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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 346 384 499
Rank change year-on-year +38 +115 -132
Contract jobs citing NCSC 383 171 71
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.70% 0.52% 0.19%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.98% 3.04% 1.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 266 122 40
10th Percentile £460 £500 £474
25th Percentile £519 £543 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £645 £531
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +21.41% -21.03%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £675
90th Percentile £775 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £650 £511
% change year-on-year -7.69% +27.16% -24.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 14 3
10th Percentile £71.00 £50.13 -
25th Percentile £80.00 £82.69 £60.75
Median hourly rate £85.00 £88.75 £61.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.23% +44.32% -26.26%
75th Percentile £96.00 £91.50 £71.12
90th Percentile - - £76.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £87.50 £90.00 £61.50
% change year-on-year -2.78% +46.35% -26.26%

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 9,623 5,625 5,078
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.62% 17.25% 13.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,064 3,606 2,960
10th Percentile £325 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.25% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £605 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £484 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.89% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 644 267 245
10th Percentile £13.89 £13.60 £12.75
25th Percentile £16.60 £16.50 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.40 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.98% +9.09% -23.61%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.63 £62.24
90th Percentile £74.80 £80.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.40 £27.53 £27.50
% change year-on-year +17.67% +0.11% -31.25%

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 29 September 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 29 September 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 29 September 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 -2 314 £589 -8.66% 198
UK excluding London -23 194 £600 -7.69% 119
Work from Home +21 143 £585 -9.30% 131
London -9 126 £589 -9.46% 74
South East -20 65 £700 +18.64% 30
South West -30 56 £560 -17.04% 24
North of England -39 41 £577 +4.82% 32
North West -14 39 £567 +41.75% 21
Midlands -37 20 £585 -16.43% 14
West Midlands -39 20 £585 -16.43% 11
Scotland -13 18 £800 +60.00% 9
Wales -10 5 £800 +236.13% 5
East of England -40 4 £510 +104.82% 6
North East - 2 £675 - 8

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 21 (5.48%) Confluence
2 5 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.78%) Apache
3 3 (0.78%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.26%) IIS
4 1 (0.26%) nginx
4 1 (0.26%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.26%) SharePoint 2013
4 1 (0.26%) Traefik
Applications
1 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.52%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (2.61%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (1.04%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.52%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 120 (31.33%) Azure
2 98 (25.59%) AWS
3 31 (8.09%) GCP
4 28 (7.31%) Entra ID
5 23 (6.01%) SaaS
6 19 (4.96%) Azure DevOps
7 14 (3.66%) Microsoft 365
8 12 (3.13%) GitHub
9 11 (2.87%) IaaS
10 10 (2.61%) OCI
10 10 (2.61%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 9 (2.35%) PaaS
12 8 (2.09%) Amazon EKS
12 8 (2.09%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (2.09%) GitHub Actions
13 6 (1.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 6 (1.57%) Amazon ECS
13 6 (1.57%) Azure Sentinel
13 6 (1.57%) Lucidchart
