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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 176 177 121
Rank change year-on-year +1 -56 -7
Contract jobs citing Information Security 686 448 856
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.53% 1.54% 1.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.79% 1.70% 2.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 401 276 555
10th Percentile £400 £335 £391
25th Percentile £463 £463 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £586 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.18% +1.96% -4.17%
75th Percentile £663 £688 £688
90th Percentile £788 £819 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £557 £550
% change year-on-year -5.75% +1.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 26 35
10th Percentile £16.56 £16.16 £15.93
25th Percentile £20.61 £22.14 £17.86
Median hourly rate £27.16 £24.66 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.14% +26.46% -73.10%
75th Percentile £61.50 £45.18 £48.75
90th Percentile £84.63 £81.18 £82.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.50 £22.14 £19.50
% change year-on-year +15.18% +13.54% -74.00%

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 38,313 26,307 38,195
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.58% 90.51% 86.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,289 17,086 24,815
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £635 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,251 967 2,341
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.00 £12.82
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.24 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.94% -1.54% -11.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.85 £31.08 £31.65
% change year-on-year +12.13% -1.80% -12.39%

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 2 April 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 2 April 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 2 April 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 -2 609 £550 -6.38% 316
UK excluding London -6 330 £525 -5.75% 249
London +11 288 £575 -4.17% 106
Work from Home +3 193 £550 - 169
South East -7 114 £563 -6.25% 91
North of England -48 71 £500 -4.76% 64
Midlands -31 49 £540 +35.00% 32
North West -18 46 £540 +2.86% 37
East of England -4 45 £553 -7.83% 19
West Midlands -37 38 £545 +36.25% 24
South West -21 23 £500 -14.89% 25
Scotland +11 22 £358 -25.26% 12
Yorkshire -48 21 £482 +16.91% 18
East Midlands -27 11 £450 +50.00% 8
Wales -5 6 £338 +87.50% 7
North East -17 4 £450 -15.73% 9

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 20 (2.92%) Confluence
2 13 (1.90%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.02%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
5 4 (0.58%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.15%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 36 (5.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 32 (4.66%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (2.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (1.46%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.29%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.15%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.15%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 12 (1.75%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (0.58%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.29%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.29%) Temenos T24
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 125 (18.22%) Azure
2 92 (13.41%) AWS
3 41 (5.98%) Microsoft 365
4 33 (4.81%) GCP
5 29 (4.23%) SaaS
6 25 (3.64%) Entra ID
6 25 (3.64%) Power Platform
7 17 (2.48%) OCI
8 16 (2.33%) GitHub
9 15 (2.19%) Microsoft Purview
10 9 (1.31%) Azure Sentinel
11 8 (1.17%) IaaS
11 8 (1.17%) PaaS
11 8 (1.17%) Power Automate
12 7 (1.02%) Microsoft Copilot
13 6 (0.87%) Azure Data Factory
13 6 (0.87%) Azure DevOps
13 6 (0.87%) Azure Logic Apps
13 6 (0.87%) PowerApps
