Cybersecurity Contracts

Cybersecurity
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Cybersecurity skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Cybersecurity over the 6 months to 9 December 2023 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
9 Dec 2023
Same period 2022 Same period 2021
Rank 43 63 90
Rank change year-on-year +20 +27 -9
Contract jobs citing Cybersecurity 1,942 2,766 2,629
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 4.37% 3.60% 2.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.93% 3.99% 3.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,202 1,943 1,782
10th Percentile £400 £413 £400
25th Percentile £481 £500 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £590 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.67% +9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £688 £688 £663
90th Percentile £792 £772 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £575 £550 £525
% change year-on-year +4.55% +4.76% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 49 34
10th Percentile £37.81 £22.00 £22.03
25th Percentile £42.25 £42.50 £35.00
Median hourly rate £72.50 £65.50 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year +10.69% +15.14% +19.13%
75th Percentile £83.40 £77.25 £73.94
90th Percentile - £86.35 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.50 £65.50 £62.38
% change year-on-year +10.69% +5.00% +31.33%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Cybersecurity is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 39,373 69,310 81,356
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.52% 90.15% 90.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,321 47,960 56,913
10th Percentile £310 £338 £319
25th Percentile £425 £450 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.18% +4.76% +10.53%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £625
90th Percentile £745 £750 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £463
% change year-on-year - +8.11% +8.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,511 1,674 2,001
10th Percentile £14.36 £13.41 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.93 £17.40 £13.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £35.00 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year +21.43% +62.79% -18.87%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £47.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £72.00 £62.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.95 £32.25 £18.00
% change year-on-year +36.28% +79.17% -21.74%

Cybersecurity
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Cybersecurity as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Cybersecurity in the UK

Cybersecurity
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Cybersecurity in the UK

Cybersecurity
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cybersecurity over the 6 months to 9 December 2023.

Daily rate histogram for Cybersecurity in the UK

Cybersecurity
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Cybersecurity in the UK

Cybersecurity
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cybersecurity over the 6 months to 9 December 2023.

Hourly rate histogram for Cybersecurity in the UK

Cybersecurity
Top 16 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cybersecurity within the UK over the 6 months to 9 December 2023. 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 +23 1,643 £600 - 1,439
UK excluding London +29 991 £575 +4.55% 928
Work from Home +28 826 £583 -2.83% 785
London +13 712 £600 -3.81% 542
South East +45 306 £594 +18.81% 249
Midlands +29 179 £575 - 164
South West +31 177 £575 -4.96% 153
North of England +40 165 £570 +3.64% 231
West Midlands +27 140 £600 - 121
Scotland +29 114 £550 +4.76% 51
North West +38 91 £550 +4.76% 134
Yorkshire +20 70 £581 +5.69% 76
East of England -6 52 £550 -4.35% 79
East Midlands +31 37 £438 -12.50% 43
Wales -17 19 £300 -45.45% 14
North East +38 3 £400 -42.86% 21

