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

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 206 163 105
Rank change year-on-year -43 -58 -13
Contract jobs citing Information Security 778 582 853
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.42% 1.77% 2.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.68% 1.95% 2.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 417 314 535
10th Percentile £329 £316 £375
25th Percentile £425 £413 £490
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £533 £575
Median % change year-on-year +3.29% -7.39% -3.08%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £688
90th Percentile £820 £788 £792
UK excluding London median daily rate £461 £500 £600
% change year-on-year -7.75% -16.67% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 44 17
10th Percentile £14.67 £21.10 £12.75
25th Percentile £21.35 £22.14 £13.00
Median hourly rate £62.25 £33.50 £16.19
Median % change year-on-year +85.82% +106.92% -77.68%
75th Percentile £78.63 £65.00 £21.00
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% -78.54%

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 46,340 29,830 33,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.48% 90.53% 85.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,136 18,534 20,247
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 £625 £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 3,159 1,812 1,459
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.23 £14.96
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -1.91%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.22% -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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -31 701 £550 +3.77% 1,483
UK excluding London -20 412 £461 -7.75% 738
London -42 308 £600 +5.03% 810
Work from Home -53 189 £575 +24.32% 604
North of England -26 117 £465 +0.76% 203
South East -31 100 £455 -27.20% 221
Midlands -12 76 £450 +12.50% 104
North West -26 73 £490 +14.62% 112
West Midlands +3 64 £438 -10.26% 65
South West -29 54 £600 +17.07% 89
Scotland -3 35 £565 +32.94% 44
East of England -12 33 £525 +45.03% 50
Yorkshire -32 28 £525 +5.00% 62
North East -35 16 £425 -22.73% 31
East Midlands -29 12 £533 +33.13% 39
Wales -10 3 £815 +33.06% 13
Northern Ireland +2 1 £550 - 26

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 (4.63%) SharePoint
2 24 (3.08%) Confluence
3 9 (1.16%) IIS
4 8 (1.03%) 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 (2.83%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.16%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.26%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 20 (2.57%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.90%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.51%) Oracle Payroll
4 2 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
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
1 187 (24.04%) Azure
2 121 (15.55%) AWS
3 67 (8.61%) Entra ID
4 47 (6.04%) Microsoft 365
4 47 (6.04%) SaaS
5 42 (5.40%) GCP
6 31 (3.98%) Power Platform
7 29 (3.73%) GitHub
8 24 (3.08%) Azure DevOps
8 24 (3.08%) Azure Sentinel
8 24 (3.08%) Dynamics 365
8 24 (3.08%) Power Automate
8 24 (3.08%) Serverless
9 21 (2.70%) Microsoft Purview
10 16 (2.06%) Azure Functions
10 16 (2.06%) OCI
11 12 (1.54%) GitHub Actions
11 12 (1.54%) PaaS
12 10 (1.29%) IaaS
13 8 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 51 (6.56%) Network Security
2 43 (5.53%) Firewall
3 21 (2.70%) WAN
4 18 (2.31%) DNS
4 18 (2.31%) LAN
5 11 (1.41%) DHCP
5 11 (1.41%) TCP/IP
6 10 (1.29%) SSH
7 9 (1.16%) Internet
7 9 (1.16%) Wireless
8 8 (1.03%) NGFW
8 8 (1.03%) VPN
9 7 (0.90%) HTTP
9 7 (0.90%) HTTPS
10 5 (0.64%) SD-WAN
10 5 (0.64%) SMTP
10 5 (0.64%) SSL
10 5 (0.64%) Structured Cabling
11 4 (0.51%) Cisco IPT
