Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Skill Sets
Period
to 28 January 2022

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for NCSC skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited NCSC over the 6 months to 28 January 2022 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
UK
6 months to
28 Jan 2022		 Same period 2021 Same period 2020
Rank 546 438 596
Rank change year-on-year -108 +158 +166
Contract jobs citing NCSC 289 175 162
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.33% 0.41% 0.22%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 2.52% 3.36% 2.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 174 119 117
10th Percentile £425 £263 £407
25th Percentile £500 £413 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £689 £638 £619
90th Percentile £788 £700 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £570 £506 £550
% change year-on-year +12.59% -7.95% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 2
10th Percentile £50.31 - -
25th Percentile £53.91 - £76.25
Median hourly rate £58.18 £53.00 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year +9.76% -31.61% -
75th Percentile £73.57 - £78.75
90th Percentile £96.86 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.00 £53.00 £77.50
% change year-on-year +5.66% -31.61% -

NCSC is in the Quality Assurance and Compliance category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills.

All Quality Assurance and Compliance Skills
UK
Contract vacancies with a requirement for quality assurance or compliance skills 11,455 5,208 8,002
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 13.05% 12.22% 11.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,791 3,448 5,095
10th Percentile £270 £267 £241
25th Percentile £400 £365 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £550
90th Percentile £700 £650 £631
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £420
% change year-on-year - +7.14% -1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 227 304
10th Percentile £11.12 £10.78 £12.50
25th Percentile £14.25 £14.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £24.24 £21.05 £20.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.15% +2.68% +1.26%
75th Percentile £49.25 £41.25 £47.50
90th Percentile £58.75 £52.50 £53.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.10 £21.05 £21.17
% change year-on-year -9.26% -0.57% +4.57%

NCSC
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing NCSC as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing NCSC.

Daily rate trend for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NCSC over the 6 months to 28 January 2022.

Daily rate histogram for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing NCSC.

Hourly rate trend for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing NCSC over the 6 months to 28 January 2022.

Hourly rate histogram for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Top 14 Contract 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 28 January 2022. 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 -134 231 £600 +6.67% 31
UK excluding London -96 139 £570 +12.59% 27
London -114 106 £605 +1.89% 11
Work from Home -136 51 £540 +2.86% 5
South East -86 36 £538 +16.85% 6
North of England -36 34 £590 -3.59% 2
North West -22 31 £590 -3.59% 2
South West -57 31 £541 +0.70% 5
Scotland -45 24 £638 +50.00% 3
West Midlands -51 8 £763 - 3
Midlands -63 8 £763 +48.78% 6
East of England -44 4 £500 +122.22% 1
Yorkshire - 3 £590 -
Wales - 2 £550 - 4

For the 6 months to 28 January 2022, IT contractor jobs citing NCSC also mentioned the following skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for NCSC.

1 157 (54.33%) Security Cleared
2 127 (43.94%) SC Cleared
3 113 (39.10%) Cybersecurity
4 105 (36.33%) Information Security
5 87 (30.10%) CISSP
6 77 (26.64%) Public Sector
7 69 (23.88%) NIST
8 66 (22.84%) AWS
9 65 (22.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 60 (20.76%) Azure
11 52 (17.99%) Microsoft
12 51 (17.65%) CESG Certified Professional
13 50 (17.30%) Network Security
14 49 (16.96%) Linux
14 49 (16.96%) Risk Management
14 49 (16.96%) Social Skills
15 48 (16.61%) Python
16 47 (16.26%) Agile Software Development
17 42 (14.53%) VMware
18 41 (14.19%) Risk Assessment
18 41 (14.19%) Bash
19 40 (13.84%) VMware Infrastructure
19 40 (13.84%) Information Assurance
20 37 (12.80%) DevOps
20 37 (12.80%) Kubernetes
21 36 (12.46%) Project Delivery
22 35 (12.11%) CISM
23 34 (11.76%) Security Management
23 34 (11.76%) GCP
24 33 (11.42%) Security Architecture

