Cybersecurity Specialist Contracts

Cybersecurity Specialist
UK

The median Cybersecurity Specialist daily rate in the UK is £613, 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 504 568 683
Rank change year-on-year +64 +115 +148
Contract jobs requiring a Cybersecurity Specialist 16 14 35
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.055% 0.032% 0.059%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.059% 0.035% 0.062%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 8 23
10th Percentile £459 £479 £463
25th Percentile £533 £509 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £528 £591
Median % change year-on-year +16.11% -10.69% +15.24%
75th Percentile £656 £575 £655
90th Percentile £698 £725 £811
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £525 £591
% change year-on-year -7.14% -11.11% +28.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 6
10th Percentile - - £45.57
25th Percentile - - £59.73
Median hourly rate - - £64.15
75th Percentile - - £71.88
90th Percentile - - £72.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £64.15
% change year-on-year - - -2.50%

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 Specialist
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Cybersecurity Specialist in the UK

Cybersecurity Specialist
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Cybersecurity Specialist in the UK

Cybersecurity Specialist
Daily Rate Histogram

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

Daily rate histogram for Cybersecurity Specialist in the UK

Cybersecurity Specialist
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Cybersecurity Specialist in the UK

Cybersecurity Specialist
Top 11 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cybersecurity Specialist 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 +63 8 £488 -7.14% 23
England +57 8 £650 +22.64% 23
Work from Home +41 4 £556 +5.45% 7
London +38 4 £650 -8.77% 6
Scotland +13 4 £463 -3.90% 1
Midlands +22 1 - - 2
North of England +19 1 - - 11
West Midlands +14 1 - - 1
North West - 1 - - 8
Wales - 1 £488 - 2
East of England - 1 £625 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Cybersecurity Specialist 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 Specialist in the job title.

1 16 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 9 (56.25%) Azure
3 7 (43.75%) Threat Modelling
3 7 (43.75%) Security Operations
4 6 (37.50%) Cyber Threat
5 5 (31.25%) Firewall
6 4 (25.00%) Risk Assessment
6 4 (25.00%) CISSP
6 4 (25.00%) Windows
6 4 (25.00%) AWS
6 4 (25.00%) Security Cleared
6 4 (25.00%) Degree
6 4 (25.00%) Network Security
6 4 (25.00%) Agile
6 4 (25.00%) Kalman Filter
6 4 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (25.00%) GCP
6 4 (25.00%) SIEM
6 4 (25.00%) Power Platform
6 4 (25.00%) NIST
6 4 (25.00%) Incident Response
6 4 (25.00%) Security Posture
7 3 (18.75%) Cloud Security
7 3 (18.75%) Zero Trust
7 3 (18.75%) Public Sector
7 3 (18.75%) DevSecOps
7 3 (18.75%) Threat Detection
7 3 (18.75%) Identity Access Management
7 3 (18.75%) Email Filtering
7 3 (18.75%) Security Monitoring

Cybersecurity Specialist 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:

Business Applications
1 3 (18.75%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 9 (56.25%) Azure
2 4 (25.00%) AWS
2 4 (25.00%) GCP
2 4 (25.00%) Power Platform
3 3 (18.75%) Microsoft 365
4 1 (6.25%) Cloud Computing
4 1 (6.25%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 5 (31.25%) Firewall
2 4 (25.00%) Network Security
3 2 (12.50%) SSL
4 1 (6.25%) DNS
4 1 (6.25%) FTP
4 1 (6.25%) HTTP
4 1 (6.25%) SD-WAN
4 1 (6.25%) SMTP
4 1 (6.25%) tcpdump
4 1 (6.25%) VPN
4 1 (6.25%) WAN
4 1 (6.25%) Wireshark
General
1 4 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
2 3 (18.75%) Public Sector
3 2 (12.50%) Local Government
3 2 (12.50%) Social Skills
4 1 (6.25%) Finance
4 1 (6.25%) Manufacturing
4 1 (6.25%) Marketing
4 1 (6.25%) Organisational Skills
4 1 (6.25%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (6.25%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 6 (37.50%) Cyber Threat
2 4 (25.00%) Security Posture
3 3 (18.75%) PKI
4 2 (12.50%) Management Information System
5 1 (6.25%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (6.25%) CSOC
5 1 (6.25%) Cyberattack
5 1 (6.25%) MISP
5 1 (6.25%) Operational Technology
5 1 (6.25%) Product Ownership
5 1 (6.25%) Renewable Energy
5 1 (6.25%) Security Operations Centre
5 1 (6.25%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 4 (25.00%) Windows
2 3 (18.75%) Windows Server
3 1 (6.25%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (100.00%) Cybersecurity
2 7 (43.75%) Security Operations
2 7 (43.75%) Threat Modelling
3 4 (25.00%) Agile
3 4 (25.00%) Incident Response
3 4 (25.00%) Kalman Filter
3 4 (25.00%) Risk Assessment
3 4 (25.00%) SIEM
4 3 (18.75%) Artificial Intelligence
4 3 (18.75%) Cloud Security
4 3 (18.75%) Data Protection
4 3 (18.75%) DevSecOps
4 3 (18.75%) Email Filtering
4 3 (18.75%) Identity Access Management
4 3 (18.75%) ITIL
4 3 (18.75%) Security Architecture
4 3 (18.75%) Security Monitoring
4 3 (18.75%) Stakeholder Management
4 3 (18.75%) Threat Detection
4 3 (18.75%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 2 (12.50%) PowerShell
2 1 (6.25%) Bash
2 1 (6.25%) Python
Qualifications
1 4 (25.00%) CISSP
1 4 (25.00%) Degree
1 4 (25.00%) Security Cleared
2 3 (18.75%) SC Cleared
3 2 (12.50%) ITIL Certification
3 2 (12.50%) MCSE
3 2 (12.50%) Microsoft Certification
4 1 (6.25%) AWS Certification
4 1 (6.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 1 (6.25%) Azure Certification
4 1 (6.25%) CCNA
4 1 (6.25%) Cisco Certification
4 1 (6.25%) CISM
4 1 (6.25%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (6.25%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (25.00%) NIST
2 3 (18.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (12.50%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (6.25%) NCSC
System Software
1 3 (18.75%) Active Directory
1 3 (18.75%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 3 (18.75%) SCCM
2 2 (12.50%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (6.25%) Ansible
3 1 (6.25%) Nessus
3 1 (6.25%) OpenVAS
3 1 (6.25%) QRadar
3 1 (6.25%) Terraform
Vendors
1 3 (18.75%) Microsoft
2 1 (6.25%) ArcSight
2 1 (6.25%) Carbon Black
2 1 (6.25%) CrowdStrike
2 1 (6.25%) Fortinet
2 1 (6.25%) Google
2 1 (6.25%) IBM
2 1 (6.25%) LogRhythm
2 1 (6.25%) Qualys
2 1 (6.25%) Rapid7
2 1 (6.25%) Splunk