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

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 172 133 148
Rank change year-on-year -39 +15 +73
Contract jobs citing Network Security 686 601 729
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.61% 1.99% 1.66%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 15.88% 15.03% 12.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 458 370 499
10th Percentile £350 £350 £400
25th Percentile £423 £425 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% -5.91% -2.22%
75th Percentile £600 £622 £649
90th Percentile £700 £675 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £575
% change year-on-year - -13.04% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 11 19
10th Percentile £34.30 £18.50 -
25th Percentile £51.44 £35.50 £7.43
Median hourly rate £65.50 £41.00 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.76% +78.26% -46.51%
75th Percentile £81.56 £46.25 £41.25
90th Percentile £93.88 £81.01 £65.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £43.00 £10.47
% change year-on-year +51.16% +310.89% -77.30%

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 4,320 3,999 5,921
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 10.15% 13.21% 13.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,813 2,413 3,549
10th Percentile £205 £208 £205
25th Percentile £363 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £480
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% +4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £469 £470 £475
% change year-on-year -0.21% -1.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 133 386
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.44 £14.27
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.46 £19.96
Median hourly rate £34.50 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -12.50% +107.25%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.75 £73.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £31.08 £47.50
% change year-on-year +34.94% -34.57% +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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -25 605 £500 -8.84% 271
UK excluding London -40 337 £500 - 207
London -23 261 £525 -4.55% 104
Work from Home -20 184 £521 +4.25% 137
North of England -28 115 £475 -5.00% 41
South East -29 88 £500 -4.76% 56
North West -11 70 £490 -1.95% 27
Midlands -23 70 £500 -14.02% 34
West Midlands -17 59 £500 -14.02% 24
Yorkshire -43 52 £335 -2.33% 9
South West -34 28 £538 +2.38% 31
East of England -23 26 £475 -19.15% 28
Scotland +11 25 £543 +27.65% 10
East Midlands -29 11 £638 +50.00% 10
Wales -17 3 £513 +76.72% 9
North East -10 2 £475 -24.00% 5
Northern Ireland - 2 £500 - 3

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 (2.77%) Confluence
2 5 (0.73%) Apache
2 5 (0.73%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.15%) nginx
4 1 (0.15%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 18 (2.62%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (1.46%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.15%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 4 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 205 (29.88%) Azure
2 149 (21.72%) AWS
3 76 (11.08%) GCP
4 49 (7.14%) Entra ID
5 33 (4.81%) GitHub
6 29 (4.23%) GitHub Actions
7 26 (3.79%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 24 (3.50%) Azure Sentinel
9 23 (3.35%) Azure DevOps
10 20 (2.92%) Amazon S3
11 17 (2.48%) AWS CloudFormation
11 17 (2.48%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 17 (2.48%) Azure Key Vault
12 15 (2.19%) Azure Monitor
12 15 (2.19%) Microsoft 365
13 14 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
13 14 (2.04%) Azure AKS
14 13 (1.90%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 12 (1.75%) AWS Direct Connect
16 11 (1.60%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 341 (49.71%) Firewall
2 147 (21.43%) VPN
3 109 (15.89%) WAN
