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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 204 167 103
Rank change year-on-year -37 -64 -11
Contract jobs citing Information Security 769 581 847
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.41% 1.78% 2.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.67% 1.97% 2.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 412 318 520
10th Percentile £326 £321 £375
25th Percentile £425 £413 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -8.70% -3.08%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £688
90th Percentile £800 £788 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £600
% change year-on-year -2.63% -20.83% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 44 19
10th Percentile £14.37 £20.71 £12.95
25th Percentile £21.35 £22.14 £15.53
Median hourly rate £62.25 £33.50 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +85.82% +67.50% -72.49%
75th Percentile £79.25 £65.00 £37.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £47.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.25 £33.50 £15.96
% change year-on-year +85.82% +109.90% -78.43%

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 46,073 29,551 32,512
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.35% 90.64% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,867 18,364 19,652
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,200 1,847 1,359
10th Percentile £13.74 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.06
Median hourly rate £39.75 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.05% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £65.88 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

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 29 September 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 29 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Information Security in the UK

Information Security
Top 17 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 29 September 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 -52 697 £550 +4.76% 1,402
UK excluding London -15 408 £463 -2.63% 782
London -47 305 £600 +9.09% 676
Work from Home -45 190 £550 +22.22% 625
North of England -30 120 £461 +2.50% 240
South East -43 99 £476 -23.80% 208
Midlands -9 75 £450 +12.50% 105
North West -24 71 £474 +11.53% 129
West Midlands +8 63 £450 -5.26% 62
South West -32 52 £600 +29.73% 91
Yorkshire -28 34 £475 -5.00% 70
Scotland -14 33 £565 +32.94% 49
East of England -14 32 £515 +106.83% 42
North East -27 15 £425 -22.73% 41
East Midlands -35 12 £533 +33.13% 43
Wales -12 3 £815 +33.06% 14
Northern Ireland - 1 £550 - 39

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 37 (4.81%) SharePoint
2 22 (2.86%) Confluence
3 11 (1.43%) IIS
4 8 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.26%) Apache
5 2 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.26%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.26%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 21 (2.73%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.17%) Spreadsheet
4 8 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.26%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 20 (2.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.91%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.52%) Oracle Payroll
4 2 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.13%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.13%) SAP MDG
5 1 (0.13%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 184 (23.93%) Azure
2 120 (15.60%) AWS
3 68 (8.84%) Entra ID
4 48 (6.24%) GCP
5 46 (5.98%) SaaS
6 45 (5.85%) Microsoft 365
7 31 (4.03%) Power Platform
8 27 (3.51%) GitHub
9 25 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
10 24 (3.12%) Power Automate
10 24 (3.12%) Serverless
11 23 (2.99%) Dynamics 365
11 23 (2.99%) Microsoft Purview
12 20 (2.60%) Azure Sentinel
13 17 (2.21%) OCI
14 16 (2.08%) Azure Functions
15 12 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
15 12 (1.56%) PaaS
16 10 (1.30%) IaaS
17 8 (1.04%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 52 (6.76%) Network Security
