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 17 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 191 174 113
Rank change year-on-year -17 -61 -12
Contract jobs citing Information Security 746 505 850
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.42% 1.55% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.66% 1.72% 2.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 421 280 515
10th Percentile £351 £334 £385
25th Percentile £450 £413 £489
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £528 £582
Median % change year-on-year +4.27% -9.36% -3.00%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £690
90th Percentile £818 £839 £802
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £521 £600
% change year-on-year +0.77% -13.17% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 37 25
10th Percentile £16.35 - £12.75
25th Percentile £18.25 £22.14 £15.73
Median hourly rate £52.50 £24.66 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +112.90% +26.46% -74.26%
75th Percentile £77.50 £75.00 £21.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £85.00 £24.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £29.51 £18.00
% change year-on-year +77.91% +63.94% -77.47%

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 44,805 29,397 36,049
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.08% 90.38% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,846 18,489 23,062
10th Percentile £325 £300 £303
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,636 1,550 2,325
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.34 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.65 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.75 £70.00 £73.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.33 £38.12
% change year-on-year +84.96% -36.18% -4.70%

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 17 July 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 17 July 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 17 July 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 -5 680 £550 +4.76% 357
UK excluding London +3 388 £525 +0.77% 253
London -10 315 £600 +14.29% 143
Work from Home -35 191 £570 +14.00% 140
South East -12 124 £525 -16.00% 92
North of England -42 91 £490 +15.29% 61
North West -15 63 £483 +13.53% 40
Midlands -25 59 £516 +29.06% 45
South West -20 48 £500 -14.53% 29
West Midlands -25 44 £477 -2.10% 26
Scotland +2 33 £387 -13.15% 10
East of England -12 32 £530 +5.47% 20
Yorkshire -44 24 £540 +30.91% 15
East Midlands -16 15 £557 +39.19% 19
North East -37 4 £450 -15.73% 6
Wales -11 3 £645 +55.42% 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 34 (4.56%) Confluence
2 27 (3.62%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.07%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.67%) IIS
5 4 (0.54%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.40%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 26 (3.49%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.47%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.80%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.27%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.13%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.13%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.13%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 6 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
1 6 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (0.67%) Oracle EBS
3 4 (0.54%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.13%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 160 (21.45%) Azure
2 108 (14.48%) AWS
3 60 (8.04%) Entra ID
4 43 (5.76%) SaaS
5 39 (5.23%) Microsoft 365
6 33 (4.42%) GCP
7 23 (3.08%) GitHub
7 23 (3.08%) Microsoft Purview
8 20 (2.68%) Azure Sentinel
8 20 (2.68%) Power Platform
9 18 (2.41%) OCI
10 13 (1.74%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (1.34%) Power Automate
11 10 (1.34%) Serverless
12 9 (1.21%) Cloud Computing
12 9 (1.21%) IaaS
12 9 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
12 9 (1.21%) PaaS
13 8 (1.07%) Azure Key Vault
14 7 (0.94%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 41 (5.50%) Firewall
2 40 (5.36%) Network Security
