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 26 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 405 407 422
Rank change year-on-year +2 +15 +202
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 181 148 168
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 0.44% 0.38%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.40% 1.37% 1.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 92 79 100
10th Percentile £416 £463 £429
25th Percentile £463 £519 £509
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £580 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -4.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £691 £689 £725
90th Percentile £788 £780 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £596 £613 £569
% change year-on-year -2.73% +7.69% +5.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 2 10
10th Percentile £41.94 £38.25 -
25th Percentile £45.00 £41.25 £42.25
Median hourly rate £55.50 £47.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year +16.84% +6.74% -32.06%
75th Percentile £75.00 £53.75 £46.75
90th Percentile £77.63 £56.75 £49.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.50 £47.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year +16.84% +6.74% -31.80%

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 12,896 10,804 13,736
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.68% 32.02% 31.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,081 6,457 9,136
10th Percentile £278 £265 £263
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.19% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £625 £656 £668
90th Percentile £738 £775 £768
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 632 329 512
10th Percentile £13.94 £17.25 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.24 £23.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £27.27 £33.54 £42.19
Median % change year-on-year -18.69% -20.50% +20.54%
75th Percentile £60.65 £64.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £76.73
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £32.50 £44.75
% change year-on-year -15.83% -27.37% +50.57%

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Cyber Threat in the UK

Cyber Threat
Top 13 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 26 December 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 -9 159 £600 -4.00% 77
UK excluding London -31 101 £596 -2.73% 53
London +2 64 £493 -17.92% 34
Work from Home +21 51 £600 - 34
East of England -4 24 £650 +8.33% 4
South East -2 22 £570 -5.00% 11
North of England -54 18 £501 -28.23% 23
South West +1 17 £775 +14.70% 6
Scotland -6 14 £500 -11.11% 4
North West -26 13 £515 -26.14% 20
West Midlands -33 9 £600 -22.58% 3
Midlands -47 9 £600 -22.58% 5
Yorkshire -36 5 £450 - 1

