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 2 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 159 119 98
Rank change year-on-year -40 -21 +36
Contract jobs citing Information Security 630 743 1,098
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.75% 2.08% 2.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 2.39% 2.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 319 447 778
10th Percentile £348 £400 £400
25th Percentile £425 £480 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.96% - -1.71%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £688
90th Percentile £775 £797 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -17.39% +4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 24 57
10th Percentile £18.82 £15.26 £15.96
25th Percentile £20.71 £15.98 £42.25
Median hourly rate £33.50 £22.09 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +51.65% -55.82% -23.08%
75th Percentile £45.00 £35.44 £83.40
90th Percentile £79.97 £44.63 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.12 £21.14 £50.00
% change year-on-year +56.66% -57.72% -26.20%

All Process and 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 32,041 31,135 40,262
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.06% 87.25% 88.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,133 18,828 26,941
10th Percentile £300 £310 £310
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £744 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,077 1,103 1,555
10th Percentile £14.58 £15.22 £14.38
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.22 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £33.00 £43.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.79% -24.14% +24.29%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.85 £32.50 £43.83
% change year-on-year -29.69% -25.84% +37.15%

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025. 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 -37 564 £538 -10.42% 429
UK excluding London -58 297 £475 -17.39% 402
London -17 265 £576 -4.00% 147
Work from Home -20 185 £525 -4.55% 291
South East -35 80 £588 +5.86% 156
North of England -46 79 £475 -13.64% 81
North West -29 47 £448 -22.84% 46
Midlands -35 47 £400 -27.27% 49
South West -15 44 £425 -37.07% 45
Yorkshire -26 29 £475 -13.64% 29
East of England +2 28 £520 -13.33% 43
East Midlands +1 24 £400 -23.81% 16
West Midlands -48 23 £413 -36.54% 32
Scotland -13 18 £425 -8.11% 29
Wales 0 5 £388 -44.64% 8
North East -6 3 £550 -32.52% 6

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 36 (5.71%) SharePoint
2 19 (3.02%) Confluence
3 18 (2.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.11%) Mattermost
4 7 (1.11%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.95%) IIS
6 3 (0.48%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 2 (0.32%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.16%) Apache
8 1 (0.16%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.16%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.16%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 51 (8.10%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (3.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.79%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.48%) Navisworks
6 3 (0.48%) Revit
7 2 (0.32%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.16%) GNU Octave
Business Applications
1 15 (2.38%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (0.95%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.32%) assyst
3 2 (0.32%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.16%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 123 (19.52%) Azure
2 78 (12.38%) AWS
3 43 (6.83%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (5.71%) Entra ID
5 29 (4.60%) GCP
6 25 (3.97%) Power Platform
7 19 (3.02%) Azure Sentinel
8 15 (2.38%) SaaS
9 12 (1.90%) Microsoft Purview
10 8 (1.27%) OneDrive
11 7 (1.11%) OCI
12 6 (0.95%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (0.95%) Cloud Computing
12 6 (0.95%) OpenShift
