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 12 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 513 558 669
Rank change year-on-year +45 +111 +139
Contract jobs citing CREST Certified 13 32 30
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.044% 0.074% 0.052%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.14% 0.24% 0.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 23 15
10th Percentile £453 £508 £370
25th Percentile £484 £575 £433
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 - £557
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £600 £500
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 6
10th Percentile - - £62.75
25th Percentile - - £65.19
Median hourly rate - - £75.00
75th Percentile - - £77.50
90th Percentile - - £77.63
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 9,076 13,063 15,734
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.03% 30.38% 27.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,699 8,068 10,486
10th Percentile £285 £308 £330
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 £623 £650 £650
90th Percentile £700 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £534 £525
% change year-on-year -6.28% +1.62% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 514 1,068 807
10th Percentile £18.13 £13.80 £15.25
25th Percentile £21.46 £17.80 £20.22
Median hourly rate £39.18 £40.00 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.05% -25.93% +24.38%
75th Percentile £65.46 £61.60 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.07 £75.55 £79.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.66 £40.94 £49.94
% change year-on-year -3.13% -18.02% +42.68%

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 12 May 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 12 May 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 +50 10 £550 -15.38% 49
Work from Home +37 7 £600 -7.69% 31
London +24 7 £450 -37.90% 24
UK excluding London +44 5 £600 - 29
Wales - 4 £625 - 1
North of England +15 2 £650 - 3
North West - 2 £650 - 3
South East - 1 £550 - 17

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 (15.38%) SAS
Cloud Services
1 6 (46.15%) Azure
1 6 (46.15%) IaaS
1 6 (46.15%) SaaS
2 4 (30.77%) AWS
2 4 (30.77%) Entra ID
2 4 (30.77%) Microsoft 365
2 4 (30.77%) PaaS
3 2 (15.38%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 1 (7.69%) Wireless
Development Applications
1 1 (7.69%) Burp Suite
1 1 (7.69%) Metasploit
General
1 5 (38.46%) Analytical Skills
2 4 (30.77%) Legal
3 3 (23.08%) Social Skills
4 1 (7.69%) Automotive
4 1 (7.69%) Military
4 1 (7.69%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 7 (53.85%) Tester
2 5 (38.46%) Senior
3 4 (30.77%) Senior Tester
4 3 (23.08%) Penetration Tester
5 2 (15.38%) Analyst
6 1 (7.69%) Consultant
6 1 (7.69%) Cyber Threat Consultant
6 1 (7.69%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Consultant
6 1 (7.69%) Cybersecurity Engineer
6 1 (7.69%) Security Analyst
6 1 (7.69%) Security Engineer
6 1 (7.69%) Senior Analyst
6 1 (7.69%) Threat Intelligence Consultant
6 1 (7.69%) Vulnerability Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (30.77%) CSS
1 4 (30.77%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 5 (38.46%) Cyber Kill Chain
2 4 (30.77%) Cyber Defence
3 3 (23.08%) Security Posture
4 2 (15.38%) Cyberattack
5 1 (7.69%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (7.69%) Embedded Systems
5 1 (7.69%) Industrial Internet of Things
5 1 (7.69%) IoT
5 1 (7.69%) MISP
5 1 (7.69%) Operational Technology
5 1 (7.69%) SCADA
5 1 (7.69%) Security Operations Centre
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (84.62%) Cybersecurity
2 9 (69.23%) Penetration Testing
3 8 (61.54%) Ethical Hacking
3 8 (61.54%) Red Team
4 7 (53.85%) Offensive Security
5 6 (46.15%) Application Security
6 5 (38.46%) Cloud Security
6 5 (38.46%) Information Security
6 5 (38.46%) Manual Testing
6 5 (38.46%) Mentoring
6 5 (38.46%) Problem-Solving
6 5 (38.46%) Security Testing
6 5 (38.46%) Test Automation
6 5 (38.46%) Vulnerability Remediation
7 4 (30.77%) Continuous Improvement
7 4 (30.77%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
7 4 (30.77%) OWASP
7 4 (30.77%) Secure Coding
7 4 (30.77%) Threat Intelligence
7 4 (30.77%) Vulnerability Scanning
Programming Languages
1 6 (46.15%) Python
2 4 (30.77%) JavaScript
2 4 (30.77%) PHP
2 4 (30.77%) Ruby
2 4 (30.77%) SQL
3 2 (15.38%) PowerShell
4 1 (7.69%) Bash
4 1 (7.69%) C++
4 1 (7.69%) Java
4 1 (7.69%) Perl
Qualifications
1 7 (53.85%) OSCP
2 6 (46.15%) CEH
3 5 (38.46%) GIAC
4 4 (30.77%) CCSAS
4 4 (30.77%) Degree
4 4 (30.77%) GPEN
4 4 (30.77%) GWAPT
5 3 (23.08%) CISSP
5 3 (23.08%) SC Cleared
5 3 (23.08%) Security Cleared
6 2 (15.38%) Cyber Scheme
6 2 (15.38%) OSCE
7 1 (7.69%) CISM
7 1 (7.69%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (15.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 2 (15.38%) NIST
2 1 (7.69%) Cyber Essentials
2 1 (7.69%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 1 (7.69%) ISO 9001
Systems Management
1 1 (7.69%) Nessus
Vendors
1 2 (15.38%) Google
2 1 (7.69%) Microsoft