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 15 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 175 138 148
Rank change year-on-year -37 +10 +86
Contract jobs citing Network Security 637 595 733
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.59% 1.93% 1.63%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.41% 14.65% 12.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 409 375 494
10th Percentile £350 £316 £400
25th Percentile £425 £425 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £599 £620 £649
90th Percentile £688 £675 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £550
% change year-on-year - -9.09% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 9 20
10th Percentile £34.30 £18.05 -
25th Percentile £51.44 £35.00 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.50 £41.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.76% +2.50% +6.67%
75th Percentile £81.56 £41.50 £56.88
90th Percentile £93.88 £45.50 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £30.00 £10.47
% change year-on-year +116.67% +186.67% -72.09%

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 4,135 4,062 6,014
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.35% 13.14% 13.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,717 2,404 3,588
10th Percentile £204 £210 £205
25th Percentile £355 £360 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.56% -5.89%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £470 £475
% change year-on-year -4.26% -1.05% +1.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 168 128 405
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.01 £14.41
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.46 £20.82
Median hourly rate £28.38 £32.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.68% -31.58% +143.59%
75th Percentile £65.00 £60.47 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.38 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.54 £26.75 £51.89
% change year-on-year +51.55% -48.45% +160.23%

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 15 February 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 15 February 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 15 February 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 -26 564 £500 -8.84% 245
UK excluding London -39 306 £500 - 203
London -6 250 £525 -4.55% 85
Work from Home -30 166 £500 - 114
North of England -39 105 £476 -4.75% 42
South East -17 78 £460 -13.62% 60
North West -12 63 £481 -4.47% 28
Midlands -29 61 £500 -14.02% 37
West Midlands -13 53 £500 -14.02% 30
Yorkshire -48 51 £350 -16.96% 11
South West -27 31 £535 +2.39% 28
East of England -16 25 £475 -19.15% 19
Scotland +3 23 £543 +27.65% 14
East Midlands -31 8 £442 +92.28% 7
North East -11 2 £475 - 3
Wales -13 2 £600 +106.90% 6
Northern Ireland - 2 £500 - 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 18 (2.83%) Confluence
2 5 (0.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (0.78%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.63%) Apache
4 2 (0.31%) nginx
5 1 (0.16%) IIS
5 1 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 19 (2.98%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.73%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.16%) Windchill
Cloud Services
1 183 (28.73%) Azure
2 138 (21.66%) AWS
3 66 (10.36%) GCP
4 35 (5.49%) GitHub
5 33 (5.18%) Entra ID
6 31 (4.87%) GitHub Actions
7 24 (3.77%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 23 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
9 22 (3.45%) Amazon S3
10 21 (3.30%) Azure Sentinel
11 17 (2.67%) AWS CloudFormation
11 17 (2.67%) Azure Key Vault
12 15 (2.35%) Amazon EC2
12 15 (2.35%) Microsoft 365
13 14 (2.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 14 (2.20%) Serverless
14 12 (1.88%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 12 (1.88%) Azure Monitor
15 11 (1.73%) AWS Direct Connect
15 11 (1.73%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 320 (50.24%) Firewall
