GRC Contract Job Trends

Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs citing GRC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 November 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 5 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	301	388	410
Rank change year-on-year	+87	+22	+54
Contract jobs citing GRC	485	188	141
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	0.88%	0.54%	0.39%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category	4.74%	3.07%	2.88%
Number of daily rates quoted	316	104	80
10^th Percentile	£413	£358	£370
25^th Percentile	£492	£425	£459
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£575	£515	£600
Median % change year-on-year	+11.65%	-14.17%	+9.09%
75^th Percentile	£657	£595	£703
90^th Percentile	£756	£720	£905
UK excluding London median daily rate	£550	£450	£500
% change year-on-year	+22.22%	-10.00%	-9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted	19	13	0
10^th Percentile	-	-	-
25^th Percentile	£64.09	-	-
Median hourly rate	£76.00	£33.50	-
Median % change year-on-year	+126.87%	-	-
75^th Percentile	£83.13	-	-
90^th Percentile	£90.20	£58.97	-
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£76.00	£33.50	-
% change year-on-year	+126.87%	-	-

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

GRC falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies citing quality assurance or compliance skills.

	6 months to 5 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing quality assurance or compliance skills	10,225	6,133	4,900
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK	18.65%	17.71%	13.41%
Number of daily rates quoted	6,394	3,938	2,881
10^th Percentile	£325	£304	£275
25^th Percentile	£413	£402	£398
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£510	£500	£500
Median % change year-on-year	+2.00%	-	-4.76%
75^th Percentile	£619	£613	£625
90^th Percentile	£725	£700	£731
UK excluding London median daily rate	£480	£478	£475
% change year-on-year	+0.52%	+0.53%	-5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted	798	300	213
10^th Percentile	£13.53	£13.50	£13.26
25^th Percentile	£16.46	£16.50	£15.50
Median hourly rate	£31.46	£27.77	£27.50
Median % change year-on-year	+13.29%	+0.98%	-30.56%
75^th Percentile	£65.00	£60.00	£55.00
90^th Percentile	£75.30	£80.00	£70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£31.46	£23.00	£26.50
% change year-on-year	+36.78%	-13.21%	-37.65%

GRC Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing GRC relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

GRC Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GRC.

GRC Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing GRC over the 6 months to 5 November 2026.

GRC Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing GRC.

GRC Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution for jobs citing GRC over the 6 months to 5 November 2026.

GRC Top 15 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing GRC within the UK over the 6 months to 5 November 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	Job Ads Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Jobs
England	+65	439	£575	+11.65%	132
London	+39	231	£600	+14.29%	82
UK excluding London	+29	205	£550	+22.22%	67
Work from Home	+20	132	£575	+21.05%	59
North of England	-15	74	£545	+21.22%	21
South East	-10	66	£550	+6.80%	23
North West	-4	57	£546	+24.79%	12
Midlands	-33	31	£575	+43.75%	7
West Midlands	-18	29	£580	-12.45%	6
South West	-38	18	£575	-4.17%	7
Yorkshire	-25	16	£519	+3.80%	9
Scotland	-17	14	£595	+48.75%	3
East of England	-23	7	£600	+14.29%	3
East Midlands	-26	2	£402	+0.50%	1
Wales	-	2	-	-	2

GRC Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 5 November 2026, contractor job vacancies citing GRC also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads citing GRC.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	43.9%	213
2	Risk Management	42.7%	207
3	Stakeholder Management	36.1%	175
4	Security Cleared	35.7%	173
5	ISO/IEC 27001	30.1%	146
6	SC Cleared	27.8%	135
7	NIST	27.6%	134
8	Information Security	22.9%	111
9	Stakeholder Engagement	21.6%	105
10	Continuous Improvement	21.4%	104
11	Decision-Making	15.3%	74
12	Azure	14.8%	72
13	Agile	13.8%	67
14	Microsoft	13.6%	66
14	ServiceNow	13.6%	66
14	Vulnerability Management	13.6%	66
17	Problem-Solving	13.2%	64
18	Analytics	12.8%	62
18	CISSP	12.8%	62
20	CISM	10.9%	53
21	Data Protection	10.5%	51
21	Roadmaps	10.5%	51
23	NCSC	10.3%	50
24	Security Operations	9.9%	48
25	AI	9.7%	47
25	AWS	9.7%	47
25	GDPR	9.7%	47
28	Enterprise Architecture	9.5%	46
29	Security Architecture	9.1%	44
30	Incident Management	8.9%	43

GRC Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Quality Assurance & Compliance

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	ISO/IEC 27001	30.1%	146
2	NIST	27.6%	134
3	NCSC	10.3%	50
4	GDPR	9.7%	47
5	Cyber Essentials	6.2%	30
6	Data Quality	5.8%	28
7	QA	5.2%	25
8	PCI DSS	3.9%	19
9	Sarbanes-Oxley	3.5%	17
10	Cyber Essentials PLUS	3.3%	16
11	DORA	3.1%	15
12	NIST 800	2.7%	13
13	COBIT	2.5%	12
14	ISO 31000	1.6%	8
14	ISO 9001	1.6%	8
14	ISO/IEC 27005	1.6%	8
14	SOC 2	1.6%	8
18	JSP 440	1.4%	7
19	ITGC	1.2%	6
19	PMO	1.2%	6