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 27 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 369 408 490
Rank change year-on-year +39 +82 -77
Contract jobs citing NCSC 328 147 82
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.62% 0.45% 0.20%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.64% 2.65% 1.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 236 99 56
10th Percentile £450 £500 £475
25th Percentile £513 £558 £504
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £645 £600
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +7.50% -12.73%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £728
90th Percentile £775 £738 £756
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £643 £563
% change year-on-year -6.61% +14.22% -19.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 15 1
10th Percentile £75.00 £46.05 -
25th Percentile £80.95 £71.62 -
Median hourly rate £85.40 £85.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.47% +6.25% -3.97%
75th Percentile - £91.50 -
90th Percentile £90.24 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £85.75 £80.00
% change year-on-year -0.41% +7.19% -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 9,020 5,555 5,517
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.08% 16.86% 13.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,780 3,587 3,409
10th Percentile £338 £281 £296
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £504
Median % change year-on-year - -0.79% -4.00%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £714 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £475
% change year-on-year +6.38% -1.05% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 550 249 351
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.58 £11.07
25th Percentile £19.47 £17.45 £14.42
Median hourly rate £38.86 £27.53 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.16% +10.12% -35.42%
75th Percentile £69.67 £60.00 £53.38
90th Percentile £82.25 £83.78 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.86 £25.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year +55.44% - -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 27 July 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 27 July 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 27 July 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 +19 279 £600 -7.41% 73
UK excluding London -19 178 £600 -6.61% 56
Work from Home +24 122 £600 -6.80% 45
London -1 99 £585 -10.00% 25
South East -11 88 £631 -6.48% 17
South West -29 40 £575 -11.54% 17
North of England -60 23 £656 +7.10% 11
North West -32 20 £662 +13.85% 9
West Midlands -46 16 £492 -24.31% 1
Midlands -47 16 £492 -24.31% 1
Scotland 0 9 £663 +35.90% 3
Wales - 4 £800 - 1
East of England -29 3 £450 +80.72% 6
Yorkshire -47 3 £600 -7.69% 1

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 16 (4.88%) Confluence
2 3 (0.91%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.61%) WebLogic
3 2 (0.61%) WebSphere
4 1 (0.30%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.30%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 2 (0.61%) PlantUML
2 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 8 (2.44%) Oracle ERP
2 3 (0.91%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.61%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 117 (35.67%) Azure
2 81 (24.70%) AWS
3 30 (9.15%) Entra ID
4 24 (7.32%) GCP
5 22 (6.71%) Microsoft 365
6 20 (6.10%) SaaS
7 14 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (2.44%) Amazon EKS
8 8 (2.44%) IaaS
8 8 (2.44%) OCI
8 8 (2.44%) PaaS
9 7 (2.13%) Azure AKS
9 7 (2.13%) Serverless
10 6 (1.83%) GitHub
10 6 (1.83%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 5 (1.52%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (1.52%) Azure Monitor
11 5 (1.52%) Power Platform
