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 26 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 539 474 527
Rank change year-on-year -65 +53 +131
Contract jobs citing CompTIA Security+ 96 52 49
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.20% 0.18% 0.11%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.63% 0.58% 0.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 69 34 37
10th Percentile £400 £304 £238
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £494 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.33% -1.25% +9.41%
75th Percentile £639 £535 £635
90th Percentile £656 £634 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £610 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +22.00% - +9.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 1
10th Percentile £28.96 - -
25th Percentile - £45.75 -
Median hourly rate £41.94 £54.50 £20.74
Median % change year-on-year -23.05% +162.78% -
75th Percentile - £63.25 -
90th Percentile £89.84 - -
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 15,349 8,896 12,755
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.62% 31.10% 29.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,182 5,617 7,949
10th Percentile £350 £275 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -1.42% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £645
90th Percentile £719 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £501 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +0.10% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,115 503 1,075
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.87 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.25 £17.94
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.19 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.63
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.01% -22.06%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 26 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 -88 78 £515 +3.00% 134
UK excluding London -80 54 £610 +22.00% 145
London -56 36 £494 -1.30% 28
North of England -54 21 £485 -9.27% 42
North West - 20 £485 - 20
Work from Home -45 16 £485 -3.00% 18
Scotland +8 12 £620 +17.87% 11
South East -60 11 £665 +40.00% 35
South West -25 6 £538 +13.16% 12
East of England -36 2 £550 - 12
Midlands -67 1 £625 +47.06% 25
Yorkshire - 1 - - 16
East Midlands - 1 £625 - 10
Wales - 1 £815 - 8

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 (6.25%) Confluence
2 1 (1.04%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (4.17%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.04%) MS Visio
2 1 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 24 (25.00%) Azure
2 17 (17.71%) AWS
3 12 (12.50%) GCP
4 8 (8.33%) Azure Sentinel
5 4 (4.17%) Entra ID
5 4 (4.17%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (2.08%) Azure Logic Apps
6 2 (2.08%) Microsoft Purview
7 1 (1.04%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (1.04%) AWS CloudTrail
7 1 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (1.04%) Azure DevOps
7 1 (1.04%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (1.04%) GitHub
7 1 (1.04%) Power Platform
7 1 (1.04%) SaaS
7 1 (1.04%) Serverless
7 1 (1.04%) SuccessFactors
7 1 (1.04%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 31 (32.29%) DNS
2 29 (30.21%) TCP/IP
3 19 (19.79%) Firewall
4 12 (12.50%) Network Security
5 7 (7.29%) SSL
6 6 (6.25%) VPN
7 5 (5.21%) BGP
8 4 (4.17%) Cisco ASA
8 4 (4.17%) Cisco IOS
8 4 (4.17%) MPLS
8 4 (4.17%) TACACS
8 4 (4.17%) Wireless
9 3 (3.13%) HTTP
10 1 (1.04%) DHCP
10 1 (1.04%) Intranet
10 1 (1.04%) Intrusion Detection
10 1 (1.04%) IPsec
10 1 (1.04%) OSPF
10 1 (1.04%) SAN
10 1 (1.04%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.08%) Metadata
2 1 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (1.04%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 5 (5.21%) JIRA
2 1 (1.04%) GitLab
2 1 (1.04%) Jenkins
General
1 22 (22.92%) Analytical Skills
2 18 (18.75%) Finance
3 16 (16.67%) Social Skills
4 11 (11.46%) Public Sector
5 6 (6.25%) Banking
6 5 (5.21%) Aerospace
7 3 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.04%) Military
Job Titles
1 37 (38.54%) Analyst
2 17 (17.71%) SOC Analyst
3 13 (13.54%) Lead
4 12 (12.50%) Security Engineer
5 11 (11.46%) Security Analyst
6 10 (10.42%) Senior
7 9 (9.38%) Consultant
8 8 (8.33%) Security Consultant
9 7 (7.29%) Cybersecurity Analyst
10 6 (6.25%) Network Engineer
10 6 (6.25%) Operations Analyst
10 6 (6.25%) Senior Analyst
11 5 (5.21%) Cybersecurity Consultant
11 5 (5.21%) SOC Engineer
12 4 (4.17%) Architect
12 4 (4.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 4 (4.17%) Product Lead
12 4 (4.17%) Security Architect
12 4 (4.17%) Senior Operations Analyst
