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 10 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 165 164 116
Rank change year-on-year -1 -48 0
Contract jobs citing Information Security 697 507 909
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.64% 1.71% 2.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.91% 1.90% 2.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 394 292 592
10th Percentile £400 £351 £387
25th Percentile £450 £478 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £650 £695 £675
90th Percentile £775 £825 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £575 £540
% change year-on-year -8.70% +6.48% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 30 52
10th Percentile £16.99 £16.23 £16.81
25th Percentile £20.71 £22.14 £19.25
Median hourly rate £28.00 £24.42 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.66% -45.12% -36.43%
75th Percentile £41.94 £44.69 £61.97
90th Percentile £82.88 £81.05 £83.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.16 £22.14 £44.50
% change year-on-year +22.67% -50.25% -40.67%

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 36,537 26,694 38,745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.12% 90.29% 86.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,174 17,018 25,183
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.28% -1.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,160 902 2,347
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.51 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £77.10 £71.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.55 £31.76 £31.80
% change year-on-year -16.40% -0.13% -9.14%

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 10 March 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 10 March 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 10 March 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 -2 621 £550 -8.33% 294
UK excluding London -7 333 £525 -8.70% 215
London +8 291 £573 -4.58% 102
Work from Home +4 205 £550 - 140
South East -4 114 £563 -6.25% 103
North of England -52 67 £500 -5.57% 37
Midlands -43 51 £500 -14.71% 25
East of England -8 45 £535 -10.83% 13
North West -26 43 £506 -5.81% 25
West Midlands -47 36 £545 -29.45% 16
South West -15 31 £500 -25.37% 29
Scotland +6 20 £354 -26.10% 6
Yorkshire -50 20 £488 +13.04% 9
East Midlands -21 15 £450 +50.00% 9
Wales +1 5 £200 +11.11% 6
North East -17 4 £450 -16.97% 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 22 (3.16%) Confluence
2 17 (2.44%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 7 (1.00%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
5 4 (0.57%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.14%) Apache
6 1 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.14%) Mattermost
6 1 (0.14%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.14%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.14%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 40 (5.74%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (5.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (2.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.15%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.29%) MS Visio
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%) Navisworks
6 1 (0.14%) Revit
Business Applications
1 12 (1.72%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (0.57%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.29%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.29%) Temenos T24
4 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 119 (17.07%) Azure
2 85 (12.20%) AWS
3 42 (6.03%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (4.88%) GCP
5 29 (4.16%) Entra ID
6 25 (3.59%) Power Platform
7 24 (3.44%) SaaS
8 17 (2.44%) Microsoft Purview
9 15 (2.15%) OCI
10 11 (1.58%) GitHub
11 8 (1.15%) Azure Sentinel
11 8 (1.15%) Power Automate
12 7 (1.00%) IaaS
12 7 (1.00%) Microsoft Copilot
12 7 (1.00%) PaaS
12 7 (1.00%) PowerApps
13 5 (0.72%) Amazon S3
13 5 (0.72%) Azure Data Factory
