Cyber Essentials PLUS Contracts

Cyber Essentials PLUS
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Cyber Essentials PLUS skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cyber Essentials PLUS over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 504 562 647
Rank change year-on-year +58 +85 +157
Contract jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS 16 20 71
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.055% 0.046% 0.12%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.35% 0.32% 0.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 14 9 56
10th Percentile £348 £435 £488
25th Percentile £425 £475 £505
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -6.93% +19.39%
75th Percentile £594 £525 £588
90th Percentile £626 £615 £714
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £537
% change year-on-year - -6.93% +60.37%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

Cyber Essentials PLUS falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 4,564 6,247 7,982
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.59% 14.34% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,922 3,954 5,483
10th Percentile £265 £296 £275
25th Percentile £400 £403 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +2.44%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £475
% change year-on-year -2.56% +2.63% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 382 225
10th Percentile £18.04 £10.95 £13.21
25th Percentile £22.21 £13.18 £18.70
Median hourly rate £34.50 £20.80 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +65.85% -44.53% +33.93%
75th Percentile £65.00 £45.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £83.01 £67.14 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.78 £18.00 £36.25
% change year-on-year +126.53% -50.34% +72.21%

Cyber Essentials PLUS
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Cyber Essentials PLUS in the UK

Cyber Essentials PLUS
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Cyber Essentials PLUS in the UK

Cyber Essentials PLUS
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Cyber Essentials PLUS in the UK

Cyber Essentials PLUS
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Cyber Essentials PLUS in the UK

Cyber Essentials PLUS
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 Essentials PLUS within the UK over the 6 months to 1 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
UK excluding London +68 14 £500 - 49
England +52 10 £525 +5.00% 66
Scotland +15 6 £488 - 4
Work from Home +42 5 £500 - 21
South East +49 4 £625 +21.36% 23
London +30 2 £500 - 26
Midlands +23 2 £325 -35.00% 7
West Midlands +15 2 £325 -35.00% 6
South West - 1 - - 5
East of England - 1 £500 - 2

Cyber Essentials PLUS
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 1 (6.25%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 4 (25.00%) Entra ID
2 3 (18.75%) Cloud Computing
2 3 (18.75%) Microsoft 365
3 2 (12.50%) Microsoft Purview
4 1 (6.25%) Azure
4 1 (6.25%) Azure Data Factory
4 1 (6.25%) Azure Monitor
4 1 (6.25%) Azure Sentinel
4 1 (6.25%) IaaS
4 1 (6.25%) OneDrive
4 1 (6.25%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (12.50%) Network Security
2 1 (6.25%) Firewall
2 1 (6.25%) NAS
2 1 (6.25%) SAN
2 1 (6.25%) SD-WAN
2 1 (6.25%) VPN
2 1 (6.25%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (6.25%) InfluxDB
1 1 (6.25%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 1 (6.25%) Jenkins
General
1 9 (56.25%) Social Skills
2 5 (31.25%) Public Sector
3 2 (12.50%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (12.50%) Military
4 1 (6.25%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (6.25%) Influencing Skills
4 1 (6.25%) Legal
4 1 (6.25%) Manufacturing
4 1 (6.25%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (6.25%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 4 (25.00%) Administrator
2 3 (18.75%) Analyst
2 3 (18.75%) Security Analyst
2 3 (18.75%) Systems Administrator
3 2 (12.50%) Architect
3 2 (12.50%) Audio Visual Engineer
3 2 (12.50%) Collaboration Engineer
3 2 (12.50%) Cybersecurity Analyst
3 2 (12.50%) Cybersecurity Architect
3 2 (12.50%) IT Engineer
3 2 (12.50%) Security Architect
4 1 (6.25%) IAM Specialist
4 1 (6.25%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
4 1 (6.25%) IT Support
4 1 (6.25%) Lead
4 1 (6.25%) Microsoft Specialist
4 1 (6.25%) Network Operations Engineer
4 1 (6.25%) Operations Support Engineer
4 1 (6.25%) Senior
4 1 (6.25%) Senior Microsoft Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (18.75%) LDAP
1 3 (18.75%) X-Windows
2 1 (6.25%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 2 (12.50%) Management Information System
2 1 (6.25%) Cyber Threat
2 1 (6.25%) Distributed Systems
2 1 (6.25%) Enterprise Software
2 1 (6.25%) Linux Command Line
2 1 (6.25%) Onboarding
2 1 (6.25%) PKI
2 1 (6.25%) Security Operations Centre
2 1 (6.25%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 8 (50.00%) Windows
2 4 (25.00%) Linux
2 4 (25.00%) Unix
2 4 (25.00%) Windows Server
3 3 (18.75%) Mac OS
4 1 (6.25%) Data ONTAP
4 1 (6.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (6.25%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (43.75%) Cybersecurity
2 6 (37.50%) Information Security
3 5 (31.25%) Incident Response
3 5 (31.25%) Risk Management
3 5 (31.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 4 (25.00%) Cloud Security
4 4 (25.00%) Disaster Recovery
4 4 (25.00%) Line Management
4 4 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
4 4 (25.00%) Storage Management
5 3 (18.75%) Business Continuity
5 3 (18.75%) Capacity Planning
5 3 (18.75%) DevSecOps
5 3 (18.75%) Root Cause Analysis
5 3 (18.75%) Security Architecture
5 3 (18.75%) Security Operations
5 3 (18.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 3 (18.75%) Threat Management
5 3 (18.75%) Vulnerability Management
5 3 (18.75%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 4 (25.00%) PowerShell
1 4 (25.00%) Shell Script
2 1 (6.25%) Bash
2 1 (6.25%) Perl
2 1 (6.25%) Python
Qualifications
1 5 (31.25%) Security Cleared
2 4 (25.00%) SC Cleared
3 3 (18.75%) CISM
3 3 (18.75%) CISSP
4 2 (12.50%) Degree
5 1 (6.25%) CISA
5 1 (6.25%) CompTIA CySA+
5 1 (6.25%) CompTIA Security+
5 1 (6.25%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (6.25%) CREST Certified
5 1 (6.25%) CRISC
5 1 (6.25%) DV Cleared
5 1 (6.25%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
5 1 (6.25%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
5 1 (6.25%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (100.00%) Cyber Essentials
2 8 (50.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (37.50%) NIST
4 5 (31.25%) GDPR
5 1 (6.25%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (6.25%) GRC
5 1 (6.25%) ISO 9001
5 1 (6.25%) JSP 440
5 1 (6.25%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 5 (31.25%) Active Directory
2 4 (25.00%) Hyper-V
3 3 (18.75%) Docker
3 3 (18.75%) Virtual Servers
4 1 (6.25%) KVM
4 1 (6.25%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (6.25%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (12.50%) CASB
1 2 (12.50%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (6.25%) Ansible
2 1 (6.25%) Grafana
2 1 (6.25%) HAProxy
2 1 (6.25%) Nagios
2 1 (6.25%) Red Hat Satellite
2 1 (6.25%) Single Sign-On
2 1 (6.25%) Terraform
Vendors
1 10 (62.50%) Microsoft
2 2 (12.50%) Palo Alto
2 2 (12.50%) ServiceNow
3 1 (6.25%) Cisco
3 1 (6.25%) Commvault
3 1 (6.25%) Dell
3 1 (6.25%) EMC
3 1 (6.25%) Forcepoint
3 1 (6.25%) NetApp
3 1 (6.25%) Oracle
3 1 (6.25%) Red Hat
3 1 (6.25%) SonicWALL
3 1 (6.25%) VMware