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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 172 148 102
Rank change year-on-year -24 -46 +14
Contract jobs citing Information Security 638 571 992
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.65% 1.82% 2.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.89% 2.04% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 343 328 689
10th Percentile £352 £363 £385
25th Percentile £450 £480 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -10.42% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £648 £676 £675
90th Percentile £774 £790 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -13.74% +4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 18 54
10th Percentile £17.23 £16.19 £16.08
25th Percentile £20.71 £20.40 £20.68
Median hourly rate £33.50 £25.72 £47.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.27% -45.29% -27.69%
75th Percentile £51.35 £38.25 £83.40
90th Percentile £80.54 £46.07 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £23.14 £49.00
% change year-on-year +44.80% -52.79% -27.68%

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 33,821 28,022 39,068
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.29% 89.12% 87.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,401 17,008 25,726
10th Percentile £305 £307 £300
25th Percentile £406 £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 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,033 874 2,031
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.60 £21.00 £16.78
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.62% +12.38%
75th Percentile £58.00 £62.50 £62.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.62 £36.50
% change year-on-year -19.29% -16.12% +31.77%

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 31 January 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 31 January 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 31 January 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 -25 570 £538 -10.42% 320
UK excluding London -25 306 £496 -13.74% 265
London -15 261 £565 -5.83% 103
Work from Home -5 186 £540 +2.86% 130
South East -25 88 £550 -8.33% 84
North of England -39 70 £482 -9.86% 68
Midlands -36 46 £437 -12.60% 45
North West -28 44 £470 -12.15% 43
South West -14 41 £500 -25.93% 25
East of England +8 39 £537 -10.58% 33
West Midlands -47 28 £463 -7.50% 23
Yorkshire -33 22 £488 - 19
East Midlands -9 18 £400 +33.33% 22
Scotland +7 17 £358 -24.95% 7
Wales +3 5 £388 - 7
North East -17 4 £550 - 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 24 (3.76%) SharePoint
2 18 (2.82%) Confluence
3 14 (2.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.10%) Mattermost
4 7 (1.10%) Skype for Business
5 5 (0.78%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
6 3 (0.47%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.16%) Apache
7 1 (0.16%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.16%) IIS
7 1 (0.16%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.16%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 55 (8.62%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (5.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (2.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.47%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.47%) Navisworks
5 3 (0.47%) Revit
6 2 (0.31%) ProjectWise
6 2 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.16%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.16%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 15 (2.35%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (1.41%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.31%) assyst
3 2 (0.31%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.31%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.31%) Temenos T24
4 1 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 112 (17.55%) Azure
2 77 (12.07%) AWS
3 40 (6.27%) Microsoft 365
4 29 (4.55%) GCP
5 27 (4.23%) Entra ID
6 23 (3.61%) SaaS
7 22 (3.45%) Power Platform
8 12 (1.88%) OCI
9 11 (1.72%) Azure Sentinel
10 10 (1.57%) Microsoft Purview
11 9 (1.41%) GitHub
