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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 452 402 357
Rank change year-on-year -50 -45 +68
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 239 157 211
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.44% 0.48% 0.55%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.29% 1.34% 1.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 150 77 117
10th Percentile £413 £449 £495
25th Percentile £516 £488 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £650
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -15.38% +8.33%
75th Percentile £750 £688 £788
90th Percentile £800 £772 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £581 £578 £690
% change year-on-year +0.65% -16.30% +23.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 9 4
10th Percentile £68.48 £44.39 £42.25
25th Percentile - £45.00 £51.25
Median hourly rate £80.00 £47.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +70.21% -18.26% +29.21%
75th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £65.38
90th Percentile £92.11 £77.00 £77.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.00 £65.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year +23.08% +13.04% +29.21%

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 18,473 11,749 11,752
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.95% 35.66% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,074 7,189 7,185
10th Percentile £322 £298 £294
25th Percentile £425 £406 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £540
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -4.63% -1.82%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £749 £750 £807
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,189 585 474
10th Percentile £14.05 £15.13 £14.43
25th Percentile £18.00 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £38.25 £30.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.50% -40.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £67.89 £55.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £30.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +33.33% -47.69% +18.58%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -19 219 £575 +3.14% 433
UK excluding London -43 152 £581 +0.65% 293
London -55 76 £575 +9.52% 185
Work from Home -52 59 £563 -2.93% 183
South East -36 46 £575 +12.47% 76
North of England -47 30 £588 +17.22% 59
East of England -18 28 £550 -17.29% 37
South West -32 25 £800 +6.67% 20
North West -41 21 £625 +24.70% 31
Midlands - 14 £625 - 49
West Midlands - 14 £625 - 26
Scotland -22 11 £800 +52.38% 38
Yorkshire - 9 £588 - 19
Wales - 4 £800 - 10

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 7 (2.93%) Confluence
1 7 (2.93%) IIS
2 5 (2.09%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.42%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.42%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.42%) Dynamics GP
1 1 (0.42%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 52 (21.76%) Azure
2 35 (14.64%) AWS
3 27 (11.30%) Microsoft 365
4 12 (5.02%) Entra ID
4 12 (5.02%) GCP
5 11 (4.60%) SaaS
6 10 (4.18%) Datadog
7 7 (2.93%) Azure Sentinel
7 7 (2.93%) PaaS
8 6 (2.51%) IaaS
8 6 (2.51%) Microsoft Purview
9 5 (2.09%) Akamai
9 5 (2.09%) Power Platform
10 4 (1.67%) Amazon ECS
10 4 (1.67%) GitHub
10 4 (1.67%) Serverless
11 3 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
12 2 (0.84%) AWS CodePipeline
12 2 (0.84%) Azure Functions
12 2 (0.84%) Sentry
Communications & Networking
1 30 (12.55%) Network Security
2 20 (8.37%) HTTP
3 15 (6.28%) DNS
4 14 (5.86%) Firewall
5 12 (5.02%) SSL
6 11 (4.60%) TCP/IP
7 10 (4.18%) Intrusion Detection
8 6 (2.51%) VPN
9 5 (2.09%) DHCP
9 5 (2.09%) Intranet
9 5 (2.09%) SAN
9 5 (2.09%) SMTP
9 5 (2.09%) VLAN
9 5 (2.09%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (1.26%) Broadband
10 3 (1.26%) DMZ
10 3 (1.26%) FTP
11 1 (0.42%) DKIM
11 1 (0.42%) DMARC
11 1 (0.42%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.51%) Big Data
1 6 (2.51%) SQL Server
2 2 (0.84%) Amazon QuickSight
3 1 (0.42%) MongoDB
3 1 (0.42%) MySQL
3 1 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.42%) Power BI
3 1 (0.42%) Relational Database
3 1 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
3 1 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 5 (2.09%) Chocolatey
2 3 (1.26%) Git
3 2 (0.84%) JIRA
General
1 66 (27.62%) Social Skills
2 54 (22.59%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (15.06%) Public Sector
4 29 (12.13%) Finance
5 11 (4.60%) Aerospace
5 11 (4.60%) Banking
6 7 (2.93%) Influencing Skills
6 7 (2.93%) Manufacturing
7 6 (2.51%) Back Office
7 6 (2.51%) Law
7 6 (2.51%) Legal
7 6 (2.51%) Military
8 4 (1.67%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.26%) Local Government
9 3 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.42%) Games
11 1 (0.42%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.42%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 65 (27.20%) Analyst
2 25 (10.46%) Cyber Threat Analyst
3 24 (10.04%) Security Engineer
