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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 204 164 109
Rank change year-on-year -40 -55 -15
Contract jobs citing Information Security 736 569 825
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.38% 1.73% 2.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.62% 1.92% 2.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 395 320 528
10th Percentile £349 £336 £375
25th Percentile £450 £416 £489
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £525 £600
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -12.50% -
75th Percentile £669 £688 £690
90th Percentile £800 £825 £790
UK excluding London median daily rate £503 £500 £600
% change year-on-year +0.50% -16.67% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 38 18
10th Percentile £16.40 £20.64 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.92 £22.14 £13.56
Median hourly rate £62.25 £24.91 £16.60
Median % change year-on-year +149.95% +50.08% -77.81%
75th Percentile £77.50 £72.50 £23.89
90th Percentile £80.00 £85.00 £44.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.25 £31.49 £15.73
% change year-on-year +97.68% +100.19% -80.53%

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 45,331 29,700 33,127
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.72% 90.46% 85.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,838 18,524 21,130
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,836 1,729 1,767
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.31 £17.33 £18.14
Median hourly rate £41.63 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.54% -38.57% -0.24%
75th Percentile £67.99 £49.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +83.17% -43.53% +17.65%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 20 August 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 -40 675 £563 +7.14% 578
UK excluding London -29 380 £503 +0.50% 399
London -34 308 £600 +11.63% 252
Work from Home -51 184 £583 +16.50% 231
South East -17 111 £520 -16.80% 120
North of England -29 105 £479 +0.79% 102
North West -6 73 £490 +7.10% 50
Midlands -30 60 £450 +12.50% 56
South West -18 51 £600 +2.56% 55
West Midlands -18 48 £381 -21.79% 39
East of England -16 29 £550 +9.45% 40
Scotland -11 25 £528 +22.15% 29
Yorkshire -45 21 £540 +9.37% 35
East Midlands -27 12 £533 +33.13% 17
North East -33 10 £425 -20.41% 17
Wales -13 4 £645 +55.42% 2
Northern Ireland +5 1 £550 - 3

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 26 (3.53%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.13%) Confluence
3 8 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.68%) IIS
5 2 (0.27%) Apache
5 2 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.27%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.27%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 21 (2.85%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.82%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.27%) Oracle Payroll
3 2 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.14%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.14%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 170 (23.10%) Azure
2 118 (16.03%) AWS
3 64 (8.70%) Entra ID
4 48 (6.52%) SaaS
5 44 (5.98%) Microsoft 365
6 32 (4.35%) GCP
7 25 (3.40%) GitHub
8 22 (2.99%) Microsoft Purview
8 22 (2.99%) Power Platform
9 21 (2.85%) Azure Sentinel
10 16 (2.17%) OCI
11 14 (1.90%) Power Automate
11 14 (1.90%) Serverless
12 12 (1.63%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (1.49%) Dynamics 365
14 10 (1.36%) IaaS
14 10 (1.36%) PaaS
15 8 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
15 8 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
16 7 (0.95%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 46 (6.25%) Network Security
2 44 (5.98%) Firewall
3 19 (2.58%) WAN
4 16 (2.17%) LAN
5 13 (1.77%) VPN
6 12 (1.63%) DNS
7 11 (1.49%) Wireless
8 10 (1.36%) SSH
9 9 (1.22%) DHCP
9 9 (1.22%) HTTP
9 9 (1.22%) TCP/IP
10 8 (1.09%) Internet
10 8 (1.09%) NGFW
11 7 (0.95%) HTTPS
12 5 (0.68%) Cisco IPT
12 5 (0.68%) SD-WAN
