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 22 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 521 568 657
Rank change year-on-year +47 +89 +158
Contract jobs citing Cyber Essentials PLUS 22 14 51
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.073% 0.032% 0.092%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 0.45% 0.23% 0.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 5 40
10th Percentile £306 £385 £500
25th Percentile £434 £475 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £545
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -8.26% +10.77%
75th Percentile £675 £525 £594
90th Percentile £688 - £705
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £425 £550
% change year-on-year +16.18% -22.69% +71.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £27.73 - -
25th Percentile £28.03 - -
Median hourly rate £29.51 - -
75th Percentile £31.99 - -
90th Percentile £32.88 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.51 - -

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 4,873 5,998 7,537
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.24% 13.68% 13.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,109 3,729 5,145
10th Percentile £275 £281 £300
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +0.96%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £640
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £488
% change year-on-year - -2.56% +5.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 437 252
10th Percentile £15.12 £11.00 £13.73
25th Percentile £19.46 £13.18 £18.89
Median hourly rate £31.76 £23.00 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year +38.09% -36.55% +30.72%
75th Percentile £67.50 £48.75 £62.68
90th Percentile £83.41 £70.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.70 £18.99 £37.50
% change year-on-year +66.97% -49.37% +66.67%

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 22 June 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 22 June 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 +73 18 £550 +10.00% 274
UK excluding London +51 13 £494 +16.18% 191
Work from Home +43 10 £500 - 165
London +47 9 £650 +30.00% 111
Scotland +6 4 £550 - 10
East of England - 4 £249 - 24
South East - 3 £519 - 66
South West +43 1 - - 21
West Midlands +10 1 - - 21
Midlands +10 1 - - 39

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 (4.55%) CMS
1 1 (4.55%) Headless CMS
1 1 (4.55%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 1 (4.55%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 8 (36.36%) Azure
2 6 (27.27%) AWS
2 6 (27.27%) GitHub
3 5 (22.73%) GCP
4 2 (9.09%) Cloud Computing
4 2 (9.09%) Entra ID
4 2 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (4.55%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (4.55%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (4.55%) Azure Monitor
5 1 (4.55%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (4.55%) Google Analytics
5 1 (4.55%) IaaS
5 1 (4.55%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (4.55%) OneDrive
5 1 (4.55%) PaaS
5 1 (4.55%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (4.55%) Firewall
1 1 (4.55%) NAS
1 1 (4.55%) Network Security
1 1 (4.55%) SAN
1 1 (4.55%) SD-WAN
1 1 (4.55%) VPN
1 1 (4.55%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.55%) InfluxDB
1 1 (4.55%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 6 (27.27%) Burp Suite
1 6 (27.27%) Metasploit
1 6 (27.27%) SonarQube
2 1 (4.55%) Jenkins
General
1 11 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 9 (40.91%) Public Sector
3 3 (13.64%) Military
4 1 (4.55%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (4.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 1 (4.55%) Legal
4 1 (4.55%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 7 (31.82%) Cybersecurity Engineer
1 7 (31.82%) Security Engineer
2 4 (18.18%) Administrator
2 4 (18.18%) Consultant
3 3 (13.64%) Security Consultant
3 3 (13.64%) Systems Administrator
4 2 (9.09%) Compliance Consultant
4 2 (9.09%) Information Security Consultant
4 2 (9.09%) IT Engineer
4 2 (9.09%) Lead
5 1 (4.55%) Compliance Manager
5 1 (4.55%) Cybersecurity Consultant
5 1 (4.55%) Full-Stack Developer
5 1 (4.55%) Information Security Compliance Manager
5 1 (4.55%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
5 1 (4.55%) IT Support
5 1 (4.55%) Network Operations Engineer
5 1 (4.55%) Operations Support Engineer
5 1 (4.55%) Security Compliance Manager
5 1 (4.55%) Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (13.64%) LDAP
1 3 (13.64%) X-Windows
2 1 (4.55%) ADO
2 1 (4.55%) Next.js
2 1 (4.55%) Node.js
2 1 (4.55%) React
2 1 (4.55%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 4 (18.18%) Security Operations Centre
1 4 (18.18%) Security Posture
2 1 (4.55%) Linux Command Line
2 1 (4.55%) Management Information System
2 1 (4.55%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 6 (27.27%) Windows
2 4 (18.18%) Linux
2 4 (18.18%) Unix
2 4 (18.18%) Windows Server
3 3 (13.64%) Mac OS
4 1 (4.55%) Data ONTAP
4 1 (4.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (4.55%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (50.00%) Cybersecurity
2 9 (40.91%) Information Security
2 9 (40.91%) OWASP
3 8 (36.36%) Infrastructure as Code
4 7 (31.82%) CI/CD
4 7 (31.82%) Cloud Security
4 7 (31.82%) Penetration Testing
4 7 (31.82%) Vulnerability Assessment
4 7 (31.82%) Vulnerability Management
5 6 (27.27%) Data Protection
5 6 (27.27%) DevSecOps
5 6 (27.27%) Dynamic Application Security Testing
5 6 (27.27%) Incident Response
5 6 (27.27%) Secure Coding
5 6 (27.27%) Security Testing
5 6 (27.27%) Static Application Security Testing
6 5 (22.73%) SDLC
6 5 (22.73%) Security Operations
6 5 (22.73%) Threat Modelling
6 5 (22.73%) Vulnerability Remediation
Programming Languages
1 7 (31.82%) Bash
1 7 (31.82%) Python
2 4 (18.18%) PowerShell
2 4 (18.18%) Shell Script
3 1 (4.55%) Perl
3 1 (4.55%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 9 (40.91%) OSCP
2 8 (36.36%) Security Cleared
3 7 (31.82%) CREST Certified
3 7 (31.82%) SC Cleared
4 6 (27.27%) CHECK Team Member
4 6 (27.27%) Tigerscheme
5 4 (18.18%) CISM
5 4 (18.18%) CISSP
6 3 (13.64%) DV Cleared
7 1 (4.55%) CISA
7 1 (4.55%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (4.55%) CRISC
7 1 (4.55%) Degree
7 1 (4.55%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (100.00%) Cyber Essentials
2 8 (36.36%) NCSC
2 8 (36.36%) NIST
3 7 (31.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (22.73%) GDPR
5 4 (18.18%) PCI DSS
6 3 (13.64%) COBIT
7 2 (9.09%) GRC
8 1 (4.55%) Accessibility
8 1 (4.55%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (4.55%) ISO 9001
8 1 (4.55%) JSP 440
System Software
1 5 (22.73%) Active Directory
2 4 (18.18%) Hyper-V
3 3 (13.64%) Docker
3 3 (13.64%) Virtual Servers
4 1 (4.55%) KVM
4 1 (4.55%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (4.55%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 6 (27.27%) Nmap
2 2 (9.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (4.55%) Ansible
3 1 (4.55%) Grafana
3 1 (4.55%) HAProxy
3 1 (4.55%) Nagios
3 1 (4.55%) Red Hat Satellite
3 1 (4.55%) Terraform
Vendors
1 7 (31.82%) Microsoft
2 6 (27.27%) Veracode
3 2 (9.09%) Palo Alto
4 1 (4.55%) Cisco
4 1 (4.55%) Commvault
4 1 (4.55%) Dell
4 1 (4.55%) EMC
4 1 (4.55%) Google
4 1 (4.55%) NetApp
4 1 (4.55%) Oracle
4 1 (4.55%) Red Hat
4 1 (4.55%) SonicWALL
4 1 (4.55%) VMware