NCSC Contract Job Trends

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring NCSC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 358 413 507
Rank change year-on-year +55 +94 -93
Contract jobs citing NCSC 340 139 86
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.65% 0.43% 0.20%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.81% 2.58% 1.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 92 57
10th Percentile £450 £500 £475
25th Percentile £513 £558 £519
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £610 £645 £600
Median % change year-on-year -5.43% +7.50% -11.93%
75th Percentile £702 £700 £725
90th Percentile £800 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £641 £563
% change year-on-year -6.43% +14.00% -19.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 13 1
10th Percentile £73.75 £60.75 -
25th Percentile £80.48 £82.50 -
Median hourly rate £83.65 £85.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.59% +6.25% -3.97%
75th Percentile £85.40 £91.50 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £85.00 £80.00
% change year-on-year +0.47% +6.25% -3.97%

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK

NCSC falls under the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring quality assurance or compliance skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 8,933 5,381 5,893
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.96% 16.47% 13.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,729 3,457 3,634
10th Percentile £339 £280 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £620
90th Percentile £700 £717 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +6.38% -1.05% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 552 234 421
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.65 £11.66
25th Percentile £19.30 £18.15 £13.52
Median hourly rate £36.07 £30.00 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +24.07% -37.54%
75th Percentile £68.75 £62.25 £50.00
90th Percentile £81.71 £82.99 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £27.35 £24.18
% change year-on-year +41.57% +13.11% -31.40%

NCSC
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing NCSC relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

NCSC job vacancy trend in the UK

NCSC
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing NCSC.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing NCSC

NCSC
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NCSC over the 6 months to 13 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing NCSC.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing NCSC

NCSC
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing NCSC over the 6 months to 13 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NCSC within the UK over the 6 months to 13 July 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 +28 294 £600 -6.98% 86
UK excluding London -15 176 £600 -6.43% 64
Work from Home +33 136 £625 -2.34% 50
London +7 112 £625 -3.85% 31
South East -11 90 £638 -5.56% 19
South West -18 40 £553 -14.34% 21
North of England -65 20 £668 +8.98% 12
North West -39 17 £668 +14.84% 7
Midlands -44 16 £492 -24.31% 3
West Midlands -60 16 £492 -24.31% 2
Scotland -12 8 £663 +32.50% 5
Wales - 4 £800 - 1
East of England -29 3 £450 +167.46% 1
Yorkshire -52 3 £600 -7.69% 2

