Information Security Contract Job Trends

Information Security (InfoSec)
UK

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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 196 177 113
Rank change year-on-year -19 -64 -8
Contract jobs citing Information Security 693 447 842
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.41% 1.54% 1.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.67% 1.70% 2.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 417 267 519
10th Percentile £405 £308 £373
25th Percentile £463 £409 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £595
Median % change year-on-year - -7.56% -0.83%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £690
90th Percentile £800 £825 £790
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £534 £598
% change year-on-year -1.69% -10.63% +8.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 25 22
10th Percentile £16.35 - £12.75
25th Percentile £18.58 £22.14 £17.79
Median hourly rate £31.56 £24.66 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +27.96% +26.46% -74.00%
75th Percentile £67.84 £48.57 £23.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £82.59 £25.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.56 £23.65 £19.50
% change year-on-year +33.45% +21.26% -74.26%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Information Security falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 41,594 26,332 36,644
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.70% 91.01% 85.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,970 16,762 23,491
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,502 1,133 2,525
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.53 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.68% -24.58% +1.39%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.25 £60.75
90th Percentile £81.24 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.29 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +80.09% -34.02% +8.91%

Information Security
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Information Security job vacancy trend in the UK

Information Security
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Information Security

Information Security
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Information Security over the 6 months to 5 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Information Security in the UK

Information Security
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Information Security

Information Security
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Information Security over the 6 months to 5 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Information Security in the UK

Information Security
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 Information Security within the UK over the 6 months to 5 June 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 -3 630 £550 - 495
UK excluding London -8 350 £525 -1.69% 334
London -1 295 £590 +12.38% 208
Work from Home -31 170 £573 +9.05% 235
South East -8 129 £525 -15.66% 88
North of England -59 72 £525 +27.27% 96
North West -16 50 £545 +36.25% 53
Midlands -30 47 £550 +37.50% 55
South West -6 41 £500 -14.89% 44
East of England -14 34 £575 - 20
West Midlands -32 34 £550 +37.50% 40
Scotland +5 26 £387 -13.10% 25
Yorkshire -48 19 £513 +24.24% 38
East Midlands -26 13 £581 +45.25% 15
Wales -17 3 £645 +55.42% 7
North East -33 3 £450 -15.73% 5

