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 25 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 205 173 103
Rank change year-on-year -32 -70 -13
Contract jobs citing Information Security 772 580 853
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.41% 1.76% 2.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.67% 1.94% 2.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 412 319 528
10th Percentile £314 £323 £375
25th Percentile £425 £413 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -8.70% -3.08%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £688
90th Percentile £805 £788 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £461 £475 £600
% change year-on-year -2.89% -20.83% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 42 17
10th Percentile £14.45 £20.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £21.35 £22.14 £15.22
Median hourly rate £62.25 £33.50 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year +85.82% +97.06% -76.52%
75th Percentile £79.00 £65.00 £24.18
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £46.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.25 £33.50 £15.73
% change year-on-year +85.82% +112.97% -78.41%

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 46,295 29,870 32,935
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.37% 90.52% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,040 18,573 20,019
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,185 1,844 1,407
10th Percentile £13.72 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.91% -47.67% +1.18%

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 25 September 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 25 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Information Security in the UK

Information Security
Top 17 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 25 September 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 -45 698 £550 +4.76% 1,638
UK excluding London -17 411 £461 -2.89% 895
London -54 304 £600 +7.38% 837
Work from Home -46 187 £565 +25.56% 715
North of England -13 120 £461 -0.05% 264
South East -44 100 £493 -21.20% 254
Midlands -11 76 £450 +12.50% 134
North West -26 72 £482 +12.75% 151
West Midlands +14 64 £450 -5.26% 83
South West -31 52 £600 +20.00% 99
Scotland -13 34 £565 +32.94% 53
Yorkshire -26 33 £469 -6.25% 71
East of England -20 32 £515 +106.83% 48
North East -30 15 £425 -22.73% 43
East Midlands -29 12 £533 +33.13% 51
Wales -12 3 £815 +33.06% 15
Northern Ireland +3 1 £550 - 36

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 37 (4.79%) SharePoint
2 23 (2.98%) Confluence
3 10 (1.30%) IIS
4 8 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.26%) Apache
5 2 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.26%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 22 (2.85%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.17%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.26%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 20 (2.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.91%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.52%) Oracle Payroll
4 2 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.13%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.13%) SAP MDG
5 1 (0.13%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 185 (23.96%) Azure
2 120 (15.54%) AWS
3 68 (8.81%) Entra ID
4 46 (5.96%) Microsoft 365
4 46 (5.96%) SaaS
5 45 (5.83%) GCP
6 31 (4.02%) Power Platform
7 29 (3.76%) GitHub
8 25 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
9 24 (3.11%) Dynamics 365
9 24 (3.11%) Power Automate
9 24 (3.11%) Serverless
10 21 (2.72%) Microsoft Purview
11 20 (2.59%) Azure Sentinel
12 16 (2.07%) Azure Functions
13 15 (1.94%) OCI
14 12 (1.55%) GitHub Actions
14 12 (1.55%) PaaS
15 10 (1.30%) IaaS
16 8 (1.04%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 52 (6.74%) Network Security
2 43 (5.57%) Firewall
3 20 (2.59%) WAN
4 17 (2.20%) LAN
5 16 (2.07%) DNS
6 10 (1.30%) DHCP
