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

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 211 163 106
Rank change year-on-year -48 -57 -14
Contract jobs citing Information Security 740 566 829
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.37% 1.72% 2.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.62% 1.90% 2.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 398 319 531
10th Percentile £349 £323 £375
25th Percentile £450 £413 £483
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £525 £600
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -12.50% -
75th Percentile £663 £688 £688
90th Percentile £802 £825 £784
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £600
% change year-on-year +1.00% -16.67% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 38 19
10th Percentile £15.21 £20.64 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.67 £22.14 £14.11
Median hourly rate £60.00 £24.91 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year +140.92% +46.50% -77.15%
75th Percentile £77.50 £65.00 £23.59
90th Percentile £80.00 £85.00 £42.75
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 45,630 29,844 33,104
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.69% 90.49% 85.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,001 18,599 21,039
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% -3.54%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £728 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,875 1,760 1,727
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.87
25th Percentile £18.29 £17.30 £18.00
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.86 £47.66 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.74 £42.05
% change year-on-year +93.36% -45.93% +12.12%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -39 678 £563 +7.14% 408
UK excluding London -24 387 £505 +1.00% 325
London -39 305 £600 +9.09% 138
Work from Home -44 185 £583 +16.50% 147
North of England -22 111 £483 +1.58% 81
South East -24 111 £520 -16.80% 110
North West -7 78 £511 +11.76% 41
Midlands -20 60 £450 +12.50% 52
South West -21 51 £600 +9.34% 38
West Midlands -14 48 £381 -21.79% 37
East of England -12 29 £550 +51.93% 35
Scotland -8 27 £565 +30.71% 13
Yorkshire -43 21 £540 +9.37% 27
East Midlands -26 12 £533 +33.13% 15
North East -36 11 £425 -21.59% 13
Wales -16 4 £645 +55.42% 1
Northern Ireland +1 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 27 (3.65%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.11%) Confluence
3 8 (1.08%) 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 20 (2.70%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (1.35%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.81%) 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 GRC
4 1 (0.14%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.14%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 171 (23.11%) Azure
2 120 (16.22%) AWS
3 64 (8.65%) Entra ID
4 47 (6.35%) SaaS
5 43 (5.81%) Microsoft 365
6 32 (4.32%) GCP
7 26 (3.51%) GitHub
8 22 (2.97%) Microsoft Purview
8 22 (2.97%) Power Platform
9 21 (2.84%) Azure Sentinel
10 16 (2.16%) OCI
11 14 (1.89%) Power Automate
11 14 (1.89%) Serverless
12 12 (1.62%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (1.49%) Dynamics 365
14 10 (1.35%) IaaS
14 10 (1.35%) PaaS
15 9 (1.22%) GitHub Actions
16 8 (1.08%) Cloud Computing
17 7 (0.95%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 47 (6.35%) Network Security
2 44 (5.95%) Firewall
3 19 (2.57%) WAN
4 16 (2.16%) LAN
5 13 (1.76%) VPN
6 12 (1.62%) DNS
7 10 (1.35%) SSH
7 10 (1.35%) Wireless
8 9 (1.22%) DHCP
8 9 (1.22%) HTTP
8 9 (1.22%) TCP/IP
9 8 (1.08%) Internet
9 8 (1.08%) NGFW
10 7 (0.95%) HTTPS
11 5 (0.68%) SD-WAN
11 5 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
12 4 (0.54%) Cisco IPT
12 4 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
13 3 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
14 2 (0.27%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (3.24%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.43%) Power BI
3 9 (1.22%) 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 (3.65%) JIRA
2 9 (1.22%) Cypress.io
2 9 (1.22%) Postman
2 9 (1.22%) Selenium
2 9 (1.22%) WebDriver
3 6 (0.81%) 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%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.14%) LSMW
7 1 (0.14%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.14%) ScalaTest
7 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 251 (33.92%) Social Skills
2 168 (22.70%) Finance
3 132 (17.84%) Public Sector
4 89 (12.03%) Analytical Skills
5 60 (8.11%) Legal
6 55 (7.43%) Banking
7 44 (5.95%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (3.78%) Influencing Skills
8 28 (3.78%) Organisational Skills
9 26 (3.51%) Local Government
10 23 (3.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 19 (2.57%) Presentation Skills
12 18 (2.43%) Military
13 14 (1.89%) Aerospace
13 14 (1.89%) Law
14 13 (1.76%) Retail
15 12 (1.62%) Billing
16 10 (1.35%) Marketing
17 9 (1.22%) Police
18 8 (1.08%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 98 (13.24%) Analyst
2 81 (10.95%) Senior
3 78 (10.54%) Architect
4 76 (10.27%) Consultant
5 60 (8.11%) Lead
6 57 (7.70%) Security Architect
7 53 (7.16%) Security Consultant
8 42 (5.68%) Security Engineer
9 39 (5.27%) Security Manager
