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 16 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 165 112 96
Rank change year-on-year -53 -16 +43
Contract jobs citing Information Security 617 773 1,129
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.75% 2.11% 2.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.95% 2.45% 2.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 316 472 794
10th Percentile £345 £400 £400
25th Percentile £421 £490 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £584 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.74% +1.48% -
75th Percentile £675 £691 £688
90th Percentile £789 £800 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £579 £558
% change year-on-year -20.48% +3.77% +1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 21 55
10th Percentile £18.82 £15.22 £16.03
25th Percentile £20.71 £15.73 £42.25
Median hourly rate £32.74 £21.00 £56.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.88% -62.83% -13.74%
75th Percentile £45.00 £36.75 £83.40
90th Percentile £80.54 £45.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.51 £22.09 £72.85
% change year-on-year +33.59% -69.68% +4.08%

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 31,719 31,545 41,752
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.82% 86.25% 88.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,853 18,987 28,148
10th Percentile £295 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,095 1,115 1,613
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.10 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.12 £19.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.33
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -19.22% +23.80%
75th Percentile £44.75 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £33.93 £43.83
% change year-on-year -33.30% -22.58% +48.56%

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 16 November 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 16 November 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 16 November 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 -49 551 £536 -10.63% 589
UK excluding London -52 301 £460 -20.48% 371
London -37 250 £600 +1.69% 244
Work from Home -15 180 £500 -9.09% 317
North of England -32 80 £475 -17.39% 72
South East -39 71 £600 +7.14% 136
Midlands -42 55 £400 -35.48% 58
South West -16 45 £425 -37.04% 53
North West -28 45 £458 -21.59% 45
East Midlands +14 33 £400 -46.67% 14
Yorkshire -31 32 £475 -13.64% 22
East of England +1 29 £480 -20.00% 33
West Midlands -52 22 £413 -36.54% 44
Scotland -16 19 £425 -10.53% 21
Wales +8 6 £575 -17.86% 7
North East -10 3 £550 -32.52% 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 (5.51%) SharePoint
2 20 (3.24%) Confluence
3 16 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.13%) Mattermost
4 7 (1.13%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.97%) IIS
6 2 (0.32%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.16%) Apache
7 1 (0.16%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.16%) CMS
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.16%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.16%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 48 (7.78%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (3.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.81%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.49%) Navisworks
5 3 (0.49%) Revit
6 2 (0.32%) ProjectWise
7 1 (0.16%) 1Password
7 1 (0.16%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.16%) GNU Octave
Business Applications
1 15 (2.43%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.32%) assyst
2 2 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.16%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 113 (18.31%) Azure
2 73 (11.83%) AWS
3 37 (6.00%) Microsoft 365
4 32 (5.19%) Entra ID
5 30 (4.86%) GCP
6 25 (4.05%) Power Platform
7 20 (3.24%) Azure Sentinel
8 17 (2.76%) SaaS
9 11 (1.78%) Microsoft Purview
10 8 (1.30%) OneDrive
11 7 (1.13%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
