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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 345 388 485
Rank change year-on-year +43 +97 -80
Contract jobs citing NCSC 358 165 80
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.67% 0.50% 0.21%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.88% 2.94% 1.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 114 55
10th Percentile £458 £500 £481
25th Percentile £515 £550 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £645 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +12.17% -16.36%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £731
90th Percentile £775 £738 £760
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £648 £575
% change year-on-year -7.34% +12.61% -14.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 16 1
10th Percentile - £48.50 -
25th Percentile £71.00 £82.50 -
Median hourly rate £81.90 £88.75 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.72% +10.94% -3.97%
75th Percentile £85.40 £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% -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 9,228 5,605 5,204
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.25% 17.07% 13.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,907 3,594 3,214
10th Percentile £325 £285 £290
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 £605 £625
90th Percentile £703 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £480
% change year-on-year +3.58% -1.04% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 568 266 311
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.60 £11.07
25th Percentile £17.72 £17.38 £14.42
Median hourly rate £36.07 £28.18 £25.77
Median % change year-on-year +28.00% +9.37% -26.39%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.99 £55.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £85.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.79 £25.08 £25.00
% change year-on-year +46.70% +0.30% -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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +3 303 £585 -9.65% 81
UK excluding London -33 192 £600 -7.34% 75
Work from Home +7 134 £600 -6.87% 58
London -10 112 £585 -10.00% 20
South East -1 81 £639 -5.37% 13
South West -26 52 £588 -10.48% 28
North of England -29 34 £571 -8.60% 18
North West -7 32 £558 -4.09% 16
West Midlands -49 15 £492 -24.31% 3
Midlands -50 15 £492 -24.31% 7
Scotland -10 9 £800 +64.10% 6
Wales -12 5 £800 +236.13% 1
East of England -31 4 £480 +92.77% 2
Yorkshire -41 2 £600 -7.69%

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 3 (0.84%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (0.84%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.28%) SharePoint 2010
3 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
1 127 (35.47%) Azure
2 88 (24.58%) AWS
3 32 (8.94%) Entra ID
4 25 (6.98%) GCP
5 22 (6.15%) Microsoft 365
6 21 (5.87%) SaaS
7 20 (5.59%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (2.79%) IaaS
8 10 (2.79%) OCI
9 9 (2.51%) GitHub
10 8 (2.23%) Azure AKS
10 8 (2.23%) PaaS
11 7 (1.96%) Amazon EKS
11 7 (1.96%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 6 (1.68%) Azure Sentinel
12 6 (1.68%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
13 5 (1.40%) Azure Key Vault
13 5 (1.40%) Azure Monitor
13 5 (1.40%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 33 (9.22%) Network Security
2 29 (8.10%) Firewall
3 17 (4.75%) DNS
4 15 (4.19%) VPN
5 9 (2.51%) TCP/IP
5 9 (2.51%) WAN
6 8 (2.23%) LAN
7 6 (1.68%) IPsec
7 6 (1.68%) SD-WAN
7 6 (1.68%) VLAN
8 5 (1.40%) BGP
8 5 (1.40%) Cisco Firepower
8 5 (1.40%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (1.40%) DHCP
8 5 (1.40%) VSAN
9 4 (1.12%) BIG-IP
9 4 (1.12%) Cisco ASA
9 4 (1.12%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 4 (1.12%) MPLS
9 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
4 3 (0.84%) Power BI
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
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
1 112 (31.28%) Public Sector
2 89 (24.86%) Social Skills
3 24 (6.70%) Analytical Skills
3 24 (6.70%) Finance
4 18 (5.03%) Telecoms
5 17 (4.75%) Military
6 12 (3.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 12 (3.35%) Influencing Skills
7 11 (3.07%) Aerospace
8 10 (2.79%) Police
9 9 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (2.51%) Law
9 9 (2.51%) Local Government
10 5 (1.40%) Organisational Skills
11 4 (1.12%) Legal
12 3 (0.84%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.56%) Banking