NCSC
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 15 (4.41%) Confluence
2 3 (0.88%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.59%) WebLogic
3 2 (0.59%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.29%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.59%) PlantUML
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 9 (2.65%) Oracle ERP
2 3 (0.88%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.59%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.59%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 120 (35.29%) Azure
2 85 (25.00%) AWS
3 32 (9.41%) Entra ID
4 27 (7.94%) GCP
5 22 (6.47%) Microsoft 365
5 22 (6.47%) SaaS
6 17 (5.00%) OpenShift
7 16 (4.71%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (2.65%) OCI
9 8 (2.35%) Amazon EKS
9 8 (2.35%) IaaS
9 8 (2.35%) PaaS
10 7 (2.06%) Azure AKS
10 7 (2.06%) GitHub
10 7 (2.06%) Serverless
11 6 (1.76%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (1.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 5 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
12 5 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (1.47%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 31 (9.12%) Firewall
2 29 (8.53%) Network Security
3 18 (5.29%) VPN
4 16 (4.71%) DNS
5 12 (3.53%) BGP
5 12 (3.53%) TCP/IP
6 11 (3.24%) IPsec
6 11 (3.24%) OSPF
6 11 (3.24%) WAN
7 10 (2.94%) MPLS
7 10 (2.94%) SD-WAN
7 10 (2.94%) VLAN
8 9 (2.65%) LAN
9 6 (1.76%) Cisco ASA
9 6 (1.76%) Cisco Nexus
9 6 (1.76%) VSAN
10 5 (1.47%) Cisco Firepower
10 5 (1.47%) DHCP
11 4 (1.18%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 4 (1.18%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.94%) Geospatial Data
2 6 (1.76%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
3 3 (0.88%) Power BI
4 2 (0.59%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.29%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.29%) Metadata
5 1 (0.29%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.29%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.29%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 18 (5.29%) JIRA
2 13 (3.82%) Jenkins
3 12 (3.53%) Git
4 8 (2.35%) MSI
5 3 (0.88%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.59%) GitLab
General
1 101 (29.71%) Public Sector
2 96 (28.24%) Social Skills
3 34 (10.00%) Finance
4 22 (6.47%) Influencing Skills
5 20 (5.88%) Telecoms
6 19 (5.59%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (5.00%) Analytical Skills
8 13 (3.82%) Military
9 8 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (2.35%) Law
10 7 (2.06%) Local Government
10 7 (2.06%) Police
11 6 (1.76%) Legal
12 5 (1.47%) Aerospace
12 5 (1.47%) Manufacturing
13 4 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.59%) Aviation
14 2 (0.59%) Banking
15 1 (0.29%) Marketing
15 1 (0.29%) Retail
Job Titles
1 127 (37.35%) Architect
2 55 (16.18%) Security Architect
3 39 (11.47%) Lead
4 34 (10.00%) Technical Architect
5 29 (8.53%) Consultant
6 28 (8.24%) Senior
7 19 (5.59%) Security Consultant
8 18 (5.29%) Security Manager
9 16 (4.71%) Solutions Architect
10 15 (4.41%) Analyst
10 15 (4.41%) Lead Architect
11 14 (4.12%) Technical Leader
12 13 (3.82%) Cybersecurity Manager
13 12 (3.53%) Developer
13 12 (3.53%) Tester
14 11 (3.24%) CyberArk Architect
14 11 (3.24%) Network Architect
14 11 (3.24%) Penetration Tester
14 11 (3.24%) Security Engineer
15 10 (2.94%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (5.88%) OpenID
1 20 (5.88%) SAML
2 19 (5.59%) LDAP
3 14 (4.12%) .NET
4 13 (3.82%) REST
5 10 (2.94%) GeoJSON
5 10 (2.94%) RESTful
6 9 (2.65%) .NET Framework
7 8 (2.35%) .NET Core
7 8 (2.35%) ATL
7 8 (2.35%) COM
7 8 (2.35%) CSS
7 8 (2.35%) CSS3
7 8 (2.35%) HTML
7 8 (2.35%) HTML5
7 8 (2.35%) MFC
7 8 (2.35%) OAuth
7 8 (2.35%) WPF
8 5 (1.47%) SailPoint
9 4 (1.18%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 43 (12.65%) Cloud Native
2 38 (11.18%) Onboarding
3 23 (6.76%) Management Information System
3 23 (6.76%) Security Operations Centre
4 20 (5.88%) Cyber Threat
4 20 (5.88%) Operational Technology
5 18 (5.29%) Security Posture
6 17 (5.00%) Data Centre
7 14 (4.12%) CSOC
7 14 (4.12%) Legacy Systems
7 14 (4.12%) PKI
7 14 (4.12%) Public Cloud
8 13 (3.82%) Hybrid Cloud
8 13 (3.82%) SCADA
9 11 (3.24%) Private Cloud
10 10 (2.94%) Product Ownership
11 6 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
