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 25 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 162 143 157
Rank change year-on-year -19 +14 +52
Contract jobs citing Network Security 751 570 691
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.71% 1.96% 1.56%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 16.96% 15.02% 11.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 501 359 476
10th Percentile £350 £350 £400
25th Percentile £425 £424 £467
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £600 £603 £650
90th Percentile £692 £675 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £575
% change year-on-year - -13.04% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 13 18
10th Percentile £24.10 £21.80 -
25th Percentile £42.13 £36.00 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.00 £41.00 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +58.54% +78.26% -50.11%
75th Percentile £75.00 £81.01 £41.25
90th Percentile £90.75 £81.95 £57.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.25 £80.68 £7.43
% change year-on-year -25.32% +985.80% -83.88%

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 4,427 3,796 5,885
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.09% 13.05% 13.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,843 2,352 3,541
10th Percentile £213 £213 £205
25th Percentile £375 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £488 £475
Median % change year-on-year +0.51% +2.63% -9.52%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £473 £475
% change year-on-year +0.53% -0.53% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 147 396
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.99 £13.93
25th Percentile £18.94 £21.46 £17.72
Median hourly rate £39.50 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.86% +7.69% +69.71%
75th Percentile £67.67 £62.88 £63.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +30.00% -27.78% +137.97%

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 25 March 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 25 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Top 17 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 25 March 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 -17 662 £500 -5.21% 194
UK excluding London -21 377 £500 - 144
London -19 278 £515 -6.11% 73
Work from Home +5 204 £527 +5.30% 78
North of England -17 130 £481 -3.88% 33
South East -16 104 £500 -6.10% 46
North West +5 83 £492 -1.60% 24
Midlands -29 67 £500 -14.02% 20
West Midlands -21 53 £500 -14.02% 14
Yorkshire -32 52 £335 -31.63% 8
East of England -26 32 £500 -14.89% 19
South West -20 31 £539 -2.05% 19
Scotland +12 26 £509 +19.71% 7
East Midlands -27 13 £638 +50.00% 6
Wales -16 3 £513 +76.72% 2
North East -11 2 £475 -24.00% 1
Northern Ireland - 2 £500 - 1

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 19 (2.53%) Confluence
2 5 (0.67%) Apache
2 5 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (0.67%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.13%) nginx
3 1 (0.13%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 19 (2.53%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.33%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.13%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 5 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 234 (31.16%) Azure
2 165 (21.97%) AWS
3 93 (12.38%) GCP
4 54 (7.19%) Entra ID
5 36 (4.79%) GitHub
6 31 (4.13%) GitHub Actions
7 27 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (3.46%) Azure Sentinel
9 21 (2.80%) Azure Key Vault
10 20 (2.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 17 (2.26%) AWS CloudFormation
11 17 (2.26%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 17 (2.26%) Microsoft 365
12 16 (2.13%) Azure Monitor
13 15 (2.00%) Amazon S3
14 14 (1.86%) Azure AKS
14 14 (1.86%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 13 (1.73%) Akamai
15 13 (1.73%) Serverless
16 12 (1.60%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 363 (48.34%) Firewall
