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 5 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 194 183 115
Rank change year-on-year -11 -68 -9
Contract jobs citing Information Security 725 490 853
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.40% 1.54% 1.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.65% 1.70% 2.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 409 275 516
10th Percentile £358 £305 £375
25th Percentile £450 £413 £487
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £535 £598
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% -10.46% -0.42%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £690
90th Percentile £800 £845 £802
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £530 £600
% change year-on-year -0.94% -11.67% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 31 26
10th Percentile £16.35 - £12.75
25th Percentile £16.62 £22.14 £15.80
Median hourly rate £25.97 £24.66 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.31% +26.46% -74.51%
75th Percentile £64.09 £56.79 £22.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £83.41 £25.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.97 £23.65 £18.00
% change year-on-year +9.83% +31.36% -78.39%

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 43,975 28,802 36,975
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.98% 90.72% 85.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,325 18,167 23,595
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.98% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,639 1,417 2,517
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.50 £16.24
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -33.38% +0.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.66 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.26% -35.31% +8.91%

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 5 July 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 5 July 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 5 July 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 -10 660 £550 +3.77% 450
UK excluding London -1 375 £525 -0.94% 304
London -16 306 £600 +14.29% 190
Work from Home -39 183 £567 +13.30% 207
South East -7 121 £525 -16.00% 89
North of England -45 87 £511 +20.30% 83
North West -13 58 £506 +18.98% 46
Midlands -26 58 £533 +33.13% 56
South West -2 45 £500 -14.53% 35
West Midlands -28 42 £500 - 35
East of England -15 32 £525 +5.63% 29
Scotland 0 31 £358 -19.55% 6
Yorkshire -53 25 £540 +30.91% 28
East Midlands -17 16 £557 +39.19% 21
North East -38 4 £450 -15.73% 9
Wales -16 3 £645 +55.42% 8

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 31 (4.28%) Confluence
2 25 (3.45%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.69%) IIS
5 4 (0.55%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.41%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 29 (4.00%) Microsoft Office
2 23 (3.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (1.52%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.28%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.14%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 6 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (0.69%) Oracle EBS
3 4 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.55%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.14%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 155 (21.38%) Azure
2 105 (14.48%) AWS
3 51 (7.03%) Entra ID
4 40 (5.52%) Microsoft 365
4 40 (5.52%) SaaS
5 36 (4.97%) GCP
6 23 (3.17%) Microsoft Purview
7 20 (2.76%) Power Platform
8 19 (2.62%) GitHub
9 18 (2.48%) Azure Sentinel
10 16 (2.21%) OCI
11 10 (1.38%) Azure DevOps
12 9 (1.24%) IaaS
12 9 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
12 9 (1.24%) PaaS
13 7 (0.97%) Power Automate
14 6 (0.83%) Azure Key Vault
14 6 (0.83%) Azure Logic Apps
14 6 (0.83%) Cloud Computing
14 6 (0.83%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 39 (5.38%) Network Security
2 35 (4.83%) Firewall
3 12 (1.66%) SSH
3 12 (1.66%) VPN
4 10 (1.38%) DNS
5 9 (1.24%) HTTP
5 9 (1.24%) TCP/IP
6 8 (1.10%) Wireless
7 7 (0.97%) DHCP
7 7 (0.97%) HTTPS
8 6 (0.83%) Internet
