Cyber Defence Contracts

Cyber Defence
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Cyber Defence in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cyber Defence 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 489 458 639
Rank change year-on-year -31 +181 +167
Contract jobs citing Cyber Defence 30 142 74
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.10% 0.33% 0.12%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.30% 1.07% 0.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 75 44
10th Percentile £480 £522 £604
25th Percentile £538 £569 £624
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £675 £645 £735
Median % change year-on-year +4.65% -12.30% +1.44%
75th Percentile £731 £850 £790
90th Percentile £745 - £821
UK excluding London median daily rate £638 £645 £650
% change year-on-year -1.16% -0.77% -10.34%

All Generic Skills
UK

Cyber Defence 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 9,915 13,252 19,898
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.91% 30.40% 33.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,331 8,505 13,670
10th Percentile £300 £263 £308
25th Percentile £413 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.42% -2.18% -
75th Percentile £650 £660 £680
90th Percentile £775 £788 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.90% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 394 910 640
10th Percentile £16.46 £12.25 £9.80
25th Percentile £21.00 £15.17 £10.63
Median hourly rate £32.05 £30.00 £22.49
Median % change year-on-year +6.83% +33.42% -18.24%
75th Percentile £63.75 £60.66 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.99 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.93 £27.75 £22.00
% change year-on-year +11.46% +26.14% +9.64%

Cyber Defence
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Cyber Defence as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Cyber Defence in the UK

Cyber Defence
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Cyber Defence.

Daily rate trend for Cyber Defence in the UK

Cyber Defence
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cyber Defence over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Cyber Defence in the UK

Cyber Defence
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Cyber Defence.

Hourly rate trend for Cyber Defence in the UK

Cyber Defence
Top 10 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cyber Defence 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 -46 28 £688 +6.59% 96
London +36 14 £713 -1.72% 35
UK excluding London -48 14 £638 -1.16% 70
Work from Home +51 6 £600 +9.09% 70
South East +7 5 £700 -12.50% 5
South West +2 4 £550 -5.50% 14
Midlands -8 2 £600 -6.98% 4
West Midlands -16 2 £600 -6.98% 4
East of England - 2 - - 20
Scotland +5 1 - - 9

Cyber Defence
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:

