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 30 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 30 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	303	400	417
Rank change year-on-year	+97	+17	+46
Contract jobs citing GRC	488	178	136
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	0.89%	0.52%	0.37%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category	4.81%	2.94%	2.76%
Number of daily rates quoted	316	98	77
10^th Percentile	£413	£350	£359
25^th Percentile	£493	£416	£450
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£575	£519	£575
Median % change year-on-year	+10.79%	-9.74%	+0.44%
75^th Percentile	£664	£638	£675
90^th Percentile	£769	£741	£860
UK excluding London median daily rate	£550	£450	£500
% change year-on-year	+22.22%	-10.00%	-9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted	18	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	£84.06	-	-
90^th Percentile	£90.30	£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 30 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing quality assurance or compliance skills	10,140	6,052	4,922
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK	18.50%	17.68%	13.41%
Number of daily rates quoted	6,344	3,876	2,887
10^th Percentile	£325	£301	£275
25^th Percentile	£413	£401	£397
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£510	£500	£500
Median % change year-on-year	+2.00%	-	-4.76%
75^th Percentile	£616	£613	£625
90^th Percentile	£725	£706	£738
UK excluding London median daily rate	£481	£475	£475
% change year-on-year	+1.26%	-	-5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted	777	295	217
10^th Percentile	£13.50	£13.60	£13.26
25^th Percentile	£16.46	£16.50	£15.50
Median hourly rate	£30.27	£28.00	£27.50
Median % change year-on-year	+8.11%	+1.82%	-22.82%
75^th Percentile	£65.00	£60.00	£62.24
90^th Percentile	£75.00	£78.00	£70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£31.46	£23.00	£27.50
% change year-on-year	+36.78%	-16.36%	-23.61%

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 30 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 for jobs citing GRC over the 6 months to 30 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 30 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	Job Ads Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Jobs
England	+71	439	£575	+11.00%	65
London	+33	232	£600	+13.74%	32
UK excluding London	+34	207	£550	+22.22%	40
Work from Home	+39	133	£565	+25.56%	35
North of England	+3	76	£546	+15.91%	13
South East	-8	65	£550	+10.00%	15
North West	+5	58	£548	+25.25%	5
Midlands	-34	31	£575	+43.75%	2
West Midlands	-14	29	£580	-12.45%	1
Scotland	-4	17	£595	+48.75%
Yorkshire	-28	17	£547	-0.55%	6
South West	-26	16	£575	-4.17%	7
East of England	-22	7	£600	+11.63%	1
East Midlands	-32	2	£402	+7.20%	1
Wales	-	2	-	-	2

GRC Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 30 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 citing GRC.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Cybersecurity	43.4%	212
2	Risk Management	41.6%	203
3	Stakeholder Management	35.7%	174
4	Security Cleared	34.8%	170
5	ISO/IEC 27001	29.9%	146
6	NIST	27.5%	134
6	SC Cleared	27.5%	134
8	Information Security	23.6%	115
9	Stakeholder Engagement	20.9%	102
10	Continuous Improvement	20.5%	100
11	Azure	15.2%	74
12	Decision-Making	14.8%	72
13	Agile	13.5%	66
14	Analytics	13.3%	65
14	Microsoft	13.3%	65
14	Problem-Solving	13.3%	65
14	ServiceNow	13.3%	65
14	Vulnerability Management	13.3%	65
19	CISSP	13.1%	64
20	CISM	11.1%	54
21	Roadmaps	10.5%	51
22	AWS	10.2%	50
23	Data Protection	10.0%	49
23	NCSC	10.0%	49
25	AI	9.6%	47
26	Enterprise Architecture	9.4%	46
26	GDPR	9.4%	46
26	Security Operations	9.4%	46
29	Security Architecture	9.0%	44
30	SAP	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	29.9%	146
2	NIST	27.5%	134
3	NCSC	10.0%	49
4	GDPR	9.4%	46
5	Cyber Essentials	6.1%	30
6	Data Quality	5.7%	28
7	QA	5.1%	25
8	PCI DSS	3.9%	19
9	Cyber Essentials PLUS	3.5%	17
9	DORA	3.5%	17
9	Sarbanes-Oxley	3.5%	17
12	COBIT	2.9%	14
13	NIST 800	2.3%	11
14	ISO 31000	1.6%	8
14	ISO 9001	1.6%	8
14	ISO/IEC 27005	1.6%	8
14	ITGC	1.6%	8
14	SOC 2	1.6%	8
19	JSP 440	1.2%	6
20	EU AI Act	1.0%	5