7 9 (1.17%) Internet
7 9 (1.17%) SSH
7 9 (1.17%) TCP/IP
7 9 (1.17%) Wireless
8 8 (1.04%) NGFW
9 7 (0.91%) HTTP
9 7 (0.91%) VPN
10 6 (0.78%) HTTPS
11 5 (0.65%) SD-WAN
11 5 (0.65%) SMTP
11 5 (0.65%) Structured Cabling
12 4 (0.52%) Cisco IPT
12 4 (0.52%) Intrusion Detection
12 4 (0.52%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (4.40%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.20%) Power BI
3 12 (1.55%) Metadata
3 12 (1.55%) MongoDB
4 5 (0.65%) Relational Database
5 4 (0.52%) Data Lake
5 4 (0.52%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
6 3 (0.39%) RDBMS
7 2 (0.26%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.26%) Metadata Repository
7 2 (0.26%) Star Schema
8 1 (0.13%) Ataccama
8 1 (0.13%) Chroma
8 1 (0.13%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.13%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.13%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.13%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 27 (3.50%) JIRA
2 13 (1.68%) Git
3 12 (1.55%) Postman
4 11 (1.42%) Cypress.io
4 11 (1.42%) Selenium
4 11 (1.42%) WebDriver
5 8 (1.04%) Cucumber
6 3 (0.39%) Protractor
6 3 (0.39%) ScalaTest
7 2 (0.26%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.26%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.26%) Claude Code
7 2 (0.26%) git-flow
7 2 (0.26%) GitLab
7 2 (0.26%) JMeter
8 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.13%) Jenkins
8 1 (0.13%) LSMW
8 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 305 (39.51%) Social Skills
2 173 (22.41%) Finance
3 148 (19.17%) Public Sector
4 116 (15.03%) Analytical Skills
5 64 (8.29%) Legal
6 52 (6.74%) Banking
7 44 (5.70%) Documentation Skills
8 39 (5.05%) Influencing Skills
9 36 (4.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 31 (4.02%) Organisational Skills
11 29 (3.76%) Military
12 27 (3.50%) Presentation Skills
13 25 (3.24%) Local Government
14 19 (2.46%) Law
15 16 (2.07%) Aerospace
16 12 (1.55%) Billing
16 12 (1.55%) Manufacturing
17 11 (1.42%) Marketing
18 10 (1.30%) Retail
19 8 (1.04%) Police
Job Titles
1 109 (14.12%) Analyst
2 94 (12.18%) Senior
3 82 (10.62%) Architect
4 73 (9.46%) Lead
5 68 (8.81%) Consultant
6 58 (7.51%) Security Architect
7 49 (6.35%) Security Engineer
8 45 (5.83%) Security Consultant
9 41 (5.31%) Security Analyst
10 38 (4.92%) Developer
10 38 (4.92%) Security Manager
11 28 (3.63%) Project Manager
12 26 (3.37%) Security Officer
13 25 (3.24%) Information Manager
13 25 (3.24%) Information Security Officer
14 23 (2.98%) Information Officer
14 23 (2.98%) IT Manager
15 19 (2.46%) Cybersecurity Analyst
15 19 (2.46%) Senior Manager
16 18 (2.33%) Cybersecurity Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (5.70%) Terraform
2 26 (3.37%) SailPoint
3 25 (3.24%) Oracle Fusion
4 22 (2.85%) OAuth
5 21 (2.72%) SAML
6 19 (2.46%) OpenID
7 18 (2.33%) LDAP
7 18 (2.33%) XML
8 16 (2.07%) OAuth2
9 15 (1.94%) Web Services
10 14 (1.81%) JSON
11 11 (1.42%) Gherkin
11 11 (1.42%) XSLT
12 10 (1.30%) REST
13 9 (1.17%) RESTful
14 8 (1.04%) Play Framework
15 5 (0.65%) .NET
15 5 (0.65%) Middleware
15 5 (0.65%) Node.js
16 4 (0.52%) React
Miscellaneous
1 155 (20.08%) Management Information System
2 73 (9.46%) Onboarding
3 55 (7.12%) Security Posture
4 36 (4.66%) Cyber Threat
5 28 (3.63%) Operational Technology
6 25 (3.24%) Data Centre
7 24 (3.11%) Cloud Native
8 23 (2.98%) Security Operations Centre
9 21 (2.72%) PKI
10 17 (2.20%) Taxonomies
11 16 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
12 15 (1.94%) Cyber Defence
13 14 (1.81%) Public Cloud
14 13 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
14 13 (1.68%) NHS
14 13 (1.68%) Product Ownership
15 12 (1.55%) Distributed Systems
16 11 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
17 10 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
17 10 (1.30%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 81 (10.49%) Windows
2 48 (6.22%) Linux
3 38 (4.92%) Windows Server
4 22 (2.85%) Unix
5 10 (1.30%) Android
5 10 (1.30%) Mac OS
