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

6 months to
5 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 534 472 538
Rank change year-on-year -62 +66 +160
Contract jobs citing CompTIA Security+ 97 58 62
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.21% 0.20% 0.14%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.64% 0.65% 0.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 61 40 50
10th Percentile £375 £311 £263
25th Percentile £425 £418 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £500 £618
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -19.03% +14.88%
75th Percentile £639 £625 £635
90th Percentile £655 £725 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £620 £509 £616
% change year-on-year +21.93% -17.48% +40.06%
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 15,077 8,950 13,516
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.28% 30.62% 30.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,981 5,711 8,380
10th Percentile £343 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £618 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -0.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,099 484 1,009
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.69
25th Percentile £20.50 £23.88 £17.72
Median hourly rate £37.12 £45.00 £38.75
Median % change year-on-year -17.51% +16.13% -26.19%
75th Percentile £69.13 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.01 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.85 £48.31 £39.92
% change year-on-year -23.72% +21.02% -19.39%

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 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 5 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 5 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 -81 77 £540 +5.37% 162
UK excluding London -76 46 £620 +21.93% 165
London -40 39 £486 -7.43% 39
Work from Home -26 24 £493 -1.50% 20
North of England -63 13 £620 +16.10% 44
Scotland +17 12 £620 +19.92% 10
North West - 11 £630 - 17
South East -51 10 £655 +31.00% 38
South West -25 5 £538 - 14
East of England -28 4 £550 - 22
Yorkshire - 2 £540 - 19
Midlands -71 1 £625 +47.06% 25
East Midlands - 1 £625 - 15
Wales - 1 £550 - 13