8 6 (0.83%) WAN
9 5 (0.69%) Intrusion Detection
9 5 (0.69%) NGFW
10 4 (0.55%) LAN
11 3 (0.41%) Cisco IPT
12 2 (0.28%) Multicast
12 2 (0.28%) NAS
12 2 (0.28%) Reverse Proxy
12 2 (0.28%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (2.48%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.34%) Power BI
3 10 (1.38%) Metadata
4 6 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.55%) Big Data
5 4 (0.55%) Data Lake
5 4 (0.55%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.41%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.41%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.41%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.28%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.28%) MySQL
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 1 (0.14%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.14%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.14%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.14%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 34 (4.69%) JIRA
2 10 (1.38%) Git
3 5 (0.69%) Burp Suite
4 4 (0.55%) Cypress.io
4 4 (0.55%) Postman
4 4 (0.55%) Selenium
4 4 (0.55%) WebDriver
5 3 (0.41%) git-flow
5 3 (0.41%) Metasploit
6 2 (0.28%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.28%) GitLab
6 2 (0.28%) JMeter
6 2 (0.28%) Protractor
7 1 (0.14%) AppScan
7 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.14%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.14%) LSMW
7 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.14%) SonarQube
General
1 244 (33.66%) Social Skills
2 166 (22.90%) Finance
3 115 (15.86%) Public Sector
4 75 (10.34%) Analytical Skills
5 62 (8.55%) Banking
6 60 (8.28%) Legal
7 40 (5.52%) Documentation Skills
8 27 (3.72%) Organisational Skills
9 22 (3.03%) Influencing Skills
10 20 (2.76%) Local Government
11 14 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
12 12 (1.66%) Retail
13 11 (1.52%) Military
14 10 (1.38%) Billing
14 10 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 9 (1.24%) Marketing
16 8 (1.10%) Aviation
16 8 (1.10%) Telecoms
17 7 (0.97%) Pharmaceutical
18 6 (0.83%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 95 (13.10%) Analyst
2 78 (10.76%) Consultant
3 68 (9.38%) Senior
4 60 (8.28%) Security Consultant
5 57 (7.86%) Architect
6 56 (7.72%) Lead
7 53 (7.31%) Security Engineer
8 40 (5.52%) Security Architect
9 39 (5.38%) Security Analyst
10 35 (4.83%) Security Manager
11 29 (4.00%) Project Manager
12 27 (3.72%) IT Manager
13 24 (3.31%) Security Officer
14 21 (2.90%) Senior Manager
15 18 (2.48%) Cybersecurity Manager
15 18 (2.48%) Developer
15 18 (2.48%) Information Officer
16 17 (2.34%) Information Security Consultant
17 16 (2.21%) Business Analyst
17 16 (2.21%) Cybersecurity Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.31%) Oracle Fusion
2 22 (3.03%) OAuth
3 21 (2.90%) SailPoint
4 16 (2.21%) SAML
5 15 (2.07%) OAuth2
5 15 (2.07%) OpenID
6 13 (1.79%) LDAP
7 11 (1.52%) Web Services
8 9 (1.24%) REST
8 9 (1.24%) XML
9 8 (1.10%) .NET
10 7 (0.97%) J2EE
10 7 (0.97%) JSP
11 5 (0.69%) JSON
11 5 (0.69%) Middleware
11 5 (0.69%) Node.js
11 5 (0.69%) RESTful
12 4 (0.55%) ASP.NET
12 4 (0.55%) Gherkin
12 4 (0.55%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 119 (16.41%) Management Information System
2 76 (10.48%) Onboarding
3 59 (8.14%) Security Posture
4 37 (5.10%) Operational Technology
5 19 (2.62%) Cloud Native
5 19 (2.62%) Cyber Threat
5 19 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
6 18 (2.48%) Security Operations Centre
7 16 (2.21%) Data Centre
7 16 (2.21%) PKI
7 16 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
8 14 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
8 14 (1.93%) Virtual Team
9 13 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
9 13 (1.79%) SCADA
10 11 (1.52%) BYOD
10 11 (1.52%) Product Ownership
11 10 (1.38%) Public Cloud
12 8 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
12 8 (1.10%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 78 (10.76%) Windows
2 44 (6.07%) Linux
3 32 (4.41%) Windows Server
4 22 (3.03%) Unix
5 10 (1.38%) Android
