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 12 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 172 161 171
Rank change year-on-year -11 +10 -5
Contract jobs citing Network Security 881 586 563
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.61% 1.78% 1.46%
As % of the Communications & Networking category 17.23% 15.26% 12.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 577 346 381
10th Percentile £400 £380 £363
25th Percentile £463 £450 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year +3.77% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £650 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £537 £492 £550
% change year-on-year +9.20% -10.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 14 7
10th Percentile £26.60 £45.00 £32.90
25th Percentile £56.47 £55.00 £42.50
Median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.05% +40.32% -25.65%
75th Percentile £74.00 £84.09 £58.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £95.50 £82.79
UK excluding London median hourly rate £73.00 £70.16 £53.75
% change year-on-year +4.05% +30.53% +17.49%

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 5,113 3,839 4,570
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 9.37% 11.63% 11.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,984 2,363 2,663
10th Percentile £235 £235 £230
25th Percentile £390 £363 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.95% -3.80% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £610
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £500
% change year-on-year +2.70% -7.50% +10.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 402 201 266
10th Percentile £14.35 £15.33 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.33 £25.15 £21.37
Median hourly rate £27.11 £42.50 £52.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.21% -18.27% -7.95%
75th Percentile £65.88 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.14 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -38.49% -25.89% +1.52%

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 12 September 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 12 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Network Security in the UK

Network Security
Top 18 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 12 September 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 -22 770 £550 +4.76% 453
UK excluding London -23 440 £537 +9.20% 254
London -4 337 £550 - 222
Work from Home +4 266 £534 -2.86% 431
North of England +9 203 £535 +9.24% 61
North West +2 115 £530 +11.47% 39
South East -33 97 £559 +21.61% 84
Yorkshire +7 84 £539 +9.50% 18
Midlands -66 49 £450 -14.29% 40
East of England -1 41 £525 +10.53% 31
West Midlands -72 34 £450 -14.29% 28
Scotland -16 28 £600 +33.33% 15
South West -55 21 £600 -3.23% 25
East Midlands -7 14 £500 - 12
Channel Islands 0 6 £600 -17.24%
North East - 3 £678 - 5
Northern Ireland +3 1 - - 2
Wales -19 1 £650 +30.00% 4

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 (2.16%) Microsoft Exchange
2 16 (1.82%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.25%) Confluence
4 3 (0.34%) Apache
4 3 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.11%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.11%) IIS
5 1 (0.11%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.11%) nginx
Applications
1 21 (2.38%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.79%) MS Visio
3 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.11%) InfoPath
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.68%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 306 (34.73%) Azure
2 209 (23.72%) AWS
3 108 (12.26%) GCP
4 89 (10.10%) Entra ID
5 44 (4.99%) Microsoft 365
6 39 (4.43%) Azure DevOps
6 39 (4.43%) GitHub
7 31 (3.52%) Azure Monitor
8 28 (3.18%) Serverless
9 26 (2.95%) Azure Sentinel
10 25 (2.84%) SaaS
11 22 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
12 20 (2.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 17 (1.93%) Amazon EKS
13 17 (1.93%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 16 (1.82%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 16 (1.82%) Azure AKS
14 16 (1.82%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 15 (1.70%) OCI
16 14 (1.59%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 399 (45.29%) Firewall
2 210 (23.84%) VPN
3 190 (21.57%) WAN
4 132 (14.98%) DNS
