Network Security Engineer Contracts

Network Security Engineer
UK

The median Network Security Engineer daily rate in the UK is £450, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 463 543 605
Rank change year-on-year +80 +62 +116
Contract jobs requiring a Network Security Engineer 57 55 107
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.19% 0.13% 0.18%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.14% 0.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 33 24 74
10th Percentile £325 £404 £350
25th Percentile £382 £444 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £524
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -4.53% +2.20%
75th Percentile £538 £542 £624
90th Percentile £568 £670 £666
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £500 £444
% change year-on-year -20.00% +12.68% -15.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £32.75
Median hourly rate - - £33.50
75th Percentile - - £34.25
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £33.50

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 27,138 40,367 56,304
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.49% 92.78% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,714 26,265 39,350
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -3.55% -1.50% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,034 2,668 1,565
10th Percentile £14.06 £12.86 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.40
Median hourly rate £29.00 £36.02 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.49% -19.95% +91.49%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.50 £42.43
% change year-on-year -29.11% -6.91% +117.60%

Network Security Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Network Security Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Network Security Engineer in the UK

Network Security Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Network Security Engineer.

Daily rate trend for Network Security Engineer in the UK

Network Security Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Security Engineer over the 6 months to 2 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Network Security Engineer in the UK

Network Security Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Network Security Engineer.

Hourly rate trend for Network Security Engineer in the UK

Network Security Engineer
Top 10 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Network Security Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 2 May 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 +59 53 £450 -10.00% 50
London +55 32 £525 +8.02% 21
Work from Home +67 29 £438 -2.78% 37
UK excluding London +55 20 £400 -20.00% 35
South East +44 8 £415 -11.47% 14
South West +40 6 £413 -25.00% 12
North of England +24 5 £525 +3.70% 3
North West +15 5 £525 +3.70% 1
East of England +30 2 £330 -17.50% 1
Scotland - 1 - -

Network Security Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 May 2025, Network Security Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Network Security Engineer in the job title.

1 46 (80.70%) Firewall
2 42 (73.68%) Network Security
3 36 (63.16%) Cisco
4 25 (43.86%) CheckPoint
5 19 (33.33%) Cisco Certification
6 18 (31.58%) Cisco ASA
7 15 (26.32%) Network Monitoring
8 14 (24.56%) F5
8 14 (24.56%) VPN
9 13 (22.81%) CCNP
9 13 (22.81%) Wireless
9 13 (22.81%) Palo Alto
10 12 (21.05%) Social Skills
10 12 (21.05%) Finance
10 12 (21.05%) Change Management
10 12 (21.05%) WAN
10 12 (21.05%) Migration
11 11 (19.30%) SolarWinds
11 11 (19.30%) Juniper
11 11 (19.30%) DNS
11 11 (19.30%) BGP
11 11 (19.30%) Zscaler
11 11 (19.30%) Cisco Firepower
12 10 (17.54%) Cisco ISE
12 10 (17.54%) ITIL
13 9 (15.79%) Linux
13 9 (15.79%) OSPF
13 9 (15.79%) Azure
14 8 (14.04%) MPLS
14 8 (14.04%) DHCP