14 5 (0.73%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 57 (8.31%) Firewall
2 35 (5.10%) Network Security
3 17 (2.48%) DNS
4 15 (2.19%) TCP/IP
4 15 (2.19%) Wireless
5 12 (1.75%) HTTP
5 12 (1.75%) VPN
6 10 (1.46%) WAN
7 9 (1.31%) DHCP
7 9 (1.31%) SSH
8 8 (1.17%) Internet
9 6 (0.87%) SSL
10 5 (0.73%) Cisco IPT
10 5 (0.73%) FTP
10 5 (0.73%) SMTP
11 4 (0.58%) LAN
11 4 (0.58%) SAN
11 4 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
12 3 (0.44%) OSPF
12 3 (0.44%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (3.21%) Power BI
2 10 (1.46%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (1.31%) Metadata
3 9 (1.31%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.17%) Data Lake
5 4 (0.58%) Big Data
5 4 (0.58%) Hadoop
5 4 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.58%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 3 (0.44%) DynamoDB
6 3 (0.44%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.44%) PostgreSQL
6 3 (0.44%) Tableau
7 2 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.29%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.29%) MySQL
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 2 (0.29%) Power Query
7 2 (0.29%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 26 (3.79%) JIRA
2 15 (2.19%) Burp Suite
3 12 (1.75%) Metasploit
4 9 (1.31%) Git
5 2 (0.29%) GitLab
6 1 (0.15%) AppScan
6 1 (0.15%) git-flow
6 1 (0.15%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.15%) ScriptRunner
6 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
General
1 218 (31.78%) Social Skills
2 137 (19.97%) Finance
3 98 (14.29%) Public Sector
4 87 (12.68%) Analytical Skills
5 67 (9.77%) Legal
6 51 (7.43%) Banking
7 24 (3.50%) Organisational Skills
8 17 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
9 15 (2.19%) Retail
10 14 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
11 11 (1.60%) Telecoms
12 10 (1.46%) Law
13 9 (1.31%) Police
14 8 (1.17%) Local Government
14 8 (1.17%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.87%) Marketing
16 5 (0.73%) Cyber-Physical System
17 4 (0.58%) Aerospace
18 3 (0.44%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 112 (16.33%) Analyst
2 78 (11.37%) Consultant
3 56 (8.16%) Architect
4 52 (7.58%) Senior
5 47 (6.85%) Security Engineer
6 46 (6.71%) Security Consultant
7 45 (6.56%) Lead
8 43 (6.27%) Security Analyst
9 40 (5.83%) Security Architect
10 37 (5.39%) Security Manager
11 30 (4.37%) Security Officer
12 23 (3.35%) Developer
13 21 (3.06%) Project Manager
13 21 (3.06%) Security Specialist
14 18 (2.62%) Business Analyst
14 18 (2.62%) Information Analyst
14 18 (2.62%) Information Security Analyst
15 17 (2.48%) Information Security Officer
16 15 (2.19%) Cybersecurity Manager
16 15 (2.19%) Information Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (2.33%) Oracle Fusion
2 15 (2.19%) OAuth
3 10 (1.46%) OAuth2
4 9 (1.31%) OpenID
4 9 (1.31%) SAML
5 8 (1.17%) LDAP
6 7 (1.02%) Middleware
6 7 (1.02%) SailPoint
6 7 (1.02%) Spring
6 7 (1.02%) Spring Boot
7 5 (0.73%) J2EE
7 5 (0.73%) JSP
7 5 (0.73%) Node.js
8 4 (0.58%) .NET
8 4 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
9 3 (0.44%) GraphQL
9 3 (0.44%) JWT
9 3 (0.44%) Kafka
9 3 (0.44%) ModSecurity
9 3 (0.44%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 112 (16.33%) Management Information System
2 62 (9.04%) Security Posture
3 38 (5.54%) Onboarding
4 33 (4.81%) Operational Technology
5 19 (2.77%) Cyber Threat
5 19 (2.77%) Data Protection Act
6 16 (2.33%) Cloud Native
6 16 (2.33%) PKI
7 14 (2.04%) Data Centre
8 13 (1.90%) Insider Threat
8 13 (1.90%) Security Operations Centre
9 12 (1.75%) Virtual Team
10 11 (1.60%) BYOD
10 11 (1.60%) Mobile App
10 11 (1.60%) Product Ownership
11 10 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
12 9 (1.31%) Public Cloud
13 8 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
13 8 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 62 (9.04%) Windows
2 32 (4.66%) Linux
3 22 (3.21%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.60%) Unix