2 140 (21.98%) VPN
3 100 (15.70%) WAN
4 87 (13.66%) DNS
5 81 (12.72%) LAN
6 77 (12.09%) BGP
7 62 (9.73%) TCP/IP
8 61 (9.58%) OSPF
9 59 (9.26%) VLAN
10 43 (6.75%) SD-WAN
11 41 (6.44%) SSL
12 40 (6.28%) Wireless
13 34 (5.34%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 32 (5.02%) MPLS
15 31 (4.87%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
16 29 (4.55%) Cisco ASA
17 28 (4.40%) Internet
18 27 (4.24%) DMZ
19 25 (3.92%) DHCP
20 23 (3.61%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.63%) Amazon Athena
1 4 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
1 4 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
1 4 (0.63%) InfluxDB
1 4 (0.63%) Relational Database
2 2 (0.31%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.31%) Oracle Database
2 2 (0.31%) Power BI
2 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 1 (0.16%) Redis
3 1 (0.16%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.16%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 30 (4.71%) Jenkins
2 25 (3.92%) GitLab
3 20 (3.14%) JIRA
4 18 (2.83%) Git
5 6 (0.94%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.47%) Snyk
7 1 (0.16%) JUnit
7 1 (0.16%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.16%) Postman
7 1 (0.16%) Zephyr
General
1 186 (29.20%) Social Skills
2 80 (12.56%) Analytical Skills
3 77 (12.09%) Finance
4 56 (8.79%) Public Sector
5 34 (5.34%) Banking
6 26 (4.08%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (3.92%) Telecoms
8 13 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 12 (1.88%) Investment Banking
10 10 (1.57%) Financial Institution
11 9 (1.41%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.26%) Legal
13 7 (1.10%) Military
13 7 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
13 7 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.63%) Local Government
16 4 (0.63%) Marketing
17 3 (0.47%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 143 (22.45%) Network Engineer
2 134 (21.04%) Architect
3 92 (14.44%) Security Engineer
4 71 (11.15%) Security Architect
5 55 (8.63%) Network Architect
6 51 (8.01%) Senior
7 43 (6.75%) Network Security Engineer
8 29 (4.55%) Analyst
8 29 (4.55%) Network Security Architect
9 21 (3.30%) Administrator
10 20 (3.14%) Cloud Engineer
10 20 (3.14%) Lead
11 19 (2.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 18 (2.83%) Security Analyst
13 17 (2.67%) Cloud Architect
13 17 (2.67%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
14 16 (2.51%) Azure Architect
14 16 (2.51%) DevOps Engineer
15 15 (2.35%) IT Engineer
15 15 (2.35%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (2.98%) 802.1X
2 14 (2.20%) LDAP
3 9 (1.41%) SAML
4 8 (1.26%) Node.js
5 7 (1.10%) .NET
6 6 (0.94%) ARM Templates
6 6 (0.94%) REST
7 5 (0.78%) .NET Core
7 5 (0.78%) AngularJS
7 5 (0.78%) OAuth
7 5 (0.78%) OAuth2
7 5 (0.78%) OpenID
7 5 (0.78%) PyTorch
7 5 (0.78%) RabbitMQ
7 5 (0.78%) React
7 5 (0.78%) TensorFlow
8 4 (0.63%) Elastic Stack
8 4 (0.63%) HTML
8 4 (0.63%) Lambda Expressions
8 4 (0.63%) Plotly
Miscellaneous
1 89 (13.97%) Data Centre
2 36 (5.65%) Security Posture
3 35 (5.49%) Hybrid Cloud
4 34 (5.34%) Cloud Native
5 30 (4.71%) PKI
6 27 (4.24%) Management Information System
7 22 (3.45%) Operational Technology
8 20 (3.14%) Onboarding
8 20 (3.14%) Public Cloud
9 19 (2.98%) IoT
10 16 (2.51%) Security Operations Centre
11 14 (2.20%) Analytical Mindset
11 14 (2.20%) Cyber Threat
12 13 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
12 13 (2.04%) Product Ownership
13 12 (1.88%) Cyber Security Posture
14 9 (1.41%) Virtual Team
15 8 (1.26%) CSOC
15 8 (1.26%) SCADA
16 7 (1.10%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 85 (13.34%) Windows
2 68 (10.68%) Linux
3 32 (5.02%) Windows Server
4 9 (1.41%) Unix
5 8 (1.26%) VMS
6 7 (1.10%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.63%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.16%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.16%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (23.08%) Cybersecurity
