Network Security Contract Job Trends

Network Security
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Network Security skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 153 177
Rank change year-on-year +7 +24 -10
Contract jobs citing Network Security 869 551 561
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.71% 1.83% 1.29%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 18.03% 14.82% 10.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 601 334 375
10th Percentile £400 £372 £375
25th Percentile £450 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £622 £664
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £492 £575
% change year-on-year +6.71% -14.43% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 10 18
10th Percentile £21.25 £67.64 -
25th Percentile £33.81 £72.70 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £81.01 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.77% +285.77% -61.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £81.91 £41.25
90th Percentile - £85.60 £45.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £81.01 £7.43
% change year-on-year -16.68% +990.34% -66.62%

All Communications and Computer Networking Skills
UK

Network Security falls under the Communications and Computer Networking category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring communications or computer networking skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for communications or computer networking skills 4,820 3,719 5,374
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.47% 12.38% 12.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,962 2,279 3,175
10th Percentile £250 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +2.13% -3.98% +3.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 298 176 426
10th Percentile £16.01 £14.99 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.56 £21.00 £17.69
Median hourly rate £27.94 £45.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.91% +12.50% +110.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £61.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £74.08 £77.50 £72.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.72 £36.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -26.79% -23.16% +150.00%

Network Security
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Network Security relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Network Security job vacancy trend in the UK

Network Security
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Security.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Security

Network Security
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Network Security over the 6 months to 24 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Security.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Network Security

Network Security
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Network Security over the 6 months to 24 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
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 Network Security within the UK over the 6 months to 24 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 +1 753 £525 +0.05% 187
UK excluding London -19 425 £525 +6.71% 172
London +12 332 £550 -4.35% 58
Work from Home +1 259 £540 +2.86% 98
North of England -2 177 £514 +4.47% 44
South East -25 104 £520 +6.12% 50
North West -5 96 £525 +5.00% 32
Yorkshire 0 79 £500 +1.83% 11
Midlands -43 51 £475 -18.28% 21
Scotland 0 36 £600 +41.18% 19
East of England -20 32 £525 -4.55% 15
South West -30 30 £550 -6.38% 21
West Midlands -64 30 £420 -27.74% 11
East Midlands 0 20 £569 - 10
Wales -20 3 £600 +106.90% 6
North East -34 2 £675 +8.00% 2

