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

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 466 407 361
Rank change year-on-year -59 -46 +137
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 155 123 232
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.33% 0.42% 0.54%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.01% 1.24% 1.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 107 66 157
10th Percentile £385 £359 £488
25th Percentile £450 £478 £530
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £583
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -9.95% -2.83%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £775
90th Percentile £750 £694 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £570
% change year-on-year - -3.51% -0.87%
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 15,287 9,893 13,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.21% 33.99% 30.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,524 6,312 8,441
10th Percentile £308 £300 £266
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.60% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £663
90th Percentile £738 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.55% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 721 394 904
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.95 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.00 £21.01 £15.17
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £31.13
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% +4.42% +38.43%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £87.50 £83.20 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £31.76 £28.50
% change year-on-year +57.43% +11.44% +29.55%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -74 137 £550 +4.76% 96
UK excluding London -56 102 £550 - 73
London -62 40 £540 +2.86% 44
North of England -35 36 £533 +7.36% 18
Work from Home -34 33 £550 +7.32% 53
South East -59 28 £575 +9.94% 34
North West -23 25 £517 +4.23% 15
East of England -33 14 £550 -8.33% 5
Scotland -3 11 £338 -34.15% 2
Yorkshire - 11 £533 - 2
West Midlands -49 10 £750 +25.00% 6
Midlands -64 10 £750 +25.00% 10
South West -40 2 £538 -2.27% 2
Wales - 1 - - 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 (2.58%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.65%) Confluence
2 1 (0.65%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (1.29%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 35 (22.58%) Azure
2 18 (11.61%) AWS
3 15 (9.68%) Microsoft 365
4 10 (6.45%) SaaS
5 9 (5.81%) PaaS
6 8 (5.16%) Datadog
6 8 (5.16%) IaaS
7 7 (4.52%) Entra ID
8 5 (3.23%) Azure Key Vault
8 5 (3.23%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (2.58%) Power Platform
10 3 (1.94%) Amazon ECS
10 3 (1.94%) GitHub
11 2 (1.29%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 2 (1.29%) Amazon S3
11 2 (1.29%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (1.29%) GCP
11 2 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
12 1 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
12 1 (0.65%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 22 (14.19%) Network Security
2 21 (13.55%) Firewall
3 17 (10.97%) DNS
4 13 (8.39%) TCP/IP
5 9 (5.81%) SAN
5 9 (5.81%) SSL
5 9 (5.81%) Wi-Fi
6 8 (5.16%) VPN
7 7 (4.52%) HTTP
8 6 (3.87%) DHCP
8 6 (3.87%) VLAN
9 5 (3.23%) FTP
9 5 (3.23%) SMTP
10 3 (1.94%) Intrusion Detection
11 2 (1.29%) MIMO
11 2 (1.29%) Multicast
11 2 (1.29%) NAS
12 1 (0.65%) DMZ
12 1 (0.65%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (7.10%) SQL Server
2 4 (2.58%) Big Data
3 3 (1.94%) Redis
4 2 (1.29%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.65%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.65%) MySQL
5 1 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.65%) Power BI
5 1 (0.65%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.65%) Semantic Layer
5 1 (0.65%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (4.52%) Chocolatey
2 6 (3.87%) Git
3 2 (1.29%) GitLab
3 2 (1.29%) JIRA
4 1 (0.65%) Jenkins
General
1 35 (22.58%) Analytical Skills
1 35 (22.58%) Social Skills
2 19 (12.26%) Finance
3 13 (8.39%) Public Sector
4 12 (7.74%) Banking
5 7 (4.52%) Legal
6 5 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (3.23%) Law
7 4 (2.58%) Military
8 2 (1.29%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.65%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.65%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.65%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 51 (32.90%) Analyst
2 31 (20.00%) Senior
3 22 (14.19%) SOC Analyst
4 17 (10.97%) Senior Analyst
5 15 (9.68%) Architect
5 15 (9.68%) Lead
6 12 (7.74%) Security Analyst
