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 10 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 347 390 488
Rank change year-on-year +43 +98 -90
Contract jobs citing NCSC 364 162 75
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.67% 0.49% 0.20%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.80% 2.88% 1.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 114 44
10th Percentile £456 £483 £477
25th Percentile £516 £543 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £648 £588
Median % change year-on-year -7.34% +10.21% -16.07%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £728
90th Percentile £781 £738 £784
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £650 £560
% change year-on-year -7.69% +16.07% -20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 15 2
10th Percentile £71.00 £46.05 £62.67
25th Percentile £80.00 £82.50 £65.56
Median hourly rate £85.40 £87.50 £70.75
Median % change year-on-year -2.40% +23.68% -15.17%
75th Percentile £96.00 £91.50 £75.56
90th Percentile - - £78.22
UK excluding London median hourly rate £87.70 £88.75 £70.75
% change year-on-year -1.18% +25.45% -15.17%

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 9,570 5,631 5,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.56% 17.07% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,049 3,600 3,090
10th Percentile £325 £300 £285
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.53% -3.29%
75th Percentile £600 £605 £627
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +2.63% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 612 264 264
10th Percentile £13.88 £13.60 £12.28
25th Percentile £16.88 £16.92 £15.00
Median hourly rate £33.00 £30.00 £26.68
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +12.44% -23.77%
75th Percentile £67.89 £60.31 £57.81
90th Percentile £77.50 £82.90 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £26.50 £25.60
% change year-on-year +24.53% +3.52% -24.58%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 10 September 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 +23 306 £588 -9.50% 122
UK excluding London -25 199 £600 -7.69% 73
Work from Home +12 136 £587 -9.05% 75
London -13 111 £585 -10.00% 64
South East -5 76 £642 -4.96% 20
South West -33 54 £600 -11.11% 14
North West -18 39 £568 +42.00% 11
North of England -37 39 £568 +3.27% 17
West Midlands -40 17 £568 -18.86% 4
Midlands -51 17 £568 -18.86% 7
Scotland -32 13 £800 +64.10% 4
East of England -37 7 £480 +92.77% 9
Wales -8 5 £800 +236.13% 2

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 20 (5.49%) Confluence
2 4 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.82%) Apache
3 3 (0.82%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.27%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.27%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (2.75%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (1.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.55%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 122 (33.52%) Azure
2 89 (24.45%) AWS
3 27 (7.42%) Entra ID
3 27 (7.42%) GCP
4 22 (6.04%) SaaS
5 20 (5.49%) Azure DevOps
6 18 (4.95%) Microsoft 365
7 11 (3.02%) GitHub
7 11 (3.02%) IaaS
8 10 (2.75%) OCI
9 9 (2.47%) PaaS
10 7 (1.92%) Azure Sentinel
10 7 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (1.92%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 6 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
12 5 (1.37%) AWS CloudFormation
12 5 (1.37%) Azure AKS
12 5 (1.37%) Azure Key Vault
12 5 (1.37%) Serverless
13 4 (1.10%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 28 (7.69%) Firewall
1 28 (7.69%) Network Security
2 18 (4.95%) VPN
3 16 (4.40%) DNS
4 9 (2.47%) TCP/IP
5 8 (2.20%) WAN
6 7 (1.92%) LAN
7 6 (1.65%) IPsec
7 6 (1.65%) SD-WAN
7 6 (1.65%) VLAN
8 5 (1.37%) Cisco Firepower
