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

6 months to
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 358 410 473
Rank change year-on-year +52 +63 -56
Contract jobs citing NCSC 307 115 108
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 0.39% 0.25%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.66% 2.41% 1.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 67 68
10th Percentile £463 £500 £479
25th Percentile £516 £561 £559
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £603 £645 £650
Median % change year-on-year -6.59% -0.77% -3.70%
75th Percentile £700 £700 £706
90th Percentile £800 £750 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £643 £600
% change year-on-year -6.61% +7.08% -14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 11 2
10th Percentile £73.75 £60.75 £80.34
25th Percentile £80.48 £69.12 £80.85
Median hourly rate £83.65 £85.00 £81.71
Median % change year-on-year -1.59% +4.03% +8.95%
75th Percentile £85.40 £89.50 £82.56
90th Percentile - £92.50 £83.07
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £85.00 £80.00
% change year-on-year +0.47% +6.25% +8.13%

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 8,379 4,777 5,995
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.73% 16.15% 13.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,367 3,041 3,738
10th Percentile £343 £275 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.53% -3.29%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £717 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 495 197 433
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.12 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.84 £21.25 £13.19
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 £83.28 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £19.18
% change year-on-year +23.08% +69.49% -48.87%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +37 269 £620 -4.62% 75
UK excluding London -39 148 £600 -6.61% 62
Work from Home +37 121 £638 -0.39% 37
London -10 104 £625 -3.85% 16
South East -7 84 £615 -8.89% 25
South West -10 31 £600 -8.22% 17
North of England -58 17 £662 +5.88% 9
North West -32 14 £668 +14.84% 5
West Midlands -55 9 £656 +0.92% 6
Midlands -58 9 £656 +0.92% 10
Scotland -19 5 £451 -9.90% 1
East of England -31 3 £450 +80.72%
Yorkshire -49 3 £600 -14.29% 4
Wales - 1 £550 -

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 10 (3.26%) Confluence
2 3 (0.98%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.65%) Camunda
3 2 (0.65%) WebLogic
3 2 (0.65%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.33%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.65%) PlantUML
2 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 7 (2.28%) Oracle ERP
2 5 (1.63%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.65%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 110 (35.83%) Azure
2 80 (26.06%) AWS
3 28 (9.12%) GCP
4 26 (8.47%) Entra ID
5 23 (7.49%) OpenShift
6 19 (6.19%) Microsoft 365
7 18 (5.86%) SaaS
8 17 (5.54%) Azure DevOps
9 11 (3.58%) GitHub
9 11 (3.58%) IaaS
9 11 (3.58%) PaaS
10 9 (2.93%) Azure AKS
10 9 (2.93%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (2.93%) OCI
11 8 (2.61%) Amazon EKS
11 8 (2.61%) Azure Monitor
12 7 (2.28%) Serverless
13 6 (1.95%) Azure Sentinel
14 5 (1.63%) AWS Lambda
14 5 (1.63%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 30 (9.77%) Firewall
2 24 (7.82%) Network Security
3 11 (3.58%) VPN
4 10 (3.26%) BGP
5 9 (2.93%) IPsec
5 9 (2.93%) OSPF
5 9 (2.93%) WAN
6 8 (2.61%) MPLS
6 8 (2.61%) SD-WAN
7 7 (2.28%) DNS
8 6 (1.95%) LAN
8 6 (1.95%) VSAN
9 4 (1.30%) Ethernet VPN
9 4 (1.30%) Multicast
9 4 (1.30%) VLAN
9 4 (1.30%) VXLAN
