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 11 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 340 373 498
Rank change year-on-year +33 +125 -137
Contract jobs citing NCSC 393 184 72
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 0.56% 0.19%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 4.05% 3.17% 1.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 277 129 39
10th Percentile £456 £500 £473
25th Percentile £519 £550 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £650 £525
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% +23.81% -21.76%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £645
90th Percentile £794 £746 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £650 £531
% change year-on-year -7.69% +22.50% -21.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 16 3
10th Percentile £71.00 £39.10 -
25th Percentile £80.48 £82.50 £60.75
Median hourly rate £85.20 £87.00 £61.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.07% +41.47% -26.26%
75th Percentile £96.00 £91.50 £71.12
90th Percentile - - £76.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £85.40 £87.50 £61.50
% change year-on-year -2.40% +42.29% -26.26%

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 9,696 5,800 5,070
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.77% 17.51% 13.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,065 3,708 2,949
10th Percentile £325 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £399
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.50% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £610 £608 £625
90th Percentile £713 £705 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £475
% change year-on-year +1.26% - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 688 283 240
10th Percentile £13.70 £13.60 £13.26
25th Percentile £16.56 £16.71 £16.17
Median hourly rate £30.27 £30.00 £27.67
Median % change year-on-year +0.90% +8.42% -22.34%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.00 £62.88
90th Percentile £74.25 £80.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £25.11 £27.75
% change year-on-year +25.28% -9.50% -26.00%

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 11 October 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 11 October 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 11 October 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 +8 321 £599 -7.49% 217
UK excluding London -9 201 £600 -7.69% 148
Work from Home +17 146 £585 -9.65% 130
London -10 127 £599 -7.85% 77
South East -20 62 £713 +20.76% 33
South West -20 59 £560 -17.04% 18
North of England -31 50 £577 +4.82% 36
North West -7 46 £567 +41.75% 23
Midlands -38 20 £585 -16.43% 20
West Midlands -43 20 £585 -16.43% 14
Scotland -10 18 £800 +45.45% 21
Wales -10 5 £800 +236.13% 7
East of England -39 4 £510 +104.82% 9
North East - 4 £675 - 9

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 21 (5.34%) Confluence
2 6 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.02%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.76%) Apache
5 1 (0.25%) IIS
5 1 (0.25%) nginx
5 1 (0.25%) SharePoint 2010
5 1 (0.25%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.25%) Traefik
Applications
1 3 (0.76%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (0.51%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.51%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.25%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 10 (2.54%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (1.02%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.51%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 119 (30.28%) Azure
2 103 (26.21%) AWS
3 35 (8.91%) GCP
4 31 (7.89%) Entra ID
5 20 (5.09%) SaaS
6 19 (4.83%) Azure DevOps
7 16 (4.07%) Microsoft 365
8 12 (3.05%) GitHub
9 11 (2.80%) OCI
10 10 (2.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 8 (2.04%) Amazon EKS
11 8 (2.04%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
11 8 (2.04%) IaaS
