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 26 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 352 403 493
Rank change year-on-year +51 +90 -95
Contract jobs citing NCSC 358 157 80
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.67% 0.48% 0.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.85% 2.82% 1.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 111 54
10th Percentile £460 £500 £481
25th Percentile £519 £550 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £645 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +12.17% -14.81%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £734
90th Percentile £775 £738 £764
UK excluding London median daily rate £599 £650 £575
% change year-on-year -7.85% +13.04% -14.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 16 1
10th Percentile - £48.50 -
25th Percentile £71.00 £82.50 -
Median hourly rate £83.65 £88.75 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.75% +10.94% -3.97%
75th Percentile £88.05 £91.50 -
90th Percentile £96.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £90.00 £80.00
% change year-on-year -5.11% +12.50% -4.02%

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 9,301 5,562 5,235
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.34% 17.00% 13.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,912 3,574 3,208
10th Percentile £325 £285 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £484
% change year-on-year +3.58% -1.86% -3.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 582 267 302
10th Percentile £13.88 £13.60 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.40 £14.10
Median hourly rate £36.07 £30.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +20.00% -28.57%
75th Percentile £68.75 £60.63 £55.00
90th Percentile £78.97 £85.45 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.07 £25.83 £24.18
% change year-on-year +39.67% +6.80% -30.91%

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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 +29 303 £593 -8.77% 79
UK excluding London -2 194 £599 -7.85% 69
Work from Home +13 136 £593 -7.70% 55
London -10 111 £592 -8.92% 24
South East -12 79 £639 -5.37% 10
South West -30 52 £600 -9.43% 27
North of England -40 38 £568 -7.27% 13
North West -14 37 £568 +13.60% 10
Midlands -46 17 £568 -15.85% 5
West Midlands -52 17 £568 -15.85% 2
Scotland -12 10 £800 +64.10% 4
Wales -11 5 £800 +236.13% 1
East of England -36 4 £480 +92.77% 7
Yorkshire -40 1 - - 1

