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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 191 181 114
Rank change year-on-year -10 -67 -8
Contract jobs citing Information Security 706 470 849
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.39% 1.57% 1.95%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.64% 1.72% 2.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 415 267 514
10th Percentile £367 £308 £375
25th Percentile £450 £413 £482
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £583
Median % change year-on-year - -5.58% -2.92%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £688
90th Percentile £800 £838 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £534 £593
% change year-on-year -1.69% -9.87% +7.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 28 24
10th Percentile £16.35 - £12.75
25th Percentile £16.62 £22.14 £17.29
Median hourly rate £25.50 £24.66 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.41% +26.46% -74.26%
75th Percentile £63.38 £56.68 £23.30
90th Percentile £77.50 £84.56 £34.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.50 £22.14 £19.50
% change year-on-year +15.18% +13.54% -75.60%

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 43,108 27,270 37,060
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.89% 91.01% 84.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,889 17,271 23,587
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £502 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.09% -4.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,584 1,289 2,614
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.70
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.87 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +7.14%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £72.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +76.94% -34.02% +17.29%

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 June 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 June 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 23 June 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 -3 643 £550 +1.48% 336
UK excluding London +2 367 £525 -1.69% 239
London -10 296 £590 +12.38% 146
Work from Home -30 174 £550 +4.76% 167
South East -5 127 £525 -15.66% 62
North of England -52 82 £518 +21.92% 69
North West -16 56 £511 +23.95% 35
Midlands -24 53 £540 +35.00% 38
South West -7 46 £500 -14.53% 30
West Midlands -27 39 £540 +20.00% 24
Scotland 0 31 £387 -13.10% 13
East of England -19 27 £575 +1.77% 14
Yorkshire -52 23 £540 +30.91% 27
East Midlands -20 14 £557 +39.19% 14
Wales -13 3 £645 +55.42% 7
North East -39 3 £450 -15.73% 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 28 (3.97%) Confluence
2 23 (3.26%) SharePoint
3 8 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.71%) IIS
5 4 (0.57%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.42%) Oracle Collaboration Suite
7 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 32 (4.53%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (3.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (1.56%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.28%) 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
Business Applications
1 6 (0.85%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (0.71%) Oracle EBS
3 4 (0.57%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 149 (21.10%) Azure
2 104 (14.73%) AWS
3 48 (6.80%) Entra ID
4 39 (5.52%) Microsoft 365
5 37 (5.24%) SaaS
6 33 (4.67%) GCP
7 23 (3.26%) Microsoft Purview
8 22 (3.12%) Power Platform
9 17 (2.41%) Azure Sentinel
9 17 (2.41%) GitHub
10 14 (1.98%) OCI
11 9 (1.27%) IaaS
11 9 (1.27%) Microsoft Copilot
11 9 (1.27%) PaaS
12 8 (1.13%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (0.99%) Power Automate
14 6 (0.85%) Azure Key Vault
14 6 (0.85%) Azure Logic Apps
14 6 (0.85%) OneDrive
15 5 (0.71%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 40 (5.67%) Firewall
2 36 (5.10%) Network Security
3 12 (1.70%) VPN
4 11 (1.56%) SSH
4 11 (1.56%) Wireless
5 10 (1.42%) DNS