4 88 (12.83%) BGP
4 88 (12.83%) DNS
4 88 (12.83%) LAN
5 72 (10.50%) OSPF
6 65 (9.48%) VLAN
7 62 (9.04%) TCP/IP
8 52 (7.58%) SD-WAN
9 44 (6.41%) Wireless
10 40 (5.83%) SSL
11 36 (5.25%) MPLS
12 34 (4.96%) Cisco ASA
13 32 (4.66%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 29 (4.23%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
15 27 (3.94%) DHCP
16 25 (3.64%) DMZ
16 25 (3.64%) Internet
16 25 (3.64%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (1.31%) Azure SQL Database
2 4 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
2 4 (0.58%) InfluxDB
2 4 (0.58%) Power BI
2 4 (0.58%) Relational Database
3 3 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (0.29%) Data Lake
4 2 (0.29%) Oracle Database
4 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.15%) Redis
5 1 (0.15%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 29 (4.23%) Jenkins
2 24 (3.50%) GitLab
2 24 (3.50%) JIRA
3 19 (2.77%) Git
4 7 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
5 6 (0.87%) Snyk
6 1 (0.15%) Browser DevTools
6 1 (0.15%) JUnit
6 1 (0.15%) Metasploit
6 1 (0.15%) Postman
6 1 (0.15%) Zephyr
General
1 191 (27.84%) Social Skills
2 94 (13.70%) Finance
3 78 (11.37%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 36 (5.25%) Banking
6 29 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (3.64%) Telecoms
8 18 (2.62%) Financial Institution
9 11 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 10 (1.46%) Investment Banking
11 9 (1.31%) Legal
12 7 (1.02%) Manufacturing
12 7 (1.02%) Military
12 7 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
15 4 (0.58%) Local Government
16 3 (0.44%) Electronics
16 3 (0.44%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 155 (22.59%) Network Engineer
2 148 (21.57%) Architect
3 89 (12.97%) Security Engineer
4 76 (11.08%) Security Architect
5 56 (8.16%) Network Architect
6 54 (7.87%) Senior
7 41 (5.98%) Network Security Engineer
8 31 (4.52%) Analyst
9 29 (4.23%) Network Security Architect
10 22 (3.21%) Lead
11 20 (2.92%) Cloud Engineer
12 19 (2.77%) Cloud Architect
13 18 (2.62%) Administrator
13 18 (2.62%) Consultant
13 18 (2.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 18 (2.62%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
13 18 (2.62%) Security Analyst
14 17 (2.48%) Azure Architect
14 17 (2.48%) Solutions Architect
15 16 (2.33%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.50%) 802.1X
2 13 (1.90%) LDAP
3 10 (1.46%) SAML
4 8 (1.17%) .NET
4 8 (1.17%) Node.js
5 6 (0.87%) ARM Templates
5 6 (0.87%) REST
6 5 (0.73%) .NET Core
6 5 (0.73%) AngularJS
6 5 (0.73%) OAuth
6 5 (0.73%) OAuth2
6 5 (0.73%) OpenID
6 5 (0.73%) PyTorch
6 5 (0.73%) RabbitMQ
6 5 (0.73%) React
6 5 (0.73%) TensorFlow
7 4 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
7 4 (0.58%) HTML
8 3 (0.44%) CSS
8 3 (0.44%) Lambda Expressions
Miscellaneous
1 94 (13.70%) Data Centre
2 40 (5.83%) Hybrid Cloud
3 38 (5.54%) Security Posture
4 36 (5.25%) Cloud Native
5 28 (4.08%) Management Information System
5 28 (4.08%) PKI
6 26 (3.79%) Public Cloud
7 21 (3.06%) Operational Technology
8 20 (2.92%) Onboarding
9 19 (2.77%) Product Ownership
10 18 (2.62%) IoT
11 17 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
12 16 (2.33%) Cyber Threat
13 15 (2.19%) Security Operations Centre
14 14 (2.04%) Analytical Mindset
15 11 (1.60%) Cyber Security Posture
16 9 (1.31%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
17 8 (1.17%) CSOC
17 8 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
17 8 (1.17%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 75 (10.93%) Windows
2 65 (9.48%) Linux
3 26 (3.79%) Windows Server
4 11 (1.60%) Unix
5 10 (1.46%) VMS
6 7 (1.02%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.58%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.15%) Android
9 1 (0.15%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.15%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (22.59%) Cybersecurity
