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

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 471 401 363
Rank change year-on-year -70 -38 +161
Contract jobs citing Cyber Threat 155 126 230
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.33% 0.43% 0.53%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.02% 1.26% 1.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 109 69 156
10th Percentile £393 £361 £488
25th Percentile £450 £475 £529
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £584
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -10.10% -2.67%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £775
90th Percentile £750 £703 £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 15,251 9,965 13,119
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.08% 34.02% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,494 6,364 8,440
10th Percentile £306 £300 £263
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £656
90th Percentile £738 £775 £798
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 719 400 905
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.95 £12.25
25th Percentile £20.31 £21.01 £15.17
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% +7.76% +34.13%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £87.50 £82.57 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £31.08 £28.25
% change year-on-year +60.88% +10.02% +28.41%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -81 137 £550 +4.27% 111
UK excluding London -56 103 £550 - 76
London -61 39 £545 +3.81% 57
North of England -31 37 £516 +4.08% 20
Work from Home -45 32 £550 +4.76% 47
South East -50 28 £575 +9.47% 33
North West -19 25 £517 +4.23% 13
East of England -47 14 £550 -8.33% 5
Yorkshire - 12 £516 - 4
Scotland -9 11 £338 -32.50% 3
West Midlands -51 10 £750 +25.00% 6
Midlands -65 10 £750 +25.00% 9
South West -41 2 £538 -2.27% 5
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%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (1.29%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 34 (21.94%) Azure
2 17 (10.97%) AWS
3 14 (9.03%) Microsoft 365
4 9 (5.81%) SaaS
5 8 (5.16%) Entra ID
5 8 (5.16%) IaaS
5 8 (5.16%) PaaS
6 7 (4.52%) Datadog
7 5 (3.23%) Azure Key Vault
7 5 (3.23%) Microsoft Purview
8 4 (2.58%) Power Platform
9 3 (1.94%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (1.29%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 2 (1.29%) Amazon S3
10 2 (1.29%) Azure Sentinel
10 2 (1.29%) GCP
10 2 (1.29%) GitHub
11 1 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
11 1 (0.65%) Cloud Computing
11 1 (0.65%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 21 (13.55%) Firewall
1 21 (13.55%) Network Security
2 16 (10.32%) DNS
3 11 (7.10%) TCP/IP
4 10 (6.45%) Wi-Fi
5 9 (5.81%) SAN
6 8 (5.16%) VPN
7 7 (4.52%) SSL
8 6 (3.87%) DHCP
8 6 (3.87%) VLAN
9 5 (3.23%) FTP
9 5 (3.23%) HTTP
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%) 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%) 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 34 (21.94%) Analytical Skills
2 33 (21.29%) Social Skills
3 16 (10.32%) Finance
4 13 (8.39%) Public Sector
5 12 (7.74%) Banking
6 8 (5.16%) Legal
7 5 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (3.23%) Law
8 4 (2.58%) Military
9 2 (1.29%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.65%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.65%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.65%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 51 (32.90%) Analyst
2 32 (20.65%) 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 7 (4.52%) Azure Engineer
7 7 (4.52%) Lead Architect
7 7 (4.52%) Security Architect
8 6 (3.87%) Cloud Engineer
8 6 (3.87%) Cybersecurity Analyst
8 6 (3.87%) Security Engineer
8 6 (3.87%) SOC Engineer
8 6 (3.87%) Trainer
9 5 (3.23%) Consultant
9 5 (3.23%) Cybersecurity Engineer
9 5 (3.23%) IT Engineer
9 5 (3.23%) IT Trainer
9 5 (3.23%) Operations Analyst
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%) WebCenter
5 1 (0.65%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (12.26%) Security Operations Centre
2 16 (10.32%) Cyberattack
2 16 (10.32%) Management Information System
3 13 (8.39%) Security Posture
4 9 (5.81%) Operational Technology
5 8 (5.16%) CSOC
5 8 (5.16%) Cyber Defence
6 7 (4.52%) Onboarding
7 6 (3.87%) Cloud Native
8 5 (3.23%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (3.23%) Private Cloud
9 4 (2.58%) Cyber Kill Chain
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%) Data Protection Act
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 82 (52.90%) Cybersecurity
2 60 (38.71%) Incident Response
3 43 (27.74%) SIEM
4 33 (21.29%) Security Operations
5 30 (19.35%) Threat Detection
5 30 (19.35%) Threat Intelligence
6 27 (17.42%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
7 25 (16.13%) Problem-Solving
8 20 (12.90%) Information Security
9 19 (12.26%) Threat Modelling
10 17 (10.97%) Analytics
10 17 (10.97%) Continuous Improvement
10 17 (10.97%) MITRE ATT&CK
11 16 (10.32%) Cyber Intelligence
11 16 (10.32%) Risk Management
12 14 (9.03%) AI
12 14 (9.03%) Vulnerability Management
13 13 (8.39%) Cloud Security
13 13 (8.39%) Use Case
14 12 (7.74%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 30 (19.35%) Python
2 8 (5.16%) PowerShell
3 5 (3.23%) Kusto Query Language
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%) Bash
5 2 (1.29%) SQL
6 1 (0.65%) Go
6 1 (0.65%) Perl
6 1 (0.65%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 59 (38.06%) Security Cleared
2 47 (30.32%) SC Cleared
3 20 (12.90%) DV Cleared
4 19 (12.26%) Degree
5 15 (9.68%) CISSP
6 10 (6.45%) CISM
7 7 (4.52%) CEH
7 7 (4.52%) CompTIA Security+
7 7 (4.52%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (4.52%) GIAC
8 5 (3.23%) GCIH
9 4 (2.58%) CREST Certified
10 3 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (1.94%) Master's Degree
11 2 (1.29%) Azure Certification
11 2 (1.29%) CRISC
11 2 (1.29%) GCFA
11 2 (1.29%) GCIA
11 2 (1.29%) HND
11 2 (1.29%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (9.03%) NIST
2 11 (7.10%) NCSC
3 10 (6.45%) 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 14 (9.03%) 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 7 (4.52%) Microsoft Intune
1 7 (4.52%) SCCM
1 7 (4.52%) Terraform
2 6 (3.87%) Ansible
3 5 (3.23%) Prometheus
4 3 (1.94%) Grafana
4 3 (1.94%) QRadar
5 2 (1.29%) Red Hat Satellite
6 1 (0.65%) CASB
6 1 (0.65%) CSIRT
6 1 (0.65%) Host Intrusion Detection System
6 1 (0.65%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 31 (20.00%) Microsoft
2 18 (11.61%) 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%) Intel
7 3 (1.94%) Apple
7 3 (1.94%) Google
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%) Proofpoint
9 1 (0.65%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.65%) Tripwire