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 22 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 355 366 479
Rank change year-on-year +11 +113 +71
Contract jobs citing GRC 266 169 122
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.65% 0.55% 0.27%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.75% 3.72% 1.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 97 93
10th Percentile £363 £396 £370
25th Percentile £450 £513 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £630 £575
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +9.57% +2.22%
75th Percentile £638 £713 £750
90th Percentile £716 £818 £900
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £588 £575
% change year-on-year -10.64% +2.17% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £33.50 - -
75th Percentile £35.38 - -
90th Percentile £36.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 - -

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 7,098 4,539 6,431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.41% 14.76% 14.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,570 2,733 4,215
10th Percentile £325 £258 £301
25th Percentile £413 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £720 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +5.26% -1.04% +1.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 378 166 350
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.50 £12.25
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.25 £14.50
Median hourly rate £26.28 £29.50 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -10.93% +16.84% -22.32%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £78.38 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.44 £29.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -8.83% +16.00% -19.70%

GRC
Job Vacancy Trend

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

GRC job vacancy trend in the UK

GRC
Daily Rate Trend

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

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 22 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for GRC in the UK

GRC
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

GRC
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 GRC within the UK over the 6 months to 22 February 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 +15 247 £525 -19.26% 88
London +11 132 £525 -22.22% 42
UK excluding London -29 115 £525 -10.64% 65
Work from Home +13 70 £513 -14.58% 58
South East -14 38 £525 -3.67% 29
North of England -44 22 £450 -33.33% 11
East of England -18 18 £575 -4.17% 5
Midlands -44 18 £447 -25.50% 11
South West -9 16 £500 -23.08% 7
Yorkshire - 13 £450 - 3
East Midlands -21 12 £442 -26.29% 3
North West -22 9 £403 -40.30% 8
West Midlands -60 6 £575 -8.04% 8
Scotland -5 3 £331 -27.99% 2