2 148 (19.71%) VPN
3 128 (17.04%) WAN
4 102 (13.58%) LAN
5 98 (13.05%) BGP
6 86 (11.45%) DNS
7 82 (10.92%) OSPF
8 69 (9.19%) VLAN
9 67 (8.92%) SD-WAN
10 59 (7.86%) TCP/IP
11 48 (6.39%) Wireless
12 44 (5.86%) MPLS
13 40 (5.33%) Cisco ASA
14 38 (5.06%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 35 (4.66%) DHCP
16 34 (4.53%) Wi-Fi
17 30 (3.99%) SSL
18 29 (3.86%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
18 29 (3.86%) Internet
19 26 (3.46%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
2 6 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (0.67%) InfluxDB
3 5 (0.67%) Power BI
3 5 (0.67%) Relational Database
4 3 (0.40%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (0.40%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.27%) Oracle Database
5 2 (0.27%) SQL Server
5 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.13%) Redis
Development Applications
1 29 (3.86%) JIRA
2 25 (3.33%) Jenkins
3 20 (2.66%) GitLab
4 13 (1.73%) Git
5 7 (0.93%) Snyk
5 7 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.13%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.13%) JUnit
7 1 (0.13%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.13%) Postman
7 1 (0.13%) Zephyr
General
1 196 (26.10%) Social Skills
2 105 (13.98%) Finance
3 90 (11.98%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (8.39%) Public Sector
5 35 (4.66%) Banking
6 30 (3.99%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.60%) Telecoms
8 21 (2.80%) Financial Institution
9 10 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 10 (1.33%) Legal
10 8 (1.07%) Manufacturing
11 7 (0.93%) Investment Banking
11 7 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (0.80%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.67%) Local Government
13 5 (0.67%) Pharmaceutical
14 4 (0.53%) Military
15 3 (0.40%) Billing
15 3 (0.40%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 172 (22.90%) Architect
2 167 (22.24%) Network Engineer
3 89 (11.85%) Security Architect
3 89 (11.85%) Security Engineer
4 63 (8.39%) Network Architect
5 56 (7.46%) Senior
6 39 (5.19%) Network Security Engineer
7 29 (3.86%) Analyst
8 28 (3.73%) Network Security Architect
9 25 (3.33%) Lead
10 21 (2.80%) Consultant
11 20 (2.66%) Cloud Architect
11 20 (2.66%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 19 (2.53%) Azure Architect
12 19 (2.53%) Cloud Engineer
12 19 (2.53%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 18 (2.40%) Solutions Architect
14 17 (2.26%) Administrator
15 16 (2.13%) Security Analyst
15 16 (2.13%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.06%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.73%) LDAP
3 8 (1.07%) .NET
3 8 (1.07%) Node.js
3 8 (1.07%) SAML
4 6 (0.80%) ARM Templates
4 6 (0.80%) RabbitMQ
4 6 (0.80%) REST
5 5 (0.67%) .NET Core
5 5 (0.67%) AngularJS
5 5 (0.67%) OAuth
5 5 (0.67%) OAuth2
5 5 (0.67%) OpenID
5 5 (0.67%) PyTorch
5 5 (0.67%) React
5 5 (0.67%) TensorFlow
6 4 (0.53%) AWS CDK
6 4 (0.53%) Elastic Stack
6 4 (0.53%) HTML
7 3 (0.40%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 99 (13.18%) Data Centre
2 44 (5.86%) Hybrid Cloud
2 44 (5.86%) Security Posture
3 43 (5.73%) Cloud Native
4 29 (3.86%) PKI
5 28 (3.73%) Management Information System
6 25 (3.33%) Onboarding
6 25 (3.33%) Public Cloud
7 23 (3.06%) Operational Technology
8 22 (2.93%) IoT
9 19 (2.53%) Data Protection Act
9 19 (2.53%) Product Ownership
10 18 (2.40%) Cyber Threat
10 18 (2.40%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 16 (2.13%) Analytical Mindset
12 15 (2.00%) Security Operations Centre
13 11 (1.46%) Cyber Security Posture
14 9 (1.20%) Virtual Team
15 8 (1.07%) CSOC
16 7 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 80 (10.65%) Windows
2 64 (8.52%) Linux
3 27 (3.60%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.46%) Unix
5 9 (1.20%) VMS
6 7 (0.93%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.67%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.27%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.13%) Android
