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 21 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
21 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 462 451 505
Rank change year-on-year -11 +54 +58
Contract jobs citing Cyber Essentials 157 67 78
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.36% 0.23% 0.18%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.06% 1.50% 1.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 39 48
10th Percentile £363 £325 £286
25th Percentile £463 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% -2.33% +2.38%
75th Percentile £599 £629 £641
90th Percentile £675 £651 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £583 £533
% change year-on-year -9.87% +9.39% +3.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 5 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £36.00 £68.80 -
Median hourly rate £58.00 £83.20 -
Median % change year-on-year -30.29% - -
75th Percentile £89.06 - -
90th Percentile £94.13 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £83.20 -
% change year-on-year -56.73% - -

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 7,631 4,456 6,372
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.41% 15.19% 14.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,923 2,857 4,065
10th Percentile £336 £263 £300
25th Percentile £413 £375 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £625
90th Percentile £700 £717 £741
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +5.26% -1.04% +1.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 406 177 372
10th Percentile £15.28 £17.26 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.45 £22.14 £13.50
Median hourly rate £28.28 £31.76 £22.94
Median % change year-on-year -10.97% +38.48% -41.19%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £45.00
90th Percentile £81.50 £78.56 £67.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.58 £31.76 £18.97
% change year-on-year -3.72% +67.42% -43.18%

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 21 March 2026.

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 21 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cyber Essentials in the UK