12 6 (0.97%) AWS CloudFormation
13 5 (0.81%) OpenShift
14 4 (0.65%) Amazon EC2
14 4 (0.65%) Amazon S3
15 3 (0.49%) GitHub
15 3 (0.49%) OCI
15 3 (0.49%) PaaS
15 3 (0.49%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 72 (11.67%) Firewall
2 44 (7.13%) Network Security
3 24 (3.89%) DNS
4 19 (3.08%) HTTP
5 15 (2.43%) SSH
5 15 (2.43%) TCP/IP
6 12 (1.94%) Intrusion Detection
6 12 (1.94%) SMTP
6 12 (1.94%) SSL
6 12 (1.94%) VPN
7 11 (1.78%) DHCP
7 11 (1.78%) WAN
8 10 (1.62%) FTP
9 9 (1.46%) Internet
10 8 (1.30%) Wi-Fi
11 7 (1.13%) Skype
12 5 (0.81%) LAN
12 5 (0.81%) Wireless
13 4 (0.65%) NGFW
13 4 (0.65%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (3.24%) Power BI
2 7 (1.13%) GIS
3 5 (0.81%) Data Warehouse
3 5 (0.81%) Tableau
4 4 (0.65%) Big Data
4 4 (0.65%) NoSQL
4 4 (0.65%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 4 (0.65%) Oracle Reports
4 4 (0.65%) Redis
5 2 (0.32%) Amazon Aurora
5 2 (0.32%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (0.32%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.32%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.32%) EDRMS
5 2 (0.32%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.16%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (0.16%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (0.16%) Metadata
6 1 (0.16%) Power Query
6 1 (0.16%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 33 (5.35%) JIRA
2 12 (1.94%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.30%) Artifactory
4 6 (0.97%) Git
5 3 (0.49%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.32%) Snyk
6 2 (0.32%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.16%) Balsamiq
7 1 (0.16%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.16%) GCC
7 1 (0.16%) Log4j
7 1 (0.16%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.16%) MSI
General
1 252 (40.84%) Social Skills
2 158 (25.61%) Finance
3 72 (11.67%) Public Sector
4 70 (11.35%) Analytical Skills
5 45 (7.29%) Banking
6 44 (7.13%) Legal
7 28 (4.54%) Organisational Skills
8 18 (2.92%) Manufacturing
9 17 (2.76%) Military
10 15 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 15 (2.43%) Police
10 15 (2.43%) Presentation Skills
11 13 (2.11%) Retail
12 12 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
13 10 (1.62%) Telecoms
14 9 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
14 9 (1.46%) Law
15 7 (1.13%) Local Government
16 5 (0.81%) Investment Banking
16 5 (0.81%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 166 (26.90%) Analyst
2 58 (9.40%) Consultant
3 57 (9.24%) Security Analyst
4 49 (7.94%) Architect
5 44 (7.13%) Support Analyst
6 43 (6.97%) Senior
7 39 (6.32%) Security Manager
8 36 (5.83%) Security Architect
9 35 (5.67%) Lead
10 34 (5.51%) Security Engineer
11 30 (4.86%) Security Consultant
12 23 (3.73%) Information Analyst
12 23 (3.73%) Information Security Analyst
13 20 (3.24%) Security Specialist
13 20 (3.24%) SOC Analyst
14 16 (2.59%) Information Security Manager
14 16 (2.59%) IT Support
15 15 (2.43%) Coordinator
15 15 (2.43%) Cybersecurity Analyst
16 14 (2.27%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.27%) LDAP
1 14 (2.27%) SailPoint
2 10 (1.62%) OAuth
3 8 (1.30%) Middleware
3 8 (1.30%) REST
3 8 (1.30%) SAML
4 7 (1.13%) OpenID
5 6 (0.97%) Oracle Fusion
5 6 (0.97%) Qt
6 5 (0.81%) Kafka
6 5 (0.81%) OAuth2
6 5 (0.81%) PyTorch
6 5 (0.81%) TensorFlow
6 5 (0.81%) Web Services
7 4 (0.65%) FastAPI
7 4 (0.65%) Flask
7 4 (0.65%) HATEOAS
7 4 (0.65%) Hugging Face
7 4 (0.65%) Loki
7 4 (0.65%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 128 (20.75%) Management Information System
2 80 (12.97%) Security Posture
3 28 (4.54%) Cyber Threat
4 27 (4.38%) PKI
5 26 (4.21%) Security Operations Centre
6 21 (3.40%) Onboarding
7 15 (2.43%) Analytical Mindset
8 14 (2.27%) CSOC
8 14 (2.27%) Data Centre
9 13 (2.11%) Cloud Native
9 13 (2.11%) Tandem
10 12 (1.94%) Operational Technology
11 10 (1.62%) Cyberattack
11 10 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
11 10 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