11 9 (1.41%) OneDrive
12 7 (1.10%) Azure DevOps
12 7 (1.10%) IaaS
12 7 (1.10%) PaaS
12 7 (1.10%) Power Automate
13 6 (0.94%) AWS CloudFormation
13 6 (0.94%) PowerApps
14 5 (0.78%) Amazon S3
14 5 (0.78%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 65 (10.19%) Firewall
2 31 (4.86%) Network Security
3 20 (3.13%) TCP/IP
4 19 (2.98%) DNS
5 13 (2.04%) WAN
6 12 (1.88%) Wireless
7 11 (1.72%) Internet
8 10 (1.57%) DHCP
8 10 (1.57%) HTTP
8 10 (1.57%) SSH
9 9 (1.41%) VPN
10 8 (1.25%) Intrusion Detection
11 7 (1.10%) Skype
11 7 (1.10%) SMTP
11 7 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
12 6 (0.94%) SSL
13 5 (0.78%) FTP
13 5 (0.78%) SAN
14 4 (0.63%) LAN
14 4 (0.63%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.98%) Power BI
2 10 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
3 7 (1.10%) Metadata
4 6 (0.94%) GIS
4 6 (0.94%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.63%) Big Data
5 4 (0.63%) Data Lake
5 4 (0.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 3 (0.47%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.47%) Tableau
7 2 (0.31%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.31%) BigQuery
7 2 (0.31%) DB2
7 2 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.31%) Electronic Patient Records
7 2 (0.31%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.31%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.31%) Power Query
7 2 (0.31%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.16%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 23 (3.61%) JIRA
2 14 (2.19%) Burp Suite
3 11 (1.72%) Git
3 11 (1.72%) Metasploit
4 5 (0.78%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.47%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.31%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.31%) GitLab
7 1 (0.16%) AppScan
7 1 (0.16%) Balsamiq
7 1 (0.16%) GCC
7 1 (0.16%) MSI
7 1 (0.16%) ScriptRunner
7 1 (0.16%) SonarQube
General
1 234 (36.68%) Social Skills
2 134 (21.00%) Finance
3 82 (12.85%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (12.70%) Public Sector
5 55 (8.62%) Legal
6 41 (6.43%) Banking
7 34 (5.33%) Organisational Skills
8 20 (3.13%) Presentation Skills
9 18 (2.82%) Telecoms
10 16 (2.51%) Manufacturing
11 15 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
12 14 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (1.25%) Law
14 7 (1.10%) Marketing
14 7 (1.10%) Military
14 7 (1.10%) Retail
15 6 (0.94%) Investment Banking
15 6 (0.94%) Local Government
15 6 (0.94%) Police
15 6 (0.94%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 132 (20.69%) Analyst
2 63 (9.87%) Consultant
3 46 (7.21%) Architect
4 44 (6.90%) Senior
5 42 (6.58%) Security Analyst
6 39 (6.11%) Security Engineer
7 34 (5.33%) Security Manager
8 33 (5.17%) Lead
9 32 (5.02%) Support Analyst
10 28 (4.39%) Security Architect
11 26 (4.08%) Security Consultant
12 25 (3.92%) Security Officer
13 22 (3.45%) Security Specialist
14 21 (3.29%) Information Analyst
14 21 (3.29%) Information Security Analyst
15 18 (2.82%) Project Manager
16 16 (2.51%) Developer
17 15 (2.35%) IT Analyst
17 15 (2.35%) Security Advisor
18 14 (2.19%) Cybersecurity Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (1.88%) OAuth
2 11 (1.72%) Middleware
3 10 (1.57%) SailPoint
3 10 (1.57%) SAML
4 9 (1.41%) LDAP
4 9 (1.41%) OpenID
4 9 (1.41%) Oracle Fusion
5 8 (1.25%) OAuth2
6 6 (0.94%) Qt
7 4 (0.63%) .NET
7 4 (0.63%) Spring
7 4 (0.63%) Spring Boot
8 3 (0.47%) ADO
8 3 (0.47%) J2EE
8 3 (0.47%) JSP
8 3 (0.47%) JWT
8 3 (0.47%) ModSecurity
8 3 (0.47%) Node.js
8 3 (0.47%) RESTful
9 2 (0.31%) Keycloak
Miscellaneous
1 121 (18.97%) Management Information System
2 76 (11.91%) Security Posture
3 29 (4.55%) Cyber Threat
4 21 (3.29%) Onboarding
4 21 (3.29%) PKI
5 19 (2.98%) Operational Technology
6 15 (2.35%) Insider Threat
7 14 (2.19%) Data Centre
8 13 (2.04%) Product Ownership
9 12 (1.88%) Cloud Native
9 12 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
9 12 (1.88%) Security Operations Centre
10 10 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
10 10 (1.57%) Greenfield Project
11 9 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
