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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 204 156 108
Rank change year-on-year -48 -48 -15
Contract jobs citing Information Security 733 573 825
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.37% 1.73% 2.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.62% 1.91% 2.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 396 327 528
10th Percentile £350 £350 £375
25th Percentile £450 £419 £489
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £551 £534 £597
Median % change year-on-year +3.18% -10.48% -0.58%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £688
90th Percentile £811 £825 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £600
% change year-on-year -2.44% -14.58% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 41 18
10th Percentile £16.16 £22.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.55 £22.14 £13.56
Median hourly rate £62.25 £24.66 £16.60
Median % change year-on-year +152.43% +48.60% -78.66%
75th Percentile £79.38 £75.00 £23.89
90th Percentile £80.00 £85.00 £44.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.25 £29.51 £15.73
% change year-on-year +110.95% +87.60% -80.83%

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 45,350 29,954 33,125
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.75% 90.50% 85.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,857 18,668 21,203
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £424 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.31%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,845 1,726 1,796
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.03
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.31 £18.23
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.97
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -38.61% -1.28%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +13.33%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -31 674 £551 +4.45% 901
UK excluding London -24 374 £500 -2.44% 536
London -28 314 £600 +11.63% 463
Work from Home -44 184 £575 +15.00% 370
South East -19 115 £508 -18.80% 164
North of England -49 97 £458 -3.68% 134
North West -15 68 £470 +2.62% 79
Midlands -20 60 £450 +12.50% 58
West Midlands -17 47 £381 -21.79% 36
South West -26 46 £588 +0.43% 77
East of England -15 30 £538 +1.42% 58
Scotland -10 23 £475 +7.41% 38
Yorkshire -41 21 £540 +9.37% 40
East Midlands -25 13 £557 +39.19% 22
North East -40 7 £425 -20.41% 15
Wales -12 4 £645 +55.42% 8
Northern Ireland +4 1 £550 - 7

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 26 (3.55%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.14%) Confluence
3 8 (1.09%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.68%) IIS
5 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.14%) Apache
5 1 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.14%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.14%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
5 1 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 20 (2.73%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.77%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.82%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
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 MDG
4 1 (0.14%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 172 (23.47%) Azure
2 117 (15.96%) AWS
3 65 (8.87%) Entra ID
4 46 (6.28%) SaaS
5 40 (5.46%) Microsoft 365
6 33 (4.50%) GCP
7 26 (3.55%) GitHub
8 23 (3.14%) Microsoft Purview
8 23 (3.14%) Power Platform
9 21 (2.86%) Azure Sentinel
10 15 (2.05%) OCI
11 14 (1.91%) Power Automate
12 13 (1.77%) Serverless
13 12 (1.64%) Azure DevOps
14 11 (1.50%) Dynamics 365
15 9 (1.23%) IaaS
15 9 (1.23%) PaaS
16 8 (1.09%) Azure Key Vault
16 8 (1.09%) Cloud Computing
16 8 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 47 (6.41%) Network Security