13 5 (0.79%) Azure DevOps
14 3 (0.48%) Amazon EC2
14 3 (0.48%) Amazon S3
14 3 (0.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 3 (0.48%) PaaS
14 3 (0.48%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 72 (11.43%) Firewall
2 40 (6.35%) Network Security
3 28 (4.44%) DNS
4 19 (3.02%) HTTP
5 17 (2.70%) SSH
6 16 (2.54%) TCP/IP
7 13 (2.06%) WAN
8 12 (1.90%) DHCP
8 12 (1.90%) SMTP
8 12 (1.90%) SSL
9 11 (1.75%) VPN
10 10 (1.59%) FTP
10 10 (1.59%) Intrusion Detection
11 9 (1.43%) Internet
11 9 (1.43%) Wi-Fi
12 8 (1.27%) Wireless
13 7 (1.11%) Skype
14 6 (0.95%) LAN
15 4 (0.63%) NGFW
15 4 (0.63%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (3.17%) Power BI
2 7 (1.11%) GIS
3 6 (0.95%) Tableau
4 4 (0.63%) Big Data
4 4 (0.63%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (0.63%) NoSQL
4 4 (0.63%) Redis
5 3 (0.48%) Data Lake
5 3 (0.48%) Metadata
5 3 (0.48%) SQL Server
6 2 (0.32%) Amazon Aurora
6 2 (0.32%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.32%) BigQuery
6 2 (0.32%) EDRMS
6 2 (0.32%) Power Query
6 2 (0.32%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.16%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.16%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.16%) NewSQL
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 31 (4.92%) JIRA
2 12 (1.90%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.27%) Artifactory
4 6 (0.95%) Burp Suite
5 5 (0.79%) Git
6 4 (0.63%) Metasploit
7 2 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.32%) Snyk
7 2 (0.32%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.16%) Balsamiq
8 1 (0.16%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.16%) GCC
8 1 (0.16%) Log4j
8 1 (0.16%) MSI
General
1 257 (40.79%) Social Skills
2 159 (25.24%) Finance
3 78 (12.38%) Public Sector
4 77 (12.22%) Analytical Skills
5 44 (6.98%) Legal
6 42 (6.67%) Banking
7 27 (4.29%) Organisational Skills
8 18 (2.86%) Manufacturing
9 17 (2.70%) Military
10 15 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
11 13 (2.06%) Police
11 13 (2.06%) Telecoms
12 12 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 12 (1.90%) Influencing Skills
13 10 (1.59%) Documentation Skills
13 10 (1.59%) Law
13 10 (1.59%) Retail
14 8 (1.27%) Local Government
15 6 (0.95%) Investment Banking
15 6 (0.95%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 163 (25.87%) Analyst
2 62 (9.84%) Consultant
3 56 (8.89%) Security Analyst
4 48 (7.62%) Senior
5 47 (7.46%) Architect
6 42 (6.67%) Support Analyst
7 38 (6.03%) Lead
7 38 (6.03%) Security Manager
8 36 (5.71%) Security Engineer
9 34 (5.40%) Security Architect
10 29 (4.60%) Security Consultant
11 25 (3.97%) Information Analyst
11 25 (3.97%) Information Security Analyst
12 19 (3.02%) Security Specialist
12 19 (3.02%) SOC Analyst
13 17 (2.70%) Developer
14 16 (2.54%) Coordinator
14 16 (2.54%) Information Security Manager
14 16 (2.54%) IT Support
15 15 (2.38%) Cybersecurity Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.22%) LDAP
1 14 (2.22%) OAuth
1 14 (2.22%) SailPoint
2 9 (1.43%) OAuth2
3 8 (1.27%) Middleware
3 8 (1.27%) REST
3 8 (1.27%) SAML
4 7 (1.11%) OpenID
4 7 (1.11%) Oracle Fusion
5 6 (0.95%) Qt
6 5 (0.79%) Kafka
6 5 (0.79%) PyTorch
6 5 (0.79%) TensorFlow
7 4 (0.63%) FastAPI
7 4 (0.63%) Hugging Face
7 4 (0.63%) LangChain
7 4 (0.63%) LangGraph
7 4 (0.63%) Loki
7 4 (0.63%) OpenTelemetry
7 4 (0.63%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 129 (20.48%) Management Information System
2 79 (12.54%) Security Posture
3 29 (4.60%) Cyber Threat
4 27 (4.29%) PKI
5 21 (3.33%) Security Operations Centre
6 19 (3.02%) Onboarding
7 15 (2.38%) Data Centre
8 14 (2.22%) Analytical Mindset
8 14 (2.22%) Cloud Native
9 13 (2.06%) CSOC
9 13 (2.06%) Operational Technology
9 13 (2.06%) Tandem
10 12 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
11 11 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
11 11 (1.75%) Product Ownership
12 10 (1.59%) Cyberattack
12 10 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
13 9 (1.43%) Cyber Defence
13 9 (1.43%) Greenfield Project
