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 5 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 357 475 349
Rank change year-on-year +118 -126 +270
Contract jobs citing NCSC 219 83 299
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.23% 0.64%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.58% 1.71% 4.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 153 48 133
10th Percentile £475 £472 £488
25th Percentile £543 £500 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £640 £525 £650
Median % change year-on-year +21.90% -19.23% -
75th Percentile £700 £630 £743
90th Percentile £750 £716 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £645 £531 £648
% change year-on-year +21.56% -18.06% -0.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 2 29
10th Percentile £39.10 - £65.61
25th Percentile £81.25 £60.75 £75.00
Median hourly rate £87.00 £61.50 £83.40
Median % change year-on-year +41.47% -26.26% +21.76%
75th Percentile £91.50 £62.24 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £87.50 £61.50 £83.40
% change year-on-year +42.29% -26.26% +13.07%

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 6,112 4,840 6,607
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.68% 13.25% 14.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,915 2,840 4,420
10th Percentile £304 £275 £308
25th Percentile £402 £390 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £703 £730 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £479 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +1.86% -6.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 300 212 252
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.26 £14.59
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.50 £20.07
Median hourly rate £27.77 £27.09 £39.80
Median % change year-on-year +2.51% -31.93% +53.08%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £26.50 £43.50
% change year-on-year -13.21% -39.08% +89.13%

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 5 November 2025.

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 5 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Top 16 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 5 November 2025. 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 +116 195 £640 +21.90% 348
UK excluding London +45 118 £645 +21.56% 478
Work from Home +45 75 £645 +22.86% 398
London +38 66 £650 +23.81% 96
South West +55 54 £675 +3.85% 51
East of England +2 17 £249 - 28
West Midlands -3 16 £700 +24.44% 9
Midlands -6 16 £700 +24.44% 19
South East -7 14 £585 +9.22% 149
North of England -34 13 £527 +4.95% 80
North West -24 8 £400 -20.32% 27
Wales +5 5 £238 -51.18% 50
Channel Islands - 5 £725 - 2
Scotland +2 4 £550 -31.25% 149
Yorkshire - 4 £600 - 9
North East - 1 £550 - 44

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 5 (2.28%) Confluence
2 3 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.91%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 79 (36.07%) Azure
2 61 (27.85%) AWS
3 31 (14.16%) GitHub
4 24 (10.96%) Entra ID
5 18 (8.22%) GCP
6 14 (6.39%) AWS CloudFormation
7 12 (5.48%) Azure DevOps
8 11 (5.02%) Microsoft 365
9 10 (4.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 9 (4.11%) AWS Fargate
11 8 (3.65%) Amazon ECS
11 8 (3.65%) Azure Sentinel
11 8 (3.65%) SaaS
12 6 (2.74%) Amazon S3
12 6 (2.74%) Azure Key Vault
12 6 (2.74%) Azure Monitor
13 4 (1.83%) Amazon EKS
13 4 (1.83%) AWS Lambda
13 4 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
13 4 (1.83%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 19 (8.68%) Firewall
2 18 (8.22%) Network Security
3 12 (5.48%) DNS
4 9 (4.11%) BGP
5 7 (3.20%) VPN
6 4 (1.83%) VSAN
