Cyber Essentials Contract Job Trends

Cyber Essentials
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Cyber Essentials skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
26 Nov 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 457 453 474
Rank change year-on-year -4 +21 +185
Contract jobs citing Cyber Essentials 126 95 146
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.35% 0.26% 0.32%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 1.99% 1.91% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 50 100
10th Percentile £350 £324 £411
25th Percentile £447 £434 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £516 £542
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% -4.92% +8.45%
75th Percentile £638 £600 £638
90th Percentile £675 £643 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £516
% change year-on-year - -3.15% +14.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 11
10th Percentile £33.85 £70.24 -
25th Percentile - £72.40 £42.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £78.40 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -54.08% +76.18% +81.63%
75th Percentile £89.38 £82.00 £46.75
90th Percentile £94.25 £82.72 £49.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 - £44.50
% change year-on-year - - +81.63%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

Cyber Essentials 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 6,344 4,970 6,555
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.60% 13.63% 14.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,074 2,897 4,373
10th Percentile £309 £270 £313
25th Percentile £404 £387 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £649
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 313 228 239
10th Percentile £13.60 £13.52 £15.31
25th Percentile £17.48 £16.25 £20.88
Median hourly rate £26.11 £27.43 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.79% -31.44% +70.21%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £79.97 £70.00 £83.28
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.57 £26.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -14.83% -40.45% +111.90%

Cyber Essentials
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Cyber Essentials job vacancy trend in the UK

Cyber Essentials
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cyber Essentials over the 6 months to 26 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Cyber Essentials in the UK

Cyber Essentials
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cyber Essentials

Cyber Essentials
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cyber Essentials over the 6 months to 26 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Cyber Essentials in the UK

Cyber Essentials
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cyber Essentials within the UK over the 6 months to 26 November 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 +12 111 £550 +10.00% 163
UK excluding London -34 66 £500 - 161
London +20 48 £575 +4.55% 49
Work from Home +9 34 £500 -6.54% 73
South East -12 14 £528 -5.80% 54
Midlands -27 13 £463 +42.31% 35
North of England -43 11 £502 +0.37% 25
South West +5 9 £475 - 17
East of England -11 9 £553 +79.11% 6
East Midlands -10 8 £463 +42.31% 20
Yorkshire -33 6 £502 +0.37% 8
Scotland -14 5 £475 -13.64% 13
West Midlands -19 5 £465 +43.08% 15
North West -19 4 £350 -31.71% 14
Wales - 3 £575 - 11
Channel Islands - 2 £725 -
North East - 1 £650 - 3

