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 16 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 416 404 414
Rank change year-on-year -12 +10 +182
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 175 131 178
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.47% 0.41% 0.42%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.37% 1.28% 1.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 74 117
10th Percentile £360 £463 £443
25th Percentile £463 £538 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £613 £613
Median % change year-on-year -6.12% - +2.08%
75th Percentile £688 £694 £725
90th Percentile £785 £780 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £580 £613 £568
% change year-on-year -5.31% +7.93% +4.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 2 10
10th Percentile - £38.25 -
25th Percentile £41.94 £41.25 £42.25
Median hourly rate £47.00 £47.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.05% +6.74% -32.06%
75th Percentile £62.06 £53.75 £46.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £56.75 £49.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.25 £47.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year +5.79% +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 12,745 10,268 13,171
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.27% 32.23% 30.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,049 6,101 8,667
10th Percentile £278 £263 £263
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £531 £549
Median % change year-on-year -5.75% -3.37% -1.79%
75th Percentile £625 £656 £660
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 610 321 569
10th Percentile £14.25 £18.50 £15.31
25th Percentile £18.23 £23.59 £18.93
Median hourly rate £27.50 £34.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.29% -8.00% +57.63%
75th Percentile £61.07 £64.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.30 £80.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £32.50 £41.23
% change year-on-year -15.83% -21.17% +99.18%

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 16 January 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 16 January 2026.

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 16 January 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 +6 154 £568 -9.20% 159
UK excluding London -34 92 £580 -5.31% 154
London +4 64 £493 -21.20% 75
Work from Home +3 52 £600 - 145
North of England -39 19 £500 -28.32% 27
South West -5 18 £750 +11.00% 20
South East -15 18 £560 -6.67% 52
East of England -7 17 £553 -7.83% 14
North West -14 14 £508 -27.14% 24
Scotland -4 13 £550 -2.22% 25
West Midlands -37 10 £600 -22.58% 2
Midlands -45 10 £600 -22.58% 12
Yorkshire - 5 £450 - 2

