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 4 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 463 383 367
Rank change year-on-year -80 -16 +95
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 228 166 205
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.43% 0.51% 0.54%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.26% 1.45% 1.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 144 87 120
10th Percentile £413 £449 £509
25th Percentile £500 £488 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £581 £550 £644
Median % change year-on-year +5.68% -14.56% +7.29%
75th Percentile £750 £688 £788
90th Percentile £800 £757 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £588 £568 £690
% change year-on-year +3.52% -17.75% +23.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 8 4
10th Percentile £62.72 £45.00 £42.25
25th Percentile - £46.50 £51.25
Median hourly rate £80.00 £56.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +42.86% -2.61% +17.35%
75th Percentile £86.38 £75.00 £65.38
90th Percentile £92.11 £78.00 £77.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.00 £65.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +23.08% +13.04% +17.35%

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 18,133 11,464 11,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.80% 35.48% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,964 7,035 7,217
10th Percentile £320 £300 £300
25th Percentile £423 £406 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -6.36% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,085 567 526
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.13 £13.77
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.87 £20.56
Median hourly rate £38.53 £30.00 £46.21
Median % change year-on-year +28.42% -35.07% +7.14%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £30.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +45.20% -45.45% +22.22%

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 4 September 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 4 September 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 4 September 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 -46 213 £575 +4.55% 416
UK excluding London -28 154 £588 +3.52% 270
London -87 66 £575 +9.52% 195
Work from Home -58 54 £568 -1.30% 156
South East -49 43 £575 +15.00% 64
North of England -45 42 £594 +18.47% 59
North West -25 33 £646 +28.94% 31
South West -42 24 £800 +6.67% 33
East of England -13 23 £550 -15.38% 28
West Midlands -34 15 £750 - 29
Midlands -35 15 £750 - 47
Scotland -23 9 £800 +52.38% 27
Yorkshire - 9 £588 - 25
Wales - 4 £800 - 9