3 12 (1.61%) SSH
3 12 (1.61%) VPN
3 12 (1.61%) Wireless
4 10 (1.34%) DNS
4 10 (1.34%) WAN
5 9 (1.21%) HTTP
5 9 (1.21%) LAN
5 9 (1.21%) NGFW
5 9 (1.21%) TCP/IP
6 7 (0.94%) DHCP
6 7 (0.94%) HTTPS
7 6 (0.80%) Internet
8 5 (0.67%) Structured Cabling
9 4 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (0.40%) BGP
10 3 (0.40%) Cisco IPT
11 2 (0.27%) Cisco ASA
11 2 (0.27%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (2.95%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.28%) Power BI
3 10 (1.34%) Metadata
4 6 (0.80%) Data Lake
4 6 (0.80%) NoSQL
4 6 (0.80%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.54%) Big Data
5 4 (0.54%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.40%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.40%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.27%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.27%) MySQL
7 2 (0.27%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 1 (0.13%) Elasticsearch
8 1 (0.13%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.13%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.13%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.13%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 35 (4.69%) JIRA
2 7 (0.94%) Git
3 6 (0.80%) Cypress.io
3 6 (0.80%) Postman
3 6 (0.80%) Selenium
3 6 (0.80%) WebDriver
4 4 (0.54%) Burp Suite
5 3 (0.40%) Cucumber
5 3 (0.40%) git-flow
5 3 (0.40%) Metasploit
5 3 (0.40%) Protractor
6 2 (0.27%) JMeter
7 1 (0.13%) AppScan
7 1 (0.13%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.13%) GitLab
7 1 (0.13%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.13%) LSMW
7 1 (0.13%) ScriptRunner
7 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 246 (32.98%) Social Skills
2 168 (22.52%) Finance
3 128 (17.16%) Public Sector
4 77 (10.32%) Analytical Skills
5 63 (8.45%) Banking
6 58 (7.77%) Legal
7 44 (5.90%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (3.49%) Organisational Skills
9 21 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
10 20 (2.68%) Local Government
11 14 (1.88%) Retail
12 13 (1.74%) Billing
12 13 (1.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 13 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
13 12 (1.61%) Military
14 11 (1.47%) Marketing
15 10 (1.34%) Aerospace
16 9 (1.21%) Law
16 9 (1.21%) Telecoms
17 7 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 98 (13.14%) Analyst
2 78 (10.46%) Consultant
3 77 (10.32%) Senior
4 63 (8.45%) Architect
5 60 (8.04%) Lead
6 58 (7.77%) Security Consultant
7 51 (6.84%) Security Engineer
8 42 (5.63%) Security Architect
9 41 (5.50%) Security Analyst
10 33 (4.42%) Security Manager
11 27 (3.62%) Project Manager
12 25 (3.35%) IT Manager
13 21 (2.82%) Developer
13 21 (2.82%) Security Officer
13 21 (2.82%) Senior Manager
14 17 (2.28%) Cybersecurity Manager
14 17 (2.28%) Information Officer
15 16 (2.14%) Business Analyst
15 16 (2.14%) Cybersecurity Consultant
15 16 (2.14%) Information Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.62%) Oracle Fusion
2 23 (3.08%) OAuth
2 23 (3.08%) SailPoint
3 17 (2.28%) SAML
4 16 (2.14%) OAuth2
4 16 (2.14%) OpenID
5 15 (2.01%) LDAP
6 13 (1.74%) Web Services
7 10 (1.34%) XML
8 9 (1.21%) REST
9 6 (0.80%) .NET
9 6 (0.80%) Gherkin
9 6 (0.80%) JSON
10 4 (0.54%) ASP.NET
10 4 (0.54%) J2EE
10 4 (0.54%) JSP
10 4 (0.54%) Kafka
10 4 (0.54%) Middleware
10 4 (0.54%) Node.js
10 4 (0.54%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 123 (16.49%) Management Information System
2 85 (11.39%) Onboarding
3 60 (8.04%) Security Posture
4 39 (5.23%) Operational Technology
5 20 (2.68%) Cyber Threat
6 19 (2.55%) Cloud Native
6 19 (2.55%) Security Operations Centre
7 18 (2.41%) Data Centre
7 18 (2.41%) Data Protection Act
8 16 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
8 16 (2.14%) Virtual Team
9 15 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
10 14 (1.88%) PKI
11 13 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
11 13 (1.74%) SCADA
12 12 (1.61%) Product Ownership
13 11 (1.47%) BYOD
14 9 (1.21%) Driving Licence
14 9 (1.21%) Public Cloud
15 8 (1.07%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 81 (10.86%) Windows
2 45 (6.03%) Linux
3 35 (4.69%) Windows Server
