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 21 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 354 409 490
Rank change year-on-year +55 +81 -70
Contract jobs citing NCSC 340 145 81
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 0.44% 0.20%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.80% 2.67% 1.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 246 98 54
10th Percentile £456 £500 £475
25th Percentile £517 £556 £505
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £609 £645 £600
Median % change year-on-year -5.62% +7.50% -14.29%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £713
90th Percentile £784 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £641 £550
% change year-on-year -6.43% +16.59% -21.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 14 1
10th Percentile £75.00 £43.60 -
25th Percentile £80.95 £66.19 -
Median hourly rate £85.40 £85.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.47% +6.25% -3.97%
75th Percentile - £91.50 -
90th Percentile £90.24 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £85.00 £80.00
% change year-on-year +0.47% +6.25% -3.97%

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 8,956 5,440 5,722
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.99% 16.69% 13.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,722 3,502 3,542
10th Percentile £336 £279 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £623
90th Percentile £700 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £471 £475
% change year-on-year +6.27% -0.94% -4.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 544 241 375
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.53
25th Percentile £19.43 £17.55 £14.00
Median hourly rate £38.72 £28.18 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.40% +12.72% -35.42%
75th Percentile £69.81 £62.24 £53.38
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.41 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £25.83 £25.00
% change year-on-year +49.93% +3.30% -28.57%

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 21 July 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 21 July 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 21 July 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 +50 291 £600 -7.34% 66
UK excluding London -29 176 £600 -6.43% 49
Work from Home +21 133 £625 -2.53% 42
London +8 111 £625 -3.85% 22
South East -10 89 £638 -5.56% 16
South West -27 38 £588 -9.27% 14
North of England -61 21 £668 +8.98% 9
North West -33 18 £668 +14.84% 7
Midlands -41 17 £492 -24.31% 2
West Midlands -47 17 £492 -24.31% 1
Scotland -12 9 £663 +35.90% 4
Wales - 4 £800 - 1
East of England -31 3 £450 +80.72% 4
Yorkshire -53 3 £600 -7.69% 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 15 (4.41%) Confluence
2 3 (0.88%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.59%) WebLogic
3 2 (0.59%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.29%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.29%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.59%) PlantUML
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 9 (2.65%) Oracle ERP
2 3 (0.88%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.59%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.59%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 119 (35.00%) Azure
2 83 (24.41%) AWS
3 31 (9.12%) Entra ID
4 25 (7.35%) GCP
5 22 (6.47%) Microsoft 365
6 21 (6.18%) SaaS
7 14 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
8 11 (3.24%) OpenShift
9 9 (2.65%) OCI
10 8 (2.35%) IaaS
10 8 (2.35%) PaaS
11 7 (2.06%) Amazon EKS
11 7 (2.06%) Azure AKS
12 6 (1.76%) GitHub
12 6 (1.76%) Serverless
12 6 (1.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 5 (1.47%) Azure Monitor
13 5 (1.47%) Power Platform
14 4 (1.18%) AWS Lambda
14 4 (1.18%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 31 (9.12%) Firewall
