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 8 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 205 164 106
Rank change year-on-year -41 -58 -14
Contract jobs citing Information Security 778 594 835
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.43% 1.80% 2.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.69% 1.99% 2.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 421 319 507
10th Percentile £313 £336 £375
25th Percentile £425 £413 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £530 £575
Median % change year-on-year +3.77% -7.83% -3.36%
75th Percentile £644 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £802
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £475 £599
% change year-on-year -2.63% -20.70% +8.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 52 21
10th Percentile £15.10 £19.01 £15.06
25th Percentile £21.35 £21.70 £15.73
Median hourly rate £62.25 £33.50 £20.19
Median % change year-on-year +85.82% +65.92% -72.17%
75th Percentile £80.00 £65.00 £36.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £84.00 £45.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.25 £33.50 £20.19
% change year-on-year +85.82% +65.92% -72.72%

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 46,126 29,916 32,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.50% 85.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,740 18,573 19,640
10th Percentile £325 £295 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,322 1,863 1,307
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.63% -7.56%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.21 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.95 £65.23 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.32 £42.50
% change year-on-year +68.05% -47.49% -

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 8 October 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 8 October 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 8 October 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 -43 703 £541 +2.97% 1,681
UK excluding London -12 420 £463 -2.63% 968
London -51 301 £600 +9.09% 822
Work from Home -55 197 £550 +15.79% 728
North of England -11 129 £474 +5.33% 282
South East -36 101 £496 -20.60% 266
North West -16 78 £525 +22.81% 128
Midlands -19 74 £450 +12.50% 120
West Midlands +7 65 £449 -3.03% 70
South West -30 54 £600 +29.73% 96
Scotland 0 36 £586 +31.57% 61
Yorkshire -20 35 £500 +2.56% 106
East of England -25 33 £515 +42.27% 61
North East -25 16 £425 -22.73% 48
East Midlands -33 9 £616 +54.06% 50
Wales -6 4 £815 +33.06% 27
Northern Ireland - 1 £550 - 58

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 40 (5.14%) SharePoint
2 22 (2.83%) Confluence
3 11 (1.41%) IIS
4 9 (1.16%) 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%) Documentum
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 22 (2.83%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (1.16%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.39%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 20 (2.57%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.51%) 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
1 183 (23.52%) Azure
2 117 (15.04%) AWS
3 69 (8.87%) Entra ID
4 46 (5.91%) Microsoft 365
4 46 (5.91%) SaaS
5 45 (5.78%) GCP
6 33 (4.24%) Power Platform
7 27 (3.47%) Azure DevOps
7 27 (3.47%) GitHub
7 27 (3.47%) Serverless
8 25 (3.21%) Power Automate
9 24 (3.08%) Microsoft Purview
10 23 (2.96%) Dynamics 365
11 20 (2.57%) Azure Sentinel
12 18 (2.31%) Azure Functions
13 17 (2.19%) OCI
14 14 (1.80%) PaaS
15 12 (1.54%) GitHub Actions
16 11 (1.41%) IaaS
17 8 (1.03%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 51 (6.56%) Network Security
2 43 (5.53%) Firewall
3 20 (2.57%) WAN
4 17 (2.19%) LAN
5 16 (2.06%) DNS
6 10 (1.29%) DHCP