Cyber Essentials
Top 15 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 21 March 2026. 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 -24 145 £535 -2.73% 117
UK excluding London -32 96 £525 -9.87% 106
London -21 55 £550 +15.79% 27
Work from Home -2 44 £540 +8.00% 62
South East -37 33 £525 -15.32% 38
East of England -5 19 £553 +10.60% 6
North of England -54 15 £540 -10.00% 22
South West -17 12 £513 -14.58% 16
Yorkshire -48 8 £502 -16.36% 5
Scotland +11 7 £475 - 7
Midlands -67 7 £380 +16.92% 15
North West - 7 £540 - 16
West Midlands -63 6 £460 +41.54% 12
Wales - 3 - - 2
East Midlands -37 1 £338 +3.85% 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 11 (7.01%) SharePoint
2 6 (3.82%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (2.55%) Confluence
4 1 (0.64%) Anypoint
Applications
1 5 (3.18%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.64%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 2 (1.27%) NetSuite
2 1 (0.64%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 65 (41.40%) Azure
2 43 (27.39%) Microsoft 365
3 31 (19.75%) AWS
4 27 (17.20%) Entra ID
5 24 (15.29%) Microsoft Purview
6 14 (8.92%) Amazon GuardDuty
7 12 (7.64%) Mimecast
8 11 (7.01%) AWS Control Tower
8 11 (7.01%) Azure Sentinel
9 9 (5.73%) IaaS
9 9 (5.73%) PaaS
9 9 (5.73%) SaaS
10 8 (5.10%) AWS CloudFormation
11 7 (4.46%) AWS CloudTrail
12 6 (3.82%) AWS KMS
12 6 (3.82%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 5 (3.18%) Amazon EKS
13 5 (3.18%) Azure AKS
14 3 (1.91%) OCI
14 3 (1.91%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 27 (17.20%) Firewall
2 20 (12.74%) Network Security
3 19 (12.10%) VPN
4 9 (5.73%) DNS
5 7 (4.46%) DHCP
6 6 (3.82%) VSAN
7 4 (2.55%) BGP
7 4 (2.55%) Cisco ASA
7 4 (2.55%) Cisco IOS
7 4 (2.55%) LAN
7 4 (2.55%) MPLS
7 4 (2.55%) TACACS
7 4 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (2.55%) Wireless
8 3 (1.91%) VLAN
8 3 (1.91%) WAN
9 1 (0.64%) HTTP
9 1 (0.64%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (1.91%) Metadata
2 2 (1.27%) DynamoDB
2 2 (1.27%) MariaDB
3 1 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.64%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.64%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (1.91%) JIRA
2 2 (1.27%) Jenkins
General
1 56 (35.67%) Social Skills
2 23 (14.65%) Finance
3 21 (13.38%) Public Sector
4 8 (5.10%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (5.10%) Organisational Skills
4 8 (5.10%) Presentation Skills
5 7 (4.46%) Aerospace
6 6 (3.82%) Legal
7 5 (3.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (2.55%) Aviation
8 4 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.64%) Digital Health
9 1 (0.64%) Electronics
9 1 (0.64%) Local Government
9 1 (0.64%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.64%) Marketing
9 1 (0.64%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 28 (17.83%) Architect
2 27 (17.20%) Senior
3 25 (15.92%) Security Engineer
4 18 (11.46%) Analyst
5 12 (7.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 11 (7.01%) Cybersecurity Engineer
7 10 (6.37%) Security Analyst
8 9 (5.73%) Technical Architect
9 8 (5.10%) Consultant
9 8 (5.10%) Lead
9 8 (5.10%) Project Manager
10 7 (4.46%) Security Architect
10 7 (4.46%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 7 (4.46%) Solutions Architect
11 6 (3.82%) Cloud Architect
11 6 (3.82%) Cybersecurity Architect
11 6 (3.82%) Infrastructure Security Engineer
11 6 (3.82%) IT Support
12 5 (3.18%) Cloud Engineer
12 5 (3.18%) Security Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (6.37%) LDAP
2 6 (3.82%) OAuth
3 4 (2.55%) OpenID
3 4 (2.55%) SAML
4 3 (1.91%) AWS CDK
4 3 (1.91%) Oracle Fusion
5 2 (1.27%) ARM Templates
5 2 (1.27%) Node.js
6 1 (0.64%) .NET
6 1 (0.64%) JSON
6 1 (0.64%) JWT
6 1 (0.64%) OAuth2
6 1 (0.64%) OpenAPI
6 1 (0.64%) RAML
6 1 (0.64%) React
6 1 (0.64%) Software Packaging
6 1 (0.64%) STL
6 1 (0.64%) Swagger
6 1 (0.64%) XML Schema
6 1 (0.64%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (11.46%) Onboarding
2 13 (8.28%) Cyber Threat
2 13 (8.28%) Security Posture
3 10 (6.37%) PKI
4 9 (5.73%) Hybrid Cloud
4 9 (5.73%) Operational Technology
5 7 (4.46%) Cloud Native
5 7 (4.46%) Cyber Kill Chain
5 7 (4.46%) NHS
6 6 (3.82%) Security Operations Centre
7 5 (3.18%) Public Cloud
7 5 (3.18%) SCADA
8 4 (2.55%) BYOD
8 4 (2.55%) Cyber Defence
8 4 (2.55%) Data Centre
8 4 (2.55%) Driving Licence
9 3 (1.91%) Cloud Security Posture
9 3 (1.91%) Taxonomies
10 2 (1.27%) Cybercrime
10 2 (1.27%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 25 (15.92%) Linux
2 19 (12.10%) Windows
3 13 (8.28%) Windows Server
4 6 (3.82%) Ubuntu
5 4 (2.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (1.27%) Windows 10
6 2 (1.27%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.64%) VMS
7 1 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (52.23%) Cybersecurity
2 34 (21.66%) Data Loss Prevention
3 27 (17.20%) Migration
4 26 (16.56%) Information Security
5 25 (15.92%) Cloud Security
6 22 (14.01%) ITIL
7 21 (13.38%) Zero Trust
8 20 (12.74%) Roadmaps
9 19 (12.10%) Incident Response
9 19 (12.10%) Security Operations
10 18 (11.46%) Risk Management
10 18 (11.46%) Threat Detection
11 17 (10.83%) Continuous Improvement
11 17 (10.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 16 (10.19%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 16 (10.19%) SIEM
12 16 (10.19%) TOGAF
13 15 (9.55%) ITSM
14 14 (8.92%) Decision-Making
15 13 (8.28%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 17 (10.83%) PowerShell
2 11 (7.01%) Python
3 9 (5.73%) Kusto Query Language
4 5 (3.18%) SQL
5 4 (2.55%) Bash
5 4 (2.55%) PHP
6 2 (1.27%) Bicep
6 2 (1.27%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.64%) C#
7 1 (0.64%) Go
7 1 (0.64%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 47 (29.94%) Security Cleared
2 41 (26.11%) SC Cleared
3 21 (13.38%) CISSP
4 17 (10.83%) Degree
5 13 (8.28%) CISM
6 10 (6.37%) DV Cleared
7 9 (5.73%) CompTIA Security+
8 8 (5.10%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (4.46%) AWS Certification
10 6 (3.82%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 5 (3.18%) Azure Certification
11 5 (3.18%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (2.55%) APMG
12 4 (2.55%) GIAC
12 4 (2.55%) MCSE
12 4 (2.55%) SSCP
12 4 (2.55%) TOGAF Certification
13 3 (1.91%) CISMP
13 3 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (1.91%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (57.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 64 (40.76%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 59 (37.58%) NIST
4 38 (24.20%) GDPR
5 30 (19.11%) NCSC
6 12 (7.64%) GRC
7 8 (5.10%) PCI DSS
8 5 (3.18%) Def Stans
8 5 (3.18%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 4 (2.55%) IASME
9 4 (2.55%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 3 (1.91%) ISO 22301
10 3 (1.91%) ISO 31000
10 3 (1.91%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (1.91%) NIST 800
10 3 (1.91%) SLA
11 2 (1.27%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.64%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.64%) PMO
System Software
1 15 (9.55%) Active Directory
2 13 (8.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (4.46%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (3.82%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (2.55%) Hyper-V
5 4 (2.55%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (2.55%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.64%) Firmware
6 1 (0.64%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 22 (14.01%) Microsoft Intune
2 11 (7.01%) Terraform
3 9 (5.73%) Single Sign-On
4 8 (5.10%) Kubernetes
5 7 (4.46%) AirWatch
6 6 (3.82%) vCenter Server
7 4 (2.55%) Nessus
7 4 (2.55%) PingFederate
7 4 (2.55%) SCCM
8 3 (1.91%) SCOM
8 3 (1.91%) WSUS
9 2 (1.27%) Ansible
9 2 (1.27%) Check_MK
9 2 (1.27%) PaperCut
10 1 (0.64%) Argo
10 1 (0.64%) CASB
10 1 (0.64%) Grafana
10 1 (0.64%) Kustomize
10 1 (0.64%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 61 (38.85%) Microsoft
2 24 (15.29%) Cisco
2 24 (15.29%) VMware
3 13 (8.28%) CrowdStrike
3 13 (8.28%) Palo Alto
4 11 (7.01%) CyberArk
5 10 (6.37%) Netskope
6 9 (5.73%) ServiceNow
7 7 (4.46%) Tenable
8 6 (3.82%) Citrix
8 6 (3.82%) CloudEndure
9 5 (3.18%) Barracuda Networks
9 5 (3.18%) Fortinet
10 4 (2.55%) Ping Identity
10 4 (2.55%) Splunk
11 3 (1.91%) CheckPoint
11 3 (1.91%) Computacenter
11 3 (1.91%) Oracle
11 3 (1.91%) Qualys
12 2 (1.27%) SAP
133 Cyber Essentials jobs Nationwide