Cybersecurity Contract Job Trends

Cybersecurity
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Cybersecurity skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 54 46
Rank change year-on-year +8 -8 +12
Contract jobs citing Cybersecurity 1,828 1,163 1,818
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.64% 3.79% 4.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.34% 4.24% 4.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,113 705 1,167
10th Percentile £350 £400 £413
25th Percentile £454 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £567 £590
Median % change year-on-year -5.29% -3.90% -1.67%
75th Percentile £644 £650 £688
90th Percentile £749 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £545 £570
% change year-on-year -4.59% -4.39% +3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 23 65
10th Percentile £20.79 £41.30 £26.75
25th Percentile £30.00 £45.00 £42.25
Median hourly rate £45.46 £46.18 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.56% -36.30% +11.54%
75th Percentile £69.35 £78.38 £83.40
90th Percentile £85.60 £83.20 £87.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £46.18 £72.50
% change year-on-year -1.56% -36.30% +10.69%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Cybersecurity falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 34,251 27,445 39,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.02% 89.42% 87.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,718 16,700 25,680
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £716 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,071 843 2,128
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.05 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -1.71% +1.74%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.08 £35.00
% change year-on-year -19.08% -11.20% +10.55%

Cybersecurity
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Cybersecurity job vacancy trend in the UK

Cybersecurity
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cybersecurity over the 6 months to 10 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cybersecurity in the UK

Cybersecurity
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cybersecurity over the 6 months to 10 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cybersecurity in the UK

Cybersecurity
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 Cybersecurity within the UK over the 6 months to 10 February 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 +9 1,570 £540 -5.68% 1,247
UK excluding London +15 1,030 £520 -4.59% 1,125
London +2 613 £600 +4.35% 356
Work from Home +18 511 £540 -4.85% 472
North of England +24 302 £520 -8.37% 248
South East +11 281 £513 -3.76% 335
Yorkshire +27 200 £511 -9.54% 83
Midlands -1 183 £530 +0.95% 174
West Midlands -6 150 £540 +0.47% 110
Scotland +42 110 £475 -2.56% 60
North West +1 100 £550 -3.51% 139
South West +8 96 £525 -19.23% 156
East of England -8 48 £553 -3.83% 139
East Midlands -11 32 £449 -10.30% 64
Northern Ireland +14 19 £500 - 12
Wales -19 19 £600 +45.45% 39
North East -18 6 £550 - 28