13 5 (0.72%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (0.72%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 63 (9.04%) Firewall
2 32 (4.59%) Network Security
3 18 (2.58%) DNS
3 18 (2.58%) TCP/IP
4 15 (2.15%) HTTP
5 13 (1.87%) Wireless
6 12 (1.72%) SSH
6 12 (1.72%) WAN
7 11 (1.58%) VPN
8 10 (1.43%) Internet
9 9 (1.29%) DHCP
10 7 (1.00%) SMTP
10 7 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
11 6 (0.86%) Cisco IPT
12 5 (0.72%) FTP
12 5 (0.72%) SAN
12 5 (0.72%) SSL
13 4 (0.57%) Intrusion Detection
14 3 (0.43%) OSPF
14 3 (0.43%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (3.01%) Power BI
2 11 (1.58%) Data Warehouse
3 10 (1.43%) Metadata
4 9 (1.29%) SQL Server
5 6 (0.86%) Data Lake
6 4 (0.57%) Big Data
6 4 (0.57%) Hadoop
6 4 (0.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 4 (0.57%) Tableau
7 3 (0.43%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.43%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
8 2 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.29%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.29%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (0.29%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.29%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 2 (0.29%) Power Query
8 2 (0.29%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 29 (4.16%) JIRA
2 14 (2.01%) Burp Suite
3 11 (1.58%) Metasploit
4 10 (1.43%) Git
5 2 (0.29%) GitLab
6 1 (0.14%) AppScan
6 1 (0.14%) GCC
6 1 (0.14%) git-flow
6 1 (0.14%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.14%) MSI
6 1 (0.14%) ScriptRunner
6 1 (0.14%) SonarQube
General
1 234 (33.57%) Social Skills
2 133 (19.08%) Finance
3 104 (14.92%) Public Sector
4 86 (12.34%) Analytical Skills
5 60 (8.61%) Legal
6 50 (7.17%) Banking
7 32 (4.59%) Organisational Skills
8 19 (2.73%) Presentation Skills
9 18 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
10 16 (2.30%) Telecoms
11 15 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
12 14 (2.01%) Retail
13 10 (1.43%) Law
14 9 (1.29%) Manufacturing
15 8 (1.15%) Police
16 7 (1.00%) Marketing
17 6 (0.86%) Local Government
17 6 (0.86%) Spanish Language
18 5 (0.72%) Cyber-Physical System
19 4 (0.57%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 120 (17.22%) Analyst
2 75 (10.76%) Consultant
3 55 (7.89%) Senior
4 50 (7.17%) Architect
5 47 (6.74%) Security Engineer
6 45 (6.46%) Lead
7 44 (6.31%) Security Analyst
8 40 (5.74%) Security Consultant
9 38 (5.45%) Security Manager
10 34 (4.88%) Security Architect
11 28 (4.02%) Security Officer
12 20 (2.87%) Designer
12 20 (2.87%) Project Manager
12 20 (2.87%) Security Specialist
12 20 (2.87%) Service Designer
13 19 (2.73%) Developer
14 18 (2.58%) Information Analyst
14 18 (2.58%) Information Security Analyst
15 17 (2.44%) Business Analyst
15 17 (2.44%) Cybersecurity Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.01%) Oracle Fusion
2 13 (1.87%) OAuth
3 11 (1.58%) SAML
4 10 (1.43%) LDAP
4 10 (1.43%) OpenID
5 9 (1.29%) SailPoint
6 8 (1.15%) OAuth2
7 7 (1.00%) Middleware
8 5 (0.72%) Node.js
9 4 (0.57%) .NET
9 4 (0.57%) Spring
9 4 (0.57%) Spring Boot
10 3 (0.43%) GraphQL
10 3 (0.43%) J2EE
10 3 (0.43%) JSP
10 3 (0.43%) JWT
10 3 (0.43%) Kafka
10 3 (0.43%) ModSecurity
10 3 (0.43%) REST
10 3 (0.43%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 117 (16.79%) Management Information System
2 71 (10.19%) Security Posture
3 36 (5.16%) Onboarding
4 29 (4.16%) Operational Technology
5 23 (3.30%) Cyber Threat
6 20 (2.87%) Data Protection Act
7 18 (2.58%) PKI
8 16 (2.30%) Cloud Native
8 16 (2.30%) Data Centre
9 14 (2.01%) Insider Threat
10 13 (1.87%) Product Ownership
11 12 (1.72%) BYOD
11 12 (1.72%) Security Operations Centre
12 11 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
12 11 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
12 11 (1.58%) Virtual Team
13 9 (1.29%) Public Cloud
14 8 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
14 8 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
14 8 (1.15%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 66 (9.47%) Windows