NCSC
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same job type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 19 (6.57%) SharePoint
2 18 (6.23%) nginx
3 17 (5.88%) Traefik
4 6 (2.08%) Apache
5 4 (1.38%) IIS
6 3 (1.04%) Apache Spark
6 3 (1.04%) Confluence
6 3 (1.04%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.69%) CMS
7 2 (0.69%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.35%) Exchange Server 2007
8 1 (0.35%) IBM Notes
8 1 (0.35%) MS Exchange
8 1 (0.35%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 7 (2.42%) Sentinel
2 3 (1.04%) SmartPlant
Cloud Services
1 66 (22.84%) AWS
2 60 (20.76%) Azure
3 34 (11.76%) GCP
4 21 (7.27%) Amazon EC2
5 20 (6.92%) AWS CloudFormation
5 20 (6.92%) Azure Sentinel
6 19 (6.57%) Microsoft 365
6 19 (6.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 17 (5.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 14 (4.84%) Azure Active Directory
9 9 (3.11%) PaaS
10 8 (2.77%) IaaS
11 7 (2.42%) Amazon S3
11 7 (2.42%) Cloud Computing
11 7 (2.42%) Power Platform
12 4 (1.38%) AWS Lambda
12 4 (1.38%) Serverless
13 3 (1.04%) Amazon EMR
13 3 (1.04%) Amazon Kinesis
13 3 (1.04%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 50 (17.30%) Network Security
2 25 (8.65%) Firewall
3 23 (7.96%) DNS
4 19 (6.57%) TCP/IP
5 17 (5.88%) SD-WAN
5 17 (5.88%) WAN
6 3 (1.04%) DHCP
6 3 (1.04%) Internet
6 3 (1.04%) Radio Access Network
7 2 (0.69%) 3G
7 2 (0.69%) 4G
7 2 (0.69%) 5G
7 2 (0.69%) Ethernet
7 2 (0.69%) SSL
7 2 (0.69%) Wireless
8 1 (0.35%) 3GPP
8 1 (0.35%) HTTPS
8 1 (0.35%) LAN
8 1 (0.35%) VPN
8 1 (0.35%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (3.46%) Big Data
2 4 (1.38%) Power BI
3 3 (1.04%) Amazon Redshift
3 3 (1.04%) Data Lake
3 3 (1.04%) Flink
3 3 (1.04%) Hadoop
3 3 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (1.04%) SQL Server
4 2 (0.69%) Electronic Patient Records
4 2 (0.69%) Metadata
4 2 (0.69%) Qlik Sense
4 2 (0.69%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 21 (7.27%) Jenkins
2 20 (6.92%) Git (software)
3 18 (6.23%) GitLab
4 8 (2.77%) Burp Suite
4 8 (2.77%) Metasploit
5 7 (2.42%) JIRA
6 3 (1.04%) AppScan
6 3 (1.04%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.35%) MSI
7 1 (0.35%) Snyk
7 1 (0.35%) Vagrant
General
1 77 (26.64%) Public Sector
2 49 (16.96%) Social Skills
3 23 (7.96%) Finance
3 23 (7.96%) Telecoms
4 13 (4.50%) Electronics
4 13 (4.50%) Manufacturing
4 13 (4.50%) Marketing
5 10 (3.46%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (3.46%) Legal
6 9 (3.11%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (1.38%) Law
7 4 (1.38%) Local Government
7 4 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.04%) Banking
8 3 (1.04%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (0.69%) German Language
9 2 (0.69%) Italian Language
9 2 (0.69%) Police
9 2 (0.69%) Spanish Language
10 1 (0.35%) Fire and Rescue
Job Titles
1 103 (35.64%) Architect
2 70 (24.22%) Security Architect
3 35 (12.11%) Consultant
4 25 (8.65%) Security Consultant
5 20 (6.92%) Analyst
5 20 (6.92%) DevOps Engineer
5 20 (6.92%) Technical Architect
6 14 (4.84%) Enterprise Architect
6 14 (4.84%) Security Analyst
7 13 (4.50%) Security Engineer
8 12 (4.15%) Administrator
8 12 (4.15%) Linux Administrator
8 12 (4.15%) Linux Systems Administrator
8 12 (4.15%) Systems Administrator
9 11 (3.81%) Lead Architect
9 11 (3.81%) Microsoft 365 Architect
10 9 (3.11%) Cybersecurity Consultant
10 9 (3.11%) Lead Security Architect
11 8 (2.77%) Cybersecurity Architect
11 8 (2.77%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (6.23%) cloud-init
2 14 (4.84%) Java SE
3 7 (2.42%) .NET
4 6 (2.08%) ARM Templates
5 5 (1.73%) ActiveMQ
5 5 (1.73%) AngularJS
5 5 (1.73%) JMS
5 5 (1.73%) Middleware
5 5 (1.73%) RabbitMQ
6 4 (1.38%) ModSecurity
7 3 (1.04%) .NET Core
7 3 (1.04%) .NET Framework
7 3 (1.04%) Django
7 3 (1.04%) Entity Framework
7 3 (1.04%) FastAPI
7 3 (1.04%) GraphQL
7 3 (1.04%) Kafka
7 3 (1.04%) React
7 3 (1.04%) REST
7 3 (1.04%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 28 (9.69%) Management Information System
2 24 (8.30%) PKI
3 19 (6.57%) Clustering
4 18 (6.23%) Public Cloud
5 12 (4.15%) CESG
5 12 (4.15%) Security Operations Centre
6 10 (3.46%) Mobile App
7 9 (3.11%) SCADA
8 7 (2.42%) CESG CLAS
9 6 (2.08%) Cyberthreat