10 3 (0.98%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (0.98%) MQTT
10 3 (0.98%) Wireless
10 3 (0.98%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.63%) Azure SQL Database
1 5 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (1.30%) Geospatial Data
3 3 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
3 3 (0.98%) Power BI
3 3 (0.98%) Redis
3 3 (0.98%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.65%) DynamoDB
4 2 (0.65%) MySQL
5 1 (0.33%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.33%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.33%) EDRMS
5 1 (0.33%) Metadata
5 1 (0.33%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.33%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 14 (4.56%) Jenkins
1 14 (4.56%) JIRA
2 9 (2.93%) Git
3 5 (1.63%) GitLab
4 3 (0.98%) MSI
5 2 (0.65%) Ant
5 2 (0.65%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.65%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.65%) Gradle
5 2 (0.65%) JUnit
5 2 (0.65%) Maven
5 2 (0.65%) Mockito
6 1 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 91 (29.64%) Public Sector
2 83 (27.04%) Social Skills
3 33 (10.75%) Finance
4 19 (6.19%) Documentation Skills
4 19 (6.19%) Influencing Skills
5 17 (5.54%) Analytical Skills
6 14 (4.56%) Telecoms
7 10 (3.26%) Military
8 9 (2.93%) Law
9 7 (2.28%) Local Government
9 7 (2.28%) Manufacturing
9 7 (2.28%) Police
10 5 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.63%) Legal
11 3 (0.98%) Electronics
11 3 (0.98%) Marketing
12 2 (0.65%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.65%) Aviation
12 2 (0.65%) Banking
12 2 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 115 (37.46%) Architect
2 49 (15.96%) Security Architect
3 32 (10.42%) Consultant
4 30 (9.77%) Senior
5 29 (9.45%) Lead
5 29 (9.45%) Technical Architect
6 22 (7.17%) Security Consultant
7 14 (4.56%) Security Manager
7 14 (4.56%) Solutions Architect
8 12 (3.91%) CyberArk Architect
8 12 (3.91%) Cybersecurity Manager
9 11 (3.58%) Cloud Engineer
10 10 (3.26%) Analyst
10 10 (3.26%) Azure Engineer
10 10 (3.26%) Coordinator
10 10 (3.26%) Cybersecurity Consultant
10 10 (3.26%) Security Assurance Coordinator
10 10 (3.26%) Security Engineer
11 9 (2.93%) Lead Architect
11 9 (2.93%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (6.84%) LDAP
2 20 (6.51%) SAML
3 19 (6.19%) OpenID
4 9 (2.93%) .NET
5 8 (2.61%) REST
6 7 (2.28%) OAuth
7 5 (1.63%) CSS
7 5 (1.63%) HTML
7 5 (1.63%) Kafka
7 5 (1.63%) Oracle Fusion
8 4 (1.30%) .NET Framework
8 4 (1.30%) ARM Templates
8 4 (1.30%) GeoJSON
8 4 (1.30%) RESTful
8 4 (1.30%) SOAP
8 4 (1.30%) Web Services
9 3 (0.98%) CSS3
9 3 (0.98%) HTML5
9 3 (0.98%) JSON
9 3 (0.98%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 30 (9.77%) Cloud Native
2 26 (8.47%) Onboarding
3 20 (6.51%) Management Information System
4 18 (5.86%) Operational Technology
5 14 (4.56%) Cyber Threat
5 14 (4.56%) Public Cloud
5 14 (4.56%) Security Operations Centre
6 13 (4.23%) PKI
6 13 (4.23%) Security Posture
7 12 (3.91%) Data Centre
8 10 (3.26%) CSOC
9 9 (2.93%) Product Ownership
10 8 (2.61%) Hybrid Cloud
10 8 (2.61%) Private Cloud
10 8 (2.61%) SCADA
11 7 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
12 6 (1.95%) NHS
13 4 (1.30%) CESG
13 4 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
14 3 (0.98%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 22 (7.17%) Linux
2 17 (5.54%) Windows
3 6 (1.95%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.98%) Android
4 3 (0.98%) Apple iOS
4 3 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.98%) VMS
5 2 (0.65%) Unix
6 1 (0.33%) CentOS
6 1 (0.33%) Rocky
6 1 (0.33%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.33%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 138 (44.95%) Cybersecurity
