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

 6 months to
7 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 347 397 490
Rank change year-on-year +50 +93 -84
Contract jobs citing NCSC 360 157 79
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.67% 0.48% 0.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.80% 2.82% 1.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 249 109 48
10th Percentile £457 £495 £479
25th Percentile £519 £550 £504
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £650 £588
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% +10.64% -16.07%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £728
90th Percentile £782 £738 £779
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £650 £575
% change year-on-year -7.69% +13.04% -17.86%
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 £85.40 £88.75 £70.75
% change year-on-year -3.77% +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 9,479 5,573 5,157
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.51% 17.03% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,019 3,567 3,130
10th Percentile £325 £295 £282
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £610 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +3.16% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 597 259 270
10th Percentile £13.86 £13.60 £12.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £16.71 £14.73
Median hourly rate £33.98 £30.00 £26.13
Median % change year-on-year +13.27% +14.80% -25.34%
75th Percentile £68.75 £62.25 £58.44
90th Percentile £77.70 £82.97 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.07 £27.54 £25.18
% change year-on-year +31.00% +9.35% -27.01%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 +41 304 £588 -9.50% 226
UK excluding London -6 197 £600 -7.69% 160
Work from Home +20 134 £588 -8.80% 133
London -10 109 £585 -10.00% 107
South East -11 77 £642 -4.96% 30
South West -33 54 £600 -11.11% 36
North West -17 39 £568 +42.00% 18
North of England -35 39 £568 +3.27% 30
West Midlands -42 17 £568 -18.86% 18
Midlands -51 17 £568 -18.86% 23
Scotland -21 11 £800 +64.10% 14
East of England -28 6 £480 +92.77% 12
Wales -12 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 (5.56%) Confluence
2 4 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.83%) Apache
4 2 (0.56%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.28%) SharePoint 2010
5 1 (0.28%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.28%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (2.78%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (1.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.56%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 121 (33.61%) Azure
2 87 (24.17%) AWS
3 27 (7.50%) Entra ID
4 26 (7.22%) GCP
5 21 (5.83%) SaaS
6 20 (5.56%) Azure DevOps
7 18 (5.00%) Microsoft 365
8 11 (3.06%) GitHub
9 10 (2.78%) IaaS
9 10 (2.78%) OCI
10 8 (2.22%) PaaS
11 7 (1.94%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (1.94%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (1.94%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 6 (1.67%) Amazon EKS
13 5 (1.39%) AWS CloudFormation
13 5 (1.39%) Azure AKS
13 5 (1.39%) Azure Key Vault
13 5 (1.39%) Serverless
14 4 (1.11%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 28 (7.78%) Network Security
2 27 (7.50%) Firewall
3 18 (5.00%) VPN
4 16 (4.44%) DNS
5 9 (2.50%) TCP/IP
6 8 (2.22%) WAN
7 7 (1.94%) LAN
8 6 (1.67%) IPsec
8 6 (1.67%) SD-WAN
8 6 (1.67%) VLAN
9 5 (1.39%) Cisco Firepower
9 5 (1.39%) Cisco Nexus
9 5 (1.39%) DHCP
9 5 (1.39%) X.509
10 4 (1.11%) 5G
10 4 (1.11%) BGP
10 4 (1.11%) BIG-IP
10 4 (1.11%) Cisco ASA
10 4 (1.11%) MPLS
10 4 (1.11%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (3.61%) Geospatial Data
2 7 (1.94%) Metadata
3 5 (1.39%) Data Lake
4 3 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
5 2 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.56%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.56%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.56%) NoSQL
5 2 (0.56%) Parquet
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 (6.11%) JIRA
2 15 (4.17%) Git
3 11 (3.06%) MSI
4 7 (1.94%) GitLab
4 7 (1.94%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 109 (30.28%) Public Sector
2 92 (25.56%) Social Skills
3 23 (6.39%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (5.83%) Finance
5 20 (5.56%) Military
6 18 (5.00%) Telecoms
7 13 (3.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 12 (3.33%) Aerospace
8 12 (3.33%) Local Government
9 11 (3.06%) Influencing Skills
10 10 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
11 9 (2.50%) Police
12 8 (2.22%) Law
13 5 (1.39%) Manufacturing
13 5 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
14 4 (1.11%) Legal
15 2 (0.56%) Back Office
15 2 (0.56%) Banking
15 2 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
16 1 (0.28%) Retail
Job Titles
1 122 (33.89%) Architect
2 61 (16.94%) Security Architect
3 47 (13.06%) Lead
4 36 (10.00%) Consultant
5 32 (8.89%) Senior
6 26 (7.22%) Security Manager
6 26 (7.22%) Technical Architect
7 20 (5.56%) Security Consultant
8 19 (5.28%) Cybersecurity Manager
9 17 (4.72%) Security Engineer
10 15 (4.17%) Lead Architect