11 10 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
12 9 (1.46%) Cyber Defence
12 9 (1.46%) Greenfield Project
13 8 (1.30%) Product Ownership
14 7 (1.13%) Cloud Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 70 (11.35%) Windows
2 44 (7.13%) Linux
3 16 (2.59%) Unix
4 11 (1.78%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.97%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.49%) Kali Linux
6 3 (0.49%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 233 (37.76%) Cybersecurity
2 153 (24.80%) Risk Management
3 114 (18.48%) Problem-Solving
4 105 (17.02%) Incident Response
5 97 (15.72%) Data Protection
5 97 (15.72%) Stakeholder Management
6 87 (14.10%) ITIL
7 78 (12.64%) Agile
7 78 (12.64%) Security Operations
8 76 (12.32%) Cloud Security
9 68 (11.02%) Continuous Improvement
10 63 (10.21%) SIEM
11 59 (9.56%) Computer Science
12 58 (9.40%) Security Management
13 57 (9.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 55 (8.91%) Vulnerability Management
15 52 (8.43%) Threat Modelling
16 49 (7.94%) Project Management
17 48 (7.78%) Information Security Management
17 48 (7.78%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 51 (8.27%) Python
2 45 (7.29%) PowerShell
3 38 (6.16%) SQL
4 10 (1.62%) Java
5 6 (0.97%) Bash
5 6 (0.97%) C#
5 6 (0.97%) C++
6 5 (0.81%) Perl
7 2 (0.32%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
7 2 (0.32%) PHP
7 2 (0.32%) R
7 2 (0.32%) Rust
7 2 (0.32%) Solidity
7 2 (0.32%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.16%) ANSI SQL
8 1 (0.16%) Bicep
8 1 (0.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.16%) T-SQL
8 1 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 135 (21.88%) Security Cleared
2 121 (19.61%) CISSP
3 111 (17.99%) Degree
4 102 (16.53%) SC Cleared
5 94 (15.24%) CISM
6 45 (7.29%) Computer Science Degree
7 39 (6.32%) CISA
8 32 (5.19%) DV Cleared
9 27 (4.38%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
10 25 (4.05%) Master's Degree
11 24 (3.89%) Cisco Certification
12 23 (3.73%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 18 (2.92%) ITIL Certification
14 17 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
14 17 (2.76%) CRISC
15 16 (2.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 16 (2.59%) Azure Certification
16 14 (2.27%) CEH
17 12 (1.94%) CCSP
18 10 (1.62%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (28.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 162 (26.26%) NIST
3 106 (17.18%) GDPR
4 59 (9.56%) GRC
5 36 (5.83%) COBIT
6 33 (5.35%) Cyber Essentials
6 33 (5.35%) PCI DSS
7 22 (3.57%) NCSC
8 19 (3.08%) NIST 800
9 17 (2.76%) SLA
10 15 (2.43%) Accessibility
11 14 (2.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 14 (2.27%) Def Stans
12 12 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 11 (1.78%) PMO
13 11 (1.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 9 (1.46%) JSP 440
15 8 (1.30%) QA
16 7 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 7 (1.13%) PSD2
System Software
1 50 (8.10%) Active Directory
2 12 (1.94%) Virtual Machines
3 11 (1.78%) Docker
4 3 (0.49%) 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 19 (3.08%) Kubernetes
1 19 (3.08%) QRadar
2 17 (2.76%) Microsoft Intune
3 15 (2.43%) HP SiteScope
3 15 (2.43%) SCOM
4 14 (2.27%) SCCM
5 13 (2.11%) Ansible
6 12 (1.94%) Terraform
7 7 (1.13%) CASB
7 7 (1.13%) Grafana
7 7 (1.13%) Prometheus
8 6 (0.97%) RSA Archer
8 6 (0.97%) SCOrch
9 4 (0.65%) CSIRT
9 4 (0.65%) Kustomize
10 3 (0.49%) WSUS
11 2 (0.32%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.32%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.32%) Puppet
Vendors
1 140 (22.69%) Microsoft
2 39 (6.32%) Splunk
3 25 (4.05%) Cisco
4 24 (3.89%) ServiceNow
5 16 (2.59%) CyberArk
5 16 (2.59%) Remedy
6 15 (2.43%) IBM
7 12 (1.94%) CrowdStrike
7 12 (1.94%) Oracle
7 12 (1.94%) Rapid7
7 12 (1.94%) Salesforce
8 9 (1.46%) Qualys
9 8 (1.30%) Darktrace
9 8 (1.30%) Fortinet
9 8 (1.30%) Google
9 8 (1.30%) Palo Alto
9 8 (1.30%) Tenable
10 7 (1.13%) Databricks
10 7 (1.13%) SAP
10 7 (1.13%) Thales