Cybersecurity
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 28 (1.44%) SharePoint
2 26 (1.34%) Confluence
3 25 (1.29%) CMS
4 9 (0.46%) Apache
4 9 (0.46%) MS Exchange
4 9 (0.46%) nginx
5 8 (0.41%) IIS
6 6 (0.31%) GeoServer
6 6 (0.31%) Jupyter
7 5 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 4 (0.21%) Hyperledger
9 2 (0.10%) Ethereum
10 1 (0.051%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.051%) OpenStack
10 1 (0.051%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.051%) SAS
10 1 (0.051%) Skype for Business
10 1 (0.051%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.051%) WebSphere
Applications
1 57 (2.94%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (1.34%) Microsoft Excel
3 20 (1.03%) MS Visio
4 16 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
5 15 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.15%) Trello
7 2 (0.10%) CATIA
7 2 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.051%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 8 (0.41%) SAP ERP
2 5 (0.26%) SAP VC
3 3 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.15%) Dynamics GP
4 1 (0.051%) Distributed Ledger
4 1 (0.051%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.051%) Quorum
4 1 (0.051%) R3 Corda
4 1 (0.051%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 1 (0.051%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 347 (17.87%) Azure
2 180 (9.27%) AWS
3 169 (8.70%) SaaS
4 126 (6.49%) IaaS
5 122 (6.28%) Microsoft 365
6 111 (5.72%) PaaS
7 80 (4.12%) GCP
8 64 (3.30%) Entra ID
9 58 (2.99%) Azure Sentinel
10 40 (2.06%) Power Platform
11 39 (2.01%) Cloud Computing
12 24 (1.24%) GitHub
13 18 (0.93%) Azure DevOps
14 15 (0.77%) Serverless
15 12 (0.62%) AWS CloudFormation
15 12 (0.62%) Microsoft Purview
15 12 (0.62%) PowerApps
16 9 (0.46%) Azure Storage
17 7 (0.36%) Akamai
18 6 (0.31%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 267 (13.75%) Firewall
2 119 (6.13%) Network Security
3 100 (5.15%) 5G
4 90 (4.63%) Broadband
5 78 (4.02%) WAN
6 75 (3.86%) Intrusion Detection
7 73 (3.76%) LAN
8 66 (3.40%) DNS
9 56 (2.88%) Internet
10 55 (2.83%) TCP/IP
11 44 (2.27%) VPN
12 43 (2.21%) Wireless
13 34 (1.75%) Cisco ASA
14 31 (1.60%) DHCP
15 28 (1.44%) HTTPS
15 28 (1.44%) WLAN
16 25 (1.29%) HTTP
16 25 (1.29%) SSL
17 20 (1.03%) SAN
17 20 (1.03%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (1.75%) Power BI
2 24 (1.24%) SQL Server
3 20 (1.03%) Big Data
3 20 (1.03%) Elasticsearch
4 15 (0.77%) Relational Database
5 14 (0.72%) GIS
6 13 (0.67%) Data Lake
7 9 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
7 9 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
7 9 (0.46%) PostgreSQL
8 8 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (0.31%) MySQL
9 6 (0.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 5 (0.26%) Oracle Database
10 5 (0.26%) RDBMS
10 5 (0.26%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 5 (0.26%) Tableau
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Reports
12 2 (0.10%) Hadoop
13 1 (0.051%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 54 (2.78%) JIRA
2 27 (1.39%) Git
3 23 (1.18%) Jenkins
4 13 (0.67%) GitLab
5 9 (0.46%) SonarQube
6 8 (0.41%) Rational DOORS
7 6 (0.31%) TeamCity
7 6 (0.31%) Valgrind
8 5 (0.26%) Bitbucket
8 5 (0.26%) Burp Suite
9 4 (0.21%) GDB
9 4 (0.21%) Rational Rhapsody
9 4 (0.21%) Subversion
9 4 (0.21%) Visual Studio Code
9 4 (0.21%) Xcode
10 3 (0.15%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 3 (0.15%) IBM UrbanCode
10 3 (0.15%) Mercurial
10 3 (0.15%) SoapUI
General
