (0.39%) Modbus
10 2 (0.39%) MPLS
10 2 (0.39%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
2 5 (0.98%) Data Lake
2 5 (0.98%) Power BI
2 5 (0.98%) SQL Server
3 3 (0.59%) Metadata
3 3 (0.59%) MongoDB
3 3 (0.59%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.39%) Apache Cassandra
4 2 (0.39%) Big Data
4 2 (0.39%) NoSQL
4 2 (0.39%) RDBMS
4 2 (0.39%) SAP HANA
5 1 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.20%) DB2
5 1 (0.20%) EDRMS
Development Applications
1 36 (7.05%) JIRA
2 7 (1.37%) Jenkins
2 7 (1.37%) Snyk
3 5 (0.98%) GitLab
4 4 (0.78%) Git
5 1 (0.20%) Claude Code
General
1 184 (36.01%) Social Skills
2 123 (24.07%) Finance
3 72 (14.09%) Analytical Skills
4 47 (9.20%) Public Sector
5 40 (7.83%) Documentation Skills
6 34 (6.65%) Banking
7 22 (4.31%) Legal
8 18 (3.52%) Presentation Skills
9 11 (2.15%) Financial Institution
9 11 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
10 10 (1.96%) Aerospace
11 9 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (1.17%) Manufacturing
12 6 (1.17%) Marketing
12 6 (1.17%) Retail
13 4 (0.78%) Investment Banking
13 4 (0.78%) Law
13 4 (0.78%) Telecoms
14 3 (0.59%) Electronics
14 3 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 115 (22.50%) Architect
2 89 (17.42%) Security Architect
3 63 (12.33%) Consultant
4 56 (10.96%) Security Engineer
5 45 (8.81%) Lead
5 45 (8.81%) Security Consultant
6 39 (7.63%) Analyst
7 32 (6.26%) Security Manager
8 29 (5.68%) Project Manager
9 25 (4.89%) Senior
10 21 (4.11%) Security Analyst
11 20 (3.91%) Security Specialist
12 19 (3.72%) Cybersecurity Architect
13 18 (3.52%) Cybersecurity Consultant
14 16 (3.13%) Security Project Manager
15 15 (2.94%) Cybersecurity Analyst
16 12 (2.35%) Cloud Engineer
16 12 (2.35%) Coordinator
16 12 (2.35%) Security Assurance Coordinator
16 12 (2.35%) SIEM Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (6.26%) LDAP
2 19 (3.72%) SailPoint
3 18 (3.52%) OAuth
4 14 (2.74%) OpenID
4 14 (2.74%) REST
5 13 (2.54%) ModSecurity
6 12 (2.35%) SAML
7 9 (1.76%) SOAP
8 7 (1.37%) JDBC
8 7 (1.37%) JSON
8 7 (1.37%) OAuth2
9 6 (1.17%) ARM Templates
9 6 (1.17%) Leaflet
9 6 (1.17%) SLSA
10 5 (0.98%) .NET
10 5 (0.98%) J2EE
10 5 (0.98%) RESTful
11 3 (0.59%) JWT
12 2 (0.39%) FastAPI
12 2 (0.39%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 57 (11.15%) Security Posture
2 54 (10.57%) Management Information System
3 40 (7.83%) Operational Technology
4 31 (6.07%) Cloud Native
5 23 (4.50%) Onboarding
6 20 (3.91%) PKI
7 18 (3.52%) Cyber Threat
8 15 (2.94%) Security Operations Centre
9 13 (2.54%) Data Centre
9 13 (2.54%) SCADA
10 12 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
11 10 (1.96%) Cyber Security Posture
11 10 (1.96%) Public Cloud
12 9 (1.76%) Cloud Security Posture
12 9 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
12 9 (1.76%) Private Cloud
13 8 (1.57%) BYOD
13 8 (1.57%) Cyber Defence
13 8 (1.57%) Virtual Team
14 7 (1.37%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 50 (9.78%) Windows
2 45 (8.81%) Linux
3 17 (3.33%) Unix
4 10 (1.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.57%) Mac OS
6 7 (1.37%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.98%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.78%) AIX
8 4 (0.78%) HPUX
8 4 (0.78%) Oracle Linux
8 4 (0.78%) Solaris
8 4 (0.78%) SUSE
9 1 (0.20%) Rocky
9 1 (0.20%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 292 (57.14%) Cybersecurity
2 145 (28.38%) SIEM
3 142 (27.79%) Cloud Security
4 128 (25.05%) Risk Management
5 123 (24.07%) Security Architecture
