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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 350 410 491
Rank change year-on-year +60 +81 -79
Contract jobs citing NCSC 315 123 103
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.41% 0.24%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.73% 2.56% 1.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 234 73 66
10th Percentile £463 £500 £478
25th Percentile £516 £563 £553
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £610 £650 £650
Median % change year-on-year -6.15% - -3.70%
75th Percentile £700 £700 £719
90th Percentile £800 £748 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £645 £600
% change year-on-year -6.98% +7.50% -14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 13 2
10th Percentile £73.75 £60.75 £80.34
25th Percentile £80.48 £77.50 £80.85
Median hourly rate £83.65 £85.00 £81.71
Median % change year-on-year -1.59% +4.03% +5.43%
75th Percentile £85.40 £91.50 £82.56
90th Percentile - £92.30 £83.07
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £85.00 £80.00
% change year-on-year +0.47% +6.25% +6.68%

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 8,442 4,807 5,971
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.78% 16.20% 13.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,412 3,069 3,722
10th Percentile £340 £275 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.48% -3.33%
75th Percentile £600 £614 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 505 201 433
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.12 £11.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.20 £13.18
Median hourly rate £36.00 £31.76 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +13.35% +33.45% -36.53%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £48.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £85.25 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £19.17
% change year-on-year +23.08% +69.54% -48.88%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 17 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 +31 273 £620 -4.62% 89
UK excluding London -30 152 £600 -6.98% 70
Work from Home +34 123 £631 -1.37% 41
London +9 106 £625 -3.85% 25
South East -1 83 £618 -8.52% 30
South West -11 34 £588 -8.91% 16
North of England -60 17 £662 +5.88% 9
North West -30 14 £668 +14.84% 6
West Midlands -56 9 £656 +0.92% 4
Midlands -59 9 £656 +0.92% 7
Scotland -10 7 £525 +5.00% 3
East of England -32 3 £450 +80.72% 3
Yorkshire -55 3 £600 -14.29% 3
Wales - 3 £800 - 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 12 (3.81%) Confluence
2 3 (0.95%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.63%) Camunda
3 2 (0.63%) WebLogic
3 2 (0.63%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.32%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.32%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.63%) PlantUML
2 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 7 (2.22%) Oracle ERP
2 5 (1.59%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.63%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 112 (35.56%) Azure
2 79 (25.08%) AWS
3 28 (8.89%) Entra ID
3 28 (8.89%) GCP
4 21 (6.67%) OpenShift
5 19 (6.03%) Azure DevOps
5 19 (6.03%) Microsoft 365
5 19 (6.03%) SaaS
6 11 (3.49%) IaaS
6 11 (3.49%) PaaS
7 10 (3.17%) GitHub
8 9 (2.86%) Azure AKS
8 9 (2.86%) Azure Monitor
8 9 (2.86%) OCI
9 8 (2.54%) Amazon EKS
10 7 (2.22%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (2.22%) Serverless
11 6 (1.90%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (1.59%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (1.59%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 30 (9.52%) Firewall
2 24 (7.62%) Network Security
3 11 (3.49%) VPN
4 10 (3.17%) BGP
5 9 (2.86%) IPsec
5 9 (2.86%) OSPF
6 8 (2.54%) MPLS