4 23 (9.62%) Senior
4 23 (9.62%) Threat Intelligence Analyst
5 21 (8.79%) Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst
5 21 (8.79%) Security Analyst
6 18 (7.53%) Security Manager
7 17 (7.11%) Architect
7 17 (7.11%) SOC Analyst
8 15 (6.28%) Security Architect
9 14 (5.86%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 12 (5.02%) Coordinator
10 12 (5.02%) Security Specialist
10 12 (5.02%) SOC Manager
11 11 (4.60%) Lead
11 11 (4.60%) Operations Manager
12 10 (4.18%) Cybersecurity Analyst
12 10 (4.18%) Cybersecurity Engineer
12 10 (4.18%) Security Operations Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (4.18%) LDAP
2 9 (3.77%) JSON
2 9 (3.77%) Terraform
3 8 (3.35%) Elastic Stack
3 8 (3.35%) Regular Expression
4 5 (2.09%) Kafka
5 3 (1.26%) Django
5 3 (1.26%) REST
6 2 (0.84%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.84%) PySpark
6 2 (0.84%) XML
7 1 (0.42%) Ajax
7 1 (0.42%) CSS
7 1 (0.42%) HTML
7 1 (0.42%) JWT
7 1 (0.42%) SOAP
7 1 (0.42%) Web Services
7 1 (0.42%) XHTML
Miscellaneous
1 36 (15.06%) Security Operations Centre
2 28 (11.72%) Security Posture
3 21 (8.79%) Cyber Defence
4 17 (7.11%) Onboarding
4 17 (7.11%) Operational Technology
5 15 (6.28%) Management Information System
6 8 (3.35%) Analytical Mindset
6 8 (3.35%) CSOC
6 8 (3.35%) Cyberattack
7 7 (2.93%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 6 (2.51%) Cyber Kill Chain
8 6 (2.51%) IoT
8 6 (2.51%) SCADA
9 5 (2.09%) Cloud Native
9 5 (2.09%) Industrial Internet of Things
10 4 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
11 3 (1.26%) PKI
11 3 (1.26%) YARA
12 2 (0.84%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 28 (11.72%) Windows
2 18 (7.53%) Linux
3 5 (2.09%) Unix
4 2 (0.84%) Mac OS
4 2 (0.84%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (71.97%) Cybersecurity
2 120 (50.21%) Incident Response
3 98 (41.00%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
3 98 (41.00%) Threat Intelligence
4 97 (40.59%) Security Operations
5 75 (31.38%) SIEM
6 64 (26.78%) Vulnerability Management
7 51 (21.34%) Cyber Intelligence
8 50 (20.92%) Stakeholder Management
9 48 (20.08%) Continuous Improvement
10 46 (19.25%) Threat Detection
11 45 (18.83%) Risk Management
12 36 (15.06%) Information Security
12 36 (15.06%) MITRE ATT&CK
13 34 (14.23%) Problem-Solving
13 34 (14.23%) Security Monitoring
14 32 (13.39%) Cloud Security
15 31 (12.97%) Incident Management
16 30 (12.55%) Cyber Resilience
17 26 (10.88%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 32 (13.39%) Python
2 16 (6.69%) PowerShell
3 9 (3.77%) Kusto Query Language
4 8 (3.35%) Bash
5 4 (1.67%) Search Processing Language
6 3 (1.26%) Perl
7 2 (0.84%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.84%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.84%) SQL
8 1 (0.42%) C
8 1 (0.42%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 119 (49.79%) Security Cleared
2 84 (35.15%) SC Cleared
3 39 (16.32%) CISSP
4 36 (15.06%) DV Cleared
5 33 (13.81%) CISM
6 23 (9.62%) Degree
7 10 (4.18%) GIAC
8 9 (3.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 9 (3.77%) Azure Certification
8 9 (3.77%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (3.77%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (3.35%) AWS Certification
10 7 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (2.51%) CEH
11 6 (2.51%) CompTIA Security+
11 6 (2.51%) GCIA
11 6 (2.51%) GCIH
11 6 (2.51%) SANS
12 5 (2.09%) CRISC
12 5 (2.09%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 54 (22.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 40 (16.74%) NIST
3 25 (10.46%) NCSC
4 24 (10.04%) GDPR
5 10 (4.18%) Cyber Essentials
6 9 (3.77%) GRC
7 8 (3.35%) SLA
8 7 (2.93%) PCI DSS
9 6 (2.51%) COBIT
9 6 (2.51%) NIST 800
10 4 (1.67%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (1.67%) ISO 22301
11 3 (1.26%) ISO 19650
12 2 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 1 (0.42%) Data Quality
13 1 (0.42%) Def Stans
13 1 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
13 1 (0.42%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 1 (0.42%) ISO 31000
13 1 (0.42%) QA
System Software
1 20 (8.37%) Active Directory
2 10 (4.18%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (3.77%) Hyper-V
4 7 (2.93%) NFS
4 7 (2.93%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (2.09%) Docker
6 1 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 9 (3.77%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (2.93%) SCCM
3 6 (2.51%) Ansible
4 5 (2.09%) Grafana
4 5 (2.09%) QRadar
5 4 (1.67%) Kubernetes
6 2 (0.84%) CASB
6 2 (0.84%) CSIRT
7 1 (0.42%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 46 (19.25%) Microsoft
2 23 (9.62%) Splunk
3 12 (5.02%) VMware
4 8 (3.35%) Databricks
5 7 (2.93%) Tenable
6 5 (2.09%) AppDynamics
6 5 (2.09%) Dynatrace
6 5 (2.09%) Google
6 5 (2.09%) ServiceNow
6 5 (2.09%) SolarWinds
7 3 (1.26%) Blue Coat
7 3 (1.26%) Clearswift
7 3 (1.26%) Netskope
7 3 (1.26%) Palo Alto
7 3 (1.26%) Tanium
7 3 (1.26%) Trend Micro
7 3 (1.26%) Tripwire
7 3 (1.26%) Zscaler
8 2 (0.84%) Cribl.io
8 2 (0.84%) Rapid7