14 1 (0.28%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.28%) Publishing
14 1 (0.28%) Retail
Job Titles
1 120 (33.52%) Architect
2 62 (17.32%) Security Architect
3 51 (14.25%) Lead
4 31 (8.66%) Consultant
5 30 (8.38%) Senior
5 30 (8.38%) Technical Architect
6 26 (7.26%) Security Manager
7 19 (5.31%) Cybersecurity Manager
8 18 (5.03%) Lead Architect
9 17 (4.75%) Security Consultant
10 15 (4.19%) Security Engineer
10 15 (4.19%) Technical Leader
11 14 (3.91%) Developer
12 13 (3.63%) Analyst
13 12 (3.35%) Penetration Tester
13 12 (3.35%) Tester
14 11 (3.07%) Information Manager
14 11 (3.07%) Information Security Manager
14 11 (3.07%) SOC Manager
15 10 (2.79%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (14.25%) 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 30 (8.38%) Onboarding
5 21 (5.87%) Security Posture
6 20 (5.59%) CSOC
6 20 (5.59%) Cyber Threat
7 19 (5.31%) Legacy Systems
7 19 (5.31%) Operational Technology
7 19 (5.31%) PKI
8 15 (4.19%) Hybrid Cloud
9 13 (3.63%) Data Centre
10 12 (3.35%) SCADA
11 11 (3.07%) Private Cloud
12 10 (2.79%) Product Ownership
12 10 (2.79%) Public Cloud
13 6 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
13 6 (1.68%) NHS
14 5 (1.40%) Cyber Defence
14 5 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 30 (8.38%) Windows
2 22 (6.15%) Linux
3 11 (3.07%) 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
1 170 (47.49%) Cybersecurity
2 83 (23.18%) Cloud Security
3 80 (22.35%) Incident Response
4 76 (21.23%) Risk Management
5 74 (20.67%) Agile
5 74 (20.67%) Security Architecture
6 72 (20.11%) CI/CD
7 71 (19.83%) Continuous Improvement
8 65 (18.16%) Stakeholder Management
9 64 (17.88%) Infrastructure as Code
9 64 (17.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 58 (16.20%) Vulnerability Management
11 55 (15.36%) Zero Trust
12 54 (15.08%) DevOps
13 53 (14.80%) Security Operations
13 53 (14.80%) SIEM
14 48 (13.41%) Threat Modelling
15 47 (13.13%) Identity Access Management
16 45 (12.57%) TOGAF
17 43 (12.01%) ITIL
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%) SQL
5 11 (3.07%) TypeScript
6 5 (1.40%) Bash
6 5 (1.40%) Java
7 3 (0.84%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (0.56%) Groovy
8 2 (0.56%) Objective-C
8 2 (0.56%) Search Processing Language
9 1 (0.28%) C
9 1 (0.28%) Go
Qualifications
1 274 (76.54%) Security Cleared
2 216 (60.34%) SC Cleared
3 85 (23.74%) DV Cleared
4 61 (17.04%) CISSP
5 52 (14.53%) CISM
6 32 (8.94%) Cisco Certification
7 23 (6.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 22 (6.15%) Degree
9 14 (3.91%) Azure Certification
10 13 (3.63%) CEH
10 13 (3.63%) CompTIA Security+
11 12 (3.35%) AWS Certification
11 12 (3.35%) CHECK Team Leader
12 11 (3.07%) CCSP
12 11 (3.07%) CESG Certified Professional
12 11 (3.07%) CHECK Team Member
12 11 (3.07%) CRISC
12 11 (3.07%) GIAC
13 7 (1.96%) CCNP
13 7 (1.96%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (30.73%) NIST
2 103 (28.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 49 (13.69%) GDPR
4 40 (11.17%) Cyber Essentials
5 27 (7.54%) JSP 440
6 26 (7.26%) GRC
7 25 (6.98%) NIST 800
8 24 (6.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 16 (4.47%) Accessibility
10 15 (4.19%) Government Security Classifications
11 12 (3.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 11 (3.07%) WCAG
13 10 (2.79%) COBIT
13 10 (2.79%) Data Quality
13 10 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
14 9 (2.51%) RMADS
15 7 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 20000
15 7 (1.96%) PCI DSS
16 6 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 27005
16 6 (1.68%) QA
System Software
1 31 (8.66%) Active Directory
2 20 (5.59%) Docker
3 16 (4.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (3.63%) 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 48 (13.41%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.79%) 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%) FortiGate
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%) FreeIPA
7 1 (0.28%) Grafana
7 1 (0.28%) McAfee ePO
7 1 (0.28%) SCCM
7 1 (0.28%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.28%) VxRail
Vendors
1 88 (24.58%) Microsoft
2 25 (6.98%) VMware
3 15 (4.19%) ServiceNow
4 13 (3.63%) Cisco
4 13 (3.63%) Palo Alto
5 10 (2.79%) Oracle
6 9 (2.51%) Google
6 9 (2.51%) Splunk
7 6 (1.68%) SAP
8 5 (1.40%) Apple
8 5 (1.40%) F5
9 4 (1.12%) SolarWinds
10 3 (0.84%) Citrix
10 3 (0.84%) Cribl.io
10 3 (0.84%) Fortinet
10 3 (0.84%) OneLogin
10 3 (0.84%) Sparx
11 2 (0.56%) Dell
11 2 (0.56%) Tenable
11 2 (0.56%) Zscaler