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

6 months to
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 191 175 112
Rank change year-on-year -16 -63 -5
Contract jobs citing Information Security 702 464 852
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.40% 1.57% 1.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.65% 1.72% 2.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 420 260 523
10th Percentile £400 £311 £375
25th Percentile £463 £411 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £582
Median % change year-on-year - -5.50% -3.00%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £688
90th Percentile £800 £825 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £534 £582
% change year-on-year -1.69% -8.25% +5.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 27 23
10th Percentile £16.16 - £12.75
25th Percentile £18.41 £22.14 £17.86
Median hourly rate £27.16 £24.66 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.14% +26.46% -74.26%
75th Percentile £63.66 £64.79 £23.59
90th Percentile £85.40 £84.95 £35.74
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.16 £23.65 £19.50
% change year-on-year +14.87% +21.26% -75.60%

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 42,464 26,928 37,175
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.77% 91.04% 85.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,499 17,092 23,693
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 2,543 1,207 2,592
10th Percentile £14.81 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.00 £37.09
Median % change year-on-year +62.81% -27.20% +5.97%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +17.29%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 -10 638 £550 +3.00% 304
UK excluding London -6 361 £525 -1.69% 237
London -8 296 £600 +14.29% 109
Work from Home -41 167 £559 +6.48% 148
South East -10 129 £525 -15.66% 66
North of England -44 79 £525 +25.37% 66
North West -15 56 £525 +31.25% 35
Midlands -35 48 £550 +37.50% 43
South West 0 45 £500 -14.71% 35
West Midlands -27 36 £550 +37.50% 30
Scotland -4 31 £415 -6.69% 13
East of England -19 28 £575 +1.77% 17
Yorkshire -51 20 £533 +29.09% 27
East Midlands -28 12 £557 +39.19% 13
Wales -14 3 £645 +55.42% 5
North East -38 3 £450 -15.73% 4

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 28 (3.99%) Confluence
2 20 (2.85%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.71%) IIS
5 4 (0.57%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.57%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 31 (4.42%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (3.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (1.57%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
6 1 (0.14%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.57%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 142 (20.23%) Azure
2 104 (14.81%) AWS
3 44 (6.27%) Entra ID
4 39 (5.56%) SaaS
5 38 (5.41%) Microsoft 365
6 35 (4.99%) GCP
7 23 (3.28%) Microsoft Purview
8 22 (3.13%) Power Platform
9 19 (2.71%) GitHub
10 15 (2.14%) Azure Sentinel
11 14 (1.99%) OCI
12 9 (1.28%) Microsoft Copilot
13 8 (1.14%) IaaS
13 8 (1.14%) PaaS
14 6 (0.85%) Azure Key Vault
14 6 (0.85%) Azure Logic Apps
14 6 (0.85%) OneDrive
15 5 (0.71%) Azure AKS
15 5 (0.71%) Collibra
15 5 (0.71%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 40 (5.70%) Firewall
2 35 (4.99%) Network Security
3 11 (1.57%) SSH
3 11 (1.57%) VPN
4 10 (1.42%) TCP/IP
4 10 (1.42%) Wireless
5 9 (1.28%) HTTP
5 9 (1.28%) Internet
6 7 (1.00%) DNS
6 7 (1.00%) HTTPS
7 5 (0.71%) DHCP
7 5 (0.71%) Intrusion Detection
8 4 (0.57%) WAN
9 3 (0.43%) Cisco IPT
9 3 (0.43%) NGFW
10 2 (0.28%) Multicast
10 2 (0.28%) NAS
10 2 (0.28%) Reverse Proxy
10 2 (0.28%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.28%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.71%) Power BI
