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 15 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 357 426 451
Rank change year-on-year +69 +25 -11
Contract jobs citing NCSC 286 93 136
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.32% 0.32%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.62% 2.03% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 215 56 84
10th Percentile £450 £500 £488
25th Percentile £513 £563 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £640
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -2.39% -5.14%
75th Percentile £688 £706 £700
90th Percentile £775 £747 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £635 £600
% change year-on-year -5.51% +5.83% -14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 7 2
10th Percentile £72.87 £60.75 £80.34
25th Percentile £80.93 £64.50 £80.85
Median hourly rate £85.40 £83.41 £81.71
Median % change year-on-year +2.39% +2.09% +10.43%
75th Percentile - £90.00 £82.56
90th Percentile - £92.50 £83.07
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £83.41 £80.00
% change year-on-year +2.39% +4.26% +9.62%

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 7,908 4,579 6,110
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.58% 15.75% 14.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,102 2,941 3,883
10th Percentile £341 £265 £285
25th Percentile £413 £400 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £482
% change year-on-year +5.26% -1.35% +0.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 458 173 381
10th Percentile £14.02 £17.86 £10.95
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.14 £13.18
Median hourly rate £36.00 £35.00 £21.12
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% +65.76% -39.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £65.62 £45.00
90th Percentile £82.08 £82.92 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £50.00 £18.27
% change year-on-year -20.00% +173.67% -47.80%

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 15 May 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 15 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Top 13 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 15 May 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 +37 251 £600 -4.76% 74
UK excluding London -30 133 £600 -5.51% 61
Work from Home +52 109 £638 +6.25% 38
London +14 97 £625 - 18
South East -7 85 £600 -8.05% 25
South West -19 20 £575 -13.21% 23
North of England -58 13 £668 +0.75% 2
North West -29 9 £668 -5.49% 1
West Midlands -65 7 £607 -6.62% 1
Midlands -70 7 £607 -6.62% 3
Scotland +1 5 £451 -18.09%
Yorkshire -54 4 £638 -12.07%
East of England -30 3 £450 - 6

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 4 (1.40%) Confluence
2 3 (1.05%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.70%) Camunda
3 2 (0.70%) WebLogic
3 2 (0.70%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.35%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.35%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.70%) PlantUML
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (1.40%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 2 (0.70%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.70%) SAP GRC
2 2 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 104 (36.36%) Azure
2 79 (27.62%) AWS
3 38 (13.29%) Entra ID
4 26 (9.09%) OpenShift
5 24 (8.39%) GCP
6 18 (6.29%) Microsoft 365
7 15 (5.24%) Azure DevOps
7 15 (5.24%) SaaS
8 12 (4.20%) AWS CloudFormation
9 11 (3.85%) GitHub
10 10 (3.50%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 10 (3.50%) AWS KMS
10 10 (3.50%) GitHub Actions
10 10 (3.50%) IaaS
10 10 (3.50%) PaaS
11 9 (3.15%) Amazon EKS
11 9 (3.15%) Azure AKS
12 8 (2.80%) AWS CloudTrail
13 7 (2.45%) Azure Sentinel
13 7 (2.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 29 (10.14%) Firewall
