Cyber Threat Contract Job Trends

Cyber Threats
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Cyber Threat in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cyber Threat over the 6 months leading up to 14 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 440 395 349
Rank change year-on-year -45 -46 +87
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 259 164 209
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.47% 0.49% 0.56%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.35% 1.37% 1.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 75 114
10th Percentile £432 £463 £491
25th Percentile £525 £500 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £588 £580 £636
Median % change year-on-year +1.29% -8.84% +6.04%
75th Percentile £750 £700 £766
90th Percentile £800 £795 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £581 £590 £668
% change year-on-year -1.48% -11.64% +20.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 10 3
10th Percentile £60.76 £41.94 £40.25
25th Percentile - £45.00 £46.25
Median hourly rate £80.00 £47.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +70.21% -18.26% +29.21%
75th Percentile £85.00 £74.38 £58.75
90th Percentile £92.11 £76.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.00 £55.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +45.45% -4.35% +29.21%

All Generic Skills
UK

Cyber Threat falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 19,207 11,950 11,468
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.75% 36.02% 30.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,472 7,334 6,832
10th Percentile £322 £293 £280
25th Percentile £425 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £519 £529
Median % change year-on-year +1.25% -1.94% -3.86%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £668
90th Percentile £750 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.75% -1.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,350 623 401
10th Percentile £13.94 £14.33 £16.25
25th Percentile £17.57 £18.50 £23.30
Median hourly rate £35.91 £27.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +30.58% -40.45% +2.62%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.06 £72.50 £75.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £26.75 £52.50
% change year-on-year +30.84% -49.05% +2.46%

Cyber Threat
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Cyber Threat job vacancy trend in the UK

Cyber Threat
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cyber Threat

Cyber Threat
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cyber Threat over the 6 months to 14 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cyber Threat in the UK

Cyber Threat
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cyber Threat

Cyber Threat
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cyber Threat over the 6 months to 14 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cyber Threat in the UK

Cyber Threat
Top 14 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 Threat within the UK over the 6 months to 14 October 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 -34 237 £581 -1.90% 367
UK excluding London -36 162 £581 -1.48% 228
London -74 85 £600 +10.60% 161
Work from Home -42 68 £575 -0.86% 186
South East -33 49 £575 +9.79% 59
East of England -17 31 £550 -15.38% 25
South West -29 28 £800 +6.67% 24
North of England -56 27 £588 +14.03% 52
North West -39 23 £575 +11.61% 28
West Midlands -34 16 £688 +14.58% 22
Midlands -39 16 £688 +14.58% 31
Scotland -25 12 £800 +45.45% 25
Wales - 5 £800 - 13
Yorkshire - 4 £600 - 19

