CSOC Contract Job Trends

Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC)
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term CSOC in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited CSOC over the 6 months leading up to 14 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 542 532 585
Rank change year-on-year -10 +53 +190
Contract jobs citing CSOC 39 32 27
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.11% 0.093% 0.061%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.30% 0.29% 0.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 20 17
10th Percentile £338 £508 £461
25th Percentile £513 £558 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £588 £600
Median % change year-on-year -4.68% -2.08% -4.00%
75th Percentile £680 £778 £700
90th Percentile £745 £800 £720
UK excluding London median daily rate £560 £568 £600
% change year-on-year -1.32% -5.42% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 0 2
10th Percentile £45.00 - £64.92
25th Percentile £50.25 - £68.54
Median hourly rate £65.00 - £74.58
75th Percentile £75.00 - £80.62
90th Percentile £83.75 - £84.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 - £74.58

All Generic Skills
UK

CSOC falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 12,796 11,034 14,096
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.12% 31.91% 31.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,979 6,582 9,412
10th Percentile £275 £271 £270
25th Percentile £406 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.88% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £663 £668
90th Percentile £738 £775 £770
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 653 350 490
10th Percentile £13.59 £17.23 £16.54
25th Percentile £18.00 £22.55 £20.50
Median hourly rate £27.21 £33.27 £42.40
Median % change year-on-year -18.21% -21.54% +21.15%
75th Percentile £58.00 £64.94 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.41 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.21 £32.50 £45.11
% change year-on-year -16.28% -27.95% +52.90%

CSOC
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing CSOC relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

CSOC job vacancy trend in the UK

CSOC
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CSOC.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CSOC

CSOC
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing CSOC over the 6 months to 14 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for CSOC in the UK

CSOC
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CSOC.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing CSOC

CSOC
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing CSOC over the 6 months to 14 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for CSOC in the UK

CSOC
Top 11 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing CSOC within the UK over the 6 months to 14 December 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 -29 38 £560 -2.61% 11
UK excluding London -28 27 £560 -1.32% 9
East of England - 14 £680 - 5
South East +6 10 £559 +8.02% 4
Work from Home +4 7 £559 -6.83% 3
London -12 7 £525 -10.64% 2
North West -19 2 £750 -3.23%
North of England -36 2 £750 -3.23%
West Midlands - 2 - -
Midlands - 2 - - 1
Wales - 1 £238 -

CSOC
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 2 (5.13%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 8 (20.51%) SaaS
2 5 (12.82%) AWS
3 3 (7.69%) Azure
4 2 (5.13%) Amazon EC2
4 2 (5.13%) Amazon S3
4 2 (5.13%) Amazon SQS
4 2 (5.13%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (2.56%) SAP Commerce Cloud
5 1 (2.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 16 (41.03%) Network Security
2 13 (33.33%) DNS
2 13 (33.33%) FTP
2 13 (33.33%) HTTP
2 13 (33.33%) SMTP
2 13 (33.33%) SSL
3 3 (7.69%) Firewall
Development Applications
1 2 (5.13%) JIRA
General
1 19 (48.72%) Social Skills
2 14 (35.90%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (17.95%) Public Sector
4 2 (5.13%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (2.56%) Finance
5 1 (2.56%) Law
5 1 (2.56%) Military
5 1 (2.56%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (2.56%) Welsh Language
Job Titles
1 19 (48.72%) Analyst
2 18 (46.15%) SOC Analyst
3 8 (20.51%) Architect
4 4 (10.26%) Lead
4 4 (10.26%) Security Architect
4 4 (10.26%) SIEM Architect
5 3 (7.69%) Security Analyst
5 3 (7.69%) Security Specialist
6 2 (5.13%) Cybersecurity Specialist
6 2 (5.13%) Information Security Officer
6 2 (5.13%) Operations Analyst
6 2 (5.13%) Penetration Tester
6 2 (5.13%) Security Manager
6 2 (5.13%) Security Officer
6 2 (5.13%) Security Operations Analyst
6 2 (5.13%) Senior
6 2 (5.13%) Tester
7 1 (2.56%) Lead Security Architect
7 1 (2.56%) Operational Security Manager
7 1 (2.56%) Security Operations Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (33.33%) LDAP
2 1 (2.56%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 33 (84.62%) Security Operations Centre
2 18 (46.15%) Cyber Threat
3 13 (33.33%) Analytical Mindset
3 13 (33.33%) Cyberattack
3 13 (33.33%) Management Information System
4 2 (5.13%) Cyber Defence
4 2 (5.13%) Onboarding
5 1 (2.56%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (2.56%) NHS
5 1 (2.56%) Security Posture
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (94.87%) Cybersecurity
2 34 (87.18%) Security Operations
3 32 (82.05%) SIEM
4 23 (58.97%) Incident Response
5 20 (51.28%) Threat Detection
6 17 (43.59%) Information Security
7 15 (38.46%) SOAR
8 14 (35.90%) Continuous Improvement
8 14 (35.90%) Information Management
9 13 (33.33%) AI
9 13 (33.33%) Analytics
9 13 (33.33%) Behavioural Analytics
9 13 (33.33%) Machine Learning
9 13 (33.33%) Network Packet Capture
9 13 (33.33%) Threat Modelling
10 12 (30.77%) Root Cause Analysis
10 12 (30.77%) Runbook
11 5 (12.82%) Cloud Security
11 5 (12.82%) Penetration Testing
12 4 (10.26%) MITRE ATT&CK
Programming Languages
1 12 (30.77%) PowerShell
1 12 (30.77%) Python
Qualifications
1 29 (74.36%) Security Cleared
2 26 (66.67%) SC Cleared
3 17 (43.59%) DV Cleared
4 7 (17.95%) CISSP
5 6 (15.38%) CISM
6 4 (10.26%) CREST Certified
6 4 (10.26%) Degree
7 3 (7.69%) CEH
7 3 (7.69%) GIAC
8 2 (5.13%) Azure Certification
8 2 (5.13%) CHECK Team Leader
8 2 (5.13%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (5.13%) CompTIA Security+
8 2 (5.13%) SANS
8 2 (5.13%) SSCP
9 1 (2.56%) AWS Certification
9 1 (2.56%) CCIE Routing and Switching
9 1 (2.56%) CCIE Security
9 1 (2.56%) Master's Degree
9 1 (2.56%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (23.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (20.51%) NCSC
2 8 (20.51%) NIST
3 3 (7.69%) GDPR
3 3 (7.69%) JSP 440
4 2 (5.13%) NIST 800
4 2 (5.13%) SLA
Systems Management
1 2 (5.13%) QRadar
2 1 (2.56%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.56%) Nessus
Vendors
1 10 (25.64%) Splunk
2 3 (7.69%) Microsoft
2 3 (7.69%) Qualys
3 2 (5.13%) Tenable
4 1 (2.56%) BeyondTrust
4 1 (2.56%) CheckPoint
4 1 (2.56%) Cisco
4 1 (2.56%) CrowdStrike
4 1 (2.56%) Forcepoint
4 1 (2.56%) IBM
4 1 (2.56%) Juniper
4 1 (2.56%) Okta
4 1 (2.56%) Rapid7