2 19 (6.64%) Network Security
3 11 (3.85%) VPN
4 10 (3.50%) BGP
4 10 (3.50%) IPsec
5 9 (3.15%) OSPF
5 9 (3.15%) SD-WAN
5 9 (3.15%) WAN
6 8 (2.80%) MPLS
7 7 (2.45%) DNS
8 6 (2.10%) Kerberos
8 6 (2.10%) LAN
8 6 (2.10%) VSAN
9 4 (1.40%) Ethernet VPN
9 4 (1.40%) MQTT
9 4 (1.40%) Multicast
9 4 (1.40%) TCP/IP
9 4 (1.40%) VLAN
9 4 (1.40%) VXLAN
10 3 (1.05%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
2 4 (1.40%) Redis
3 3 (1.05%) Power BI
3 3 (1.05%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (0.70%) DynamoDB
4 2 (0.70%) MySQL
5 1 (0.35%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.35%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.35%) EDRMS
5 1 (0.35%) Metadata
5 1 (0.35%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.35%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 16 (5.59%) Jenkins
2 7 (2.45%) GitLab
2 7 (2.45%) JIRA
3 6 (2.10%) Git
4 2 (0.70%) Ant
4 2 (0.70%) Cucumber
4 2 (0.70%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.70%) Gradle
4 2 (0.70%) JUnit
4 2 (0.70%) Maven
4 2 (0.70%) Mockito
5 1 (0.35%) Gatling
5 1 (0.35%) JMeter
5 1 (0.35%) Mocha
5 1 (0.35%) Postman
5 1 (0.35%) REST Assured
5 1 (0.35%) Selenium
5 1 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 81 (28.32%) Public Sector
2 74 (25.87%) Social Skills
3 35 (12.24%) Finance
4 22 (7.69%) Influencing Skills
5 19 (6.64%) Documentation Skills
6 15 (5.24%) Analytical Skills
7 11 (3.85%) Telecoms
8 9 (3.15%) Law
9 7 (2.45%) Police
10 5 (1.75%) Legal
10 5 (1.75%) Local Government
10 5 (1.75%) Manufacturing
10 5 (1.75%) Military
11 4 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (1.05%) Electronics
12 3 (1.05%) Marketing
13 2 (0.70%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.70%) Aviation
13 2 (0.70%) Banking
13 2 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 108 (37.76%) Architect
2 41 (14.34%) Security Architect
3 27 (9.44%) Lead
3 27 (9.44%) Technical Architect
4 24 (8.39%) Consultant
5 23 (8.04%) Senior
6 16 (5.59%) Security Consultant
7 14 (4.90%) Analyst
8 13 (4.55%) CyberArk Architect
8 13 (4.55%) Lead Architect
8 13 (4.55%) Security Manager
9 12 (4.20%) Cloud Architect
10 11 (3.85%) Cloud Engineer
10 11 (3.85%) Tester
11 10 (3.50%) Cybersecurity Manager
12 9 (3.15%) Azure Engineer
12 9 (3.15%) Penetration Tester
12 9 (3.15%) Security Engineer
12 9 (3.15%) Solutions Architect
13 8 (2.80%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (7.34%) LDAP
2 17 (5.94%) SAML
3 16 (5.59%) OpenID
4 7 (2.45%) Kafka
5 6 (2.10%) REST
6 4 (1.40%) .NET
6 4 (1.40%) ADO
6 4 (1.40%) ARM Templates
6 4 (1.40%) Keycloak
6 4 (1.40%) Oracle Fusion
7 3 (1.05%) OAuth
7 3 (1.05%) RabbitMQ
7 3 (1.05%) Spring
8 2 (0.70%) AngularJS
8 2 (0.70%) Bootstrap
8 2 (0.70%) React
8 2 (0.70%) RFC 2544
8 2 (0.70%) SAP Fiori
8 2 (0.70%) Spring Boot
8 2 (0.70%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 24 (8.39%) Cloud Native
2 21 (7.34%) Onboarding
3 19 (6.64%) Operational Technology
4 17 (5.94%) Management Information System
5 13 (4.55%) Cyber Threat
5 13 (4.55%) PKI
5 13 (4.55%) Public Cloud
5 13 (4.55%) Security Posture
6 11 (3.85%) Data Centre
7 9 (3.15%) Security Operations Centre
8 8 (2.80%) Product Ownership
8 8 (2.80%) SCADA
9 7 (2.45%) NHS
10 6 (2.10%) CSOC
11 5 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
11 5 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (1.75%) Private Cloud
12 4 (1.40%) Cyberattack
12 4 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
13 3 (1.05%) Cyber Defence
Operating Systems
1 24 (8.39%) Linux
2 16 (5.59%) Windows
3 6 (2.10%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (1.05%) Android
5 3 (1.05%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.05%) VMS
6 2 (0.70%) Rocky
6 2 (0.70%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.70%) Unix
7 1 (0.35%) CentOS