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 19 (5.31%) Confluence
2 4 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.56%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.28%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.28%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 10 (2.79%) Oracle ERP
2 3 (0.84%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.56%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 124 (34.64%) Azure
2 84 (23.46%) AWS
3 33 (9.22%) Entra ID
4 25 (6.98%) GCP
5 21 (5.87%) SaaS
6 20 (5.59%) Azure DevOps
6 20 (5.59%) Microsoft 365
7 10 (2.79%) IaaS
7 10 (2.79%) OCI
8 9 (2.51%) GitHub
9 8 (2.23%) Azure AKS
9 8 (2.23%) PaaS
10 7 (1.96%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 6 (1.68%) Amazon EKS
11 6 (1.68%) Azure Sentinel
11 6 (1.68%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
12 5 (1.40%) Azure Key Vault
12 5 (1.40%) Azure Monitor
12 5 (1.40%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 32 (8.94%) Network Security
2 27 (7.54%) Firewall
3 17 (4.75%) DNS
4 16 (4.47%) VPN
5 9 (2.51%) TCP/IP
6 8 (2.23%) WAN
7 7 (1.96%) LAN
8 6 (1.68%) IPsec
8 6 (1.68%) SD-WAN
8 6 (1.68%) VLAN
9 5 (1.40%) Cisco Firepower
9 5 (1.40%) Cisco Nexus
9 5 (1.40%) DHCP
10 4 (1.12%) 4G
10 4 (1.12%) 5G
10 4 (1.12%) BIG-IP
10 4 (1.12%) Cisco ASA
10 4 (1.12%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 4 (1.12%) MPLS
10 4 (1.12%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (3.63%) Geospatial Data
2 6 (1.68%) Azure SQL Database
3 4 (1.12%) Metadata
4 3 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
5 2 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.56%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.56%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.56%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.56%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.56%) Power BI
6 1 (0.28%) Big Data
6 1 (0.28%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.28%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.28%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.28%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 22 (6.15%) JIRA
2 14 (3.91%) Git
3 11 (3.07%) MSI
4 5 (1.40%) GitLab
4 5 (1.40%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 108 (30.17%) Public Sector
2 86 (24.02%) Social Skills
3 23 (6.42%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (5.87%) Finance
5 18 (5.03%) Telecoms
6 17 (4.75%) Military
7 12 (3.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (3.35%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (3.07%) Aerospace
9 9 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (2.51%) Local Government
9 9 (2.51%) Police
10 8 (2.23%) Law
11 5 (1.40%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.12%) Legal
13 3 (0.84%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.56%) Banking
15 1 (0.28%) Pharmaceutical
15 1 (0.28%) Publishing
15 1 (0.28%) Retail
Job Titles
1 119 (33.24%) Architect
2 61 (17.04%) Security Architect
3 54 (15.08%) Lead
4 36 (10.06%) Consultant
5 29 (8.10%) Senior
5 29 (8.10%) Technical Architect
6 26 (7.26%) Security Manager
7 21 (5.87%) Security Consultant
8 20 (5.59%) Lead Architect
9 19 (5.31%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 16 (4.47%) Technical Leader
11 15 (4.19%) Security Engineer
12 13 (3.63%) Cybersecurity Consultant
12 13 (3.63%) Developer
13 12 (3.35%) Analyst
14 11 (3.07%) Information Manager
14 11 (3.07%) Information Security Manager
14 11 (3.07%) Penetration Tester
14 11 (3.07%) SOC Manager
14 11 (3.07%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (13.97%) Terraform
2 17 (4.75%) .NET
3 15 (4.19%) REST
4 13 (3.63%) GeoJSON
4 13 (3.63%) RESTful
5 12 (3.35%) .NET Framework
6 11 (3.07%) .NET Core
6 11 (3.07%) ATL
6 11 (3.07%) COM
6 11 (3.07%) CSS
6 11 (3.07%) CSS3
6 11 (3.07%) HTML
6 11 (3.07%) HTML5
6 11 (3.07%) MFC
6 11 (3.07%) OAuth
6 11 (3.07%) SAML
6 11 (3.07%) WPF
7 10 (2.79%) OpenID
8 8 (2.23%) LDAP
9 6 (1.68%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 36 (10.06%) Cloud Native
2 34 (9.50%) Security Operations Centre
3 31 (8.66%) Management Information System
4 28 (7.82%) Onboarding
5 21 (5.87%) Legacy Systems
5 21 (5.87%) Security Posture
6 20 (5.59%) CSOC
6 20 (5.59%) Cyber Threat
7 19 (5.31%) Operational Technology
7 19 (5.31%) PKI
8 14 (3.91%) Hybrid Cloud
9 12 (3.35%) SCADA
10 11 (3.07%) Data Centre
11 10 (2.79%) Private Cloud
11 10 (2.79%) Product Ownership
11 10 (2.79%) Public Cloud
12 6 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (1.68%) NHS
13 5 (1.40%) Cyber Defence
13 5 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 29 (8.10%) Windows
2 20 (5.59%) Linux
3 10 (2.79%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.96%) Mac OS
5 5 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.12%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.56%) Android
7 2 (0.56%) Unix
7 2 (0.56%) VMS
8 1 (0.28%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.28%) CentOS
8 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (48.04%) Cybersecurity
2 84 (23.46%) Incident Response
3 82 (22.91%) Cloud Security
4 76 (21.23%) Risk Management
5 73 (20.39%) Security Architecture
6 72 (20.11%) Agile
6 72 (20.11%) Continuous Improvement
7 69 (19.27%) CI/CD
8 66 (18.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 66 (18.44%) Stakeholder Management
9 63 (17.60%) Infrastructure as Code
9 63 (17.60%) Vulnerability Management
10 56 (15.64%) Zero Trust
11 54 (15.08%) Security Operations
12 53 (14.80%) SIEM
13 52 (14.53%) DevOps
14 49 (13.69%) ITIL
15 48 (13.41%) Threat Modelling
16 47 (13.13%) Identity Access Management
17 44 (12.29%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 31 (8.66%) Bicep
2 27 (7.54%) Python
3 16 (4.47%) PowerShell
4 12 (3.35%) C#
5 11 (3.07%) JavaScript
5 11 (3.07%) TypeScript
6 9 (2.51%) SQL
7 5 (1.40%) Bash
7 5 (1.40%) Java
8 3 (0.84%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.56%) Groovy
9 2 (0.56%) Objective-C
9 2 (0.56%) Search Processing Language
10 1 (0.28%) C
10 1 (0.28%) Go
Qualifications
1 274 (76.54%) Security Cleared
2 216 (60.34%) SC Cleared
3 85 (23.74%) DV Cleared
4 60 (16.76%) CISSP
5 52 (14.53%) CISM
6 31 (8.66%) Cisco Certification
7 23 (6.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 22 (6.15%) Degree
9 14 (3.91%) Azure Certification
10 12 (3.35%) CEH
10 12 (3.35%) CompTIA Security+
11 11 (3.07%) AWS Certification
11 11 (3.07%) CCSP
11 11 (3.07%) CESG Certified Professional
11 11 (3.07%) CHECK Team Leader
11 11 (3.07%) GIAC
12 10 (2.79%) CHECK Team Member
12 10 (2.79%) CRISC
13 7 (1.96%) CCNP
13 7 (1.96%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (31.56%) NIST
2 103 (28.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 48 (13.41%) GDPR
4 37 (10.34%) Cyber Essentials
5 28 (7.82%) GRC
5 28 (7.82%) JSP 440
6 24 (6.70%) NIST 800
7 22 (6.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 16 (4.47%) Accessibility
9 15 (4.19%) Data Quality
9 15 (4.19%) Government Security Classifications
10 11 (3.07%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 11 (3.07%) WCAG
11 10 (2.79%) COBIT
12 9 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 8 (2.23%) RMADS
14 7 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 7 (1.96%) PCI DSS
15 6 (1.68%) QA
15 6 (1.68%) SLA
System Software
1 31 (8.66%) Active Directory
2 19 (5.31%) Docker
3 16 (4.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (3.07%) VMware NSX
5 6 (1.68%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.12%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.84%) vSphere
8 2 (0.56%) KVM
8 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 2 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.28%) UAG
Systems Management
1 46 (12.85%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.51%) Ansible
3 7 (1.96%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 7 (1.96%) Jamf Pro
4 4 (1.12%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (0.84%) QRadar
5 3 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.56%) CSIRT
6 2 (0.56%) Istio
6 2 (0.56%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.28%) CloudForms
7 1 (0.28%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 1 (0.28%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.28%) FreeIPA
7 1 (0.28%) Grafana
7 1 (0.28%) McAfee ePO
7 1 (0.28%) SCCM
7 1 (0.28%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 87 (24.30%) Microsoft
2 23 (6.42%) VMware
3 15 (4.19%) ServiceNow
4 11 (3.07%) Cisco
5 10 (2.79%) Oracle
5 10 (2.79%) Palo Alto
6 9 (2.51%) Google
7 8 (2.23%) Splunk
8 6 (1.68%) SAP
9 5 (1.40%) Apple
10 4 (1.12%) F5
10 4 (1.12%) OneLogin
10 4 (1.12%) SolarWinds
11 3 (0.84%) Citrix
11 3 (0.84%) Cribl.io
11 3 (0.84%) Fortinet
11 3 (0.84%) Sparx
12 2 (0.56%) Red Hat
12 2 (0.56%) Tenable
12 2 (0.56%) Zscaler