2 45 (6.14%) Firewall
3 19 (2.59%) WAN
4 16 (2.18%) LAN
5 13 (1.77%) VPN
6 12 (1.64%) DNS
7 11 (1.50%) Wireless
8 10 (1.36%) SSH
9 9 (1.23%) DHCP
9 9 (1.23%) HTTP
9 9 (1.23%) TCP/IP
10 8 (1.09%) Internet
10 8 (1.09%) NGFW
11 7 (0.95%) HTTPS
12 5 (0.68%) SD-WAN
12 5 (0.68%) Structured Cabling
13 4 (0.55%) Cisco IPT
13 4 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
14 3 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
15 2 (0.27%) BGP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (3.27%) SQL Server
2 19 (2.59%) Power BI
3 8 (1.09%) MongoDB
4 7 (0.95%) Metadata
5 5 (0.68%) Data Lake
5 5 (0.68%) Oracle Reports
6 4 (0.55%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.41%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.27%) Relational Database
9 1 (0.14%) Amazon RDS
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 (3.68%) JIRA
2 9 (1.23%) Cypress.io
2 9 (1.23%) Postman
2 9 (1.23%) Selenium
2 9 (1.23%) WebDriver
3 6 (0.82%) Cucumber
4 4 (0.55%) 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%) JMeter
7 1 (0.14%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.14%) GitLab
7 1 (0.14%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.14%) LSMW
7 1 (0.14%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 241 (32.88%) Social Skills
2 165 (22.51%) Finance
3 130 (17.74%) Public Sector
4 87 (11.87%) Analytical Skills
5 57 (7.78%) Banking
6 55 (7.50%) Legal
7 43 (5.87%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (3.55%) Influencing Skills
8 26 (3.55%) Organisational Skills
9 25 (3.41%) Local Government
10 21 (2.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 18 (2.46%) Military
12 16 (2.18%) Retail
13 15 (2.05%) Law
14 14 (1.91%) Aerospace
14 14 (1.91%) Presentation Skills
15 13 (1.77%) Billing
16 10 (1.36%) Marketing
16 10 (1.36%) Police
17 8 (1.09%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 98 (13.37%) Analyst
2 79 (10.78%) Senior
3 77 (10.50%) Consultant
4 74 (10.10%) Architect
5 58 (7.91%) Security Consultant
6 57 (7.78%) Lead
7 54 (7.37%) Security Architect
8 42 (5.73%) Security Engineer
9 38 (5.18%) Security Manager
10 37 (5.05%) Security Analyst
11 25 (3.41%) IT Manager
12 24 (3.27%) Project Manager
13 22 (3.00%) Developer
14 21 (2.86%) Cybersecurity Manager
15 20 (2.73%) Information Manager
15 20 (2.73%) Senior Manager
16 19 (2.59%) Security Officer
17 18 (2.46%) Business Analyst
18 17 (2.32%) Head of Security
18 17 (2.32%) Information Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (3.55%) SailPoint
2 23 (3.14%) Oracle Fusion
3 22 (3.00%) OAuth
4 17 (2.32%) SAML
5 16 (2.18%) LDAP
6 15 (2.05%) OAuth2
6 15 (2.05%) OpenID
7 14 (1.91%) Web Services
8 10 (1.36%) REST
8 10 (1.36%) XML
9 9 (1.23%) Gherkin
10 6 (0.82%) JSON
11 5 (0.68%) .NET
12 4 (0.55%) Jakarta EE
12 4 (0.55%) JSP
12 4 (0.55%) Play Framework
13 3 (0.41%) Azure Blueprints
13 3 (0.41%) Elastic Stack
13 3 (0.41%) Lightning Web Components
13 3 (0.41%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 137 (18.69%) Management Information System
2 77 (10.50%) Onboarding
3 58 (7.91%) Security Posture
4 29 (3.96%) Operational Technology
5 24 (3.27%) Cyber Threat
5 24 (3.27%) Security Operations Centre
6 19 (2.59%) Data Centre
7 18 (2.46%) Cloud Native
7 18 (2.46%) PKI
8 15 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
9 14 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
10 11 (1.50%) BYOD
10 11 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
11 10 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.23%) CSOC
12 9 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
12 9 (1.23%) NHS
12 9 (1.23%) Virtual Team
13 8 (1.09%) Cyber Defence
13 8 (1.09%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 81 (11.05%) Windows
2 42 (5.73%) Linux
3 36 (4.91%) Windows Server
4 20 (2.73%) Unix
5 10 (1.36%) Android
6 9 (1.23%) Apple iOS