2 34 (4.88%) Linux
3 23 (3.30%) Windows Server
4 15 (2.15%) Unix
5 3 (0.43%) Kali Linux
5 3 (0.43%) zOS
6 1 (0.14%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.14%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.14%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 250 (35.87%) Cybersecurity
2 180 (25.82%) Risk Management
3 119 (17.07%) Continuous Improvement
4 117 (16.79%) Problem-Solving
5 113 (16.21%) Data Protection
6 105 (15.06%) Stakeholder Management
7 84 (12.05%) Cloud Security
8 80 (11.48%) Security Management
9 71 (10.19%) Incident Response
10 67 (9.61%) Agile
11 66 (9.47%) Change Management
12 62 (8.90%) Security Operations
13 61 (8.75%) Information Security Management
13 61 (8.75%) Roadmaps
14 56 (8.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 51 (7.32%) AI
15 51 (7.32%) Computer Science
16 49 (7.03%) SIEM
17 48 (6.89%) Decision-Making
17 48 (6.89%) Regulatory Compliance
Programming Languages
1 59 (8.46%) Python
2 37 (5.31%) PowerShell
3 24 (3.44%) SQL
4 17 (2.44%) Java
5 11 (1.58%) Bash
6 5 (0.72%) Go
7 4 (0.57%) C#
7 4 (0.57%) Kotlin
8 3 (0.43%) Kusto Query Language
8 3 (0.43%) RPG
9 2 (0.29%) C++
9 2 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.29%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.29%) R
9 2 (0.29%) Rust
9 2 (0.29%) Solidity
10 1 (0.14%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.14%) BeanShell
10 1 (0.14%) Lisp
10 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 205 (29.41%) Security Cleared
2 161 (23.10%) SC Cleared
3 136 (19.51%) Degree
4 117 (16.79%) CISSP
5 90 (12.91%) CISM
6 47 (6.74%) DV Cleared
7 39 (5.60%) Computer Science Degree
8 30 (4.30%) CISA
9 27 (3.87%) Cisco Certification
10 26 (3.73%) Master's Degree
11 24 (3.44%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 23 (3.30%) CRISC
13 21 (3.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 20 (2.87%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
15 18 (2.58%) CEH
16 17 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
17 13 (1.87%) CREST Certified
17 13 (1.87%) CTC Cleared
17 13 (1.87%) Postgraduate
18 12 (1.72%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 232 (33.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 172 (24.68%) NIST
3 127 (18.22%) GDPR
4 75 (10.76%) GRC
5 47 (6.74%) PCI DSS
6 32 (4.59%) COBIT
7 28 (4.02%) NCSC
8 26 (3.73%) QA
9 25 (3.59%) Cyber Essentials
10 24 (3.44%) PMO
11 21 (3.01%) Accessibility
12 20 (2.87%) Data Quality
13 18 (2.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 17 (2.44%) NIST 800
15 12 (1.72%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (1.72%) Def Stans
15 12 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 12 (1.72%) SOC 2
16 11 (1.58%) JSP 440
17 10 (1.43%) SLA
System Software
1 45 (6.46%) Active Directory
2 10 (1.43%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.86%) Docker
4 3 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
5 1 (0.14%) RACF
5 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 22 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (1.72%) Kubernetes
2 12 (1.72%) Nmap
2 12 (1.72%) SCCM
3 9 (1.29%) Terraform
4 7 (1.00%) Ansible
4 7 (1.00%) QRadar
5 6 (0.86%) CASB
5 6 (0.86%) SCOrch
6 5 (0.72%) Functional Safety
7 4 (0.57%) FortiGate
7 4 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.57%) WSUS
8 2 (0.29%) HP SiteScope
8 2 (0.29%) Nessus
8 2 (0.29%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.29%) Red Hat Satellite
8 2 (0.29%) SCOM
9 1 (0.14%) logstash
9 1 (0.14%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 107 (15.35%) Microsoft
2 33 (4.73%) ServiceNow
3 20 (2.87%) Oracle
4 18 (2.58%) CyberArk
5 15 (2.15%) Google
6 14 (2.01%) Cisco
7 12 (1.72%) IBM
8 9 (1.29%) CrowdStrike
8 9 (1.29%) Thales
9 8 (1.15%) Databricks
9 8 (1.15%) Fortinet
9 8 (1.15%) Gemalto
9 8 (1.15%) Splunk
10 7 (1.00%) Palo Alto
10 7 (1.00%) Qualys
10 7 (1.00%) SAP
11 6 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
12 5 (0.72%) Ariba
12 5 (0.72%) Rapid7
12 5 (0.72%) Sophos