GRC Contract Job Trends

Governance, Risk, 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 14 November 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 14 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	308	370	407
Rank change year-on-year	+62	+37	+33
Contract jobs citing GRC	497	199	150
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	0.89%	0.56%	0.41%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category	4.71%	3.15%	3.03%
Number of daily rates quoted	315	111	88
10^th Percentile	£413	£350	£369
25^th Percentile	£491	£419	£463
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£575	£513	£588
Median % change year-on-year	+12.20%	-12.77%	+2.62%
75^th Percentile	£673	£591	£703
90^th Percentile	£750	£725	£900
UK excluding London median daily rate	£548	£450	£500
% change year-on-year	+21.77%	-10.00%	-9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted	19	12	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	£34.72	-
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 14 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing quality assurance or compliance skills	10,542	6,310	4,955
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK	18.88%	17.76%	13.50%
Number of daily rates quoted	6,586	4,048	2,900
10^th Percentile	£325	£305	£275
25^th Percentile	£413	£402	£391
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£511	£500	£500
Median % change year-on-year	+2.29%	-	-4.76%
75^th Percentile	£622	£608	£625
90^th Percentile	£725	£700	£731
UK excluding London median daily rate	£480	£480	£475
% change year-on-year	-	+1.05%	-5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted	820	317	219
10^th Percentile	£13.54	£13.56	£13.26
25^th Percentile	£16.46	£16.92	£15.50
Median hourly rate	£32.20	£25.15	£27.50
Median % change year-on-year	+28.02%	-8.55%	-23.61%
75^th Percentile	£67.50	£60.00	£53.00
90^th Percentile	£76.00	£79.91	£70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£31.46	£22.14	£26.50
% change year-on-year	+42.10%	-16.45%	-29.33%

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 14 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 14 November 2026.

GRC Top 16 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 14 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	+88	451	£567	+10.32%	504
London	+39	233	£600	+14.29%	289
UK excluding London	+14	212	£548	+21.77%	234
Work from Home	+18	137	£570	+20.00%	255
North of England	-3	82	£525	+16.67%	53
South East	-12	67	£550	+8.37%	77
North West	+1	63	£546	+24.73%	34
Midlands	-34	30	£534	+33.38%	32
West Midlands	-15	28	£575	-16.36%	18
South West	-26	20	£575	-4.17%	24
Yorkshire	-18	17	£499	+10.78%	16
Scotland	-23	11	£598	+49.38%	24
East of England	-24	7	£600	+14.29%	13
East Midlands	-19	2	£402	+0.50%	14
Wales	-	2	-	-	4
North East	-30	1	-	-	4

GRC Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 14 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	42.9%	213
2	Risk Management	42.5%	211
3	Stakeholder Management	36.4%	181
4	Security Cleared	35.2%	175
5	ISO/IEC 27001	29.4%	146
6	SC Cleared	27.6%	137
7	NIST	27.0%	134
8	Information Security	22.1%	110
9	Continuous Improvement	21.3%	106
10	Stakeholder Engagement	20.9%	104
11	ServiceNow	15.3%	76
12	Decision-Making	15.1%	75
13	Azure	14.5%	72
14	Agile	13.5%	67
14	Vulnerability Management	13.5%	67
16	Analytics	13.1%	65
17	Problem-Solving	12.9%	64
18	Microsoft	12.7%	63
19	CISSP	12.1%	60
20	CISM	10.7%	53
20	Data Protection	10.7%	53
22	NCSC	10.3%	51
22	Roadmaps	10.3%	51
24	AI	9.9%	49
24	Security Operations	9.9%	49
26	Enterprise Architecture	9.7%	48
26	GDPR	9.7%	48
28	AWS	9.5%	47
29	Incident Management	8.7%	43
29	Regulatory Compliance	8.7%	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	29.4%	146
2	NIST	27.0%	134
3	NCSC	10.3%	51
4	GDPR	9.7%	48
5	Data Quality	6.4%	32
6	Cyber Essentials	6.0%	30
7	QA	5.0%	25
8	PCI DSS	4.0%	20
9	Cyber Essentials PLUS	3.2%	16
9	DORA	3.2%	16
9	Sarbanes-Oxley	3.2%	16
12	NIST 800	2.6%	13
13	COBIT	2.0%	10
13	SOC 2	2.0%	10
15	ISO 31000	1.6%	8
15	ISO 9001	1.6%	8
15	ISO/IEC 27005	1.6%	8
15	JSP 440	1.6%	8
19	EU AI Act	1.2%	6
19	ITGC	1.2%	6