6 8 (1.04%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.78%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.65%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.26%) Alpine Linux
11 1 (0.13%) CentOS
11 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 278 (36.01%) Cybersecurity
2 223 (28.89%) Risk Management
3 207 (26.81%) Stakeholder Management
4 158 (20.47%) Data Protection
5 142 (18.39%) Continuous Improvement
6 118 (15.28%) Problem-Solving
7 115 (14.90%) Incident Response
8 110 (14.25%) Agile
9 99 (12.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 99 (12.82%) Vulnerability Management
10 96 (12.44%) Security Operations
11 91 (11.79%) Roadmaps
12 90 (11.66%) Cloud Security
13 84 (10.88%) Decision-Making
14 80 (10.36%) AI
15 78 (10.10%) Security Architecture
16 77 (9.97%) DevOps
17 76 (9.84%) Computer Science
18 71 (9.20%) ITIL
19 70 (9.07%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 83 (10.75%) Python
2 68 (8.81%) PowerShell
3 28 (3.63%) Bash
4 25 (3.24%) SQL
5 20 (2.59%) C#
6 18 (2.33%) JavaScript
7 10 (1.30%) PL/SQL
8 9 (1.17%) Scala
9 7 (0.91%) Bicep
10 5 (0.65%) Go
10 5 (0.65%) Java
11 4 (0.52%) Korn
11 4 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.39%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.26%) Search Processing Language
13 2 (0.26%) TypeScript
14 1 (0.13%) R
14 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 175 (22.67%) Security Cleared
2 147 (19.04%) CISSP
3 139 (18.01%) Degree
4 132 (17.10%) SC Cleared
5 100 (12.95%) CISM
6 47 (6.09%) DV Cleared
7 42 (5.44%) CRISC
8 40 (5.18%) Microsoft Certification
9 36 (4.66%) Cisco Certification
10 32 (4.15%) CISA
11 31 (4.02%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 23 (2.98%) Computer Science Degree
13 22 (2.85%) CCSP
14 19 (2.46%) Azure Certification
15 16 (2.07%) AWS Certification
15 16 (2.07%) PMP
16 15 (1.94%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
16 15 (1.94%) PMI Certification
17 12 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
17 12 (1.55%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 205 (26.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 135 (17.49%) NIST
3 127 (16.45%) GDPR
4 122 (15.80%) GRC
5 42 (5.44%) NCSC
6 41 (5.31%) Cyber Essentials
7 40 (5.18%) PCI DSS
8 35 (4.53%) Accessibility
9 34 (4.40%) Data Quality
10 25 (3.24%) QA
11 23 (2.98%) WCAG
12 21 (2.72%) NIST 800
13 19 (2.46%) SLA
14 18 (2.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 17 (2.20%) HIPAA
16 16 (2.07%) SOC 2
17 14 (1.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 12 (1.55%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 11 (1.42%) ISO 22301
20 10 (1.30%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 75 (9.72%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.42%) Docker
3 7 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.78%) Firmware
5 4 (0.52%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.52%) ISA Server
6 3 (0.39%) OpenAM
7 2 (0.26%) Squid
7 2 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 32 (4.15%) Kubernetes
2 19 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
3 17 (2.20%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (1.68%) Ansible
5 8 (1.04%) Grafana
6 6 (0.78%) CASB
7 4 (0.52%) Podman
7 4 (0.52%) SCCM
8 3 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.39%) QRadar
9 2 (0.26%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 2 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.26%) RSA Archer
10 1 (0.13%) Control-M
10 1 (0.13%) Host Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.13%) Istio
Vendors
1 195 (25.26%) Microsoft
2 47 (6.09%) Oracle
3 44 (5.70%) ServiceNow
4 37 (4.79%) Google
5 35 (4.53%) Splunk
6 22 (2.85%) Cisco
6 22 (2.85%) CyberArk
7 21 (2.72%) SAP
8 19 (2.46%) BeyondTrust
8 19 (2.46%) Palo Alto
9 17 (2.20%) CrowdStrike
10 15 (1.94%) Apple
11 13 (1.68%) VMware
12 12 (1.55%) Ariba
12 12 (1.55%) Zscaler
13 10 (1.30%) Qualys
14 9 (1.17%) Okta
14 9 (1.17%) Remedy
15 8 (1.04%) Atlassian
15 8 (1.04%) Databricks