7 1 (0.35%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.35%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (41.96%) Cybersecurity
2 73 (25.52%) CI/CD
3 67 (23.43%) DevOps
3 67 (23.43%) Infrastructure as Code
4 61 (21.33%) Cloud Security
5 52 (18.18%) Agile
6 49 (17.13%) Stakeholder Management
7 48 (16.78%) Security Architecture
8 44 (15.38%) Risk Management
8 44 (15.38%) Threat Modelling
9 39 (13.64%) Zero Trust
10 38 (13.29%) Roadmaps
11 37 (12.94%) Continuous Improvement
11 37 (12.94%) TOGAF
12 36 (12.59%) Containerisation
13 35 (12.24%) Incident Response
14 33 (11.54%) DevSecOps
15 32 (11.19%) Architectural Patterns
16 31 (10.84%) SIEM
17 30 (10.49%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 17 (5.94%) Python
2 14 (4.90%) Bicep
3 11 (3.85%) SQL
4 9 (3.15%) PowerShell
5 7 (2.45%) Bash
6 6 (2.10%) Java
7 2 (0.70%) Go
7 2 (0.70%) Kotlin
7 2 (0.70%) Swift
8 1 (0.35%) C#
8 1 (0.35%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.35%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 200 (69.93%) Security Cleared
2 167 (58.39%) SC Cleared
3 47 (16.43%) DV Cleared
4 38 (13.29%) CISSP
5 33 (11.54%) CISM
6 26 (9.09%) Cisco Certification
7 20 (6.99%) Degree
8 15 (5.24%) AWS Certification
9 13 (4.55%) CCNP
10 12 (4.20%) GIAC
11 11 (3.85%) CEH
12 10 (3.50%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 10 (3.50%) Azure Certification
12 10 (3.50%) CHECK Team Leader
12 10 (3.50%) CompTIA Security+
13 9 (3.15%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 9 (3.15%) CESG Certified Professional
14 8 (2.80%) CCIE
14 8 (2.80%) CCSP
15 7 (2.45%) CHECK Team Member
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (34.27%) NIST
2 83 (29.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 35 (12.24%) Cyber Essentials
4 34 (11.89%) GDPR
5 20 (6.99%) NIST 800
6 18 (6.29%) JSP 440
7 17 (5.94%) RMADS
8 14 (4.90%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 13 (4.55%) Government Security Classifications
10 12 (4.20%) GRC
11 10 (3.50%) COBIT
11 10 (3.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 10 (3.50%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 7 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 6 (2.10%) IASME
13 6 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 5 (1.75%) PCI DSS
15 4 (1.40%) Accessibility
16 3 (1.05%) QA
17 2 (0.70%) ISA99
System Software
1 25 (8.74%) Active Directory
2 13 (4.55%) Docker
2 13 (4.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 9 (3.15%) VMware NSX
4 6 (2.10%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (1.40%) Hyper-V
6 3 (1.05%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.70%) GPFS
7 2 (0.70%) Lustre
7 2 (0.70%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 2 (0.70%) vSphere
8 1 (0.35%) UAG
Systems Management
1 49 (17.13%) Kubernetes
2 37 (12.94%) Terraform
3 13 (4.55%) Ansible
4 6 (2.10%) Grafana
4 6 (2.10%) Istio
4 6 (2.10%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.75%) Argo
6 4 (1.40%) linkerd
7 3 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.70%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (0.70%) Iperf
8 2 (0.70%) Nmap
8 2 (0.70%) SELinux
9 1 (0.35%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.35%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
9 1 (0.35%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.35%) McAfee ePO
9 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.35%) SCCM
Vendors
1 47 (16.43%) Microsoft
2 24 (8.39%) VMware
3 22 (7.69%) Splunk
4 17 (5.94%) Cisco
5 14 (4.90%) CyberArk
6 12 (4.20%) Palo Alto
7 9 (3.15%) Citrix
7 9 (3.15%) Fortinet
7 9 (3.15%) Red Hat
8 6 (2.10%) CloudEndure
8 6 (2.10%) Zscaler
9 5 (1.75%) CheckPoint
9 5 (1.75%) Juniper
9 5 (1.75%) Oracle
9 5 (1.75%) SAP
10 4 (1.40%) BiZZdesign
10 4 (1.40%) Google
10 4 (1.40%) Sparx
11 3 (1.05%) F5
11 3 (1.05%) Tenable