4 23 (3.08%) Unix
5 10 (1.34%) Android
6 9 (1.21%) Apple iOS
7 8 (1.07%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.67%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.54%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.27%) Alpine Linux
10 2 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.13%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 260 (34.85%) Cybersecurity
2 201 (26.94%) Risk Management
3 136 (18.23%) Stakeholder Management
4 123 (16.49%) Data Protection
5 121 (16.22%) Continuous Improvement
6 109 (14.61%) Problem-Solving
7 89 (11.93%) Security Operations
8 87 (11.66%) Roadmaps
9 86 (11.53%) Agile
10 84 (11.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 83 (11.13%) Incident Response
12 80 (10.72%) Cloud Security
13 75 (10.05%) Change Management
14 69 (9.25%) Decision-Making
15 65 (8.71%) Computer Science
16 63 (8.45%) DevOps
16 63 (8.45%) SIEM
16 63 (8.45%) Vulnerability Management
17 62 (8.31%) Security Management
18 61 (8.18%) AI
Programming Languages
1 82 (10.99%) Python
2 69 (9.25%) PowerShell
3 26 (3.49%) Bash
4 23 (3.08%) SQL
5 16 (2.14%) Java
6 9 (1.21%) C#
7 7 (0.94%) Bicep
8 6 (0.80%) JavaScript
9 5 (0.67%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.54%) Apex Code
10 4 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.40%) Go
11 3 (0.40%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.27%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.13%) BeanShell
13 1 (0.13%) C++
13 1 (0.13%) Lisp
13 1 (0.13%) Scala
13 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 156 (20.91%) Security Cleared
2 145 (19.44%) Degree
3 130 (17.43%) CISSP
4 125 (16.76%) SC Cleared
5 86 (11.53%) CISM
6 35 (4.69%) DV Cleared
7 32 (4.29%) CISA
8 31 (4.16%) Cisco Certification
9 27 (3.62%) CRISC
10 26 (3.49%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 19 (2.55%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 19 (2.55%) Microsoft Certification
12 18 (2.41%) CEH
12 18 (2.41%) Computer Science Degree
13 16 (2.14%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
14 15 (2.01%) PMP
15 14 (1.88%) AWS Certification
15 14 (1.88%) Master's Degree
15 14 (1.88%) PMI Certification
16 11 (1.47%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 221 (29.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 152 (20.38%) NIST
3 127 (17.02%) GDPR
4 101 (13.54%) GRC
5 50 (6.70%) PCI DSS
6 35 (4.69%) Cyber Essentials
7 32 (4.29%) NCSC
8 25 (3.35%) Data Quality
9 23 (3.08%) QA
10 20 (2.68%) COBIT
11 19 (2.55%) Accessibility
11 19 (2.55%) NIST 800
11 19 (2.55%) SOC 2
12 18 (2.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 14 (1.88%) HIPAA
13 14 (1.88%) SLA
14 13 (1.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 13 (1.74%) PMO
15 11 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 8 (1.07%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 76 (10.19%) Active Directory
2 8 (1.07%) Docker
3 6 (0.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.67%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.40%) OpenAM
5 3 (0.40%) Squid
6 2 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.13%) Ceph
7 1 (0.13%) Firmware
7 1 (0.13%) RACF
Systems Management
1 20 (2.68%) Terraform
2 17 (2.28%) Microsoft Intune
3 14 (1.88%) Kubernetes
3 14 (1.88%) Single Sign-On
4 12 (1.61%) Ansible
5 7 (0.94%) SCCM
6 4 (0.54%) QRadar
7 3 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.40%) Podman
7 3 (0.40%) RSA Archer
8 2 (0.27%) Computer Incident Response Team
8 2 (0.27%) Nmap
9 1 (0.13%) CASB
9 1 (0.13%) Host Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.13%) logstash
9 1 (0.13%) Nessus
9 1 (0.13%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.13%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.13%) Red Hat Satellite
9 1 (0.13%) WSUS
Vendors
1 149 (19.97%) Microsoft
2 45 (6.03%) Oracle
3 43 (5.76%) ServiceNow
4 24 (3.22%) CyberArk
5 22 (2.95%) BeyondTrust
6 18 (2.41%) Cisco
6 18 (2.41%) Google
7 16 (2.14%) SAP
7 16 (2.14%) Splunk
8 14 (1.88%) Apple
9 13 (1.74%) Palo Alto
10 12 (1.61%) Ariba
11 11 (1.47%) CrowdStrike
12 9 (1.21%) VMware
12 9 (1.21%) Zscaler
13 8 (1.07%) IBM
14 7 (0.94%) Remedy
15 6 (0.80%) Atlassian
15 6 (0.80%) Computacenter
15 6 (0.80%) Thales