11 4 (0.51%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (4.37%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.19%) Power BI
3 13 (1.67%) MongoDB
4 11 (1.41%) Metadata
5 4 (0.51%) Data Lake
5 4 (0.51%) NoSQL
5 4 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
6 3 (0.39%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.26%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.26%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.13%) Ataccama
8 1 (0.13%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.13%) Metadata Repository
8 1 (0.13%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database 10g
8 1 (0.13%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.13%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.13%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 28 (3.60%) JIRA
2 13 (1.67%) Git
3 12 (1.54%) Postman
4 11 (1.41%) Cypress.io
4 11 (1.41%) Selenium
4 11 (1.41%) WebDriver
5 8 (1.03%) 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
1 301 (38.69%) Social Skills
2 176 (22.62%) Finance
3 150 (19.28%) Public Sector
4 112 (14.40%) Analytical Skills
5 64 (8.23%) Legal
6 54 (6.94%) Banking
7 44 (5.66%) Documentation Skills
8 38 (4.88%) Influencing Skills
9 36 (4.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 31 (3.98%) Organisational Skills
11 29 (3.73%) Military
12 26 (3.34%) Local Government
12 26 (3.34%) Presentation Skills
13 17 (2.19%) Law
14 16 (2.06%) Aerospace
15 12 (1.54%) Billing
15 12 (1.54%) Manufacturing
16 11 (1.41%) Marketing
17 10 (1.29%) Retail
18 8 (1.03%) Police
Job Titles
1 114 (14.65%) Analyst
2 92 (11.83%) Senior
3 83 (10.67%) Architect
4 73 (9.38%) Lead
5 70 (9.00%) Consultant
6 59 (7.58%) Security Architect
7 47 (6.04%) Security Engineer
8 46 (5.91%) Security Consultant
9 43 (5.53%) Security Analyst
10 37 (4.76%) Security Manager
11 36 (4.63%) Developer
12 28 (3.60%) Project Manager
13 26 (3.34%) Security Officer
14 25 (3.21%) Information Security Officer
15 24 (3.08%) Information Manager
16 23 (2.96%) Information Officer
16 23 (2.96%) IT Manager
17 19 (2.44%) Cybersecurity Manager
17 19 (2.44%) Senior Manager
18 17 (2.19%) Chief Information Security Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (5.27%) Terraform
2 26 (3.34%) Oracle Fusion
2 26 (3.34%) SailPoint
3 20 (2.57%) OAuth
4 19 (2.44%) SAML
5 18 (2.31%) LDAP
5 18 (2.31%) XML
6 17 (2.19%) OpenID
7 15 (1.93%) Web Services
8 14 (1.80%) JSON
8 14 (1.80%) OAuth2
9 11 (1.41%) Gherkin
9 11 (1.41%) XSLT
10 9 (1.16%) REST
11 8 (1.03%) Play Framework
12 7 (0.90%) RESTful
13 5 (0.64%) .NET
14 4 (0.51%) Jakarta EE
14 4 (0.51%) JSP
15 3 (0.39%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 154 (19.79%) Management Information System
2 73 (9.38%) Onboarding
3 57 (7.33%) Security Posture
4 36 (4.63%) Cyber Threat
5 27 (3.47%) Operational Technology
6 24 (3.08%) Security Operations Centre
7 23 (2.96%) Data Centre
8 21 (2.70%) PKI
9 20 (2.57%) Cloud Native
10 16 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
10 16 (2.06%) Taxonomies
11 14 (1.80%) Cyber Defence
12 13 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
12 13 (1.67%) NHS
12 13 (1.67%) Product Ownership
12 13 (1.67%) Public Cloud
13 11 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
14 10 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
14 10 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
14 10 (1.29%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 83 (10.67%) Windows
2 49 (6.30%) Linux
3 39 (5.01%) Windows Server
4 22 (2.83%) Unix
5 10 (1.29%) Android
5 10 (1.29%) Mac OS
6 8 (1.03%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.77%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.64%) 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
1 276 (35.48%) Cybersecurity