5 125 (14.19%) LAN
6 104 (11.80%) Wireless
7 92 (10.44%) BGP
8 85 (9.65%) TCP/IP
9 84 (9.53%) SD-WAN
10 73 (8.29%) DHCP
11 71 (8.06%) VLAN
12 65 (7.38%) OSPF
13 57 (6.47%) SSL
14 50 (5.68%) MPLS
15 49 (5.56%) Wi-Fi
16 48 (5.45%) IPsec
17 44 (4.99%) Cisco ISE
18 41 (4.65%) Internet
19 38 (4.31%) Cisco ASA
20 35 (3.97%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (1.48%) SQL Server
2 6 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
2 6 (0.68%) BigQuery
3 4 (0.45%) Elasticsearch
3 4 (0.45%) Neo4j
4 3 (0.34%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (0.34%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.23%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.23%) Delta Lake
5 2 (0.23%) InfluxDB
5 2 (0.23%) Power BI
6 1 (0.11%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.11%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.11%) Looker
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.11%) Qlik Sense
6 1 (0.11%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.11%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.11%) Star Schema
6 1 (0.11%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 38 (4.31%) Git
2 32 (3.63%) JIRA
3 31 (3.52%) GitLab
4 28 (3.18%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.45%) MSBuild
6 4 (0.45%) SonarQube
6 4 (0.45%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.34%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.34%) Browser DevTools
8 2 (0.23%) IBM UrbanCode
9 1 (0.11%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.11%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.11%) Postman
9 1 (0.11%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.11%) Subversion
General
1 238 (27.01%) Social Skills
2 153 (17.37%) Finance
3 84 (9.53%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (7.26%) Banking
5 46 (5.22%) Public Sector
6 43 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
7 29 (3.29%) Telecoms
8 26 (2.95%) Legal
9 18 (2.04%) Financial Institution
10 14 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 14 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (1.59%) Manufacturing
10 14 (1.59%) Retail
11 12 (1.36%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
13 8 (0.91%) Police
14 6 (0.68%) Automotive
14 6 (0.68%) Local Government
14 6 (0.68%) Military
15 5 (0.57%) Law
Job Titles
1 247 (28.04%) Network Engineer
2 164 (18.62%) Architect
3 113 (12.83%) Security Engineer
4 108 (12.26%) Senior
5 89 (10.10%) Security Architect
6 67 (7.60%) Network Security Engineer
7 64 (7.26%) Consultant
8 58 (6.58%) Network Architect
9 50 (5.68%) Senior Network Engineer
10 47 (5.33%) Project Manager
11 42 (4.77%) Cloud Engineer
11 42 (4.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 34 (3.86%) Security Consultant
13 30 (3.41%) Lead
14 28 (3.18%) Analyst
15 26 (2.95%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
16 24 (2.72%) Azure Engineer
16 24 (2.72%) Network Manager
17 23 (2.61%) Network Security Architect
17 23 (2.61%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 130 (14.76%) Terraform
2 34 (3.86%) 802.1X
3 19 (2.16%) REST
4 15 (1.70%) ARM Templates
5 14 (1.59%) SAML
6 12 (1.36%) Kafka
7 8 (0.91%) NETCONF
8 7 (0.79%) JSON
9 6 (0.68%) gRPC
9 6 (0.68%) Keycloak
10 5 (0.57%) Azure Blueprints
10 5 (0.57%) OpenID
10 5 (0.57%) SLSA
10 5 (0.57%) XML
11 4 (0.45%) .NET
11 4 (0.45%) CSS
11 4 (0.45%) LDAP
11 4 (0.45%) OAuth
11 4 (0.45%) RESTful
11 4 (0.45%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 113 (12.83%) Data Centre
2 84 (9.53%) Security Posture
3 52 (5.90%) Cloud Native
4 48 (5.45%) Onboarding
5 44 (4.99%) Hybrid Cloud
6 42 (4.77%) Management Information System
7 32 (3.63%) Operational Technology
8 30 (3.41%) Cyber Threat
9 29 (3.29%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 28 (3.18%) PKI
11 22 (2.50%) Security Operations Centre
12 21 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
13 19 (2.16%) Cloud Security Posture
14 17 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
14 17 (1.93%) Public Cloud
15 15 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
16 13 (1.48%) Linux Command Line
17 12 (1.36%) Replication
18 9 (1.02%) SCADA
18 9 (1.02%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 95 (10.78%) Windows
2 82 (9.31%) Linux
3 36 (4.09%) Windows Server
4 16 (1.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.91%) Windows 10
6 7 (0.79%) Unix
