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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 203 159 107
Rank change year-on-year -44 -52 -8
Contract jobs citing Information Security 730 563 823
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.37% 1.71% 2.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.61% 1.89% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 394 320 523
10th Percentile £350 £350 £375
25th Percentile £450 £419 £483
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £551 £530 £595
Median % change year-on-year +3.96% -10.92% -0.42%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £688
90th Percentile £814 £826 £787
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £600
% change year-on-year -2.44% -14.58% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 41 18
10th Percentile £16.35 £22.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.67 £22.14 £13.56
Median hourly rate £62.25 £24.66 £16.60
Median % change year-on-year +152.43% +48.60% -79.46%
75th Percentile £78.75 £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% -81.12%

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 45,278 29,786 33,285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.80% 90.49% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,840 18,586 21,275
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
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 2,823 1,710 1,832
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.31 £18.46
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -39.40% -2.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £74.83
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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -33 669 £552 +5.14% 1,154
UK excluding London -11 372 £500 -2.44% 600
London -20 313 £600 +14.29% 651
Work from Home -42 183 £578 +15.60% 498
South East -25 115 £508 -18.80% 187
North of England -45 94 £458 -3.68% 152
North West -18 66 £458 -0.87% 85
Midlands -20 59 £450 +12.50% 57
West Midlands -18 46 £450 -7.69% 35
South West -30 46 £588 +7.06% 75
East of England -14 30 £538 +1.42% 68
Scotland -6 25 £475 +7.41% 46
Yorkshire -45 22 £540 +9.37% 45
East Midlands -27 13 £557 +39.19% 22
North East -42 5 £425 -20.41% 22
Wales -13 4 £645 +55.42% 9
Northern Ireland +5 1 £550 - 18

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 25 (3.42%) SharePoint
2 24 (3.29%) Confluence
3 7 (0.96%) 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 (2.74%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.78%) 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 (1.37%) 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
1 168 (23.01%) Azure
2 111 (15.21%) AWS
3 65 (8.90%) Entra ID
4 45 (6.16%) SaaS
5 39 (5.34%) Microsoft 365
6 32 (4.38%) GCP
7 24 (3.29%) GitHub
8 23 (3.15%) Microsoft Purview
9 21 (2.88%) Azure Sentinel
9 21 (2.88%) Power Platform
10 15 (2.05%) OCI
11 13 (1.78%) Power Automate
11 13 (1.78%) Serverless
12 12 (1.64%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
14 9 (1.23%) IaaS
14 9 (1.23%) PaaS
15 8 (1.10%) Azure Key Vault
15 8 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
16 6 (0.82%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 45 (6.16%) Firewall
2 44 (6.03%) Network Security
3 19 (2.60%) WAN
4 16 (2.19%) LAN
5 13 (1.78%) VPN
6 12 (1.64%) DNS
7 11 (1.51%) Wireless
8 10 (1.37%) SSH
9 9 (1.23%) DHCP
9 9 (1.23%) HTTP
9 9 (1.23%) TCP/IP
10 8 (1.10%) Internet
10 8 (1.10%) NGFW
11 7 (0.96%) 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 (3.29%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.47%) Power BI
3 8 (1.10%) Metadata
4 6 (0.82%) MongoDB
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 (3.70%) 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
1 239 (32.74%) Social Skills
2 162 (22.19%) Finance
3 128 (17.53%) Public Sector
4 86 (11.78%) Analytical Skills
5 57 (7.81%) Banking
6 54 (7.40%) Legal
7 43 (5.89%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (3.56%) Influencing Skills
8 26 (3.56%) Organisational Skills
9 24 (3.29%) Local Government
10 19 (2.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 18 (2.47%) Military
12 16 (2.19%) Retail
13 15 (2.05%) Law
14 14 (1.92%) Aerospace
14 14 (1.92%) Presentation Skills
15 13 (1.78%) Billing
16 10 (1.37%) Marketing
16 10 (1.37%) Police
17 8 (1.10%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 95 (13.01%) Analyst
2 78 (10.68%) Consultant
2 78 (10.68%) Senior
3 71 (9.73%) Architect
4 59 (8.08%) Security Consultant
5 58 (7.95%) Lead
6 52 (7.12%) Security Architect
7 43 (5.89%) Security Engineer
8 38 (5.21%) Security Manager
9 37 (5.07%) Security Analyst
10 25 (3.42%) IT Manager
11 24 (3.29%) Project Manager
12 21 (2.88%) Cybersecurity Manager