Cybersecurity
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 79 (4.32%) Confluence
2 37 (2.02%) SharePoint
3 20 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 13 (0.71%) TPMS
5 8 (0.44%) Apache
6 6 (0.33%) OpenStack
7 4 (0.22%) CMS
8 3 (0.16%) nginx
9 2 (0.11%) CICS
9 2 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
9 2 (0.11%) FileNet
9 2 (0.11%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.11%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.055%) Alfresco
10 1 (0.055%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.055%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.055%) Documentum
10 1 (0.055%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.055%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 53 (2.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.86%) Microsoft Project
3 33 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
4 31 (1.70%) MS Visio
5 30 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.27%) Acrobat
7 3 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
7 3 (0.16%) Photoshop
7 3 (0.16%) Trello
8 2 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
9 1 (0.055%) FrameMaker
9 1 (0.055%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 11 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.16%) ResourceLink
5 2 (0.11%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.11%) Oracle EBS R12
5 2 (0.11%) SystmOne
5 2 (0.11%) VisionPLUS
6 1 (0.055%) NEC Housing
6 1 (0.055%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.055%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.055%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.055%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.055%) SAP PP
6 1 (0.055%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 415 (22.70%) Azure
2 304 (16.63%) AWS
3 150 (8.21%) GCP
4 132 (7.22%) Microsoft 365
5 85 (4.65%) Entra ID
6 63 (3.45%) SaaS
7 57 (3.12%) Power Platform
8 50 (2.74%) Microsoft Purview
9 48 (2.63%) Azure Sentinel
10 47 (2.57%) GitHub
11 44 (2.41%) Serverless
12 41 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
13 32 (1.75%) GitHub Actions
14 27 (1.48%) OpenShift
15 26 (1.42%) PaaS
16 23 (1.26%) IaaS
17 22 (1.20%) Cloud Computing
18 19 (1.04%) OCI
19 17 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
20 15 (0.82%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 244 (13.35%) Firewall
2 150 (8.21%) Network Security
3 85 (4.65%) DNS
4 56 (3.06%) TCP/IP
5 55 (3.01%) VPN
6 45 (2.46%) WAN
7 41 (2.24%) LAN
8 38 (2.08%) SSL
9 37 (2.02%) Wireless
10 28 (1.53%) BGP
10 28 (1.53%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (1.26%) DHCP
12 21 (1.15%) HTTP
13 20 (1.09%) Internet
13 20 (1.09%) SSH
14 19 (1.04%) IPsec
15 18 (0.98%) Cisco ASA
15 18 (0.98%) MPLS
15 18 (0.98%) VLAN
16 16 (0.88%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (2.30%) Power BI
2 25 (1.37%) Elasticsearch
3 24 (1.31%) NoSQL
4 22 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
5 16 (0.88%) Data Lake
6 14 (0.77%) Tableau
7 12 (0.66%) SQL Server
8 10 (0.55%) MongoDB
9 8 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
10 7 (0.38%) Metadata
11 6 (0.33%) Big Data
11 6 (0.33%) MariaDB
12 4 (0.22%) Amazon Athena
12 4 (0.22%) MySQL
12 4 (0.22%) Oracle Database
13 3 (0.16%) Amazon RDS
13 3 (0.16%) Electronic Patient Records
13 3 (0.16%) Oracle BI Publisher
13 3 (0.16%) Relational Database
13 3 (0.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 104 (5.69%) JIRA
2 67 (3.67%) Jenkins
3 42 (2.30%) GitLab
4 16 (0.88%) Burp Suite
4 16 (0.88%) Liquibase
5 15 (0.82%) Metasploit
6 11 (0.60%) Git
7 7 (0.38%) Jaeger
8 4 (0.22%) Snyk
9 3 (0.16%) CircleCI
9 3 (0.16%) Maven
9 3 (0.16%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.11%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.055%) Ant
11 1 (0.055%) AppScan
11 1 (0.055%) Balsamiq
11 1 (0.055%) IDA Disassembler
11 1 (0.055%) Mocha
11 1 (0.055%) Zephyr
General
1 642 (35.12%) Social Skills
2 346 (18.93%) Finance
3 194 (10.61%) Analytical Skills
4 178 (9.74%) Public Sector
5 109 (5.96%) Banking
6 95 (5.20%) Documentation Skills
7 64 (3.50%) Legal
8 48 (2.63%) Manufacturing
9 47 (2.57%) Organisational Skills
10 45 (2.46%) Financial Institution
11 34 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
11 34 (1.86%) Telecoms
12 32 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
13 31 (1.70%) Retail
14 27 (1.48%) Aerospace
15 26 (1.42%) Military
16 21 (1.15%) Investment Banking
17 18 (0.98%) Local Government
18 15 (0.82%) Marketing
19 12 (0.66%) Law
Job Titles
1 264 (14.44%) Analyst
2 232 (12.69%) Architect
3 165 (9.03%) Security Engineer
4 160 (8.75%) Senior
5 136 (7.44%) Security Architect
6 131 (7.17%) Lead
7 121 (6.62%) Consultant
8 102 (5.58%) Security Analyst
9 92 (5.03%) Project Manager
10 86 (4.70%) Security Manager
11 76 (4.16%) Security Consultant
12 74 (4.05%) Cybersecurity Engineer
13 71 (3.88%) Cybersecurity Analyst
14 70 (3.83%) Security Specialist
15 65 (3.56%) Cybersecurity Manager
16 57 (3.12%) Tester
17 53 (2.90%) SOC Analyst
18 52 (2.84%) Business Analyst
19 51 (2.79%) Cybersecurity Consultant
20 50 (2.74%) Cybersecurity Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (3.50%) LDAP
2 57 (3.12%) SAML
3 52 (2.84%) Elastic Stack
3 52 (2.84%) REST
4 36 (1.97%) OAuth
5 35 (1.91%) OpenID
6 28 (1.53%) Kafka
7 25 (1.37%) RESTful
8 22 (1.20%) SailPoint
9 16 (0.88%) Middleware
10 14 (0.77%) .NET
