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

6 months to
1 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 412 397 430
Rank change year-on-year -15 +33 +183
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 179 145 165
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.44% 0.38%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.39% 1.36% 1.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 76 102
10th Percentile £416 £463 £433
25th Percentile £463 £523 £514
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £580 £606 £625
Median % change year-on-year -4.33% -3.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £725
90th Percentile £788 £780 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £592 £613 £569
% change year-on-year -3.43% +7.69% +3.41%
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% -31.80%
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% -31.54%

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 12,849 10,629 13,458
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.63% 32.04% 31.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,063 6,328 8,934
10th Percentile £280 £265 £263
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £526 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.75% -4.36% -
75th Percentile £630 £656 £663
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 622 325 518
10th Percentile £13.94 £18.07 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.23 £23.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £27.36 £33.54 £42.40
Median % change year-on-year -18.44% -20.90% +34.61%
75th Percentile £61.23 £64.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.21 £32.50 £45.21
% change year-on-year -16.28% -28.11% +77.96%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 0 156 £600 -4.00% 64
UK excluding London -29 101 £592 -3.43% 44
London -11 62 £493 -19.59% 28
Work from Home +12 50 £600 - 25
East of England 0 23 £650 +8.33% 3
South East 0 22 £570 -5.00% 10
North of England -50 18 £501 -28.23% 16
South West 0 17 £775 +14.70% 4
Scotland +2 15 £525 -6.67% 5
North West -25 13 £515 -26.14% 12
West Midlands -31 9 £600 -22.58% 4
Midlands -38 9 £600 -22.58% 6
Yorkshire -49 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 (1.68%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.12%) Confluence
3 1 (0.56%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.56%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 23 (12.85%) Azure
2 16 (8.94%) AWS
3 13 (7.26%) Microsoft 365
4 8 (4.47%) Azure Sentinel
4 8 (4.47%) Entra ID
5 6 (3.35%) GCP
6 3 (1.68%) Cloud Computing
6 3 (1.68%) Power Platform
7 2 (1.12%) SaaS
8 1 (0.56%) Akamai
8 1 (0.56%) Asana
8 1 (0.56%) AWS CodePipeline
8 1 (0.56%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.56%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (0.56%) Cloudflare
8 1 (0.56%) GitHub
8 1 (0.56%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (0.56%) OpenDNS
8 1 (0.56%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 25 (13.97%) Network Security
2 22 (12.29%) Firewall
3 18 (10.06%) DNS
4 14 (7.82%) SSL
5 13 (7.26%) FTP
5 13 (7.26%) HTTP
5 13 (7.26%) SMTP
6 7 (3.91%) TCP/IP
7 6 (3.35%) Internet
8 5 (2.79%) Wi-Fi
9 3 (1.68%) Intrusion Detection
9 3 (1.68%) VPN
10 1 (0.56%) Intranet
10 1 (0.56%) MIMO
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (0.56%) MongoDB
1 1 (0.56%) Power BI
1 1 (0.56%) Redis
1 1 (0.56%) SQL Server
1 1 (0.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 2 (1.12%) JIRA
2 1 (0.56%) Burp Suite
2 1 (0.56%) Git
2 1 (0.56%) Metasploit
General
1 50 (27.93%) Social Skills
2 48 (26.82%) Analytical Skills
3 22 (12.29%) Public Sector
4 18 (10.06%) Finance
5 9 (5.03%) Banking
5 9 (5.03%) Legal
5 9 (5.03%) Telecoms
6 7 (3.91%) Back Office
7 6 (3.35%) Presentation Skills
8 5 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (2.79%) Law
8 5 (2.79%) Military
8 5 (2.79%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (2.23%) Electronics
9 4 (2.23%) Manufacturing
9 4 (2.23%) Marketing
10 2 (1.12%) Automotive
11 1 (0.56%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.56%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 70 (39.11%) Analyst
2 35 (19.55%) SOC Analyst
3 31 (17.32%) Senior
4 23 (12.85%) Security Analyst
5 17 (9.50%) Architect
5 17 (9.50%) Senior Analyst
6 16 (8.94%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 13 (7.26%) Security Engineer
8 10 (5.59%) Lead
9 9 (5.03%) Security Architect
10 8 (4.47%) Consultant
10 8 (4.47%) Security Specialist
11 7 (3.91%) Project Manager
11 7 (3.91%) SOC Architect
12 6 (3.35%) Technical Manager