12 21 (2.88%) Developer
13 20 (2.74%) Senior Manager
14 19 (2.60%) Security Officer
15 18 (2.47%) Information Manager
15 18 (2.47%) Information Officer
16 17 (2.33%) Business Analyst
16 17 (2.33%) Head of Security
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.42%) SailPoint
2 23 (3.15%) Oracle Fusion
3 22 (3.01%) OAuth
4 17 (2.33%) SAML
5 16 (2.19%) LDAP
6 15 (2.05%) OAuth2
6 15 (2.05%) OpenID
7 14 (1.92%) Web Services
8 10 (1.37%) REST
8 10 (1.37%) 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
13 3 (0.41%) .NET Framework
13 3 (0.41%) ASP.NET
13 3 (0.41%) Middleware
13 3 (0.41%) Spring
13 3 (0.41%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 135 (18.49%) Management Information System
2 77 (10.55%) Onboarding
3 57 (7.81%) Security Posture
4 30 (4.11%) Operational Technology
5 24 (3.29%) Cyber Threat
6 23 (3.15%) Security Operations Centre
7 19 (2.60%) Data Centre
8 18 (2.47%) PKI
9 17 (2.33%) Cloud Native
10 14 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
10 14 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
11 12 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (1.51%) BYOD
13 10 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
13 10 (1.37%) Virtual Team
14 9 (1.23%) CSOC
14 9 (1.23%) Driving Licence
14 9 (1.23%) Product Ownership
15 8 (1.10%) Hybrid Cloud
15 8 (1.10%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 81 (11.10%) Windows
2 41 (5.62%) Linux
3 36 (4.93%) Windows Server
4 20 (2.74%) Unix
5 10 (1.37%) Android
5 10 (1.37%) Mac OS
6 9 (1.23%) Apple iOS
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
1 263 (36.03%) Cybersecurity
2 202 (27.67%) Risk Management
3 163 (22.33%) Stakeholder Management
4 124 (16.99%) Continuous Improvement
5 122 (16.71%) Data Protection
6 108 (14.79%) Problem-Solving
7 97 (13.29%) Incident Response
8 95 (13.01%) Security Operations
9 91 (12.47%) Roadmaps
10 90 (12.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 82 (11.23%) Agile
12 80 (10.96%) Cloud Security
13 76 (10.41%) Vulnerability Management
14 73 (10.00%) Decision-Making
15 64 (8.77%) ITIL
16 62 (8.49%) Computer Science
17 61 (8.36%) SIEM
18 60 (8.22%) Change Management
19 59 (8.08%) DevOps
20 58 (7.95%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 76 (10.41%) Python
2 69 (9.45%) PowerShell
3 30 (4.11%) Bash
4 19 (2.60%) SQL
5 12 (1.64%) Java
6 10 (1.37%) C#
7 9 (1.23%) JavaScript
8 7 (0.96%) Bicep
9 6 (0.82%) PL/SQL
10 5 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.41%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.41%) Kotlin
11 3 (0.41%) Scala
12 1 (0.14%) BeanShell
12 1 (0.14%) Go
12 1 (0.14%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 149 (20.41%) Security Cleared
2 130 (17.81%) CISSP
3 127 (17.40%) Degree
4 116 (15.89%) SC Cleared
5 91 (12.47%) CISM
6 41 (5.62%) DV Cleared
7 28 (3.84%) CISA
7 28 (3.84%) Cisco Certification
7 28 (3.84%) Microsoft Certification
8 26 (3.56%) CRISC
9 23 (3.15%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 19 (2.60%) CEH
11 17 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
12 16 (2.19%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 15 (2.05%) Azure Certification
14 14 (1.92%) PMP
15 13 (1.78%) AWS Certification
15 13 (1.78%) GIAC
15 13 (1.78%) PMI Certification
16 12 (1.64%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 200 (27.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 135 (18.49%) NIST
3 118 (16.16%) GDPR
4 102 (13.97%) GRC
5 44 (6.03%) PCI DSS
6 41 (5.62%) Cyber Essentials
7 35 (4.79%) NCSC
8 24 (3.29%) Accessibility
9 23 (3.15%) Data Quality
10 22 (3.01%) QA
11 19 (2.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 18 (2.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 17 (2.33%) NIST 800
14 14 (1.92%) HIPAA
14 14 (1.92%) SOC 2
15 13 (1.78%) SLA
16 12 (1.64%) COBIT
16 12 (1.64%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 11 (1.51%) Government Security Classifications
18 10 (1.37%) WCAG
System Software
1 81 (11.10%) 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 27 (3.70%) Terraform
2 20 (2.74%) Microsoft Intune
3 19 (2.60%) Kubernetes
4 18 (2.47%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (1.64%) Ansible
6 7 (0.96%) SCCM
7 5 (0.68%) QRadar
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%) Grafana
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
1 159 (21.78%) Microsoft
2 43 (5.89%) Oracle
3 40 (5.48%) ServiceNow
4 23 (3.15%) Google
5 22 (3.01%) CyberArk
6 19 (2.60%) BeyondTrust
6 19 (2.60%) SAP
6 19 (2.60%) Splunk
7 16 (2.19%) Apple
8 15 (2.05%) Cisco
8 15 (2.05%) Palo Alto
8 15 (2.05%) VMware
9 12 (1.64%) Ariba
10 11 (1.51%) CrowdStrike
11 10 (1.37%) Zscaler
12 7 (0.96%) IBM
12 7 (0.96%) Remedy
12 7 (0.96%) Thales
13 6 (0.82%) Atlassian
13 6 (0.82%) Computacenter