11 9 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
12 8 (1.25%) CSOC
12 8 (1.25%) Mobile App
12 8 (1.25%) Tandem
12 8 (1.25%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 69 (10.82%) Windows
2 44 (6.90%) Linux
3 16 (2.51%) Windows Server
4 14 (2.19%) Unix
5 4 (0.63%) Kali Linux
6 3 (0.47%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.47%) zOS
7 2 (0.31%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 216 (33.86%) Cybersecurity
2 155 (24.29%) Risk Management
3 120 (18.81%) Problem-Solving
4 102 (15.99%) Data Protection
5 101 (15.83%) Stakeholder Management
6 95 (14.89%) Continuous Improvement
7 81 (12.70%) Incident Response
8 70 (10.97%) Cloud Security
9 69 (10.82%) ITIL
10 65 (10.19%) Security Management
11 61 (9.56%) Agile
12 56 (8.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 54 (8.46%) SIEM
14 53 (8.31%) Computer Science
15 50 (7.84%) Security Operations
16 46 (7.21%) Information Security Management
17 45 (7.05%) Roadmaps
18 44 (6.90%) Threat Modelling
19 43 (6.74%) Incident Management
20 42 (6.58%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 54 (8.46%) Python
2 45 (7.05%) PowerShell
3 35 (5.49%) SQL
4 14 (2.19%) Java
5 10 (1.57%) Bash
6 6 (0.94%) C++
7 5 (0.78%) Go
8 4 (0.63%) Kotlin
8 4 (0.63%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (0.47%) C#
9 3 (0.47%) RPG
10 2 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 2 (0.31%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.31%) R
10 2 (0.31%) Rust
10 2 (0.31%) Solidity
11 1 (0.16%) Lisp
11 1 (0.16%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.16%) VBA
11 1 (0.16%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 179 (28.06%) Security Cleared
2 132 (20.69%) SC Cleared
3 125 (19.59%) Degree
4 102 (15.99%) CISSP
5 79 (12.38%) CISM
6 46 (7.21%) DV Cleared
7 42 (6.58%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (4.70%) CISA
9 28 (4.39%) Master's Degree
10 21 (3.29%) BPSS Clearance
10 21 (3.29%) ITIL Certification
11 20 (3.13%) CRISC
12 17 (2.66%) Cisco Certification
12 17 (2.66%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 12 (1.88%) CEH
13 12 (1.88%) CREST Certified
13 12 (1.88%) CTC Cleared
13 12 (1.88%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
13 12 (1.88%) Postgraduate
14 11 (1.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 190 (29.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 134 (21.00%) NIST
3 97 (15.20%) GDPR
4 65 (10.19%) GRC
5 37 (5.80%) PCI DSS
6 24 (3.76%) COBIT
6 24 (3.76%) Cyber Essentials
7 22 (3.45%) PMO
7 22 (3.45%) QA
8 21 (3.29%) NCSC
9 17 (2.66%) Accessibility
10 14 (2.19%) Data Quality
10 14 (2.19%) Def Stans
11 13 (2.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 12 (1.88%) NIST 800
13 11 (1.72%) RMADS
14 10 (1.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 9 (1.41%) JSP 440
16 8 (1.25%) SLA
16 8 (1.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 51 (7.99%) Active Directory
2 14 (2.19%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.94%) Docker
4 3 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
5 1 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.16%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 22 (3.45%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (2.35%) HP SiteScope
2 15 (2.35%) SCOM
3 14 (2.19%) SCCM
4 13 (2.04%) Kubernetes
5 12 (1.88%) Terraform
6 11 (1.72%) Ansible
6 11 (1.72%) Nmap
6 11 (1.72%) QRadar
7 6 (0.94%) CASB
7 6 (0.94%) SCOrch
8 5 (0.78%) Functional Safety
8 5 (0.78%) WSUS
9 4 (0.63%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.47%) Nessus
10 3 (0.47%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.31%) EnCase
11 2 (0.31%) FTK
11 2 (0.31%) Grafana
Vendors
1 131 (20.53%) Microsoft
2 26 (4.08%) Splunk
3 23 (3.61%) ServiceNow
4 21 (3.29%) Cisco
5 17 (2.66%) Remedy
6 16 (2.51%) Google
7 14 (2.19%) CyberArk
8 12 (1.88%) IBM
8 12 (1.88%) Oracle
9 10 (1.57%) CrowdStrike
9 10 (1.57%) Fortinet
10 9 (1.41%) Thales
11 8 (1.25%) Gemalto
12 7 (1.10%) Databricks
12 7 (1.10%) Palo Alto
12 7 (1.10%) Qualys
12 7 (1.10%) Salesforce
12 7 (1.10%) SAP
13 6 (0.94%) Sophos
14 5 (0.78%) VMware