1 386 (19.88%) Social Skills
2 333 (17.15%) Finance
3 174 (8.96%) Analytical Skills
4 170 (8.75%) Public Sector
5 119 (6.13%) Organisational Skills
6 117 (6.02%) Law
7 71 (3.66%) Banking
8 68 (3.50%) Telecoms
9 63 (3.24%) Legal
10 50 (2.57%) Manufacturing
11 36 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
12 33 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 27 (1.39%) Retail
14 24 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
15 22 (1.13%) Automotive
15 22 (1.13%) Local Government
16 21 (1.08%) Documentation Skills
17 18 (0.93%) Electronics
17 18 (0.93%) Financial Institution
17 18 (0.93%) Police
Job Titles
1 318 (16.37%) Analyst
2 272 (14.01%) Architect
3 185 (9.53%) Consultant
3 185 (9.53%) Senior
4 171 (8.81%) Security Analyst
5 169 (8.70%) Security Architect
6 158 (8.14%) Security Engineer
7 152 (7.83%) Security Manager
8 146 (7.52%) Lead
9 138 (7.11%) Project Manager
9 138 (7.11%) Security Specialist
10 126 (6.49%) Security Consultant
11 103 (5.30%) Cybersecurity Manager
12 97 (4.99%) Tester
13 96 (4.94%) Penetration Tester
14 88 (4.53%) Cybersecurity Engineer
15 87 (4.48%) Security Penetration Tester
15 87 (4.48%) Security Tester
16 86 (4.43%) Cybersecurity Analyst
16 86 (4.43%) Testing Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (5.25%) Web Services
2 26 (1.34%) HTML
3 23 (1.18%) CSS
4 21 (1.08%) LDAP
5 16 (0.82%) SailPoint
5 16 (0.82%) SAML
6 14 (0.72%) RESTful
7 11 (0.57%) Elastic Stack
7 11 (0.57%) JSON
8 10 (0.51%) Node.js
9 9 (0.46%) OpenID
10 8 (0.41%) .NET
10 8 (0.41%) 802.1X
11 7 (0.36%) SOAP
11 7 (0.36%) XHTML
12 6 (0.31%) Matplotlib
12 6 (0.31%) Middleware
12 6 (0.31%) NumPy
12 6 (0.31%) Pandas
12 6 (0.31%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 168 (8.65%) Management Information System
2 122 (6.28%) Cyber Threat
3 117 (6.02%) Mobile App
4 94 (4.84%) Operational Technology
5 82 (4.22%) Security Operations Centre
6 81 (4.17%) Security Posture
7 51 (2.63%) Onboarding
8 49 (2.52%) Data Centre
9 47 (2.42%) PKI
10 42 (2.16%) Cyberattack
11 40 (2.06%) Cyber Defence
12 37 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
12 37 (1.91%) Product Ownership
13 36 (1.85%) IoT
13 36 (1.85%) Public Cloud
14 33 (1.70%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 29 (1.49%) Cloud Native
15 29 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
16 28 (1.44%) Cyber Kill Chain
17 21 (1.08%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 203 (10.45%) Windows
2 156 (8.03%) Linux
3 74 (3.81%) Windows Server
4 26 (1.34%) Unix
5 24 (1.24%) Windows 10
6 18 (0.93%) Windows Server 2012
7 17 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
9 10 (0.51%) CatOS
9 10 (0.51%) CentOS
10 9 (0.46%) Apple iOS
10 9 (0.46%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.36%) Android
12 7 (0.36%) Mac OS X
13 6 (0.31%) Mac OS
14 5 (0.26%) HPUX
15 3 (0.15%) AIX
15 3 (0.15%) Kali Linux
16 1 (0.051%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 398 (20.49%) Information Security
2 355 (18.28%) Risk Management
3 329 (16.94%) SIEM
4 314 (16.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 281 (14.47%) Agile
6 260 (13.39%) Security Operations
7 191 (9.84%) Problem-Solving
8 190 (9.78%) Incident Response
9 173 (8.91%) Vulnerability Management
10 172 (8.86%) Security Architecture
11 165 (8.50%) Roadmaps
12 164 (8.44%) Penetration Testing
13 152 (7.83%) MITRE ATT&CK
13 152 (7.83%) Project Management
14 143 (7.36%) Security Testing
15 140 (7.21%) Application Security
16 135 (6.95%) Cloud Security
17 130 (6.69%) Identity Access Management