12 7 (1.78%) Azure Sentinel
12 7 (1.78%) Serverless
13 6 (1.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 6 (1.53%) Amazon ECS
13 6 (1.53%) Lucidchart
13 6 (1.53%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 31 (7.89%) Network Security
2 27 (6.87%) Firewall
3 15 (3.82%) DNS
3 15 (3.82%) VPN
4 10 (2.54%) TCP/IP
5 7 (1.78%) LAN
5 7 (1.78%) WAN
6 6 (1.53%) DHCP
6 6 (1.53%) VLAN
7 5 (1.27%) Cisco Firepower
7 5 (1.27%) Cisco Nexus
7 5 (1.27%) SD-WAN
7 5 (1.27%) X.509
8 4 (1.02%) 4G
8 4 (1.02%) BGP
8 4 (1.02%) BIG-IP
8 4 (1.02%) Cisco ASA
8 4 (1.02%) IPsec
8 4 (1.02%) MPLS
8 4 (1.02%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (3.31%) Geospatial Data
2 7 (1.78%) Metadata
3 5 (1.27%) Data Lake
4 4 (1.02%) DynamoDB
5 3 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
5 3 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
6 2 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.51%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.51%) Parquet
7 1 (0.25%) Big Data
7 1 (0.25%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.25%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.25%) Relational Database
7 1 (0.25%) SAP HANA
7 1 (0.25%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 24 (6.11%) JIRA
2 13 (3.31%) Git
3 11 (2.80%) GitLab
3 11 (2.80%) Jenkins
3 11 (2.80%) MSI
4 2 (0.51%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 125 (31.81%) Public Sector
2 108 (27.48%) Social Skills
3 25 (6.36%) Analytical Skills
3 25 (6.36%) Finance
4 22 (5.60%) Military
5 20 (5.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 16 (4.07%) Telecoms
7 15 (3.82%) Aerospace
7 15 (3.82%) Influencing Skills
8 14 (3.56%) Local Government
9 12 (3.05%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (2.80%) Law
11 7 (1.78%) Back Office
12 6 (1.53%) Manufacturing
12 6 (1.53%) Organisational Skills
12 6 (1.53%) Police
13 4 (1.02%) Legal
14 2 (0.51%) Billing
14 2 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
15 1 (0.25%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 137 (34.86%) Architect
2 73 (18.58%) Security Architect
3 60 (15.27%) Lead
4 47 (11.96%) Consultant
5 33 (8.40%) Senior
6 31 (7.89%) Technical Architect
7 28 (7.12%) Security Consultant
8 26 (6.62%) Security Manager
9 22 (5.60%) Cybersecurity Consultant
10 19 (4.83%) Cybersecurity Manager
11 17 (4.33%) Lead Architect
12 14 (3.56%) Security Engineer
12 14 (3.56%) Solutions Architect
13 13 (3.31%) Analyst
13 13 (3.31%) Senior Architect
13 13 (3.31%) Tester
14 12 (3.05%) Developer
14 12 (3.05%) Penetration Tester
15 11 (2.80%) Information Manager
15 11 (2.80%) Information Security Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (13.23%) Terraform
2 19 (4.83%) RESTful
3 18 (4.58%) REST
4 16 (4.07%) .NET
5 13 (3.31%) GeoJSON
6 12 (3.05%) SAML
7 11 (2.80%) .NET Core
7 11 (2.80%) .NET Framework
7 11 (2.80%) ATL
7 11 (2.80%) COM
7 11 (2.80%) CSS
7 11 (2.80%) CSS3
7 11 (2.80%) HTML
7 11 (2.80%) HTML5
7 11 (2.80%) MFC
7 11 (2.80%) OAuth
7 11 (2.80%) WPF
8 10 (2.54%) OpenID
9 9 (2.29%) LDAP
9 9 (2.29%) ModSecurity
Miscellaneous
1 46 (11.70%) Onboarding
2 42 (10.69%) Cloud Native
3 36 (9.16%) Security Operations Centre
4 32 (8.14%) Management Information System
5 30 (7.63%) Security Posture
6 29 (7.38%) Cyber Threat
7 22 (5.60%) Operational Technology
8 21 (5.34%) Legacy Systems
8 21 (5.34%) PKI
9 20 (5.09%) CSOC
10 13 (3.31%) SCADA
11 12 (3.05%) Hybrid Cloud
12 11 (2.80%) Private Cloud
13 9 (2.29%) Data Centre
14 7 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
14 7 (1.78%) Public Cloud
15 6 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
16 5 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
16 5 (1.27%) Cyber Defence
16 5 (1.27%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 29 (7.38%) Windows
2 15 (3.82%) Linux
3 9 (2.29%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.78%) macOS
5 5 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.02%) Unix
6 4 (1.02%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.51%) CentOS