7 3 (1.37%) 4G
7 3 (1.37%) 5G
7 3 (1.37%) SD-WAN
7 3 (1.37%) Skype
7 3 (1.37%) WAN
8 2 (0.91%) DHCP
8 2 (0.91%) EIGRP
8 2 (0.91%) Internet
8 2 (0.91%) OSPF
8 2 (0.91%) SNMP
9 1 (0.46%) NAS
9 1 (0.46%) Software-Defined Networking
9 1 (0.46%) VXLAN
9 1 (0.46%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.20%) Amazon RDS
1 7 (3.20%) MongoDB
2 2 (0.91%) Amazon Athena
2 2 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
2 2 (0.91%) BigQuery
2 2 (0.91%) Weaviate
3 1 (0.46%) Amazon QuickSight
3 1 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.46%) Power BI
3 1 (0.46%) Redis
3 1 (0.46%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.46%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 21 (9.59%) SonarQube
2 13 (5.94%) GitLab
3 12 (5.48%) Jenkins
4 10 (4.57%) Burp Suite
4 10 (4.57%) Metasploit
5 7 (3.20%) JIRA
6 4 (1.83%) Git
6 4 (1.83%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.46%) MSI
General
1 71 (32.42%) Public Sector
2 61 (27.85%) Social Skills
3 26 (11.87%) Military
4 15 (6.85%) Finance
5 10 (4.57%) Police
6 9 (4.11%) Law
6 9 (4.11%) Manufacturing
7 8 (3.65%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (3.65%) Electronics
7 8 (3.65%) Marketing
7 8 (3.65%) Telecoms
8 7 (3.20%) Aerospace
8 7 (3.20%) Analytical Skills
8 7 (3.20%) Back Office
9 5 (2.28%) Local Government
10 3 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.37%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.91%) Retail
12 1 (0.46%) Banking
12 1 (0.46%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 57 (26.03%) Architect
2 39 (17.81%) Lead
3 37 (16.89%) Security Engineer
4 27 (12.33%) Security Architect
5 20 (9.13%) Senior
6 17 (7.76%) Consultant
7 12 (5.48%) Analyst
7 12 (5.48%) Cybersecurity Engineer
7 12 (5.48%) DevSecOps Engineer
7 12 (5.48%) Security Consultant
8 10 (4.57%) Solutions Architect
9 9 (4.11%) Security Analyst
10 8 (3.65%) Security Manager
11 7 (3.20%) DevOps Engineer
11 7 (3.20%) SOC Architect
12 6 (2.74%) Azure Engineer
12 6 (2.74%) Lead DevOps
12 6 (2.74%) Lead DevOps Engineer
12 6 (2.74%) Product Owner
12 6 (2.74%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.02%) YAML
2 7 (3.20%) cloud-init
2 7 (3.20%) Kafka
2 7 (3.20%) Keycloak
3 6 (2.74%) ModSecurity
4 4 (1.83%) AWS CDK
5 3 (1.37%) .NET
5 3 (1.37%) SailPoint
6 2 (0.91%) Azure Blueprints
6 2 (0.91%) Faiss
6 2 (0.91%) LangChain
6 2 (0.91%) LangGraph
6 2 (0.91%) Middleware
6 2 (0.91%) RabbitMQ
7 1 (0.46%) .NET Core
7 1 (0.46%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.46%) ARM Templates
7 1 (0.46%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.46%) Entity Framework
7 1 (0.46%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 22 (10.05%) Cyber Threat
2 20 (9.13%) Management Information System
3 17 (7.76%) PKI
4 14 (6.39%) Security Posture
5 13 (5.94%) Onboarding
6 11 (5.02%) Cloud Native
7 10 (4.57%) Product Ownership
8 9 (4.11%) Cyber Defence
9 8 (3.65%) CSOC
10 7 (3.20%) Legacy Applications
11 6 (2.74%) Operational Technology
11 6 (2.74%) Private Cloud
11 6 (2.74%) Public Cloud
11 6 (2.74%) Security Operations Centre
12 5 (2.28%) NHS
13 4 (1.83%) Data Centre
13 4 (1.83%) Enterprise Cloud
13 4 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
13 4 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
14 3 (1.37%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
Operating Systems
1 17 (7.76%) Linux
2 10 (4.57%) Windows
3 7 (3.20%) CentOS
3 7 (3.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 7 (3.20%) Unix
4 6 (2.74%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.37%) Mac OS
5 3 (1.37%) Windows 10
5 3 (1.37%) Windows Server 2008
6 2 (0.91%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.46%) AIX