12 5 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
13 4 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
14 3 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
15 2 (0.27%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (3.26%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.45%) Power BI
3 8 (1.09%) MongoDB
4 7 (0.95%) Metadata
5 5 (0.68%) Oracle Reports
6 4 (0.54%) Data Lake
6 4 (0.54%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.41%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.27%) Relational Database
9 1 (0.14%) MariaDB
9 1 (0.14%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database 10g
9 1 (0.14%) PostgreSQL
9 1 (0.14%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.14%) SAP HANA
9 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 27 (3.67%) JIRA
2 9 (1.22%) Cypress.io
2 9 (1.22%) Postman
2 9 (1.22%) Selenium
2 9 (1.22%) WebDriver
3 6 (0.82%) Cucumber
4 4 (0.54%) Git
5 3 (0.41%) Protractor
6 2 (0.27%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.27%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.27%) Burp Suite
6 2 (0.27%) git-flow
6 2 (0.27%) GitLab
6 2 (0.27%) JMeter
7 1 (0.14%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.14%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.14%) LSMW
7 1 (0.14%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 247 (33.56%) Social Skills
2 165 (22.42%) Finance
3 134 (18.21%) Public Sector
4 89 (12.09%) Analytical Skills
5 58 (7.88%) Legal
6 55 (7.47%) Banking
7 44 (5.98%) Documentation Skills
8 27 (3.67%) Organisational Skills
9 26 (3.53%) Influencing Skills
9 26 (3.53%) Local Government
10 22 (2.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 19 (2.58%) Presentation Skills
12 18 (2.45%) Military
13 15 (2.04%) Law
14 14 (1.90%) Aerospace
14 14 (1.90%) Retail
15 13 (1.77%) Billing
16 10 (1.36%) Marketing
17 9 (1.22%) Police
18 8 (1.09%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 98 (13.32%) Analyst
2 80 (10.87%) Senior
3 75 (10.19%) Architect
3 75 (10.19%) Consultant
4 61 (8.29%) Lead
5 54 (7.34%) Security Architect
6 53 (7.20%) Security Consultant
7 42 (5.71%) Security Engineer
8 39 (5.30%) Security Manager
9 36 (4.89%) Security Analyst
10 26 (3.53%) Project Manager
11 25 (3.40%) IT Manager
12 24 (3.26%) Developer
13 22 (2.99%) Information Manager
14 21 (2.85%) Cybersecurity Manager
14 21 (2.85%) Security Officer
15 20 (2.72%) Senior Manager
16 18 (2.45%) Business Analyst
16 18 (2.45%) Information Officer
16 18 (2.45%) Information Security Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (4.21%) Terraform
2 26 (3.53%) SailPoint
3 24 (3.26%) Oracle Fusion
4 22 (2.99%) OAuth
5 17 (2.31%) SAML
6 16 (2.17%) LDAP
7 15 (2.04%) OAuth2
7 15 (2.04%) OpenID
8 14 (1.90%) Web Services
9 10 (1.36%) REST
9 10 (1.36%) XML
10 9 (1.22%) Gherkin
11 6 (0.82%) JSON
12 5 (0.68%) .NET
13 4 (0.54%) Jakarta EE
13 4 (0.54%) JSP
13 4 (0.54%) Play Framework
14 3 (0.41%) Elastic Stack
14 3 (0.41%) Lightning Web Components
14 3 (0.41%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 136 (18.48%) Management Information System
2 76 (10.33%) Onboarding
3 56 (7.61%) Security Posture
4 26 (3.53%) Operational Technology
5 24 (3.26%) Cyber Threat
5 24 (3.26%) Security Operations Centre
6 19 (2.58%) Data Centre
7 18 (2.45%) PKI
8 17 (2.31%) Cloud Native
9 15 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
10 14 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
11 12 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
11 12 (1.63%) NHS
12 10 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
13 9 (1.22%) BYOD
13 9 (1.22%) CSOC
14 8 (1.09%) Cyber Defence
14 8 (1.09%) Driving Licence
14 8 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
14 8 (1.09%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 81 (11.01%) Windows
2 42 (5.71%) Linux
3 36 (4.89%) Windows Server
4 20 (2.72%) Unix
5 10 (1.36%) Android
6 9 (1.22%) Apple iOS
6 9 (1.22%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.82%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.68%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.27%) Alpine Linux