2 13 (1.85%) SQL Server
3 9 (1.28%) Metadata
4 5 (0.71%) Data Lake
4 5 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.57%) Big Data
5 4 (0.57%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.43%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.43%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.28%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.28%) MySQL
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 2 (0.28%) Tableau
8 1 (0.14%) GIS
8 1 (0.14%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database 10g
8 1 (0.14%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 29 (4.13%) JIRA
2 10 (1.42%) Git
3 9 (1.28%) Burp Suite
4 7 (1.00%) Metasploit
5 3 (0.43%) git-flow
6 2 (0.28%) GitLab
6 2 (0.28%) JMeter
7 1 (0.14%) AppScan
7 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.14%) ScriptRunner
7 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.14%) SonarQube
General
1 233 (33.19%) Social Skills
2 161 (22.93%) Finance
3 108 (15.38%) Public Sector
4 77 (10.97%) Analytical Skills
5 61 (8.69%) Legal
6 60 (8.55%) Banking
7 36 (5.13%) Documentation Skills
8 24 (3.42%) Organisational Skills
9 18 (2.56%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (1.99%) Local Government
10 14 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
11 12 (1.71%) Retail
12 10 (1.42%) Marketing
13 7 (1.00%) Billing
13 7 (1.00%) Investment Banking
13 7 (1.00%) Pharmaceutical
14 6 (0.85%) Aviation
14 6 (0.85%) Law
14 6 (0.85%) Military
14 6 (0.85%) Police
Job Titles
1 96 (13.68%) Analyst
2 71 (10.11%) Consultant
3 63 (8.97%) Senior
4 57 (8.12%) Security Engineer
5 53 (7.55%) Security Consultant
6 52 (7.41%) Architect
6 52 (7.41%) Lead
7 39 (5.56%) Security Analyst
8 37 (5.27%) Security Architect
8 37 (5.27%) Security Manager
9 30 (4.27%) Security Officer
10 29 (4.13%) Project Manager
11 27 (3.85%) IT Manager
12 24 (3.42%) Senior Manager
13 22 (3.13%) Information Security Officer
14 20 (2.85%) Cybersecurity Manager
15 18 (2.56%) Business Analyst
16 16 (2.28%) Developer
17 15 (2.14%) Information Architect
17 15 (2.14%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.13%) Oracle Fusion
2 19 (2.71%) OAuth
2 19 (2.71%) SailPoint
3 15 (2.14%) OAuth2
4 13 (1.85%) SAML
5 12 (1.71%) OpenID
6 10 (1.42%) LDAP
6 10 (1.42%) Web Services
7 8 (1.14%) REST
8 7 (1.00%) .NET
8 7 (1.00%) J2EE
8 7 (1.00%) JSP
9 6 (0.85%) XML
10 5 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
10 5 (0.71%) Middleware
10 5 (0.71%) Node.js
10 5 (0.71%) RESTful
11 4 (0.57%) Kafka
11 4 (0.57%) Lightning Web Components
12 3 (0.43%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 115 (16.38%) Management Information System
2 67 (9.54%) Onboarding
3 58 (8.26%) Security Posture
4 37 (5.27%) Operational Technology
5 18 (2.56%) Cloud Native
5 18 (2.56%) Cyber Threat
6 17 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
7 16 (2.28%) Security Operations Centre
8 12 (1.71%) Data Centre
8 12 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
8 12 (1.71%) PKI
8 12 (1.71%) SCADA
8 12 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
9 11 (1.57%) BYOD
9 11 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
9 11 (1.57%) Virtual Team
10 10 (1.42%) Product Ownership
10 10 (1.42%) Public Cloud
11 8 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
11 8 (1.14%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 83 (11.82%) Windows
2 47 (6.70%) Linux
3 34 (4.84%) Windows Server
4 19 (2.71%) Unix
5 9 (1.28%) Android
6 8 (1.14%) Apple iOS
7 7 (1.00%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.57%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.43%) zOS
10 2 (0.28%) Alpine Linux
10 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.28%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 247 (35.19%) Cybersecurity
