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 14 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 170 157 104
Rank change year-on-year -13 -53 +11
Contract jobs citing Information Security 674 532 977
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.68% 1.72% 2.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.93% 1.92% 2.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 373 302 663
10th Percentile £358 £351 £385
25th Percentile £450 £479 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -10.42% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £648 £688 £675
90th Percentile £767 £800 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -13.04% +4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 17 57
10th Percentile £17.36 £16.18 £17.32
25th Percentile £20.71 £20.19 £19.25
Median hourly rate £30.75 £24.18 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year +27.17% -45.66% -32.06%
75th Percentile £41.94 £36.75 £83.40
90th Percentile £80.20 £46.43 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £22.09 £45.00
% change year-on-year +26.75% -50.91% -35.71%

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 34,907 27,716 39,026
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.98% 89.51% 87.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,112 17,001 25,591
10th Percentile £310 £306 £300
25th Percentile £409 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -3.03% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,104 852 2,127
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -2.99% +2.15%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.32
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.62 £35.00
% change year-on-year -17.85% -12.53% +7.69%

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 14 February 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 14 February 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 14 February 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 -10 601 £538 -10.42% 321
UK excluding London -7 336 £500 -13.04% 241
London -9 269 £550 -8.33% 118
Work from Home +5 197 £539 +2.62% 163
South East -7 105 £556 -7.29% 89
North of England -40 69 £500 -4.76% 69
Midlands -33 52 £450 -27.50% 30
North West -26 44 £500 -6.98% 47
East of England +4 43 £530 -11.67% 20
South West -7 41 £500 -25.93% 34
West Midlands -41 33 £500 -35.28% 19
Scotland +9 20 £358 -24.95% 4
Yorkshire -45 20 £494 +9.72% 16
East Midlands -12 19 £400 +33.33% 11
Wales +1 6 £388 - 6
North East -13 5 £500 -9.09% 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 23 (3.41%) SharePoint
2 21 (3.12%) Confluence
3 15 (2.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.04%) Mattermost
4 7 (1.04%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.89%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
6 4 (0.59%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.15%) Apache
7 1 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.15%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 55 (8.16%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (4.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (2.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (1.34%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.45%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.45%) Navisworks
5 3 (0.45%) Revit
6 2 (0.30%) ProjectWise
6 2 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.15%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 15 (2.23%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (1.63%) Oracle EBS
3 4 (0.59%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.30%) SAP GRC
4 2 (0.30%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 116 (17.21%) Azure
2 80 (11.87%) AWS
3 43 (6.38%) Microsoft 365
4 31 (4.60%) GCP
5 30 (4.45%) Entra ID
6 22 (3.26%) SaaS
7 20 (2.97%) Power Platform
8 14 (2.08%) OCI
9 12 (1.78%) Microsoft Purview
10 11 (1.63%) Azure Sentinel
11 10 (1.48%) GitHub
11 10 (1.48%) OneDrive
12 7 (1.04%) IaaS
12 7 (1.04%) PaaS
12 7 (1.04%) Power Automate
13 6 (0.89%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (0.89%) PowerApps
