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 30 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 188 177 112
Rank change year-on-year -11 -65 -6
Contract jobs citing Information Security 700 444 848
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.42% 1.54% 1.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.68% 1.69% 2.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 418 269 526
10th Percentile £407 £313 £369
25th Percentile £463 £413 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £588
Median % change year-on-year - -6.38% -2.08%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £689
90th Percentile £800 £825 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £534 £582
% change year-on-year -1.69% -8.25% +5.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 25 24
10th Percentile £16.35 - £12.75
25th Percentile £18.14 £22.14 £16.53
Median hourly rate £27.94 £24.66 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.30% +26.46% -74.00%
75th Percentile £66.46 £78.36 £23.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £82.59 £25.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.88 £26.34 £18.00
% change year-on-year +5.85% +46.33% -76.24%

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 41,610 26,282 36,757
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.67% 91.03% 85.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,026 16,812 23,631
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,481 1,100 2,513
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £27.97 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.26% -23.38% -1.35%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £73.88 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 30 May 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 30 May 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 30 May 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 +2 635 £550 - 204
UK excluding London +1 349 £525 -1.69% 175
London +12 300 £593 +12.86% 68
Work from Home -39 177 £559 +6.48% 80
South East -10 127 £525 -15.66% 57
North of England -59 70 £540 +30.91% 50
North West -27 49 £550 +37.50% 33
Midlands -35 49 £550 +37.50% 33
South West -13 40 £500 -14.89% 27
East of England -14 37 £575 - 12
West Midlands -43 37 £540 +35.00% 27
Scotland +8 25 £387 -20.06% 4
Yorkshire -60 18 £500 +21.21% 16
East Midlands -23 12 £591 +47.63% 6
Wales -11 3 £645 +55.42% 1
North East -29 3 £450 -15.73% 1

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 25 (3.57%) Confluence
2 18 (2.57%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.57%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.57%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
5 3 (0.43%) IIS
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
6 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 39 (5.57%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (5.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (2.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (1.57%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
6 1 (0.14%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.86%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (0.86%) Remedy ITSM
2 4 (0.57%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.29%) Temenos T24
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 144 (20.57%) Azure
2 109 (15.57%) AWS
3 41 (5.86%) Entra ID
3 41 (5.86%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (5.14%) SaaS
5 33 (4.71%) GCP
6 26 (3.71%) Power Platform
7 20 (2.86%) Microsoft Purview
8 18 (2.57%) GitHub
9 15 (2.14%) Azure Sentinel
10 10 (1.43%) OCI
11 9 (1.29%) Microsoft Copilot
12 8 (1.14%) Power Automate
13 7 (1.00%) PowerApps
14 6 (0.86%) Azure Key Vault
14 6 (0.86%) Azure Logic Apps
14 6 (0.86%) IaaS
14 6 (0.86%) OneDrive
14 6 (0.86%) PaaS
15 5 (0.71%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 44 (6.29%) Firewall
