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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 348 398 498
Rank change year-on-year +50 +100 -96
Contract jobs citing NCSC 352 158 84
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.48% 0.22%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.77% 2.84% 1.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 243 111 53
10th Percentile £457 £500 £481
25th Percentile £517 £545 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £645 £600
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +7.50% -13.51%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £738
90th Percentile £775 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £650 £575
% change year-on-year -7.69% +13.04% -17.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 15 1
10th Percentile £71.00 £46.05 -
25th Percentile £77.75 £82.50 -
Median hourly rate £85.20 £87.50 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.63% +9.38% -4.08%
75th Percentile £96.00 £91.50 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £88.75 £80.00
% change year-on-year -3.77% +10.94% -4.08%

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 9,333 5,565 5,190
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.40% 16.99% 13.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,913 3,574 3,154
10th Percentile £325 £288 £288
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £512
Median % change year-on-year - -2.39% -2.43%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £714 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £483
% change year-on-year +3.16% -1.71% -3.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 583 256 282
10th Percentile £13.86 £13.60 £11.81
25th Percentile £17.29 £16.92 £14.46
Median hourly rate £36.07 £30.00 £25.30
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +18.58% -26.67%
75th Percentile £68.75 £60.31 £56.88
90th Percentile £79.80 £82.98 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.07 £25.83 £24.18
% change year-on-year +39.67% +6.80% -28.76%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +17 298 £585 -10.00% 210
UK excluding London -9 193 £600 -7.69% 172
Work from Home +19 130 £585 -8.95% 131
London -17 107 £585 -10.00% 86
South East -3 76 £642 -4.96% 35
South West -26 53 £600 -11.11% 39
North West -21 37 £568 +42.00% 25
North of England -37 37 £568 +3.27% 35
West Midlands -44 17 £568 -18.86% 15
Midlands -49 17 £568 -18.86% 20
Scotland -15 10 £800 +64.10% 17
East of England -32 6 £480 +92.77% 10
Wales -11 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 (5.68%) Confluence
2 4 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.57%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.28%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.28%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.28%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (2.84%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (1.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.57%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 119 (33.81%) Azure
2 83 (23.58%) AWS
3 27 (7.67%) Entra ID
4 25 (7.10%) GCP
5 21 (5.97%) SaaS
6 20 (5.68%) Azure DevOps
7 18 (5.11%) Microsoft 365
8 11 (3.13%) GitHub
9 10 (2.84%) IaaS
9 10 (2.84%) OCI
10 8 (2.27%) PaaS
11 7 (1.99%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (1.99%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (1.99%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 6 (1.70%) Amazon EKS
13 5 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
13 5 (1.42%) Azure AKS
13 5 (1.42%) Azure Key Vault
13 5 (1.42%) Serverless
14 4 (1.14%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 28 (7.95%) Network Security
2 27 (7.67%) Firewall
3 17 (4.83%) VPN
4 16 (4.55%) DNS
5 9 (2.56%) TCP/IP
6 8 (2.27%) WAN
7 7 (1.99%) LAN
8 6 (1.70%) IPsec
8 6 (1.70%) SD-WAN
8 6 (1.70%) VLAN
9 5 (1.42%) Cisco Firepower
9 5 (1.42%) Cisco Nexus
9 5 (1.42%) DHCP
10 4 (1.14%) 4G
10 4 (1.14%) BIG-IP
10 4 (1.14%) Cisco ASA
10 4 (1.14%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 4 (1.14%) MPLS
10 4 (1.14%) OSPF
10 4 (1.14%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (3.69%) Geospatial Data
2 4 (1.14%) Metadata
3 3 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
4 2 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
4 2 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
4 2 (0.57%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.57%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (0.57%) DynamoDB
4 2 (0.57%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.28%) Big Data
5 1 (0.28%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.28%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.28%) SAP HANA
5 1 (0.28%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 22 (6.25%) JIRA
2 15 (4.26%) Git
3 11 (3.13%) MSI
4 7 (1.99%) GitLab
4 7 (1.99%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 107 (30.40%) Public Sector
2 88 (25.00%) Social Skills
3 23 (6.53%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (6.25%) Finance
5 20 (5.68%) Military
6 18 (5.11%) Telecoms
7 12 (3.41%) Aerospace
7 12 (3.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 11 (3.13%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (3.13%) Local Government
9 9 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (2.56%) Police
10 8 (2.27%) Law
11 5 (1.42%) Manufacturing
11 5 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.14%) Legal
13 2 (0.57%) Banking
14 1 (0.28%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.28%) Publishing
14 1 (0.28%) Retail
Job Titles
1 116 (32.95%) Architect
2 60 (17.05%) Security Architect