6 121 (23.68%) Information Security
7 102 (19.96%) Threat Modelling
8 97 (18.98%) Incident Response
9 95 (18.59%) Vulnerability Management
10 92 (18.00%) Problem-Solving
11 87 (17.03%) Stakeholder Management
12 82 (16.05%) TOGAF
13 79 (15.46%) DevSecOps
14 78 (15.26%) DevOps
15 76 (14.87%) Security Operations
16 74 (14.48%) CI/CD
17 70 (13.70%) SABSA
18 67 (13.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 65 (12.72%) Identity Access Management
20 64 (12.52%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 86 (16.83%) Python
2 75 (14.68%) PowerShell
3 18 (3.52%) Bash
4 15 (2.94%) Java
5 13 (2.54%) Kusto Query Language
6 12 (2.35%) SQL
7 6 (1.17%) Bicep
8 3 (0.59%) BeanShell
8 3 (0.59%) Search Processing Language
8 3 (0.59%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.39%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.20%) ABAP
10 1 (0.20%) C#
10 1 (0.20%) Go
10 1 (0.20%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 319 (62.43%) CISM
2 178 (34.83%) Security Cleared
3 129 (25.24%) SC Cleared
4 109 (21.33%) Cisco Certification
5 106 (20.74%) Degree
6 101 (19.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 66 (12.92%) CEH
8 59 (11.55%) GIAC
9 57 (11.15%) CCSP
10 54 (10.57%) CRISC
11 52 (10.18%) CompTIA Security+
12 50 (9.78%) DV Cleared
13 49 (9.59%) CISA
14 32 (6.26%) Azure Certification
15 28 (5.48%) AWS Certification
15 28 (5.48%) CESG Certified Professional
15 28 (5.48%) PMI Certification
15 28 (5.48%) PMP
16 22 (4.31%) Computer Science Degree
16 22 (4.31%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 227 (44.42%) NIST
2 192 (37.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 104 (20.35%) GDPR
4 56 (10.96%) GRC
5 44 (8.61%) PCI DSS
6 38 (7.44%) NCSC
7 26 (5.09%) COBIT
8 21 (4.11%) NIST 800
9 20 (3.91%) Cyber Essentials
9 20 (3.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 18 (3.52%) SOC 2
11 12 (2.35%) HIPAA
11 12 (2.35%) JSP 440
12 10 (1.96%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 9 (1.76%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 7 (1.37%) ISO 31000
15 6 (1.17%) EU AI Act
15 6 (1.17%) PMO
15 6 (1.17%) RMADS
16 4 (0.78%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 55 (10.76%) Active Directory
2 12 (2.35%) Docker
3 4 (0.78%) Embedded Firmware
3 4 (0.78%) Firmware
4 3 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.59%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.39%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.20%) GPFS
6 1 (0.20%) Lustre
6 1 (0.20%) RACF
6 1 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.20%) Squid
Systems Management
1 54 (10.57%) Kubernetes
2 23 (4.50%) Terraform
3 12 (2.35%) CASB
4 11 (2.15%) Ansible
4 11 (2.15%) Single Sign-On
5 9 (1.76%) Kibana
5 9 (1.76%) QRadar
6 5 (0.98%) Nessus
7 3 (0.59%) Grafana
7 3 (0.59%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.39%) CA Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.39%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.39%) PingFederate
8 2 (0.39%) SELinux
9 1 (0.20%) logstash
9 1 (0.20%) Nexpose
9 1 (0.20%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.20%) Puppet
Vendors
1 99 (19.37%) Microsoft
2 40 (7.83%) Splunk
3 39 (7.63%) CyberArk
4 29 (5.68%) ServiceNow
5 26 (5.09%) BeyondTrust
6 20 (3.91%) Tenable
7 17 (3.33%) CrowdStrike
8 15 (2.94%) Red Hat
9 14 (2.74%) BiZZdesign
9 14 (2.74%) Okta
10 11 (2.15%) SAP
11 10 (1.96%) Google
11 10 (1.96%) Remedy
12 9 (1.76%) Fortinet
12 9 (1.76%) IBM
13 8 (1.57%) FireEye
13 8 (1.57%) Oracle
13 8 (1.57%) Tanium
14 7 (1.37%) Cisco
14 7 (1.37%) Qualys