5 3 (0.44%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.44%) Kali Linux
5 3 (0.44%) zOS
6 2 (0.29%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.15%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 257 (37.46%) Cybersecurity
2 176 (25.66%) Risk Management
3 115 (16.76%) Problem-Solving
4 109 (15.89%) Continuous Improvement
5 107 (15.60%) Data Protection
6 101 (14.72%) Stakeholder Management
7 85 (12.39%) Cloud Security
8 80 (11.66%) Security Management
9 64 (9.33%) Agile
10 61 (8.89%) Change Management
10 61 (8.89%) Incident Response
11 59 (8.60%) Information Security Management
11 59 (8.60%) Security Operations
11 59 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 56 (8.16%) Threat Modelling
13 54 (7.87%) AI
14 52 (7.58%) Risk Assessment
15 50 (7.29%) Decision-Making
15 50 (7.29%) Roadmaps
16 49 (7.14%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 56 (8.16%) Python
2 31 (4.52%) PowerShell
3 23 (3.35%) Java
4 20 (2.92%) SQL
5 15 (2.19%) Bash
6 7 (1.02%) Kotlin
7 6 (0.87%) Kusto Query Language
8 5 (0.73%) Go
9 4 (0.58%) C#
10 3 (0.44%) RPG
11 2 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 2 (0.29%) JavaScript
11 2 (0.29%) Rust
11 2 (0.29%) Solidity
12 1 (0.15%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.15%) BeanShell
12 1 (0.15%) C++
12 1 (0.15%) Lisp
12 1 (0.15%) R
12 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 197 (28.72%) Security Cleared
2 146 (21.28%) SC Cleared
3 129 (18.80%) Degree
4 121 (17.64%) CISSP
5 87 (12.68%) CISM
6 52 (7.58%) DV Cleared
7 31 (4.52%) CISA
8 28 (4.08%) Cisco Certification
8 28 (4.08%) Computer Science Degree
9 23 (3.35%) CRISC
10 22 (3.21%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 20 (2.92%) CEH
12 18 (2.62%) Master's Degree
13 17 (2.48%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
14 16 (2.33%) CREST Certified
15 15 (2.19%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
15 15 (2.19%) Postgraduate
16 13 (1.90%) CTC Cleared
17 12 (1.75%) CompTIA Security+
18 11 (1.60%) Cyber Scheme
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 219 (31.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 163 (23.76%) NIST
3 117 (17.06%) GDPR
4 80 (11.66%) GRC
5 50 (7.29%) PCI DSS
6 30 (4.37%) COBIT
6 30 (4.37%) NCSC
7 26 (3.79%) PMO
8 25 (3.64%) QA
9 22 (3.21%) Cyber Essentials
9 22 (3.21%) Data Quality
10 18 (2.62%) NIST 800
11 16 (2.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 15 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 13 (1.90%) SOC 2
14 10 (1.46%) Accessibility
14 10 (1.46%) JSP 440
15 9 (1.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 8 (1.17%) RMADS
17 7 (1.02%) SLA
System Software
1 36 (5.25%) Active Directory
2 8 (1.17%) Docker
3 7 (1.02%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.73%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.44%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.15%) Ceph
6 1 (0.15%) RACF
6 1 (0.15%) Squid
6 1 (0.15%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 19 (2.77%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (1.90%) Nmap
3 12 (1.75%) Kubernetes
4 10 (1.46%) SCCM
4 10 (1.46%) Terraform
5 8 (1.17%) Ansible
5 8 (1.17%) QRadar
6 5 (0.73%) Functional Safety
6 5 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.58%) WSUS
8 3 (0.44%) CASB
8 3 (0.44%) FortiGate
8 3 (0.44%) SCOrch
9 2 (0.29%) Nessus
9 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.29%) Red Hat Satellite
10 1 (0.15%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.15%) Podman
10 1 (0.15%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.15%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 102 (14.87%) Microsoft
2 35 (5.10%) ServiceNow
3 21 (3.06%) Oracle
4 15 (2.19%) Google
5 14 (2.04%) Cisco
6 12 (1.75%) CyberArk
7 10 (1.46%) IBM
8 9 (1.31%) CrowdStrike
9 8 (1.17%) Databricks
10 7 (1.02%) BeyondTrust
10 7 (1.02%) Splunk
10 7 (1.02%) VMware
11 5 (0.73%) Fortinet
11 5 (0.73%) Qualys
11 5 (0.73%) Sophos
12 4 (0.58%) Ariba
12 4 (0.58%) Gemalto
12 4 (0.58%) NEC
12 4 (0.58%) Palo Alto
12 4 (0.58%) Thales