8 5 (1.37%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (1.37%) DHCP
8 5 (1.37%) X.509
9 4 (1.10%) 4G
9 4 (1.10%) BGP
9 4 (1.10%) Cisco ASA
9 4 (1.10%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 4 (1.10%) MPLS
9 4 (1.10%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (3.57%) Geospatial Data
2 7 (1.92%) Metadata
3 5 (1.37%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.82%) Oracle Reports
5 2 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.55%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.55%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.55%) Parquet
6 1 (0.27%) Big Data
6 1 (0.27%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.27%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.27%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.27%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 23 (6.32%) JIRA
2 15 (4.12%) Git
3 11 (3.02%) MSI
4 7 (1.92%) GitLab
4 7 (1.92%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 112 (30.77%) Public Sector
2 96 (26.37%) Social Skills
3 24 (6.59%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (6.32%) Military
5 22 (6.04%) Finance
6 18 (4.95%) Telecoms
7 14 (3.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 13 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
8 13 (3.57%) Local Government
9 12 (3.30%) Aerospace
10 10 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
11 9 (2.47%) Police
12 8 (2.20%) Law
13 6 (1.65%) Manufacturing
13 6 (1.65%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (1.37%) Legal
15 3 (0.82%) Back Office
16 2 (0.55%) Banking
16 2 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
17 1 (0.27%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 124 (34.07%) Architect
2 62 (17.03%) Security Architect
3 49 (13.46%) Lead
4 36 (9.89%) Consultant
5 33 (9.07%) Senior
6 27 (7.42%) Security Manager
6 27 (7.42%) Technical Architect
7 20 (5.49%) Cybersecurity Manager
7 20 (5.49%) Security Consultant
8 17 (4.67%) Security Engineer
9 15 (4.12%) Lead Architect
10 13 (3.57%) Developer
11 12 (3.30%) Analyst
11 12 (3.30%) Cybersecurity Consultant
11 12 (3.30%) Penetration Tester
11 12 (3.30%) Senior Architect
11 12 (3.30%) Tester
12 11 (3.02%) Information Manager
12 11 (3.02%) Information Security Manager
12 11 (3.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (13.74%) Terraform
2 17 (4.67%) .NET
2 17 (4.67%) REST
3 16 (4.40%) RESTful
4 13 (3.57%) GeoJSON
5 12 (3.30%) .NET Framework
6 11 (3.02%) .NET Core
6 11 (3.02%) ATL
6 11 (3.02%) COM
6 11 (3.02%) CSS
6 11 (3.02%) CSS3
6 11 (3.02%) HTML
6 11 (3.02%) HTML5
6 11 (3.02%) MFC
6 11 (3.02%) OAuth
6 11 (3.02%) SAML
6 11 (3.02%) WPF
7 10 (2.75%) OpenID
8 8 (2.20%) LDAP
9 6 (1.65%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 36 (9.89%) Cloud Native
2 34 (9.34%) Security Operations Centre
3 33 (9.07%) Management Information System
4 28 (7.69%) Onboarding
5 23 (6.32%) PKI
6 22 (6.04%) Cyber Threat
6 22 (6.04%) Security Posture
7 21 (5.77%) Legacy Systems
8 20 (5.49%) CSOC
9 19 (5.22%) Operational Technology
10 14 (3.85%) Hybrid Cloud
11 13 (3.57%) SCADA
12 11 (3.02%) Data Centre
12 11 (3.02%) Private Cloud
12 11 (3.02%) Public Cloud
13 6 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
14 5 (1.37%) Cyber Defence
14 5 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
14 5 (1.37%) NHS
14 5 (1.37%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 30 (8.24%) Windows
2 21 (5.77%) Linux
3 11 (3.02%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.92%) Mac OS
5 6 (1.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.10%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.55%) Android
7 2 (0.55%) Unix
8 1 (0.27%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.27%) CentOS
8 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 177 (48.63%) Cybersecurity