Network Security Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 2 (3.51%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.75%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (1.75%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (1.75%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 9 (15.79%) Azure
2 5 (8.77%) AWS
3 2 (3.51%) GitHub
4 1 (1.75%) Akamai
4 1 (1.75%) Azure ExpressRoute
4 1 (1.75%) Datadog
4 1 (1.75%) Entra ID
4 1 (1.75%) npm
4 1 (1.75%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 46 (80.70%) Firewall
2 42 (73.68%) Network Security
3 18 (31.58%) Cisco ASA
4 14 (24.56%) VPN
5 13 (22.81%) Wireless
6 12 (21.05%) WAN
7 11 (19.30%) BGP
7 11 (19.30%) Cisco Firepower
7 11 (19.30%) DNS
8 10 (17.54%) Cisco ISE
9 9 (15.79%) OSPF
10 8 (14.04%) DHCP
10 8 (14.04%) MPLS
11 7 (12.28%) IPsec
11 7 (12.28%) SD-WAN
12 6 (10.53%) EIGRP
12 6 (10.53%) Wi-Fi
13 5 (8.77%) Cisco IOS
13 5 (8.77%) RIP
13 5 (8.77%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.75%) MariaDB
1 1 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 1 (1.75%) Bitbucket
1 1 (1.75%) JIRA
General
1 12 (21.05%) Finance
1 12 (21.05%) Social Skills
2 7 (12.28%) Analytical Skills
2 7 (12.28%) Telecoms
3 3 (5.26%) Manufacturing
4 2 (3.51%) Pharmaceutical
4 2 (3.51%) Public Sector
5 1 (1.75%) Banking
5 1 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (1.75%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (8.77%) 802.1X
Miscellaneous
1 5 (8.77%) Data Centre
2 4 (7.02%) Security Posture
3 3 (5.26%) Management Information System
3 3 (5.26%) Operational Technology
4 2 (3.51%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.75%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 9 (15.79%) Linux
2 5 (8.77%) CatOS
3 4 (7.02%) Unix
3 4 (7.02%) Windows
4 2 (3.51%) Windows Server
5 1 (1.75%) CentOS
5 1 (1.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (1.75%) SUSE
5 1 (1.75%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (26.32%) Network Monitoring
2 12 (21.05%) Change Management
2 12 (21.05%) Migration
3 10 (17.54%) ITIL
4 7 (12.28%) Security Management
5 6 (10.53%) Cloud Security
5 6 (10.53%) Problem-Solving
5 6 (10.53%) Zero Trust
6 5 (8.77%) Information Security
6 5 (8.77%) Load Balancing
6 5 (8.77%) Matrix Organization
6 5 (8.77%) Network Segmentation
6 5 (8.77%) Service Management
7 4 (7.02%) Cybersecurity
7 4 (7.02%) Roadmaps
7 4 (7.02%) SIEM
8 3 (5.26%) Change Control
8 3 (5.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 3 (5.26%) Security Operations
8 3 (5.26%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 3 (5.26%) Python
2 1 (1.75%) Bash
2 1 (1.75%) Perl
2 1 (1.75%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 19 (33.33%) Cisco Certification
2 13 (22.81%) CCNP
3 5 (8.77%) CCIE
3 5 (8.77%) CCSE
4 4 (7.02%) CISSP
4 4 (7.02%) Degree
5 3 (5.26%) CCNA
5 3 (5.26%) CCSA
6 2 (3.51%) CCIE Security
6 2 (3.51%) Security Cleared
7 1 (1.75%) CCIE Service Provider
7 1 (1.75%) CISA
7 1 (1.75%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (1.75%) SANS
7 1 (1.75%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.75%) NIST
1 1 (1.75%) PCI DSS
1 1 (1.75%) SLA
System Software
1 3 (5.26%) Active Directory
2 2 (3.51%) Firmware
2 2 (3.51%) Virtual Machines
2 2 (3.51%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.75%) Docker
3 1 (1.75%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 6 (10.53%) CASB
2 4 (7.02%) ZABBIX
3 3 (5.26%) FortiGate
4 2 (3.51%) Nagios
4 2 (3.51%) SCCM
4 2 (3.51%) SCOrch
5 1 (1.75%) Ansible
5 1 (1.75%) Failover Clustering
5 1 (1.75%) Kubernetes
5 1 (1.75%) Progress Chef
5 1 (1.75%) Puppet
5 1 (1.75%) Red Hat Satellite
5 1 (1.75%) Terraform
Vendors
1 36 (63.16%) Cisco
2 25 (43.86%) CheckPoint
3 14 (24.56%) F5
4 13 (22.81%) Palo Alto
5 11 (19.30%) Juniper
5 11 (19.30%) SolarWinds
5 11 (19.30%) Zscaler
6 8 (14.04%) Aruba
7 7 (12.28%) Infoblox
8 6 (10.53%) Extreme Networks
8 6 (10.53%) Fortinet
8 6 (10.53%) Ruckus Wireless
9 5 (8.77%) Microsoft
10 3 (5.26%) Meraki
10 3 (5.26%) Splunk
11 2 (3.51%) AlgoSec
11 2 (3.51%) Blue Coat
11 2 (3.51%) Forcepoint
11 2 (3.51%) ServiceNow
11 2 (3.51%) VMware