7 9 (1.16%) Internet
7 9 (1.16%) SSH
7 9 (1.16%) TCP/IP
8 8 (1.03%) NGFW
8 8 (1.03%) Wireless
9 6 (0.77%) HTTP
9 6 (0.77%) HTTPS
9 6 (0.77%) VPN
10 5 (0.64%) FTP
10 5 (0.64%) SD-WAN
10 5 (0.64%) SMTP
10 5 (0.64%) Structured Cabling
11 4 (0.51%) Cisco IPT
11 4 (0.51%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (4.50%) SQL Server
2 19 (2.44%) Metadata
3 17 (2.19%) Power BI
4 13 (1.67%) MongoDB
5 7 (0.90%) Data Lake
6 6 (0.77%) Relational Database
7 4 (0.51%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.39%) Oracle Reports
8 3 (0.39%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.26%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.26%) EDMS
9 2 (0.26%) Metadata Repository
9 2 (0.26%) Oracle Database
9 2 (0.26%) PostgreSQL
9 2 (0.26%) Star Schema
10 1 (0.13%) Ataccama
10 1 (0.13%) Chroma
10 1 (0.13%) Pinecone
10 1 (0.13%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 28 (3.60%) JIRA
2 13 (1.67%) Git
3 12 (1.54%) Postman
4 11 (1.41%) Cypress.io
4 11 (1.41%) Selenium
4 11 (1.41%) WebDriver
5 8 (1.03%) 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
1 311 (39.97%) Social Skills
2 171 (21.98%) Finance
3 149 (19.15%) Public Sector
4 125 (16.07%) Analytical Skills
5 64 (8.23%) Legal
6 51 (6.56%) Banking
7 46 (5.91%) Documentation Skills
8 37 (4.76%) Influencing Skills
9 36 (4.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 30 (3.86%) Military
11 29 (3.73%) Organisational Skills
12 26 (3.34%) Presentation Skills
13 25 (3.21%) Local Government
14 21 (2.70%) Aerospace
15 18 (2.31%) Law
16 16 (2.06%) Manufacturing
17 11 (1.41%) Billing
17 11 (1.41%) Marketing
18 10 (1.29%) Retail
19 9 (1.16%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 116 (14.91%) Analyst
2 102 (13.11%) Senior
3 80 (10.28%) Lead
4 78 (10.03%) Architect
5 76 (9.77%) Consultant
6 50 (6.43%) Security Architect
7 48 (6.17%) Security Engineer
8 46 (5.91%) Security Consultant
9 42 (5.40%) Security Analyst
10 37 (4.76%) Developer
10 37 (4.76%) Security Manager
11 26 (3.34%) Information Manager
11 26 (3.34%) Project Manager
12 22 (2.83%) Information Officer
12 22 (2.83%) IT Manager
12 22 (2.83%) Security Officer
13 21 (2.70%) Information Security Officer
14 20 (2.57%) Cybersecurity Analyst
14 20 (2.57%) Senior Analyst
15 19 (2.44%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (5.78%) Terraform
2 26 (3.34%) Oracle Fusion
2 26 (3.34%) SailPoint
3 21 (2.70%) OAuth
3 21 (2.70%) SAML
4 19 (2.44%) OpenID
5 18 (2.31%) XML
6 17 (2.19%) LDAP
7 16 (2.06%) OAuth2
8 15 (1.93%) Web Services
9 14 (1.80%) JSON
10 12 (1.54%) REST
11 11 (1.41%) Gherkin
11 11 (1.41%) XSLT
12 9 (1.16%) RESTful
13 8 (1.03%) Play Framework
14 6 (0.77%) Middleware
14 6 (0.77%) Node.js
15 5 (0.64%) .NET
15 5 (0.64%) React
Miscellaneous
1 163 (20.95%) Management Information System
2 69 (8.87%) Onboarding
3 51 (6.56%) Security Posture
4 35 (4.50%) Cyber Threat
5 32 (4.11%) Operational Technology
6 25 (3.21%) Cloud Native
6 25 (3.21%) Data Centre
6 25 (3.21%) Security Operations Centre
7 21 (2.70%) PKI
8 20 (2.57%) Taxonomies
9 17 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
10 16 (2.06%) Cyber Defence
11 15 (1.93%) Public Cloud
12 14 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
13 13 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
13 13 (1.67%) NHS
13 13 (1.67%) Product Ownership
14 11 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
15 10 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
15 10 (1.29%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 77 (9.90%) Windows
2 45 (5.78%) Linux
3 36 (4.63%) Windows Server
4 21 (2.70%) Unix
5 10 (1.29%) Android
6 9 (1.16%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.77%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.77%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.64%) 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