10 35 (4.73%) Security Analyst
11 26 (3.51%) Project Manager
12 25 (3.38%) Developer
12 25 (3.38%) IT Manager
13 23 (3.11%) Information Manager
13 23 (3.11%) Security Officer
14 21 (2.84%) Cybersecurity Manager
15 20 (2.70%) Information Security Officer
15 20 (2.70%) Senior Manager
16 19 (2.57%) Information Officer
17 18 (2.43%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (4.32%) Terraform
2 26 (3.51%) SailPoint
3 24 (3.24%) Oracle Fusion
4 22 (2.97%) OAuth
5 17 (2.30%) SAML
6 16 (2.16%) LDAP
7 15 (2.03%) OAuth2
7 15 (2.03%) OpenID
8 14 (1.89%) Web Services
9 10 (1.35%) REST
9 10 (1.35%) XML
10 9 (1.22%) Gherkin
11 6 (0.81%) JSON
12 5 (0.68%) .NET
12 5 (0.68%) Play Framework
13 4 (0.54%) Jakarta EE
13 4 (0.54%) JSP
14 3 (0.41%) ASP.NET
14 3 (0.41%) Spring
14 3 (0.41%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 135 (18.24%) Management Information System
2 77 (10.41%) Onboarding
3 54 (7.30%) Security Posture
4 25 (3.38%) Operational Technology
5 24 (3.24%) Cyber Threat
5 24 (3.24%) Security Operations Centre
6 19 (2.57%) Data Centre
7 18 (2.43%) Cloud Native
7 18 (2.43%) PKI
8 15 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
9 14 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
10 13 (1.76%) NHS
11 12 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.22%) BYOD
12 9 (1.22%) CSOC
12 9 (1.22%) Cyber Defence
12 9 (1.22%) Product Ownership
13 8 (1.08%) Driving Licence
13 8 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 81 (10.95%) Windows
2 42 (5.68%) Linux
3 36 (4.86%) Windows Server
4 20 (2.70%) Unix
5 10 (1.35%) Android
6 9 (1.22%) Mac OS
7 8 (1.08%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.81%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.68%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.27%) Alpine Linux
12 1 (0.14%) CentOS
12 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 257 (34.73%) Cybersecurity
2 199 (26.89%) Risk Management
3 175 (23.65%) Stakeholder Management
4 138 (18.65%) Data Protection
5 126 (17.03%) Continuous Improvement
6 104 (14.05%) Problem-Solving
7 100 (13.51%) Incident Response
8 97 (13.11%) Security Operations
9 91 (12.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 85 (11.49%) Agile
11 84 (11.35%) Cloud Security
12 83 (11.22%) Roadmaps
13 81 (10.95%) Vulnerability Management
14 76 (10.27%) Decision-Making
15 65 (8.78%) ITIL
16 64 (8.65%) Security Architecture
17 63 (8.51%) SIEM
18 60 (8.11%) AI
19 59 (7.97%) Computer Science
20 58 (7.84%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 76 (10.27%) Python
2 68 (9.19%) PowerShell
3 30 (4.05%) Bash
4 21 (2.84%) SQL
5 12 (1.62%) Java
6 11 (1.49%) C#
7 8 (1.08%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.08%) PL/SQL
8 7 (0.95%) Bicep
9 6 (0.81%) Scala
10 5 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.41%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.41%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.14%) BeanShell
12 1 (0.14%) Go
12 1 (0.14%) R
12 1 (0.14%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 154 (20.81%) Security Cleared
2 127 (17.16%) CISSP
3 122 (16.49%) Degree
4 114 (15.41%) SC Cleared
5 87 (11.76%) CISM
6 43 (5.81%) DV Cleared
7 29 (3.92%) CISA
8 28 (3.78%) Cisco Certification
8 28 (3.78%) Microsoft Certification
9 27 (3.65%) CRISC
10 23 (3.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 16 (2.16%) AWS Certification
11 16 (2.16%) CEH
11 16 (2.16%) Computer Science Degree
12 15 (2.03%) Azure Certification
13 14 (1.89%) CCSP
13 14 (1.89%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 14 (1.89%) PMP
14 13 (1.76%) PMI Certification
15 12 (1.62%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (26.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 130 (17.57%) NIST
3 120 (16.22%) GDPR
4 105 (14.19%) GRC
5 41 (5.54%) Cyber Essentials
5 41 (5.54%) PCI DSS
6 38 (5.14%) NCSC
7 25 (3.38%) Data Quality
8 23 (3.11%) Accessibility
9 21 (2.84%) QA
10 19 (2.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 18 (2.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (2.43%) SLA
12 17 (2.30%) NIST 800
13 14 (1.89%) HIPAA
14 13 (1.76%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 13 (1.76%) SOC 2
15 11 (1.49%) WCAG
16 10 (1.35%) COBIT
16 10 (1.35%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 79 (10.68%) Active Directory
2 10 (1.35%) Docker
3 9 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.81%) 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 22 (2.97%) Kubernetes
2 20 (2.70%) Microsoft Intune
3 18 (2.43%) Single Sign-On
4 12 (1.62%) Ansible
5 6 (0.81%) SCCM
6 5 (0.68%) Grafana
6 5 (0.68%) QRadar
7 4 (0.54%) Podman
8 3 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.41%) RSA Archer
9 2 (0.27%) CASB
9 2 (0.27%) Computer Incident Response Team
9 2 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
10 1 (0.14%) Host Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.14%) Istio
10 1 (0.14%) Nmap
10 1 (0.14%) WSUS
Vendors
1 168 (22.70%) Microsoft
2 44 (5.95%) Oracle
3 38 (5.14%) ServiceNow
4 23 (3.11%) CyberArk
4 23 (3.11%) Google
5 22 (2.97%) Splunk
6 21 (2.84%) SAP
7 19 (2.57%) BeyondTrust
8 18 (2.43%) Cisco
9 15 (2.03%) Apple
9 15 (2.03%) Palo Alto
9 15 (2.03%) VMware
10 12 (1.62%) Ariba
11 10 (1.35%) Zscaler
12 9 (1.22%) CrowdStrike
12 9 (1.22%) Remedy
13 7 (0.95%) IBM
13 7 (0.95%) Thales
14 6 (0.81%) Atlassian
14 6 (0.81%) Computacenter