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 29 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 159 153 97
Rank change year-on-year -6 -56 +20
Contract jobs citing Information Security 662 567 977
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.72% 1.80% 2.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 2.02% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 361 324 680
10th Percentile £358 £363 £385
25th Percentile £450 £480 £474
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £594 £575
Median % change year-on-year -9.51% +3.30% -4.17%
75th Percentile £650 £676 £675
90th Percentile £775 £793 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -15.22% +4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 18 53
10th Percentile £17.23 £16.19 £16.05
25th Percentile £20.71 £20.40 £24.97
Median hourly rate £33.50 £25.72 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.27% -47.52% -24.62%
75th Percentile £51.35 £38.25 £83.40
90th Percentile £80.54 £46.07 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £23.14 £49.50
% change year-on-year +44.80% -53.26% -24.43%

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 33,625 28,045 38,284
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.37% 89.09% 87.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,290 17,011 25,209
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £640
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £499 £500
% change year-on-year -3.86% -0.15% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,022 880 1,958
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.50
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.85
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.62% +10.65%
75th Percentile £58.00 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.45 £37.18
% change year-on-year -18.85% -18.10% +39.38%

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 29 January 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 29 January 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 29 January 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 -25 591 £538 -10.42% 328
UK excluding London -21 313 £488 -15.22% 274
London -6 275 £575 -4.17% 105
Work from Home +8 189 £540 +2.86% 165
South East -28 87 £550 -3.51% 84
North of England -36 79 £476 -13.45% 66
North West -15 52 £470 -12.10% 44
Midlands -50 45 £425 -15.00% 48
South West -9 41 £500 -25.93% 27
East of England +9 39 £537 -10.58% 36
West Midlands -42 26 £444 -11.25% 24
Yorkshire -34 24 £482 -11.31% 15
East Midlands -13 19 £400 +33.33% 24
Scotland +4 17 £358 -24.95% 7
Wales +1 5 £388 - 9
North East -16 3 £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 27 (4.08%) SharePoint
2 21 (3.17%) Confluence
3 14 (2.11%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.06%) Mattermost
4 7 (1.06%) Skype for Business
5 6 (0.91%) IIS
6 5 (0.76%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 3 (0.45%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.15%) Apache
8 1 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.15%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 62 (9.37%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (4.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (2.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.45%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.45%) Navisworks
5 3 (0.45%) Revit
6 2 (0.30%) ProjectWise
6 2 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.15%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 15 (2.27%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (1.36%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.30%) assyst
3 2 (0.30%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.30%) Temenos T24
4 1 (0.15%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 117 (17.67%) Azure
2 79 (11.93%) AWS
3 42 (6.34%) Microsoft 365
4 32 (4.83%) GCP
5 30 (4.53%) Entra ID
6 24 (3.63%) SaaS
7 22 (3.32%) Power Platform
8 12 (1.81%) Azure Sentinel
8 12 (1.81%) OCI
9 9 (1.36%) GitHub
9 9 (1.36%) Microsoft Purview
9 9 (1.36%) OneDrive
