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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 465 402 345
Rank change year-on-year -63 -57 +149
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 166 124 238
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.34% 0.43% 0.56%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.08% 1.25% 1.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 112 66 165
10th Percentile £400 £359 £488
25th Percentile £450 £478 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -8.70% -4.17%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £775
90th Percentile £750 £702 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £570
% change year-on-year - -3.51% +2.70%
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 15,414 9,893 12,931
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.95% 33.99% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,564 6,299 8,335
10th Percentile £313 £300 £268
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £663
90th Percentile £743 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.11% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 729 396 900
10th Percentile £16.00 £16.24 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.64 £20.45 £15.17
Median hourly rate £41.94 £31.76 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +32.05% +0.83% +41.51%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.40 £82.85 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.00 £30.39 £30.00
% change year-on-year +51.37% +1.30% +36.36%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -60 146 £550 +4.76% 84
UK excluding London -58 112 £550 - 67
London -56 41 £550 +4.76% 42
Work from Home -46 38 £541 +8.25% 51
North of England -42 37 £541 +10.01% 13
South East -46 30 £575 +9.94% 29
North West -20 28 £484 -1.63% 6
East of England -27 15 £550 -8.33% 4
Scotland +4 13 £350 -32.37% 7
West Midlands -51 9 £750 +25.00% 3
Midlands -53 9 £750 +25.00% 6
Yorkshire - 9 £550 - 6
South West -33 7 £640 +16.36% 8
Wales - 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 (2.41%) Apache Spark
2 2 (1.20%) Confluence
3 1 (0.60%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.60%) Dynamics GP
1 1 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 40 (24.10%) Azure
2 21 (12.65%) AWS
3 18 (10.84%) Microsoft 365
4 11 (6.63%) SaaS
5 9 (5.42%) Datadog
5 9 (5.42%) Entra ID
5 9 (5.42%) PaaS
6 8 (4.82%) IaaS
7 6 (3.61%) Microsoft Purview
7 6 (3.61%) Power Platform
8 5 (3.01%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (2.41%) Amazon ECS
10 3 (1.81%) GitHub
11 2 (1.20%) Akamai
11 2 (1.20%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 2 (1.20%) Amazon S3
11 2 (1.20%) GCP
11 2 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
12 1 (0.60%) Azure Sentinel
12 1 (0.60%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 23 (13.86%) Firewall
2 21 (12.65%) Network Security
3 18 (10.84%) DNS
4 15 (9.04%) TCP/IP
5 12 (7.23%) SSL
6 9 (5.42%) HTTP
6 9 (5.42%) SAN
7 8 (4.82%) VPN
8 7 (4.22%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (3.61%) DHCP
9 6 (3.61%) VLAN
10 5 (3.01%) FTP
10 5 (3.01%) Intrusion Detection
10 5 (3.01%) SMTP
11 2 (1.20%) DMZ
11 2 (1.20%) MIMO
11 2 (1.20%) Multicast
11 2 (1.20%) NAS
12 1 (0.60%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (6.63%) SQL Server
2 4 (2.41%) Big Data
3 3 (1.81%) Redis
4 2 (1.20%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.60%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.60%) MySQL
5 1 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (0.60%) Power BI
5 1 (0.60%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.60%) Semantic Layer
5 1 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (4.22%) Chocolatey
2 6 (3.61%) Git
3 2 (1.20%) GitLab
3 2 (1.20%) JIRA
4 1 (0.60%) Jenkins
General
1 43 (25.90%) Social Skills
2 39 (23.49%) Analytical Skills
3 22 (13.25%) Finance
4 19 (11.45%) Public Sector
5 12 (7.23%) Banking
6 6 (3.61%) Legal
7 5 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (3.01%) Law
7 5 (3.01%) Military
8 2 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.60%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.60%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.60%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 50 (30.12%) Analyst
2 33 (19.88%) Senior
3 22 (13.25%) SOC Analyst
4 17 (10.24%) Senior Analyst
5 16 (9.64%) Lead
6 15 (9.04%) Architect
7 11 (6.63%) Security Analyst
8 9 (5.42%) Security Engineer
8 9 (5.42%) SOC Engineer
9 7 (4.22%) Azure Engineer