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 3 (1.66%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.10%) Confluence
3 1 (0.55%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.55%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 25 (13.81%) Azure
2 16 (8.84%) AWS
3 13 (7.18%) Microsoft 365
4 9 (4.97%) Azure Sentinel
5 8 (4.42%) Entra ID
6 7 (3.87%) GCP
7 3 (1.66%) Cloud Computing
7 3 (1.66%) Power Platform
7 3 (1.66%) SaaS
8 1 (0.55%) Akamai
8 1 (0.55%) Asana
8 1 (0.55%) AWS CodePipeline
8 1 (0.55%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.55%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (0.55%) Cloudflare
8 1 (0.55%) GitHub
8 1 (0.55%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (0.55%) OpenDNS
8 1 (0.55%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 25 (13.81%) Network Security
2 23 (12.71%) Firewall
3 18 (9.94%) DNS
4 14 (7.73%) SSL
5 13 (7.18%) FTP
5 13 (7.18%) HTTP
5 13 (7.18%) SMTP
6 7 (3.87%) TCP/IP
7 6 (3.31%) Internet
8 5 (2.76%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (1.66%) Intrusion Detection
9 3 (1.66%) VPN
10 1 (0.55%) Intranet
10 1 (0.55%) MIMO
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.55%) MongoDB
1 1 (0.55%) Power BI
1 1 (0.55%) SQL Server
1 1 (0.55%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 2 (1.10%) JIRA
2 1 (0.55%) Burp Suite
2 1 (0.55%) Metasploit
General
1 52 (28.73%) Social Skills
2 49 (27.07%) Analytical Skills
3 21 (11.60%) Public Sector
4 17 (9.39%) Finance
5 9 (4.97%) Banking
5 9 (4.97%) Legal
5 9 (4.97%) Telecoms
6 7 (3.87%) Back Office
7 6 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
8 5 (2.76%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (2.76%) Law
8 5 (2.76%) Military
8 5 (2.76%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (2.21%) Electronics
9 4 (2.21%) Manufacturing
9 4 (2.21%) Marketing
10 2 (1.10%) Automotive
11 1 (0.55%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.55%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 71 (39.23%) Analyst
2 35 (19.34%) SOC Analyst
3 31 (17.13%) Senior
4 25 (13.81%) Security Analyst
5 17 (9.39%) Architect
5 17 (9.39%) Senior Analyst
6 16 (8.84%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 14 (7.73%) Security Engineer
8 10 (5.52%) Lead
9 9 (4.97%) Security Architect
10 8 (4.42%) Consultant
10 8 (4.42%) Security Specialist
11 7 (3.87%) Project Manager
11 7 (3.87%) SOC Architect
12 6 (3.31%) Technical Manager
13 5 (2.76%) Network Analyst
13 5 (2.76%) Network Security Analyst
13 5 (2.76%) Network Support
13 5 (2.76%) Network Support Analyst
13 5 (2.76%) Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (7.18%) LDAP
2 3 (1.66%) Microsoft Graph
2 3 (1.66%) SailPoint
3 1 (0.55%) AWS CDK
3 1 (0.55%) GraphQL
3 1 (0.55%) OAuth
3 1 (0.55%) Resque
3 1 (0.55%) RESTful
3 1 (0.55%) Ruby on Rails
3 1 (0.55%) Sidekiq
3 1 (0.55%) WebCenter
Miscellaneous
1 39 (21.55%) Security Operations Centre
2 32 (17.68%) Management Information System
3 21 (11.60%) Cyberattack
4 19 (10.50%) CSOC
5 16 (8.84%) Cyber Defence
6 15 (8.29%) Security Posture
7 13 (7.18%) Analytical Mindset
7 13 (7.18%) Onboarding
8 10 (5.52%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 6 (3.31%) Cybercrime
9 6 (3.31%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.66%) Cloud Native
10 3 (1.66%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.66%) Operational Technology
10 3 (1.66%) Product Ownership
11 2 (1.10%) Driving Licence
11 2 (1.10%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (1.10%) Insider Threat
12 1 (0.55%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 1 (0.55%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 19 (10.50%) Windows
2 17 (9.39%) Linux
3 3 (1.66%) Android
3 3 (1.66%) Apple iOS
3 3 (1.66%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.55%) Kali Linux
4 1 (0.55%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (72.93%) Cybersecurity
2 87 (48.07%) Incident Response
3 75 (41.44%) SIEM
4 66 (36.46%) Security Operations
5 52 (28.73%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
5 52 (28.73%) Threat Intelligence
6 43 (23.76%) Threat Detection
7 36 (19.89%) Information Security
8 35 (19.34%) Cyber Intelligence
9 34 (18.78%) Threat Modelling
10 26 (14.36%) Continuous Improvement
11 25 (13.81%) MITRE ATT&CK
11 25 (13.81%) Risk Management
11 25 (13.81%) Vulnerability Management
12 22 (12.15%) Problem-Solving
13 21 (11.60%) SOAR
14 19 (10.50%) Actionable Insight
15 18 (9.94%) AI
15 18 (9.94%) Analytics
16 17 (9.39%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 32 (17.68%) Python
2 27 (14.92%) PowerShell
3 9 (4.97%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (2.21%) Java
5 3 (1.66%) Perl
5 3 (1.66%) SQL
6 1 (0.55%) Bash
6 1 (0.55%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.55%) Ruby
6 1 (0.55%) Shell Script
6 1 (0.55%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 92 (50.83%) Security Cleared
2 68 (37.57%) SC Cleared
3 34 (18.78%) DV Cleared
4 32 (17.68%) CISSP
5 22 (12.15%) CISM
6 18 (9.94%) GIAC
7 17 (9.39%) Degree
8 15 (8.29%) CEH
9 11 (6.08%) CompTIA CySA+
9 11 (6.08%) CompTIA Security+
10 7 (3.87%) GCIH
10 7 (3.87%) OSCP
11 6 (3.31%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (3.31%) GCFA
11 6 (3.31%) GCIA
11 6 (3.31%) GREM
12 5 (2.76%) CFCE
13 4 (2.21%) AWS Certification
13 4 (2.21%) Azure Certification
13 4 (2.21%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (27.62%) NIST
2 39 (21.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (12.71%) NCSC
4 18 (9.94%) GDPR
5 13 (7.18%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (4.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 6 (3.31%) JSP 440
8 5 (2.76%) HIPAA
9 4 (2.21%) GRC
9 4 (2.21%) QA
10 3 (1.66%) Accessibility
10 3 (1.66%) SLA
11 2 (1.10%) COBIT
11 2 (1.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 2 (1.10%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.55%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.55%) ITGC
12 1 (0.55%) PMO
12 1 (0.55%) SOC 2
System Software
1 10 (5.52%) Active Directory
2 2 (1.10%) Docker
3 1 (0.55%) Snort
3 1 (0.55%) Squid
3 1 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
3 1 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 5 (2.76%) Kubernetes
1 5 (2.76%) Nessus
2 4 (2.21%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
3 3 (1.66%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (1.66%) Nexpose
4 2 (1.10%) QRadar
4 2 (1.10%) Terraform
5 1 (0.55%) CASB
5 1 (0.55%) CSIRT
5 1 (0.55%) RSA Archer
5 1 (0.55%) Suricata
Vendors
1 43 (23.76%) Microsoft
2 26 (14.36%) Splunk
3 9 (4.97%) CrowdStrike
4 7 (3.87%) CyberArk
5 6 (3.31%) Google
5 6 (3.31%) LogRhythm
6 5 (2.76%) ArcSight
6 5 (2.76%) Palo Alto
7 4 (2.21%) SAP
8 3 (1.66%) Computacenter
8 3 (1.66%) Qualys
8 3 (1.66%) Tenable
9 2 (1.10%) Cisco
9 2 (1.10%) Intel
9 2 (1.10%) Oracle
9 2 (1.10%) QAD
9 2 (1.10%) Rapid7
9 2 (1.10%) ServiceNow
9 2 (1.10%) Tanium
9 2 (1.10%) Zscaler