12 6 (3.35%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
13 5 (2.79%) Network Security Analyst
13 5 (2.79%) Network Support
13 5 (2.79%) Operations Analyst
13 5 (2.79%) Technical Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (7.26%) LDAP
2 3 (1.68%) Microsoft Graph
2 3 (1.68%) SailPoint
3 1 (0.56%) AWS CDK
3 1 (0.56%) Kafka
3 1 (0.56%) Loki
3 1 (0.56%) React
3 1 (0.56%) REST
3 1 (0.56%) RESTful
3 1 (0.56%) WebCenter
3 1 (0.56%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 39 (21.79%) Security Operations Centre
2 30 (16.76%) Management Information System
3 21 (11.73%) Cyberattack
4 19 (10.61%) CSOC
5 16 (8.94%) Cyber Defence
6 15 (8.38%) Security Posture
7 13 (7.26%) Analytical Mindset
7 13 (7.26%) Onboarding
8 10 (5.59%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 6 (3.35%) Cybercrime
9 6 (3.35%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.68%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.68%) Operational Technology
10 3 (1.68%) Product Ownership
11 2 (1.12%) Cloud Native
11 2 (1.12%) Driving Licence
11 2 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (1.12%) Insider Threat
12 1 (0.56%) MISP
12 1 (0.56%) TAXII
Operating Systems
1 19 (10.61%) Windows
2 17 (9.50%) Linux
3 3 (1.68%) Android
3 3 (1.68%) Apple iOS
3 3 (1.68%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.56%) Kali Linux
4 1 (0.56%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (71.51%) Cybersecurity
2 85 (47.49%) Incident Response
3 75 (41.90%) SIEM
4 65 (36.31%) Security Operations
5 50 (27.93%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
5 50 (27.93%) Threat Intelligence
6 43 (24.02%) Threat Detection
7 35 (19.55%) Cyber Intelligence
7 35 (19.55%) Information Security
8 34 (18.99%) Threat Modelling
9 26 (14.53%) MITRE ATT&CK
10 24 (13.41%) Continuous Improvement
10 24 (13.41%) Risk Management
10 24 (13.41%) Vulnerability Management
11 20 (11.17%) Problem-Solving
11 20 (11.17%) SOAR
12 18 (10.06%) Actionable Insight
12 18 (10.06%) AI
12 18 (10.06%) Analytics
13 17 (9.50%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 33 (18.44%) Python
2 26 (14.53%) PowerShell
3 10 (5.59%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (2.23%) Java
5 3 (1.68%) Perl
5 3 (1.68%) SQL
6 2 (1.12%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.12%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.56%) Bash
7 1 (0.56%) Rust
7 1 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 92 (51.40%) Security Cleared
2 68 (37.99%) SC Cleared
3 34 (18.99%) DV Cleared
4 32 (17.88%) CISSP
5 22 (12.29%) CISM
6 19 (10.61%) GIAC
7 18 (10.06%) Degree
8 15 (8.38%) CEH
9 11 (6.15%) CompTIA CySA+
9 11 (6.15%) CompTIA Security+
10 8 (4.47%) GCIH
11 7 (3.91%) OSCP
12 6 (3.35%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (3.35%) GCFA
12 6 (3.35%) GCIA
12 6 (3.35%) GREM
13 5 (2.79%) CFCE
14 4 (2.23%) AWS Certification
14 4 (2.23%) Azure Certification
14 4 (2.23%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (26.82%) NIST
2 37 (20.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 23 (12.85%) NCSC
4 18 (10.06%) GDPR
5 13 (7.26%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (4.47%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 6 (3.35%) JSP 440
8 5 (2.79%) HIPAA
8 5 (2.79%) QA
9 4 (2.23%) GRC
10 3 (1.68%) Accessibility
10 3 (1.68%) SLA
11 2 (1.12%) COBIT
11 2 (1.12%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 2 (1.12%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.56%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.56%) ITGC
12 1 (0.56%) PMO
12 1 (0.56%) SOC 2
System Software
1 10 (5.59%) Active Directory
2 1 (0.56%) Docker
2 1 (0.56%) Snort
2 1 (0.56%) Squid
2 1 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
2 1 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 5 (2.79%) Kubernetes
1 5 (2.79%) Nessus
2 4 (2.23%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
3 3 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (1.68%) Nexpose
3 3 (1.68%) Terraform
4 2 (1.12%) QRadar
5 1 (0.56%) CASB
5 1 (0.56%) CSIRT
5 1 (0.56%) Grafana
5 1 (0.56%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.56%) RSA Archer
5 1 (0.56%) Suricata
Vendors
1 41 (22.91%) Microsoft
2 25 (13.97%) Splunk
3 10 (5.59%) CrowdStrike
4 7 (3.91%) CyberArk
5 6 (3.35%) Google
5 6 (3.35%) LogRhythm
6 5 (2.79%) ArcSight
7 4 (2.23%) Palo Alto
7 4 (2.23%) SAP
8 3 (1.68%) Computacenter
8 3 (1.68%) Qualys
8 3 (1.68%) Tenable
9 2 (1.12%) Cisco
9 2 (1.12%) Intel
9 2 (1.12%) Oracle
9 2 (1.12%) QAD
9 2 (1.12%) Rapid7
9 2 (1.12%) Salesforce
9 2 (1.12%) ServiceNow
9 2 (1.12%) Zscaler