14 5 (1.31%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 30 (7.83%) Network Security
2 28 (7.31%) Firewall
3 17 (4.44%) DNS
4 15 (3.92%) VPN
5 10 (2.61%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.83%) LAN
6 7 (1.83%) WAN
7 6 (1.57%) DHCP
7 6 (1.57%) VLAN
8 5 (1.31%) Cisco Firepower
8 5 (1.31%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (1.31%) SD-WAN
8 5 (1.31%) X.509
9 4 (1.04%) 4G
9 4 (1.04%) 5G
9 4 (1.04%) BIG-IP
9 4 (1.04%) Cisco ASA
9 4 (1.04%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 4 (1.04%) MPLS
9 4 (1.04%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (3.39%) Geospatial Data
2 7 (1.83%) Metadata
3 5 (1.31%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
5 2 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.52%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.52%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.52%) Parquet
6 1 (0.26%) Big Data
6 1 (0.26%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.26%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.26%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.26%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.26%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 24 (6.27%) JIRA
2 13 (3.39%) Git
3 11 (2.87%) GitLab
3 11 (2.87%) Jenkins
3 11 (2.87%) MSI
4 2 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 120 (31.33%) Public Sector
2 105 (27.42%) Social Skills
3 24 (6.27%) Analytical Skills
3 24 (6.27%) Finance
3 24 (6.27%) Military
4 19 (4.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 18 (4.70%) Telecoms
6 15 (3.92%) Influencing Skills
6 15 (3.92%) Local Government
7 14 (3.66%) Aerospace
8 12 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (2.87%) Law
10 8 (2.09%) Police
11 6 (1.57%) Back Office
11 6 (1.57%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.78%) Legal
14 2 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
15 1 (0.26%) Aviation
15 1 (0.26%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 131 (34.20%) Architect
2 70 (18.28%) Security Architect
3 53 (13.84%) Lead
4 46 (12.01%) Consultant
5 31 (8.09%) Senior
6 28 (7.31%) Security Consultant
6 28 (7.31%) Technical Architect
7 26 (6.79%) Security Manager
8 21 (5.48%) Cybersecurity Consultant
9 19 (4.96%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 15 (3.92%) Lead Architect
11 14 (3.66%) Senior Architect
11 14 (3.66%) Tester
12 13 (3.39%) Developer
12 13 (3.39%) Penetration Tester
12 13 (3.39%) Security Engineer
13 12 (3.13%) Solutions Architect
14 11 (2.87%) Analyst
14 11 (2.87%) Information Manager
14 11 (2.87%) Information Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (14.10%) Terraform
2 19 (4.96%) RESTful
3 18 (4.70%) REST
4 17 (4.44%) .NET
5 13 (3.39%) GeoJSON
6 12 (3.13%) .NET Framework
6 12 (3.13%) SAML
7 11 (2.87%) .NET Core
7 11 (2.87%) ATL
7 11 (2.87%) COM
7 11 (2.87%) CSS
7 11 (2.87%) CSS3
7 11 (2.87%) HTML
7 11 (2.87%) HTML5
7 11 (2.87%) MFC
7 11 (2.87%) OAuth
7 11 (2.87%) WPF
8 10 (2.61%) OpenID
9 9 (2.35%) LDAP
10 7 (1.83%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 44 (11.49%) Onboarding
2 38 (9.92%) Cloud Native
3 34 (8.88%) Security Operations Centre
4 32 (8.36%) Management Information System
5 30 (7.83%) Security Posture
6 26 (6.79%) Cyber Threat
7 22 (5.74%) Legacy Systems
8 21 (5.48%) Operational Technology
8 21 (5.48%) PKI
9 20 (5.22%) CSOC
10 13 (3.39%) SCADA
11 12 (3.13%) Hybrid Cloud
12 11 (2.87%) Private Cloud
13 9 (2.35%) Data Centre
14 8 (2.09%) Public Cloud
15 6 (1.57%) Distributed Systems
15 6 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
16 5 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
16 5 (1.31%) Cyber Defence
16 5 (1.31%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 29 (7.57%) Windows
2 15 (3.92%) Linux
3 9 (2.35%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.83%) Mac OS
5 5 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.04%) Unix
6 4 (1.04%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.52%) Android
7 2 (0.52%) CentOS