5 10 (1.42%) TCP/IP
6 9 (1.27%) HTTP
7 7 (0.99%) DHCP
7 7 (0.99%) HTTPS
8 6 (0.85%) Internet
9 5 (0.71%) Intrusion Detection
10 4 (0.57%) WAN
11 3 (0.42%) Cisco IPT
11 3 (0.42%) LAN
11 3 (0.42%) NGFW
12 2 (0.28%) Broadband
12 2 (0.28%) Multicast
12 2 (0.28%) NAS
12 2 (0.28%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.69%) Power BI
2 15 (2.12%) SQL Server
3 10 (1.42%) Metadata
4 5 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.57%) Big Data
5 4 (0.57%) Data Lake
5 4 (0.57%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.42%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.28%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.28%) MySQL
7 2 (0.28%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 1 (0.14%) MariaDB
8 1 (0.14%) Neo4j
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.14%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.14%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.14%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 30 (4.25%) JIRA
2 10 (1.42%) Git
3 9 (1.27%) Burp Suite
4 7 (0.99%) Metasploit
5 3 (0.42%) git-flow
6 2 (0.28%) Cypress.io
6 2 (0.28%) GitLab
6 2 (0.28%) JMeter
6 2 (0.28%) Postman
6 2 (0.28%) Selenium
6 2 (0.28%) WebDriver
7 1 (0.14%) AppScan
7 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.14%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.14%) Protractor
7 1 (0.14%) ScriptRunner
7 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.14%) SonarQube
General
1 238 (33.71%) Social Skills
2 162 (22.95%) Finance
3 109 (15.44%) Public Sector
4 78 (11.05%) Analytical Skills
5 60 (8.50%) Banking
6 59 (8.36%) Legal
7 37 (5.24%) Documentation Skills
8 24 (3.40%) Organisational Skills
9 19 (2.69%) Local Government
10 18 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
11 13 (1.84%) Presentation Skills
12 12 (1.70%) Retail
13 10 (1.42%) Marketing
14 8 (1.13%) Aviation
14 8 (1.13%) Billing
15 7 (0.99%) Military
15 7 (0.99%) Pharmaceutical
15 7 (0.99%) Police
16 6 (0.85%) Law
16 6 (0.85%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 99 (14.02%) Analyst
2 75 (10.62%) Consultant
3 65 (9.21%) Senior
4 57 (8.07%) Security Consultant
5 54 (7.65%) Security Engineer
6 52 (7.37%) Architect
7 51 (7.22%) Lead
8 40 (5.67%) Security Analyst
9 37 (5.24%) Security Architect
10 36 (5.10%) Security Manager
11 28 (3.97%) Project Manager
11 28 (3.97%) Security Officer
12 27 (3.82%) IT Manager
13 22 (3.12%) Senior Manager
14 20 (2.83%) Information Officer
15 19 (2.69%) Cybersecurity Manager
15 19 (2.69%) Information Security Officer
16 18 (2.55%) Business Analyst
17 15 (2.12%) Cybersecurity Consultant
17 15 (2.12%) Information Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (2.97%) Oracle Fusion
2 20 (2.83%) OAuth
3 19 (2.69%) SailPoint
4 15 (2.12%) OAuth2
5 14 (1.98%) SAML
6 13 (1.84%) OpenID
7 11 (1.56%) LDAP
8 10 (1.42%) Web Services
9 8 (1.13%) REST
10 7 (0.99%) .NET
10 7 (0.99%) J2EE
10 7 (0.99%) JSP
10 7 (0.99%) XML
11 5 (0.71%) Middleware
11 5 (0.71%) Node.js
11 5 (0.71%) RESTful
12 4 (0.57%) Kafka
13 3 (0.42%) ASP.NET Core
13 3 (0.42%) Elastic Stack
13 3 (0.42%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 118 (16.71%) Management Information System
2 67 (9.49%) Onboarding
3 58 (8.22%) Security Posture
4 38 (5.38%) Operational Technology
5 18 (2.55%) Cloud Native
5 18 (2.55%) Data Protection Act
6 17 (2.41%) Cyber Threat
7 16 (2.27%) Security Operations Centre
8 14 (1.98%) Data Centre
8 14 (1.98%) Self-Motivation
9 13 (1.84%) PKI
10 12 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
10 12 (1.70%) SCADA
10 12 (1.70%) Virtual Team
11 11 (1.56%) BYOD
11 11 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
12 10 (1.42%) Product Ownership
12 10 (1.42%) Public Cloud
13 8 (1.13%) Insider Threat
13 8 (1.13%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 82 (11.61%) Windows
2 46 (6.52%) Linux
3 33 (4.67%) Windows Server
4 20 (2.83%) Unix
5 9 (1.27%) Android
5 9 (1.27%) Apple iOS
6 7 (0.99%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.57%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.42%) zOS