6 8 (2.54%) WAN
7 7 (2.22%) DNS
7 7 (2.22%) SD-WAN
8 6 (1.90%) LAN
8 6 (1.90%) VSAN
9 4 (1.27%) Ethernet VPN
9 4 (1.27%) Multicast
9 4 (1.27%) VLAN
9 4 (1.27%) VXLAN
10 3 (0.95%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (0.95%) MQTT
10 3 (0.95%) Wireless
10 3 (0.95%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (2.22%) Geospatial Data
2 6 (1.90%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
3 3 (0.95%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (0.95%) Power BI
3 3 (0.95%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.63%) DynamoDB
4 2 (0.63%) MySQL
5 1 (0.32%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.32%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.32%) Metadata
5 1 (0.32%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.32%) Redis
5 1 (0.32%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 16 (5.08%) JIRA
2 14 (4.44%) Jenkins
3 11 (3.49%) Git
4 5 (1.59%) MSI
5 3 (0.95%) GitLab
6 2 (0.63%) Ant
6 2 (0.63%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.63%) Cypress.io
6 2 (0.63%) Gradle
6 2 (0.63%) JUnit
6 2 (0.63%) Maven
6 2 (0.63%) Mockito
7 1 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 93 (29.52%) Public Sector
2 84 (26.67%) Social Skills
3 34 (10.79%) Finance
4 20 (6.35%) Influencing Skills
5 19 (6.03%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (5.71%) Analytical Skills
7 16 (5.08%) Telecoms
8 10 (3.17%) Military
9 9 (2.86%) Law
10 7 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (2.22%) Local Government
10 7 (2.22%) Manufacturing
10 7 (2.22%) Police
11 6 (1.90%) Legal
12 4 (1.27%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.95%) Electronics
13 3 (0.95%) Marketing
14 2 (0.63%) Aviation
14 2 (0.63%) Banking
14 2 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 118 (37.46%) Architect
2 51 (16.19%) Security Architect
3 32 (10.16%) Consultant
4 31 (9.84%) Lead
5 30 (9.52%) Senior
5 30 (9.52%) Technical Architect
6 21 (6.67%) Security Consultant
7 15 (4.76%) Solutions Architect
8 14 (4.44%) Security Manager
9 12 (3.81%) CyberArk Architect
9 12 (3.81%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 11 (3.49%) Cloud Engineer
11 10 (3.17%) Analyst
11 10 (3.17%) Azure Engineer
11 10 (3.17%) Coordinator
11 10 (3.17%) Security Assurance Coordinator
11 10 (3.17%) Technical Leader
12 9 (2.86%) Lead Architect
12 9 (2.86%) Security Engineer
12 9 (2.86%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (6.67%) LDAP
2 20 (6.35%) OpenID
2 20 (6.35%) SAML
3 11 (3.49%) .NET
4 10 (3.17%) REST
5 8 (2.54%) OAuth
6 7 (2.22%) CSS
6 7 (2.22%) GeoJSON
6 7 (2.22%) HTML
6 7 (2.22%) RESTful
7 6 (1.90%) .NET Framework
8 5 (1.59%) .NET Core
8 5 (1.59%) ATL
8 5 (1.59%) COM
8 5 (1.59%) CSS3
8 5 (1.59%) HTML5
8 5 (1.59%) MFC
8 5 (1.59%) WPF
9 4 (1.27%) ARM Templates
9 4 (1.27%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 33 (10.48%) Cloud Native
2 30 (9.52%) Onboarding
3 22 (6.98%) Management Information System
4 17 (5.40%) Operational Technology
5 16 (5.08%) Cyber Threat
6 15 (4.76%) Security Operations Centre
7 14 (4.44%) PKI
7 14 (4.44%) Public Cloud
7 14 (4.44%) Security Posture
8 13 (4.13%) Data Centre
9 10 (3.17%) CSOC
9 10 (3.17%) Product Ownership
10 9 (2.86%) SCADA
11 8 (2.54%) Hybrid Cloud
11 8 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (2.54%) Private Cloud
12 5 (1.59%) NHS
13 4 (1.27%) CESG
13 4 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
14 3 (0.95%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 22 (6.98%) Linux
2 19 (6.03%) Windows
3 6 (1.90%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.27%) Android
5 3 (0.95%) Apple iOS
5 3 (0.95%) Mac OS
5 3 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.95%) VMS
6 2 (0.63%) Unix
7 1 (0.32%) CentOS
7 1 (0.32%) Rocky
