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 6 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 372 440 331
Rank change year-on-year +68 -109 +236
Contract jobs citing NCSC 228 108 298
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.30% 0.66%
As % of the Quality Assurance & Compliance category 3.58% 2.17% 4.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 69 125
10th Percentile £419 £498 £500
25th Percentile £531 £513 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £600 £613
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% -2.04% -9.26%
75th Percentile £700 £725 £710
90th Percentile £775 £744 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £643 £623 £613
% change year-on-year +3.21% +1.63% -5.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 4 26
10th Percentile £52.67 - £61.63
25th Percentile £80.38 £60.75 £82.25
Median hourly rate £87.50 £61.50 £83.40
Median % change year-on-year +42.29% -26.26% +31.90%
75th Percentile £91.50 £66.27 -
90th Percentile - £73.52 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.75 £61.50 £83.40
% change year-on-year +44.32% -26.26% +21.76%

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 6,364 4,987 6,529
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.46% 13.86% 14.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,101 2,924 4,365
10th Percentile £313 £263 £313
25th Percentile £405 £381 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £603 £623 £640
90th Percentile £700 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 312 212 240
10th Percentile £13.60 £14.45 £14.51
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.38 £19.87
Median hourly rate £25.15 £27.18 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.45% -23.45% +55.41%
75th Percentile £57.13 £55.82 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.88 £70.00 £83.12
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.83 £26.50 £35.50
% change year-on-year -21.40% -25.35% +69.05%

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 6 December 2025.

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 6 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for NCSC in the UK

NCSC
Top 16 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 6 December 2025. 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 +80 201 £600 -2.83% 156
UK excluding London +17 123 £643 +3.21% 188
Work from Home +33 76 £613 +9.38% 102
London +20 62 £594 +6.50% 22
South West +40 48 £675 +3.85% 23
South East -7 29 £600 -2.83% 44
West Midlands -10 17 £700 +24.44% 12
Midlands -20 17 £700 +24.44% 19
East of England +2 14 £294 - 20
North of England -48 12 £575 -20.69% 34
North West -23 7 £463 -8.23% 18
Wales 0 5 £238 -51.18% 12
Channel Islands - 5 £725 -
Yorkshire -37 4 £600 -17.24% 12
Scotland +5 3 £588 -14.23% 39
North East -3 1 £550 -26.67% 4