7 6 (0.68%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.57%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.34%) Check Point GAiA
9 3 (0.34%) SUSE
9 3 (0.34%) VMS
10 2 (0.23%) Android
10 2 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.23%) zOS
11 1 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.11%) Rocky
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 180 (20.43%) Cloud Security
2 174 (19.75%) Cybersecurity
3 144 (16.35%) Stakeholder Management
4 132 (14.98%) Zero Trust
5 128 (14.53%) CI/CD
5 128 (14.53%) Continuous Improvement
6 123 (13.96%) Incident Response
7 118 (13.39%) Infrastructure as Code
8 113 (12.83%) Change Management
9 112 (12.71%) DevOps
9 112 (12.71%) SIEM
10 110 (12.49%) Migration
11 108 (12.26%) Problem-Solving
11 108 (12.26%) Security Architecture
12 93 (10.56%) High Availability
13 92 (10.44%) Data Protection
13 92 (10.44%) Identity Access Management
13 92 (10.44%) Threat Modelling
14 88 (9.99%) Load Balancing
15 86 (9.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 148 (16.80%) Python
2 85 (9.65%) PowerShell
3 73 (8.29%) Bash
4 36 (4.09%) Bicep
5 23 (2.61%) SQL
6 13 (1.48%) Go
7 11 (1.25%) Java
8 7 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
9 6 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
9 6 (0.68%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.45%) Rust
11 3 (0.34%) ActionScript
11 3 (0.34%) JavaScript
11 3 (0.34%) Perl
11 3 (0.34%) VBScript
12 1 (0.11%) C
12 1 (0.11%) C++
12 1 (0.11%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 238 (27.01%) Security Cleared
2 173 (19.64%) Cisco Certification
2 173 (19.64%) SC Cleared
3 115 (13.05%) CISSP
4 99 (11.24%) CCNP
5 69 (7.83%) DV Cleared
6 66 (7.49%) Degree
7 54 (6.13%) CISM
8 51 (5.79%) CCNA
9 49 (5.56%) CCSP
10 47 (5.33%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 36 (4.09%) Azure Certification
12 31 (3.52%) CCIE
13 29 (3.29%) AWS Certification
14 16 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
15 13 (1.48%) GIAC
16 12 (1.36%) PMP
17 11 (1.25%) BPSS Clearance
17 11 (1.25%) CEH
17 11 (1.25%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (8.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 71 (8.06%) NIST
3 39 (4.43%) GDPR
4 29 (3.29%) NCSC
5 22 (2.50%) PCI DSS
6 13 (1.48%) QA
7 12 (1.36%) Cyber Essentials
7 12 (1.36%) GRC
8 11 (1.25%) SLA
9 9 (1.02%) NIST 800
9 9 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 7 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 7 (0.79%) Disclosure Scotland
11 5 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 5 (0.57%) PMO
12 4 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 3 (0.34%) ISA99
13 3 (0.34%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
14 2 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 78 (8.85%) Active Directory
2 55 (6.24%) VMware Infrastructure
3 33 (3.75%) Docker
4 22 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (1.82%) VMware NSX
6 13 (1.48%) Hyper-V
7 10 (1.14%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (1.14%) vSphere
8 8 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.57%) Firmware
9 5 (0.57%) Squid
10 4 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.34%) FreeRADIUS
12 2 (0.23%) NFS
12 2 (0.23%) OpenSSH
12 2 (0.23%) VMware Workstation
13 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.11%) ProxySG
13 1 (0.11%) Samba
13 1 (0.11%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 96 (10.90%) Ansible
2 80 (9.08%) Kubernetes
3 47 (5.33%) FortiGate
4 24 (2.72%) Microsoft Intune
5 23 (2.61%) Grafana
6 16 (1.82%) Prometheus
7 15 (1.70%) SCCM
8 14 (1.59%) Progress Chef
9 13 (1.48%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (1.14%) CASB
11 9 (1.02%) QRadar
12 7 (0.79%) Cisco Prime
12 7 (0.79%) Puppet
12 7 (0.79%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.68%) Cisco CUCM
14 5 (0.57%) Suricata
14 5 (0.57%) VxRail
14 5 (0.57%) WSUS
15 4 (0.45%) Podman
15 4 (0.45%) systemd
Vendors
1 254 (28.83%) Cisco
2 163 (18.50%) Microsoft
3 161 (18.27%) Palo Alto
4 94 (10.67%) Fortinet
5 81 (9.19%) F5
6 73 (8.29%) VMware
7 62 (7.04%) Zscaler
8 58 (6.58%) CheckPoint
9 47 (5.33%) Juniper
10 39 (4.43%) Splunk
11 36 (4.09%) SolarWinds
12 32 (3.63%) Aruba
13 28 (3.18%) Google
14 25 (2.84%) ServiceNow
15 21 (2.38%) Citrix
16 16 (1.82%) Meraki
17 15 (1.70%) CyberArk
18 14 (1.59%) Tenable
19 13 (1.48%) Blue Coat
20 11 (1.25%) ForeScout