11 13 (3.61%) Developer
12 12 (3.33%) Analyst
12 12 (3.33%) Cybersecurity Consultant
12 12 (3.33%) Penetration Tester
12 12 (3.33%) Tester
13 11 (3.06%) Information Manager
13 11 (3.06%) Information Security Manager
13 11 (3.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 11 (3.06%) SOC Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (13.89%) Terraform
2 17 (4.72%) .NET
2 17 (4.72%) REST
3 15 (4.17%) RESTful
4 13 (3.61%) GeoJSON
5 12 (3.33%) .NET Framework
6 11 (3.06%) .NET Core
6 11 (3.06%) ATL
6 11 (3.06%) COM
6 11 (3.06%) CSS
6 11 (3.06%) CSS3
6 11 (3.06%) HTML
6 11 (3.06%) HTML5
6 11 (3.06%) MFC
6 11 (3.06%) OAuth
6 11 (3.06%) SAML
6 11 (3.06%) WPF
7 10 (2.78%) OpenID
8 8 (2.22%) LDAP
9 6 (1.67%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 36 (10.00%) Cloud Native
2 34 (9.44%) Security Operations Centre
3 32 (8.89%) Management Information System
4 28 (7.78%) Onboarding
5 22 (6.11%) PKI
6 21 (5.83%) Cyber Threat
6 21 (5.83%) Legacy Systems
6 21 (5.83%) Security Posture
7 20 (5.56%) CSOC
8 19 (5.28%) Operational Technology
9 14 (3.89%) Hybrid Cloud
10 12 (3.33%) SCADA
11 11 (3.06%) Data Centre
11 11 (3.06%) Private Cloud
11 11 (3.06%) Public Cloud
12 6 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
13 5 (1.39%) Cyber Defence
13 5 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
13 5 (1.39%) NHS
13 5 (1.39%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 30 (8.33%) Windows
2 21 (5.83%) Linux
3 11 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.94%) Mac OS
5 6 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.11%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.56%) Android
7 2 (0.56%) Unix
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
1 173 (48.06%) Cybersecurity
2 88 (24.44%) Incident Response
3 80 (22.22%) Risk Management
4 76 (21.11%) Security Architecture
5 73 (20.28%) Cloud Security
5 73 (20.28%) Continuous Improvement
6 71 (19.72%) CI/CD
7 69 (19.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 68 (18.89%) Agile
9 66 (18.33%) Stakeholder Management
10 64 (17.78%) Vulnerability Management
11 60 (16.67%) Infrastructure as Code
12 59 (16.39%) Zero Trust
13 56 (15.56%) Security Operations
14 52 (14.44%) DevOps
14 52 (14.44%) SIEM
15 47 (13.06%) Threat Modelling
16 46 (12.78%) Technical Leadership
17 45 (12.50%) Decision-Making
18 43 (11.94%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 29 (8.06%) Bicep
1 29 (8.06%) Python
2 16 (4.44%) PowerShell
3 12 (3.33%) C#
4 11 (3.06%) JavaScript
4 11 (3.06%) TypeScript
5 7 (1.94%) Bash
6 5 (1.39%) Java
7 4 (1.11%) SQL
8 3 (0.83%) 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
1 280 (77.78%) Security Cleared
2 217 (60.28%) SC Cleared
3 92 (25.56%) DV Cleared
4 61 (16.94%) CISSP
5 51 (14.17%) CISM
6 31 (8.61%) Cisco Certification
7 23 (6.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 18 (5.00%) Degree
9 14 (3.89%) AWS Certification
9 14 (3.89%) Azure Certification
10 12 (3.33%) CHECK Team Leader
11 11 (3.06%) CEH
11 11 (3.06%) CHECK Team Member
11 11 (3.06%) CompTIA Security+
11 11 (3.06%) CRISC
12 10 (2.78%) CCSP
12 10 (2.78%) CESG Certified Professional
12 10 (2.78%) GIAC
13 9 (2.50%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (1.94%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (32.22%) NIST
2 108 (30.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 44 (12.22%) GDPR
4 37 (10.28%) Cyber Essentials
5 31 (8.61%) JSP 440
6 30 (8.33%) GRC
7 26 (7.22%) NIST 800
8 22 (6.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 19 (5.28%) Data Quality
10 14 (3.89%) Accessibility
11 11 (3.06%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 11 (3.06%) WCAG
12 10 (2.78%) Government Security Classifications
13 9 (2.50%) COBIT
14 8 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 8 (2.22%) RMADS
15 7 (1.94%) PCI DSS
15 7 (1.94%) QA
16 6 (1.67%) Def Stans
16 6 (1.67%) SLA
System Software
1 29 (8.06%) Active Directory
2 20 (5.56%) Docker
3 17 (4.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (3.06%) VMware NSX
5 6 (1.67%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.11%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.83%) vSphere
8 2 (0.56%) Firmware
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 50 (13.89%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.78%) Ansible
3 7 (1.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 7 (1.94%) Jamf Pro
4 5 (1.39%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (0.83%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.83%) QRadar
5 3 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.56%) CSIRT
6 2 (0.56%) Grafana
6 2 (0.56%) Istio
6 2 (0.56%) SCCM
7 1 (0.28%) Argo
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%) McAfee ePO
7 1 (0.28%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 86 (23.89%) Microsoft
2 24 (6.67%) VMware
3 16 (4.44%) ServiceNow
4 11 (3.06%) Cisco
5 10 (2.78%) Oracle
5 10 (2.78%) Palo Alto
6 9 (2.50%) Google
6 9 (2.50%) Splunk
7 6 (1.67%) SAP
8 5 (1.39%) Apple
9 4 (1.11%) F5
9 4 (1.11%) OneLogin
9 4 (1.11%) SolarWinds
9 4 (1.11%) Sparx
10 3 (0.83%) Citrix
10 3 (0.83%) Cribl.io
10 3 (0.83%) Fortinet
10 3 (0.83%) Red Hat
11 2 (0.56%) Qualys
11 2 (0.56%) Tenable
283 NCSC jobs Nationwide