1 287 (36.89%) Cybersecurity
2 229 (29.43%) Risk Management
3 220 (28.28%) Stakeholder Management
4 163 (20.95%) Data Protection
5 154 (19.79%) Continuous Improvement
6 115 (14.78%) Incident Response
6 115 (14.78%) Problem-Solving
7 112 (14.40%) Agile
8 105 (13.50%) Vulnerability Management
9 103 (13.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 96 (12.34%) Security Operations
11 93 (11.95%) Roadmaps
12 89 (11.44%) Cloud Security
13 87 (11.18%) AI
14 83 (10.67%) DevOps
15 80 (10.28%) Decision-Making
16 79 (10.15%) Security Architecture
17 74 (9.51%) Computer Science
18 72 (9.25%) CI/CD
18 72 (9.25%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 78 (10.03%) Python
2 63 (8.10%) PowerShell
3 26 (3.34%) SQL
4 23 (2.96%) Bash
5 20 (2.57%) C#
6 18 (2.31%) JavaScript
7 10 (1.29%) PL/SQL
8 9 (1.16%) Bicep
8 9 (1.16%) Scala
9 5 (0.64%) Go
9 5 (0.64%) Korn
10 4 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.39%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.39%) Java
12 2 (0.26%) Search Processing Language
12 2 (0.26%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.13%) R
13 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 182 (23.39%) Security Cleared
2 145 (18.64%) CISSP
3 140 (17.99%) SC Cleared
4 136 (17.48%) Degree
5 100 (12.85%) CISM
6 46 (5.91%) CRISC
7 45 (5.78%) DV Cleared
8 38 (4.88%) Microsoft Certification
9 35 (4.50%) Cisco Certification
10 34 (4.37%) CISA
11 32 (4.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 23 (2.96%) CCSP
13 21 (2.70%) Computer Science Degree
14 18 (2.31%) Azure Certification
15 16 (2.06%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
16 15 (1.93%) AWS Certification
16 15 (1.93%) PMP
17 14 (1.80%) PMI Certification
18 13 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
18 13 (1.67%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 212 (27.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 139 (17.87%) NIST
3 127 (16.32%) GDPR
4 120 (15.42%) GRC
5 44 (5.66%) NCSC
6 43 (5.53%) PCI DSS
7 41 (5.27%) Cyber Essentials
8 38 (4.88%) Data Quality
9 36 (4.63%) Accessibility
10 28 (3.60%) QA
11 24 (3.08%) SLA
12 23 (2.96%) WCAG
13 20 (2.57%) NIST 800
14 18 (2.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 16 (2.06%) HIPAA
16 15 (1.93%) SOC 2
17 13 (1.67%) ISO 22301
18 12 (1.54%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 12 (1.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
19 10 (1.29%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 73 (9.38%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.16%) Docker
3 6 (0.77%) Firmware
4 5 (0.64%) ISA Server
4 5 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.39%) OpenAM
6 2 (0.26%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.26%) Squid
6 2 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.13%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 32 (4.11%) Kubernetes
2 19 (2.44%) Single Sign-On
3 16 (2.06%) Microsoft Intune
4 11 (1.41%) Ansible
5 10 (1.29%) Grafana
6 7 (0.90%) CASB
7 3 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.39%) QRadar
8 2 (0.26%) Computer Incident Response Team
8 2 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
8 2 (0.26%) Podman
8 2 (0.26%) RSA Archer
8 2 (0.26%) SCCM
9 1 (0.13%) Control-M
9 1 (0.13%) Host Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.13%) Istio
Vendors
1 204 (26.22%) Microsoft
2 50 (6.43%) Oracle
3 47 (6.04%) ServiceNow
4 37 (4.76%) Splunk
5 36 (4.63%) Google
6 23 (2.96%) Cisco
7 22 (2.83%) SAP
8 21 (2.70%) CyberArk
9 19 (2.44%) Palo Alto
10 18 (2.31%) BeyondTrust
11 17 (2.19%) CrowdStrike
12 14 (1.80%) Apple
13 13 (1.67%) Ariba
14 12 (1.54%) Databricks
14 12 (1.54%) Zscaler
15 11 (1.41%) Qualys
15 11 (1.41%) VMware
16 9 (1.16%) Okta
16 9 (1.16%) Rapid7
17 8 (1.03%) Remedy