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 (2.63%) Confluence
2 3 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.88%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 76 (33.33%) Azure
2 67 (29.39%) AWS
3 31 (13.60%) Entra ID
4 25 (10.96%) GitHub
5 21 (9.21%) AWS CloudFormation
6 16 (7.02%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 12 (5.26%) GCP
8 11 (4.82%) Azure DevOps
9 10 (4.39%) Amazon ECS
9 10 (4.39%) AWS Fargate
10 9 (3.95%) Microsoft 365
10 9 (3.95%) SaaS
11 8 (3.51%) Amazon GuardDuty
11 8 (3.51%) AWS KMS
11 8 (3.51%) Azure Sentinel
12 7 (3.07%) AWS CloudTrail
13 6 (2.63%) Amazon EKS
13 6 (2.63%) Amazon S3
13 6 (2.63%) Azure Monitor
13 6 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 21 (9.21%) Firewall
2 16 (7.02%) Network Security
3 11 (4.82%) DNS
4 7 (3.07%) VPN
5 5 (2.19%) BGP
6 4 (1.75%) VSAN
7 3 (1.32%) 4G
7 3 (1.32%) 5G
7 3 (1.32%) Internet
7 3 (1.32%) Kerberos
7 3 (1.32%) SD-WAN
7 3 (1.32%) Skype
7 3 (1.32%) WAN
8 2 (0.88%) DMZ
8 2 (0.88%) EIGRP
8 2 (0.88%) OSPF
8 2 (0.88%) SNMP
8 2 (0.88%) TCP/IP
9 1 (0.44%) NAS
9 1 (0.44%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.07%) Amazon RDS
1 7 (3.07%) MongoDB
2 3 (1.32%) Redis
3 2 (0.88%) Amazon Athena
3 2 (0.88%) Amazon Redshift
3 2 (0.88%) BigQuery
3 2 (0.88%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (0.88%) Weaviate
4 1 (0.44%) Amazon QuickSight
4 1 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.44%) Power BI
4 1 (0.44%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.44%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 15 (6.58%) SonarQube
2 14 (6.14%) GitLab
3 11 (4.82%) Jenkins
4 8 (3.51%) JIRA
5 5 (2.19%) Git
6 4 (1.75%) Terragrunt
7 3 (1.32%) Burp Suite
7 3 (1.32%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.44%) Gatling
8 1 (0.44%) JMeter
8 1 (0.44%) Mocha
8 1 (0.44%) MSI
8 1 (0.44%) Postman
8 1 (0.44%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.44%) Selenium
General
1 70 (30.70%) Public Sector
2 60 (26.32%) Social Skills
3 22 (9.65%) Military
4 20 (8.77%) Finance
5 9 (3.95%) Manufacturing
6 8 (3.51%) Electronics
6 8 (3.51%) Law
6 8 (3.51%) Marketing
6 8 (3.51%) Police
6 8 (3.51%) Telecoms
7 7 (3.07%) Back Office
7 7 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (2.63%) Aerospace
9 5 (2.19%) Analytical Skills
9 5 (2.19%) Local Government
10 4 (1.75%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.32%) Retail
12 1 (0.44%) Banking
12 1 (0.44%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 64 (28.07%) Architect
2 37 (16.23%) Lead
3 28 (12.28%) Security Engineer
4 25 (10.96%) Security Architect
5 20 (8.77%) Consultant
6 16 (7.02%) Analyst
7 15 (6.58%) Security Consultant
7 15 (6.58%) Senior
8 12 (5.26%) DevSecOps Engineer
9 11 (4.82%) Security Analyst
9 11 (4.82%) Solutions Architect
10 9 (3.95%) Cloud Architect
10 9 (3.95%) DevOps Engineer
11 8 (3.51%) Tester
12 7 (3.07%) Penetration Tester
12 7 (3.07%) Security Manager
12 7 (3.07%) SOC Architect
13 6 (2.63%) Lead Architect
13 6 (2.63%) Lead DevOps
13 6 (2.63%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (4.82%) YAML
2 10 (4.39%) Kafka
3 9 (3.95%) Keycloak
4 8 (3.51%) ModSecurity
5 7 (3.07%) cloud-init
6 4 (1.75%) AWS CDK
7 3 (1.32%) .NET
7 3 (1.32%) LDAP
7 3 (1.32%) REST
7 3 (1.32%) SailPoint
8 2 (0.88%) Azure Blueprints
8 2 (0.88%) Faiss
8 2 (0.88%) LangChain
8 2 (0.88%) LangGraph
8 2 (0.88%) RabbitMQ
9 1 (0.44%) ARM Templates
9 1 (0.44%) JWT
9 1 (0.44%) NestJS
9 1 (0.44%) Node.js
9 1 (0.44%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 23 (10.09%) Cyber Threat
2 18 (7.89%) PKI
2 18 (7.89%) Security Posture
3 16 (7.02%) Management Information System
4 11 (4.82%) Onboarding
4 11 (4.82%) Product Ownership
5 10 (4.39%) Cloud Native
6 9 (3.95%) Cyber Defence
7 8 (3.51%) CSOC
8 6 (2.63%) NHS
8 6 (2.63%) Operational Technology
8 6 (2.63%) Private Cloud
8 6 (2.63%) Public Cloud
8 6 (2.63%) Security Operations Centre
9 5 (2.19%) Data Centre
9 5 (2.19%) Legacy Applications
10 4 (1.75%) CUDA
10 4 (1.75%) Enterprise Cloud
11 3 (1.32%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 3 (1.32%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 15 (6.58%) Linux
