Cybersecurity Engineer Contracts

Cybersecurity Engineer
UK

The median Cybersecurity Engineer daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 478 527 571
Rank change year-on-year +49 +44 +215
Contract jobs requiring a Cybersecurity Engineer 42 55 147
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.14% 0.13% 0.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.16% 0.14% 0.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 23 45 95
10th Percentile £330 £445 £475
25th Percentile £438 £538 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% +9.52%
75th Percentile £591 £650 £700
90th Percentile £665 £785 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £529 £600 £560
% change year-on-year -11.88% +7.14% +15.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 1
Median hourly rate £30.78 £31.80 £100.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.21% -68.20% +90.49%
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.78 £31.80 £100.00
% change year-on-year -3.21% -68.20% +90.49%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 27,084 40,415 56,464
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 92.78% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,692 26,309 39,470
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 2,664 1,570
10th Percentile £14.07 £12.86 £14.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%

Cybersecurity Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Cybersecurity Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Cybersecurity Engineer in the UK

Cybersecurity Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Cybersecurity Engineer.

Daily rate trend for Cybersecurity Engineer in the UK

Cybersecurity Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cybersecurity Engineer over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Cybersecurity Engineer in the UK

Cybersecurity Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Cybersecurity Engineer.

Hourly rate trend for Cybersecurity Engineer in the UK

Cybersecurity Engineer
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cybersecurity Engineer 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
England +54 39 £525 -12.50% 75
UK excluding London +68 27 £529 -11.88% 57
North of England +29 11 £581 +1.09% 9
Work from Home +28 11 £500 -16.67% 57
South East +50 7 £513 -18.00% 20
London +20 7 £500 -16.67% 27
North West +22 6 £563 -2.17% 4
Midlands +21 6 £588 -26.56% 11
West Midlands +13 6 £588 -26.56% 7
North East - 3 £525 - 1
East of England +29 2 - - 11
Yorkshire - 2 £600 - 4
South West +45 1 £500 -23.08% 5
Scotland +8 1 £550 -4.35% 2

Cybersecurity Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Cybersecurity Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Cybersecurity Engineer in the job title.

1 42 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 15 (35.71%) SIEM
3 13 (30.95%) Firewall
4 12 (28.57%) CISSP
5 11 (26.19%) Azure
5 11 (26.19%) Social Skills
6 10 (23.81%) Incident Response
6 10 (23.81%) Security Cleared
6 10 (23.81%) Microsoft
7 9 (21.43%) Python
7 9 (21.43%) SC Cleared
8 8 (19.05%) Network Security
8 8 (19.05%) Analytical Skills
8 8 (19.05%) Threat Detection
9 7 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
9 7 (16.67%) PowerShell
9 7 (16.67%) AWS
9 7 (16.67%) Vulnerability Management
9 7 (16.67%) Windows
9 7 (16.67%) Linux
9 7 (16.67%) Intrusion Detection
10 6 (14.29%) Public Sector
10 6 (14.29%) Knowledge Transfer
11 5 (11.90%) Data Loss Prevention
11 5 (11.90%) Security Operations
11 5 (11.90%) Cloud Security
11 5 (11.90%) Automotive
11 5 (11.90%) CISM
11 5 (11.90%) Mac OS
11 5 (11.90%) Degree

