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 2 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 357 419 455
Rank change year-on-year +62 +36 -36
Contract jobs citing NCSC 295 107 120
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.37% 0.28%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.63% 2.30% 2.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 222 65 76
10th Percentile £461 £500 £481
25th Percentile £513 £566 £559
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £603 £640 £650
Median % change year-on-year -5.86% -1.54% -3.70%
75th Percentile £705 £700 £700
90th Percentile £799 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £640 £613
% change year-on-year -6.25% +4.49% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 8 2
10th Percentile £73.75 £49.13 £80.34
25th Percentile £80.48 £60.75 £80.85
Median hourly rate £83.65 £78.36 £81.71
Median % change year-on-year +6.75% -4.09% +10.43%
75th Percentile £85.40 £88.75 £82.56
90th Percentile - £92.50 £83.07
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £78.36 £80.00
% change year-on-year +8.98% -2.05% +9.62%

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 8,118 4,650 6,000
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.64% 16.07% 13.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,207 2,979 3,787
10th Percentile £340 £263 £280
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 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +5.26% - -2.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 483 180 407
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.13 £10.98
25th Percentile £18.50 £22.11 £13.22
Median hourly rate £35.00 £32.96 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +6.19% +46.49% -40.00%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £48.75
90th Percentile £81.98 £80.00 £69.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £33.50 £18.97
% change year-on-year +19.42% +76.57% -49.41%

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 2 June 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 2 June 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 2 June 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 +26 258 £620 -4.62% 94
UK excluding London -27 140 £600 -6.25% 78
Work from Home +36 112 £643 +3.29% 55
London +1 101 £625 -3.85% 24
South East -6 84 £600 -8.05% 27
South West -16 26 £600 -8.22% 25
North of England -70 15 £668 +3.69% 6
North West -34 11 £668 +0.75% 4
Midlands -62 6 £638 -1.92% 10
West Midlands -65 6 £638 -1.92% 7
Scotland -4 5 £451 -14.19% 3
Yorkshire -58 4 £638 -12.07% 2
East of England -33 3 £450 +80.72% 3
Wales - 1 £550 - 3

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 6 (2.03%) Confluence
2 3 (1.02%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.68%) Camunda
3 2 (0.68%) WebLogic
3 2 (0.68%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.34%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.34%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.68%) PlantUML
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.02%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 2 (0.68%) Oracle ERP
2 2 (0.68%) SAP GRC
2 2 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 106 (35.93%) Azure
2 79 (26.78%) AWS
3 33 (11.19%) Entra ID
4 25 (8.47%) GCP
5 24 (8.14%) OpenShift
6 19 (6.44%) Microsoft 365
7 15 (5.08%) Azure DevOps
7 15 (5.08%) SaaS
8 10 (3.39%) Amazon EKS
8 10 (3.39%) GitHub
9 9 (3.05%) Azure AKS
9 9 (3.05%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (3.05%) IaaS
9 9 (3.05%) PaaS
10 7 (2.37%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (2.37%) Azure Monitor
10 7 (2.37%) Serverless
11 6 (2.03%) Amazon ECS
11 6 (2.03%) AWS KMS