7 1 (0.32%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.32%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (45.08%) Cybersecurity
2 81 (25.71%) CI/CD
3 74 (23.49%) Infrastructure as Code
4 73 (23.17%) DevOps
5 70 (22.22%) Agile
6 69 (21.90%) Cloud Security
7 59 (18.73%) Stakeholder Management
8 56 (17.78%) Security Architecture
9 55 (17.46%) Risk Management
10 50 (15.87%) Continuous Improvement
10 50 (15.87%) Threat Modelling
11 48 (15.24%) Incident Response
12 42 (13.33%) SIEM
12 42 (13.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 40 (12.70%) TOGAF
13 40 (12.70%) Zero Trust
14 39 (12.38%) Containerisation
15 38 (12.06%) DevSecOps
16 37 (11.75%) Vulnerability Management
17 35 (11.11%) Architectural Patterns
Programming Languages
1 22 (6.98%) Bicep
2 15 (4.76%) Python
3 13 (4.13%) SQL
4 8 (2.54%) PowerShell
5 7 (2.22%) Java
6 6 (1.90%) C#
7 5 (1.59%) JavaScript
7 5 (1.59%) TypeScript
8 4 (1.27%) Bash
9 2 (0.63%) Go
9 2 (0.63%) Groovy
9 2 (0.63%) Kotlin
9 2 (0.63%) Swift
Qualifications
1 231 (73.33%) Security Cleared
2 192 (60.95%) SC Cleared
3 56 (17.78%) DV Cleared
4 38 (12.06%) CISSP
5 35 (11.11%) CISM
6 27 (8.57%) Cisco Certification
7 18 (5.71%) Degree
8 13 (4.13%) CCNP
9 12 (3.81%) Azure Certification
10 11 (3.49%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 11 (3.49%) AWS Certification
10 11 (3.49%) GIAC
11 10 (3.17%) CHECK Team Leader
12 9 (2.86%) CEH
12 9 (2.86%) CESG Certified Professional
13 8 (2.54%) CCIE
13 8 (2.54%) CCSP
13 8 (2.54%) CompTIA Security+
14 7 (2.22%) CHECK Team Member
14 7 (2.22%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (33.65%) NIST
2 87 (27.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 45 (14.29%) GDPR
4 31 (9.84%) Cyber Essentials
5 21 (6.67%) JSP 440
5 21 (6.67%) NIST 800
6 18 (5.71%) RMADS
7 16 (5.08%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 14 (4.44%) Government Security Classifications
9 13 (4.13%) GRC
10 11 (3.49%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 10 (3.17%) COBIT
11 10 (3.17%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 9 (2.86%) Accessibility
13 7 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 7 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 7 (2.22%) PCI DSS
14 6 (1.90%) IASME
15 5 (1.59%) QA
15 5 (1.59%) WCAG
System Software
1 25 (7.94%) Active Directory
2 17 (5.40%) Docker
3 14 (4.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.86%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.59%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.27%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.95%) vSphere
8 1 (0.32%) GPFS
8 1 (0.32%) KVM
8 1 (0.32%) Lustre
8 1 (0.32%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.32%) UAG
Systems Management
1 53 (16.83%) Kubernetes
2 40 (12.70%) Terraform
3 10 (3.17%) Ansible
4 6 (1.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 4 (1.27%) Istio
6 3 (0.95%) Grafana
6 3 (0.95%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.95%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.63%) Argo
7 2 (0.63%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (0.63%) Iperf
7 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.63%) Nmap
7 2 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.32%) CASB
8 1 (0.32%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.32%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.32%) McAfee ePO
8 1 (0.32%) SELinux
8 1 (0.32%) VxRail
Vendors
1 58 (18.41%) Microsoft
2 23 (7.30%) VMware
3 18 (5.71%) Splunk
4 16 (5.08%) Cisco
5 13 (4.13%) CyberArk
6 12 (3.81%) Palo Alto
7 10 (3.17%) Oracle
8 9 (2.86%) Fortinet
9 6 (1.90%) Red Hat
9 6 (1.90%) SAP
10 5 (1.59%) CheckPoint
10 5 (1.59%) Google
10 5 (1.59%) Juniper
10 5 (1.59%) ServiceNow
10 5 (1.59%) Sparx
11 4 (1.27%) Apple
11 4 (1.27%) Zscaler
12 3 (0.95%) Citrix
12 3 (0.95%) F5
12 3 (0.95%) SolarWinds