10 7 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.06%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.06%) IaaS
10 7 (1.06%) PaaS
10 7 (1.06%) Power Automate
11 6 (0.91%) PowerApps
12 5 (0.76%) Amazon S3
12 5 (0.76%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 65 (9.82%) Firewall
2 31 (4.68%) Network Security
3 20 (3.02%) TCP/IP
4 19 (2.87%) DNS
5 13 (1.96%) SSH
5 13 (1.96%) WAN
6 12 (1.81%) Wireless
7 11 (1.66%) Internet
8 10 (1.51%) DHCP
8 10 (1.51%) HTTP
9 9 (1.36%) VPN
10 8 (1.21%) Intrusion Detection
11 7 (1.06%) Skype
11 7 (1.06%) SMTP
11 7 (1.06%) Wi-Fi
12 6 (0.91%) SSL
13 5 (0.76%) FTP
13 5 (0.76%) NGFW
13 5 (0.76%) SAN
14 4 (0.60%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.87%) Power BI
2 10 (1.51%) Data Warehouse
3 7 (1.06%) Metadata
4 6 (0.91%) GIS
4 6 (0.91%) SQL Server
5 4 (0.60%) Big Data
5 4 (0.60%) Data Lake
5 4 (0.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 3 (0.45%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.45%) Tableau
7 2 (0.30%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.30%) BigQuery
7 2 (0.30%) DB2
7 2 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.30%) Electronic Patient Records
7 2 (0.30%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.30%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.30%) Power Query
7 2 (0.30%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.15%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 26 (3.93%) JIRA
2 14 (2.11%) Burp Suite
3 11 (1.66%) Git
3 11 (1.66%) Metasploit
4 6 (0.91%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.45%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.30%) GitLab
7 1 (0.15%) AppScan
7 1 (0.15%) Balsamiq
7 1 (0.15%) GCC
7 1 (0.15%) MSI
7 1 (0.15%) ScriptRunner
7 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
General
1 242 (36.56%) Social Skills
2 144 (21.75%) Finance
3 85 (12.84%) Public Sector
4 82 (12.39%) Analytical Skills
5 54 (8.16%) Legal
6 43 (6.50%) Banking
7 33 (4.98%) Organisational Skills
8 20 (3.02%) Presentation Skills
9 17 (2.57%) Manufacturing
10 16 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
10 16 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
10 16 (2.42%) Telecoms
11 13 (1.96%) Military
12 8 (1.21%) Law
12 8 (1.21%) Retail
13 7 (1.06%) Marketing
14 6 (0.91%) Investment Banking
14 6 (0.91%) Local Government
14 6 (0.91%) Police
14 6 (0.91%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 141 (21.30%) Analyst
2 63 (9.52%) Consultant
3 48 (7.25%) Security Analyst
4 47 (7.10%) Architect
5 44 (6.65%) Senior
6 42 (6.34%) Security Engineer
7 35 (5.29%) Security Manager
8 33 (4.98%) Lead
8 33 (4.98%) Support Analyst
9 29 (4.38%) Security Architect
10 26 (3.93%) Security Consultant
11 25 (3.78%) Security Officer
12 23 (3.47%) Security Specialist
13 22 (3.32%) Information Analyst
13 22 (3.32%) Information Security Analyst
14 19 (2.87%) Project Manager
15 17 (2.57%) Coordinator
16 16 (2.42%) Developer
16 16 (2.42%) IT Analyst
17 15 (2.27%) Security Advisor
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (1.81%) OAuth
2 11 (1.66%) Middleware
2 11 (1.66%) SailPoint
3 10 (1.51%) SAML
4 9 (1.36%) LDAP
4 9 (1.36%) OpenID
4 9 (1.36%) Oracle Fusion
5 8 (1.21%) OAuth2
6 6 (0.91%) Qt
7 4 (0.60%) .NET
7 4 (0.60%) Spring
7 4 (0.60%) Spring Boot
8 3 (0.45%) ADO
8 3 (0.45%) J2EE
8 3 (0.45%) JSP
8 3 (0.45%) JWT
8 3 (0.45%) ModSecurity
8 3 (0.45%) Node.js
8 3 (0.45%) REST
8 3 (0.45%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 123 (18.58%) Management Information System
2 82 (12.39%) Security Posture
3 31 (4.68%) Cyber Threat
4 26 (3.93%) Onboarding
4 26 (3.93%) PKI
5 19 (2.87%) Operational Technology
6 15 (2.27%) Data Centre
6 15 (2.27%) Insider Threat
7 14 (2.11%) Cloud Native
8 13 (1.96%) Product Ownership
8 13 (1.96%) Security Operations Centre
9 12 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (1.66%) Tandem
11 10 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
11 10 (1.51%) Greenfield Project
12 9 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
13 8 (1.21%) Legacy Systems
13 8 (1.21%) Mobile App
13 8 (1.21%) NHS
13 8 (1.21%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 75 (11.33%) Windows