9 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.13%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 173 (23.04%) Cybersecurity
2 121 (16.11%) Cloud Security
3 120 (15.98%) Problem-Solving
4 110 (14.65%) Security Architecture
5 109 (14.51%) Zero Trust
6 104 (13.85%) SIEM
7 102 (13.58%) Migration
8 100 (13.32%) CI/CD
9 99 (13.18%) Infrastructure as Code
10 98 (13.05%) DevOps
11 84 (11.19%) Incident Response
12 74 (9.85%) Network Segmentation
13 73 (9.72%) Continuous Improvement
14 70 (9.32%) Change Management
15 69 (9.19%) Threat Modelling
16 68 (9.05%) Identity Access Management
17 64 (8.52%) Security Operations
18 62 (8.26%) Agile
19 60 (7.99%) High Availability
19 60 (7.99%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 113 (15.05%) Python
2 63 (8.39%) PowerShell
3 30 (3.99%) Bash
4 28 (3.73%) Bicep
5 27 (3.60%) SQL
6 25 (3.33%) JavaScript
7 15 (2.00%) Kusto Query Language
8 9 (1.20%) Go
8 9 (1.20%) Java
9 7 (0.93%) Shell Script
10 5 (0.67%) C#
11 4 (0.53%) C
11 4 (0.53%) PHP
12 3 (0.40%) C++
13 2 (0.27%) C-shell
13 2 (0.27%) Korn
14 1 (0.13%) ActionScript
14 1 (0.13%) AppleScript
14 1 (0.13%) Ruby
14 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 230 (30.63%) Security Cleared
2 162 (21.57%) SC Cleared
3 128 (17.04%) Cisco Certification
4 100 (13.32%) CCNP
5 95 (12.65%) CISSP
6 77 (10.25%) DV Cleared
7 49 (6.52%) CISM
8 48 (6.39%) CCNA
8 48 (6.39%) Degree
9 30 (3.99%) CCIE
10 26 (3.46%) GIAC
11 25 (3.33%) Azure Certification
12 21 (2.80%) CEH
13 20 (2.66%) AWS Certification
14 18 (2.40%) CompTIA Security+
15 16 (2.13%) CCSP
16 15 (2.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 14 (1.86%) TOGAF Certification
18 12 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
18 12 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (11.85%) NIST
2 78 (10.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 51 (6.79%) GDPR
4 35 (4.66%) PCI DSS
5 22 (2.93%) NCSC
6 20 (2.66%) Cyber Essentials
7 15 (2.00%) GRC
7 15 (2.00%) SLA
8 9 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 9 (1.20%) SOC 2
9 8 (1.07%) Actionable Recommendations
9 8 (1.07%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 7 (0.93%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 7 (0.93%) QA
11 5 (0.67%) PMO
12 4 (0.53%) HIPAA
12 4 (0.53%) JSP 440
12 4 (0.53%) RMADS
13 2 (0.27%) Disclosure Scotland
13 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 50 (6.66%) VMware Infrastructure
2 46 (6.13%) Active Directory
3 27 (3.60%) Docker
4 23 (3.06%) VMware NSX
5 11 (1.46%) vSphere
6 10 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (1.20%) Hyper-V
8 8 (1.07%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.93%) Firmware
10 4 (0.53%) ProxySG
11 3 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
12 1 (0.13%) KVM
12 1 (0.13%) NFS
12 1 (0.13%) Postfix
12 1 (0.13%) RHEV
12 1 (0.13%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.13%) Varnish
12 1 (0.13%) Xen
12 1 (0.13%) XenApp
12 1 (0.13%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 118 (15.71%) Terraform
2 70 (9.32%) Ansible
3 58 (7.72%) Kubernetes
4 26 (3.46%) FortiGate
5 15 (2.00%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (2.00%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (1.86%) Nagios
7 12 (1.60%) Kibana
8 9 (1.20%) Grafana
8 9 (1.20%) vCenter Server
9 8 (1.07%) Prometheus
10 7 (0.93%) Microsoft Clustering
11 5 (0.67%) CASB
11 5 (0.67%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.53%) Istio
12 4 (0.53%) Puppet
13 3 (0.40%) Icinga
13 3 (0.40%) SCCM
13 3 (0.40%) SCOM
Vendors
1 199 (26.50%) Cisco
2 122 (16.25%) Microsoft
3 117 (15.58%) Palo Alto
4 80 (10.65%) F5
5 66 (8.79%) VMware
6 60 (7.99%) Juniper
7 55 (7.32%) Fortinet
8 50 (6.66%) CheckPoint
9 42 (5.59%) Zscaler
10 29 (3.86%) Google
10 29 (3.86%) Splunk
11 28 (3.73%) ServiceNow
12 19 (2.53%) Aruba
12 19 (2.53%) Tenable
13 18 (2.40%) Meraki
13 18 (2.40%) SolarWinds
14 15 (2.00%) Databricks
14 15 (2.00%) ForeScout
14 15 (2.00%) Okta
15 12 (1.60%) Arista