2 11 (4.82%) Windows
3 8 (3.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (3.07%) CentOS
4 7 (3.07%) Unix
5 5 (2.19%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.32%) Mac OS
6 3 (1.32%) Windows 10
6 3 (1.32%) Windows Server 2008
7 2 (0.88%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.44%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (34.21%) Cybersecurity
2 54 (23.68%) Cloud Security
3 48 (21.05%) CI/CD
4 47 (20.61%) DevOps
5 43 (18.86%) Infrastructure as Code
6 40 (17.54%) Incident Response
7 36 (15.79%) Risk Management
8 35 (15.35%) DevSecOps
9 32 (14.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 32 (14.04%) Zero Trust
10 31 (13.60%) Containerisation
11 29 (12.72%) SIEM
12 27 (11.84%) Threat Modelling
13 26 (11.40%) Information Assurance
13 26 (11.40%) Roadmaps
14 24 (10.53%) Agile
15 23 (10.09%) OWASP
16 22 (9.65%) Security Architecture
17 21 (9.21%) Information Security
17 21 (9.21%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 24 (10.53%) Python
2 16 (7.02%) Bash
3 10 (4.39%) PowerShell
4 8 (3.51%) Bicep
5 7 (3.07%) Go
6 5 (2.19%) Shell Script
7 4 (1.75%) SQL
8 3 (1.32%) Java
9 2 (0.88%) C#
10 1 (0.44%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.44%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.44%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 171 (75.00%) Security Cleared
2 139 (60.96%) SC Cleared
3 51 (22.37%) DV Cleared
4 44 (19.30%) CISSP
5 31 (13.60%) CISM
6 19 (8.33%) Degree
7 12 (5.26%) AWS Certification
8 10 (4.39%) CompTIA Security+
8 10 (4.39%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
9 9 (3.95%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (3.51%) CESG Certified Professional
10 8 (3.51%) CHECK Team Member
11 7 (3.07%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 7 (3.07%) Azure Certification
11 7 (3.07%) BPSS Clearance
11 7 (3.07%) CHECK Team Leader
11 7 (3.07%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (2.63%) CREST Certified
12 6 (2.63%) OSCP
13 5 (2.19%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (37.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 71 (31.14%) NIST
3 40 (17.54%) JSP 440
4 28 (12.28%) Cyber Essentials
5 26 (11.40%) NIST 800
6 22 (9.65%) GDPR
7 12 (5.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 10 (4.39%) RMADS
9 9 (3.95%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 8 (3.51%) GRC
10 8 (3.51%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 5 (2.19%) Government Security Classifications
12 4 (1.75%) Def Stans
13 3 (1.32%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (1.32%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 3 (1.32%) IASME
14 2 (0.88%) PCI DSS
14 2 (0.88%) QA
15 1 (0.44%) COBIT
15 1 (0.44%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 18 (7.89%) Docker
2 15 (6.58%) Active Directory
3 13 (5.70%) Firmware
4 5 (2.19%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.88%) GPFS
7 2 (0.88%) Lustre
7 2 (0.88%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.44%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.44%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.44%) UAG
8 1 (0.44%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 49 (21.49%) Terraform
2 38 (16.67%) Kubernetes
3 14 (6.14%) Ansible
4 10 (4.39%) Jamf Pro
5 9 (3.95%) Grafana
5 9 (3.95%) Prometheus
6 7 (3.07%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 7 (3.07%) Packer
7 6 (2.63%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (1.32%) Check_MK
8 3 (1.32%) Nmap
8 3 (1.32%) OPNET
8 3 (1.32%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.88%) Argo
9 2 (0.88%) Istio
9 2 (0.88%) linkerd
9 2 (0.88%) SELinux
10 1 (0.44%) CSIRT
10 1 (0.44%) SCCM
10 1 (0.44%) VxRail
Vendors
1 33 (14.47%) Microsoft
2 15 (6.58%) Splunk
3 12 (5.26%) VMware
4 11 (4.82%) Okta
5 8 (3.51%) Google
5 8 (3.51%) SAP
6 7 (3.07%) Cisco
7 6 (2.63%) Citrix
8 5 (2.19%) CloudEndure
8 5 (2.19%) NVIDIA
9 4 (1.75%) CyberArk
10 3 (1.32%) Fortinet
10 3 (1.32%) Juniper
10 3 (1.32%) LogRhythm
10 3 (1.32%) Sparx
10 3 (1.32%) Veracode
11 2 (0.88%) Brio
11 2 (0.88%) Foundry
11 2 (0.88%) Red Hat
11 2 (0.88%) SolarWinds