2 89 (24.45%) Incident Response
3 81 (22.25%) Risk Management
4 76 (20.88%) Security Architecture
5 75 (20.60%) Continuous Improvement
6 72 (19.78%) Cloud Security
7 71 (19.51%) CI/CD
7 71 (19.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 70 (19.23%) Agile
9 66 (18.13%) Stakeholder Management
9 66 (18.13%) Vulnerability Management
10 60 (16.48%) Infrastructure as Code
11 59 (16.21%) Zero Trust
12 56 (15.38%) Security Operations
13 53 (14.56%) SIEM
14 52 (14.29%) DevOps
15 50 (13.74%) Threat Modelling
16 47 (12.91%) Decision-Making
16 47 (12.91%) Technical Leadership
17 44 (12.09%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 29 (7.97%) Bicep
1 29 (7.97%) Python
2 16 (4.40%) PowerShell
3 12 (3.30%) C#
4 11 (3.02%) JavaScript
4 11 (3.02%) TypeScript
5 7 (1.92%) Bash
6 5 (1.37%) Java
7 4 (1.10%) SQL
8 3 (0.82%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.55%) Groovy
9 2 (0.55%) Objective-C
9 2 (0.55%) Search Processing Language
10 1 (0.27%) C
10 1 (0.27%) Go
Qualifications
1 284 (78.02%) Security Cleared
2 221 (60.71%) SC Cleared
3 93 (25.55%) DV Cleared
4 61 (16.76%) CISSP
5 51 (14.01%) CISM
6 31 (8.52%) Cisco Certification
7 23 (6.32%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 18 (4.95%) Degree
9 14 (3.85%) AWS Certification
9 14 (3.85%) Azure Certification
10 12 (3.30%) CHECK Team Leader
10 12 (3.30%) CRISC
11 11 (3.02%) CCSP
11 11 (3.02%) CEH
11 11 (3.02%) CHECK Team Member
11 11 (3.02%) CompTIA Security+
12 10 (2.75%) GIAC
13 9 (2.47%) Microsoft Certification
14 8 (2.20%) CESG Certified Professional
15 7 (1.92%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (32.97%) NIST
2 112 (30.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 45 (12.36%) GDPR
4 37 (10.16%) Cyber Essentials
5 31 (8.52%) JSP 440
6 30 (8.24%) GRC
7 28 (7.69%) NIST 800
8 22 (6.04%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 20 (5.49%) Data Quality
10 14 (3.85%) Accessibility
11 11 (3.02%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 11 (3.02%) WCAG
12 10 (2.75%) Government Security Classifications
13 9 (2.47%) COBIT
13 9 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 8 (2.20%) RMADS
15 7 (1.92%) PCI DSS
15 7 (1.92%) QA
16 6 (1.65%) Def Stans
16 6 (1.65%) SLA
System Software
1 30 (8.24%) Active Directory
2 20 (5.49%) Docker
3 18 (4.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (3.02%) VMware NSX
5 6 (1.65%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.10%) Firmware
6 4 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.82%) vSphere
8 2 (0.55%) KVM
8 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 2 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.55%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.27%) UAG
Systems Management
1 50 (13.74%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.75%) Ansible
3 7 (1.92%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 7 (1.92%) Jamf Pro
4 5 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (0.82%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.82%) QRadar
5 3 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.55%) CSIRT
6 2 (0.55%) Grafana
6 2 (0.55%) Istio
6 2 (0.55%) SCCM
7 1 (0.27%) Argo
7 1 (0.27%) CloudForms
7 1 (0.27%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 1 (0.27%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.27%) FreeIPA
7 1 (0.27%) McAfee ePO
7 1 (0.27%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 88 (24.18%) Microsoft
2 25 (6.87%) VMware
3 16 (4.40%) ServiceNow
4 12 (3.30%) Oracle
5 11 (3.02%) Cisco
6 10 (2.75%) Palo Alto
7 9 (2.47%) Google
7 9 (2.47%) Splunk
8 6 (1.65%) SAP
9 5 (1.37%) Apple
10 4 (1.10%) F5
10 4 (1.10%) OneLogin
10 4 (1.10%) SolarWinds
10 4 (1.10%) Sparx
11 3 (0.82%) Citrix
11 3 (0.82%) Cribl.io
11 3 (0.82%) Fortinet
11 3 (0.82%) Red Hat
12 2 (0.55%) Northgate
12 2 (0.55%) Qualys