10 14 (0.77%) OAuth2
11 12 (0.66%) Web Services
12 11 (0.60%) Spring Boot
13 10 (0.55%) Node.js
14 9 (0.49%) OpenTelemetry
14 9 (0.49%) React
15 8 (0.44%) SOAP
16 7 (0.38%) ADO
16 7 (0.38%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 117 (6.40%) Security Posture
2 115 (6.29%) Cyber Threat
2 115 (6.29%) Management Information System
3 111 (6.07%) Operational Technology
4 93 (5.09%) Security Operations Centre
5 92 (5.03%) Onboarding
6 91 (4.98%) Cloud Native
7 50 (2.74%) Cyber Defence
8 47 (2.57%) SCADA
9 42 (2.30%) Data Centre
9 42 (2.30%) Product Ownership
10 39 (2.13%) Public Cloud
11 33 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
11 33 (1.81%) PKI
12 31 (1.70%) Cyberattack
13 30 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
14 26 (1.42%) NHS
15 25 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
16 22 (1.20%) Cyber Security Posture
16 22 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 219 (11.98%) Windows
2 186 (10.18%) Linux
3 43 (2.35%) Windows Server
4 38 (2.08%) Unix
5 30 (1.64%) Mac OS
6 19 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (0.66%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.55%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.44%) VMS
10 6 (0.33%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.27%) Kali Linux
12 4 (0.22%) Android
12 4 (0.22%) CatOS
13 3 (0.16%) CentOS
14 2 (0.11%) Rocky
14 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
15 1 (0.055%) FreeRTOS
15 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.055%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 321 (17.56%) SIEM
2 301 (16.47%) Incident Response
3 278 (15.21%) Stakeholder Management
4 274 (14.99%) Agile
5 248 (13.57%) DevOps
6 238 (13.02%) Problem-Solving
7 231 (12.64%) Risk Management
8 228 (12.47%) Security Operations
9 220 (12.04%) Information Security
10 201 (11.00%) CI/CD
11 195 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 190 (10.39%) Continuous Improvement
13 185 (10.12%) Cloud Security
14 166 (9.08%) Vulnerability Management
15 153 (8.37%) Identity Access Management
16 147 (8.04%) Roadmaps
17 145 (7.93%) Project Management
18 137 (7.49%) Threat Modelling
19 135 (7.39%) Computer Science
20 129 (7.06%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 239 (13.07%) Python
2 164 (8.97%) PowerShell
3 58 (3.17%) Bash
4 54 (2.95%) SQL
5 44 (2.41%) Kusto Query Language
6 34 (1.86%) Go
7 31 (1.70%) JavaScript
8 29 (1.59%) Java
9 13 (0.71%) Rust
9 13 (0.71%) TypeScript
10 11 (0.60%) C++
11 10 (0.55%) C#
11 10 (0.55%) Shell Script
12 9 (0.49%) Bicep
13 8 (0.44%) Perl
13 8 (0.44%) Search Processing Language
14 4 (0.22%) PHP
15 2 (0.11%) COBOL
15 2 (0.11%) Haskell
15 2 (0.11%) JCL
Qualifications
1 600 (32.82%) Security Cleared
2 478 (26.15%) SC Cleared
3 298 (16.30%) CISSP
4 269 (14.72%) Degree
5 201 (11.00%) CISM
6 155 (8.48%) DV Cleared
7 66 (3.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 66 (3.61%) GIAC
8 64 (3.50%) CEH
8 64 (3.50%) CompTIA Security+
9 55 (3.01%) Master's Degree
10 52 (2.84%) Cisco Certification
11 41 (2.24%) CHECK Team Member
12 38 (2.08%) AWS Certification
13 37 (2.02%) TOGAF Certification
14 35 (1.91%) Azure Certification
15 33 (1.81%) CHECK Team Leader
15 33 (1.81%) CompTIA CySA+
16 30 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
17 29 (1.59%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 356 (19.47%) NIST
2 312 (17.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 176 (9.63%) GDPR
4 102 (5.58%) NCSC
5 72 (3.94%) PCI DSS
6 66 (3.61%) Cyber Essentials
7 64 (3.50%) GRC
8 42 (2.30%) QA
9 35 (1.91%) NIST 800
10 32 (1.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 28 (1.53%) PMO
12 22 (1.20%) SOC 2
13 21 (1.15%) JSP 440
14 19 (1.04%) SLA
15 18 (0.98%) COBIT
16 17 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 15 (0.82%) Data Quality
18 14 (0.77%) Accessibility
19 13 (0.71%) Def Stans
19 13 (0.71%) GLBA
System Software
1 148 (8.10%) Active Directory
2 49 (2.68%) Docker
3 40 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.48%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (0.71%) VMware NSX
6 10 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.33%) Firmware
10 5 (0.27%) RACF
11 3 (0.16%) DFS Replication
11 3 (0.16%) GPFS
11 3 (0.16%) Lustre
11 3 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 3 (0.16%) vSphere
12 1 (0.055%) Embedded Firmware
12 1 (0.055%) Snort
12 1 (0.055%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 120 (6.56%) Kubernetes
2 109 (5.96%) Terraform
3 73 (3.99%) Ansible
4 47 (2.57%) Microsoft Intune
5 41 (2.24%) SCCM
6 40 (2.19%) Grafana
7 39 (2.13%) Prometheus
8 35 (1.91%) Single Sign-On
9 27 (1.48%) Kibana
10 16 (0.88%) logstash
11 14 (0.77%) Nmap
11 14 (0.77%) QRadar
12 12 (0.66%) CASB
12 12 (0.66%) Nessus
13 11 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
14 10 (0.55%) RSA Archer
15 8 (0.44%) CSIRT
15 8 (0.44%) vCenter Server
16 7 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 7 (0.38%) Kiali
Vendors
1 360 (19.69%) Microsoft
2 186 (10.18%) Splunk
3 84 (4.60%) CyberArk
4 74 (4.05%) Cisco
5 65 (3.56%) ServiceNow
5 65 (3.56%) VMware
6 49 (2.68%) Google
7 47 (2.57%) Palo Alto
8 40 (2.19%) CrowdStrike
9 36 (1.97%) Oracle
10 35 (1.91%) Fortinet
11 32 (1.75%) BiZZdesign
11 32 (1.75%) SAP
12 31 (1.70%) BeyondTrust
13 29 (1.59%) Tenable
14 24 (1.31%) CheckPoint
15 19 (1.04%) Tanium
16 18 (0.98%) F5
16 18 (0.98%) Red Hat
17 16 (0.88%) Rapid7