14 7 (1.11%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 73 (11.59%) Windows
2 45 (7.14%) Linux
3 16 (2.54%) Unix
4 12 (1.90%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.95%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.48%) Kali Linux
6 3 (0.48%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 230 (36.51%) Cybersecurity
2 151 (23.97%) Risk Management
3 121 (19.21%) Problem-Solving
4 107 (16.98%) Stakeholder Management
5 99 (15.71%) Incident Response
6 93 (14.76%) Data Protection
7 85 (13.49%) ITIL
8 82 (13.02%) Cloud Security
9 72 (11.43%) Continuous Improvement
9 72 (11.43%) Security Operations
10 70 (11.11%) Agile
11 62 (9.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 61 (9.68%) Security Management
13 57 (9.05%) Computer Science
13 57 (9.05%) SIEM
14 50 (7.94%) Threat Modelling
15 47 (7.46%) Information Security Management
16 46 (7.30%) Decision-Making
16 46 (7.30%) Project Management
17 44 (6.98%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 52 (8.25%) Python
2 47 (7.46%) PowerShell
3 37 (5.87%) SQL
4 14 (2.22%) Java
5 8 (1.27%) Bash
6 6 (0.95%) C#
6 6 (0.95%) C++
7 5 (0.79%) Perl
8 4 (0.63%) Kotlin
9 3 (0.48%) R
10 2 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 2 (0.32%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.32%) PHP
10 2 (0.32%) Rust
10 2 (0.32%) Solidity
10 2 (0.32%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.16%) ANSI SQL
11 1 (0.16%) Korn
11 1 (0.16%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 144 (22.86%) Security Cleared
2 117 (18.57%) CISSP
3 115 (18.25%) Degree
4 107 (16.98%) SC Cleared
5 81 (12.86%) CISM
6 43 (6.83%) Computer Science Degree
7 38 (6.03%) CISA
8 34 (5.40%) DV Cleared
9 25 (3.97%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
9 25 (3.97%) Master's Degree
10 24 (3.81%) Cisco Certification
11 21 (3.33%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 20 (3.17%) ITIL Certification
13 18 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
14 16 (2.54%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 16 (2.54%) Azure Certification
15 15 (2.38%) CEH
16 14 (2.22%) CRISC
17 12 (1.90%) CCSP
18 10 (1.59%) ISACA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (28.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 161 (25.56%) NIST
3 106 (16.83%) GDPR
4 57 (9.05%) GRC
5 33 (5.24%) COBIT
5 33 (5.24%) PCI DSS
6 31 (4.92%) Cyber Essentials
7 21 (3.33%) NCSC
8 20 (3.17%) NIST 800
9 16 (2.54%) Accessibility
10 15 (2.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 15 (2.38%) SLA
11 14 (2.22%) Def Stans
11 14 (2.22%) PMO
11 14 (2.22%) QA
12 12 (1.90%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 11 (1.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (1.43%) JSP 440
15 8 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 7 (1.11%) PSD2
System Software
1 52 (8.25%) Active Directory
2 14 (2.22%) Virtual Machines
3 11 (1.75%) Docker
4 4 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.16%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
5 1 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.16%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 22 (3.49%) Microsoft Intune
2 20 (3.17%) Kubernetes
3 18 (2.86%) QRadar
4 16 (2.54%) SCCM
5 15 (2.38%) HP SiteScope
5 15 (2.38%) SCOM
6 13 (2.06%) Ansible
7 12 (1.90%) Terraform
8 7 (1.11%) CASB
8 7 (1.11%) Grafana
8 7 (1.11%) Prometheus
8 7 (1.11%) SCOrch
9 6 (0.95%) RSA Archer
10 5 (0.79%) Nmap
11 4 (0.63%) CSIRT
11 4 (0.63%) Kustomize
11 4 (0.63%) WSUS
12 2 (0.32%) EnCase
12 2 (0.32%) FTK
12 2 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 142 (22.54%) Microsoft
2 35 (5.56%) Splunk
3 26 (4.13%) ServiceNow
4 25 (3.97%) Cisco
5 16 (2.54%) Remedy
6 15 (2.38%) CyberArk
6 15 (2.38%) IBM
7 12 (1.90%) CrowdStrike
8 11 (1.75%) Fortinet
8 11 (1.75%) Oracle
8 11 (1.75%) Palo Alto
8 11 (1.75%) Rapid7
9 10 (1.59%) Salesforce
10 9 (1.43%) Qualys
10 9 (1.43%) SAP
10 9 (1.43%) Thales
11 8 (1.27%) Darktrace
11 8 (1.27%) Databricks
11 8 (1.27%) Gemalto
11 8 (1.27%) Google