11 6 (2.03%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 30 (10.17%) Firewall
2 20 (6.78%) Network Security
3 11 (3.73%) VPN
4 10 (3.39%) BGP
4 10 (3.39%) IPsec
5 9 (3.05%) OSPF
5 9 (3.05%) SD-WAN
5 9 (3.05%) WAN
6 8 (2.71%) MPLS
7 7 (2.37%) DNS
8 6 (2.03%) LAN
8 6 (2.03%) VSAN
9 4 (1.36%) Ethernet VPN
9 4 (1.36%) Kerberos
9 4 (1.36%) MQTT
9 4 (1.36%) Multicast
9 4 (1.36%) VLAN
9 4 (1.36%) VXLAN
10 3 (1.02%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (1.02%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (1.36%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (1.02%) Power BI
3 3 (1.02%) Redis
3 3 (1.02%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.68%) DynamoDB
4 2 (0.68%) MySQL
5 1 (0.34%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.34%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.34%) EDRMS
5 1 (0.34%) Metadata
5 1 (0.34%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.34%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 15 (5.08%) Jenkins
2 10 (3.39%) JIRA
3 5 (1.69%) Git
3 5 (1.69%) GitLab
4 2 (0.68%) Ant
4 2 (0.68%) Cucumber
4 2 (0.68%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.68%) Gradle
4 2 (0.68%) JUnit
4 2 (0.68%) Maven
4 2 (0.68%) Mockito
5 1 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 84 (28.47%) Public Sector
2 81 (27.46%) Social Skills
3 33 (11.19%) Finance
4 22 (7.46%) Influencing Skills
5 19 (6.44%) Documentation Skills
6 17 (5.76%) Analytical Skills
7 14 (4.75%) Telecoms
8 10 (3.39%) Military
9 9 (3.05%) Law
10 7 (2.37%) Local Government
10 7 (2.37%) Police
11 6 (2.03%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.69%) Legal
13 3 (1.02%) Electronics
13 3 (1.02%) Marketing
13 3 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.68%) Aviation
14 2 (0.68%) Banking
14 2 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 2 (0.68%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 112 (37.97%) Architect
2 48 (16.27%) Security Architect
3 28 (9.49%) Technical Architect
4 27 (9.15%) Consultant
4 27 (9.15%) Senior
5 25 (8.47%) Lead
6 16 (5.42%) Security Consultant
7 15 (5.08%) Security Manager
8 13 (4.41%) CyberArk Architect
9 12 (4.07%) Cybersecurity Manager
9 12 (4.07%) Solutions Architect
10 11 (3.73%) Analyst
11 10 (3.39%) Cloud Engineer
11 10 (3.39%) Coordinator
11 10 (3.39%) Security Assurance Coordinator
11 10 (3.39%) Security Engineer
12 9 (3.05%) Azure Engineer
12 9 (3.05%) Lead Architect
12 9 (3.05%) Tester
13 8 (2.71%) Penetration Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (7.46%) LDAP
2 19 (6.44%) SAML
3 18 (6.10%) OpenID
4 5 (1.69%) .NET
4 5 (1.69%) Kafka
4 5 (1.69%) OAuth
5 4 (1.36%) ADO
5 4 (1.36%) ARM Templates
5 4 (1.36%) Oracle Fusion
5 4 (1.36%) REST
6 3 (1.02%) JSON
6 3 (1.02%) Keycloak
6 3 (1.02%) SOAP
6 3 (1.02%) Web Services
7 2 (0.68%) AngularJS
7 2 (0.68%) CSS
7 2 (0.68%) HTML
7 2 (0.68%) OpenAPI
7 2 (0.68%) RabbitMQ
7 2 (0.68%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 26 (8.81%) Cloud Native
2 20 (6.78%) Onboarding
2 20 (6.78%) Operational Technology
3 19 (6.44%) Management Information System
4 15 (5.08%) Cyber Threat
5 13 (4.41%) PKI
5 13 (4.41%) Public Cloud
6 12 (4.07%) Security Posture
7 11 (3.73%) Security Operations Centre
8 10 (3.39%) CSOC
8 10 (3.39%) Data Centre
9 8 (2.71%) Product Ownership
9 8 (2.71%) SCADA
10 7 (2.37%) Hybrid Cloud
10 7 (2.37%) Private Cloud
11 6 (2.03%) NHS
12 5 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
13 4 (1.36%) Cyberattack
13 4 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
14 3 (1.02%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 22 (7.46%) Linux
2 15 (5.08%) Windows
3 6 (2.03%) Windows Server
4 3 (1.02%) Android
4 3 (1.02%) Apple iOS
4 3 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.02%) VMS
5 2 (0.68%) Unix