2 45 (5.85%) Firewall
3 20 (2.60%) WAN
4 17 (2.21%) LAN
5 16 (2.08%) DNS
6 10 (1.30%) DHCP
7 9 (1.17%) Internet
7 9 (1.17%) SSH
7 9 (1.17%) TCP/IP
8 8 (1.04%) NGFW
8 8 (1.04%) Wireless
9 7 (0.91%) VPN
10 6 (0.78%) HTTP
10 6 (0.78%) HTTPS
11 5 (0.65%) SD-WAN
11 5 (0.65%) SMTP
11 5 (0.65%) Structured Cabling
12 4 (0.52%) Cisco IPT
12 4 (0.52%) Reverse Proxy
12 4 (0.52%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (4.42%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.21%) Power BI
3 14 (1.82%) Metadata
4 12 (1.56%) MongoDB
5 5 (0.65%) Data Lake
5 5 (0.65%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.52%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
7 3 (0.39%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.26%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.26%) Metadata Repository
8 2 (0.26%) Star Schema
9 1 (0.13%) Ataccama
9 1 (0.13%) Chroma
9 1 (0.13%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.13%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.13%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.13%) SAP HANA
9 1 (0.13%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 26 (3.38%) JIRA
2 13 (1.69%) Git
3 12 (1.56%) Postman
4 11 (1.43%) Cypress.io
4 11 (1.43%) Selenium
4 11 (1.43%) WebDriver
5 8 (1.04%) Cucumber
6 3 (0.39%) Protractor
6 3 (0.39%) ScalaTest
7 2 (0.26%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.26%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.26%) Claude Code
7 2 (0.26%) git-flow
7 2 (0.26%) GitLab
7 2 (0.26%) JMeter
8 1 (0.13%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.13%) Jenkins
8 1 (0.13%) LSMW
8 1 (0.13%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 306 (39.79%) Social Skills
2 171 (22.24%) Finance
3 148 (19.25%) Public Sector
4 116 (15.08%) Analytical Skills
5 65 (8.45%) Legal
6 52 (6.76%) Banking
7 44 (5.72%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (5.20%) Influencing Skills
9 36 (4.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 31 (4.03%) Organisational Skills
11 29 (3.77%) Military
12 27 (3.51%) Presentation Skills
13 25 (3.25%) Local Government
14 18 (2.34%) Law
15 16 (2.08%) Aerospace
16 12 (1.56%) Manufacturing
17 11 (1.43%) Billing
17 11 (1.43%) Marketing
18 10 (1.30%) Retail
19 9 (1.17%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 110 (14.30%) Analyst
2 97 (12.61%) Senior
3 80 (10.40%) Architect
4 73 (9.49%) Lead
5 68 (8.84%) Consultant
6 56 (7.28%) Security Architect
7 52 (6.76%) Security Engineer
8 45 (5.85%) Security Consultant
9 42 (5.46%) Security Analyst
10 38 (4.94%) Security Manager
11 37 (4.81%) Developer
12 28 (3.64%) Project Manager
13 26 (3.38%) Security Officer
14 25 (3.25%) Information Manager
14 25 (3.25%) Information Security Officer
15 23 (2.99%) Information Officer
15 23 (2.99%) IT Manager
16 19 (2.47%) Cybersecurity Analyst
16 19 (2.47%) Cybersecurity Manager
16 19 (2.47%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (5.59%) Terraform
2 26 (3.38%) SailPoint
3 25 (3.25%) Oracle Fusion
4 21 (2.73%) OAuth
4 21 (2.73%) SAML
5 19 (2.47%) OpenID
6 18 (2.34%) LDAP
6 18 (2.34%) XML
7 16 (2.08%) OAuth2
8 15 (1.95%) Web Services
9 14 (1.82%) JSON
10 11 (1.43%) Gherkin
10 11 (1.43%) XSLT
11 10 (1.30%) REST
12 9 (1.17%) RESTful
13 8 (1.04%) Play Framework
14 5 (0.65%) .NET
14 5 (0.65%) Middleware
14 5 (0.65%) Node.js
15 4 (0.52%) React
Miscellaneous
1 154 (20.03%) Management Information System
2 74 (9.62%) Onboarding
3 56 (7.28%) Security Posture
4 35 (4.55%) Cyber Threat
5 29 (3.77%) Operational Technology
6 26 (3.38%) Data Centre
7 25 (3.25%) Security Operations Centre
8 24 (3.12%) Cloud Native
9 21 (2.73%) PKI
10 19 (2.47%) Taxonomies
11 16 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
12 15 (1.95%) Cyber Defence
12 15 (1.95%) Public Cloud
13 13 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
13 13 (1.69%) NHS
13 13 (1.69%) Product Ownership
14 12 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
15 11 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (1.30%) Virtual Team
17 9 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 82 (10.66%) Windows