2 46 (6.95%) Linux
3 17 (2.57%) Unix
4 16 (2.42%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.60%) Kali Linux
6 3 (0.45%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.45%) zOS
7 2 (0.30%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.15%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 226 (34.14%) Cybersecurity
2 165 (24.92%) Risk Management
3 123 (18.58%) Problem-Solving
4 107 (16.16%) Stakeholder Management
5 106 (16.01%) Data Protection
6 96 (14.50%) Continuous Improvement
7 93 (14.05%) Incident Response
8 77 (11.63%) ITIL
9 76 (11.48%) Cloud Security
10 70 (10.57%) Agile
11 65 (9.82%) Security Management
12 58 (8.76%) Computer Science
13 57 (8.61%) Security Operations
14 55 (8.31%) SIEM
14 55 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 49 (7.40%) Threat Modelling
16 47 (7.10%) Roadmaps
17 46 (6.95%) Change Management
17 46 (6.95%) Incident Management
17 46 (6.95%) Information Security Management
Programming Languages
1 57 (8.61%) Python
2 45 (6.80%) PowerShell
3 34 (5.14%) SQL
4 15 (2.27%) Java
5 10 (1.51%) Bash
6 6 (0.91%) C++
7 5 (0.76%) Go
8 4 (0.60%) Kotlin
8 4 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (0.45%) C#
9 3 (0.45%) RPG
10 2 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 2 (0.30%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.30%) Perl
10 2 (0.30%) R
10 2 (0.30%) Rust
10 2 (0.30%) Solidity
11 1 (0.15%) Lisp
11 1 (0.15%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.15%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 190 (28.70%) Security Cleared
2 137 (20.69%) SC Cleared
3 133 (20.09%) Degree
4 106 (16.01%) CISSP
5 81 (12.24%) CISM
6 50 (7.55%) DV Cleared
7 45 (6.80%) Computer Science Degree
8 31 (4.68%) CISA
9 28 (4.23%) Master's Degree
10 21 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
10 21 (3.17%) CRISC
10 21 (3.17%) ITIL Certification
11 19 (2.87%) Cisco Certification
12 16 (2.42%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 13 (1.96%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 12 (1.81%) CEH
14 12 (1.81%) CREST Certified
14 12 (1.81%) CTC Cleared
14 12 (1.81%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
14 12 (1.81%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 193 (29.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 144 (21.75%) NIST
3 102 (15.41%) GDPR
4 64 (9.67%) GRC
5 38 (5.74%) PCI DSS
6 25 (3.78%) COBIT
7 24 (3.63%) Cyber Essentials
8 22 (3.32%) QA
9 21 (3.17%) NCSC
9 21 (3.17%) PMO
10 17 (2.57%) Accessibility
11 15 (2.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 14 (2.11%) Def Stans
13 13 (1.96%) Data Quality
14 12 (1.81%) NIST 800
15 11 (1.66%) RMADS
16 10 (1.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 9 (1.36%) JSP 440
18 8 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27005
18 8 (1.21%) SLA
System Software
1 53 (8.01%) Active Directory
2 14 (2.11%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.91%) Docker
4 3 (0.45%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.15%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.15%) Microsoft App-V
5 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.15%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 22 (3.32%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (2.27%) HP SiteScope
2 15 (2.27%) SCOM
3 14 (2.11%) Kubernetes
3 14 (2.11%) SCCM
4 13 (1.96%) Terraform
5 12 (1.81%) Ansible
5 12 (1.81%) QRadar
6 11 (1.66%) Nmap
7 6 (0.91%) CASB
7 6 (0.91%) SCOrch
8 5 (0.76%) Functional Safety
8 5 (0.76%) WSUS
9 4 (0.60%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.45%) CSIRT
10 3 (0.45%) Nessus
10 3 (0.45%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.30%) FTK
11 2 (0.30%) Grafana
Vendors
1 137 (20.69%) Microsoft
2 27 (4.08%) Splunk
3 23 (3.47%) ServiceNow
4 20 (3.02%) Cisco
5 18 (2.72%) Google
6 17 (2.57%) Remedy
7 15 (2.27%) IBM
8 14 (2.11%) CyberArk
9 12 (1.81%) CrowdStrike
9 12 (1.81%) Oracle
10 11 (1.66%) Fortinet
11 10 (1.51%) Salesforce
12 9 (1.36%) Thales
13 8 (1.21%) Gemalto
14 7 (1.06%) Databricks
14 7 (1.06%) Palo Alto
14 7 (1.06%) Qualys
14 7 (1.06%) SAP
15 6 (0.91%) Sophos
16 5 (0.76%) VMware