11 1 (0.14%) CentOS
11 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 254 (34.51%) Cybersecurity
2 198 (26.90%) Risk Management
3 170 (23.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 135 (18.34%) Data Protection
5 127 (17.26%) Continuous Improvement
6 106 (14.40%) Problem-Solving
7 100 (13.59%) Incident Response
8 96 (13.04%) Security Operations
9 90 (12.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 87 (11.82%) Roadmaps
11 83 (11.28%) Agile
11 83 (11.28%) Cloud Security
12 82 (11.14%) Vulnerability Management
13 77 (10.46%) Decision-Making
14 64 (8.70%) ITIL
15 62 (8.42%) SIEM
16 61 (8.29%) Computer Science
16 61 (8.29%) Security Architecture
17 60 (8.15%) AI
18 58 (7.88%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 76 (10.33%) Python
2 68 (9.24%) PowerShell
3 30 (4.08%) Bash
4 21 (2.85%) SQL
5 12 (1.63%) Java
6 11 (1.49%) C#
7 8 (1.09%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.09%) PL/SQL
8 7 (0.95%) Bicep
9 5 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
9 5 (0.68%) Scala
10 3 (0.41%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.41%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.14%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.14%) Go
11 1 (0.14%) R
11 1 (0.14%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 152 (20.65%) Security Cleared
2 125 (16.98%) CISSP
2 125 (16.98%) Degree
3 113 (15.35%) SC Cleared
4 85 (11.55%) CISM
5 43 (5.84%) DV Cleared
6 28 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
7 27 (3.67%) CISA
7 27 (3.67%) Cisco Certification
8 23 (3.13%) CRISC
9 22 (2.99%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 17 (2.31%) CEH
10 17 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
11 15 (2.04%) AWS Certification
11 15 (2.04%) Azure Certification
11 15 (2.04%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 14 (1.90%) PMP
13 13 (1.77%) CCSP
13 13 (1.77%) PMI Certification
14 12 (1.63%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (26.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 128 (17.39%) NIST
3 120 (16.30%) GDPR
4 103 (13.99%) GRC
5 41 (5.57%) PCI DSS
6 40 (5.43%) Cyber Essentials
7 38 (5.16%) NCSC
8 25 (3.40%) Data Quality
9 24 (3.26%) Accessibility
10 21 (2.85%) QA
11 19 (2.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 18 (2.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 17 (2.31%) NIST 800
14 16 (2.17%) SLA
15 14 (1.90%) HIPAA
16 13 (1.77%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 13 (1.77%) SOC 2
17 10 (1.36%) Government Security Classifications
17 10 (1.36%) WCAG
18 9 (1.22%) COBIT
System Software
1 80 (10.87%) Active Directory
2 10 (1.36%) Docker
3 9 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.82%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.41%) OpenAM
5 3 (0.41%) Squid
6 2 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.14%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.14%) Ceph
7 1 (0.14%) Firmware
7 1 (0.14%) RACF
7 1 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.14%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 21 (2.85%) Kubernetes
2 20 (2.72%) Microsoft Intune
3 18 (2.45%) Single Sign-On
4 12 (1.63%) Ansible
5 7 (0.95%) SCCM
6 5 (0.68%) QRadar
7 4 (0.54%) Grafana
7 4 (0.54%) Podman
8 3 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.41%) RSA Archer
9 2 (0.27%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 2 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.14%) CASB
10 1 (0.14%) Host Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.14%) Istio
10 1 (0.14%) Nmap
10 1 (0.14%) WSUS
Vendors
1 167 (22.69%) Microsoft
2 44 (5.98%) Oracle
3 39 (5.30%) ServiceNow
4 23 (3.13%) CyberArk
4 23 (3.13%) Google
5 21 (2.85%) Splunk
6 19 (2.58%) BeyondTrust
6 19 (2.58%) SAP
7 17 (2.31%) Cisco
8 16 (2.17%) Apple
9 15 (2.04%) Palo Alto
9 15 (2.04%) VMware
10 12 (1.63%) Ariba
11 10 (1.36%) Zscaler
12 9 (1.22%) CrowdStrike
12 9 (1.22%) Remedy
13 7 (0.95%) IBM
13 7 (0.95%) Thales
14 6 (0.82%) Atlassian
14 6 (0.82%) Computacenter