2 46 (5.98%) Linux
3 38 (4.94%) Windows Server
4 21 (2.73%) Unix
5 10 (1.30%) Android
5 10 (1.30%) Mac OS
6 7 (0.91%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.78%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.65%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.26%) Alpine Linux
11 1 (0.13%) CentOS
11 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 280 (36.41%) Cybersecurity
2 224 (29.13%) Risk Management
3 210 (27.31%) Stakeholder Management
4 160 (20.81%) Data Protection
5 143 (18.60%) Continuous Improvement
6 117 (15.21%) Incident Response
7 116 (15.08%) Problem-Solving
8 109 (14.17%) Agile
9 101 (13.13%) Vulnerability Management
10 99 (12.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 97 (12.61%) Security Operations
12 91 (11.83%) Cloud Security
13 90 (11.70%) Roadmaps
14 82 (10.66%) Decision-Making
15 81 (10.53%) AI
16 79 (10.27%) Security Architecture
17 78 (10.14%) DevOps
18 77 (10.01%) Computer Science
19 71 (9.23%) ITIL
19 71 (9.23%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 81 (10.53%) Python
2 67 (8.71%) PowerShell
3 27 (3.51%) Bash
4 25 (3.25%) SQL
5 20 (2.60%) C#
6 18 (2.34%) JavaScript
7 10 (1.30%) PL/SQL
8 9 (1.17%) Scala
9 7 (0.91%) Bicep
10 5 (0.65%) Go
10 5 (0.65%) Java
11 4 (0.52%) Korn
11 4 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.39%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.26%) Search Processing Language
13 2 (0.26%) TypeScript
14 1 (0.13%) R
14 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 170 (22.11%) Security Cleared
2 145 (18.86%) CISSP
3 139 (18.08%) Degree
4 128 (16.64%) SC Cleared
5 100 (13.00%) CISM
6 46 (5.98%) DV Cleared
7 42 (5.46%) CRISC
8 39 (5.07%) Microsoft Certification
9 36 (4.68%) Cisco Certification
10 32 (4.16%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 32 (4.16%) CISA
11 23 (2.99%) CCSP
11 23 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
12 18 (2.34%) Azure Certification
13 16 (2.08%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
14 15 (1.95%) AWS Certification
14 15 (1.95%) PMP
15 14 (1.82%) PMI Certification
16 12 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
16 12 (1.56%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 207 (26.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 135 (17.56%) NIST
3 128 (16.64%) GDPR
4 121 (15.73%) GRC
5 43 (5.59%) NCSC
6 41 (5.33%) PCI DSS
7 40 (5.20%) Cyber Essentials
8 35 (4.55%) Accessibility
8 35 (4.55%) Data Quality
9 25 (3.25%) QA
10 23 (2.99%) WCAG
11 20 (2.60%) NIST 800
12 19 (2.47%) SLA
13 18 (2.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 17 (2.21%) HIPAA
15 16 (2.08%) SOC 2
16 13 (1.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 12 (1.56%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 12 (1.56%) ISO 22301
18 10 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 76 (9.88%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.17%) Docker
3 6 (0.78%) Firmware
3 6 (0.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.65%) ISA Server
5 3 (0.39%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.39%) OpenAM
6 2 (0.26%) Squid
6 2 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 31 (4.03%) Kubernetes
2 19 (2.47%) Single Sign-On
3 17 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
4 12 (1.56%) Ansible
5 8 (1.04%) Grafana
6 7 (0.91%) CASB
7 3 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.39%) Podman
7 3 (0.39%) QRadar
7 3 (0.39%) SCCM
8 2 (0.26%) Computer Incident Response Team
8 2 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
8 2 (0.26%) RSA Archer
9 1 (0.13%) Control-M
9 1 (0.13%) Host Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.13%) Istio
Vendors
1 198 (25.75%) Microsoft
2 47 (6.11%) Oracle
3 45 (5.85%) ServiceNow
4 38 (4.94%) Google
4 38 (4.94%) Splunk
5 24 (3.12%) Cisco
6 22 (2.86%) CyberArk
7 21 (2.73%) Palo Alto
7 21 (2.73%) SAP
8 19 (2.47%) BeyondTrust
9 18 (2.34%) CrowdStrike
10 14 (1.82%) Apple
11 12 (1.56%) Ariba
11 12 (1.56%) VMware
11 12 (1.56%) Zscaler
12 11 (1.43%) Qualys
13 10 (1.30%) Databricks
14 9 (1.17%) Okta
14 9 (1.17%) Remedy
15 8 (1.04%) Rapid7