2 39 (5.57%) Network Security
3 13 (1.86%) HTTP
4 12 (1.71%) DNS
4 12 (1.71%) TCP/IP
4 12 (1.71%) VPN
4 12 (1.71%) Wireless
5 8 (1.14%) Internet
5 8 (1.14%) SSH
6 6 (0.86%) DHCP
6 6 (0.86%) Intrusion Detection
6 6 (0.86%) SSL
7 5 (0.71%) FTP
7 5 (0.71%) HTTPS
7 5 (0.71%) SMTP
8 4 (0.57%) WAN
9 3 (0.43%) Cisco IPT
9 3 (0.43%) NGFW
10 2 (0.29%) Reverse Proxy
10 2 (0.29%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (3.29%) Power BI
2 13 (1.86%) SQL Server
3 9 (1.29%) Metadata
4 8 (1.14%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (0.71%) Data Lake
5 5 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
6 4 (0.57%) Big Data
6 4 (0.57%) Hadoop
6 4 (0.57%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.43%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.43%) Tableau
8 2 (0.29%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.29%) MySQL
8 2 (0.29%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 1 (0.14%) Amazon Redshift
9 1 (0.14%) Electronic Patient Records
9 1 (0.14%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 26 (3.71%) JIRA
2 12 (1.71%) Burp Suite
3 10 (1.43%) Git
3 10 (1.43%) Metasploit
4 3 (0.43%) git-flow
5 2 (0.29%) GitLab
5 2 (0.29%) JMeter
6 1 (0.14%) AppScan
6 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.14%) ScriptRunner
6 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
6 1 (0.14%) SonarQube
General
1 229 (32.71%) Social Skills
2 153 (21.86%) Finance
3 104 (14.86%) Public Sector
4 86 (12.29%) Analytical Skills
5 65 (9.29%) Legal
6 59 (8.43%) Banking
7 30 (4.29%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
9 19 (2.71%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (2.00%) Local Government
10 14 (2.00%) Retail
11 13 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
12 9 (1.29%) Marketing
13 7 (1.00%) Law
14 6 (0.86%) Billing
14 6 (0.86%) Investment Banking
14 6 (0.86%) Police
14 6 (0.86%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.71%) Cyber-Physical System
15 5 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 95 (13.57%) Analyst
2 70 (10.00%) Consultant
3 61 (8.71%) Senior
4 58 (8.29%) Security Engineer
5 55 (7.86%) Architect
6 50 (7.14%) Security Consultant
7 47 (6.71%) Lead
8 39 (5.57%) Security Architect
9 36 (5.14%) Security Manager
10 35 (5.00%) Security Officer
11 34 (4.86%) Security Analyst
12 27 (3.86%) IT Manager
13 26 (3.71%) Project Manager
14 23 (3.29%) Information Security Officer
14 23 (3.29%) Senior Manager
15 21 (3.00%) Developer
16 19 (2.71%) Cybersecurity Manager
17 18 (2.57%) Business Analyst
18 15 (2.14%) Information Architect
18 15 (2.14%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.14%) Oracle Fusion
2 21 (3.00%) OAuth
3 19 (2.71%) SailPoint
4 15 (2.14%) LDAP
4 15 (2.14%) OAuth2
5 12 (1.71%) OpenID
5 12 (1.71%) SAML
6 8 (1.14%) Web Services
7 7 (1.00%) .NET
7 7 (1.00%) J2EE
7 7 (1.00%) JSP
8 6 (0.86%) Middleware
8 6 (0.86%) REST
8 6 (0.86%) XML
9 5 (0.71%) Node.js
9 5 (0.71%) RESTful
9 5 (0.71%) Spring
9 5 (0.71%) Spring Boot
10 4 (0.57%) Elastic Stack
10 4 (0.57%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 113 (16.14%) Management Information System
2 61 (8.71%) Security Posture
3 56 (8.00%) Onboarding
4 36 (5.14%) Operational Technology
5 22 (3.14%) Cyber Threat
6 18 (2.57%) Cloud Native
6 18 (2.57%) Security Operations Centre
7 16 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
9 12 (1.71%) Data Centre
10 11 (1.57%) BYOD
10 11 (1.57%) CSOC
10 11 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (1.57%) Insider Threat
10 11 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
10 11 (1.57%) Mobile App
10 11 (1.57%) Product Ownership
11 10 (1.43%) SCADA
11 10 (1.43%) Virtual Team
12 9 (1.29%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 83 (11.86%) Windows
2 45 (6.43%) Linux
3 33 (4.71%) Windows Server
4 18 (2.57%) Unix
5 8 (1.14%) Android
5 8 (1.14%) Apple iOS