GRC
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 12 (4.51%) Confluence
2 5 (1.88%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (4.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (2.26%) Microsoft Project
3 3 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.13%) MS Visio
3 3 (1.13%) Trello
4 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 12 (4.51%) SAP GRC
1 12 (4.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.38%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.38%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.38%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.38%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 33 (12.41%) Azure
2 25 (9.40%) AWS
3 19 (7.14%) GCP
4 13 (4.89%) Power Platform
5 7 (2.63%) Entra ID
5 7 (2.63%) GitHub
5 7 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
5 7 (2.63%) SaaS
6 6 (2.26%) Miro
7 5 (1.88%) Microsoft Purview
8 4 (1.50%) Amazon GuardDuty
8 4 (1.50%) AWS CloudFormation
8 4 (1.50%) Azure Sentinel
9 3 (1.13%) Asana
9 3 (1.13%) OneDrive
9 3 (1.13%) SuccessFactors
10 2 (0.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (0.75%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (0.75%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (0.75%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 12 (4.51%) Firewall
1 12 (4.51%) Network Security
2 3 (1.13%) NGFW
2 3 (1.13%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (0.75%) VPN
4 1 (0.38%) BGP
4 1 (0.38%) Cisco ASA
4 1 (0.38%) DMZ
4 1 (0.38%) Internet
4 1 (0.38%) LAN
4 1 (0.38%) MPLS
4 1 (0.38%) Multicast
4 1 (0.38%) OSPF
4 1 (0.38%) SD-WAN
4 1 (0.38%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.38%) VLAN
4 1 (0.38%) WAN
4 1 (0.38%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (4.14%) Power BI
2 10 (3.76%) Metadata
3 4 (1.50%) SAP HANA
4 3 (1.13%) SAP BW
4 3 (1.13%) Tableau
5 2 (0.75%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.38%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.38%) Data Vault
6 1 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 12 (4.51%) JIRA
2 1 (0.38%) Burp Suite
2 1 (0.38%) Git
2 1 (0.38%) Jaeger
General
1 112 (42.11%) Social Skills
2 68 (25.56%) Finance
3 35 (13.16%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (11.65%) Public Sector
5 26 (9.77%) Banking
6 21 (7.89%) Legal
7 12 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
8 10 (3.76%) Presentation Skills
9 9 (3.38%) Telecoms
10 8 (3.01%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (1.88%) Financial Institution
11 5 (1.88%) Law
12 4 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
13 3 (1.13%) Aerospace
13 3 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (1.13%) Marketing
14 2 (0.75%) Arabic Language
14 2 (0.75%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.75%) Military
14 2 (0.75%) Police
Job Titles
1 61 (22.93%) Analyst
2 38 (14.29%) Consultant
3 31 (11.65%) Architect
4 21 (7.89%) Security Analyst
5 16 (6.02%) Lead
5 16 (6.02%) Risk Analyst
5 16 (6.02%) Senior
6 15 (5.64%) Risk Manager
7 14 (5.26%) ServiceNow Architect
8 12 (4.51%) Governance Manager
8 12 (4.51%) Security Consultant
9 11 (4.14%) Business Analyst
9 11 (4.14%) Project Manager
10 10 (3.76%) Information Security Advisor
10 10 (3.76%) Security Advisor
10 10 (3.76%) Security Engineer
10 10 (3.76%) Solutions Architect
11 9 (3.38%) Compliance Manager
11 9 (3.38%) Information Analyst
11 9 (3.38%) Information Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (6.77%) REST
2 16 (6.02%) SOAP
3 6 (2.26%) SAP Fiori
4 3 (1.13%) OAuth
4 3 (1.13%) OAuth2
4 3 (1.13%) OpenID
4 3 (1.13%) SAML
5 2 (0.75%) .NET
5 2 (0.75%) SailPoint
5 2 (0.75%) Web Services
6 1 (0.38%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.38%) IDoc
6 1 (0.38%) JSON
6 1 (0.38%) LDAP
6 1 (0.38%) Loki
6 1 (0.38%) Middleware
6 1 (0.38%) OpenTelemetry
6 1 (0.38%) SAP PI
6 1 (0.38%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 31 (11.65%) Security Posture
2 27 (10.15%) Management Information System
3 16 (6.02%) CMDB
3 16 (6.02%) Product Ownership
4 10 (3.76%) Operational Technology
5 7 (2.63%) Virtual Team
6 6 (2.26%) Cloud Native
6 6 (2.26%) Onboarding
6 6 (2.26%) Taxonomies
7 5 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.50%) Data Centre
8 4 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.13%) Cyber Threat
9 3 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (1.13%) IoT
10 2 (0.75%) Credit Risk
10 2 (0.75%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (0.75%) Hedge funds
10 2 (0.75%) Market Risk
10 2 (0.75%) PropTech
Operating Systems
1 2 (0.75%) Linux
2 1 (0.38%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 121 (45.49%) Risk Management
2 75 (28.20%) Information Security
2 75 (28.20%) Stakeholder Management
3 74 (27.82%) Cybersecurity
4 58 (21.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 38 (14.29%) Agile
6 36 (13.53%) Continuous Improvement
6 36 (13.53%) Roadmaps
7 33 (12.41%) Security Operations
8 31 (11.65%) Problem-Solving
9 29 (10.90%) Risk Assessment
10 28 (10.53%) Cloud Security
10 28 (10.53%) Risk Register
11 27 (10.15%) ITSM
12 25 (9.40%) ITIL
13 24 (9.02%) Regulatory Compliance
14 23 (8.65%) Data Protection
15 20 (7.52%) AI
15 20 (7.52%) Identity Access Management
16 19 (7.14%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 10 (3.76%) JavaScript
2 5 (1.88%) Python
3 4 (1.50%) SQL
4 3 (1.13%) Bash
4 3 (1.13%) Bicep
5 2 (0.75%) PowerShell
6 1 (0.38%) ABAP
6 1 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 1 (0.38%) Go
6 1 (0.38%) Java
6 1 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 62 (23.31%) Security Cleared
2 37 (13.91%) CISSP
2 37 (13.91%) SC Cleared
3 35 (13.16%) CISM
4 31 (11.65%) Degree
5 24 (9.02%) CRISC
6 21 (7.89%) DV Cleared
7 18 (6.77%) CISA
8 16 (6.02%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 15 (5.64%) BPSS Clearance
9 15 (5.64%) Master's Degree
10 13 (4.89%) Computer Science Degree
11 11 (4.14%) PMI Certification
12 10 (3.76%) PMP
13 9 (3.38%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
14 7 (2.63%) FFIEC
15 5 (1.88%) SAP Certification
16 4 (1.50%) CGEIT
17 3 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
17 3 (1.13%) CISMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (33.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 70 (26.32%) NIST
3 35 (13.16%) GDPR
4 24 (9.02%) PCI DSS
5 18 (6.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 13 (4.89%) COBIT
7 11 (4.14%) SOC 2
8 10 (3.76%) Def Stans
8 10 (3.76%) ISO/IEC 27005
8 10 (3.76%) NCSC
9 9 (3.38%) Cyber Essentials
10 7 (2.63%) Actionable Recommendations
11 6 (2.26%) PMO
11 6 (2.26%) SLA
12 5 (1.88%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 5 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 4 (1.50%) ISO 22301
13 4 (1.50%) ISO 31000
13 4 (1.50%) QA
14 3 (1.13%) MiFID
System Software
1 2 (0.75%) Active Directory
1 2 (0.75%) Docker
2 1 (0.38%) IAG
2 1 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 10 (3.76%) RSA Archer
1 10 (3.76%) Terraform
2 7 (2.63%) Kubernetes
3 4 (1.50%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (0.75%) QRadar
5 1 (0.38%) Ansible
5 1 (0.38%) Cisco Prime
5 1 (0.38%) Fluentd
5 1 (0.38%) Grafana
5 1 (0.38%) Iperf
5 1 (0.38%) Istio
5 1 (0.38%) logstash
5 1 (0.38%) Nexpose
5 1 (0.38%) Nmap
5 1 (0.38%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.38%) Rancher
Vendors
1 47 (17.67%) ServiceNow
2 21 (7.89%) Microsoft
3 18 (6.77%) SAP
4 7 (2.63%) Google
5 5 (1.88%) Splunk
6 4 (1.50%) Ariba
6 4 (1.50%) Fortinet
6 4 (1.50%) Palo Alto
6 4 (1.50%) Rapid7
7 2 (0.75%) CheckPoint
7 2 (0.75%) CrowdStrike
7 2 (0.75%) CyberArk
7 2 (0.75%) Okta
7 2 (0.75%) Qualys
7 2 (0.75%) Tenable
8 1 (0.38%) Carbon Black
8 1 (0.38%) Concur
8 1 (0.38%) Cribl.io
8 1 (0.38%) OneTrust
8 1 (0.38%) OpenAI