10 4 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (1.04%) Industrial Internet of Things
11 3 (1.04%) Internet of Things
11 3 (1.04%) Legacy Applications
11 3 (1.04%) NHS
11 3 (1.04%) Smart City
11 3 (1.04%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.69%) Cyber Defence
12 2 (0.69%) Data Centre
12 2 (0.69%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 49 (16.96%) Linux
2 24 (8.30%) Ubuntu
3 19 (6.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 18 (6.23%) CentOS
5 16 (5.54%) Windows
6 9 (3.11%) Android
7 6 (2.08%) Windows Server
8 5 (1.73%) AIX
9 4 (1.38%) Windows 10
9 4 (1.38%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (1.38%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (1.04%) Apple iOS
10 3 (1.04%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.35%) SUSE
11 1 (0.35%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (39.10%) Cybersecurity
2 105 (36.33%) Information Security
3 49 (16.96%) Risk Management
4 47 (16.26%) Agile Software Development
5 41 (14.19%) Risk Assessment
6 40 (13.84%) Information Assurance
7 37 (12.80%) DevOps
8 36 (12.46%) Project Delivery
9 34 (11.76%) Security Management
10 33 (11.42%) Security Architecture
11 32 (11.07%) CI/CD
12 31 (10.73%) Security Operations
13 29 (10.03%) OWASP
13 29 (10.03%) Penetration Testing
14 28 (9.69%) Information Security Management
14 28 (9.69%) SABSA
15 27 (9.34%) SIEM
15 27 (9.34%) TOGAF
16 23 (7.96%) Coaching
17 20 (6.92%) Security Testing
Programming Languages
1 48 (16.61%) Python
2 41 (14.19%) Bash
3 30 (10.38%) Java
4 27 (9.34%) Ruby
5 17 (5.88%) Go
6 15 (5.19%) PowerShell
7 14 (4.84%) AWK
7 14 (4.84%) sed
8 11 (3.81%) C#
8 11 (3.81%) SQL
9 10 (3.46%) C
9 10 (3.46%) C++
9 10 (3.46%) Perl
10 5 (1.73%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.69%) Ada
12 1 (0.35%) Apple Swift
12 1 (0.35%) JavaScript
12 1 (0.35%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.35%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 157 (54.33%) Security Cleared
2 127 (43.94%) SC Cleared
3 87 (30.10%) CISSP
4 51 (17.65%) CESG Certified Professional
5 35 (12.11%) CISM
6 33 (11.42%) Degree
7 22 (7.61%) SANS
8 18 (6.23%) CLAS
8 18 (6.23%) CREST Certified
9 14 (4.84%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (4.84%) RHCE
10 11 (3.81%) Cisco Certification
10 11 (3.81%) Computer Science Degree
11 10 (3.46%) CCNP
11 10 (3.46%) DV Cleared
11 10 (3.46%) IBM Certification
12 8 (2.77%) CISA
13 4 (1.38%) CHECK Team Leader
13 4 (1.38%) Cyber Scheme
13 4 (1.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (23.88%) NIST
2 65 (22.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 18 (6.23%) RMADS
4 16 (5.54%) GDPR
5 15 (5.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 14 (4.84%) JSP 440
7 12 (4.15%) COBIT
8 11 (3.81%) Cyber Essentials
9 10 (3.46%) NIST 800
10 9 (3.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 8 (2.77%) GRC
12 7 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (2.08%) PCI DSS
14 5 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
15 3 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 2 (0.69%) Data Quality
16 2 (0.69%) Government Security Classifications
16 2 (0.69%) QA
16 2 (0.69%) SLA
17 1 (0.35%) Def Stans
System Software
1 40 (13.84%) VMware Infrastructure
2 27 (9.34%) Docker
3 17 (5.88%) Hyper-V
4 13 (4.50%) Active Directory
5 9 (3.11%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (1.73%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 37 (12.80%) Kubernetes
2 27 (9.34%) Terraform
3 22 (7.61%) Ansible
4 18 (6.23%) Packer
5 17 (5.88%) Consul
5 17 (5.88%) Docker Swarm
5 17 (5.88%) Graphite
5 17 (5.88%) HAProxy
5 17 (5.88%) Istio
5 17 (5.88%) linkerd
5 17 (5.88%) Podman
5 17 (5.88%) Prometheus
5 17 (5.88%) Puppet
5 17 (5.88%) ZABBIX
6 16 (5.54%) QRadar
7 11 (3.81%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (2.77%) Nessus
9 6 (2.08%) Microsoft Intune
9 6 (2.08%) Nexpose
10 5 (1.73%) Opsgenie
Vendors
1 52 (17.99%) Microsoft
2 42 (14.53%) VMware
3 23 (7.96%) Splunk
4 17 (5.88%) Cisco
4 17 (5.88%) PagerDuty
5 13 (4.50%) SAP
6 10 (3.46%) IBM
7 8 (2.77%) Google
8 5 (1.73%) CyberArk
8 5 (1.73%) Oracle
9 3 (1.04%) Checkmarx
9 3 (1.04%) Veracode
10 2 (0.69%) Apple
10 2 (0.69%) Ericsson
10 2 (0.69%) Mavenir
10 2 (0.69%) Nokia
10 2 (0.69%) Salesforce.com
10 2 (0.69%) Samsung
10 2 (0.69%) Virgin Media
11 1 (0.35%) CheckPoint