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 (1.71%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.14%) Confluence
2 2 (1.14%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.57%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (0.57%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 25 (14.29%) Azure
2 18 (10.29%) AWS
3 14 (8.00%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (5.71%) Entra ID
5 6 (3.43%) Azure Sentinel
5 6 (3.43%) GCP
6 3 (1.71%) Azure Key Vault
6 3 (1.71%) Microsoft Purview
6 3 (1.71%) Power Platform
7 2 (1.14%) Cloud Computing
7 2 (1.14%) SaaS
8 1 (0.57%) Akamai
8 1 (0.57%) Asana
8 1 (0.57%) AWS CodePipeline
8 1 (0.57%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.57%) Cloudflare
8 1 (0.57%) GitHub
8 1 (0.57%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.57%) OpenDNS
8 1 (0.57%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 25 (14.29%) Firewall
2 19 (10.86%) Network Security
3 12 (6.86%) DNS
4 8 (4.57%) SSL
4 8 (4.57%) TCP/IP
5 7 (4.00%) FTP
5 7 (4.00%) HTTP
5 7 (4.00%) SMTP
6 6 (3.43%) Internet
7 5 (2.86%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (1.71%) Intrusion Detection
8 3 (1.71%) VPN
9 2 (1.14%) MIMO
10 1 (0.57%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.14%) Redis
1 2 (1.14%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.57%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.57%) Power BI
2 1 (0.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 2 (1.14%) Git
1 2 (1.14%) JIRA
2 1 (0.57%) Burp Suite
2 1 (0.57%) Metasploit
General
1 42 (24.00%) Analytical Skills
1 42 (24.00%) Social Skills
2 23 (13.14%) Public Sector
3 19 (10.86%) Finance
4 9 (5.14%) Banking
4 9 (5.14%) Telecoms
5 7 (4.00%) Back Office
6 6 (3.43%) Military
6 6 (3.43%) Presentation Skills
7 5 (2.86%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (2.86%) Legal
7 5 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (2.29%) Electronics
8 4 (2.29%) Law
8 4 (2.29%) Manufacturing
8 4 (2.29%) Marketing
9 2 (1.14%) Automotive
10 1 (0.57%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.57%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 63 (36.00%) Analyst
2 33 (18.86%) Senior
3 24 (13.71%) SOC Analyst
4 23 (13.14%) Security Analyst
5 18 (10.29%) Senior Analyst
6 16 (9.14%) Architect
7 15 (8.57%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 13 (7.43%) Security Engineer
9 9 (5.14%) Lead
10 8 (4.57%) Security Architect
10 8 (4.57%) Security Specialist
11 7 (4.00%) Consultant
11 7 (4.00%) Operations Analyst
11 7 (4.00%) Project Manager
11 7 (4.00%) SOC Architect
11 7 (4.00%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
12 6 (3.43%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 6 (3.43%) Technical Manager
13 5 (2.86%) Network Support
13 5 (2.86%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (4.00%) LDAP
2 3 (1.71%) Microsoft Graph
2 3 (1.71%) SailPoint
3 2 (1.14%) Kafka
3 2 (1.14%) Loki
3 2 (1.14%) React
3 2 (1.14%) REST
3 2 (1.14%) RESTful
3 2 (1.14%) WebSockets
4 1 (0.57%) AWS CDK
4 1 (0.57%) WebCenter
Miscellaneous
1 29 (16.57%) Security Operations Centre
2 21 (12.00%) Management Information System
3 16 (9.14%) Cyber Defence
4 15 (8.57%) Cyberattack
4 15 (8.57%) Security Posture
5 14 (8.00%) CSOC
6 12 (6.86%) Onboarding
7 11 (6.29%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 7 (4.00%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (4.00%) Cybercrime
9 6 (3.43%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.71%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.71%) Operational Technology
10 3 (1.71%) Product Ownership
11 2 (1.14%) Cloud Native
11 2 (1.14%) Derivative
11 2 (1.14%) Energy Derivatives
11 2 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
11 2 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (1.14%) Insider Threat
Operating Systems
1 16 (9.14%) Windows
2 14 (8.00%) Linux
3 4 (2.29%) Windows Server
4 3 (1.71%) Android
4 3 (1.71%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.57%) Kali Linux
5 1 (0.57%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (69.71%) Cybersecurity
2 75 (42.86%) Incident Response
3 65 (37.14%) SIEM
4 52 (29.71%) Security Operations
5 47 (26.86%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
5 47 (26.86%) Threat Intelligence
6 35 (20.00%) Cyber Intelligence
6 35 (20.00%) Threat Detection
7 32 (18.29%) Information Security
8 30 (17.14%) Threat Modelling
9 27 (15.43%) MITRE ATT&CK
10 25 (14.29%) Vulnerability Management
11 21 (12.00%) Risk Management
12 19 (10.86%) Continuous Improvement
13 18 (10.29%) Problem-Solving
14 17 (9.71%) Actionable Insight
15 16 (9.14%) Cloud Security
15 16 (9.14%) Critical Thinking
15 16 (9.14%) Stakeholder Management
16 15 (8.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 27 (15.43%) Python
2 17 (9.71%) PowerShell
3 9 (5.14%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (2.29%) Java
4 4 (2.29%) SQL
5 3 (1.71%) JavaScript
5 3 (1.71%) Perl
5 3 (1.71%) TypeScript
6 2 (1.14%) Rust
7 1 (0.57%) Bash
7 1 (0.57%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 87 (49.71%) Security Cleared
2 64 (36.57%) SC Cleared
3 30 (17.14%) CISSP
4 29 (16.57%) DV Cleared
5 24 (13.71%) CISM
6 17 (9.71%) GIAC
7 16 (9.14%) Degree
8 15 (8.57%) CEH
9 12 (6.86%) CompTIA Security+
10 10 (5.71%) CompTIA CySA+
11 7 (4.00%) OSCP
12 6 (3.43%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (3.43%) GREM
13 5 (2.86%) CREST Certified
13 5 (2.86%) GCIH
14 4 (2.29%) AWS Certification
14 4 (2.29%) Azure Certification
14 4 (2.29%) CISA
15 3 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
15 3 (1.71%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (25.14%) NIST
2 34 (19.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 24 (13.71%) NCSC
4 14 (8.00%) Cyber Essentials
4 14 (8.00%) GDPR
5 8 (4.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 6 (3.43%) JSP 440
6 6 (3.43%) QA
7 3 (1.71%) Accessibility
7 3 (1.71%) GRC
7 3 (1.71%) SLA
8 2 (1.14%) COBIT
8 2 (1.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 2 (1.14%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.57%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.57%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.57%) ITGC
9 1 (0.57%) PMO
9 1 (0.57%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (6.29%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.71%) Virtual Desktop
2 3 (1.71%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.57%) Docker
3 1 (0.57%) Snort
3 1 (0.57%) Squid
Systems Management
1 5 (2.86%) Nessus
2 4 (2.29%) Kubernetes
2 4 (2.29%) Terraform
3 3 (1.71%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (1.71%) Nexpose
4 2 (1.14%) Grafana
4 2 (1.14%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.14%) QRadar
5 1 (0.57%) CASB
5 1 (0.57%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
5 1 (0.57%) CSIRT
5 1 (0.57%) RSA Archer
5 1 (0.57%) Suricata
Vendors
1 39 (22.29%) Microsoft
2 20 (11.43%) Splunk
3 7 (4.00%) CrowdStrike
3 7 (4.00%) CyberArk
4 6 (3.43%) Google
5 4 (2.29%) SAP
6 3 (1.71%) Computacenter
6 3 (1.71%) Intel
6 3 (1.71%) LogRhythm
6 3 (1.71%) Palo Alto
6 3 (1.71%) Qualys
6 3 (1.71%) Tenable
7 2 (1.14%) Apple
7 2 (1.14%) Cisco
7 2 (1.14%) Oracle
7 2 (1.14%) QAD
7 2 (1.14%) Rapid7
7 2 (1.14%) Salesforce
7 2 (1.14%) ServiceNow
7 2 (1.14%) Tanium