Cybersecurity Engineer Skill Set
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 (2.38%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (2.38%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (2.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (2.38%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 11 (26.19%) Azure
2 7 (16.67%) AWS
3 4 (9.52%) Microsoft 365
4 2 (4.76%) Amazon S3
4 2 (4.76%) Cloud Computing
4 2 (4.76%) Entra ID
4 2 (4.76%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (2.38%) Amazon EC2
5 1 (2.38%) Amazon GuardDuty
5 1 (2.38%) AWS Lambda
5 1 (2.38%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (2.38%) GCP
5 1 (2.38%) GitHub
5 1 (2.38%) OpenShift
5 1 (2.38%) Power Platform
5 1 (2.38%) SaaS
5 1 (2.38%) Serverless
5 1 (2.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (30.95%) Firewall
2 8 (19.05%) Network Security
3 7 (16.67%) Intrusion Detection
4 3 (7.14%) Ethernet
5 1 (2.38%) Modbus
5 1 (2.38%) NAS
5 1 (2.38%) SAN
5 1 (2.38%) SMTP
5 1 (2.38%) SSL
5 1 (2.38%) VPN
5 1 (2.38%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (2.38%) Wireless
5 1 (2.38%) Wireless Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.38%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (2.38%) Git
1 1 (2.38%) Jenkins
1 1 (2.38%) JIRA
1 1 (2.38%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 11 (26.19%) Social Skills
2 8 (19.05%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (14.29%) Public Sector
4 5 (11.90%) Automotive
5 4 (9.52%) Finance
6 2 (4.76%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (4.76%) Legal
7 1 (2.38%) Financial Institution
7 1 (2.38%) Japanese Language
7 1 (2.38%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (4.76%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 4 (9.52%) Algorithms
1 4 (9.52%) Cyber Threat
1 4 (9.52%) Management Information System
2 2 (4.76%) Data Structures
3 1 (2.38%) CMDB
3 1 (2.38%) Greenfield Project
3 1 (2.38%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (2.38%) Operational Technology
3 1 (2.38%) Product Ownership
3 1 (2.38%) Renewable Energy
3 1 (2.38%) SCADA
3 1 (2.38%) Security Posture
3 1 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 7 (16.67%) Linux
1 7 (16.67%) Windows
2 5 (11.90%) Mac OS
3 2 (4.76%) Android
3 2 (4.76%) Apple iOS
4 1 (2.38%) Unix
4 1 (2.38%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 15 (35.71%) SIEM
3 10 (23.81%) Incident Response
4 8 (19.05%) Threat Detection
5 7 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
5 7 (16.67%) Vulnerability Management
6 6 (14.29%) Knowledge Transfer
7 5 (11.90%) Cloud Security
7 5 (11.90%) Data Loss Prevention
7 5 (11.90%) Security Operations
7 5 (11.90%) Vulnerability Assessment
8 4 (9.52%) Information Security
8 4 (9.52%) Penetration Testing
8 4 (9.52%) Risk Analysis
8 4 (9.52%) Security Monitoring
8 4 (9.52%) Use Case
9 3 (7.14%) Identity Access Management
9 3 (7.14%) Privileged Access Management
9 3 (7.14%) Technical Leadership
9 3 (7.14%) Threat Analysis
Programming Languages
1 9 (21.43%) Python
2 7 (16.67%) PowerShell
3 3 (7.14%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (2.38%) Bash
4 1 (2.38%) C++
4 1 (2.38%) Go
4 1 (2.38%) Java
4 1 (2.38%) JavaScript
4 1 (2.38%) Perl
4 1 (2.38%) Rust
4 1 (2.38%) SQL
4 1 (2.38%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 12 (28.57%) CISSP
2 10 (23.81%) Security Cleared
3 9 (21.43%) SC Cleared
4 5 (11.90%) CISM
4 5 (11.90%) Degree
5 4 (9.52%) CEH
6 3 (7.14%) CCNA
6 3 (7.14%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (4.76%) CISA
7 2 (4.76%) CompTIA Security+
7 2 (4.76%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (2.38%) CREST Certified
8 1 (2.38%) OSCP
8 1 (2.38%) PMI Certification
8 1 (2.38%) PMP
8 1 (2.38%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (7.14%) AUTOSAR
1 3 (7.14%) GDPR
1 3 (7.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (4.76%) GRC
2 2 (4.76%) NCSC
3 1 (2.38%) NIST
3 1 (2.38%) SLA
3 1 (2.38%) SOC 2
System Software
1 3 (7.14%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 1 (2.38%) Ansible
1 1 (2.38%) Kubernetes
1 1 (2.38%) Microsoft Intune
1 1 (2.38%) Nessus
1 1 (2.38%) NetBackup
1 1 (2.38%) Oracle RMAN
1 1 (2.38%) QRadar
1 1 (2.38%) SCCM
1 1 (2.38%) WSUS
Vendors
1 10 (23.81%) Microsoft
2 3 (7.14%) CrowdStrike
2 3 (7.14%) Tenable
2 3 (7.14%) Thycotic
3 2 (4.76%) Cisco
3 2 (4.76%) Qualys
4 1 (2.38%) AlienVault
4 1 (2.38%) BMC
4 1 (2.38%) CheckPoint
4 1 (2.38%) CyberArk
4 1 (2.38%) Google
4 1 (2.38%) IBM
4 1 (2.38%) Imperva
4 1 (2.38%) Oracle
4 1 (2.38%) Proofpoint
4 1 (2.38%) Remedy
4 1 (2.38%) Splunk
4 1 (2.38%) Veritas