6 9 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 8 (1.10%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.55%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.41%) zOS
10 2 (0.28%) Alpine Linux
10 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.28%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 257 (35.45%) Cybersecurity
2 203 (28.00%) Risk Management
3 129 (17.79%) Data Protection
4 127 (17.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 125 (17.24%) Continuous Improvement
6 103 (14.21%) Problem-Solving
7 85 (11.72%) Agile
8 84 (11.59%) Security Operations
9 81 (11.17%) Cloud Security
10 79 (10.90%) Roadmaps
10 79 (10.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 77 (10.62%) Incident Response
12 75 (10.34%) Change Management
13 69 (9.52%) Decision-Making
14 65 (8.97%) Computer Science
15 60 (8.28%) AI
16 59 (8.14%) Security Management
17 58 (8.00%) SIEM
18 57 (7.86%) ITIL
18 57 (7.86%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 80 (11.03%) Python
2 64 (8.83%) PowerShell
3 22 (3.03%) Java
4 20 (2.76%) Bash
5 18 (2.48%) SQL
6 8 (1.10%) C#
7 5 (0.69%) Bicep
7 5 (0.69%) JavaScript
7 5 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
8 4 (0.55%) Apex Code
9 3 (0.41%) Go
9 3 (0.41%) Kotlin
9 3 (0.41%) RPG
10 2 (0.28%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.14%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.14%) C++
11 1 (0.14%) Lisp
11 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 159 (21.93%) Security Cleared
2 149 (20.55%) Degree
3 132 (18.21%) CISSP
4 121 (16.69%) SC Cleared
5 85 (11.72%) CISM
6 41 (5.66%) DV Cleared
7 31 (4.28%) CISA
7 31 (4.28%) Cisco Certification
8 30 (4.14%) CRISC
9 26 (3.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 22 (3.03%) Computer Science Degree
11 20 (2.76%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 18 (2.48%) CEH
13 16 (2.21%) Master's Degree
14 15 (2.07%) PMP
15 14 (1.93%) AWS Certification
15 14 (1.93%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
15 14 (1.93%) Microsoft Certification
15 14 (1.93%) PMI Certification
16 13 (1.79%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 217 (29.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 155 (21.38%) NIST
3 123 (16.97%) GDPR
4 102 (14.07%) GRC
5 53 (7.31%) PCI DSS
6 34 (4.69%) Cyber Essentials
7 31 (4.28%) NCSC
8 23 (3.17%) Data Quality
9 20 (2.76%) COBIT
10 19 (2.62%) NIST 800
10 19 (2.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 19 (2.62%) SOC 2
11 18 (2.48%) QA
12 16 (2.21%) Accessibility
13 15 (2.07%) HIPAA
13 15 (2.07%) SLA
14 14 (1.93%) PMO
15 12 (1.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 11 (1.52%) ISO/IEC 27005
17 9 (1.24%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 67 (9.24%) Active Directory
2 10 (1.38%) Docker
3 6 (0.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.69%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.41%) OpenAM
5 3 (0.41%) Squid
6 2 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.14%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.14%) Ceph
7 1 (0.14%) Firmware
7 1 (0.14%) RACF
Systems Management
1 16 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
1 16 (2.21%) Terraform
2 14 (1.93%) Kubernetes
3 13 (1.79%) Ansible
4 12 (1.66%) Single Sign-On
5 7 (0.97%) SCCM
6 4 (0.55%) QRadar
7 3 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.41%) Podman
7 3 (0.41%) RSA Archer
8 2 (0.28%) Computer Incident Response Team
8 2 (0.28%) Functional Safety
8 2 (0.28%) Nmap
8 2 (0.28%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Satellite
9 1 (0.14%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.14%) Host Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.14%) Nessus
9 1 (0.14%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.14%) WSUS
Vendors
1 144 (19.86%) Microsoft
2 43 (5.93%) ServiceNow
3 39 (5.38%) Oracle
4 22 (3.03%) CyberArk
5 20 (2.76%) Google
6 19 (2.62%) BeyondTrust
7 16 (2.21%) SAP
8 15 (2.07%) Cisco
8 15 (2.07%) Splunk
9 14 (1.93%) Apple
10 12 (1.66%) Ariba
11 11 (1.52%) CrowdStrike
12 10 (1.38%) Palo Alto
13 7 (0.97%) IBM
13 7 (0.97%) Remedy
13 7 (0.97%) VMware
14 6 (0.83%) Computacenter
14 6 (0.83%) Thales
14 6 (0.83%) Zscaler
15 5 (0.69%) Okta