CompTIA Security+ Contract Job Trends

CompTIA Security+
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for CompTIA Security+ qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 12 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 528 468 533
Rank change year-on-year -60 +65 +167
Contract jobs citing CompTIA Security+ 100 59 59
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.22% 0.20% 0.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.66% 0.66% 0.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 64 41 48
10th Percentile £383 £313 £263
25th Percentile £425 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £500 £618
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -19.03% +11.01%
75th Percentile £639 £625 £635
90th Percentile £655 £725 £679
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £509 £615
% change year-on-year +21.93% -17.32% +34.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 1 1
10th Percentile £31.47 - -
25th Percentile £40.52 £45.75 -
Median hourly rate £41.94 £54.50 £20.74
Median % change year-on-year -23.05% +162.78% -
75th Percentile £52.22 £63.25 -
90th Percentile £87.28 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 - £20.74

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

CompTIA Security+ 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 15,151 9,006 13,452
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.04% 30.78% 30.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,069 5,723 8,320
10th Percentile £349 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.05% -2.55%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £511 £525
% change year-on-year -2.08% -2.73% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,103 494 1,026
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.69
25th Percentile £20.82 £23.00 £17.63
Median hourly rate £42.00 £45.00 £38.85
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +15.83% -26.59%
75th Percentile £69.44 £67.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.89 £75.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.97 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year -12.21% +19.51% -19.22%

CompTIA Security+
Job Vacancy Trend

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

CompTIA Security+ job vacancy trend in the UK

CompTIA Security+
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CompTIA Security+.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CompTIA Security+

CompTIA Security+
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing CompTIA Security+ over the 6 months to 12 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for CompTIA Security+ in the UK

CompTIA Security+
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CompTIA Security+.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CompTIA Security+

CompTIA Security+
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing CompTIA Security+ over the 6 months to 12 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for CompTIA Security+ in the UK

CompTIA Security+
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing CompTIA Security+ within the UK over the 6 months to 12 April 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 -90 80 £539 +7.75% 135
UK excluding London -73 49 £620 +21.93% 141
London -52 39 £486 -5.17% 32
Work from Home -29 24 £493 -1.50% 19
North of England -61 15 £620 +16.10% 33
North West - 13 £620 - 10
Scotland +14 12 £620 +19.92% 9
South East -53 11 £655 +31.00% 37
South West -23 5 £538 - 12
East of England -38 4 £550 - 18
Yorkshire - 2 £540 - 15
Midlands -70 1 £625 +47.06% 24
East Midlands - 1 £625 - 14
Wales - 1 £550 - 12