6 9 (1.23%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.82%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.68%) Windows 10
9 3 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.27%) Alpine Linux
11 1 (0.14%) CentOS
11 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 260 (35.47%) Cybersecurity
2 201 (27.42%) Risk Management
3 163 (22.24%) Stakeholder Management
4 126 (17.19%) Data Protection
5 124 (16.92%) Continuous Improvement
6 109 (14.87%) Problem-Solving
7 100 (13.64%) Incident Response
8 96 (13.10%) Security Operations
9 90 (12.28%) Roadmaps
9 90 (12.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 82 (11.19%) Agile
10 82 (11.19%) Cloud Security
11 78 (10.64%) Vulnerability Management
12 73 (9.96%) Decision-Making
13 64 (8.73%) ITIL
14 63 (8.59%) SIEM
15 62 (8.46%) Computer Science
16 61 (8.32%) AI
17 60 (8.19%) Security Architecture
18 59 (8.05%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 75 (10.23%) Python
2 68 (9.28%) PowerShell
3 30 (4.09%) Bash
4 20 (2.73%) SQL
5 12 (1.64%) Java
6 10 (1.36%) C#
7 9 (1.23%) JavaScript
8 7 (0.95%) Bicep
9 6 (0.82%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
10 5 (0.68%) Scala
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
1 148 (20.19%) Security Cleared
2 128 (17.46%) CISSP
3 126 (17.19%) Degree
4 115 (15.69%) SC Cleared
5 88 (12.01%) CISM
6 41 (5.59%) DV Cleared
7 29 (3.96%) Cisco Certification
8 28 (3.82%) CISA
8 28 (3.82%) Microsoft Certification
9 26 (3.55%) CRISC
10 24 (3.27%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 18 (2.46%) CEH
12 17 (2.32%) Computer Science Degree
13 15 (2.05%) AWS Certification
13 15 (2.05%) Azure Certification
13 15 (2.05%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
14 14 (1.91%) PMP
15 13 (1.77%) CCSP
15 13 (1.77%) GIAC
15 13 (1.77%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (27.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 133 (18.14%) NIST
3 118 (16.10%) GDPR
4 102 (13.92%) GRC
5 44 (6.00%) PCI DSS
6 41 (5.59%) Cyber Essentials
7 36 (4.91%) NCSC
8 26 (3.55%) Accessibility
9 24 (3.27%) Data Quality
10 22 (3.00%) QA
11 19 (2.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 18 (2.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 17 (2.32%) NIST 800
14 14 (1.91%) HIPAA
14 14 (1.91%) SOC 2
15 13 (1.77%) SLA
16 12 (1.64%) COBIT
16 12 (1.64%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 11 (1.50%) Government Security Classifications
18 10 (1.36%) WCAG
System Software
1 81 (11.05%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.23%) Docker
2 9 (1.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (0.82%) Hyper-V
4 3 (0.41%) OpenAM
4 3 (0.41%) Squid
5 2 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.14%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.14%) Ceph
6 1 (0.14%) Firmware
6 1 (0.14%) RACF
6 1 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.14%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 30 (4.09%) Terraform
2 22 (3.00%) Kubernetes
3 20 (2.73%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (1.64%) Ansible
6 7 (0.95%) SCCM
7 5 (0.68%) QRadar
8 4 (0.55%) Grafana
8 4 (0.55%) Podman
9 3 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 3 (0.41%) RSA Archer
10 2 (0.27%) Computer Incident Response Team
10 2 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
11 1 (0.14%) CASB
11 1 (0.14%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.14%) Istio
11 1 (0.14%) Nmap
11 1 (0.14%) WSUS
Vendors
1 163 (22.24%) Microsoft
2 43 (5.87%) Oracle
3 40 (5.46%) ServiceNow
4 24 (3.27%) Google
5 23 (3.14%) CyberArk
6 21 (2.86%) Splunk
7 19 (2.59%) BeyondTrust
7 19 (2.59%) SAP
8 17 (2.32%) Cisco
9 16 (2.18%) Apple
10 15 (2.05%) Palo Alto
10 15 (2.05%) VMware
11 12 (1.64%) Ariba
12 10 (1.36%) CrowdStrike
12 10 (1.36%) Zscaler
13 7 (0.95%) IBM
13 7 (0.95%) Remedy
13 7 (0.95%) Thales
14 6 (0.82%) Atlassian
14 6 (0.82%) Computacenter