2 115 (18.05%) Problem-Solving
3 102 (16.01%) CI/CD
4 98 (15.38%) Infrastructure as Code
5 95 (14.91%) DevOps
5 95 (14.91%) Zero Trust
6 93 (14.60%) SIEM
7 91 (14.29%) Cloud Security
8 84 (13.19%) Security Architecture
9 82 (12.87%) Incident Response
10 80 (12.56%) Migration
11 61 (9.58%) Change Management
12 59 (9.26%) Continuous Improvement
12 59 (9.26%) Network Segmentation
13 57 (8.95%) Identity Access Management
14 56 (8.79%) Threat Modelling
15 55 (8.63%) Network Architecture
16 53 (8.32%) Agile
17 50 (7.85%) Infrastructure Automation
18 49 (7.69%) Load Balancing
Programming Languages
1 117 (18.37%) Python
2 63 (9.89%) PowerShell
3 36 (5.65%) Bash
4 20 (3.14%) Bicep
4 20 (3.14%) SQL
5 16 (2.51%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.35%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (1.41%) Go
7 9 (1.41%) Java
8 5 (0.78%) C#
8 5 (0.78%) Shell Script
9 4 (0.63%) PHP
10 3 (0.47%) C
10 3 (0.47%) C++
11 2 (0.31%) C-shell
11 2 (0.31%) Korn
12 1 (0.16%) ActionScript
12 1 (0.16%) AppleScript
12 1 (0.16%) Perl
12 1 (0.16%) VBA
Qualifications
1 213 (33.44%) Security Cleared
2 154 (24.18%) SC Cleared
3 118 (18.52%) Cisco Certification
4 94 (14.76%) CCNP
5 81 (12.72%) CISSP
6 70 (10.99%) DV Cleared
7 46 (7.22%) Degree
8 40 (6.28%) CCNA
9 38 (5.97%) CISM
10 29 (4.55%) CCIE
11 28 (4.40%) GIAC
12 24 (3.77%) CEH
13 21 (3.30%) CompTIA Security+
14 19 (2.98%) Azure Certification
15 17 (2.67%) AWS Certification
16 15 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
17 13 (2.04%) JNCIS
17 13 (2.04%) TOGAF Certification
18 12 (1.88%) CCSP
19 11 (1.73%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (11.93%) NIST
2 71 (11.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 38 (5.97%) GDPR
4 26 (4.08%) PCI DSS
5 23 (3.61%) Cyber Essentials
6 17 (2.67%) NCSC
7 12 (1.88%) GRC
8 8 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 8 (1.26%) SOC 2
9 6 (0.94%) Actionable Recommendations
9 6 (0.94%) SLA
10 5 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.63%) HIPAA
11 4 (0.63%) JSP 440
11 4 (0.63%) RMADS
12 3 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 3 (0.47%) PMO
13 2 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 2 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 2 (0.31%) PSD2
System Software
1 48 (7.54%) VMware Infrastructure
2 39 (6.12%) Active Directory
3 33 (5.18%) Docker
4 20 (3.14%) VMware NSX
5 10 (1.57%) Hyper-V
5 10 (1.57%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (1.26%) vSphere
7 6 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.78%) Firmware
9 4 (0.63%) ProxySG
10 3 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.47%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.16%) KVM
11 1 (0.16%) RACF
11 1 (0.16%) RHEV
11 1 (0.16%) Xen
11 1 (0.16%) XenApp
11 1 (0.16%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 121 (19.00%) Terraform
2 73 (11.46%) Ansible
3 50 (7.85%) Kubernetes
4 21 (3.30%) FortiGate
5 13 (2.04%) Kibana
5 13 (2.04%) Nagios
6 11 (1.73%) Microsoft Intune
7 10 (1.57%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (1.10%) vCenter Server
9 6 (0.94%) Grafana
9 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Clustering
9 6 (0.94%) Prometheus
10 4 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (0.63%) Istio
10 4 (0.63%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.63%) Puppet
10 4 (0.63%) QRadar
11 3 (0.47%) Icinga
11 3 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.47%) SCCM
Vendors
1 170 (26.69%) Cisco
2 122 (19.15%) Palo Alto
3 100 (15.70%) Microsoft
4 77 (12.09%) F5
5 62 (9.73%) CheckPoint
6 60 (9.42%) VMware
7 54 (8.48%) Juniper
8 52 (8.16%) Fortinet
9 40 (6.28%) Zscaler
10 26 (4.08%) Google
10 26 (4.08%) Splunk
11 21 (3.30%) SolarWinds
12 18 (2.83%) ServiceNow
13 16 (2.51%) Meraki
13 16 (2.51%) Tenable
14 15 (2.35%) Databricks
15 14 (2.20%) Aruba
16 13 (2.04%) FireEye
16 13 (2.04%) Tanium
17 12 (1.88%) ForeScout