1 31 (9.12%) Network Security
2 19 (5.59%) VPN
3 16 (4.71%) DNS
4 12 (3.53%) BGP
4 12 (3.53%) TCP/IP
5 11 (3.24%) OSPF
5 11 (3.24%) WAN
6 10 (2.94%) IPsec
6 10 (2.94%) MPLS
6 10 (2.94%) VLAN
7 9 (2.65%) LAN
7 9 (2.65%) SD-WAN
8 6 (1.76%) Cisco ASA
8 6 (1.76%) Cisco Nexus
8 6 (1.76%) VSAN
9 5 (1.47%) Cisco Firepower
9 5 (1.47%) DHCP
10 4 (1.18%) BIG-IP
10 4 (1.18%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.94%) Geospatial Data
2 6 (1.76%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (0.88%) Metadata
3 3 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
3 3 (0.88%) Power BI
4 2 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.29%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.29%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.29%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.29%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.29%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 18 (5.29%) JIRA
2 12 (3.53%) Git
3 8 (2.35%) Jenkins
3 8 (2.35%) MSI
4 3 (0.88%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.29%) GitLab
General
1 104 (30.59%) Public Sector
2 93 (27.35%) Social Skills
3 29 (8.53%) Finance
4 20 (5.88%) Telecoms
5 18 (5.29%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (5.29%) Influencing Skills
6 15 (4.41%) Documentation Skills
7 14 (4.12%) Military
8 9 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (2.35%) Law
10 7 (2.06%) Local Government
10 7 (2.06%) Police
11 6 (1.76%) Legal
12 5 (1.47%) Aerospace
13 4 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.59%) Aviation
14 2 (0.59%) Banking
14 2 (0.59%) Manufacturing
15 1 (0.29%) Back Office
15 1 (0.29%) Retail
Job Titles
1 124 (36.47%) Architect
2 56 (16.47%) Security Architect
3 40 (11.76%) Lead
4 34 (10.00%) Technical Architect
5 30 (8.82%) Consultant
6 28 (8.24%) Senior
7 19 (5.59%) Security Consultant
7 19 (5.59%) Security Manager
8 16 (4.71%) Lead Architect
9 15 (4.41%) Analyst
9 15 (4.41%) Solutions Architect
10 14 (4.12%) Technical Leader
11 13 (3.82%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 13 (3.82%) Tester
12 12 (3.53%) Developer
12 12 (3.53%) Penetration Tester
12 12 (3.53%) Security Engineer
13 11 (3.24%) Network Architect
14 10 (2.94%) Senior Architect
15 9 (2.65%) Cybersecurity Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.00%) OpenID
1 17 (5.00%) SAML
2 15 (4.41%) LDAP
3 14 (4.12%) .NET
4 12 (3.53%) REST
5 10 (2.94%) GeoJSON
5 10 (2.94%) RESTful
6 9 (2.65%) .NET Framework
6 9 (2.65%) OAuth
7 8 (2.35%) .NET Core
7 8 (2.35%) ATL
7 8 (2.35%) COM
7 8 (2.35%) CSS
7 8 (2.35%) CSS3
7 8 (2.35%) HTML
7 8 (2.35%) HTML5
7 8 (2.35%) MFC
7 8 (2.35%) WPF
8 5 (1.47%) SailPoint
9 4 (1.18%) SAP CAF
Miscellaneous
1 38 (11.18%) Cloud Native
2 34 (10.00%) Onboarding
3 26 (7.65%) Security Operations Centre
4 25 (7.35%) Management Information System
5 20 (5.88%) Cyber Threat
6 19 (5.59%) Security Posture
7 18 (5.29%) Operational Technology
8 17 (5.00%) Data Centre
9 16 (4.71%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (4.41%) CSOC
10 15 (4.41%) PKI
10 15 (4.41%) Public Cloud
11 13 (3.82%) Hybrid Cloud
12 11 (3.24%) Private Cloud
12 11 (3.24%) SCADA
13 10 (2.94%) Product Ownership
14 6 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
15 5 (1.47%) Cyber Defence
15 5 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
16 4 (1.18%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
Operating Systems
1 25 (7.35%) Windows
2 23 (6.76%) Linux
3 7 (2.06%) Mac OS
4 6 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 6 (1.76%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.18%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.88%) VMS
7 2 (0.59%) Android
7 2 (0.59%) CentOS
7 2 (0.59%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.59%) Unix
8 1 (0.29%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.29%) Rocky