Network Security
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 23 (2.65%) Confluence
2 14 (1.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (1.04%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.23%) Apache
5 1 (0.12%) IIS
5 1 (0.12%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 17 (1.96%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.27%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.12%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.58%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 271 (31.19%) Azure
2 193 (22.21%) AWS
3 118 (13.58%) GCP
4 78 (8.98%) Entra ID
5 38 (4.37%) GitHub
6 31 (3.57%) GitHub Actions
7 29 (3.34%) Azure DevOps
7 29 (3.34%) Azure Sentinel
8 23 (2.65%) Microsoft 365
8 23 (2.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 21 (2.42%) SaaS
9 21 (2.42%) Serverless
10 20 (2.30%) Azure AKS
10 20 (2.30%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 18 (2.07%) Azure Key Vault
11 18 (2.07%) Azure Monitor
12 17 (1.96%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 16 (1.84%) Akamai
14 15 (1.73%) AWS CloudFormation
15 14 (1.61%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 393 (45.22%) Firewall
2 176 (20.25%) VPN
3 157 (18.07%) WAN
4 124 (14.27%) LAN
5 107 (12.31%) DNS
6 103 (11.85%) BGP
7 88 (10.13%) SD-WAN
8 84 (9.67%) OSPF
8 84 (9.67%) Wireless
9 75 (8.63%) TCP/IP
10 73 (8.40%) VLAN
11 54 (6.21%) DHCP
11 54 (6.21%) MPLS
12 47 (5.41%) IPsec
13 45 (5.18%) SSL
14 44 (5.06%) Wi-Fi
15 39 (4.49%) Cisco ISE
16 37 (4.26%) Internet
17 34 (3.91%) NGFW
18 33 (3.80%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (1.15%) Azure SQL Database
2 5 (0.58%) SQL Server
3 4 (0.46%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (0.46%) Data Lake
3 4 (0.46%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.46%) Neo4j
3 4 (0.46%) Power BI
4 3 (0.35%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.35%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.23%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.23%) InfluxDB
5 2 (0.23%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.12%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.12%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.12%) Looker
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.12%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.12%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.12%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 44 (5.06%) JIRA
2 25 (2.88%) GitLab
3 23 (2.65%) Git
3 23 (2.65%) Jenkins
4 7 (0.81%) Snyk
4 7 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
5 5 (0.58%) Browser DevTools
6 4 (0.46%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.35%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.23%) Postman
9 1 (0.12%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.12%) JUnit
9 1 (0.12%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.12%) Zephyr
General
1 201 (23.13%) Social Skills
2 139 (16.00%) Finance
3 66 (7.59%) Public Sector
4 65 (7.48%) Analytical Skills
5 54 (6.21%) Banking
6 38 (4.37%) Documentation Skills
7 23 (2.65%) Telecoms
8 22 (2.53%) Financial Institution
9 15 (1.73%) Legal
10 12 (1.38%) Retail
11 11 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 10 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.04%) Police
14 8 (0.92%) Local Government
14 8 (0.92%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (0.69%) Law
16 5 (0.58%) Military
17 3 (0.35%) Billing
17 3 (0.35%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 230 (26.47%) Network Engineer
2 186 (21.40%) Architect
3 115 (13.23%) Security Engineer
4 87 (10.01%) Security Architect
5 85 (9.78%) Senior
6 62 (7.13%) Network Security Engineer
7 61 (7.02%) Network Architect
8 41 (4.72%) Consultant
9 39 (4.49%) Project Manager
10 33 (3.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 32 (3.68%) Lead
12 30 (3.45%) Cloud Engineer
13 28 (3.22%) Senior Network Engineer
14 25 (2.88%) Network Manager
14 25 (2.88%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
15 23 (2.65%) Network Security Architect
15 23 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
16 22 (2.53%) Azure Architect
17 21 (2.42%) Cloud Architect
17 21 (2.42%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (4.37%) 802.1X
2 14 (1.61%) SAML
3 13 (1.50%) REST
4 10 (1.15%) ARM Templates
4 10 (1.15%) Kafka
5 8 (0.92%) LDAP
6 7 (0.81%) OAuth
7 6 (0.69%) CSS
7 6 (0.69%) HTML
7 6 (0.69%) OpenID
7 6 (0.69%) SLSA
8 5 (0.58%) OAuth2
9 4 (0.46%) AWS CDK
9 4 (0.46%) gRPC
9 4 (0.46%) Keycloak
9 4 (0.46%) Protocol Buffers
9 4 (0.46%) RESTful
10 3 (0.35%) Lambda Expressions
10 3 (0.35%) Plotly
10 3 (0.35%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 114 (13.12%) Data Centre
2 66 (7.59%) Security Posture
3 53 (6.10%) Cloud Native
4 43 (4.95%) Hybrid Cloud