2 191 (27.21%) Risk Management
3 120 (17.09%) Continuous Improvement
4 119 (16.95%) Data Protection
5 110 (15.67%) Stakeholder Management
6 102 (14.53%) Problem-Solving
7 81 (11.54%) Cloud Security
8 80 (11.40%) Agile
9 73 (10.40%) Change Management
9 73 (10.40%) Incident Response
9 73 (10.40%) Security Operations
10 71 (10.11%) Roadmaps
11 67 (9.54%) Decision-Making
11 67 (9.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 65 (9.26%) Computer Science
13 61 (8.69%) Security Management
14 58 (8.26%) SIEM
15 56 (7.98%) AI
16 53 (7.55%) Vulnerability Management
17 52 (7.41%) Risk Assessment
Programming Languages
1 83 (11.82%) Python
2 62 (8.83%) PowerShell
3 22 (3.13%) Java
4 21 (2.99%) Bash
5 14 (1.99%) SQL
6 6 (0.85%) C#
6 6 (0.85%) Kusto Query Language
7 5 (0.71%) Bicep
8 4 (0.57%) Go
9 3 (0.43%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.43%) JavaScript
9 3 (0.43%) Kotlin
9 3 (0.43%) RPG
10 1 (0.14%) BeanShell
10 1 (0.14%) C++
10 1 (0.14%) Lisp
10 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 169 (24.07%) Security Cleared
2 151 (21.51%) Degree
3 126 (17.95%) CISSP
3 126 (17.95%) SC Cleared
4 86 (12.25%) CISM
5 40 (5.70%) DV Cleared
6 36 (5.13%) CISA
7 31 (4.42%) Cisco Certification
7 31 (4.42%) CRISC
8 26 (3.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 23 (3.28%) Computer Science Degree
10 17 (2.42%) CEH
11 16 (2.28%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 14 (1.99%) AWS Certification
12 14 (1.99%) PMP
13 13 (1.85%) CREST Certified
13 13 (1.85%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
13 13 (1.85%) PMI Certification
14 12 (1.71%) GIAC
14 12 (1.71%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 217 (30.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 153 (21.79%) NIST
3 113 (16.10%) GDPR
4 95 (13.53%) GRC
5 57 (8.12%) PCI DSS
6 30 (4.27%) Cyber Essentials
7 26 (3.70%) NCSC
8 25 (3.56%) COBIT
9 23 (3.28%) Data Quality
9 23 (3.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (2.99%) QA
11 20 (2.85%) PMO
12 17 (2.42%) NIST 800
12 17 (2.42%) SOC 2
13 14 (1.99%) HIPAA
14 12 (1.71%) Accessibility
14 12 (1.71%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 12 (1.71%) SLA
15 10 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 8 (1.14%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 63 (8.97%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.28%) Docker
3 5 (0.71%) Hyper-V
3 5 (0.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.43%) Squid
5 2 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.14%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.14%) Ceph
6 1 (0.14%) Firmware
6 1 (0.14%) RACF
Systems Management
1 15 (2.14%) Terraform
2 13 (1.85%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (1.71%) Ansible
3 12 (1.71%) Kubernetes
4 9 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (0.85%) Nmap
5 6 (0.85%) SCCM
6 5 (0.71%) Functional Safety
7 3 (0.43%) Podman
7 3 (0.43%) QRadar
8 2 (0.28%) Computer Incident Response Team
8 2 (0.28%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.28%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Satellite
8 2 (0.28%) RSA Archer
9 1 (0.14%) CASB
9 1 (0.14%) Host Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.14%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.14%) logstash
9 1 (0.14%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 126 (17.95%) Microsoft
2 38 (5.41%) ServiceNow
3 35 (4.99%) Oracle
4 23 (3.28%) Google
5 21 (2.99%) CyberArk
6 19 (2.71%) BeyondTrust
7 15 (2.14%) Cisco
7 15 (2.14%) SAP
8 13 (1.85%) CrowdStrike
9 12 (1.71%) Ariba
9 12 (1.71%) Splunk
10 11 (1.57%) Apple
11 7 (1.00%) IBM
11 7 (1.00%) Palo Alto
11 7 (1.00%) Remedy
12 6 (0.85%) VMware
13 5 (0.71%) Computacenter
13 5 (0.71%) Okta
13 5 (0.71%) Rapid7
13 5 (0.71%) Thales