14 5 (0.74%) Amazon S3
14 5 (0.74%) AWS CloudFormation
14 5 (0.74%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 63 (9.35%) Firewall
2 28 (4.15%) Network Security
3 20 (2.97%) TCP/IP
4 19 (2.82%) DNS
5 13 (1.93%) SSH
5 13 (1.93%) WAN
5 13 (1.93%) Wireless
6 10 (1.48%) DHCP
6 10 (1.48%) HTTP
6 10 (1.48%) Internet
7 9 (1.34%) VPN
8 7 (1.04%) Skype
8 7 (1.04%) SMTP
8 7 (1.04%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (0.89%) SSL
10 5 (0.74%) FTP
10 5 (0.74%) Intrusion Detection
10 5 (0.74%) SAN
11 4 (0.59%) LAN
12 3 (0.45%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (2.52%) Power BI
2 10 (1.48%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (1.34%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.19%) Metadata
5 5 (0.74%) Big Data
5 5 (0.74%) Data Lake
5 5 (0.74%) GIS
6 4 (0.59%) Hadoop
6 4 (0.59%) NoSQL
6 4 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.45%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.45%) Tableau
8 2 (0.30%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.30%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.30%) DB2
8 2 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.30%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.30%) PostgreSQL
8 2 (0.30%) Power Query
8 2 (0.30%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 25 (3.71%) JIRA
2 14 (2.08%) Burp Suite
3 12 (1.78%) Git
4 11 (1.63%) Metasploit
5 4 (0.59%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.45%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.30%) GitLab
8 1 (0.15%) AppScan
8 1 (0.15%) GCC
8 1 (0.15%) git-flow
8 1 (0.15%) MSI
8 1 (0.15%) ScriptRunner
8 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
General
1 246 (36.50%) Social Skills
2 134 (19.88%) Finance
3 96 (14.24%) Public Sector
4 83 (12.31%) Analytical Skills
5 58 (8.61%) Legal
6 42 (6.23%) Banking
7 33 (4.90%) Organisational Skills
8 20 (2.97%) Presentation Skills
9 17 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
10 16 (2.37%) Telecoms
11 14 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (1.78%) Manufacturing
13 9 (1.34%) Retail
14 7 (1.04%) Law
14 7 (1.04%) Local Government
14 7 (1.04%) Marketing
14 7 (1.04%) Police
15 6 (0.89%) Investment Banking
15 6 (0.89%) Military
15 6 (0.89%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 137 (20.33%) Analyst
2 61 (9.05%) Consultant
3 50 (7.42%) Senior
4 49 (7.27%) Architect
5 45 (6.68%) Security Engineer
6 44 (6.53%) Security Analyst
7 38 (5.64%) Lead
8 36 (5.34%) Security Manager
9 31 (4.60%) Support Analyst
10 29 (4.30%) Security Architect
11 27 (4.01%) Security Officer
12 24 (3.56%) Security Consultant
12 24 (3.56%) Security Specialist
13 21 (3.12%) Information Analyst
13 21 (3.12%) Information Security Analyst
14 17 (2.52%) Developer
14 17 (2.52%) Project Manager
15 15 (2.23%) Designer
15 15 (2.23%) Information Security Manager
15 15 (2.23%) Security Advisor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (1.93%) OAuth
2 12 (1.78%) Oracle Fusion
3 10 (1.48%) Middleware
3 10 (1.48%) OpenID
3 10 (1.48%) SailPoint
3 10 (1.48%) SAML
4 9 (1.34%) LDAP
4 9 (1.34%) OAuth2
5 5 (0.74%) Node.js
5 5 (0.74%) Qt
6 4 (0.59%) .NET
6 4 (0.59%) Kafka
6 4 (0.59%) RESTful
6 4 (0.59%) Spring
6 4 (0.59%) Spring Boot
7 3 (0.45%) ADO
7 3 (0.45%) GraphQL
7 3 (0.45%) J2EE
7 3 (0.45%) JSP
7 3 (0.45%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 124 (18.40%) Management Information System
2 73 (10.83%) Security Posture
3 29 (4.30%) Cyber Threat
4 28 (4.15%) Onboarding
5 23 (3.41%) Operational Technology
6 19 (2.82%) PKI
7 18 (2.67%) Data Protection Act
8 14 (2.08%) Cloud Native
9 13 (1.93%) Data Centre
9 13 (1.93%) Insider Threat
10 12 (1.78%) Product Ownership
10 12 (1.78%) Security Operations Centre
11 10 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
11 10 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
11 10 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
12 9 (1.34%) Greenfield Project
12 9 (1.34%) Virtual Team
13 8 (1.19%) CSOC
13 8 (1.19%) Mobile App
13 8 (1.19%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 71 (10.53%) Windows
2 45 (6.68%) Linux