7 8 (5.16%) Security Engineer
8 7 (4.52%) Azure Engineer
8 7 (4.52%) Lead Architect
8 7 (4.52%) Security Architect
9 6 (3.87%) Cloud Engineer
9 6 (3.87%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 6 (3.87%) Operations Analyst
9 6 (3.87%) SOC Engineer
9 6 (3.87%) Trainer
10 5 (3.23%) Consultant
10 5 (3.23%) IT Engineer
10 5 (3.23%) IT Trainer
10 5 (3.23%) Senior IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (4.52%) Kafka
2 5 (3.23%) LDAP
3 4 (2.58%) Loki
3 4 (2.58%) REST
4 3 (1.94%) Elastic Stack
4 3 (1.94%) React
4 3 (1.94%) RESTful
4 3 (1.94%) WebSockets
5 1 (0.65%) AWS CDK
5 1 (0.65%) Django
5 1 (0.65%) JSON
5 1 (0.65%) JWT
5 1 (0.65%) WebCenter
5 1 (0.65%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 20 (12.90%) Security Operations Centre
2 16 (10.32%) Management Information System
3 14 (9.03%) Cyberattack
4 13 (8.39%) Security Posture
5 9 (5.81%) Operational Technology
6 8 (5.16%) CSOC
6 8 (5.16%) Cyber Defence
7 6 (3.87%) Cloud Native
7 6 (3.87%) Onboarding
8 5 (3.23%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (3.23%) Private Cloud
9 4 (2.58%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 4 (2.58%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 4 (2.58%) Enterprise Storage
9 4 (2.58%) MISP
9 4 (2.58%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.94%) Cybercrime
10 3 (1.94%) Derivative
10 3 (1.94%) Energy Derivatives
10 3 (1.94%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 21 (13.55%) Linux
2 20 (12.90%) Windows
3 3 (1.94%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.29%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (51.61%) Cybersecurity
2 58 (37.42%) Incident Response
3 43 (27.74%) SIEM
4 32 (20.65%) Security Operations
5 31 (20.00%) Threat Intelligence
6 30 (19.35%) Threat Detection
7 28 (18.06%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
8 25 (16.13%) Problem-Solving
9 21 (13.55%) Information Security
10 19 (12.26%) Threat Modelling
11 18 (11.61%) Continuous Improvement
12 17 (10.97%) Analytics
12 17 (10.97%) Cyber Intelligence
12 17 (10.97%) MITRE ATT&CK
13 16 (10.32%) Risk Management
14 15 (9.68%) AI
14 15 (9.68%) Vulnerability Management
15 13 (8.39%) CI/CD
15 13 (8.39%) Runbook
16 12 (7.74%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 32 (20.65%) Python
2 8 (5.16%) PowerShell
3 5 (3.23%) Kusto Query Language
4 3 (1.94%) Bash
4 3 (1.94%) C
4 3 (1.94%) C++
4 3 (1.94%) Embedded C
4 3 (1.94%) JavaScript
4 3 (1.94%) Rust
4 3 (1.94%) Search Processing Language
4 3 (1.94%) TypeScript
5 2 (1.29%) SQL
6 1 (0.65%) Go
6 1 (0.65%) Perl
6 1 (0.65%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 57 (36.77%) Security Cleared
2 45 (29.03%) SC Cleared
3 19 (12.26%) Degree
3 19 (12.26%) DV Cleared
4 16 (10.32%) CISSP
5 10 (6.45%) CISM
6 7 (4.52%) CEH
6 7 (4.52%) CompTIA Security+
6 7 (4.52%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (4.52%) GIAC
7 5 (3.23%) GCIH
8 4 (2.58%) CREST Certified
9 3 (1.94%) Master's Degree
10 2 (1.29%) Azure Certification
10 2 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (1.29%) CRISC
10 2 (1.29%) GCFA
10 2 (1.29%) GCIA
10 2 (1.29%) HND
10 2 (1.29%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (8.39%) NIST
2 11 (7.10%) NCSC
3 9 (5.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (5.16%) GRC
5 7 (4.52%) SLA
6 4 (2.58%) QA
7 2 (1.29%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (1.29%) GDPR
7 2 (1.29%) PCI DSS
7 2 (1.29%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.65%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.65%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.65%) ISO 19650
8 1 (0.65%) ITGC
8 1 (0.65%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.65%) PMO
System Software
1 13 (8.39%) Active Directory
2 7 (4.52%) Virtual Desktop
3 5 (3.23%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (1.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.65%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (5.16%) Terraform
2 7 (4.52%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (4.52%) SCCM
3 6 (3.87%) Ansible
4 5 (3.23%) Prometheus
5 4 (2.58%) Grafana
6 3 (1.94%) QRadar
7 2 (1.29%) Red Hat Satellite
8 1 (0.65%) CASB
8 1 (0.65%) CSIRT
8 1 (0.65%) Host Intrusion Detection System
8 1 (0.65%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 33 (21.29%) Microsoft
2 17 (10.97%) Splunk
3 9 (5.81%) Tenable
4 7 (4.52%) AppDynamics
4 7 (4.52%) Dynatrace
4 7 (4.52%) VMware
5 5 (3.23%) CrowdStrike
5 5 (3.23%) Tanium
6 4 (2.58%) Databricks
6 4 (2.58%) Google
6 4 (2.58%) Intel
7 3 (1.94%) Apple
8 2 (1.29%) Citrix
8 2 (1.29%) Dell
8 2 (1.29%) F5
8 2 (1.29%) Oracle
8 2 (1.29%) Red Hat
9 1 (0.65%) Darktrace
9 1 (0.65%) Netskope
9 1 (0.65%) Zscaler