7 1 (0.46%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (37.44%) Cybersecurity
2 55 (25.11%) Cloud Security
3 52 (23.74%) CI/CD
4 44 (20.09%) DevOps
4 44 (20.09%) Infrastructure as Code
5 41 (18.72%) Incident Response
6 40 (18.26%) DevSecOps
7 36 (16.44%) Risk Management
8 31 (14.16%) Threat Modelling
9 30 (13.70%) SIEM
9 30 (13.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 29 (13.24%) Information Assurance
10 29 (13.24%) Zero Trust
11 25 (11.42%) OWASP
12 24 (10.96%) Containerisation
13 23 (10.50%) Information Security
13 23 (10.50%) Penetration Testing
14 22 (10.05%) Security Architecture
14 22 (10.05%) Security Management
15 21 (9.59%) GAP Analysis
Programming Languages
1 26 (11.87%) Python
2 21 (9.59%) Bash
3 9 (4.11%) PowerShell
4 8 (3.65%) Bicep
5 7 (3.20%) Go
6 5 (2.28%) Shell Script
6 5 (2.28%) SQL
7 2 (0.91%) C#
8 1 (0.46%) Java
8 1 (0.46%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.46%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 161 (73.52%) Security Cleared
2 122 (55.71%) SC Cleared
3 49 (22.37%) DV Cleared
4 45 (20.55%) CISSP
5 30 (13.70%) CISM
6 20 (9.13%) Degree
7 14 (6.39%) CREST Certified
8 12 (5.48%) OSCP
9 11 (5.02%) Cisco Certification
9 11 (5.02%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
10 10 (4.57%) CHECK Team Member
11 9 (4.11%) Tigerscheme
12 8 (3.65%) Azure Certification
12 8 (3.65%) CompTIA Security+
13 7 (3.20%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 7 (3.20%) CESG Certified Professional
13 7 (3.20%) Microsoft Certification
14 6 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
15 5 (2.28%) AWS Certification
16 4 (1.83%) CHECK Team Leader
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (38.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 74 (33.79%) NIST
3 37 (16.89%) JSP 440
4 29 (13.24%) Cyber Essentials
5 27 (12.33%) NIST 800
6 18 (8.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 16 (7.31%) GDPR
8 10 (4.57%) RMADS
9 9 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 8 (3.65%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 7 (3.20%) Government Security Classifications
12 6 (2.74%) GRC
13 4 (1.83%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 3 (1.37%) Actionable Recommendations
14 3 (1.37%) Def Stans
14 3 (1.37%) IASME
15 2 (0.91%) COBIT
16 1 (0.46%) ISO 22301
16 1 (0.46%) PCI DSS
16 1 (0.46%) QA
System Software
1 18 (8.22%) Active Directory
2 16 (7.31%) Docker
3 14 (6.39%) Firmware
4 4 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (1.37%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.91%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.46%) UAG
7 1 (0.46%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 37 (16.89%) Terraform
2 29 (13.24%) Kubernetes
3 12 (5.48%) Jamf Pro
4 10 (4.57%) Ansible
4 10 (4.57%) Nmap
5 7 (3.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 7 (3.20%) Grafana
5 7 (3.20%) Packer
5 7 (3.20%) Prometheus
6 5 (2.28%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (1.37%) Check_MK
7 3 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (1.37%) OPNET
7 3 (1.37%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.91%) SELinux
9 1 (0.46%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.46%) VxRail
Vendors
1 34 (15.53%) Microsoft
2 15 (6.85%) VMware
3 12 (5.48%) Splunk
4 11 (5.02%) Okta
5 10 (4.57%) Veracode
6 8 (3.65%) SAP
7 7 (3.20%) Cisco
8 6 (2.74%) Google
9 4 (1.83%) CyberArk
10 3 (1.37%) Fortinet
10 3 (1.37%) Juniper
10 3 (1.37%) LogRhythm
10 3 (1.37%) NVIDIA
11 2 (0.91%) Brio
11 2 (0.91%) CrowdStrike
11 2 (0.91%) Dynatrace
11 2 (0.91%) Foundry
11 2 (0.91%) Saba
11 2 (0.91%) SolarWinds
12 1 (0.46%) Palo Alto