CompTIA Security+
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 4 (4.00%) Confluence
2 1 (1.00%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (1.00%) MS Visio
1 1 (1.00%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 22 (22.00%) Azure
2 19 (19.00%) AWS
3 13 (13.00%) GCP
4 6 (6.00%) Entra ID
5 5 (5.00%) Azure Sentinel
6 3 (3.00%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (3.00%) Microsoft 365
7 2 (2.00%) GitHub
7 2 (2.00%) Power Platform
7 2 (2.00%) SaaS
8 1 (1.00%) Amazon EKS
8 1 (1.00%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (1.00%) AWS CloudTrail
8 1 (1.00%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (1.00%) Azure Logic Apps
8 1 (1.00%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (1.00%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (1.00%) Serverless
8 1 (1.00%) SuccessFactors
8 1 (1.00%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 32 (32.00%) DNS
1 32 (32.00%) TCP/IP
2 26 (26.00%) Firewall
3 17 (17.00%) Network Security
4 7 (7.00%) SSL
4 7 (7.00%) VPN
5 5 (5.00%) BGP
5 5 (5.00%) Cisco ASA
5 5 (5.00%) HTTP
6 4 (4.00%) Cisco IOS
6 4 (4.00%) MPLS
6 4 (4.00%) TACACS
7 3 (3.00%) DHCP
8 1 (1.00%) Intranet
8 1 (1.00%) Intrusion Detection
8 1 (1.00%) IPsec
8 1 (1.00%) NAS
8 1 (1.00%) OSPF
8 1 (1.00%) SAN
8 1 (1.00%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.00%) Metadata
1 2 (2.00%) Power BI
2 1 (1.00%) Amazon QuickSight
2 1 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (1.00%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 4 (4.00%) JIRA
2 1 (1.00%) Burp Suite
2 1 (1.00%) GitLab
2 1 (1.00%) Jenkins
General
1 20 (20.00%) Social Skills
2 16 (16.00%) Analytical Skills
2 16 (16.00%) Finance
3 10 (10.00%) Public Sector
4 6 (6.00%) Aerospace
5 5 (5.00%) Banking
5 5 (5.00%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (2.00%) Military
7 1 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (1.00%) Law
7 1 (1.00%) Legal
7 1 (1.00%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.00%) Retail
Job Titles
1 42 (42.00%) Analyst
2 20 (20.00%) SOC Analyst
3 15 (15.00%) Security Analyst
4 14 (14.00%) Lead
4 14 (14.00%) Security Engineer
5 12 (12.00%) Senior
6 10 (10.00%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 9 (9.00%) Consultant
8 8 (8.00%) Cybersecurity Consultant
8 8 (8.00%) Security Consultant
9 6 (6.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 6 (6.00%) Operations Analyst
10 5 (5.00%) Cybersecurity Engineer
10 5 (5.00%) Senior Analyst
10 5 (5.00%) SOC Engineer
11 4 (4.00%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 4 (4.00%) Security Manager
12 3 (3.00%) Information Security Analyst
12 3 (3.00%) Product Lead
12 3 (3.00%) Vulnerability Management Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (14.00%) LDAP
2 3 (3.00%) REST
3 2 (2.00%) OAuth
3 2 (2.00%) OAuth2
3 2 (2.00%) OpenID
3 2 (2.00%) SAML
3 2 (2.00%) YAML
4 1 (1.00%) ADO
4 1 (1.00%) ARM Templates
4 1 (1.00%) JDBC
4 1 (1.00%) JSON
4 1 (1.00%) OpenMP
4 1 (1.00%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 23 (23.00%) Security Operations Centre
2 17 (17.00%) Cyberattack
3 10 (10.00%) Management Information System
4 9 (9.00%) Cyber Threat
4 9 (9.00%) Security Posture
5 7 (7.00%) Onboarding
6 5 (5.00%) Cloud Security Posture
6 5 (5.00%) Operational Technology
7 4 (4.00%) Analytical Mindset
7 4 (4.00%) Data Centre
7 4 (4.00%) PKI
8 3 (3.00%) Cloud Native
8 3 (3.00%) Embedded Systems
9 2 (2.00%) Clustering
9 2 (2.00%) Cyber Defence
9 2 (2.00%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 2 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (2.00%) STIX
9 2 (2.00%) YARA
10 1 (1.00%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 42 (42.00%) Linux
2 38 (38.00%) Windows
3 7 (7.00%) Unix
4 6 (6.00%) Windows Server
5 5 (5.00%) Ubuntu
6 3 (3.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (3.00%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (3.00%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (2.00%) AIX
7 2 (2.00%) HPUX
7 2 (2.00%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (2.00%) Solaris
7 2 (2.00%) SUSE
8 1 (1.00%) Kali Linux
8 1 (1.00%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 68 (68.00%) Cybersecurity
2 52 (52.00%) Incident Response
3 48 (48.00%) SIEM
4 38 (38.00%) Security Operations
5 27 (27.00%) Vulnerability Management
6 26 (26.00%) Computer Science
7 17 (17.00%) MITRE ATT&CK
8 16 (16.00%) Cloud Security
8 16 (16.00%) Vulnerability Scanning
9 15 (15.00%) Problem-Solving
10 14 (14.00%) ITIL
10 14 (14.00%) Threat Modelling
11 12 (12.00%) Identity Management
11 12 (12.00%) Information Security
11 12 (12.00%) Penetration Testing
12 11 (11.00%) SOAR
12 11 (11.00%) Threat Detection
12 11 (11.00%) Zero Trust
13 10 (10.00%) Root Cause Analysis
13 10 (10.00%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 23 (23.00%) Python
2 19 (19.00%) PowerShell
3 8 (8.00%) Bash
4 4 (4.00%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (4.00%) PHP
5 2 (2.00%) Java
6 1 (1.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 61 (61.00%) CISSP
2 52 (52.00%) Security Cleared
3 35 (35.00%) SC Cleared
4 34 (34.00%) Degree
5 33 (33.00%) CISM
6 29 (29.00%) CEH
7 28 (28.00%) DV Cleared
8 24 (24.00%) GIAC
9 23 (23.00%) CompTIA CySA+
10 21 (21.00%) Computer Science Degree
11 13 (13.00%) Microsoft Certification
12 8 (8.00%) Cisco Certification
12 8 (8.00%) GCIA
12 8 (8.00%) GCIH
12 8 (8.00%) SSCP
13 6 (6.00%) AWS Certification
14 5 (5.00%) BPSS Clearance
14 5 (5.00%) CISA
14 5 (5.00%) MCSA
14 5 (5.00%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (37.00%) NIST
2 32 (32.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (11.00%) NCSC
4 8 (8.00%) Cyber Essentials
5 7 (7.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 7 (7.00%) GDPR
6 6 (6.00%) GRC
7 5 (5.00%) COBIT
8 3 (3.00%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 3 (3.00%) NIST 800
9 2 (2.00%) PCI DSS
9 2 (2.00%) SOC 2
10 1 (1.00%) Accessibility
10 1 (1.00%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (1.00%) GxP
10 1 (1.00%) HIPAA
10 1 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 1 (1.00%) SLA
System Software
1 19 (19.00%) Active Directory
2 7 (7.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (4.00%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (3.00%) Embedded Firmware
4 3 (3.00%) Firmware
4 3 (3.00%) Hyper-V
5 2 (2.00%) Docker
6 1 (1.00%) GPFS
6 1 (1.00%) Lustre
6 1 (1.00%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (1.00%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (6.00%) Nessus
1 6 (6.00%) QRadar
2 5 (5.00%) CASB
3 4 (4.00%) Kubernetes
3 4 (4.00%) Terraform
3 4 (4.00%) vCenter Server
4 3 (3.00%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
4 3 (3.00%) SCOM
5 2 (2.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (2.00%) CA Single Sign-On
5 2 (2.00%) PingFederate
5 2 (2.00%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (1.00%) Ansible
6 1 (1.00%) CSIRT
6 1 (1.00%) Fluentd
6 1 (1.00%) logstash
6 1 (1.00%) Nmap
6 1 (1.00%) SELinux
Vendors
1 38 (38.00%) Splunk
2 24 (24.00%) Microsoft
3 15 (15.00%) Tenable
4 7 (7.00%) VMware
5 6 (6.00%) Cisco
5 6 (6.00%) CrowdStrike
5 6 (6.00%) CyberArk
5 6 (6.00%) ServiceNow
6 5 (5.00%) Remedy
7 4 (4.00%) Carbon Black
8 3 (3.00%) Google
8 3 (3.00%) Veeam
9 2 (2.00%) Darktrace
9 2 (2.00%) HP
9 2 (2.00%) Oracle
9 2 (2.00%) Palo Alto
9 2 (2.00%) Ping Identity
9 2 (2.00%) Qualys
9 2 (2.00%) Rapid7
9 2 (2.00%) Red Hat