Cyber Threat
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 7 (2.70%) Confluence
1 7 (2.70%) IIS
2 2 (0.77%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.39%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.39%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.39%) Dynamics GP
1 1 (0.39%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 51 (19.69%) Azure
2 36 (13.90%) AWS
3 29 (11.20%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (6.18%) Entra ID
5 12 (4.63%) GCP
6 11 (4.25%) SaaS
7 9 (3.47%) Azure Sentinel
7 9 (3.47%) Datadog
8 6 (2.32%) Microsoft Purview
8 6 (2.32%) PaaS
9 5 (1.93%) Akamai
9 5 (1.93%) IaaS
9 5 (1.93%) Power Platform
10 4 (1.54%) Amazon ECS
10 4 (1.54%) Serverless
11 3 (1.16%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.16%) GitHub
11 3 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
12 2 (0.77%) AWS CodeBuild
12 2 (0.77%) Sentry
Communications & Networking
1 34 (13.13%) Network Security
2 20 (7.72%) HTTP
3 18 (6.95%) Firewall
4 14 (5.41%) DNS
5 13 (5.02%) SSL
6 11 (4.25%) Intrusion Detection
6 11 (4.25%) TCP/IP
7 8 (3.09%) VPN
8 5 (1.93%) Intranet
8 5 (1.93%) SMTP
9 4 (1.54%) Broadband
9 4 (1.54%) DHCP
9 4 (1.54%) SAN
9 4 (1.54%) VLAN
9 4 (1.54%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (1.16%) DMZ
10 3 (1.16%) FTP
11 2 (0.77%) Wireless
12 1 (0.39%) Internet
12 1 (0.39%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.93%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.16%) Big Data
3 2 (0.77%) Amazon QuickSight
4 1 (0.39%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.39%) MySQL
4 1 (0.39%) Oracle Database
4 1 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (0.39%) Power BI
4 1 (0.39%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.39%) Semantic Layer
4 1 (0.39%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 4 (1.54%) Chocolatey
2 3 (1.16%) Git
3 2 (0.77%) JIRA
General
1 73 (28.19%) Social Skills
2 61 (23.55%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (13.90%) Public Sector
4 27 (10.42%) Finance
5 13 (5.02%) Banking
6 11 (4.25%) Aerospace
7 8 (3.09%) Military
8 7 (2.70%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.70%) Manufacturing
9 6 (2.32%) Back Office
9 6 (2.32%) Law
10 4 (1.54%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.16%) Legal
11 3 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.77%) Local Government
13 1 (0.39%) Documentation Skills
13 1 (0.39%) Games
13 1 (0.39%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.39%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 70 (27.03%) Analyst
2 29 (11.20%) Security Engineer
2 29 (11.20%) Senior
3 28 (10.81%) Cyber Threat Analyst
4 25 (9.65%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
5 22 (8.49%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
6 20 (7.72%) Architect
6 20 (7.72%) Security Analyst
6 20 (7.72%) SOC Analyst
7 18 (6.95%) Security Architect
7 18 (6.95%) Security Manager
8 13 (5.02%) Cybersecurity Manager
9 12 (4.63%) Coordinator
9 12 (4.63%) Security Specialist
9 12 (4.63%) SOC Manager
10 10 (3.86%) Cybersecurity Analyst
10 10 (3.86%) Lead
10 10 (3.86%) Operations Manager
11 9 (3.47%) Cybersecurity Engineer
11 9 (3.47%) Operational Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (6.18%) Terraform
2 10 (3.86%) LDAP
3 9 (3.47%) JSON
4 8 (3.09%) Elastic Stack
4 8 (3.09%) Regular Expression
5 5 (1.93%) Kafka
6 3 (1.16%) REST
7 2 (0.77%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.77%) Django
7 2 (0.77%) PySpark
7 2 (0.77%) Web Services
7 2 (0.77%) XML
8 1 (0.39%) Ajax
8 1 (0.39%) CSS
8 1 (0.39%) HTML
8 1 (0.39%) JWT
8 1 (0.39%) RESTful
8 1 (0.39%) SOAP
8 1 (0.39%) XHTML
Miscellaneous
1 38 (14.67%) Security Operations Centre
2 31 (11.97%) Security Posture
3 22 (8.49%) Cyber Defence
4 20 (7.72%) Onboarding
5 18 (6.95%) Management Information System
5 18 (6.95%) Operational Technology
6 12 (4.63%) Cyberattack