9 2 (0.28%) Alpine Linux
9 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.28%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.14%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 247 (34.99%) Cybersecurity
2 194 (27.48%) Risk Management
3 125 (17.71%) Data Protection
4 123 (17.42%) Continuous Improvement
5 111 (15.72%) Stakeholder Management
6 105 (14.87%) Problem-Solving
7 83 (11.76%) Cloud Security
8 79 (11.19%) Agile
9 75 (10.62%) Security Operations
10 74 (10.48%) Change Management
11 73 (10.34%) Incident Response
11 73 (10.34%) Roadmaps
12 70 (9.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 67 (9.49%) Decision-Making
14 64 (9.07%) Computer Science
15 59 (8.36%) Security Management
16 58 (8.22%) SIEM
17 56 (7.93%) AI
18 54 (7.65%) Risk Assessment
19 51 (7.22%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 80 (11.33%) Python
2 63 (8.92%) PowerShell
3 22 (3.12%) Java
4 19 (2.69%) Bash
5 14 (1.98%) SQL
6 7 (0.99%) C#
7 6 (0.85%) Kusto Query Language
8 5 (0.71%) Bicep
9 4 (0.57%) JavaScript
10 3 (0.42%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.42%) Go
10 3 (0.42%) Kotlin
10 3 (0.42%) RPG
11 1 (0.14%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.14%) C++
11 1 (0.14%) Lisp
11 1 (0.14%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 166 (23.51%) Security Cleared
2 153 (21.67%) Degree
3 128 (18.13%) CISSP
4 125 (17.71%) SC Cleared
5 87 (12.32%) CISM
6 41 (5.81%) DV Cleared
7 36 (5.10%) CISA
8 32 (4.53%) Cisco Certification
9 31 (4.39%) CRISC
10 27 (3.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 22 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
12 18 (2.55%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 17 (2.41%) CEH
14 15 (2.12%) Master's Degree
15 14 (1.98%) AWS Certification
15 14 (1.98%) PMP
16 13 (1.84%) CREST Certified
16 13 (1.84%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
16 13 (1.84%) Microsoft Certification
16 13 (1.84%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 218 (30.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 157 (22.24%) NIST
3 116 (16.43%) GDPR
4 101 (14.31%) GRC
5 56 (7.93%) PCI DSS
6 31 (4.39%) Cyber Essentials
7 26 (3.68%) NCSC
8 24 (3.40%) COBIT
9 22 (3.12%) Data Quality
9 22 (3.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 20 (2.83%) PMO
10 20 (2.83%) QA
11 18 (2.55%) NIST 800
12 17 (2.41%) SOC 2
13 14 (1.98%) HIPAA
14 13 (1.84%) Accessibility
14 13 (1.84%) SLA
15 12 (1.70%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 10 (1.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 8 (1.13%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 66 (9.35%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.27%) Docker
3 5 (0.71%) Hyper-V
3 5 (0.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.42%) Squid
5 2 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
6 1 (0.14%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.14%) Ceph
6 1 (0.14%) Firmware
6 1 (0.14%) OpenAM
6 1 (0.14%) RACF
Systems Management
1 15 (2.12%) Microsoft Intune
1 15 (2.12%) Terraform
2 12 (1.70%) Ansible
2 12 (1.70%) Kubernetes
3 10 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
4 7 (0.99%) SCCM
5 6 (0.85%) Nmap
6 4 (0.57%) Functional Safety
7 3 (0.42%) Podman
7 3 (0.42%) QRadar
7 3 (0.42%) RSA Archer
8 2 (0.28%) Computer Incident Response Team
8 2 (0.28%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Satellite
9 1 (0.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.14%) CASB
9 1 (0.14%) Host Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.14%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.14%) Nessus
9 1 (0.14%) WSUS
Vendors
1 135 (19.12%) Microsoft
2 43 (6.09%) ServiceNow
3 35 (4.96%) Oracle
4 21 (2.97%) CyberArk
5 20 (2.83%) Google
6 19 (2.69%) BeyondTrust
7 15 (2.12%) Cisco
7 15 (2.12%) SAP
8 13 (1.84%) Splunk
9 12 (1.70%) Apple
9 12 (1.70%) Ariba
9 12 (1.70%) CrowdStrike
10 8 (1.13%) Palo Alto
11 7 (0.99%) IBM
11 7 (0.99%) Remedy
12 6 (0.85%) VMware
13 5 (0.71%) Computacenter
13 5 (0.71%) Rapid7
13 5 (0.71%) Thales
13 5 (0.71%) Zscaler