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 (4.12%) Confluence
2 1 (1.03%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (1.03%) MS Visio
1 1 (1.03%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 22 (22.68%) Azure
2 19 (19.59%) AWS
3 13 (13.40%) GCP
4 6 (6.19%) Entra ID
5 5 (5.15%) Azure Sentinel
6 3 (3.09%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (3.09%) Microsoft 365
7 2 (2.06%) GitHub
7 2 (2.06%) Power Platform
7 2 (2.06%) SaaS
8 1 (1.03%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (1.03%) Amazon EKS
8 1 (1.03%) Amazon S3
8 1 (1.03%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (1.03%) Azure Logic Apps
8 1 (1.03%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (1.03%) OCI
8 1 (1.03%) Serverless
8 1 (1.03%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 32 (32.99%) DNS
1 32 (32.99%) TCP/IP
2 26 (26.80%) Firewall
3 17 (17.53%) Network Security
4 7 (7.22%) SSL
4 7 (7.22%) VPN
5 5 (5.15%) BGP
5 5 (5.15%) Cisco ASA
5 5 (5.15%) HTTP
6 4 (4.12%) Cisco IOS
6 4 (4.12%) MPLS
6 4 (4.12%) TACACS
7 3 (3.09%) DHCP
8 1 (1.03%) Intranet
8 1 (1.03%) Intrusion Detection
8 1 (1.03%) IPsec
8 1 (1.03%) OSPF
8 1 (1.03%) SAN
8 1 (1.03%) SMTP
8 1 (1.03%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.06%) Metadata
1 2 (2.06%) Power BI
2 1 (1.03%) Amazon QuickSight
2 1 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (1.03%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 4 (4.12%) JIRA
2 1 (1.03%) Burp Suite
2 1 (1.03%) GitLab
2 1 (1.03%) Jenkins
General
1 19 (19.59%) Social Skills
2 15 (15.46%) Analytical Skills
3 14 (14.43%) Finance
4 10 (10.31%) Public Sector
5 5 (5.15%) Aerospace
5 5 (5.15%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (3.09%) Banking
7 2 (2.06%) Military
8 1 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.03%) Law
8 1 (1.03%) Legal
8 1 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (1.03%) Retail
Job Titles
1 42 (43.30%) Analyst
2 20 (20.62%) SOC Analyst
3 15 (15.46%) Security Analyst
4 14 (14.43%) Security Engineer
5 13 (13.40%) Lead
6 11 (11.34%) Senior
7 10 (10.31%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 9 (9.28%) Consultant
9 8 (8.25%) Cybersecurity Consultant
9 8 (8.25%) Security Consultant
10 6 (6.19%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 6 (6.19%) Operations Analyst
11 5 (5.15%) Cybersecurity Engineer
11 5 (5.15%) Senior Analyst
11 5 (5.15%) SOC Engineer
12 4 (4.12%) Cybersecurity Manager
12 4 (4.12%) Security Manager
13 3 (3.09%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
13 3 (3.09%) Security Operations Analyst
13 3 (3.09%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (14.43%) LDAP
2 3 (3.09%) REST
3 2 (2.06%) OAuth
3 2 (2.06%) OAuth2
3 2 (2.06%) OpenID
3 2 (2.06%) SAML
3 2 (2.06%) YAML
4 1 (1.03%) ADO
4 1 (1.03%) ARM Templates
4 1 (1.03%) JDBC
4 1 (1.03%) JSON
4 1 (1.03%) OpenMP
4 1 (1.03%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 23 (23.71%) Security Operations Centre
2 17 (17.53%) Cyberattack
3 10 (10.31%) Management Information System
4 9 (9.28%) Cyber Threat
4 9 (9.28%) Security Posture
5 7 (7.22%) Onboarding
6 5 (5.15%) Cloud Security Posture
6 5 (5.15%) Operational Technology
7 4 (4.12%) PKI
8 3 (3.09%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (3.09%) Cloud Native
9 2 (2.06%) Clustering
9 2 (2.06%) Cyber Defence
9 2 (2.06%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 2 (2.06%) Data Centre
9 2 (2.06%) Embedded Systems
9 2 (2.06%) STIX
9 2 (2.06%) YARA
10 1 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (1.03%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 40 (41.24%) Linux
2 38 (39.18%) Windows
3 6 (6.19%) Windows Server
4 5 (5.15%) Ubuntu
4 5 (5.15%) Unix
5 3 (3.09%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (3.09%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (1.03%) Kali Linux
6 1 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (1.03%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (69.07%) Cybersecurity
2 51 (52.58%) Incident Response
3 48 (49.48%) SIEM
4 38 (39.18%) Security Operations
5 26 (26.80%) Computer Science
6 25 (25.77%) Vulnerability Management
7 17 (17.53%) MITRE ATT&CK
8 16 (16.49%) Cloud Security
8 16 (16.49%) Vulnerability Scanning
9 14 (14.43%) Problem-Solving
10 13 (13.40%) Threat Modelling
11 12 (12.37%) Identity Management
11 12 (12.37%) Information Security
11 12 (12.37%) ITIL
11 12 (12.37%) Penetration Testing
12 11 (11.34%) SOAR
12 11 (11.34%) Threat Detection
12 11 (11.34%) Zero Trust
13 10 (10.31%) Agile
13 10 (10.31%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 23 (23.71%) Python
2 19 (19.59%) PowerShell
3 8 (8.25%) Bash
4 4 (4.12%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (4.12%) PHP
5 2 (2.06%) Java
6 1 (1.03%) SQL
Qualifications
1 58 (59.79%) CISSP
2 52 (53.61%) Security Cleared
3 35 (36.08%) SC Cleared
4 33 (34.02%) CISM
4 33 (34.02%) Degree
5 28 (28.87%) CEH
5 28 (28.87%) DV Cleared
6 24 (24.74%) GIAC
7 23 (23.71%) CompTIA CySA+
8 21 (21.65%) Computer Science Degree
9 13 (13.40%) Microsoft Certification
10 8 (8.25%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (8.25%) GCIA
10 8 (8.25%) GCIH
10 8 (8.25%) SSCP
11 6 (6.19%) AWS Certification
12 5 (5.15%) BPSS Clearance
12 5 (5.15%) CISA
12 5 (5.15%) MCSA
12 5 (5.15%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (37.11%) NIST
2 32 (32.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (11.34%) NCSC
4 8 (8.25%) Cyber Essentials
5 7 (7.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 7 (7.22%) GDPR
6 5 (5.15%) COBIT
7 4 (4.12%) GRC
8 3 (3.09%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 3 (3.09%) NIST 800
9 2 (2.06%) PCI DSS
9 2 (2.06%) SOC 2
10 1 (1.03%) Accessibility
10 1 (1.03%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (1.03%) GxP
10 1 (1.03%) HIPAA
10 1 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 1 (1.03%) SLA
System Software
1 19 (19.59%) Active Directory
2 7 (7.22%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (4.12%) VMware ESXi
4 3 (3.09%) Hyper-V
5 2 (2.06%) Docker
5 2 (2.06%) Embedded Firmware
5 2 (2.06%) Firmware
6 1 (1.03%) GPFS
6 1 (1.03%) Lustre
6 1 (1.03%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (1.03%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 6 (6.19%) Nessus
1 6 (6.19%) QRadar
2 5 (5.15%) CASB
3 4 (4.12%) Kubernetes
3 4 (4.12%) Terraform
3 4 (4.12%) vCenter Server
4 3 (3.09%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
4 3 (3.09%) SCOM
5 2 (2.06%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (2.06%) CA Single Sign-On
5 2 (2.06%) PingFederate
5 2 (2.06%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (1.03%) Ansible
6 1 (1.03%) CSIRT
6 1 (1.03%) Fluentd
6 1 (1.03%) logstash
6 1 (1.03%) Nmap
6 1 (1.03%) SELinux
Vendors
1 38 (39.18%) Splunk
2 23 (23.71%) Microsoft
3 15 (15.46%) Tenable
4 7 (7.22%) VMware
5 6 (6.19%) Cisco
5 6 (6.19%) CrowdStrike
5 6 (6.19%) CyberArk
5 6 (6.19%) ServiceNow
6 5 (5.15%) Remedy
7 4 (4.12%) Carbon Black
8 3 (3.09%) Google
8 3 (3.09%) Veeam
9 2 (2.06%) Darktrace
9 2 (2.06%) Palo Alto
9 2 (2.06%) Ping Identity
9 2 (2.06%) Qualys
9 2 (2.06%) Rapid7
10 1 (1.03%) NVIDIA
10 1 (1.03%) Okta
10 1 (1.03%) Zscaler