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

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 452 417 375
Rank change year-on-year -35 -42 +185
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 152 110 225
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.36% 0.50%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.10% 1.08% 1.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 89 62 145
10th Percentile £343 £450 £450
25th Percentile £450 £500 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £570
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +0.88% -5.00%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £775 £725 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £553 £575 £568
% change year-on-year -3.83% +1.32% -1.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 2 9
10th Percentile - £80.46 -
25th Percentile £41.94 £80.65 £42.25
Median hourly rate £52.75 £81.26 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.09% +82.61% -31.80%
75th Percentile £64.69 £81.83 £46.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £81.99 £47.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.75 £81.26 £44.50
% change year-on-year -35.09% +82.61% -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 13,856 10,145 13,577
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.38% 33.33% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,739 6,206 8,719
10th Percentile £281 £275 £256
25th Percentile £406 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £527
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.28% -4.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 652 335 845
10th Percentile £15.35 £18.17 £12.99
25th Percentile £18.82 £22.85 £16.25
Median hourly rate £33.50 £32.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.08% +8.33% +33.42%
75th Percentile £65.00 £66.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £79.82 £83.20 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £32.50 £31.13
% change year-on-year +1.54% +4.42% +41.48%

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 March 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 March 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 1 March 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 -25 134 £550 -8.33% 100
UK excluding London -59 84 £553 -3.83% 97
London -30 50 £500 -15.25% 20
Work from Home -7 35 £588 -0.42% 32
South East -26 25 £585 +0.26% 27
North of England -45 17 £450 -11.63% 20
East of England -22 16 £553 -7.83% 13
Scotland +5 12 £350 -34.88% 8
West Midlands -41 12 £600 -12.73% 6
Midlands -45 12 £600 -12.73% 15
North West -31 11 £325 -36.18% 11
Yorkshire - 6 £475 - 8
South West -26 4 £600 +1.05% 10
Wales -7 1 - - 4