2 78 (25.41%) CI/CD
3 72 (23.45%) DevOps
4 70 (22.80%) Infrastructure as Code
5 68 (22.15%) Cloud Security
6 67 (21.82%) Agile
7 58 (18.89%) Stakeholder Management
8 56 (18.24%) Security Architecture
9 54 (17.59%) Risk Management
10 48 (15.64%) Threat Modelling
11 47 (15.31%) Incident Response
12 46 (14.98%) Continuous Improvement
13 40 (13.03%) TOGAF
14 39 (12.70%) Containerisation
14 39 (12.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 38 (12.38%) SIEM
15 38 (12.38%) Zero Trust
16 37 (12.05%) DevSecOps
17 36 (11.73%) Vulnerability Management
18 34 (11.07%) Architectural Patterns
Programming Languages
1 19 (6.19%) Bicep
2 15 (4.89%) Python
3 12 (3.91%) SQL
4 8 (2.61%) PowerShell
5 7 (2.28%) Java
6 6 (1.95%) Bash
7 4 (1.30%) C#
8 3 (0.98%) JavaScript
8 3 (0.98%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.65%) Go
9 2 (0.65%) Groovy
9 2 (0.65%) Kotlin
9 2 (0.65%) Swift
Qualifications
1 223 (72.64%) Security Cleared
2 186 (60.59%) SC Cleared
3 54 (17.59%) DV Cleared
4 39 (12.70%) CISSP
5 34 (11.07%) CISM
6 27 (8.79%) Cisco Certification
7 18 (5.86%) Degree
8 13 (4.23%) CCNP
9 12 (3.91%) Azure Certification
10 11 (3.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 11 (3.58%) AWS Certification
10 11 (3.58%) GIAC
11 10 (3.26%) CHECK Team Leader
12 9 (2.93%) CEH
12 9 (2.93%) CESG Certified Professional
13 8 (2.61%) CCIE
13 8 (2.61%) CCSP
13 8 (2.61%) CompTIA Security+
14 7 (2.28%) CHECK Team Member
14 7 (2.28%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 106 (34.53%) NIST
2 87 (28.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 44 (14.33%) GDPR
4 32 (10.42%) Cyber Essentials
5 21 (6.84%) JSP 440
6 20 (6.51%) NIST 800
7 18 (5.86%) RMADS
8 17 (5.54%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 14 (4.56%) Government Security Classifications
9 14 (4.56%) GRC
10 11 (3.58%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 10 (3.26%) COBIT
11 10 (3.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 7 (2.28%) Accessibility
12 7 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 7 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 7 (2.28%) PCI DSS
13 6 (1.95%) IASME
14 5 (1.63%) QA
15 3 (0.98%) Def Stans
System Software
1 24 (7.82%) Active Directory
2 15 (4.89%) Docker
3 14 (4.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.93%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.63%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.30%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.98%) vSphere
8 1 (0.33%) GPFS
8 1 (0.33%) KVM
8 1 (0.33%) Lustre
8 1 (0.33%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.33%) UAG
Systems Management
1 53 (17.26%) Kubernetes
2 36 (11.73%) Terraform
3 12 (3.91%) Ansible
4 6 (1.95%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 6 (1.95%) Istio
5 5 (1.63%) Grafana
5 5 (1.63%) Prometheus
6 4 (1.30%) Argo
7 3 (0.98%) linkerd
8 2 (0.65%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (0.65%) Iperf
8 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.65%) Nmap
8 2 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.33%) CASB
9 1 (0.33%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.33%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.33%) McAfee ePO
9 1 (0.33%) SELinux
9 1 (0.33%) VxRail
Vendors
1 55 (17.92%) Microsoft
2 25 (8.14%) VMware
3 20 (6.51%) Splunk
4 17 (5.54%) Cisco
5 13 (4.23%) CyberArk
6 12 (3.91%) Palo Alto
7 10 (3.26%) Oracle
8 9 (2.93%) Fortinet
9 8 (2.61%) Red Hat
10 5 (1.63%) CheckPoint
10 5 (1.63%) Google
10 5 (1.63%) Juniper
10 5 (1.63%) SAP
10 5 (1.63%) Sparx
11 4 (1.30%) ServiceNow
11 4 (1.30%) Zscaler
12 3 (0.98%) Citrix
12 3 (0.98%) F5
12 3 (0.98%) SolarWinds
12 3 (0.98%) Tenable