Information Security
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 26 (3.75%) Confluence
2 18 (2.60%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.01%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.58%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.58%) IIS
4 4 (0.58%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
5 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 34 (4.91%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (4.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (2.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (1.59%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
6 1 (0.14%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.87%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (0.87%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.58%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 142 (20.49%) Azure
2 106 (15.30%) AWS
3 44 (6.35%) Entra ID
4 39 (5.63%) Microsoft 365
4 39 (5.63%) SaaS
5 33 (4.76%) GCP
6 23 (3.32%) Power Platform
7 21 (3.03%) Microsoft Purview
8 18 (2.60%) GitHub
9 15 (2.16%) Azure Sentinel
10 12 (1.73%) OCI
11 9 (1.30%) Microsoft Copilot
12 7 (1.01%) IaaS
12 7 (1.01%) PaaS
13 6 (0.87%) Azure Key Vault
13 6 (0.87%) Azure Logic Apps
13 6 (0.87%) OneDrive
14 5 (0.72%) Azure AKS
14 5 (0.72%) Azure Data Factory
14 5 (0.72%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 41 (5.92%) Firewall
2 40 (5.77%) Network Security
3 13 (1.88%) HTTP
4 12 (1.73%) VPN
5 11 (1.59%) DNS
5 11 (1.59%) TCP/IP
6 10 (1.44%) Wireless
7 9 (1.30%) SSH
8 8 (1.15%) Internet
9 6 (0.87%) HTTPS
9 6 (0.87%) SSL
10 5 (0.72%) DHCP
10 5 (0.72%) FTP
10 5 (0.72%) Intrusion Detection
10 5 (0.72%) SMTP
11 4 (0.58%) WAN
12 3 (0.43%) Cisco IPT
12 3 (0.43%) NGFW
13 2 (0.29%) Reverse Proxy
13 2 (0.29%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (2.89%) Power BI
2 11 (1.59%) SQL Server
3 9 (1.30%) Metadata
4 5 (0.72%) Data Lake
4 5 (0.72%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.58%) Big Data
5 4 (0.58%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.43%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.43%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.29%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.29%) MySQL
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 2 (0.29%) Tableau
8 1 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.14%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.14%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.14%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 27 (3.90%) JIRA
2 10 (1.44%) Burp Suite
2 10 (1.44%) Git
3 8 (1.15%) Metasploit
4 3 (0.43%) git-flow
5 2 (0.29%) GitLab
5 2 (0.29%) JMeter
6 1 (0.14%) AppScan
6 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.14%) ScriptRunner
6 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
6 1 (0.14%) SonarQube
General
1 228 (32.90%) Social Skills
2 153 (22.08%) Finance
3 107 (15.44%) Public Sector
4 80 (11.54%) Analytical Skills
5 62 (8.95%) Legal
6 57 (8.23%) Banking
7 32 (4.62%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (3.75%) Organisational Skills
9 19 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
11 13 (1.88%) Local Government
12 12 (1.73%) Retail
13 9 (1.30%) Marketing
14 7 (1.01%) Law
15 6 (0.87%) Billing
15 6 (0.87%) Military
15 6 (0.87%) Pharmaceutical
15 6 (0.87%) Police
15 6 (0.87%) Telecoms
16 5 (0.72%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 97 (14.00%) Analyst
2 68 (9.81%) Consultant
3 62 (8.95%) Senior
4 59 (8.51%) Security Engineer
5 52 (7.50%) Architect
6 49 (7.07%) Security Consultant
7 48 (6.93%) Lead
8 37 (5.34%) Security Architect
9 36 (5.19%) Security Analyst
9 36 (5.19%) Security Manager
10 32 (4.62%) Security Officer
11 27 (3.90%) IT Manager
11 27 (3.90%) Project Manager
12 24 (3.46%) Senior Manager
13 22 (3.17%) Information Security Officer
14 19 (2.74%) Cybersecurity Manager
15 18 (2.60%) Business Analyst
16 16 (2.31%) Developer
17 15 (2.16%) Information Architect
17 15 (2.16%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.17%) Oracle Fusion
2 20 (2.89%) OAuth
2 20 (2.89%) SailPoint
3 16 (2.31%) LDAP
4 14 (2.02%) OAuth2
5 13 (1.88%) OpenID
5 13 (1.88%) SAML
6 9 (1.30%) Web Services
7 7 (1.01%) .NET
7 7 (1.01%) J2EE
7 7 (1.01%) JSP
7 7 (1.01%) REST
8 6 (0.87%) XML
9 5 (0.72%) Middleware
9 5 (0.72%) Node.js
9 5 (0.72%) RESTful
10 4 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
10 4 (0.58%) Kafka
11 3 (0.43%) ASP.NET Core
11 3 (0.43%) Azure Blueprints
Miscellaneous
1 117 (16.88%) Management Information System
2 61 (8.80%) Onboarding
2 61 (8.80%) Security Posture
3 37 (5.34%) Operational Technology