12 4 (4.17%) Unix Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (12.50%) LDAP
2 4 (4.17%) 802.1X
3 3 (3.13%) REST
4 2 (2.08%) OAuth
4 2 (2.08%) OAuth2
4 2 (2.08%) OpenID
4 2 (2.08%) SAML
4 2 (2.08%) YAML
5 1 (1.04%) ADO
5 1 (1.04%) ARM Templates
5 1 (1.04%) JDBC
5 1 (1.04%) JSON
5 1 (1.04%) OpenMP
5 1 (1.04%) Regular Expression
5 1 (1.04%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 21 (21.88%) Security Operations Centre
2 17 (17.71%) Cyberattack
3 10 (10.42%) Management Information System
3 10 (10.42%) Security Posture
4 8 (8.33%) PKI
5 7 (7.29%) Onboarding
6 6 (6.25%) Cyber Threat
6 6 (6.25%) Operational Technology
7 5 (5.21%) Cloud Security Posture
7 5 (5.21%) Data Centre
8 4 (4.17%) Analytical Mindset
8 4 (4.17%) Embedded Systems
8 4 (4.17%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (3.13%) Cyber Defence
9 3 (3.13%) Cyber Kill Chain
10 2 (2.08%) Cloud Native
10 2 (2.08%) Clustering
10 2 (2.08%) STIX
10 2 (2.08%) Virtual Team
10 2 (2.08%) YARA
Operating Systems
1 45 (46.88%) Linux
2 38 (39.58%) Windows
3 9 (9.38%) Unix
4 5 (5.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (5.21%) Ubuntu
5 4 (4.17%) AIX
5 4 (4.17%) HPUX
5 4 (4.17%) Oracle Linux
5 4 (4.17%) Solaris
5 4 (4.17%) SUSE
5 4 (4.17%) Windows Server
6 1 (1.04%) Rocky
6 1 (1.04%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (1.04%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (63.54%) Cybersecurity
2 49 (51.04%) Incident Response
3 42 (43.75%) SIEM
4 36 (37.50%) Security Operations
5 29 (30.21%) Vulnerability Management
6 22 (22.92%) Computer Science
7 21 (21.88%) Problem-Solving
8 19 (19.79%) MITRE ATT&CK
9 16 (16.67%) Cloud Security
9 16 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
9 16 (16.67%) Penetration Testing
10 14 (14.58%) SOAR
11 13 (13.54%) ITIL
11 13 (13.54%) Vulnerability Assessment
11 13 (13.54%) Vulnerability Remediation
12 11 (11.46%) Identity Management
12 11 (11.46%) Runbook
12 11 (11.46%) Threat Detection
12 11 (11.46%) Zero Trust
13 10 (10.42%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 22 (22.92%) Python
2 18 (18.75%) PowerShell
3 6 (6.25%) Bash
4 4 (4.17%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (4.17%) PHP
5 3 (3.13%) Search Processing Language
6 2 (2.08%) Java
7 1 (1.04%) SQL
Qualifications
1 56 (58.33%) CISSP
2 44 (45.83%) Security Cleared
3 35 (36.46%) SC Cleared
4 33 (34.38%) Degree
5 26 (27.08%) CEH
6 25 (26.04%) CompTIA CySA+
7 24 (25.00%) DV Cleared
8 23 (23.96%) CISM
9 19 (19.79%) Computer Science Degree
9 19 (19.79%) GIAC
10 12 (12.50%) Cisco Certification
11 9 (9.38%) SSCP
12 8 (8.33%) GCIA
12 8 (8.33%) GCIH
12 8 (8.33%) Network+ Certification
13 7 (7.29%) GSEC
13 7 (7.29%) Microsoft Certification
14 6 (6.25%) CCNA
14 6 (6.25%) CCNP
15 5 (5.21%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (37.50%) NIST
2 29 (30.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (9.38%) NCSC
4 7 (7.29%) COBIT
4 7 (7.29%) GDPR
4 7 (7.29%) GRC
5 5 (5.21%) Cyber Essentials
5 5 (5.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (4.17%) SOC 2
7 3 (3.13%) NIST 800
8 2 (2.08%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 2 (2.08%) SOC 1
9 1 (1.04%) Accessibility
9 1 (1.04%) Data Quality
9 1 (1.04%) GxP
9 1 (1.04%) HIPAA
9 1 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 1 (1.04%) PCI DSS
9 1 (1.04%) SLA
System Software
1 15 (15.63%) Active Directory
2 5 (5.21%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (4.17%) Embedded Firmware
3 4 (4.17%) Firmware
3 4 (4.17%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (2.08%) Docker
5 1 (1.04%) GPFS
5 1 (1.04%) Hyper-V
5 1 (1.04%) Lustre
5 1 (1.04%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 1 (1.04%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (6.25%) Nessus
2 5 (5.21%) CASB
2 5 (5.21%) QRadar
3 4 (4.17%) vCenter Server
4 3 (3.13%) Kubernetes
4 3 (3.13%) SCOM
4 3 (3.13%) Terraform
5 2 (2.08%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (2.08%) CA Single Sign-On
5 2 (2.08%) Nexpose
5 2 (2.08%) PingFederate
5 2 (2.08%) Puppet
5 2 (2.08%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (1.04%) Ansible
6 1 (1.04%) Fluentd
6 1 (1.04%) Host Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (1.04%) logstash
6 1 (1.04%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 1 (1.04%) SELinux
Vendors
1 33 (34.38%) Splunk
2 20 (20.83%) Microsoft
3 10 (10.42%) Tenable
4 7 (7.29%) CrowdStrike
5 5 (5.21%) Cisco
5 5 (5.21%) CyberArk
5 5 (5.21%) Remedy
5 5 (5.21%) VMware
6 4 (4.17%) ForeScout
6 4 (4.17%) HP
6 4 (4.17%) Oracle
6 4 (4.17%) Red Hat
6 4 (4.17%) ServiceNow
7 3 (3.13%) Carbon Black
8 2 (2.08%) Ping Identity
8 2 (2.08%) Qualys
9 1 (1.04%) MobileIron
9 1 (1.04%) Progress
9 1 (1.04%) Rapid7
9 1 (1.04%) Veeam