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 2 (1.32%) Confluence
1 2 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
1 2 (1.32%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.66%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (0.66%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 30 (19.74%) Azure
2 21 (13.82%) AWS
3 17 (11.18%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (6.58%) Entra ID
5 6 (3.95%) SaaS
6 5 (3.29%) Azure Key Vault
6 5 (3.29%) Datadog
6 5 (3.29%) IaaS
6 5 (3.29%) Microsoft Purview
6 5 (3.29%) PaaS
7 4 (2.63%) Azure Sentinel
8 3 (1.97%) GCP
8 3 (1.97%) Power Platform
9 2 (1.32%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 2 (1.32%) Amazon S3
9 2 (1.32%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.66%) Akamai
10 1 (0.66%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.66%) GitHub
10 1 (0.66%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 24 (15.79%) Firewall
2 16 (10.53%) DNS
2 16 (10.53%) Network Security
3 11 (7.24%) TCP/IP
4 10 (6.58%) Wi-Fi
5 7 (4.61%) SAN
5 7 (4.61%) SSL
5 7 (4.61%) VPN
6 5 (3.29%) DHCP
6 5 (3.29%) FTP
6 5 (3.29%) HTTP
6 5 (3.29%) SMTP
6 5 (3.29%) VLAN
7 3 (1.97%) Intrusion Detection
8 2 (1.32%) MIMO
8 2 (1.32%) Multicast
8 2 (1.32%) NAS
9 1 (0.66%) Internet
9 1 (0.66%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (5.26%) SQL Server
2 3 (1.97%) Redis
3 2 (1.32%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.66%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.66%) Power BI
4 1 (0.66%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 5 (3.29%) Chocolatey
1 5 (3.29%) Git
2 4 (2.63%) JIRA
3 2 (1.32%) GitLab
4 1 (0.66%) Burp Suite
4 1 (0.66%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.66%) Metasploit
General
1 39 (25.66%) Social Skills
2 34 (22.37%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (9.87%) Public Sector
4 11 (7.24%) Finance
5 10 (6.58%) Banking
6 6 (3.95%) Presentation Skills
7 5 (3.29%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (2.63%) Legal
8 4 (2.63%) Military
9 2 (1.32%) Electronics
9 2 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.32%) Law
9 2 (1.32%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.32%) Marketing
9 2 (1.32%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.66%) Automotive
10 1 (0.66%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.66%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 57 (37.50%) Analyst
2 39 (25.66%) Senior
3 23 (15.13%) SOC Analyst
4 22 (14.47%) Senior Analyst
5 16 (10.53%) Security Analyst
6 9 (5.92%) Cybersecurity Analyst
7 8 (5.26%) Security Specialist
7 8 (5.26%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
8 7 (4.61%) Lead
8 7 (4.61%) Project Manager
9 6 (3.95%) Operations Analyst
9 6 (3.95%) Security Engineer
9 6 (3.95%) Technical Manager
10 5 (3.29%) Network Analyst
10 5 (3.29%) Network Security Analyst
10 5 (3.29%) Network Support
10 5 (3.29%) Network Support Analyst
10 5 (3.29%) Senior Technical Analyst
10 5 (3.29%) Technical Analyst
10 5 (3.29%) Technical Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (3.29%) LDAP
2 4 (2.63%) Loki
2 4 (2.63%) REST
3 3 (1.97%) Kafka
3 3 (1.97%) React
3 3 (1.97%) RESTful
3 3 (1.97%) WebSockets
4 2 (1.32%) Microsoft Graph
5 1 (0.66%) AWS CDK
5 1 (0.66%) SailPoint
5 1 (0.66%) WebCenter
Miscellaneous
1 22 (14.47%) Security Operations Centre
2 19 (12.50%) Management Information System
3 16 (10.53%) Cyberattack
4 14 (9.21%) Security Posture
5 11 (7.24%) Cyber Defence
5 11 (7.24%) Onboarding
6 10 (6.58%) CSOC
7 9 (5.92%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 6 (3.95%) Virtual Team
9 5 (3.29%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (2.63%) Enterprise Storage
11 3 (1.97%) Cybercrime
11 3 (1.97%) Derivative
11 3 (1.97%) Energy Derivatives
11 3 (1.97%) MISP
11 3 (1.97%) Product Ownership
12 2 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
12 2 (1.32%) Insider Threat
12 2 (1.32%) Operational Technology
12 2 (1.32%) STIX
Operating Systems
1 20 (13.16%) Windows
2 19 (12.50%) Linux
3 4 (2.63%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.32%) Android
4 2 (1.32%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.66%) Kali Linux
5 1 (0.66%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (62.50%) Cybersecurity
2 68 (44.74%) Incident Response
3 46 (30.26%) Security Operations
4 45 (29.61%) SIEM
5 41 (26.97%) Threat Intelligence
6 38 (25.00%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
7 32 (21.05%) Threat Detection
8 28 (18.42%) Cyber Intelligence
9 26 (17.11%) Information Security
10 25 (16.45%) MITRE ATT&CK
11 24 (15.79%) Problem-Solving
12 22 (14.47%) Threat Modelling
13 21 (13.82%) Vulnerability Management
14 19 (12.50%) Risk Management
15 17 (11.18%) Continuous Improvement
16 16 (10.53%) Actionable Insight
16 16 (10.53%) Cloud Security
17 14 (9.21%) Line Management
17 14 (9.21%) Stakeholder Management
17 14 (9.21%) Threat Analysis
Programming Languages
1 30 (19.74%) Python
2 13 (8.55%) PowerShell
3 4 (2.63%) JavaScript
3 4 (2.63%) SQL
3 4 (2.63%) TypeScript
4 3 (1.97%) Java
4 3 (1.97%) Kusto Query Language
4 3 (1.97%) Perl
4 3 (1.97%) Rust
5 2 (1.32%) Bash
6 1 (0.66%) C
6 1 (0.66%) C++
6 1 (0.66%) Embedded C
6 1 (0.66%) Go
6 1 (0.66%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 67 (44.08%) Security Cleared
2 52 (34.21%) SC Cleared
3 23 (15.13%) CISSP
4 21 (13.82%) Degree
5 19 (12.50%) DV Cleared
6 18 (11.84%) CISM
7 11 (7.24%) CompTIA Security+
8 9 (5.92%) GIAC
9 7 (4.61%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (3.95%) CEH
11 5 (3.29%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (3.29%) CREST Certified
11 5 (3.29%) GCIH
12 4 (2.63%) CompTIA CySA+
12 4 (2.63%) Master's Degree
13 3 (1.97%) AWS Certification
13 3 (1.97%) Azure Certification
13 3 (1.97%) GCFA
13 3 (1.97%) GCIA
14 2 (1.32%) CISMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (19.74%) NIST
2 28 (18.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (11.18%) NCSC
4 13 (8.55%) Cyber Essentials
5 11 (7.24%) GDPR
6 8 (5.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 5 (3.29%) QA
7 5 (3.29%) SLA
8 3 (1.97%) GRC
8 3 (1.97%) JSP 440
9 2 (1.32%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 2 (1.32%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.66%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.66%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.66%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.66%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.66%) ITGC
10 1 (0.66%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.66%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.66%) PMO
System Software
1 15 (9.87%) Active Directory
2 6 (3.95%) Virtual Desktop
3 5 (3.29%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.66%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (4.61%) Microsoft Intune
2 5 (3.29%) Prometheus
2 5 (3.29%) SCCM
2 5 (3.29%) Terraform
3 3 (1.97%) Ansible
3 3 (1.97%) Grafana
3 3 (1.97%) Kubernetes
4 2 (1.32%) Red Hat Satellite
5 1 (0.66%) CASB
5 1 (0.66%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
5 1 (0.66%) CSIRT
5 1 (0.66%) Host Intrusion Detection System
5 1 (0.66%) QRadar
5 1 (0.66%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 33 (21.71%) Microsoft
2 20 (13.16%) Splunk
3 8 (5.26%) CrowdStrike
4 7 (4.61%) CyberArk
4 7 (4.61%) Tenable
5 5 (3.29%) AppDynamics
5 5 (3.29%) Dynatrace
5 5 (3.29%) Google
5 5 (3.29%) Intel
5 5 (3.29%) VMware
6 3 (1.97%) Apple
6 3 (1.97%) Computacenter
6 3 (1.97%) LogRhythm
7 2 (1.32%) Citrix
7 2 (1.32%) Dell
7 2 (1.32%) F5
7 2 (1.32%) Oracle
7 2 (1.32%) Palo Alto
7 2 (1.32%) Red Hat
7 2 (1.32%) SAP