GRC Contract Job Trends

Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring GRC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 20 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	282	388	418
Rank change year-on-year	+106	+30	+41
Contract jobs citing GRC	489	174	138
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	0.89%	0.52%	0.37%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category	4.92%	2.97%	2.78%
Number of daily rates quoted	319	93	79
10^th Percentile	£413	£350	£362
25^th Percentile	£491	£411	£450
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£575	£513	£575
Median % change year-on-year	+12.20%	-10.87%	+2.45%
75^th Percentile	£656	£600	£653
90^th Percentile	£765	£678	£780
UK excluding London median daily rate	£545	£450	£500
% change year-on-year	+21.22%	-10.00%	-9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted	16	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	£85.00	-	-
90^th Percentile	£90.50	£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 requiring quality assurance or compliance skills.

	6 months to 20 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills	9,931	5,867	4,957
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK	18.04%	17.68%	13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted	6,221	3,750	2,885
10^th Percentile	£325	£300	£275
25^th Percentile	£413	£400	£391
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£506	£500	£500
Median % change year-on-year	+1.20%	-	-4.76%
75^th Percentile	£613	£613	£625
90^th Percentile	£725	£713	£738
UK excluding London median daily rate	£477	£475	£475
% change year-on-year	+0.42%	-	-5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted	738	287	233
10^th Percentile	£13.65	£13.60	£13.26
25^th Percentile	£16.60	£16.50	£16.23
Median hourly rate	£31.73	£30.00	£27.50
Median % change year-on-year	+5.77%	+9.09%	-22.82%
75^th Percentile	£65.00	£60.00	£62.50
90^th Percentile	£74.32	£80.00	£70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£32.40	£25.00	£27.50
% change year-on-year	+29.58%	-9.09%	-25.17%

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 20 October 2026.

GRC Hourly Rate Trend

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

GRC Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing GRC over the 6 months to 20 October 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 20 October 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	+80	437	£571	+11.34%	406
London	+50	232	£600	+14.29%	222
UK excluding London	+9	206	£545	+21.22%	207
Work from Home	+20	137	£559	+31.41%	211
North of England	-13	76	£546	+21.32%	61
South East	-7	62	£525	+5.00%	50
North West	-3	58	£548	+28.94%	38
Midlands	-25	35	£580	+45.00%	23
West Midlands	-22	33	£585	-11.70%	14
Scotland	-10	18	£550	+37.50%	22
Yorkshire	-26	17	£547	-0.55%	17
South West	-45	13	£563	-6.25%	20
East of England	-28	7	£600	+11.63%	12
East Midlands	-24	2	£402	+0.50%	9
Wales	-	2	-	-	5

GRC Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 October 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 with a requirement for GRC.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	41.9%	205
2	Risk Management	40.5%	198
3	Security Cleared	34.6%	169
4	Stakeholder Management	34.2%	167
5	ISO/IEC 27001	30.1%	147
6	SC Cleared	27.4%	134
7	NIST	27.2%	133
8	Information Security	24.1%	118
9	Continuous Improvement	20.2%	99
10	Stakeholder Engagement	19.8%	97
11	Azure	16.4%	80
12	Decision-Making	14.1%	69
13	CISSP	13.9%	68
14	Agile	13.7%	67
14	Problem-Solving	13.7%	67
16	Vulnerability Management	13.5%	66
17	Analytics	13.3%	65
17	Microsoft	13.3%	65
19	ServiceNow	13.1%	64
20	CISM	11.7%	57
21	AWS	11.2%	55
22	Roadmaps	10.8%	53
23	Data Protection	10.4%	51
24	GDPR	10.2%	50
25	Enterprise Architecture	9.8%	48
26	SAP	9.6%	47
27	NCSC	9.4%	46
27	Security Operations	9.4%	46
29	AI	9.2%	45
30	ITIL	8.8%	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%	147
2	NIST	27.2%	133
3	GDPR	10.2%	50
4	NCSC	9.4%	46
5	Cyber Essentials	5.9%	29
6	Data Quality	5.5%	27
7	QA	5.1%	25
8	PCI DSS	4.5%	22
9	Sarbanes-Oxley	3.9%	19
10	Cyber Essentials PLUS	3.3%	16
11	COBIT	2.7%	13
12	NIST 800	2.2%	11
13	ISO/IEC 27005	1.8%	9
14	ISO 31000	1.6%	8
14	ITGC	1.6%	8
16	ISO 9001	1.4%	7
16	SOC 2	1.4%	7
18	JSP 440	1.2%	6
19	Government Security Classifications	1.0%	5
19	HIPAA	1.0%	5