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 6 (2.63%) Confluence
2 5 (2.19%) Apache Spark
2 5 (2.19%) IIS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.44%) Dynamics GP
1 1 (0.44%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 52 (22.81%) Azure
2 34 (14.91%) AWS
3 24 (10.53%) Microsoft 365
4 12 (5.26%) GCP
5 11 (4.82%) SaaS
6 10 (4.39%) Datadog
6 10 (4.39%) Entra ID
7 7 (3.07%) Azure Sentinel
7 7 (3.07%) PaaS
8 6 (2.63%) IaaS
8 6 (2.63%) Microsoft Purview
9 5 (2.19%) Akamai
10 4 (1.75%) Amazon ECS
10 4 (1.75%) GitHub
10 4 (1.75%) Power Platform
10 4 (1.75%) Serverless
11 3 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
12 2 (0.88%) AWS CodeBuild
12 2 (0.88%) AWS CodePipeline
12 2 (0.88%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 27 (11.84%) Network Security
2 15 (6.58%) HTTP
3 13 (5.70%) Firewall
4 12 (5.26%) DNS
5 11 (4.82%) TCP/IP
6 10 (4.39%) Intrusion Detection
7 9 (3.95%) SSL
8 5 (2.19%) DHCP
8 5 (2.19%) Intranet
8 5 (2.19%) SAN
8 5 (2.19%) VLAN
8 5 (2.19%) VPN
8 5 (2.19%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (1.32%) Broadband
9 3 (1.32%) DMZ
10 1 (0.44%) Internet
10 1 (0.44%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.63%) Big Data
1 6 (2.63%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.88%) Amazon QuickSight
3 1 (0.44%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.44%) MySQL
3 1 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.44%) Power BI
3 1 (0.44%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.44%) Semantic Layer
3 1 (0.44%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 5 (2.19%) Chocolatey
2 3 (1.32%) Git
3 1 (0.44%) JIRA
General
1 60 (26.32%) Social Skills
2 47 (20.61%) Analytical Skills
3 33 (14.47%) Public Sector
4 27 (11.84%) Finance
5 10 (4.39%) Aerospace
5 10 (4.39%) Banking
6 7 (3.07%) Legal
6 7 (3.07%) Military
7 5 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (2.19%) Law
8 4 (1.75%) Back Office
8 4 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.32%) Local Government
9 3 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.44%) Games
10 1 (0.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.44%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.44%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.44%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 60 (26.32%) Analyst
2 25 (10.96%) Cyber Threat Analyst
3 23 (10.09%) Architect
3 23 (10.09%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
4 21 (9.21%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
4 21 (9.21%) Senior
5 20 (8.77%) Security Engineer
6 17 (7.46%) Security Analyst
7 15 (6.58%) Lead
7 15 (6.58%) SOC Analyst
8 14 (6.14%) Security Architect
9 13 (5.70%) Security Manager
10 12 (5.26%) Coordinator
10 12 (5.26%) SOC Manager
11 10 (4.39%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 10 (4.39%) Operations Manager
11 10 (4.39%) Security Specialist
12 9 (3.95%) Operational Security Manager
12 9 (3.95%) Security Operations Manager
13 8 (3.51%) Cybersecurity Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (3.51%) Elastic Stack
2 7 (3.07%) Terraform
3 6 (2.63%) JSON
4 5 (2.19%) Kafka
4 5 (2.19%) LDAP
4 5 (2.19%) Regular Expression
5 3 (1.32%) Django
6 2 (0.88%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.88%) PySpark
6 2 (0.88%) REST
7 1 (0.44%) JWT
7 1 (0.44%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 35 (15.35%) Security Operations Centre
2 22 (9.65%) Security Posture
3 18 (7.89%) Cyber Defence
3 18 (7.89%) Operational Technology
4 16 (7.02%) Onboarding
5 11 (4.82%) Management Information System
6 8 (3.51%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
7 7 (3.07%) Cloud Native
7 7 (3.07%) CSOC
8 6 (2.63%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 5 (2.19%) Analytical Mindset
9 5 (2.19%) Private Cloud
10 4 (1.75%) Cyberattack
10 4 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
11 3 (1.32%) Insider Threat
11 3 (1.32%) SCADA
12 2 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
12 2 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
12 2 (0.88%) PKI
12 2 (0.88%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 25 (10.96%) Windows
2 18 (7.89%) Linux
3 5 (2.19%) Unix
4 2 (0.88%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.44%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (64.04%) Cybersecurity
2 111 (48.68%) Incident Response
3 89 (39.04%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
3 89 (39.04%) Threat Intelligence
4 84 (36.84%) Security Operations
5 73 (32.02%) SIEM
6 55 (24.12%) Vulnerability Management
7 48 (21.05%) Cyber Intelligence
8 44 (19.30%) Stakeholder Management
9 42 (18.42%) Continuous Improvement
10 41 (17.98%) Threat Detection
11 40 (17.54%) Risk Management
12 36 (15.79%) MITRE ATT&CK
13 32 (14.04%) Cyber Resilience
13 32 (14.04%) Security Monitoring
14 31 (13.60%) Cloud Security
14 31 (13.60%) Problem-Solving
15 29 (12.72%) Information Security
16 28 (12.28%) Incident Management
17 24 (10.53%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 29 (12.72%) Python
2 12 (5.26%) PowerShell
3 9 (3.95%) Kusto Query Language
4 7 (3.07%) Bash
5 4 (1.75%) Search Processing Language
6 3 (1.32%) Perl
7 2 (0.88%) C
7 2 (0.88%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.88%) SQL
8 1 (0.44%) C++
8 1 (0.44%) Embedded C
8 1 (0.44%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.44%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 106 (46.49%) Security Cleared
2 72 (31.58%) SC Cleared
3 34 (14.91%) CISSP
4 32 (14.04%) DV Cleared
5 28 (12.28%) CISM
6 20 (8.77%) Degree
7 8 (3.51%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 8 (3.51%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (3.51%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (3.51%) GIAC
8 7 (3.07%) Azure Certification
9 6 (2.63%) AWS Certification
9 6 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (2.63%) CEH
9 6 (2.63%) GCIH
9 6 (2.63%) SANS
10 5 (2.19%) GCIA
11 4 (1.75%) CompTIA Security+
11 4 (1.75%) GCFA
11 4 (1.75%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (17.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 34 (14.91%) NIST
3 22 (9.65%) GDPR
4 21 (9.21%) NCSC
5 9 (3.95%) Cyber Essentials
5 9 (3.95%) GRC
6 8 (3.51%) SLA
7 6 (2.63%) COBIT
7 6 (2.63%) PCI DSS
8 5 (2.19%) NIST 800
9 4 (1.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 4 (1.75%) ISO 22301
10 3 (1.32%) ISO 19650
11 2 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 1 (0.44%) Def Stans
12 1 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.44%) QA
System Software
1 18 (7.89%) Active Directory
2 8 (3.51%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (3.07%) Hyper-V
4 5 (2.19%) NFS
4 5 (2.19%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.75%) Docker
6 1 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 9 (3.95%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (3.07%) SCCM
3 5 (2.19%) Ansible
3 5 (2.19%) Grafana
4 4 (1.75%) QRadar
5 3 (1.32%) Kubernetes
6 2 (0.88%) CASB
6 2 (0.88%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 43 (18.86%) Microsoft
2 19 (8.33%) Splunk
3 10 (4.39%) VMware
4 8 (3.51%) Databricks
4 8 (3.51%) Tanium
5 7 (3.07%) Tenable
6 5 (2.19%) AppDynamics
6 5 (2.19%) Dynatrace
6 5 (2.19%) Google
7 4 (1.75%) SolarWinds
8 3 (1.32%) Blue Coat
8 3 (1.32%) Clearswift
8 3 (1.32%) Netskope
8 3 (1.32%) Palo Alto
8 3 (1.32%) ServiceNow
8 3 (1.32%) Trend Micro
8 3 (1.32%) Tripwire
8 3 (1.32%) Zscaler
9 2 (0.88%) Cribl.io
9 2 (0.88%) LogRhythm