12 4 (1.22%) Amazon ECS
12 4 (1.22%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 31 (9.45%) Network Security
2 30 (9.15%) Firewall
3 17 (5.18%) VPN
4 15 (4.57%) DNS
5 11 (3.35%) WAN
6 10 (3.05%) BGP
6 10 (3.05%) TCP/IP
7 9 (2.74%) IPsec
7 9 (2.74%) LAN
7 9 (2.74%) OSPF
7 9 (2.74%) VLAN
8 8 (2.44%) MPLS
8 8 (2.44%) SD-WAN
9 6 (1.83%) Cisco Nexus
9 6 (1.83%) VSAN
10 5 (1.52%) Cisco ASA
10 5 (1.52%) Cisco Firepower
11 4 (1.22%) 4G
11 4 (1.22%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 4 (1.22%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (3.35%) Geospatial Data
2 6 (1.83%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (0.91%) Metadata
3 3 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
3 3 (0.91%) Power BI
4 2 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
4 2 (0.61%) DynamoDB
4 2 (0.61%) NoSQL
5 1 (0.30%) Big Data
5 1 (0.30%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.30%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.30%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (0.30%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.30%) SAP HANA
5 1 (0.30%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 19 (5.79%) JIRA
2 13 (3.96%) Git
3 9 (2.74%) MSI
4 3 (0.91%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.30%) GitLab
5 1 (0.30%) Jenkins
General
1 104 (31.71%) Public Sector
2 87 (26.52%) Social Skills
3 21 (6.40%) Finance
4 18 (5.49%) Telecoms
5 16 (4.88%) Analytical Skills
6 14 (4.27%) Military
7 10 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (2.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (2.44%) Law
10 7 (2.13%) Local Government
10 7 (2.13%) Police
11 6 (1.83%) Legal
12 4 (1.22%) Aerospace
12 4 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.61%) Banking
13 2 (0.61%) Manufacturing
14 1 (0.30%) Aviation
14 1 (0.30%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.30%) Retail
Job Titles
1 117 (35.67%) Architect
2 55 (16.77%) Security Architect
3 41 (12.50%) Lead
4 34 (10.37%) Technical Architect
5 30 (9.15%) Consultant
6 26 (7.93%) Senior
7 19 (5.79%) Security Consultant
7 19 (5.79%) Security Manager
8 16 (4.88%) Lead Architect
9 15 (4.57%) Analyst
10 14 (4.27%) Cybersecurity Manager
10 14 (4.27%) Solutions Architect
10 14 (4.27%) Technical Leader
11 13 (3.96%) Developer
11 13 (3.96%) Security Engineer
12 12 (3.66%) Tester
13 11 (3.35%) Network Architect
13 11 (3.35%) Penetration Tester
14 10 (3.05%) Senior Architect
15 9 (2.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.57%) .NET
2 13 (3.96%) REST
3 11 (3.35%) GeoJSON
3 11 (3.35%) RESTful
4 10 (3.05%) .NET Framework
5 9 (2.74%) .NET Core
5 9 (2.74%) ATL
5 9 (2.74%) COM
5 9 (2.74%) CSS
5 9 (2.74%) CSS3
5 9 (2.74%) HTML
5 9 (2.74%) HTML5
5 9 (2.74%) MFC
5 9 (2.74%) OAuth
5 9 (2.74%) OpenID
5 9 (2.74%) SAML
5 9 (2.74%) WPF
6 7 (2.13%) LDAP
7 5 (1.52%) SailPoint
8 4 (1.22%) SAP CAF
Miscellaneous
1 33 (10.06%) Cloud Native
2 28 (8.54%) Onboarding
3 26 (7.93%) Security Operations Centre
4 24 (7.32%) Management Information System
5 20 (6.10%) Cyber Threat
6 18 (5.49%) Operational Technology
6 18 (5.49%) Security Posture
7 16 (4.88%) Data Centre
7 16 (4.88%) PKI
8 15 (4.57%) CSOC
8 15 (4.57%) Legacy Systems
8 15 (4.57%) Public Cloud
9 14 (4.27%) Hybrid Cloud
10 11 (3.35%) SCADA
11 10 (3.05%) Private Cloud
11 10 (3.05%) Product Ownership
12 6 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
13 5 (1.52%) Cyber Defence
13 5 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
14 4 (1.22%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
Operating Systems
1 25 (7.62%) Windows
2 21 (6.40%) Linux
3 7 (2.13%) Mac OS
4 6 (1.83%) Windows Server
5 5 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.22%) Windows 10
7 3 (0.91%) VMS
8 2 (0.61%) Android
8 2 (0.61%) Unix
9 1 (0.30%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.30%) CentOS