2 115 (16.76%) Problem-Solving
3 105 (15.31%) CI/CD
4 102 (14.87%) Cloud Security
4 102 (14.87%) Infrastructure as Code
4 102 (14.87%) SIEM
5 99 (14.43%) Zero Trust
6 95 (13.85%) DevOps
7 94 (13.70%) Security Architecture
8 92 (13.41%) Migration
9 84 (12.24%) Incident Response
10 66 (9.62%) Change Management
10 66 (9.62%) Identity Access Management
11 62 (9.04%) Agile
12 61 (8.89%) Continuous Improvement
13 60 (8.75%) Network Segmentation
14 56 (8.16%) Threat Modelling
15 55 (8.02%) Security Operations
15 55 (8.02%) Stakeholder Management
15 55 (8.02%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 115 (16.76%) Python
2 61 (8.89%) PowerShell
3 36 (5.25%) Bash
4 24 (3.50%) Bicep
4 24 (3.50%) SQL
5 19 (2.77%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.19%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (1.31%) Go
7 9 (1.31%) Java
8 6 (0.87%) Shell Script
9 5 (0.73%) C#
10 4 (0.58%) C
10 4 (0.58%) PHP
11 3 (0.44%) C++
12 2 (0.29%) C-shell
12 2 (0.29%) Korn
13 1 (0.15%) ActionScript
13 1 (0.15%) AppleScript
13 1 (0.15%) Perl
13 1 (0.15%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 221 (32.22%) Security Cleared
2 158 (23.03%) SC Cleared
3 127 (18.51%) Cisco Certification
4 99 (14.43%) CCNP
5 86 (12.54%) CISSP
6 71 (10.35%) DV Cleared
7 51 (7.43%) Degree
8 44 (6.41%) CCNA
9 43 (6.27%) CISM
10 31 (4.52%) CCIE
11 26 (3.79%) GIAC
12 21 (3.06%) CEH
13 20 (2.92%) Azure Certification
14 18 (2.62%) CompTIA Security+
15 16 (2.33%) AWS Certification
16 15 (2.19%) CCSP
17 14 (2.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 13 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
18 13 (1.90%) JNCIS
18 13 (1.90%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (12.68%) NIST
2 75 (10.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 44 (6.41%) GDPR
4 33 (4.81%) PCI DSS
5 21 (3.06%) Cyber Essentials
5 21 (3.06%) NCSC
6 15 (2.19%) GRC
7 13 (1.90%) SLA
8 10 (1.46%) SOC 2
9 9 (1.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 7 (1.02%) Actionable Recommendations
10 7 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 6 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
12 5 (0.73%) QA
13 4 (0.58%) HIPAA
13 4 (0.58%) JSP 440
13 4 (0.58%) PMO
13 4 (0.58%) RMADS
14 2 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 2 (0.29%) PSD2
System Software
1 46 (6.71%) VMware Infrastructure
2 44 (6.41%) Active Directory
3 33 (4.81%) Docker
4 20 (2.92%) VMware NSX
5 10 (1.46%) Hyper-V
5 10 (1.46%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (1.17%) vSphere
7 6 (0.87%) Firmware
7 6 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.58%) ProxySG
9 3 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.15%) KVM
10 1 (0.15%) Postfix
10 1 (0.15%) RACF
10 1 (0.15%) RHEV
10 1 (0.15%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.15%) Varnish
10 1 (0.15%) Xen
10 1 (0.15%) XenApp
10 1 (0.15%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 119 (17.35%) Terraform
2 75 (10.93%) Ansible
3 53 (7.73%) Kubernetes
4 28 (4.08%) FortiGate
5 15 (2.19%) Microsoft Intune
5 15 (2.19%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (2.04%) Nagios
7 12 (1.75%) Kibana
8 8 (1.17%) Grafana
9 7 (1.02%) Prometheus
9 7 (1.02%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.87%) Microsoft Clustering
11 5 (0.73%) CASB
12 4 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.58%) Istio
12 4 (0.58%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.58%) Puppet
13 3 (0.44%) Icinga
13 3 (0.44%) SCCM
13 3 (0.44%) SCOM
Vendors
1 194 (28.28%) Cisco
2 120 (17.49%) Palo Alto
3 111 (16.18%) Microsoft
4 82 (11.95%) F5
5 61 (8.89%) CheckPoint
6 60 (8.75%) Juniper
7 58 (8.45%) VMware
8 53 (7.73%) Fortinet
9 47 (6.85%) Zscaler
10 34 (4.96%) Splunk
11 28 (4.08%) Google
12 26 (3.79%) ServiceNow
13 19 (2.77%) Meraki
13 19 (2.77%) SolarWinds
14 17 (2.48%) Tenable
15 16 (2.33%) Aruba
16 15 (2.19%) Databricks
16 15 (2.19%) ForeScout
17 12 (1.75%) Arista
17 12 (1.75%) Okta