18 129 (6.64%) OWASP
19 125 (6.44%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 141 (7.26%) Python
2 120 (6.18%) PowerShell
3 52 (2.68%) SQL
4 42 (2.16%) Java
5 30 (1.54%) JavaScript
6 27 (1.39%) Bash
7 22 (1.13%) C++
8 19 (0.98%) C#
9 17 (0.88%) Go
10 16 (0.82%) C
10 16 (0.82%) Kusto Query Language
11 9 (0.46%) Perl
12 7 (0.36%) TypeScript
13 6 (0.31%) Shell Script
14 5 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 5 (0.26%) Search Processing Language
15 4 (0.21%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.21%) Ruby
15 4 (0.21%) Swift
15 4 (0.21%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 643 (33.11%) Security Cleared
2 412 (21.22%) SC Cleared
3 331 (17.04%) CISSP
4 238 (12.26%) Degree
5 231 (11.89%) CISM
6 171 (8.81%) DV Cleared
7 125 (6.44%) GIAC
8 107 (5.51%) OSCP
9 103 (5.30%) CREST Certified
9 103 (5.30%) SANS
10 91 (4.69%) GPEN
11 85 (4.38%) CRISC
12 78 (4.02%) CISA
13 74 (3.81%) Cisco Certification
14 63 (3.24%) Computer Science Degree
15 57 (2.94%) CESG Certified Professional
16 48 (2.47%) CEH
17 43 (2.21%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 34 (1.75%) Azure Certification
19 27 (1.39%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 306 (15.76%) NIST
2 283 (14.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 203 (10.45%) NCSC
4 167 (8.60%) GDPR
5 152 (7.83%) PCI DSS
6 78 (4.02%) Cyber Essentials
7 66 (3.40%) GRC
8 52 (2.68%) RMADS
9 44 (2.27%) COBIT
10 39 (2.01%) NIST 800
11 34 (1.75%) QA
12 31 (1.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 26 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 24 (1.24%) PMO
15 12 (0.62%) Accessibility
15 12 (0.62%) ISO 31000
15 12 (0.62%) SLA
16 10 (0.51%) Data Quality
16 10 (0.51%) JSP 440
17 8 (0.41%) AUTOSAR
System Software
1 134 (6.90%) Active Directory
2 54 (2.78%) VMware Infrastructure
3 29 (1.49%) Docker
4 15 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
4 15 (0.77%) VMware NSX
5 13 (0.67%) Hyper-V
6 12 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.41%) ProxySG
8 7 (0.36%) vSphere
9 6 (0.31%) Firmware
9 6 (0.31%) Postfix
9 6 (0.31%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.21%) KVM
10 4 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.10%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.10%) VMware Server
12 1 (0.051%) PowerDNS
12 1 (0.051%) Snort
12 1 (0.051%) Terminal Server
12 1 (0.051%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 60 (3.09%) Terraform
2 51 (2.63%) Ansible
3 37 (1.91%) Kubernetes
4 33 (1.70%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (1.34%) Single Sign-On
6 24 (1.24%) Nessus
7 20 (1.03%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 19 (0.98%) SCCM
9 16 (0.82%) ArcSight ESM
10 15 (0.77%) CSIRT
11 14 (0.72%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.51%) Grafana
12 10 (0.51%) Progress Chef
12 10 (0.51%) Puppet
13 8 (0.41%) Host Intrusion Detection System
13 8 (0.41%) McAfee ePO
14 7 (0.36%) CASB
15 6 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
15 6 (0.31%) Microsoft Clustering
15 6 (0.31%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 309 (15.91%) Microsoft
2 107 (5.51%) Cisco
3 86 (4.43%) Virgin Media
4 80 (4.12%) Splunk
5 76 (3.91%) VMware
6 59 (3.04%) Palo Alto
7 53 (2.73%) LogRhythm
8 42 (2.16%) McAfee
9 40 (2.06%) ArcSight
10 39 (2.01%) Google
11 37 (1.91%) CyberArk
11 37 (1.91%) Oracle
12 35 (1.80%) Darktrace
13 34 (1.75%) CheckPoint
14 32 (1.65%) Qualys
15 31 (1.60%) Citrix
16 24 (1.24%) F5
16 24 (1.24%) ServiceNow
17 23 (1.18%) SAP
18 22 (1.13%) Zscaler