3 20 (2.97%) Windows Server
4 18 (2.67%) Unix
5 3 (0.45%) Kali Linux
5 3 (0.45%) Mac OS
5 3 (0.45%) zOS
6 2 (0.30%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.15%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 226 (33.53%) Cybersecurity
2 170 (25.22%) Risk Management
3 113 (16.77%) Problem-Solving
4 107 (15.88%) Data Protection
5 103 (15.28%) Continuous Improvement
6 101 (14.99%) Stakeholder Management
7 78 (11.57%) Incident Response
8 76 (11.28%) Cloud Security
9 75 (11.13%) Security Management
10 66 (9.79%) ITIL
11 62 (9.20%) Agile
12 59 (8.75%) Security Operations
13 58 (8.61%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 55 (8.16%) Change Management
14 55 (8.16%) Information Security Management
15 54 (8.01%) Computer Science
16 53 (7.86%) SIEM
17 50 (7.42%) Threat Modelling
18 47 (6.97%) Regulatory Compliance
19 45 (6.68%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 59 (8.75%) Python
2 50 (7.42%) PowerShell
3 37 (5.49%) SQL
4 15 (2.23%) Java
5 11 (1.63%) Bash
6 5 (0.74%) C++
6 5 (0.74%) Go
7 4 (0.59%) C#
7 4 (0.59%) Kotlin
7 4 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
8 3 (0.45%) RPG
9 2 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.30%) R
9 2 (0.30%) Rust
9 2 (0.30%) Solidity
10 1 (0.15%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.15%) Bicep
10 1 (0.15%) Lisp
10 1 (0.15%) VBA
10 1 (0.15%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 199 (29.53%) Security Cleared
2 153 (22.70%) SC Cleared
3 128 (18.99%) Degree
4 103 (15.28%) CISSP
5 78 (11.57%) CISM
6 46 (6.82%) DV Cleared
7 41 (6.08%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (4.45%) Master's Degree
9 27 (4.01%) CISA
10 22 (3.26%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 21 (3.12%) Cisco Certification
11 21 (3.12%) CRISC
11 21 (3.12%) ITIL Certification
12 20 (2.97%) BPSS Clearance
13 17 (2.52%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
14 16 (2.37%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 13 (1.93%) CREST Certified
15 13 (1.93%) Postgraduate
16 12 (1.78%) CTC Cleared
17 11 (1.63%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 216 (32.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 152 (22.55%) NIST
3 110 (16.32%) GDPR
4 73 (10.83%) GRC
5 40 (5.93%) PCI DSS
6 28 (4.15%) COBIT
6 28 (4.15%) NCSC
7 25 (3.71%) PMO
7 25 (3.71%) QA
8 24 (3.56%) Cyber Essentials
9 18 (2.67%) Data Quality
10 17 (2.52%) Accessibility
11 15 (2.23%) NIST 800
12 14 (2.08%) Def Stans
13 13 (1.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 12 (1.78%) SOC 2
15 11 (1.63%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 11 (1.63%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 11 (1.63%) JSP 440
15 11 (1.63%) RMADS
System Software
1 55 (8.16%) Active Directory
2 11 (1.63%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (1.04%) Docker
4 3 (0.45%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.15%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.15%) Microsoft App-V
5 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.15%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 22 (3.26%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (2.23%) HP SiteScope
2 15 (2.23%) SCOM
3 14 (2.08%) SCCM
4 13 (1.93%) Kubernetes
5 12 (1.78%) Nmap
6 11 (1.63%) Terraform
7 9 (1.34%) Ansible
8 8 (1.19%) QRadar
9 6 (0.89%) CASB
9 6 (0.89%) SCOrch
10 5 (0.74%) Functional Safety
10 5 (0.74%) WSUS
11 4 (0.59%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.45%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
13 2 (0.30%) EnCase
13 2 (0.30%) FTK
13 2 (0.30%) Grafana
13 2 (0.30%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 129 (19.14%) Microsoft
2 27 (4.01%) ServiceNow
3 23 (3.41%) Cisco
3 23 (3.41%) Splunk
4 18 (2.67%) Oracle
5 17 (2.52%) CyberArk
5 17 (2.52%) Remedy
6 16 (2.37%) Google
7 12 (1.78%) IBM
8 10 (1.48%) CrowdStrike
9 9 (1.34%) Fortinet
9 9 (1.34%) Thales
10 8 (1.19%) Databricks
10 8 (1.19%) Gemalto
11 7 (1.04%) Palo Alto
11 7 (1.04%) SAP
12 6 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
12 6 (0.89%) Qualys
12 6 (0.89%) Salesforce
12 6 (0.89%) Sophos