5 36 (4.14%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
6 27 (3.11%) Onboarding
6 27 (3.11%) PKI
7 26 (2.99%) Data Protection Act
8 25 (2.88%) Public Cloud
9 22 (2.53%) Operational Technology
10 21 (2.42%) Management Information System
11 20 (2.30%) Product Ownership
12 18 (2.07%) IoT
13 17 (1.96%) Cyber Threat
14 16 (1.84%) Security Operations Centre
15 14 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (1.15%) Replication
16 10 (1.15%) Virtual Team
17 9 (1.04%) Enterprise Cloud
17 9 (1.04%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 68 (7.83%) Linux
2 66 (7.59%) Windows
3 23 (2.65%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (1.04%) VMS
6 8 (0.92%) Unix
7 7 (0.81%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.69%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.58%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.35%) Android
10 3 (0.35%) Check Point GAiA
10 3 (0.35%) SUSE
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (20.14%) Cybersecurity
2 153 (17.61%) Cloud Security
3 136 (15.65%) Zero Trust
4 126 (14.50%) CI/CD
5 118 (13.58%) DevOps
5 118 (13.58%) Migration
6 116 (13.35%) Infrastructure as Code
7 115 (13.23%) SIEM
8 114 (13.12%) Security Architecture
9 104 (11.97%) Continuous Improvement
10 100 (11.51%) High Availability
11 95 (10.93%) Stakeholder Management
12 93 (10.70%) Problem-Solving
13 87 (10.01%) Application Security
14 85 (9.78%) Agile
14 85 (9.78%) Load Balancing
15 84 (9.67%) Network Segmentation
15 84 (9.67%) Threat Modelling
16 83 (9.55%) Data Protection
16 83 (9.55%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 111 (12.77%) Python
2 48 (5.52%) PowerShell
3 39 (4.49%) Bash
4 31 (3.57%) Bicep
5 22 (2.53%) SQL
6 19 (2.19%) JavaScript
7 8 (0.92%) Shell Script
8 6 (0.69%) Java
9 5 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.46%) PHP
10 4 (0.46%) Rust
11 3 (0.35%) C
11 3 (0.35%) Perl
12 2 (0.23%) C++
12 2 (0.23%) Ruby
13 1 (0.12%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.12%) AppleScript
13 1 (0.12%) Go
13 1 (0.12%) Search Processing Language
13 1 (0.12%) VBA
Qualifications
1 240 (27.62%) Security Cleared
2 176 (20.25%) SC Cleared
3 164 (18.87%) Cisco Certification
4 100 (11.51%) CISSP
5 99 (11.39%) CCNP
6 71 (8.17%) DV Cleared
7 64 (7.36%) Degree
8 63 (7.25%) CCNA
9 60 (6.90%) CISM
10 38 (4.37%) CCSP
11 37 (4.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 31 (3.57%) Azure Certification
13 23 (2.65%) CCIE
14 20 (2.30%) AWS Certification
15 15 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
16 14 (1.61%) CompTIA Security+
16 14 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
17 13 (1.50%) GIAC
18 10 (1.15%) JNCIS
18 10 (1.15%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (10.24%) NIST
2 72 (8.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 42 (4.83%) GDPR
4 27 (3.11%) NCSC
4 27 (3.11%) PCI DSS
5 19 (2.19%) GRC
5 19 (2.19%) QA
6 14 (1.61%) Cyber Essentials
7 13 (1.50%) SLA
8 8 (0.92%) Actionable Recommendations
8 8 (0.92%) Disclosure Scotland
8 8 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 8 (0.92%) SOC 2
9 7 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 5 (0.58%) NIST 800
11 4 (0.46%) PMO
12 3 (0.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 3 (0.35%) ISA99
12 3 (0.35%) RMADS
System Software
1 66 (7.59%) Active Directory
2 52 (5.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (2.88%) Docker
4 24 (2.76%) Virtual Machines
4 24 (2.76%) VMware NSX
5 11 (1.27%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (1.15%) vSphere
7 8 (0.92%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.69%) Firmware
9 5 (0.58%) Squid
9 5 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.23%) NFS
10 2 (0.23%) Postfix
10 2 (0.23%) Sendmail
10 2 (0.23%) Varnish
10 2 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.12%) OpenSSH
11 1 (0.12%) ProxySG
11 1 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 120 (13.81%) Terraform
2 78 (8.98%) Ansible
2 78 (8.98%) Kubernetes
3 42 (4.83%) FortiGate
4 19 (2.19%) Grafana
4 19 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
5 11 (1.27%) Microsoft Intune
5 11 (1.27%) Prometheus
5 11 (1.27%) vCenter Server
6 6 (0.69%) CASB
6 6 (0.69%) Istio
6 6 (0.69%) QRadar
7 5 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (0.58%) Puppet
7 5 (0.58%) Suricata
7 5 (0.58%) WSUS
8 4 (0.46%) Kustomize
8 4 (0.46%) Podman
9 3 (0.35%) SCCM
9 3 (0.35%) VxRail
Vendors
1 239 (27.50%) Cisco
2 137 (15.77%) Palo Alto
3 129 (14.84%) Microsoft
4 76 (8.75%) F5
5 71 (8.17%) Fortinet
6 66 (7.59%) VMware
7 59 (6.79%) CheckPoint
8 55 (6.33%) Zscaler
9 52 (5.98%) Juniper
10 35 (4.03%) ServiceNow
11 32 (3.68%) Splunk
12 25 (2.88%) Google
13 24 (2.76%) Aruba
14 22 (2.53%) SolarWinds
15 21 (2.42%) Citrix
15 21 (2.42%) ForeScout
16 17 (1.96%) Tenable
17 15 (1.73%) Arista
18 14 (1.61%) Infoblox
19 13 (1.50%) Okta