7 8 (3.09%) Analytical Mindset
7 8 (3.09%) CSOC
8 6 (2.32%) Cloud Native
8 6 (2.32%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 6 (2.32%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 6 (2.32%) IoT
8 6 (2.32%) SCADA
9 5 (1.93%) Industrial Internet of Things
10 4 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (1.54%) PKI
11 3 (1.16%) YARA
12 2 (0.77%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 29 (11.20%) Windows
2 20 (7.72%) Linux
3 4 (1.54%) Unix
4 2 (0.77%) macOS
4 2 (0.77%) Windows 10
4 2 (0.77%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
4 2 (0.77%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 187 (72.20%) Cybersecurity
2 134 (51.74%) Incident Response
3 109 (42.08%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
3 109 (42.08%) Threat Intelligence
4 108 (41.70%) Security Operations
5 81 (31.27%) SIEM
6 69 (26.64%) Vulnerability Management
7 58 (22.39%) Continuous Improvement
8 56 (21.62%) Stakeholder Management
9 54 (20.85%) Cyber Intelligence
10 49 (18.92%) Threat Detection
11 47 (18.15%) Risk Management
12 42 (16.22%) MITRE ATT&CK
13 41 (15.83%) Security Monitoring
14 37 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
15 36 (13.90%) Cloud Security
16 35 (13.51%) Incident Management
17 34 (13.13%) Information Security
18 33 (12.74%) Cyber Resilience
19 30 (11.58%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 36 (13.90%) Python
2 23 (8.88%) PowerShell
3 13 (5.02%) Bash
4 11 (4.25%) Kusto Query Language
5 4 (1.54%) Search Processing Language
6 3 (1.16%) Perl
7 2 (0.77%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.77%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.77%) SQL
8 1 (0.39%) Bicep
8 1 (0.39%) C
8 1 (0.39%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 130 (50.19%) Security Cleared
2 93 (35.91%) SC Cleared
3 43 (16.60%) CISSP
4 39 (15.06%) DV Cleared
5 36 (13.90%) CISM
6 24 (9.27%) Degree
7 10 (3.86%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 10 (3.86%) Azure Certification
7 10 (3.86%) Cisco Certification
7 10 (3.86%) GIAC
8 9 (3.47%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (3.09%) AWS Certification
9 8 (3.09%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (3.09%) GCIA
10 7 (2.70%) CompTIA Security+
11 6 (2.32%) CRISC
11 6 (2.32%) GCIH
11 6 (2.32%) SANS
12 5 (1.93%) CEH
12 5 (1.93%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (22.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 42 (16.22%) NIST
3 29 (11.20%) NCSC
4 26 (10.04%) GDPR
5 11 (4.25%) Cyber Essentials
6 10 (3.86%) PCI DSS
7 8 (3.09%) SLA
8 7 (2.70%) NIST 800
9 6 (2.32%) COBIT
9 6 (2.32%) GRC
10 4 (1.54%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (1.54%) ISO 22301
11 3 (1.16%) ISO 19650
12 2 (0.77%) Def Stans
12 2 (0.77%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 2 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 1 (0.39%) Data Quality
13 1 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
13 1 (0.39%) ISO 31000
13 1 (0.39%) QA
System Software
1 21 (8.11%) Active Directory
2 9 (3.47%) Hyper-V
2 9 (3.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (3.09%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (2.70%) Docker
4 7 (2.70%) NFS
Systems Management
1 9 (3.47%) Microsoft Intune
2 8 (3.09%) Ansible
3 6 (2.32%) QRadar
3 6 (2.32%) SCCM
4 5 (1.93%) Grafana
4 5 (1.93%) Kubernetes
5 3 (1.16%) Progress Chef
6 2 (0.77%) CASB
6 2 (0.77%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 57 (22.01%) Microsoft
2 24 (9.27%) Splunk
3 11 (4.25%) VMware
4 7 (2.70%) ServiceNow
4 7 (2.70%) SolarWinds
5 6 (2.32%) Tenable
6 5 (1.93%) Databricks
6 5 (1.93%) Google
7 4 (1.54%) AppDynamics
7 4 (1.54%) Dynatrace
7 4 (1.54%) LogRhythm
7 4 (1.54%) Rapid7
8 3 (1.16%) Blue Coat
8 3 (1.16%) Netskope
8 3 (1.16%) Palo Alto
8 3 (1.16%) Sophos
8 3 (1.16%) Tanium
8 3 (1.16%) Trend Micro
8 3 (1.16%) Tripwire
8 3 (1.16%) Zscaler