9 1 (0.30%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (44.82%) Cybersecurity
2 75 (22.87%) Agile
2 75 (22.87%) Cloud Security
3 70 (21.34%) CI/CD
4 61 (18.60%) Incident Response
4 61 (18.60%) Infrastructure as Code
5 59 (17.99%) Risk Management
6 58 (17.68%) Security Architecture
7 54 (16.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 52 (15.85%) DevOps
8 52 (15.85%) Stakeholder Management
9 51 (15.55%) Continuous Improvement
10 45 (13.72%) TOGAF
11 43 (13.11%) Zero Trust
12 42 (12.80%) SIEM
12 42 (12.80%) Vulnerability Management
13 40 (12.20%) Security Operations
14 37 (11.28%) Containerisation
14 37 (11.28%) Identity Access Management
14 37 (11.28%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 23 (7.01%) Bicep
1 23 (7.01%) Python
2 11 (3.35%) SQL
3 10 (3.05%) C#
3 10 (3.05%) PowerShell
4 9 (2.74%) JavaScript
4 9 (2.74%) TypeScript
5 7 (2.13%) Java
6 2 (0.61%) Bash
6 2 (0.61%) Groovy
6 2 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
6 2 (0.61%) Objective-C
6 2 (0.61%) Search Processing Language
7 1 (0.30%) C
Qualifications
1 239 (72.87%) Security Cleared
2 192 (58.54%) SC Cleared
3 76 (23.17%) DV Cleared
4 43 (13.11%) CISSP
5 38 (11.59%) CISM
6 30 (9.15%) Cisco Certification
7 21 (6.40%) Degree
8 15 (4.57%) CCNP
9 14 (4.27%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 11 (3.35%) AWS Certification
10 11 (3.35%) Azure Certification
10 11 (3.35%) CHECK Team Leader
11 10 (3.05%) CESG Certified Professional
11 10 (3.05%) CHECK Team Member
12 9 (2.74%) GIAC
13 8 (2.44%) CEH
13 8 (2.44%) CompTIA Security+
13 8 (2.44%) Microsoft Certification
14 7 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
14 7 (2.13%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (30.18%) NIST
2 80 (24.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 47 (14.33%) GDPR
4 36 (10.98%) Cyber Essentials
5 26 (7.93%) NIST 800
6 23 (7.01%) JSP 440
7 19 (5.79%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 15 (4.57%) Government Security Classifications
8 15 (4.57%) GRC
9 13 (3.96%) Accessibility
10 10 (3.05%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 10 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 9 (2.74%) COBIT
11 9 (2.74%) RMADS
11 9 (2.74%) WCAG
12 8 (2.44%) Data Quality
13 7 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 7 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 7 (2.13%) PCI DSS
14 6 (1.83%) IASME
System Software
1 28 (8.54%) Active Directory
2 18 (5.49%) Docker
3 15 (4.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (4.27%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.52%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.22%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.91%) vSphere
8 2 (0.61%) KVM
9 1 (0.30%) UAG
Systems Management
1 43 (13.11%) Terraform
2 40 (12.20%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.44%) Ansible
4 7 (2.13%) Jamf Pro
5 6 (1.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.91%) Istio
6 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.61%) CSIRT
7 2 (0.61%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.61%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.30%) CASB
8 1 (0.30%) CloudForms
8 1 (0.30%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 1 (0.30%) FreeIPA
8 1 (0.30%) Grafana
8 1 (0.30%) Iperf
8 1 (0.30%) QRadar
8 1 (0.30%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.30%) VxRail
Vendors
1 76 (23.17%) Microsoft
2 27 (8.23%) VMware
3 17 (5.18%) Cisco
4 13 (3.96%) Palo Alto
5 12 (3.66%) ServiceNow
6 8 (2.44%) Google
6 8 (2.44%) Oracle
7 6 (1.83%) SAP
7 6 (1.83%) SolarWinds
7 6 (1.83%) Splunk
8 5 (1.52%) Apple
8 5 (1.52%) F5
8 5 (1.52%) Fortinet
9 3 (0.91%) CheckPoint
9 3 (0.91%) Citrix
9 3 (0.91%) Sparx
9 3 (0.91%) Zscaler
10 2 (0.61%) Cribl.io
10 2 (0.61%) OneLogin
10 2 (0.61%) Tenable