CREST Certified Contracts

CREST Certification
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for CREST Certified qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 505 535 677
Rank change year-on-year +30 +142 +144
Contract jobs citing CREST Certified 14 65 36
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.048% 0.15% 0.060%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.16% 0.49% 0.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 22 17
10th Percentile £453 £504 £377
25th Percentile £484 £600 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £650 £500
Median % change year-on-year -11.54% +30.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £613 £738 £525
90th Percentile £650 - £555
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £600 £500
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 9
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £62.75
Median hourly rate - - £75.00
75th Percentile - - £77.50
90th Percentile - - £78.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £75.00
% change year-on-year - - +13.98%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

CREST Certified 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 8,989 13,363 16,304
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.75% 30.65% 27.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,678 8,219 10,866
10th Percentile £288 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% -2.73% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £707 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £501 £530 £530
% change year-on-year -5.57% - +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 516 1,077 849
10th Percentile £18.13 £13.87 £15.25
25th Percentile £22.00 £17.88 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.72 £40.00 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.79% -25.93% +29.75%
75th Percentile £66.00 £61.60 £68.25
90th Percentile £80.34 £75.25 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £40.94 £49.57
% change year-on-year +9.92% -17.41% +55.44%

CREST Certified
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing CREST Certified as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for CREST Certified in the UK

CREST Certified
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing CREST Certified.

Daily rate trend for CREST Certified in the UK

CREST Certified
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing CREST Certified over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for CREST Certified in the UK

CREST Certified
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing CREST Certified.

Hourly rate trend for CREST Certified in the UK

CREST Certified
Top 8 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing CREST Certified within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 2025. 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 +11 11 £550 -15.38% 46
London +23 8 £450 -37.90% 21
Work from Home +7 7 £600 -12.73% 42
UK excluding London +16 5 £600 - 29
Wales - 4 £625 - 1
North of England +23 2 £650 - 12
North West - 2 £650 - 10
South East +13 1 £550 - 8

CREST Certified
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 2 (14.29%) SAS
Cloud Services
1 7 (50.00%) IaaS
1 7 (50.00%) SaaS
2 6 (42.86%) Azure
3 5 (35.71%) PaaS
4 4 (28.57%) AWS
4 4 (28.57%) Entra ID
4 4 (28.57%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (14.29%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 1 (7.14%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 1 (7.14%) Burp Suite
1 1 (7.14%) Metasploit
General
1 6 (42.86%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (35.71%) Legal
3 3 (21.43%) Social Skills
4 1 (7.14%) Automotive
4 1 (7.14%) Military
4 1 (7.14%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 8 (57.14%) Tester
2 6 (42.86%) Senior
3 5 (35.71%) Senior Tester
4 3 (21.43%) Penetration Tester
5 2 (14.29%) Analyst
6 1 (7.14%) Consultant
6 1 (7.14%) Cyber Threat Consultant
6 1 (7.14%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Consultant
6 1 (7.14%) Cybersecurity Engineer
6 1 (7.14%) Security Analyst
6 1 (7.14%) Security Engineer
6 1 (7.14%) Senior Analyst
6 1 (7.14%) Threat Intelligence Consultant
6 1 (7.14%) Vulnerability Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (35.71%) CSS
1 5 (35.71%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 6 (42.86%) Cyber Kill Chain
2 5 (35.71%) Cyber Defence
3 3 (21.43%) Security Posture
4 2 (14.29%) Cyberattack
5 1 (7.14%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (7.14%) Embedded Systems
5 1 (7.14%) Industrial Internet of Things
5 1 (7.14%) IoT
5 1 (7.14%) MISP
5 1 (7.14%) Operational Technology
5 1 (7.14%) SCADA
5 1 (7.14%) Security Operations Centre
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (85.71%) Cybersecurity
2 10 (71.43%) Penetration Testing
3 9 (64.29%) Ethical Hacking
3 9 (64.29%) Red Team
4 8 (57.14%) Offensive Security
5 7 (50.00%) Application Security
6 6 (42.86%) Information Security
6 6 (42.86%) Manual Testing
6 6 (42.86%) Mentoring
6 6 (42.86%) Problem-Solving
6 6 (42.86%) Test Automation
6 6 (42.86%) Vulnerability Remediation
7 5 (35.71%) Cloud Security
7 5 (35.71%) Computer Science
7 5 (35.71%) Continuous Improvement
7 5 (35.71%) OWASP
7 5 (35.71%) Purple Team
7 5 (35.71%) Secure Coding
7 5 (35.71%) Security Testing
7 5 (35.71%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 7 (50.00%) Python
2 5 (35.71%) JavaScript
2 5 (35.71%) PHP
2 5 (35.71%) Ruby
2 5 (35.71%) SQL
3 2 (14.29%) PowerShell
4 1 (7.14%) Bash
4 1 (7.14%) C++
4 1 (7.14%) Java
4 1 (7.14%) Perl
Qualifications
1 8 (57.14%) OSCP
2 7 (50.00%) CEH
3 6 (42.86%) GIAC
4 5 (35.71%) CCSAS
4 5 (35.71%) Degree
4 5 (35.71%) GPEN
4 5 (35.71%) GWAPT
5 3 (21.43%) CISSP
5 3 (21.43%) SC Cleared
5 3 (21.43%) Security Cleared
6 2 (14.29%) Cyber Scheme
6 2 (14.29%) OSCE
7 1 (7.14%) CISM
7 1 (7.14%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (14.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 2 (14.29%) NIST
2 1 (7.14%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (7.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 1 (7.14%) ISO 9001
Systems Management
1 1 (7.14%) Nessus
Vendors
1 2 (14.29%) Google
2 1 (7.14%) Microsoft