Cloud Services
1 8 (26.67%) AWS
1 8 (26.67%) Azure
2 7 (23.33%) Azure Sentinel
3 5 (16.67%) IaaS
3 5 (16.67%) PaaS
3 5 (16.67%) SaaS
4 3 (10.00%) GCP
4 3 (10.00%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (10.00%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (3.33%) Amazon GuardDuty
5 1 (3.33%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (3.33%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 5 (16.67%) Firewall
2 3 (10.00%) Network Security
3 2 (6.67%) Intrusion Detection
3 2 (6.67%) VSAN
4 1 (3.33%) VPN
General
1 10 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 9 (30.00%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (26.67%) Legal
4 5 (16.67%) Public Sector
5 2 (6.67%) Military
6 1 (3.33%) Finance
6 1 (3.33%) Fire and Rescue
6 1 (3.33%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (3.33%) Police
Job Titles
1 6 (20.00%) Senior
2 5 (16.67%) Analyst
2 5 (16.67%) Senior Tester
2 5 (16.67%) Tester
3 4 (13.33%) Architect
3 4 (13.33%) Lead
3 4 (13.33%) Security Engineer
4 3 (10.00%) Security Analyst
4 3 (10.00%) Security Architect
5 2 (6.67%) Cyber Defence Analyst
5 2 (6.67%) Cybersecurity Analyst
6 1 (3.33%) Automation Engineer
6 1 (3.33%) Cybersecurity Consultant
6 1 (3.33%) Operations Analyst
6 1 (3.33%) Principal Technical Architect
6 1 (3.33%) Security Assurance Coordinator
6 1 (3.33%) Senior Operations Analyst
6 1 (3.33%) SIEM Engineer
6 1 (3.33%) Threat and Vulnerability Manager
6 1 (3.33%) Vulnerability Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (16.67%) CSS
1 5 (16.67%) HTML
2 2 (6.67%) Elastic Stack
3 1 (3.33%) .NET
3 1 (3.33%) Leaflet
3 1 (3.33%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 8 (26.67%) Cyber Threat
2 7 (23.33%) Cyber Kill Chain
3 4 (13.33%) Security Posture
4 3 (10.00%) Cloud Native
5 2 (6.67%) Insider Threat
5 2 (6.67%) Management Information System
5 2 (6.67%) PKI
6 1 (3.33%) Cloud Security Posture
6 1 (3.33%) Cyberattack
6 1 (3.33%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (3.33%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (3.33%) Onboarding
6 1 (3.33%) Public Cloud
6 1 (3.33%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 4 (13.33%) Windows
2 3 (10.00%) Linux
3 1 (3.33%) Unix
3 1 (3.33%) Windows 10
3 1 (3.33%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (70.00%) Cybersecurity
2 12 (40.00%) Continuous Improvement
3 11 (36.67%) Incident Response
4 10 (33.33%) Information Security
4 10 (33.33%) SIEM
5 9 (30.00%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
5 9 (30.00%) Problem-Solving
5 9 (30.00%) Threat Intelligence
6 7 (23.33%) Cloud Security
6 7 (23.33%) Mentoring
7 6 (20.00%) Application Security
7 6 (20.00%) Computer Science
7 6 (20.00%) Penetration Testing
7 6 (20.00%) Roadmaps
7 6 (20.00%) Security Operations
7 6 (20.00%) Vulnerability Remediation
8 5 (16.67%) MITRE ATT&CK
8 5 (16.67%) Purple Team
8 5 (16.67%) Red Team
8 5 (16.67%) Secure Coding
Programming Languages
1 7 (23.33%) Python
2 5 (16.67%) JavaScript
2 5 (16.67%) PHP
2 5 (16.67%) Ruby
2 5 (16.67%) SQL
3 2 (6.67%) Kusto Query Language
3 2 (6.67%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 11 (36.67%) Degree
2 10 (33.33%) Security Cleared
3 9 (30.00%) SC Cleared
4 8 (26.67%) CISSP
5 7 (23.33%) GIAC
6 6 (20.00%) CEH
7 5 (16.67%) CCSAS
7 5 (16.67%) CREST Certified
7 5 (16.67%) GPEN
7 5 (16.67%) GWAPT
7 5 (16.67%) OSCP
8 4 (13.33%) CISM
8 4 (13.33%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (10.00%) Azure Certification
9 3 (10.00%) ISSEP
9 3 (10.00%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (10.00%) SSCP
10 2 (6.67%) DV Cleared
10 2 (6.67%) SANS
11 1 (3.33%) GREM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (16.67%) NIST
2 3 (10.00%) GDPR
2 3 (10.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (6.67%) California Consumer Privacy Act
3 2 (6.67%) HIPAA
3 2 (6.67%) NCSC
3 2 (6.67%) SOC 2
4 1 (3.33%) GRC
4 1 (3.33%) JSP 440
4 1 (3.33%) NIST 800
4 1 (3.33%) PCI DSS
4 1 (3.33%) SLA
System Software
1 1 (3.33%) VMware ESXi
1 1 (3.33%) VMware Infrastructure
1 1 (3.33%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 3 (10.00%) CASB
2 2 (6.67%) OPNET
3 1 (3.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 1 (3.33%) Ansible
3 1 (3.33%) Puppet
Vendors
1 14 (46.67%) Microsoft
2 5 (16.67%) Splunk
3 3 (10.00%) Palo Alto
4 2 (6.67%) ArcSight
4 2 (6.67%) Google
4 2 (6.67%) SolarWinds
4 2 (6.67%) VMware
5 1 (3.33%) Atlassian
5 1 (3.33%) Cisco
5 1 (3.33%) CrowdStrike
5 1 (3.33%) CyberArk
5 1 (3.33%) Forcepoint
5 1 (3.33%) Fortinet
5 1 (3.33%) Qualys
5 1 (3.33%) ServiceNow
5 1 (3.33%) Tenable