3 45 (12.78%) Lead
4 36 (10.23%) Consultant
5 30 (8.52%) Senior
6 26 (7.39%) Security Manager
7 25 (7.10%) Technical Architect
8 21 (5.97%) Security Consultant
9 19 (5.40%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 17 (4.83%) Security Engineer
11 14 (3.98%) Lead Architect
12 13 (3.69%) Cybersecurity Consultant
12 13 (3.69%) Developer
13 12 (3.41%) Analyst
14 11 (3.13%) Information Manager
14 11 (3.13%) Information Security Manager
14 11 (3.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 11 (3.13%) Penetration Tester
14 11 (3.13%) SOC Manager
14 11 (3.13%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (14.20%) Terraform
2 17 (4.83%) .NET
3 15 (4.26%) REST
4 14 (3.98%) RESTful
5 13 (3.69%) GeoJSON
6 12 (3.41%) .NET Framework
7 11 (3.13%) .NET Core
7 11 (3.13%) ATL
7 11 (3.13%) COM
7 11 (3.13%) CSS
7 11 (3.13%) CSS3
7 11 (3.13%) HTML
7 11 (3.13%) HTML5
7 11 (3.13%) MFC
7 11 (3.13%) OAuth
7 11 (3.13%) SAML
7 11 (3.13%) WPF
8 10 (2.84%) OpenID
9 8 (2.27%) LDAP
10 6 (1.70%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 36 (10.23%) Cloud Native
2 34 (9.66%) Security Operations Centre
3 33 (9.38%) Management Information System
4 28 (7.95%) Onboarding
5 21 (5.97%) Legacy Systems
5 21 (5.97%) Security Posture
6 20 (5.68%) CSOC
6 20 (5.68%) PKI
7 19 (5.40%) Cyber Threat
7 19 (5.40%) Operational Technology
8 14 (3.98%) Hybrid Cloud
9 12 (3.41%) SCADA
10 11 (3.13%) Data Centre
10 11 (3.13%) Private Cloud
10 11 (3.13%) Public Cloud
11 6 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
12 5 (1.42%) Cyber Defence
12 5 (1.42%) Distributed Systems
12 5 (1.42%) NHS
12 5 (1.42%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 30 (8.52%) Windows
2 21 (5.97%) Linux
3 11 (3.13%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.99%) Mac OS
5 6 (1.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.14%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.57%) Android
7 2 (0.57%) 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
1 170 (48.30%) Cybersecurity
2 87 (24.72%) Incident Response
3 78 (22.16%) Risk Management
4 73 (20.74%) Cloud Security
4 73 (20.74%) Security Architecture
5 72 (20.45%) Continuous Improvement
6 71 (20.17%) CI/CD
7 68 (19.32%) Agile
8 66 (18.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 64 (18.18%) Vulnerability Management
10 63 (17.90%) Stakeholder Management
11 60 (17.05%) Infrastructure as Code
12 59 (16.76%) Zero Trust
13 55 (15.63%) Security Operations
14 53 (15.06%) DevOps
14 53 (15.06%) SIEM
15 48 (13.64%) Threat Modelling
16 43 (12.22%) Decision-Making
16 43 (12.22%) Incident Management
16 43 (12.22%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 29 (8.24%) Bicep
1 29 (8.24%) Python
2 16 (4.55%) PowerShell
3 12 (3.41%) C#
4 11 (3.13%) JavaScript
4 11 (3.13%) TypeScript
5 7 (1.99%) Bash
6 5 (1.42%) Java
7 4 (1.14%) SQL
8 3 (0.85%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.57%) Groovy
9 2 (0.57%) Objective-C
9 2 (0.57%) Search Processing Language
10 1 (0.28%) C
10 1 (0.28%) Go
Qualifications
1 272 (77.27%) Security Cleared
2 212 (60.23%) SC Cleared
3 87 (24.72%) DV Cleared
4 60 (17.05%) CISSP
5 52 (14.77%) CISM
6 31 (8.81%) Cisco Certification
7 23 (6.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 18 (5.11%) Degree
9 14 (3.98%) Azure Certification
10 12 (3.41%) CEH
10 12 (3.41%) CompTIA Security+
11 11 (3.13%) AWS Certification
11 11 (3.13%) CHECK Team Leader
11 11 (3.13%) CRISC
11 11 (3.13%) GIAC
12 10 (2.84%) CCSP
12 10 (2.84%) CESG Certified Professional
12 10 (2.84%) CHECK Team Member
13 9 (2.56%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (1.99%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (32.95%) NIST
2 106 (30.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 43 (12.22%) GDPR
4 37 (10.51%) Cyber Essentials
5 30 (8.52%) JSP 440
6 29 (8.24%) GRC
7 26 (7.39%) NIST 800
8 22 (6.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 16 (4.55%) Data Quality
10 14 (3.98%) Accessibility
11 11 (3.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 11 (3.13%) WCAG
12 10 (2.84%) COBIT
12 10 (2.84%) Government Security Classifications
13 8 (2.27%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 8 (2.27%) RMADS
14 7 (1.99%) PCI DSS
14 7 (1.99%) QA
15 6 (1.70%) Def Stans
15 6 (1.70%) SLA
System Software
1 28 (7.95%) Active Directory
2 20 (5.68%) Docker
3 17 (4.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (3.13%) VMware NSX
5 6 (1.70%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.14%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.85%) vSphere
8 2 (0.57%) Firmware
8 2 (0.57%) KVM
8 2 (0.57%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 2 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.57%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.28%) UAG
Systems Management
1 49 (13.92%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.84%) Ansible
3 7 (1.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 7 (1.99%) Jamf Pro
4 5 (1.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (0.85%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.85%) QRadar
5 3 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.57%) CSIRT
6 2 (0.57%) Grafana
6 2 (0.57%) Istio
6 2 (0.57%) 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 85 (24.15%) Microsoft
2 24 (6.82%) VMware
3 15 (4.26%) ServiceNow
4 11 (3.13%) Cisco
5 10 (2.84%) Oracle
5 10 (2.84%) Palo Alto
5 10 (2.84%) Splunk
6 9 (2.56%) Google
7 6 (1.70%) SAP
8 5 (1.42%) Apple
9 4 (1.14%) F5
9 4 (1.14%) OneLogin
9 4 (1.14%) SolarWinds
9 4 (1.14%) Sparx
10 3 (0.85%) Citrix
10 3 (0.85%) Cribl.io
10 3 (0.85%) Fortinet
10 3 (0.85%) Red Hat
10 3 (0.85%) Tenable
11 2 (0.57%) Qualys