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 15 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 465 398 359
Rank change year-on-year -67 -39 +149
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 160 122 239
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.34% 0.42% 0.56%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.05% 1.24% 1.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 66 163
10th Percentile £389 £359 £488
25th Percentile £450 £478 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £582
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -9.79% -3.00%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £756
90th Percentile £750 £688 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £570
% change year-on-year - -3.51% +3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 3 1
10th Percentile £41.94 - -
25th Percentile £47.99 £80.34 £81.75
Median hourly rate £60.25 £80.68 £83.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.32% -3.38% -
75th Percentile £75.00 £81.56 £85.25
90th Percentile £97.45 £81.88 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.25 £80.68 £83.50
% change year-on-year -25.32% -3.38% -

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 15,280 9,849 12,966
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.04% 33.89% 30.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,488 6,289 8,351
10th Percentile £313 £300 £270
25th Percentile £413 £411 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -3.14% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £670
90th Percentile £738 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £482 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 726 393 901
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.79 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.75 £15.17
Median hourly rate £42.60 £32.05 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +32.93% +1.75% +40.09%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £87.50 £83.37 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £30.93 £30.00
% change year-on-year +53.70% +3.10% +36.36%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 15 May 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 -78 142 £550 +4.76% 91
UK excluding London -52 107 £550 - 73
London -66 40 £550 +4.76% 39
North of England -35 38 £533 +8.23% 13
Work from Home -25 35 £533 +6.50% 44
North West -15 28 £484 -1.63% 10
South East -50 28 £575 +9.94% 35
East of England -34 15 £550 -8.33% 6
Scotland +6 11 £338 -34.78% 4
Yorkshire - 10 £541 - 2
West Midlands -55 9 £750 +25.00% 5
Midlands -62 9 £750 +25.00% 8
South West -30 5 £550 - 6
Wales - 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 4 (2.50%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.63%) Confluence
2 1 (0.63%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (1.25%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 37 (23.13%) Azure
2 20 (12.50%) AWS
3 15 (9.38%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (6.25%) SaaS
5 9 (5.63%) PaaS
6 8 (5.00%) Datadog
6 8 (5.00%) IaaS
7 7 (4.38%) Entra ID
8 5 (3.13%) Azure Key Vault
8 5 (3.13%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (2.50%) Amazon ECS
9 4 (2.50%) Power Platform
10 3 (1.88%) GitHub
11 2 (1.25%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 2 (1.25%) Amazon S3
11 2 (1.25%) GCP
11 2 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
12 1 (0.63%) Azure Sentinel
12 1 (0.63%) PowerApps
12 1 (0.63%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 21 (13.13%) Firewall
1 21 (13.13%) Network Security
2 17 (10.63%) DNS
3 13 (8.13%) TCP/IP
4 9 (5.63%) SAN
4 9 (5.63%) SSL
5 8 (5.00%) VPN
5 8 (5.00%) Wi-Fi
6 7 (4.38%) HTTP
7 6 (3.75%) DHCP
7 6 (3.75%) VLAN
8 5 (3.13%) FTP
8 5 (3.13%) Intrusion Detection
8 5 (3.13%) SMTP
9 2 (1.25%) MIMO
9 2 (1.25%) Multicast
9 2 (1.25%) NAS
10 1 (0.63%) DMZ
10 1 (0.63%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (6.88%) SQL Server
2 4 (2.50%) Big Data
3 3 (1.88%) Redis
4 2 (1.25%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.63%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.63%) MySQL
5 1 (0.63%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.63%) Power BI
5 1 (0.63%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.63%) Semantic Layer
5 1 (0.63%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (4.38%) Chocolatey
2 6 (3.75%) Git
3 2 (1.25%) GitLab
3 2 (1.25%) JIRA
4 1 (0.63%) Jenkins
General
1 40 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 38 (23.75%) Analytical Skills
3 20 (12.50%) Finance
4 16 (10.00%) Public Sector
5 12 (7.50%) Banking
6 6 (3.75%) Legal
7 5 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (3.13%) Law
7 5 (3.13%) Military
8 2 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.63%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.63%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.63%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.63%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 50 (31.25%) Analyst