9 7 (4.22%) Cybersecurity Analyst
9 7 (4.22%) Lead Architect
9 7 (4.22%) Security Architect
10 6 (3.61%) Cloud Engineer
10 6 (3.61%) Operations Analyst
10 6 (3.61%) Trainer
11 5 (3.01%) Consultant
11 5 (3.01%) IT Engineer
11 5 (3.01%) IT Trainer
11 5 (3.01%) Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (4.82%) Kafka
2 6 (3.61%) REST
3 5 (3.01%) LDAP
4 4 (2.41%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (2.41%) Loki
5 3 (1.81%) React
5 3 (1.81%) RESTful
5 3 (1.81%) WebSockets
6 1 (0.60%) AWS CDK
6 1 (0.60%) Django
6 1 (0.60%) JSON
6 1 (0.60%) JWT
6 1 (0.60%) WebCenter
6 1 (0.60%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 28 (16.87%) Security Operations Centre
2 15 (9.04%) Management Information System
2 15 (9.04%) Security Posture
3 13 (7.83%) Cyberattack
4 10 (6.02%) CSOC
5 9 (5.42%) Cyber Defence
5 9 (5.42%) Operational Technology
6 7 (4.22%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (3.61%) Cloud Native
8 5 (3.01%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 5 (3.01%) Private Cloud
9 4 (2.41%) Cyber Kill Chain
9 4 (2.41%) Enterprise Storage
9 4 (2.41%) MISP
9 4 (2.41%) Onboarding
10 3 (1.81%) Cybercrime
10 3 (1.81%) Derivative
10 3 (1.81%) Energy Derivatives
10 3 (1.81%) PKI
10 3 (1.81%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 22 (13.25%) Windows
2 21 (12.65%) Linux
3 5 (3.01%) Windows Server
4 3 (1.81%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (56.02%) Cybersecurity
2 62 (37.35%) Incident Response
3 54 (32.53%) SIEM
4 43 (25.90%) Security Operations
5 40 (24.10%) Threat Intelligence
6 37 (22.29%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
7 32 (19.28%) Threat Detection
8 28 (16.87%) Problem-Solving
9 23 (13.86%) Continuous Improvement
10 21 (12.65%) MITRE ATT&CK
10 21 (12.65%) Threat Modelling
11 20 (12.05%) Information Security
12 19 (11.45%) Analytics
12 19 (11.45%) Vulnerability Management
13 18 (10.84%) Cyber Intelligence
14 16 (9.64%) Risk Management
14 16 (9.64%) Runbook
15 15 (9.04%) AI
15 15 (9.04%) Use Case
16 14 (8.43%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 33 (19.88%) Python
2 8 (4.82%) PowerShell
3 6 (3.61%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (2.41%) Search Processing Language
5 3 (1.81%) Bash
5 3 (1.81%) C
5 3 (1.81%) C++
5 3 (1.81%) Embedded C
5 3 (1.81%) JavaScript
5 3 (1.81%) Rust
5 3 (1.81%) TypeScript
6 2 (1.20%) SQL
7 1 (0.60%) Go
7 1 (0.60%) Perl
7 1 (0.60%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 65 (39.16%) Security Cleared
2 49 (29.52%) SC Cleared
3 22 (13.25%) DV Cleared
4 20 (12.05%) Degree
5 19 (11.45%) CISSP
6 12 (7.23%) CISM
7 8 (4.82%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (3.61%) CEH
8 6 (3.61%) CompTIA Security+
8 6 (3.61%) GIAC
9 5 (3.01%) GCIH
10 4 (2.41%) CREST Certified
11 3 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (1.81%) Master's Degree
12 2 (1.20%) CRISC
12 2 (1.20%) GCFA
12 2 (1.20%) GCIA
12 2 (1.20%) HND
12 2 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
12 2 (1.20%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (9.04%) NCSC
1 15 (9.04%) NIST
2 9 (5.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 9 (5.42%) SLA
3 8 (4.82%) GRC
4 6 (3.61%) GDPR
5 4 (2.41%) QA
6 3 (1.81%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (1.20%) PCI DSS
7 2 (1.20%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.60%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.60%) ISO 19650
8 1 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27005
8 1 (0.60%) ITGC
8 1 (0.60%) NIST 800
System Software
1 16 (9.64%) Active Directory
2 7 (4.22%) Virtual Desktop
3 5 (3.01%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (1.20%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.60%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (6.02%) Microsoft Intune
2 9 (5.42%) SCCM
2 9 (5.42%) Terraform
3 7 (4.22%) Ansible
4 5 (3.01%) Grafana
4 5 (3.01%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.81%) QRadar
6 2 (1.20%) Red Hat Satellite
7 1 (0.60%) CASB
7 1 (0.60%) CSIRT
7 1 (0.60%) Host Intrusion Detection System
7 1 (0.60%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 36 (21.69%) Microsoft
2 17 (10.24%) Splunk
3 9 (5.42%) Tenable
4 7 (4.22%) AppDynamics
4 7 (4.22%) Dynatrace
4 7 (4.22%) VMware
5 5 (3.01%) CrowdStrike
5 5 (3.01%) Tanium
6 4 (2.41%) Databricks
6 4 (2.41%) Google
6 4 (2.41%) Intel
7 3 (1.81%) Apple
8 2 (1.20%) Blue Coat
8 2 (1.20%) Citrix
8 2 (1.20%) Dell
8 2 (1.20%) Netskope
8 2 (1.20%) Oracle
8 2 (1.20%) Red Hat
8 2 (1.20%) ServiceNow
8 2 (1.20%) Zscaler