4 22 (3.17%) Cyber Threat
5 20 (2.89%) Security Operations Centre
6 18 (2.60%) Cloud Native
7 17 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
9 12 (1.73%) Data Centre
10 11 (1.59%) BYOD
10 11 (1.59%) CSOC
10 11 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
10 11 (1.59%) SCADA
10 11 (1.59%) Virtual Team
11 10 (1.44%) Product Ownership
11 10 (1.44%) Public Cloud
11 10 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
12 9 (1.30%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 82 (11.83%) Windows
2 46 (6.64%) Linux
3 34 (4.91%) Windows Server
4 18 (2.60%) Unix
5 8 (1.15%) Android
5 8 (1.15%) Apple iOS
6 7 (1.01%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.58%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.43%) zOS
9 2 (0.29%) Alpine Linux
9 2 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.29%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (36.22%) Cybersecurity
2 189 (27.27%) Risk Management
3 121 (17.46%) Continuous Improvement
4 117 (16.88%) Data Protection
5 108 (15.58%) Stakeholder Management
6 102 (14.72%) Problem-Solving
7 81 (11.69%) Cloud Security
8 77 (11.11%) Agile
8 77 (11.11%) Security Operations
9 73 (10.53%) Incident Response
10 70 (10.10%) Roadmaps
11 68 (9.81%) Change Management
12 64 (9.24%) Decision-Making
13 63 (9.09%) SIEM
13 63 (9.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 62 (8.95%) Computer Science
15 61 (8.80%) AI
15 61 (8.80%) Security Management
16 54 (7.79%) Threat Modelling
17 51 (7.36%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 87 (12.55%) Python
2 69 (9.96%) PowerShell
3 22 (3.17%) Java
4 21 (3.03%) Bash
5 14 (2.02%) SQL
6 6 (0.87%) C#
6 6 (0.87%) Kusto Query Language
7 5 (0.72%) Bicep
8 4 (0.58%) Go
9 3 (0.43%) JavaScript
9 3 (0.43%) Kotlin
9 3 (0.43%) RPG
10 2 (0.29%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.14%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.14%) C++
11 1 (0.14%) Lisp
11 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 180 (25.97%) Security Cleared
2 147 (21.21%) Degree
3 137 (19.77%) SC Cleared
4 128 (18.47%) CISSP
5 88 (12.70%) CISM
6 48 (6.93%) DV Cleared
7 37 (5.34%) CISA
8 31 (4.47%) Cisco Certification
8 31 (4.47%) CRISC
9 26 (3.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 23 (3.32%) Computer Science Degree
11 17 (2.45%) CEH
12 16 (2.31%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 14 (2.02%) AWS Certification
13 14 (2.02%) CREST Certified
13 14 (2.02%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
14 13 (1.88%) PMP
15 12 (1.73%) GIAC
15 12 (1.73%) Master's Degree
15 12 (1.73%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 214 (30.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 149 (21.50%) NIST
3 112 (16.16%) GDPR
4 91 (13.13%) GRC
5 53 (7.65%) PCI DSS
6 31 (4.47%) Cyber Essentials
7 27 (3.90%) NCSC
8 25 (3.61%) COBIT
9 22 (3.17%) Data Quality
9 22 (3.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (3.03%) PMO
11 20 (2.89%) QA
12 17 (2.45%) NIST 800
12 17 (2.45%) SOC 2
13 13 (1.88%) HIPAA
14 12 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 11 (1.59%) Accessibility
16 10 (1.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 10 (1.44%) SLA
17 8 (1.15%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 60 (8.66%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.30%) Docker
3 5 (0.72%) Hyper-V
3 5 (0.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.43%) Squid
4 3 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.14%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.14%) Ceph
6 1 (0.14%) Firmware
6 1 (0.14%) RACF
Systems Management
1 15 (2.16%) Terraform
2 13 (1.88%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (1.73%) Kubernetes
4 11 (1.59%) Ansible
5 10 (1.44%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (1.01%) Nmap
6 7 (1.01%) SCCM
7 5 (0.72%) Functional Safety
7 5 (0.72%) QRadar
8 3 (0.43%) Podman
9 2 (0.29%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 2 (0.29%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.29%) Red Hat Satellite
9 2 (0.29%) RSA Archer
9 2 (0.29%) WSUS
10 1 (0.14%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.14%) logstash
10 1 (0.14%) Nessus
10 1 (0.14%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 123 (17.75%) Microsoft
2 37 (5.34%) ServiceNow
3 32 (4.62%) Oracle
4 24 (3.46%) Google
5 22 (3.17%) CyberArk
6 18 (2.60%) BeyondTrust
7 16 (2.31%) Cisco
8 15 (2.16%) CrowdStrike
9 14 (2.02%) SAP
10 12 (1.73%) Ariba
11 11 (1.59%) Splunk
12 10 (1.44%) Apple
13 8 (1.15%) IBM
14 7 (1.01%) Remedy
15 6 (0.87%) Palo Alto
15 6 (0.87%) Qualys
15 6 (0.87%) VMware
16 5 (0.72%) Okta
17 4 (0.58%) Tenable
17 4 (0.58%) Zscaler