7 2 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.26%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.26%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 198 (51.70%) Cybersecurity
2 88 (22.98%) Incident Response
3 87 (22.72%) Risk Management
4 86 (22.45%) Security Architecture
5 83 (21.67%) Vulnerability Management
6 82 (21.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 82 (21.41%) Stakeholder Management
7 79 (20.63%) Continuous Improvement
8 76 (19.84%) Cloud Security
9 74 (19.32%) Agile
10 71 (18.54%) CI/CD
11 59 (15.40%) Infrastructure as Code
12 57 (14.88%) Security Operations
12 57 (14.88%) Zero Trust
13 56 (14.62%) Decision-Making
14 54 (14.10%) DevOps
14 54 (14.10%) Incident Management
14 54 (14.10%) Technical Leadership
15 53 (13.84%) SIEM
15 53 (13.84%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 30 (7.83%) Python
2 29 (7.57%) Bicep
3 15 (3.92%) PowerShell
4 12 (3.13%) C#
5 11 (2.87%) JavaScript
5 11 (2.87%) TypeScript
6 8 (2.09%) Bash
7 5 (1.31%) Java
8 4 (1.04%) SQL
9 3 (0.78%) Go
9 3 (0.78%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.52%) Groovy
10 2 (0.52%) Objective-C
10 2 (0.52%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (0.26%) C
Qualifications
1 309 (80.68%) Security Cleared
2 243 (63.45%) SC Cleared
3 93 (24.28%) DV Cleared
4 65 (16.97%) CISSP
5 56 (14.62%) CISM
6 31 (8.09%) Cisco Certification
7 25 (6.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 19 (4.96%) Degree
9 18 (4.70%) AWS Certification
10 17 (4.44%) CRISC
11 16 (4.18%) Azure Certification
12 13 (3.39%) CCSP
12 13 (3.39%) CHECK Team Leader
13 12 (3.13%) CHECK Team Member
14 10 (2.61%) CISA
14 10 (2.61%) CompTIA Security+
14 10 (2.61%) TOGAF Certification
15 9 (2.35%) CEH
16 8 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
16 8 (2.09%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (34.99%) NIST
2 127 (33.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 46 (12.01%) GDPR
4 42 (10.97%) GRC
5 32 (8.36%) Cyber Essentials
5 32 (8.36%) JSP 440
6 27 (7.05%) NIST 800
7 23 (6.01%) Data Quality
8 19 (4.96%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 12 (3.13%) Accessibility
10 11 (2.87%) WCAG
11 10 (2.61%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 7 (1.83%) QA
13 6 (1.57%) Def Stans
13 6 (1.57%) Government Security Classifications
13 6 (1.57%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (1.57%) SLA
14 5 (1.31%) COBIT
14 5 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 5 (1.31%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 30 (7.83%) Active Directory
2 20 (5.22%) Docker
3 12 (3.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (2.09%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.31%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.04%) Firmware
7 3 (0.78%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.52%) KVM
8 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 2 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.52%) vSphere
9 1 (0.26%) UAG
Systems Management
1 50 (13.05%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.61%) Ansible
3 8 (2.09%) Jamf Pro
4 7 (1.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 6 (1.57%) Prometheus
6 5 (1.31%) Grafana
7 4 (1.04%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (0.78%) Istio
8 3 (0.78%) QRadar
8 3 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.52%) CSIRT
9 2 (0.52%) SCCM
10 1 (0.26%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.26%) FreeIPA
10 1 (0.26%) HAProxy
10 1 (0.26%) McAfee ePO
10 1 (0.26%) Packer
10 1 (0.26%) Rancher
10 1 (0.26%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.26%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 86 (22.45%) Microsoft
2 19 (4.96%) VMware
3 18 (4.70%) ServiceNow
4 13 (3.39%) Oracle
5 10 (2.61%) Google
5 10 (2.61%) Splunk
6 8 (2.09%) Palo Alto
7 7 (1.83%) Cisco
8 6 (1.57%) Apple
8 6 (1.57%) SAP
9 4 (1.04%) F5
9 4 (1.04%) Northgate
9 4 (1.04%) OneLogin
9 4 (1.04%) SolarWinds
9 4 (1.04%) Sparx
10 3 (0.78%) Cribl.io
11 2 (0.52%) Becrypt
11 2 (0.52%) CrowdStrike
11 2 (0.52%) CyberArk
11 2 (0.52%) Zscaler