2 31 (19.38%) Senior
3 22 (13.75%) SOC Analyst
4 17 (10.63%) Senior Analyst
5 15 (9.38%) Architect
5 15 (9.38%) Lead
6 11 (6.88%) Security Analyst
7 7 (4.38%) Azure Engineer
7 7 (4.38%) Lead Architect
7 7 (4.38%) Security Architect
7 7 (4.38%) Security Engineer
7 7 (4.38%) SOC Engineer
8 6 (3.75%) Cloud Engineer
8 6 (3.75%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 6 (3.75%) Operations Analyst
8 6 (3.75%) Trainer
9 5 (3.13%) Consultant
9 5 (3.13%) IT Engineer
9 5 (3.13%) IT Trainer
9 5 (3.13%) Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (5.00%) Kafka
2 6 (3.75%) REST
3 5 (3.13%) LDAP
4 4 (2.50%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (2.50%) Loki
5 3 (1.88%) React
5 3 (1.88%) RESTful
5 3 (1.88%) WebSockets
6 1 (0.63%) AWS CDK
6 1 (0.63%) Django
6 1 (0.63%) JSON
6 1 (0.63%) JWT
6 1 (0.63%) WebCenter
6 1 (0.63%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (15.63%) Security Operations Centre
2 16 (10.00%) Management Information System
3 14 (8.75%) Security Posture
4 13 (8.13%) Cyberattack
5 9 (5.63%) CSOC
5 9 (5.63%) Operational Technology
6 8 (5.00%) Cyber Defence
7 7 (4.38%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (3.75%) Cloud Native
9 5 (3.13%) Private Cloud
10 4 (2.50%) Cyber Kill Chain
10 4 (2.50%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 4 (2.50%) Enterprise Storage
10 4 (2.50%) MISP
10 4 (2.50%) Onboarding
11 3 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (1.88%) Derivative
11 3 (1.88%) Energy Derivatives
11 3 (1.88%) Product Ownership
11 3 (1.88%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 21 (13.13%) Linux
2 20 (12.50%) Windows
3 3 (1.88%) Unix
3 3 (1.88%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (53.75%) Cybersecurity
2 59 (36.88%) Incident Response
3 49 (30.63%) SIEM
4 39 (24.38%) Threat Intelligence
5 38 (23.75%) Security Operations
6 36 (22.50%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
7 31 (19.38%) Threat Detection
8 27 (16.88%) Problem-Solving
9 22 (13.75%) Continuous Improvement
10 21 (13.13%) Information Security
11 20 (12.50%) MITRE ATT&CK
12 19 (11.88%) Threat Modelling
13 18 (11.25%) Analytics
13 18 (11.25%) Cyber Intelligence
14 17 (10.63%) Vulnerability Management
15 16 (10.00%) Risk Management
16 15 (9.38%) AI
16 15 (9.38%) Runbook
17 14 (8.75%) CI/CD
17 14 (8.75%) Cloud Security
Programming Languages
1 32 (20.00%) Python
2 8 (5.00%) PowerShell
3 6 (3.75%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (2.50%) Search Processing Language
5 3 (1.88%) Bash
5 3 (1.88%) C
5 3 (1.88%) C++
5 3 (1.88%) Embedded C
5 3 (1.88%) JavaScript
5 3 (1.88%) Rust
5 3 (1.88%) TypeScript
6 2 (1.25%) SQL
7 1 (0.63%) Go
7 1 (0.63%) Perl
7 1 (0.63%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 60 (37.50%) Security Cleared
2 47 (29.38%) SC Cleared
3 19 (11.88%) Degree
3 19 (11.88%) DV Cleared
4 18 (11.25%) CISSP
5 12 (7.50%) CISM
6 7 (4.38%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (3.75%) CEH
7 6 (3.75%) CompTIA Security+
7 6 (3.75%) GIAC
8 5 (3.13%) GCIH
9 4 (2.50%) CREST Certified
10 3 (1.88%) Master's Degree
11 2 (1.25%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (1.25%) CRISC
11 2 (1.25%) GCFA
11 2 (1.25%) GCIA
11 2 (1.25%) HND
11 2 (1.25%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.63%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (8.75%) NIST
2 13 (8.13%) NCSC
3 9 (5.63%) SLA
4 8 (5.00%) GRC
4 8 (5.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (2.50%) GDPR
5 4 (2.50%) QA
6 2 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
6 2 (1.25%) PCI DSS
6 2 (1.25%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.63%) ISO 19650
7 1 (0.63%) ITGC
7 1 (0.63%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.63%) PMO
System Software
1 14 (8.75%) Active Directory
2 7 (4.38%) Virtual Desktop
3 5 (3.13%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (1.25%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.63%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (5.63%) Terraform
2 7 (4.38%) Ansible
2 7 (4.38%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (4.38%) SCCM
3 5 (3.13%) Prometheus
4 4 (2.50%) Grafana
5 3 (1.88%) QRadar
6 2 (1.25%) Red Hat Satellite
7 1 (0.63%) CASB
7 1 (0.63%) CSIRT
7 1 (0.63%) Host Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.63%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 33 (20.63%) Microsoft
2 17 (10.63%) Splunk
3 9 (5.63%) Tenable
4 7 (4.38%) AppDynamics
4 7 (4.38%) Dynatrace
4 7 (4.38%) VMware
5 5 (3.13%) CrowdStrike
5 5 (3.13%) Tanium
6 4 (2.50%) Databricks
6 4 (2.50%) Google
6 4 (2.50%) Intel
7 3 (1.88%) Apple
8 2 (1.25%) Citrix
8 2 (1.25%) Dell
8 2 (1.25%) F5
8 2 (1.25%) Oracle
8 2 (1.25%) Red Hat
8 2 (1.25%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.63%) Darktrace
9 1 (0.63%) Snow