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 5 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 571 483 525
Rank change year-on-year -88 +42 +113
Contract jobs citing CompTIA Security+ 92 68 47
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.21% 0.12%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.55% 0.66% 0.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 60 48 37
10th Percentile £387 £321 £225
25th Percentile £425 £442 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -10.53%
75th Percentile £632 £546 £635
90th Percentile £713 £691 £659
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £500 £505
% change year-on-year +10.00% -0.99% -11.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 1
10th Percentile £72.54 - -
25th Percentile £74.85 £45.75 -
Median hourly rate £78.70 £54.50 £20.74
Median % change year-on-year +44.40% +162.78% -
75th Percentile £78.85 £63.25 -
90th Percentile £78.94 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £78.70 - £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 16,695 10,238 11,730
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.39% 31.11% 29.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,175 6,323 7,429
10th Percentile £350 £282 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,244 786 855
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.21%
75th Percentile £74.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £74.38 £77.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -44.11% -16.15%

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 5 August 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+
Top 13 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 5 August 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 -98 85 £503 +3.18% 276
UK excluding London -84 48 £550 +10.00% 264
London -43 38 £497 +1.95% 79
North of England -44 22 £460 -19.12% 68
Work from Home -51 21 £485 -3.00% 45
North West -36 19 £460 -24.31% 32
South West -37 14 £600 +23.08% 34
South East -67 8 £675 +42.11% 62
East Midlands -8 2 £579 +36.18% 22
Midlands -60 2 £579 +40.30% 39
Yorkshire - 2 £575 - 25
Scotland -12 1 - - 18
Wales - 1 £815 - 15

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 6 (6.52%) Confluence
2 1 (1.09%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (4.35%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.09%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 30 (32.61%) Azure
2 19 (20.65%) AWS
3 14 (15.22%) GCP
4 10 (10.87%) Azure Sentinel
5 5 (5.43%) Entra ID
5 5 (5.43%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (4.35%) GitHub
7 3 (3.26%) Microsoft Purview
8 2 (2.17%) Anthropic Claude
8 2 (2.17%) Azure Logic Apps
8 2 (2.17%) Datadog
8 2 (2.17%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (1.09%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (1.09%) Azure Monitor
9 1 (1.09%) Cloudflare
9 1 (1.09%) Google Workspace
9 1 (1.09%) Power Platform
9 1 (1.09%) SaaS
9 1 (1.09%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 18 (19.57%) Firewall
2 15 (16.30%) DNS
3 13 (14.13%) Network Security
4 11 (11.96%) TCP/IP
5 7 (7.61%) SSL
6 4 (4.35%) VPN
6 4 (4.35%) Wireless
7 3 (3.26%) HTTP
8 2 (2.17%) BGP
8 2 (2.17%) Intrusion Detection
9 1 (1.09%) Cisco ASA
9 1 (1.09%) Cisco IOS
9 1 (1.09%) IPFIX
9 1 (1.09%) IPsec
9 1 (1.09%) NAS
9 1 (1.09%) SNMP
9 1 (1.09%) SSH
9 1 (1.09%) TACACS
9 1 (1.09%) VLAN
9 1 (1.09%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.17%) Metadata
2 1 (1.09%) MongoDB
2 1 (1.09%) Power BI
2 1 (1.09%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (5.43%) JIRA
2 3 (3.26%) GitLab
2 3 (3.26%) Jenkins
3 2 (2.17%) Claude Code
4 1 (1.09%) Git
General
1 24 (26.09%) Analytical Skills
2 22 (23.91%) Finance
2 22 (23.91%) Social Skills
3 8 (8.70%) Banking
4 6 (6.52%) Aerospace
5 5 (5.43%) Public Sector
6 4 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.09%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 30 (32.61%) Analyst
2 15 (16.30%) Security Analyst
3 13 (14.13%) Senior
4 12 (13.04%) Consultant
5 10 (10.87%) Security Consultant
5 10 (10.87%) SOC Analyst
6 9 (9.78%) Cybersecurity Analyst
6 9 (9.78%) Security Engineer
7 8 (8.70%) Architect
8 7 (7.61%) Operations Analyst
8 7 (7.61%) Security Architect
8 7 (7.61%) Security Operations Analyst
8 7 (7.61%) Senior Analyst
9 6 (6.52%) Network Engineer
10 5 (5.43%) Lead
10 5 (5.43%) Unix Engineer
11 4 (4.35%) Product Lead
11 4 (4.35%) Project Consultant
11 4 (4.35%) Senior Security Analyst
12 3 (3.26%) Security Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (10.87%) LDAP
2 4 (4.35%) 802.1X
3 3 (3.26%) OAuth
3 3 (3.26%) OAuth2
3 3 (3.26%) OpenID