7 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.25%) Android
8 1 (0.25%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 205 (52.16%) Cybersecurity
2 94 (23.92%) Security Architecture
3 93 (23.66%) Risk Management
4 87 (22.14%) Incident Response
5 86 (21.88%) Stakeholder Management
6 85 (21.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 84 (21.37%) Vulnerability Management
8 81 (20.61%) Continuous Improvement
9 80 (20.36%) Cloud Security
10 74 (18.83%) Agile
11 72 (18.32%) CI/CD
12 61 (15.52%) Technical Leadership
13 60 (15.27%) Infrastructure as Code
14 59 (15.01%) Security Operations
15 58 (14.76%) Decision-Making
16 56 (14.25%) DevOps
16 56 (14.25%) Threat Intelligence
17 55 (13.99%) Penetration Testing
17 55 (13.99%) SIEM
17 55 (13.99%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 31 (7.89%) Python
2 27 (6.87%) Bicep
3 16 (4.07%) PowerShell
4 11 (2.80%) C#
4 11 (2.80%) JavaScript
4 11 (2.80%) TypeScript
5 8 (2.04%) Bash
6 5 (1.27%) Java
7 4 (1.02%) SQL
8 3 (0.76%) Go
8 3 (0.76%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.51%) Groovy
9 2 (0.51%) Objective-C
9 2 (0.51%) Search Processing Language
10 1 (0.25%) C
Qualifications
1 317 (80.66%) Security Cleared
2 246 (62.60%) SC Cleared
3 94 (23.92%) DV Cleared
4 66 (16.79%) CISSP
5 55 (13.99%) CISM
6 29 (7.38%) Cisco Certification
7 24 (6.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 21 (5.34%) AWS Certification
8 21 (5.34%) Degree
9 16 (4.07%) Azure Certification
10 15 (3.82%) CRISC
11 14 (3.56%) BPSS Clearance
12 13 (3.31%) CCSP
13 12 (3.05%) CHECK Team Leader
14 11 (2.80%) CHECK Team Member
14 11 (2.80%) CompTIA Security+
15 10 (2.54%) CEH
15 10 (2.54%) GIAC
15 10 (2.54%) TOGAF Certification
16 9 (2.29%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 138 (35.11%) NIST
2 136 (34.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 47 (11.96%) GDPR
4 45 (11.45%) GRC
5 32 (8.14%) Cyber Essentials
6 31 (7.89%) JSP 440
7 25 (6.36%) NIST 800
8 23 (5.85%) Data Quality
9 19 (4.83%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 12 (3.05%) Accessibility
11 11 (2.80%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 11 (2.80%) WCAG
12 7 (1.78%) Def Stans
12 7 (1.78%) QA
13 6 (1.53%) Government Security Classifications
13 6 (1.53%) SLA
14 5 (1.27%) COBIT
14 5 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 5 (1.27%) PCI DSS
15 4 (1.02%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 30 (7.63%) Active Directory
2 20 (5.09%) Docker
3 12 (3.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (1.78%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.27%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.02%) Firmware
7 3 (0.76%) KVM
8 2 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 2 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.51%) vSphere
9 1 (0.25%) UAG
Systems Management
1 46 (11.70%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.54%) Ansible
3 8 (2.04%) Jamf Pro
4 7 (1.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 6 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 5 (1.27%) Grafana
6 5 (1.27%) QRadar
7 4 (1.02%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (0.76%) Istio
8 3 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.51%) CSIRT
9 2 (0.51%) SCCM
10 1 (0.25%) Argo
10 1 (0.25%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.25%) HAProxy
10 1 (0.25%) linkerd
10 1 (0.25%) McAfee ePO
10 1 (0.25%) Packer
10 1 (0.25%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.25%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 88 (22.39%) Microsoft
2 18 (4.58%) ServiceNow
2 18 (4.58%) VMware
3 14 (3.56%) Oracle
4 12 (3.05%) Google
4 12 (3.05%) Splunk
5 8 (2.04%) Palo Alto
6 7 (1.78%) Cisco
7 6 (1.53%) SAP
8 5 (1.27%) Apple
9 4 (1.02%) F5
9 4 (1.02%) Northgate
9 4 (1.02%) OneLogin
9 4 (1.02%) SolarWinds
9 4 (1.02%) Sparx
10 3 (0.76%) Cribl.io
11 2 (0.51%) Becrypt
11 2 (0.51%) CrowdStrike
11 2 (0.51%) Qualys
11 2 (0.51%) Zscaler