2 224 (28.79%) Risk Management
3 206 (26.48%) Stakeholder Management
4 153 (19.67%) Data Protection
5 141 (18.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 117 (15.04%) Incident Response
7 115 (14.78%) Problem-Solving
8 107 (13.75%) Agile
9 103 (13.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 98 (12.60%) Vulnerability Management
11 97 (12.47%) Security Operations
12 91 (11.70%) Cloud Security
13 90 (11.57%) Roadmaps
14 85 (10.93%) Decision-Making
15 80 (10.28%) Security Architecture
16 79 (10.15%) AI
17 75 (9.64%) Computer Science
17 75 (9.64%) DevOps
18 73 (9.38%) ITIL
19 71 (9.13%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 80 (10.28%) Python
2 68 (8.74%) PowerShell
3 29 (3.73%) Bash
4 25 (3.21%) SQL
5 20 (2.57%) C#
6 18 (2.31%) JavaScript
7 10 (1.29%) PL/SQL
8 9 (1.16%) Scala
9 8 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
10 7 (0.90%) Bicep
10 7 (0.90%) Java
11 3 (0.39%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.39%) Go
11 3 (0.39%) Korn
12 2 (0.26%) Search Processing Language
13 1 (0.13%) R
13 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.13%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 173 (22.24%) Security Cleared
2 143 (18.38%) CISSP
3 138 (17.74%) Degree
4 128 (16.45%) SC Cleared
5 97 (12.47%) CISM
6 49 (6.30%) DV Cleared
7 40 (5.14%) CRISC
7 40 (5.14%) Microsoft Certification
8 34 (4.37%) Cisco Certification
9 33 (4.24%) CISA
10 29 (3.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 21 (2.70%) Azure Certification
11 21 (2.70%) Computer Science Degree
12 20 (2.57%) CCSP
13 17 (2.19%) AWS Certification
13 17 (2.19%) PMP
14 16 (2.06%) PMI Certification
15 14 (1.80%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
16 13 (1.67%) CEH
17 12 (1.54%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (25.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 133 (17.10%) NIST
3 128 (16.45%) GDPR
4 121 (15.55%) GRC
5 43 (5.53%) NCSC
6 40 (5.14%) Cyber Essentials
7 38 (4.88%) PCI DSS
8 35 (4.50%) Accessibility
8 35 (4.50%) Data Quality
9 23 (2.96%) QA
9 23 (2.96%) WCAG
10 22 (2.83%) NIST 800
11 20 (2.57%) SLA
12 18 (2.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 15 (1.93%) HIPAA
14 14 (1.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 14 (1.80%) SOC 2
15 12 (1.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 10 (1.29%) Government Security Classifications
17 9 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 76 (9.77%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.41%) Docker
3 8 (1.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.77%) Firmware
5 5 (0.64%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.51%) ISA Server
7 3 (0.39%) OpenAM
7 3 (0.39%) Squid
8 2 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.13%) Ceph
9 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 28 (3.60%) Kubernetes
2 19 (2.44%) Single Sign-On
3 18 (2.31%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (1.67%) Ansible
5 8 (1.03%) Grafana
6 6 (0.77%) CASB
6 6 (0.77%) SCCM
7 5 (0.64%) QRadar
8 4 (0.51%) Podman
9 3 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.26%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 2 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
10 2 (0.26%) RSA Archer
11 1 (0.13%) Control-M
11 1 (0.13%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.13%) Istio
11 1 (0.13%) WSUS
Vendors
1 199 (25.58%) Microsoft
2 48 (6.17%) Oracle
3 41 (5.27%) ServiceNow
4 36 (4.63%) Splunk
5 34 (4.37%) Google
6 23 (2.96%) Cisco
7 22 (2.83%) CyberArk
8 21 (2.70%) SAP
9 19 (2.44%) BeyondTrust
9 19 (2.44%) Palo Alto
10 17 (2.19%) CrowdStrike
11 15 (1.93%) Apple
12 14 (1.80%) VMware
13 12 (1.54%) Ariba
13 12 (1.54%) Zscaler
14 11 (1.41%) Qualys
15 9 (1.16%) Remedy
16 8 (1.03%) Atlassian
17 7 (0.90%) Okta
17 7 (0.90%) Thales