12 5 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
12 5 (1.47%) NHS
13 4 (1.18%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
Operating Systems
1 26 (7.65%) Windows
2 25 (7.35%) Linux
3 7 (2.06%) Mac OS
4 6 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 6 (1.76%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.18%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.88%) VMS
7 2 (0.59%) Android
7 2 (0.59%) CentOS
7 2 (0.59%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.59%) Unix
8 1 (0.29%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.29%) Rocky
8 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 160 (47.06%) Cybersecurity
2 84 (24.71%) CI/CD
3 76 (22.35%) Cloud Security
4 74 (21.76%) Agile
5 73 (21.47%) Infrastructure as Code
6 67 (19.71%) DevOps
7 61 (17.94%) Incident Response
8 59 (17.35%) Stakeholder Management
9 56 (16.47%) Risk Management
9 56 (16.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 55 (16.18%) Security Architecture
11 54 (15.88%) SIEM
12 51 (15.00%) Continuous Improvement
13 49 (14.41%) Threat Modelling
14 43 (12.65%) TOGAF
15 42 (12.35%) Zero Trust
16 41 (12.06%) Vulnerability Management
17 38 (11.18%) Containerisation
17 38 (11.18%) DevSecOps
18 37 (10.88%) Architectural Patterns
Programming Languages
1 23 (6.76%) Python
2 21 (6.18%) Bicep
3 11 (3.24%) SQL
4 10 (2.94%) PowerShell
5 9 (2.65%) C#
6 8 (2.35%) JavaScript
6 8 (2.35%) TypeScript
7 7 (2.06%) Java
8 3 (0.88%) Bash
9 2 (0.59%) Groovy
9 2 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.59%) Objective-C
9 2 (0.59%) Search Processing Language
10 1 (0.29%) C
Qualifications
1 248 (72.94%) Security Cleared
2 202 (59.41%) SC Cleared
3 73 (21.47%) DV Cleared
4 42 (12.35%) CISSP
5 38 (11.18%) CISM
6 32 (9.41%) Cisco Certification
7 22 (6.47%) Degree
8 17 (5.00%) CCNP
9 14 (4.12%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 12 (3.53%) AWS Certification
10 12 (3.53%) Azure Certification
10 12 (3.53%) GIAC
11 11 (3.24%) CHECK Team Leader
12 10 (2.94%) CHECK Team Member
13 9 (2.65%) CESG Certified Professional
14 8 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
14 8 (2.35%) CEH
14 8 (2.35%) CompTIA Security+
14 8 (2.35%) CRISC
14 8 (2.35%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 117 (34.41%) NIST
2 95 (27.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 45 (13.24%) GDPR
4 34 (10.00%) Cyber Essentials
5 28 (8.24%) NIST 800
6 22 (6.47%) JSP 440
7 18 (5.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 16 (4.71%) GRC
9 15 (4.41%) Government Security Classifications
10 13 (3.82%) RMADS
11 12 (3.53%) Accessibility
11 12 (3.53%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 10 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 9 (2.65%) COBIT
14 8 (2.35%) PCI DSS
14 8 (2.35%) WCAG
15 7 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 7 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 7 (2.06%) QA
16 6 (1.76%) Data Quality
System Software
1 31 (9.12%) Active Directory
2 18 (5.29%) Docker
3 15 (4.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (4.12%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.47%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.88%) vSphere
8 2 (0.59%) KVM
9 1 (0.29%) GPFS
9 1 (0.29%) Lustre
9 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.29%) UAG
Systems Management
1 53 (15.59%) Kubernetes
2 43 (12.65%) Terraform
3 11 (3.24%) Ansible
4 7 (2.06%) Jamf Pro
5 6 (1.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.88%) Istio
6 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.59%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (0.59%) CSIRT
7 2 (0.59%) Grafana
7 2 (0.59%) Iperf
7 2 (0.59%) Nmap
7 2 (0.59%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.29%) Argo
8 1 (0.29%) CASB
8 1 (0.29%) CloudForms
8 1 (0.29%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 1 (0.29%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.29%) VxRail
Vendors
1 73 (21.47%) Microsoft
2 27 (7.94%) VMware
3 19 (5.59%) Cisco
4 17 (5.00%) Splunk
5 15 (4.41%) Palo Alto
6 13 (3.82%) CyberArk
7 12 (3.53%) ServiceNow
8 9 (2.65%) Oracle
9 7 (2.06%) Fortinet
9 7 (2.06%) Google
9 7 (2.06%) SAP
9 7 (2.06%) SolarWinds
10 5 (1.47%) Apple
10 5 (1.47%) CheckPoint
10 5 (1.47%) F5
11 4 (1.18%) Zscaler
12 3 (0.88%) BiZZdesign
12 3 (0.88%) Citrix
12 3 (0.88%) Juniper
12 3 (0.88%) Red Hat