3 3 (3.26%) REST
3 3 (3.26%) SAML
3 3 (3.26%) YAML
4 2 (2.17%) SailPoint
5 1 (1.09%) ADO
5 1 (1.09%) ARM Templates
5 1 (1.09%) JDBC
5 1 (1.09%) JSON
5 1 (1.09%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (1.09%) Regular Expression
5 1 (1.09%) Spring
5 1 (1.09%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 13 (14.13%) Security Posture
2 12 (13.04%) Security Operations Centre
3 8 (8.70%) Management Information System
4 7 (7.61%) Onboarding
4 7 (7.61%) Operational Technology
5 6 (6.52%) Cloud Security Posture
5 6 (6.52%) Data Centre
6 5 (5.43%) Analytical Mindset
6 5 (5.43%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (5.43%) PKI
7 4 (4.35%) Cyber Defence
7 4 (4.35%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 4 (4.35%) Embedded Systems
8 2 (2.17%) CESG
8 2 (2.17%) Cloud Native
8 2 (2.17%) Clustering
8 2 (2.17%) Cyber Threat
8 2 (2.17%) Cyberattack
8 2 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (2.17%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 26 (28.26%) Linux
2 23 (25.00%) Windows
3 11 (11.96%) Unix
4 6 (6.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (5.43%) AIX
5 5 (5.43%) HPUX
5 5 (5.43%) Oracle Linux
5 5 (5.43%) Solaris
5 5 (5.43%) SUSE
6 2 (2.17%) Ubuntu
6 2 (2.17%) Windows Server
7 1 (1.09%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (60.87%) Cybersecurity
2 38 (41.30%) Incident Response
3 33 (35.87%) Security Operations
3 33 (35.87%) SIEM
4 32 (34.78%) Vulnerability Management
5 22 (23.91%) MITRE ATT&CK
6 21 (22.83%) Continuous Improvement
7 19 (20.65%) Cloud Security
7 19 (20.65%) Threat Detection
8 18 (19.57%) Problem-Solving
9 17 (18.48%) ITIL
9 17 (18.48%) SOAR
9 17 (18.48%) Threat Intelligence
10 15 (16.30%) Penetration Testing
10 15 (16.30%) Vulnerability Remediation
11 13 (14.13%) Root Cause Analysis
11 13 (14.13%) Security Architecture
11 13 (14.13%) Security Monitoring
11 13 (14.13%) Vulnerability Scanning
12 12 (13.04%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 19 (20.65%) PowerShell
2 17 (18.48%) Python
3 9 (9.78%) Bash
4 4 (4.35%) Search Processing Language
5 3 (3.26%) Java
5 3 (3.26%) Kusto Query Language
5 3 (3.26%) Perl
6 2 (2.17%) Bicep
7 1 (1.09%) PHP
Qualifications
1 64 (69.57%) CISSP
2 31 (33.70%) CEH
2 31 (33.70%) Security Cleared
3 24 (26.09%) CISM
4 21 (22.83%) SC Cleared
5 20 (21.74%) Degree
6 19 (20.65%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (20.65%) CompTIA CySA+
7 17 (18.48%) GIAC
8 14 (15.22%) DV Cleared
9 13 (14.13%) Network+ Certification
10 11 (11.96%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 11 (11.96%) GCIH
11 9 (9.78%) CRISC
11 9 (9.78%) GCIA
11 9 (9.78%) Microsoft Certification
12 8 (8.70%) MCSE
13 7 (7.61%) CCNP
13 7 (7.61%) OSCP
13 7 (7.61%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (41.30%) NIST
2 36 (39.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (10.87%) NCSC
4 8 (8.70%) GRC
5 7 (7.61%) GDPR
6 6 (6.52%) COBIT
6 6 (6.52%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (5.43%) NIST 800
8 4 (4.35%) PCI DSS
9 3 (3.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 3 (3.26%) SOC 2
10 2 (2.17%) HIPAA
10 2 (2.17%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 2 (2.17%) SOC 1
11 1 (1.09%) Data Quality
11 1 (1.09%) GxP
11 1 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 1 (1.09%) JSP 440
11 1 (1.09%) QA
11 1 (1.09%) SLA
System Software
1 10 (10.87%) Active Directory
2 4 (4.35%) Embedded Firmware
2 4 (4.35%) Firmware
3 3 (3.26%) Docker
4 1 (1.09%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (1.09%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (1.09%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (7.61%) QRadar
2 5 (5.43%) Ansible
2 5 (5.43%) CASB
2 5 (5.43%) Kubernetes
2 5 (5.43%) Nessus
2 5 (5.43%) Terraform
3 2 (2.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 2 (2.17%) CA Single Sign-On
3 2 (2.17%) Nexpose
3 2 (2.17%) PingFederate
3 2 (2.17%) Puppet
3 2 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (1.09%) Grafana
4 1 (1.09%) Host Intrusion Detection System
4 1 (1.09%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (1.09%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.09%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 25 (27.17%) Microsoft
2 24 (26.09%) Splunk
3 13 (14.13%) CrowdStrike
4 11 (11.96%) Tenable
5 6 (6.52%) CyberArk
6 5 (5.43%) HP
6 5 (5.43%) Oracle
6 5 (5.43%) Red Hat
6 5 (5.43%) Remedy
6 5 (5.43%) ServiceNow
7 4 (4.35%) ForeScout
7 4 (4.35%) Google
7 4 (4.35%) Palo Alto
8 3 (3.26%) Carbon Black
8 3 (3.26%) Ping Identity
9 2 (2.17%) Cisco
9 2 (2.17%) IBM
9 2 (2.17%) SolarWinds
9 2 (2.17%) Trend Micro
10 1 (1.09%) Fortinet