8 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (45.88%) Cybersecurity
2 77 (22.65%) CI/CD
2 77 (22.65%) Cloud Security
3 74 (21.76%) Agile
4 67 (19.71%) Infrastructure as Code
5 63 (18.53%) Incident Response
6 61 (17.94%) DevOps
7 59 (17.35%) Risk Management
7 59 (17.35%) Security Architecture
8 57 (16.76%) Stakeholder Management
9 55 (16.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 52 (15.29%) Continuous Improvement
10 52 (15.29%) SIEM
11 46 (13.53%) Threat Modelling
12 44 (12.94%) Vulnerability Management
12 44 (12.94%) Zero Trust
13 43 (12.65%) TOGAF
14 40 (11.76%) Security Operations
15 37 (10.88%) DevSecOps
15 37 (10.88%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 23 (6.76%) Python
2 22 (6.47%) Bicep
3 11 (3.24%) SQL
4 10 (2.94%) PowerShell
5 9 (2.65%) C#
6 8 (2.35%) JavaScript
6 8 (2.35%) TypeScript
7 7 (2.06%) Java
8 3 (0.88%) Bash
9 2 (0.59%) Groovy
9 2 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.59%) Objective-C
9 2 (0.59%) Search Processing Language
10 1 (0.29%) C
Qualifications
1 250 (73.53%) Security Cleared
2 203 (59.71%) SC Cleared
3 75 (22.06%) DV Cleared
4 44 (12.94%) CISSP
5 39 (11.47%) CISM
6 33 (9.71%) Cisco Certification
7 22 (6.47%) Degree
8 17 (5.00%) CCNP
9 15 (4.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 12 (3.53%) Azure Certification
10 12 (3.53%) CHECK Team Leader
10 12 (3.53%) GIAC
11 11 (3.24%) AWS Certification
11 11 (3.24%) CHECK Team Member
12 9 (2.65%) CESG Certified Professional
13 8 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
13 8 (2.35%) CCIE
13 8 (2.35%) CCSP
13 8 (2.35%) CompTIA Security+
13 8 (2.35%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (33.24%) NIST
2 94 (27.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 47 (13.82%) GDPR
4 36 (10.59%) Cyber Essentials
5 27 (7.94%) NIST 800
6 21 (6.18%) JSP 440
7 19 (5.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 16 (4.71%) GRC
9 15 (4.41%) Government Security Classifications
10 13 (3.82%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 12 (3.53%) Accessibility
11 12 (3.53%) RMADS
12 10 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 9 (2.65%) COBIT
14 8 (2.35%) WCAG
15 7 (2.06%) Data Quality
15 7 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 7 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 7 (2.06%) PCI DSS
15 7 (2.06%) QA
System Software
1 30 (8.82%) Active Directory
2 17 (5.00%) Docker
3 15 (4.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (4.12%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.47%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.88%) vSphere
8 2 (0.59%) KVM
9 1 (0.29%) GPFS
9 1 (0.29%) Lustre
9 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.29%) UAG
Systems Management
1 48 (14.12%) Kubernetes
2 42 (12.35%) Terraform
3 11 (3.24%) Ansible
4 7 (2.06%) Jamf Pro
5 6 (1.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.88%) Istio
6 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.59%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (0.59%) CSIRT
7 2 (0.59%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.59%) Iperf
7 2 (0.59%) Nmap
7 2 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.29%) CASB
8 1 (0.29%) CloudForms
8 1 (0.29%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 1 (0.29%) Grafana
8 1 (0.29%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.29%) QRadar
8 1 (0.29%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 75 (22.06%) Microsoft
2 27 (7.94%) VMware
3 19 (5.59%) Cisco
4 15 (4.41%) Palo Alto
5 14 (4.12%) Splunk
6 13 (3.82%) ServiceNow
7 9 (2.65%) CyberArk
7 9 (2.65%) Oracle
8 8 (2.35%) Google
9 7 (2.06%) Fortinet
9 7 (2.06%) SolarWinds
10 6 (1.76%) SAP
11 5 (1.47%) Apple
11 5 (1.47%) CheckPoint
11 5 (1.47%) F5
12 4 (1.18%) Zscaler
13 3 (0.88%) Citrix
13 3 (0.88%) Juniper
13 3 (0.88%) Sparx
14 2 (0.59%) BiZZdesign