Cyber Essentials
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 3 (2.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.59%) Confluence
3 1 (0.79%) CMS
3 1 (0.79%) Headless CMS
3 1 (0.79%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.79%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 51 (40.48%) Azure
2 33 (26.19%) AWS
3 23 (18.25%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (12.70%) Azure Sentinel
4 16 (12.70%) Entra ID
5 10 (7.94%) SaaS
6 7 (5.56%) Amazon GuardDuty
6 7 (5.56%) IaaS
6 7 (5.56%) PaaS
7 6 (4.76%) GCP
7 6 (4.76%) Microsoft Purview
8 4 (3.17%) Power Platform
9 3 (2.38%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (2.38%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (2.38%) AWS Control Tower
9 3 (2.38%) Azure AKS
9 3 (2.38%) GitHub
10 2 (1.59%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (1.59%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 2 (1.59%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 15 (11.90%) Firewall
2 12 (9.52%) Network Security
3 9 (7.14%) DNS
4 8 (6.35%) DHCP
5 7 (5.56%) VLAN
5 7 (5.56%) VPN
6 6 (4.76%) TCP/IP
7 5 (3.97%) IP Telephony
8 2 (1.59%) LAN
8 2 (1.59%) Wireless
9 1 (0.79%) Cisco IPT
9 1 (0.79%) Intrusion Detection
9 1 (0.79%) VSAN
9 1 (0.79%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.38%) Power BI
2 1 (0.79%) DynamoDB
2 1 (0.79%) MariaDB
2 1 (0.79%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 4 (3.17%) SonarQube
2 3 (2.38%) Burp Suite
2 3 (2.38%) Jenkins
2 3 (2.38%) JIRA
2 3 (2.38%) Metasploit
3 1 (0.79%) GitLab
General
1 39 (30.95%) Social Skills
2 24 (19.05%) Public Sector
3 10 (7.94%) Legal
4 9 (7.14%) Local Government
5 8 (6.35%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (6.35%) Presentation Skills
6 5 (3.97%) Finance
6 5 (3.97%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (3.17%) Aviation
8 3 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (1.59%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (1.59%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.79%) Electronics
10 1 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.79%) Law
10 1 (0.79%) Marketing
10 1 (0.79%) Military
10 1 (0.79%) Police
10 1 (0.79%) Retail
10 1 (0.79%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 21 (16.67%) Analyst
2 15 (11.90%) Architect
2 15 (11.90%) Security Manager
3 12 (9.52%) Senior
4 11 (8.73%) Lead
4 11 (8.73%) Security Engineer
5 10 (7.94%) Security Analyst
6 8 (6.35%) Consultant
7 7 (5.56%) Cybersecurity Manager
7 7 (5.56%) Security Architect
7 7 (5.56%) Solutions Architect
8 6 (4.76%) Project Manager
9 5 (3.97%) Cybersecurity Architect
9 5 (3.97%) Cybersecurity Engineer
9 5 (3.97%) DevSecOps Engineer
9 5 (3.97%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 5 (3.97%) Support Analyst
10 4 (3.17%) Information Security Analyst
10 4 (3.17%) Security Project Manager
10 4 (3.17%) Security Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (4.76%) OpenID
1 6 (4.76%) SAML
2 5 (3.97%) LDAP
2 5 (3.97%) OAuth
3 3 (2.38%) AWS CDK
4 2 (1.59%) ARM Templates
4 2 (1.59%) Middleware
4 2 (1.59%) Node.js
4 2 (1.59%) RESTful
5 1 (0.79%) ADO
5 1 (0.79%) Next.js
5 1 (0.79%) React
Miscellaneous
1 18 (14.29%) Security Posture
2 12 (9.52%) Cyber Threat
3 8 (6.35%) Onboarding
4 7 (5.56%) Cyber Kill Chain
5 5 (3.97%) Cloud Native
5 5 (3.97%) iPad
5 5 (3.97%) iPhone
5 5 (3.97%) NHS
5 5 (3.97%) Security Operations Centre
5 5 (3.97%) Video Conferencing
6 4 (3.17%) Cloud Security Posture
7 3 (2.38%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.59%) Cyber Defence
8 2 (1.59%) Low-Code
8 2 (1.59%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.59%) Operational Technology
8 2 (1.59%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.79%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.79%) PKI
9 1 (0.79%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 14 (11.11%) Windows
2 8 (6.35%) Linux
3 6 (4.76%) Android
4 5 (3.97%) Mac OS
4 5 (3.97%) Windows 10
4 5 (3.97%) Windows 7
4 5 (3.97%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.79%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (52.38%) Cybersecurity
2 33 (26.19%) Information Security
3 30 (23.81%) Cloud Security
4 26 (20.63%) Incident Response
5 25 (19.84%) Security Operations
6 22 (17.46%) Data Protection
6 22 (17.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 19 (15.08%) SIEM
8 17 (13.49%) Threat Modelling
9 16 (12.70%) Risk Management
10 15 (11.90%) Stakeholder Management
11 13 (10.32%) Continuous Improvement
11 13 (10.32%) Vulnerability Management
12 12 (9.52%) Decision-Making
12 12 (9.52%) DevOps
12 12 (9.52%) Infrastructure as Code
12 12 (9.52%) Risk Register
12 12 (9.52%) Vulnerability Remediation
13 11 (8.73%) Agile
14 10 (7.94%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 11 (8.73%) PowerShell
2 8 (6.35%) Python
3 5 (3.97%) Bash
4 4 (3.17%) Kusto Query Language
5 3 (2.38%) TypeScript
6 2 (1.59%) Bicep
6 2 (1.59%) SQL
7 1 (0.79%) Go
Qualifications
1 31 (24.60%) CISSP
2 24 (19.05%) Security Cleared
3 21 (16.67%) CISM
4 20 (15.87%) SC Cleared
5 12 (9.52%) Degree
6 8 (6.35%) CompTIA Security+
6 8 (6.35%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
7 7 (5.56%) Azure Certification
7 7 (5.56%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (4.76%) CISA
9 5 (3.97%) CRISC
10 4 (3.17%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (3.17%) DV Cleared
10 4 (3.17%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 4 (3.17%) PMI Certification
10 4 (3.17%) PMP
11 3 (2.38%) CCNP
11 3 (2.38%) GIAC
11 3 (2.38%) Tigerscheme
11 3 (2.38%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (65.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 58 (46.03%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 48 (38.10%) GDPR
4 47 (37.30%) NIST
5 23 (18.25%) NCSC
6 9 (7.14%) GRC
7 7 (5.56%) PCI DSS
8 4 (3.17%) NIST 800
9 3 (2.38%) IASME
9 3 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 3 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 3 (2.38%) PMO
9 3 (2.38%) QA
9 3 (2.38%) SLA
9 3 (2.38%) SOC 2
10 2 (1.59%) Accessibility
10 2 (1.59%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.79%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.79%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.79%) PERC
System Software
1 17 (13.49%) Active Directory
2 3 (2.38%) Virtual Machines
2 3 (2.38%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.79%) Docker
3 1 (0.79%) Firmware
3 1 (0.79%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.79%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (8.73%) Microsoft Intune
2 9 (7.14%) Single Sign-On
3 8 (6.35%) Kubernetes
4 7 (5.56%) Terraform
5 5 (3.97%) SCCM
6 4 (3.17%) CSIRT
6 4 (3.17%) PingFederate
6 4 (3.17%) QRadar
7 3 (2.38%) Ansible
7 3 (2.38%) FortiGate
7 3 (2.38%) Nmap
8 2 (1.59%) vCenter Server
8 2 (1.59%) WSUS
9 1 (0.79%) Argo
9 1 (0.79%) Check_MK
9 1 (0.79%) Grafana
9 1 (0.79%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.79%) Nessus
9 1 (0.79%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 52 (41.27%) Microsoft
2 14 (11.11%) Cisco
3 9 (7.14%) Fortinet
4 8 (6.35%) Splunk
5 6 (4.76%) Ping Identity
5 6 (4.76%) VMware
6 5 (3.97%) CheckPoint
6 5 (3.97%) Tenable
7 3 (2.38%) Computacenter
7 3 (2.38%) CyberArk
7 3 (2.38%) Google
7 3 (2.38%) Palo Alto
7 3 (2.38%) Veracode
7 3 (2.38%) Zscaler
8 2 (1.59%) LogRhythm
8 2 (1.59%) Proofpoint
8 2 (1.59%) Sophos
9 1 (0.79%) Aruba
9 1 (0.79%) Meraki
9 1 (0.79%) Samsung
191 Cyber Essentials jobs Nationwide