6 7 (1.00%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.57%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.43%) zOS
9 2 (0.29%) Alpine Linux
9 2 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.29%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 248 (35.43%) Cybersecurity
2 184 (26.29%) Risk Management
3 123 (17.57%) Continuous Improvement
4 116 (16.57%) Data Protection
5 108 (15.43%) Problem-Solving
6 106 (15.14%) Stakeholder Management
7 81 (11.57%) Cloud Security
8 78 (11.14%) Agile
9 74 (10.57%) Security Operations
10 72 (10.29%) Incident Response
11 69 (9.86%) Roadmaps
12 66 (9.43%) Decision-Making
13 65 (9.29%) Change Management
14 63 (9.00%) Security Management
15 62 (8.86%) SIEM
15 62 (8.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 61 (8.71%) AI
17 59 (8.43%) Computer Science
18 54 (7.71%) Threat Modelling
19 51 (7.29%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 86 (12.29%) Python
2 67 (9.57%) PowerShell
3 24 (3.43%) Java
4 21 (3.00%) Bash
5 16 (2.29%) SQL
6 6 (0.86%) C#
6 6 (0.86%) Kusto Query Language
7 5 (0.71%) Bicep
7 5 (0.71%) Kotlin
8 4 (0.57%) Go
9 3 (0.43%) JavaScript
9 3 (0.43%) RPG
10 2 (0.29%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.14%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.14%) C++
11 1 (0.14%) Lisp
11 1 (0.14%) R
11 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 186 (26.57%) Security Cleared
2 149 (21.29%) Degree
3 140 (20.00%) SC Cleared
4 126 (18.00%) CISSP
5 87 (12.43%) CISM
6 52 (7.43%) DV Cleared
7 35 (5.00%) CISA
8 30 (4.29%) Cisco Certification
8 30 (4.29%) CRISC
9 25 (3.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 23 (3.29%) Computer Science Degree
11 16 (2.29%) CEH
11 16 (2.29%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 15 (2.14%) CREST Certified
13 14 (2.00%) AWS Certification
13 14 (2.00%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
14 13 (1.86%) GIAC
14 13 (1.86%) Master's Degree
15 12 (1.71%) PMP
15 12 (1.71%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 211 (30.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 147 (21.00%) NIST
3 113 (16.14%) GDPR
4 89 (12.71%) GRC
5 52 (7.43%) PCI DSS
6 28 (4.00%) Cyber Essentials
7 26 (3.71%) NCSC
8 25 (3.57%) COBIT
9 23 (3.29%) PMO
9 23 (3.29%) QA
10 22 (3.14%) Data Quality
11 21 (3.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 17 (2.43%) NIST 800
12 17 (2.43%) SOC 2
13 12 (1.71%) HIPAA
13 12 (1.71%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 11 (1.57%) Accessibility
14 11 (1.57%) SLA
15 9 (1.29%) Government Security Classifications
16 8 (1.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 57 (8.14%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.29%) Docker
3 5 (0.71%) Hyper-V
3 5 (0.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.43%) Squid
6 2 (0.29%) 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 15 (2.14%) Terraform
2 14 (2.00%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (1.71%) Kubernetes
4 11 (1.57%) Ansible
5 9 (1.29%) Nmap
6 8 (1.14%) SCCM
6 8 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (0.71%) Functional Safety
7 5 (0.71%) QRadar
8 3 (0.43%) Podman
8 3 (0.43%) WSUS
9 2 (0.29%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 2 (0.29%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.29%) Red Hat Satellite
9 2 (0.29%) RSA Archer
10 1 (0.14%) CASB
10 1 (0.14%) Host Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.14%) logstash
10 1 (0.14%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 125 (17.86%) Microsoft
2 37 (5.29%) ServiceNow
3 30 (4.29%) Oracle
4 23 (3.29%) Google
5 21 (3.00%) CyberArk
6 17 (2.43%) BeyondTrust
7 15 (2.14%) Cisco
7 15 (2.14%) CrowdStrike
8 13 (1.86%) SAP
9 12 (1.71%) Ariba
10 11 (1.57%) Splunk
11 9 (1.29%) Apple
11 9 (1.29%) IBM
12 8 (1.14%) Remedy
13 6 (0.86%) Palo Alto
13 6 (0.86%) Qualys
13 6 (0.86%) VMware
14 5 (0.71%) Okta
15 4 (0.57%) Tenable
15 4 (0.57%) UiPath