6 1 (0.34%) CentOS
6 1 (0.34%) Rocky
6 1 (0.34%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.34%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (44.41%) Cybersecurity
2 76 (25.76%) CI/CD
3 68 (23.05%) DevOps
4 65 (22.03%) Infrastructure as Code
5 63 (21.36%) Cloud Security
6 57 (19.32%) Agile
6 57 (19.32%) Security Architecture
7 55 (18.64%) Stakeholder Management
8 54 (18.31%) Risk Management
9 49 (16.61%) Threat Modelling
10 45 (15.25%) Continuous Improvement
11 42 (14.24%) Incident Response
12 40 (13.56%) Zero Trust
13 37 (12.54%) SIEM
13 37 (12.54%) TOGAF
14 35 (11.86%) Architectural Patterns
14 35 (11.86%) Containerisation
15 33 (11.19%) DevSecOps
16 32 (10.85%) Roadmaps
16 32 (10.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 14 (4.75%) Bicep
2 13 (4.41%) Python
3 11 (3.73%) SQL
4 8 (2.71%) PowerShell
5 6 (2.03%) Bash
5 6 (2.03%) Java
6 2 (0.68%) Go
6 2 (0.68%) Kotlin
6 2 (0.68%) Swift
7 1 (0.34%) C#
Qualifications
1 208 (70.51%) Security Cleared
2 174 (58.98%) SC Cleared
3 49 (16.61%) DV Cleared
4 39 (13.22%) CISSP
5 35 (11.86%) CISM
6 26 (8.81%) Cisco Certification
7 20 (6.78%) Degree
8 13 (4.41%) AWS Certification
8 13 (4.41%) CCNP
9 11 (3.73%) Azure Certification
9 11 (3.73%) GIAC
10 10 (3.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 10 (3.39%) CEH
10 10 (3.39%) CHECK Team Leader
11 8 (2.71%) CCIE
11 8 (2.71%) CCSP
11 8 (2.71%) CESG Certified Professional
11 8 (2.71%) CompTIA Security+
12 7 (2.37%) CHECK Team Member
12 7 (2.37%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (34.92%) NIST
2 87 (29.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 40 (13.56%) GDPR
4 33 (11.19%) Cyber Essentials
5 23 (7.80%) JSP 440
6 21 (7.12%) NIST 800
7 18 (6.10%) RMADS
8 16 (5.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 14 (4.75%) Government Security Classifications
10 11 (3.73%) GRC
11 10 (3.39%) COBIT
11 10 (3.39%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 10 (3.39%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 7 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 7 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (2.03%) IASME
13 6 (2.03%) PCI DSS
14 4 (1.36%) Accessibility
14 4 (1.36%) QA
15 3 (1.02%) Def Stans
System Software
1 26 (8.81%) Active Directory
2 14 (4.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (4.07%) Docker
4 9 (3.05%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.69%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.36%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (1.02%) vSphere
8 2 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.34%) GPFS
9 1 (0.34%) KVM
9 1 (0.34%) Lustre
9 1 (0.34%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.34%) UAG
Systems Management
1 49 (16.61%) Kubernetes
2 31 (10.51%) Terraform
3 12 (4.07%) Ansible
4 6 (2.03%) Istio
5 5 (1.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 5 (1.69%) Grafana
5 5 (1.69%) Prometheus
6 4 (1.36%) Argo
7 3 (1.02%) linkerd
8 2 (0.68%) Cisco Prime
8 2 (0.68%) Iperf
8 2 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.68%) Nmap
8 2 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.34%) CASB
9 1 (0.34%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.34%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.34%) McAfee ePO
9 1 (0.34%) SELinux
9 1 (0.34%) VxRail
Vendors
1 53 (17.97%) Microsoft
2 24 (8.14%) VMware
3 21 (7.12%) Splunk
4 17 (5.76%) Cisco
5 14 (4.75%) CyberArk
6 12 (4.07%) Palo Alto
7 9 (3.05%) Fortinet
8 8 (2.71%) Red Hat
9 6 (2.03%) Zscaler
10 5 (1.69%) Citrix
10 5 (1.69%) Juniper
10 5 (1.69%) Oracle
10 5 (1.69%) SAP
11 4 (1.36%) BiZZdesign
11 4 (1.36%) CheckPoint
11 4 (1.36%) Google
11 4 (1.36%) ServiceNow
12 3 (1.02%) SolarWinds
12 3 (1.02%) Sparx
12 3 (1.02%) Tenable